“Do you think this will be adequate?” Hunter asked. “It is fifteen meters across at the narrowest and twenty at the widest. The gate is this bar in front.” He patted the gate with one hand.
“It looks great,” said Steve.
“I notched the logs to fit into each other,” said Hunter. “But the rails are not really very sturdy. I do not have nails or the equipment to drill precise holes for dowels. I thought about lashing the junctures with vines, but that would mean killing living vines, which I consider unwise. Dead vines, of course, are too brittle.”
“If a good-sized dinosaur really wanted to kick down the rails, nails and dowels wouldn’t stop him,” said Steve.
“Let me show you what else I made,” said Hunter, moving to a pile of objects under a tree.
“I don’t recognize this stuff,” said Steve.
“Our storage cases had steel support bands,” said Hunter. “I broke off some pieces. This one, for instance, I twisted into a short length to use as a bit. What do you think of it?”
“Oh! Of course.” Steve took the piece of oddly-shaped metal. “It looks great for a horse. We’ll have to find out if a dinosaur can bite through it or not. What’s this other stuff?”
“Several more bits, of course.” Hunter pointed to different items in the pile. “Those flat metal pieces should support your weight as stirrups.”
“What about these big wooden things?”
“Those are rudimentary saddles,” said Hunter. “I accessed data I had about old English riding saddles and modeled these on that design. They use less material than larger ones.”
“Oh, yes. I recognize the shape now.”
“I carved the top to fit human anatomy, of course. You will find metal bands in the bottom for connecting a girth and cinch. This design has no saddle horn.”
“Very serviceable,” said Steve. “I’ll have to wait until we’ve caught a mount before I tie together a bridle or measure a girth. Otherwise, I can’t estimate the sizes.”
“Understood.”
“How could you do all this work in one night?” Steve looked at Hunter in astonishment.
Hunter grinned. “It helps not to get tired. I do not need breaks and I did not slow down until the last hour before sunrise. At that point my stored energy was running low, but I am already replenishing it now that the sun has come up.”
“We’re practically in the shade here, Hunter.”
“It is good enough.”
“Even through your clothes?” Steve asked, grinning.
“My face and hands are exposed all the time.” Hunter shrugged. “I will be fine soon. But you three will require breakfast. How much longer are Chad and Jane likely to sleep?”
Steve grinned. “I think they’ve had enough sleep. I’ll start breakfast. Maybe they would enjoy being awakened by a loud shout from a robot.”
“Really?” Hunter looked at the tent. “My experience with humans is still limited. I will try it.”
11
Steve had breakfast ready by the time Jane and Chad were dressed and out of the tent. Soon enough, the team was ready to start the day. Steve wore a small day pack with food and water for them both. It was enough for them to stay out of camp until sundown.
“Here is the transmitter,” Hunter said, handing Jane a tiny metal bead.
“It’s turned on all the time?” Steve asked, studying the transmitter in Jane’s fingers.
“Yes. It has no clip, so I suggest you button it securely in one of your pockets,” said Hunter.
“All right.” Jane did so.
“I will have my comlink fixed on your frequency,” said Hunter. “It emits beeps at regular intervals, so I can track your position at all times. But I must trust you to call for help at the first sign of danger.”
“We will,” said Jane. “I’m ready.”
“Have fun with the mighty forest hunter,” Chad said snidely to Jane.
Ignoring Chad, Steve nodded to Hunter and led Jane to the spot where MC 1 had last been seen. He pointed to the faint footprints the robot had left. Jane nodded and followed him through the forest.
“Tracking is a lot easier out in the desert,” said Steve, crouching low to study the ground again. “The soft sand retains clearer footprints.”
“Will we be able to track him through the forest?” Jane asked. “Even after he quits running?”
“Yeah. It’s just tougher.” Steve fingered a broken twig. “An animal, say a dinosaur, could have done this. But it’s a fairly fresh break, so it was probably made by MC 1.” He reached up to a bigger branch and started to “break it.
“Stop it! What are you doing?” She grabbed his wrist and pulled it away.
“I’m blazing a trail, so we can find our way back. We aren’t going to find any road signs out here.” He smiled and started to break the branch again.
“You can’t!” She pulled his arm away. “Remember the historical theory Hunter talked about?”
“Aw, come on. You mean breaking a couple of branches is going to stunt human evolution forever?” He pointed in the direction MC 1 had taken. “What about him? He’s snapping twigs every time he runs into a tree. And he’s stomping on the grass-horrors! So are we!” He laughed, looking at the soft, cool turf under his feet.
“I know.” Jane smiled patiently, but she kept her hold on his arm. “Yes, he’s making small changes here. And we are, too. But it’s important-very important, Steve-for us not to make any changes we can avoid.”
“But breaking these twigs doesn’t even kill the tree or the bush.”
“I agree that it doesn’t seem too serious,” said Jane. “But the theory says that all changes keep expanding, like ripples in a pool of water. Maybe these twigs are going to drop specific seeds whose descendants will mutate in a certain way, or feed a certain animal. You see what I mean?”
“I guess.”
“In fact, I’m afraid it’s possible that the impact of our being here has already caused terrible harm to the time we come from.”
Steve shook his head. “None of us should have come back here, including MC Governor.”
“I don’t blame you for not believing it,” said Jane, releasing his arm. “These calculations are very complex and the theory requires a lot of abstraction. I’m sure you don’t have much experience with this kind of thing.”
“Thanks a lot.” Steve pulled fully away from her. “You highly educated geniuses can’t even find your way around in nature after you leave an artificial environment. Come on, follow the desert rat.”
He hurried away, looking up at the trees for unusual shapes and markings. As long as he was careful, he could keep track of their trail this way. Still, he wished they had landed in a desert, where his everyday habits from back home would have been more useful.
Hunter, continuously monitoring the beep from Jane’s transmitter, generally trusted Steve’s ability in the wild and knew he could track MC 1 better than the other two humans. Also, Hunter had teamed him with Jane in the belief that she was more compatible with him than Chad. Still, they might easily stumble across that velociraptor or another predator, and Hunter was worried that he was skirting the edge of the First Law by letting them go without him.
He kept all of these thoughts to himself, of course. His experience with humans was limited, but he had been programmed with certain basic data on human psychology. He knew that they needed to have confidence in his leadership.
As Hunter reviewed these thoughts, he and Chad carried the water containers to the stream that Steve had found. They filled them and lugged the water back to the camp. Hunter bore most of the weight, but Chad insisted on doing his share.
Hunter had calculated before they had left that the three humans would require four and a half liters of water a day. As a humanoid robot, he needed a smaller amount, to replenish his simulated saliva and perspiration. Once the water had been stored in camp, he picked up some materials he could adapt for fishing. He and Chad returned to the stream, carrying their lassos.
The stream was only about a meter wide here, occasionally broadening into pools about twice that size. Hunter judged the average depth at one and a half meters; the water ran fast enough to be fairly clear. The heavy canopy of trees arched over it and the roots of thick trunks were exposed at intervals along the bank.