“My hearing is turned up,” said Hunter. “It tells me that all kinds of animals are nearby in the forest. Have you seen any of them?”
“Only glimpses,” said Chad. “I haven’t had a good look at them. Can you tell from the sound if any of them are a good riding size?”
“Many of them are,” said Hunter. “My concern under the First and Third Laws is that I cannot tell which ones are predators waiting for a kill and which ones are herbivores hiding from us in case we are the predators.”
“In a sense we are,” said Chad, grinning. “We’re just not going to eat the ones we catch.”
“True.” Hunter nodded, not sure why Chad thought his comment was amusing. “I cannot see them well enough to pick out different species, either. As a paleontologist, what do you suggest as a course of action?”
Chad did not answer right away. He looked up and down the stream and around the forest. “You know, the animals here don’t have the ingrained fear of humans that wild animals in our own time have. They’re being cautious around us, but I think if we sit down quietly, maybe some of them will come into sight for a drink of water.”
“Ah. A change in our approach sounds very good. Suppose we fish in the stream and see what happens around us.”
“Fine.”
“Here. This thread is quite strong. I pulled it out of the seam of one of the packs. That little buckle is also from the pack and will act as a sinker. You know how to use these?”
“Yes,” said Chad. “I’ve read about fishing. What was this hook made from?”
“A latch on one of the storage cases. I twisted it into that shape.”
“I see.” Chad sat down on a rock near the edge of the water and carefully tied the gear together. “Say, what do I use for bait?”
“Oh, yes.” Hunter looked around in the air for a moment. He spotted a couple of insects fluttering around a small bush. Slowly, he stepped toward them, raising his hand. Then, using his highly precise eye-hand coordination, he snatched one out of the air.
“Wow.” Chad stared at him in shock.
“The local fish eat these all the time,” said Hunter, as he tied the insect to the line just above the hook. “I judge that since we are taking the risk of fishing anyway, this is the best bait to use. If we use something we brought with us, and it affects the water or is taken by a fish that gets away, we do not know what consequence may result.”
“I see,” said Chad, gently lowering his line into the water with his hands.
“I will bring you a dead branch you can use for a pole,” said Hunter.
“Thanks.”
Hunter moved to a half-fallen dead tree. As he grasped a meter-long branch and gently ripped it from the trunk, he questioned his wisdom in bringing the human team with him. If he had come to this time period alone, he could simply be chasing down MC 1 this minute.
Of course, he reminded himself, if a direct physical pursuit had failed for some reason, he would still have wanted Jane’s expert understanding of robotics and Chad’s knowledge of dinosaurs. So that line of consideration merely took him in a circle. Returning the humans to their own time and coming back here alone would be no solution either.
Hunter returned to Chad, handing him the branch without a word. Chad tied the line to end of the branch carefully, then grinned up at Hunter. “Now I just wait. Did you bring fishing materials for yourself too?”
“No need, I believe,” said Hunter. “I’ll find out.” He picked his way downstream several meters and then crouched on the bank. For a moment, he remained absolutely motionless except for his eyes as he watched dark shapes slipping lazily in the water below him.
Chad said nothing, watching him.
Once Hunter had studied the swimming motion and reflexes of the fish below him, he slowly moved his hand into the water and held it still. After a moment of warily darting away, the fish returned to their former movements. Then Hunter quickly reached down and grabbed one by the gills. In the same moment, he stood up, raising the wriggling fish out of the water and over the bank. It was big enough to eat.
“What do you think?”
“Wow,” Chad said again.
For most of the day, Steve tracked MC 1 steadily through the forest. In some areas the tracks were very clear. Sometimes he had to stop and look closely. They ate lunch at midday and plodded on.
Late in the afternoon, Steve stopped and turned to Jane. “I don’t know that we’re accomplishing anything. Have you seen anything important?”
“We’ve been zigzagging and circling all day, haven’t we?” Jane asked.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“MC 1 isn’t just running straight away, is he? For distance, I mean.”
“Well-” Steve stopped, considering. “I guess he isn’t. If we were chasing him with hounds, I’d say he was doubling back and crossing his own path to confuse the scent. But he must know that we didn’t bring any hounds. So I’m not sure why he’s doing this.”
“I suppose he might access stored data about creating evasive patterns under certain conditions. The one truth about studying a robot’s behavior is that it will be absolutely logical according to his own interpretation of his data and the Three Laws.”
Steve nodded.
“Can you tell how old the track is?”
“No. If we were talking about a difference of a day or so, I might be able to. But we know he’s been at normal size less than a day. I can’t judge the age of these tracks in hours.” He shrugged.
“I see.”
“Well, he’s still running.” Steve pointed to the robot’s footprints at their feet. “He’s humaniform, so he runs with essentially the same motion as a human. See how the front of the footstep is deeper than the rest of it?”
“Yes. The heel mark hardly shows at all.”
“His weight is all forward, meaning he’s running, and the tracks we’ve seen show that he’s been running most of time. He seems to stop sometimes, maybe to get his bearings or to avoid a predatory dinosaur. Still, he’s moving much faster than we are. We’ll never catch him without those mounts.”
“Well, didn’t I say we shouldn’t expect to? We came out here today to see what his habits are, that’s all.”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember,” Steve said wearily. “But haven’t you seen anything yet?”
“Well, I see that he’s meandering all over the place. I just don’t know what it means yet.”
“Why not? You’re the robotics expert, aren’t you?” Steve grinned, wiping sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his worksuit. “Isn’t this why Hunter brought along a sheltered, pampered intellectual?”
Jane’s face tightened. “It’s a sure thing you can’t figure out what he’s doing.”
“No one expects me to. In fact-” Steve stopped suddenly, looking at something ahead of them in the woods. He thought he saw two very human-looking eyes peering at him through the heavy foliage.
Jane looked too.
Suddenly MC 1 straightened up and slipped away through the underbrush.
“Stop!” Jane yelled. “I order you to stop! MC 1-Mojave Center component robot! You have to stop!”
“Come on!” Steve started after him, shoving through some branches.
“Stop!” Jane yelled again, hurrying after him.
Steve had to protect his eyes from the leaves and branches he plunged into, pushing them aside with both hands, In only a few steps, however, he realized that the robot was out of sight again. The footsteps were as clear as before, but MC 1 was running again. They couldn’t possibly catch him.
Jane collided with Steve from behind.
“Take it easy,” said Steve. “He’s gone.”
She nodded, panting. “He still must have his hearing turned off, as I said yesterday. The Second Law wouldn’t have let him run away from me otherwise.”
“He was watching us,” said Steve. “He could be watching us right now.”
“He can’t hear us, though. He wouldn’t dare risk it.” Jane looked around, as if she could find him again. “I think that answers our question, though.”