“We’ll set up a hoax,” said Jane.
“I like that,” said Steve.
“A hoax?” Hunter asked. “Of what design?”
“Well, I’m not sure. But suppose MC 1 is made to believe that Steve, Chad, and I are in danger. That will free him from Dr. Nystrom’s orders.”
“Yes, clearly,” said Hunter.
“So if you know that the implied danger is false, then the First Law won’t hamper your actions. Right?”
“Correct,” said Hunter.
“So you can pounce on him,” said Steve. “It ought to work, I’d say.”
“What about Dr. Nystrom?” Chad asked. “I guess we don’t want to leave him running around the Late Cretaceous Period, either, do we?”
“No,” said Hunter. “If any of us can apprehend him, we must do so. However, Wayne remains our second priority. His only reason to be here is to control MC 1, so if we return to our time with MC 1, then Wayne will follow. He has no other reason to be here.”
“That’s clear enough,” said Steve.
“What will our hoax be?” Hunter asked. “It must make a great deal of noise and commotion to attract MC 1‘s attention, wherever he is.”
“Wait a minute,” said Jane. “What if he has turned off his hearing again?”
“I believe he no longer has any reason to do that,” said Hunter. “Now he has a human companion and a First Law imperative to protect him from predatory animals. To do that most efficiently, he will need to maintain his auditory sense.”
“The previous question still stands, though,” said Chad. “What will our hoax be?”
“Chad, let’s use dinosaurs,” said Steve.
“How?”
“Can we stampede some of them in the direction of MC 1 and Wayne?”
“Hold it,” said Hunter. “That would put Wayne into genuine danger.”
“Once we get the stampede started, we’ll ride out ahead of it, yelling for help,” said Steve. “You’ll be running with us. If the First Law forces you to intervene, you’ll be right there on hand.”
“Wait a minute,” said Chad. “How can we start a stampede from behind and then ride in front of it?”
“A stampede starts slowly,” said Steve. “Even a predator can be startled and made to run for safety…or at least, in our time they can.”
“Well…I don’t know. I suppose they would react the same way they do in response to a forest fire. Their survival instinct would be triggered by seeing all the animals fleeing in the same direction.”
“I’m sure MC 1 would interpret a dinosaur stampede as a First Law problem,” said Jane, holding back laughter. “I really don’t imagine any robot would have a problem making that particular judgment.”
“Good,” said Steve. “We’ll ride along the stream, where a certain number of dinosaurs are likely to be. We’ll ride fast and yell a lot and get some of them running toward MC 1 and Wayne. Since we know where we’re going, we can ride alongside the rush and get out ahead of them. A forest stampede doesn’t really move at a dead run. It faces too many natural obstacles and too much confusion.”
“I might be able to go along with this,” said Hunter. “Chad, what does our resident paleontologist think?”
“It might be a big mistake.”
“In what way?”
“I barely have control of this struthiomimus as it is. Setting a bunch of dinosaurs in motion, out of control, is just asking for trouble.”
“I understand that this plan has a significant unpredictability,” said Hunter. “So far, I interpret the degree of unpredictability to be acceptable. Do you have other objections?”
“Yeah. We have no idea what species we’ll be dealing with. It’s not just the predators, large and small. Many of the herbivores are gigantic, too, you know. They won’t be fast, relatively speaking, but once they’re on the move, a stampede of elephants will seem downright manageable by comparison.”
Steve laughed. “You still have no sense of adventure. You’re just too sheltered, timid, and intellectual to take action in the real world.”
In the front saddle, Chad turned angrily to look over his shoulder, but Hunter spoke first.
“We will try this plan,” said Hunter. “Since you are all on one mount, I can run beside you and perform my First Law duties if any arise.”
Steve could see Chad shake his head in silence.
“Steve, putting this plan into action strikes me as your area,” said Hunter. “On this project I ask you to give the instructions. What should we do?”
“Make your best guess about the position of MC 1 and Wayne. Then calculate where they may be, roughly, during the next half hour.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Take us back to the stream.”
Hunter nodded. He was unusually quiet, but he changed the direction of their journey through the forest. None of them spoke.
When they reached the stream, Hunter began wading up the middle of the current. It was no more than waist-deep to him at the deepest, and usually more shallow than that. Chad guided the struthiomimus after him.
“This is a good spot,” Chad said quietly.
Hunter stopped and waited for them to ride up next to him. “What do you mean?”
Chad pointed. “We have a lot of herbivores visible here if you look carefully. There’s an anodontosaurus feeding on the left, up ahead. A stegoceras-maybe even the same one we captured-is drinking a little past it. I can see the heads of some hadrosaurs-the duckbill guys-in the distance.”
“Is this a good place to begin the stampede?” Hunter asked.
“I would say so. In a forest this dense, the wildlife we can see at anyone time is only a small fraction of what’s actually present.”
“So if we can see this many, we have a good start,” said Jane. “Okay, now what do we do?”
“Steve, what is your opinion?” Hunter asked.
“I think Chad’s right,” said Steve. “But which way do we chase them? Where is MC 1?”
“That way.” Hunter pointed ahead at an angle to the right of the stream.
“All right,” said Steve. “We’ll start slow and see how they react. Chad, move up slowly. We’ll all start yelling and waving our arms and try to get them moving.”
“All right.” Now that Chad had accepted the proposed action, he was giving it all his attention. “Now!”
The struthiomimus leaped forward and began splashing upstream. Steve yelled and whooped, and Chad and Jane did the same. Hunter tried a variety of noises and finally settled on a rumbling, leonine roar from his versatile larynx.
Small animals in the tree branches responded first, jumping away or fluttering into the air. Steve saw the family of duckbill dinosaurs glance quickly at them and then slip away into the dense forest. The swishing of branches and shaking of large bushes were the only signs that many other animals were starting to move.
“Hyah!” Steve shouted, waving one arm and holding on to his saddle with the other. “Chad, chase’ em! Into the woods!”
Chad reined to the right, and the struthiomimus sprang up the bank, threatening to throw its three riders for a moment. Then they were up into the forest, still yelling and chasing the dinosaurs. Hunter jogged nearby, staying close.
Steve laughed as he shouted, easily the most boisterous of the group. This was the kind of adventure he relished, though certainly even he had never stampeded dinosaurs before. Chad and Jane were clearly enjoying themselves as well.
Ahead of them, more and more dinosaurs were becoming visible as they were startled from their feeding, hunting, or sleeping. The riders followed in a crooked, haphazard path around the trees and bigger bushes. As the momentum of the chase increased, the stampede grew, the animals always running in roughly the same direction. Soon the forest was filled with the sound of thundering feet and breaking branches.
“That should be plenty,” Steve called.
“Definitely,” Jane shouted over her shoulder. “This will scare the lubricant out of MC 1.”
“Around to the left!” Steve yelled at Chad.
Chad drew on the reins and the struthiomimus responded. They angled left and soon had worked their way over to the left rear of the stampeding dinosaurs. Hunter, of course, kept his pace and position with no trouble.
“Still the right direction?” Steve shouted to Hunter.
“Yes,” he called back.