Or, he thought, he could make the whole jump, back to the other end, back to the beginning, and he could look for the robot’s dinghy. It had fuel in it. In time, even though it was hidden by the shield of invisibility, he would find it. If he had to drag his detector over every square inch of the ground, he would find it. And if he didn’t… The wind screamed, increasing in intensity as the sun rose higher over the horizon, heating the chilled night air, sucking it high into the frigid upper atmosphere. Trace clamped his hands over his ears so he could think without the maniacal voice shrilling at him. If he didn’t find the robot’s dinghy, and if the relief ship didn’t orbit before the robot caught up with him, it would get away.
It would return to its own damaged dinghy, make the repairs needed, and leave this hellish desert. In space it would take the Fleet ship that Trace had left, and repair that. Where would it go next? Trace thought of his ship, his first ship, in the hands of the metal killer, and he felt hatred pour through him, drenching his skin with sweat, knotting his stomach. Even if he continued the hop and run flight it would be only two days before he would have used the precious supply of available fuel, and then he would have to leave the planet and sit in the orbiting ship, waiting for it to appear and take him there in space. It would take him with ease, the crippled ship would offer no resistance. It wouldn’t matter to it if the ship got “hot” or had no pressure, or no oxygen. It would be able to fix it enough to escape, and then, lost again in deep space, it would have all the time in the galaxy to repair the ship properly.
“I have to keep it on the ground. I have to keep it away from its lifeboat, and away from mine. I can boobytrap mine, and the other one, if I find it. Not good enough. It will attack and kill the relief crew. They won’t be expecting it. The end will be the same…”
The radiation beep startled him so that he jerked. It was advancing again, three miles away. It was time to go.
“Okay, we shoot the works. I’m going to find it, you hear me? And I’m going to fix it so that it won’t fly. Then I’m going to take your fuel and the oxygen tanks and leave you here! You can tramp up and down this piece of hell for eternity! You can have this stinking planet! Your own kingdom. You can be god of everything on it! Do you hear me?”
Trace heard his own shriek over that of the wind, and he closed his eyes hard for a moment. He turned on the engines and eased the dinghy out from under the sheltering ledge, and immediately the wind smashed into it, making it shudder. He clamped his mouth and fought the wind, getting the small lifeboat airborne, heading back. The wind buffeted him, sending his instrument needles skittering again and again, and after twenty minutes of the struggle, he knew he had to land or be torn to pieces by one of the tornadoes. His ground distance indicator said he had gone nine hundred and twenty miles. He knew there could be no second-guessing now. There no longer was enough fuel in his little craft to return to the ship.
The robot would waste some time searching for him. It couldn’t know about the very human ability to gamble on a long shot; this was not a decision built on the firm ground of pure logic. Even allowing it one whole day for the vain search, Trace had only six days before he could expect it to show again on his screen. Six days in which to find the invisible dinghy, get its fuel, sabotage it, and leave the planet.
Six
Manoeuvring in the high wind among the sand-sculpted mountains was impossible; the air was black with sand and the tornado funnels whirled and flung rocks from pebble size to massive boulders. Trace chose a high, broad-based, up thrusting shaft of granite and came to a stop. His back muscles ached, as did his arms. His eyes were burning as if the sand had blasted them too. He let his head drop to his arms and sat unmoving several minutes, hearing only the howling wind punctuated with explosive blasts of rocks hitting rocks.
How did the robot avoid the flying debris? Trace tried to visualise it being struck again and again, and still managing to stay upright and advancing. Had it learned to dodge them, to stay behind boulders when the winds rose?
It’s smart, Duncan, real smart. It can learn from experience. It has to be that it is continually learning. The rocks would cripple it otherwise.
Logic predicts the future on the basis of the past.
Yeah, but, listen, Dunc. It isn’t just using what it had been programmed to know. Don’t you see that? It is learning new things. And no one is here to programme them in. It’s doing it alone.
Trace lifted his head and stared at the controls. Wearily he pushed himself from the seat and made his way to the rear of the boat where the supplies were. The fever was returning, and with it, the queer lightheadedness that meant danger. What if he became delirious here? He held the capsules and wondered if he had taken one or two of them earlier. He couldn’t remember. He swallowed two of them this time, washing them down with a mouthful of water. Very carefully he returned the water bag and locked the unit; he put the key in the medical supply section. The wind was growing noisier minute by minute; it would reach its peak momentarily, and then start to lessen. He had to know where he was going and take off as soon as the wind died.
It would be pleasant to rest. Rest and get over the fever, regain his strength… A chill shook him and, frightened, he pulled out the map he had made of the planet. He had to go on. If he stayed where he was and died, the robot would find him in two days, be back at its own dinghy in another three.
He had said it so casually ― if he died there. He tasted the words, repeated them aloud. Not in space then? Not to be flung from a ship to drift endlessly through black space? Nor yet to be buried on one of the worlds where the fleet had landed and conquered? He laughed and the sound of his voice startled him. The wind had died down completely.
He stood up and gazed out of the port. How long had he been sitting there? It seemed less than minutes, but had been almost two hours. The chill returned, this time not on his skin, but deeper. He went back to the controls, and took off heading south, keeping to the edge of the mountain’s backbone, not flying out over the desert this time. The robot wouldn’t go out there anyway. The manoeuvre simply wasted time and fuel. His mind seemed very clear then; the capsules had fought the fever down again. He would find a good place to dig in, and then he would eat and rest through the hot part of the day. In the evening he would start his search for the hidden dinghy. It seemed so simple now. He remembered his thoughts of dying and he smiled grimly. Not yet. Not here. For three months the man and the machine had been tied together; not for nothing, he told himself fiercely. Not for nothing!
He had been with Lar when Duncan found him. And he had left Lar in order to chase the metal monster. He refused to think of her. Later, when he had time to recall the nuances of her voice, the shades of meaning behind each motion she made, the way the shifting light caught the sparkle of her eyes, and then hid it… Grimly he stared at the finder scope, the crosshairs approaching his approximate destination. He had returned to the southern edge of the mountain range. He slowed and gained altitude, searching the ground below for the right place, for the spot where he had landed the dinghy for the first time.
From up there he could see the shadows too well. Deep, black, long, still, distorted monoliths, towers, and peaks. The shadows changed the land, making it look new to his eyes, unfamiliar. He climbed higher and slowed still more. None of it looked like the spot he remembered. It was the same as all the rest, and yet different. Three miles south the mountains ended, with a streamer of disconnected rocks and boulders showing through the sand, and then the start of the endless ripples of low hills. The mountain was only fourteen miles wide at this point.