Finally Wayne decided he would have to stop and make camp before darkness fell completely. First, however, he dismounted and carefully tied both the reins and the rope holding Steve securely to a tree. Then he moved into the brush, out of Steve’s hearing.
“Don’t mind me,” Steve shouted derisively after him. “I’ll just wait right here for you.”
“Ishihara? Wayne here,” he said quietly.
“Yes, Wayne.”
“Have you made any progress? And where are you?”
“Yes. I have located MC 3.”
“Where?” Wayne’s heart pounded with excitement. “Can you grab him?”
“Not yet. He has gone into a village and pantomimed for help. The villagers laughed at him, but I think they believe he is crazy or perhaps retarded. Someone tossed him an old tunic to wear and I can see him sitting in the village now. The children are trying to play with him, but he will not respond.”
“Just go in and snatch him.”
“I dare not. I would risk harming humans who I believe would try to defend him.”
“Then go in and claim him as your slave,” Wayne said urgently. “You speak German and he doesn’t. They’ll have to take your word for it.”
“If they are not persuaded, then I shall have revealed my presence for nothing. That may be unwise.”
“Well, then how do you want to handle it?”
“For now, I shall observe him further,” said Ishihara. “I shall act when I am most comfortable under the Laws in doing so.”
“All right. I can’t argue with that,” Wayne said reluctantly. “Give me some idea of which direction you went. I’m going to make camp for the night near the river. You get hold of MC 3 and we’ll join up tomorrow.”
“Agreed.” Ishihara described his route after he had left Wayne.
“Good. Signing off.” Wayne suppressed a smile as he switched off his communicator and returned to Steve. If he had had the help of a robot during his first two missions, he might have succeeded then.
“Have a nice visit with the underbrush?” Steve sneered.
Wayne was in a better mood now and ignored his tone. Leaving the rope tied to the tree, he moved cautiously to Steve’s side. He saw that the loop still held Steve’s upper arms tightly against his torso. “I’ll help you down.”
“Sounds good to me.” Steve swung his leg over the horse and jumped to the ground, where Wayne steadied him. “All right, now what?”
“I’m going to see if I can get a fire started for the night, even though everything seems drenched.”
“Good luck,” Steve said doubtfully. “Look, at least untack the horse and hobble him. He shouldn’t be tied up that way all night.”
Wayne paused. He didn’t know if Steve could get loose, but he was sure that it was possible somehow unless he was careful. However, unsaddling the horse would make Steve’s escape on horseback less likely, so Wayne did not doubt his motive for making this suggestion.
“Yeah. That’s true.” Wayne looked at the bridle for a moment. It had an ordinary buckle on the side of the horse’s head. Carefully, he unbuckled it and found that he could slide the bridle easily over the animal’s ears and off its head. Then he studied the strap that ran under the horse’s abdomen to hold the saddle in place.
“Ignore the wide part,” said Steve. “That’s the girth. Just loosen the cinch-that narrow leather strap up by the bottom edge of the saddle.”
Wayne found the strap, which had been threaded in and out of a metal ring. When he pried the strap loose, the cinch and girth fell to the ground. Then he grabbed the saddle and pulled it off.
All afternoon, while riding with Wayne, Steve had flexed his arm muscles and unobtrusively strained against the loop that bound his upper arms. He could actually bend his elbows and move his hands, but that was not enough to loosen the loop now that the rope was soaked through with rain. Hoping to lure Wayne into letting down his guard, he had decided to be cooperative until a good opportunity to escape eventually developed.
Wayne was not a difficult captor. After hobbling the horse, he untied the free end of the rope holding Steve and let Steve have a moment of privacy in the bushes on the long leash; then he tied that end firmly around the base of a tree, where he sat to guard the knot. Steve sat against another tree, but he had a considerable radius in which he could move, either to sit and lie down or even stand up to stretch his legs. He just couldn’t reach the knot or free his upper arms. The rain lessened to a light drizzle, and under the heavy forest canopy, they were reasonably well sheltered.
Steve sat quietly, watching Wayne. He was especially surprised when Wayne opened the leather bag he was carrying on a thong. Wayne took out a lighter and poured a small amount of lighter fluid into it. Then he gathered up the least damp of the dead leaves and twigs around them, those which had been sheltered from the constant rain and drizzle under dense bushes or overhanging rocks.
Wayne carefully and slowly lighted a tiny, smoky fire and placed more wet kindling near it to dry off. Steve realized that in some way, Wayne had returned to the future. The rope and the leather bag could have been obtained either in Jamaica in the 1600s or here in this time, but that lighter had been manufactured many centuries in the future.
The now-famous prototype of the highly successful “Hunter” class robot first demonstrated his remarkable abilities in the Mojave Center Governor case. The following images are drawn from the Robot City archives of Derec Avery, the eminent historian on robotics.
MC 1 and MC 2 merged.Two of MC Governor’s six independent component robots are show here. After capturing them in the remote past, R. Hunter merged and deactivated the robots temporarily.
The Bohung Institute.The famed Center for Robot Studies was founded in this underground university. Shown here is a view of the Institute’s well-known towers, from which MC Governor launched his flight into the past.
Room F-12 of the Bohung Institute.This view through a tower window shows the time machine used by R. Hunter and his team to search for Mojave Center Governor Robot.
Three views of R. Ishihara.This robot’s versatility made him a difficult opponent for R. Hunter. Originally in the service of the Bohung institute, R. Ishihara was tricked into helping Dr. Wayne Nystrom in his attempts to foil R. Hunter’s mission.
Exchanging Gifts in the German Camp.R. Hunter’s versatility allows him to blend quickly into diverse cultures and situations. Here, he participates in a ritual exchange of valuables with a Germanic tribal leader.