Changeling

Chapter 7. A Fight

The pack was milling in confusion. LifeCrier howled a lament for the downed youngling as those in the direct path of the WalkingStone scattered. Only SilverSide was immune to the panic.

She could only respond as the Laws allowed her, and the First Law left her no choice.

She lunged forward, slamming herself hard into the chest of the constructed thing that had attacked the kin without warning. There was no hesitation to her action at all-it was a pure First Law response to protect the life of “humans.”

Her jaws closed on an unyielding metallic arm; with a strength equal to her own, the WalkingStone flung SilverSide away. She rolled to soften the impact, allowing her body to deform to absorb the shock.

She whirled back to attack.

LifeCrier and KeenEye had rallied the others. All but the carriers tethered to the travois formed a ragged circle around the injured youngling, protecting him from the WalkingStone. They snarled and snapped, making quick thrusts of their own but staying out of range of the powerful arms.

The WalkingStone had stopped, pointing a finger at the pack. SilverSide, in motion, saw the fingertip become round and a dark opening appear at its apex.

Weapon! The word screamed in SilverSide’s head.

“KeenEye!” she shouted. “Scatter!”

She hurled herself at the WalkingStone’s extended arm.

Metal clashed against metal. A line of searing, intense light cut a crazy swath harmlessly through foliage as SilverSide’s rush knocked the WalkingStone’s arm aside. The kin yelped and retreated again.

Gears whirred menacingly inside the WalkingStone. The smell of it made SilverSide snarl. The featureless, impassive face turned toward SilverSide, who faced it defiantly. Deliberately, the WalkingStone pointed its deadly, laser-tipped finger at her. The aiming beam tracked brilliant red across her body; the skin glowed white just behind. The ferocious heat translated as pain to SilverSide’s positronic brain; the “human” responses overlaid there made her yelp in response though the tough metal alloy was only scorched, not yet melted. Still, the attack disrupted circuitry to that side of her body.

She went down.

The WalkingStone turned its attention back to the pack, now huddled in a knot around the youngling “SilverSide?” LifeCrier called, her fear-scent strong. “What do we do?”

SilverSide tried to answer. Nothing happened. Her vocal circuits were temporarily gone as well.

KeenEye and LifeCrier tried to rally the kin.

The pack had its own peculiar method of fighting, as SilverSide had seen before on their way from her Egg to PackHome. She knew what KeenEye’s command barks said.

“Circle. Keep moving. Keep the WalkingStone busy, but don’t let it touch you.” A SharpFang would have been dealt with in much the same way, the pack whirling around it like a clawing, biting tornado, dashing in behind to nip at ankles and then leaping back, harrying the creature until-exhausted and frustrated-it gave them a fatal opening. Then they would swarm in as one and bear it down.

Such tactics gave the kin the ability to deal with carnivores far larger and stronger than themselves.

Such tactics were horribly ill-suited for their current foe.

It required no effort for SilverSide to picture what would happen if the WalkingStone used its laser on any of the kin. The urgent First Law need to respond drove everything else from SilverSide’s mind.

With the left side of her body still shut down, there was only one possibility. With anything fashioned to resemble a living creature, the joints-neck, elbows, knees-are the most fragile area. SilverSide knew that: as a shapechanger herself, structural dynamics were part of her core knowledge. Her malleable body shifted, altered. The mostly immobile left side she rounded as best she could; everything else she metamorphosed into a massive, coiled muscle.

She gathered herself. Aimed.

Leapt.

Metal boomed against metal like a thunderclap.

The WalkingStone’s neck was stabilized with supports, but none were designed to withstand the tremendous hammer blow SilverSide represented. There was a screech and a wail of stressed steel. Welds popped as the head was suddenly canted at an acute angle. The glowing eyes dimmed. The thing staggered, the laser fired wildly and high. Its knees buckled, it seemed to wheeze mechanically.

It fell.

As it fell, SilverSide heard its voice in her head. Oddly, SilverSide understood it, for the thing spoke in the language she’d been born with. Central, under attack, badly damaged and shutting down… …The voice trailed off. None of the kin looked as if they’d heard it.

SilverSide had fallen herself, resuming her wolf shape. As her body cooled, control returned. She managed to limp slowly to her feet, and stood on her hind legs over the fallen WalkingStone. It twitched spasmodically, but seemed no threat. Its mental voice was silent. As SilverSide watched, a plume of thin, acrid smoke came from the broken neck, and all movement stopped.

SilverSide lifted her muzzle and gave a BeastTalk howl of triumph as she’d seen the other kin do after a kill. The others howled with her.

LifeCrier and KeenEye padded over. Both groveled in front of SilverSide, baring their necks in ritual submission. “You are the Bane of WalkingStones,” LifeCrier declared. “You saved our lives and the lives of all the kin here.”

“Yes,” SilverSide answered. It was not immodesty; it was simply truth.

KeenEye rose, her eyes unreadable. “I was wrong,” she said. “What LifeCrier said of you is true. You are the wisest of us. You are the OldMother’s gift.” She paused “You are now the leader of kin.”

“Yes,” SilverSide said.

The decision echoed in all her judgment circuits. “Yes, I am,” she repeated.