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Chapter 13. A Chase Through The Forest
The laser from the Hunter seared SilverSide’s flank. She hadn’t expected it to react so quickly.
With robotic speed, she leapt to one side and behind the cover of a thick tree trunk. The bark smoldered where her side pressed against it, and SilverSide modified her body to spread out thin fan-like structures to radiate away the excess heat. A spot of red gleamed on the tree by her head and SilverSide ducked once more-another Hunter, and this one coming from a different direction. She could see two more of the deadly WalkingStones hurrying along the walkways toward the edge of the city and the confrontation.
SilverSide howled and fled deeper into the woods. Along the ridge, she saw the rest of the pack, following her orders, turn back and flee toward PackHome. Now it was up to her-she had to get rid of the WalkingStones.
Ten minutes later, she was certain she’d lost them.
SilverSide had a decided advantage over the WalkingStones in the forest. Her wolf shape was ideally suited for quick movement and lithe, accurate turns. Low to the ground, she could take advantage of brush and thickets for cover; knowing the forest as only a wolf-creature could, she was at ease finding the convoluted paths of the game animals. The WalkingStones seemed far less capable once they left the arrow-straight walkways and geometric patterns of their city.
SilverSide came to a halt in a glade a kilometer and a half from the valley of the WalkingStones. She halted, listening, scenting, and watching. Large moths flitted silently from tree to tree. A creature with huge suckers for feet hung upside down from a nearby branch. LargeFace spread silver lace patterns on the ground through the branches.
A branch cracked; a silver shape moved in the dark.
Central, the creature is here. The voice came from inside her head. Ten degrees south, unit three. You should have a clear line of fire if you move forward.
The darkness seemed to bother the WalkingStones as little as it did SilverSide, and it seemed that she had underestimated them. They were persistent and excellent trackers or they could not have followed her. They might be slower when moving in the trees, yes, but they seemed to be untiring.
And they had found her again.
Her logic circuits couldn’t know disappointment or irritation or even fear, but the sight of the Hunters through the trees made her pause, made her growl softly in BeastTalk. They were not kin. These WalkingStones lacked all etiquette.
If they were human, she thought, it would be easy. I could challenge their leader, and whomever won would lead all. That is the best way.
But the WalkingStone’s leader was Central, which was only a voice in her head, and the WalkingStones attacked kin like the SharpFangs, from hiding and without a proper challenge.
Like beasts. Like animals.
The Hunters were speaking with one another now, short bursts of high-pitched sound. SilverSide fingered the strands of semiconductors and colored wire around her neck. They were just made-things. Tools. They were less than animals, for all their sophistication. Yes, the technology made SilverSide ache to know more, but they violated all her most primal urges.
She wanted desperately to break these tools.
A crisscrossing of sudden laser fire raked the underbrush. SilverSide pushed to her feet with a howl and ran again. She felt the awful heat of their weapons strike her, and she turned and twisted as she fled so that none of the beams could touch her for more than a few seconds. Even so, she could sense internal damage: automatic alarm circuits overloaded and caused emergency sub-routines to be run, rerouting her nerve signals along undamaged paths to the brain.
Again her wolf shape aided her as it had before; she outdistanced the Hunters quickly. But she could still hear them, could still smell that sharp tang of steel and lubricants. They would track her forever, she realized, and if they did that, they would find PackHome.
You ca
A new positronic pathway opened, glimmering. Another robot might have kept ru
The Hunters were tracking a wolf, and though she had chosen that shape, it was not the only one she could be.
SilverSide’s body began to alter. The great bulk of the wolf collapsed in on itself, the body becoming much smaller. The excess mass SilverSide squeezed outward, thi
Great, powerful wings overshadowed her now. The wings beat, cupping air.
SilverSide flew.
She was a lousy bird. She was too massive, and there was nothing she could do to alter that. She didn’t fly well, and she couldn’t fly fast or high, but she flew.
Her moonshadow passed over the Hunters moving through the woods below.
The WalkingStones didn’t even look up. A wolf that changed into a bird was not in their experience.
“You’re certain you left them behind?”
The sun was just peeking over the edge of the hills, and most of the kin had come out to greet SilverSide as, in wolf form again, she loped from the forest. KeenEye prowled the packed ground outside the entrance to PackHome. She kept looking back into the fog drifting through the shafts of light under the trees.
“I am mostly certain,” SilverSide replied. One of the pups came up to her and playfully nipped her back leg. She gently nudged the pup aside, and it ran back to its mother, yelping. “I was heading south away from the Hill of Stars, not toward here at all.”
“They will follow your tracks and your scent.” KeenEye would not let go of the argument, but at least it was in respectful KinSpeech and not HuntTongue, where SilverSide might have been compelled to challenge her.
“I became a bird. I left no tracks, and the wind took my scent.”
“You became a bird…” KeenEye’s stance stiffened; she crouched slightly, offensively. That said more than her words.
“You doubt SilverSide, KeenEye?” LifeCrier asked mockingly. “You saw the Egg. You’ve seen her kill a Hunter, which none of us could do. You saw her kill another of the WalkingStones and escape the Hunters’ lightnings. We all know she’s from the OldMother, and yet you scoff. 1 believe her, KeenEye, because I have listened to the tales of the OldMother. I have faith. What of the rest of you?”
The kin gave barks of agreement, and SilverSide could scent their pride in her. KeenEye’s lips lifted, exposing teeth.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said disdainfully. “Bird or not, we’ve still done nothing about the WalkingStones. All we’ve accomplished is to anger them, and if they come here, to PackHome, we will all die. SilverSide might be able to kill one, but what of the rest of us?”
KeenEye’s tail thrashed dirt. She fingered the necklace SilverSide had given her. “How many here have seen the bodies of kin slain by the Hunters?” she continued. “How many of you have pups who are thin because the meat is scarce? How many mothers have little milk to give the litters? We can’t stand against the WalkingStones. And that is true with or without SilverSide, with or without the OldMother.”
“Then we can go elsewhere,” SilverSide suggested. “Give the WalkingStones this place and find another. “
“Where? We’ve already discussed that. The other packs already watch their borders, knowing the trouble we’re having. No other pack will let us into their territory.”
“Then you are telling me that we must stay here,” SilverSide said. “This is something I need to know-KeenEye, LifeCrier, all the rest of you. I do not know this world as you do. The OldMother left you the task of teaching me about the kin. Must we stay here?”
They nodded, howling softly. “In that, I’m afraid I must agree with KeenEye,” LifeCrier said. “Our pack is already weak and small. In a fight with other pack-kin, we would all die.”
That answer gave the logic circuits in SilverSide’s brain the information they needed. Electrical synapses closed. It was simple.
The First Law demanded that human life must be protected. Her positronic brain, like every robot’s, logically resolved inevitable conflicts to protect the many over the few. If the kin stayed here, the conflict would be human against WalkingStone. If they moved, another, uglier conflict must be confronted, and that would pit human against human. SilverSide could not kill humans.
That realization allowed her to make an unpleasant decision. “Then we will stay here,” she said, “and my choice is made for me.”
“What choice?” KeenEye demanded.
“The choice to fight the WalkingStones.”
“We can ’ t fight them,” KeenEye insisted.
“I know a way,” SilverSide said. “I do not like it, but I know a way.”
“Then speak. Tell us,” KeenEye said, and the insolence was back in her voice, in her stance, in her smell. SilverSide stared at KeenEye, daring the former leader to challenge her again. SilverSide let her body enlarge slightly, her already massive chest puffing out. KeenEye growled and backed away.
“Kin will probably die, my way,” SilverSide said, still looking at KeenEye. “But you tell me there is no other choice that is not worse. If you tell me wrong, you may well destroy the pack. If there is any way for us to go elsewhere, tell me now.”
“There is no way,” KeenEye said, snorting. She pawed at the ground with a clawed hand. “There are other packs all around us: One Eye’s, ScarredPaw’s. They’ve already said they will kill any of our litter-kin who trespass. Ask LifeCrier-he can tell you of the battles between packs. I didn’t lie. And I’m not afraid to fight. Kin die all the time-it is part of the Hunt, it is part of defending territory.”
“Then it is time to hunt WalkingStones,” SilverSide answered.
“It is time to challenge them.”