Changeling

Chapter 20. Contact

The uproar was furious, and mixed in with it was an occasional metallic grating, as if someone were bashing a steel plate over and over with a rubber hammer. All at once, there was a yelp of terror and a wail.

“The wolf-creatures,” Derec said. “They’re the ones who have been attacking the city. They’re why we got the distress call. Look!” He held up the braided wire from the dead wolf-creature to Mandelbrot. It sparkled in the yellow-white light of the larger moon.

“The city does not know that they are sentient,” Mandelbrot said. The robot seemed to shudder once allover. “The robots think they’re just animals. They are simply exterminating them when they find them, like pests.”

“This circuit board didn’t come from the wolves originally. Sure, the city might think the wolf-creatures are just animals-after all, we did too. But they’ve obviously destroyed at least one robot already. Mandelbrot, we have to do something. Now.”

Derec laid the necklace on the dead wolf-creature’s body and took his gun in his hand, his face grim. Mandelbrot’s hand closed over his wrist, firmly. “No,” the robot said. The odd grating slur was back in its voice. “I ca

“Mandelbrot, you misunderstand.”

“It does not matter if the robots are destroyed. That is only the Third Law and this Robot City can easily build more. I have made the decision you asked me about earlier. To kill a wolf-creature is to break the First Law.”

“Please. You must trust me. I am not going to kill them.” Derec tried to move his hand; the robot’s grip was gentle but unyielding. “Mandelbrot, I am ordering you to release my hand. I will not kill the wolf-creatures. Do you understand that?”

Derec thought that Mandelbrot might not respond. The robot was staring at the dead wolf-creature, at the bright wire. The incident had further upset the positronic brain; Derec began to fear that Mandelbrot would freeze now, with Derec’s one good arm locked in a death grip.

It would be an ignoble and curious way to end, anchored to a dead robot.

Mandelbrot’s fingers opened slowly. Derec let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “Thank you,” he said. “Mandelbrot, I’m going to need your help. I need a delicate touch and two good hands. Here-take the gun. Unload it. Quickly, we may only have a few minutes.”

The battle was still going on within the darkness under the trees. In fact, the uproar seemed to have intensified. As the robot took the darts from their chambers, Derec opened his backpack and found the medical kit. Luckily, everything there was well padded and nothing had broken in his fall. He looked through the collection of vials, squinting in the dim light, and found what he needed.

“Mandelbrot, break open the dart chambers and empty out the nervekiller. Put this in.”

“Master Derec-”

“It’s a sedative. Undiluted, and with their body weight, it should knock them out.”

Mandelbrot didn’t move. His one good eye gleamed an unblinking, insistent red. “Master Derec, these creatures are unknown. Their metabolism might be so different from yours that this kills them.”

“Or it may not work at all,” Derec pointed out. He sighed. The sound of the nearby struggle was intensifying -he hoped there was still time. He patted Mandelbrot on the shoulder-the robot looked terrible: dinged, scratched, and battered. Having pieced the robot together from several different models and after the patchwork repairs following the crash, Derec felt pleased that the robot was still operating at all. He also hoped that he looked better, but the distorted reflection of himself in the robot’s body looked just as disheveled and abused.

They needed help. Quickly.

“Mandelbrot, we can’t communicate with them,” Derec continued. “Twice now we’ve been attacked without provocation. They may be sentient, but they’re also very dangerous. We need the robots. If we don’t do something now, they may destroy all of them, and then they may well come looking for their friend here and take care of us. “

“That is not certain.”

“No, but it’s probable. This is a chance that we have to take, one way or the other. A full-strength dose would take out a person of their general weight in two or three seconds and keep them down for an hour or two. Now-take the sedative and put it in the darts. I can’t do it myself.”

Derec held out the vial.

Mandelbrot hesitated, then the Avery arm extended toward Derec and its fingers closed around the vial. “Yes, Master Derec,” Mandelbrot said. With delicate but quick precision, it began to do as ordered.

Mandelbrot reloaded the modified darts into the gun and handed it back to Derec. “Okay, let’s go,” Derec said. The shivering, challenging howls of the wolves still came from just behind the trees. Derec shouldered the backpack once more and began walking quickly in that direction. Mandelbrot followed more slowly, his left leg dragging and a distinct whine coming from his hip servomotors.

Derec broke through the trees at the top of a steep hill, the sides of which were bare dirt. Below, in a small, grassy glade well lit by the moons, a group of five wolf-creatures were struggling with four robots of the laborer type. One other wolf-creature lay dead from what looked to be a laser bum, but the robot fitted with the laser arm was already down-it was obvious that the wolf-creatures would eventually win this battle. They harried the robots, darting in with great leaps, ripping with the claws and tearing with their jaws, and then bounding away again before the robots could hold them.

As Derec watched, another of the robots slumped to the ground as a wolf-creature ripped a power co

He hoped this would work, but he knew that, though he couldn’t say it, he was as skeptical as Mandelbrot. “The way things have gone so far…” he muttered under his breath.

He raised the gun, sighted down the long barrel, and pressed the trigger, aiming for a gray-furred male who seemed to be the leader. A chuff of compressed air: in the glade below, the wolf yelped and leaped into the air. On its hind legs, it reached around and plucked the dart from its skin, looked at it, and threw it down. The old wolf-creature’s gaze swept around the glade.

It saw Derec even as he fired the gun once more, hitting another of the wolves.

The old one howled and pointed. Dropping down on all fours again, it charged. Derec counted softly as he fired three more times, injecting all the wolves. Another of them, unhindered by the robots, followed the old wolf’s lead and-howling-rushed up the hill toward Derec. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…”

The wolves kept coming. They looked far more angry than sleepy, and Mandelbrot was still laboring through the trees.

“Oh, Frost,” Derec hissed.

The wolf-creatures were fast and powerful. He knew he was not going to be able to retreat anywhere near fast enough. He doubted seriously that he was going to be able to lose them in the darkness.

He threw the useless gun at the old one bounding up the hill.

It missed.

That figures, he thought.