Maverick

“LifeCrier!” Maverick whispered urgently. “Are those male WalkingStones?!”

LifeCrier peeked out between his fingers, and then covered his eyes again and went back to whimpering. “Yes, yes, that’s them!”

“They’re raising their right forelegs. Their paws-they’re hanging fu

“Yes!” LifeCrier clamped his paws down harder, as if trying to push his face through the ground.

“LifeCrier, there’s some kind of glow forming around-”

CRACK! Lightning split the air and echoed off the sides of the box canyon. The brilliant flash dazzled Maverick’s eyes; for half a minute, all he could see were searing blue afterimages.

About the time that his vision cleared and his ears stopped ringing, the scent of blood and burnt flesh reached his nose, and he noticed that he was still alive. And he could no longer hear the sharpfangs. He turned around to see how close they were.

The sharpfangs were close, but they would get no closer. Where once they had heads, they now had smoking stumps. One WalkingStone stood by the corpses, inspecting them with his red, fiery eyes, his lightning-thrower extended and ready.

Another was walking toward the kin. Maverick put a paw on LifeCrier’s shoulder and tried to jostle him out of his terrified cringe. LifeCrier peeked out just long enough to mutter, “Off the spit and into the fire. ”

The WalkingStone halted. “Be you well, Master LifeCrier?” Its inflection was odd, and it spoke in a garbled mix of HuntTongue and KinSpeech, but it was understandable.

The words were what finally got LifeCrier to uncover his face. “You-you know my name?”

“Oh, certainly, master. As you are he whom we were sent to serve. ”

“Serve? Serve me?” LifeCrier’s ears went up.

“Such is our mission. Have you been served well by the demise of yon sharpfangs?”

LifeCrier got to his feet and took a hesitant step toward the WalkingStone. “Y-yes, very well. But-” He paused, and looked sharply at the WalkingStone. “Were you sent by SilverSides?”

“We are sent to protect you. ”

“By SilverSides? Have you seen her? Did she give you any words for us?”

The WalkingStone tilted its head slightly, as if looking over LifeCrier’s head. “We have seen the one you know as SilverSides. And we bring you this message: You are to go to the Hill of Stars. ”

“What?”

The WalkingStone shifted into a deep, stentorian voice. “You are to return to your den and gather your followers. Instruct them to gather their females and their offspring; gather their possessions and all that they would take with them, and follow you into the Hill of Stars. There a place has been prepared for you to dwell, and you shall never know hunger nor want again!”

LifeCrier’s mouth dropped open, and he sat down heavily on his haunches. “Well, I’ll be!” He looked at Maverick, smiled, and shook his head. “I expected a miracle, but not this soon!” He looked at the WalkingStone and shook his head again. “We’ll live in the Hill of Stars and have all our needs provided for?”

“You will be served and protected,” the WalkingStone said.

LifeCrier nodded. “Yes. Yes, I understand now. How soon?”

“Your place is being prepared even as we speak. It will be ready by the time you return to PackHome with this news. ”

LifeCrier nodded again, sagely this time. “Very well. Servant, we will meet you at the Hill of Stars. ”

“As you wish, master. ” The WalkingStone bent in the middle-a gesture that Maverick found puzzling-and backed away. As one, the other WalkingStones turned to join it, and together the four of them marched out of the canyon.

Maverick turned to LifeCrier and found that LifeCrier was looking at him with an enigmatic smile on his face. “Well, Maverick, it seems that you and a few others have a little apologizing to do. What do you think about a silly old kin and his SilverSides nonsense now?”

“Sir,” Maverick said with a respectful baring of his throat, “only a fool would refuse to believe after seeing this. Where you lead, I will follow. ”

“Excellent. ” LifeCrier got to his feet and gave Maverick an affectionate nuzzle. “You are my first true follower, and my strong right paw. I shall name you-”

Maverick interrupted him with a discreet cough. “Begging your pardon, sir, but I’d really rather stick with Maverick. It’s easier to remember. ”

LifeCrier looked a little disappointed. “Oh, very well. You’re now Maverick, the First Believer. ” He looked back at the smoking corpses of the three sharpfangs-already flyers, eightlegs, and other carrion-feeders were starting to gather-and dismissed them with a sniff.

“Now let’s follow those WalkingStones and see if we can’t find a way out of this canyon. ” LifeCrier set off at a trot.

Panting, bewildered, but full of honest trust, Maverick fell in behind.

Chapter 16. Derec

The robotics lab was dim and quiet, except for the quartet of high-intensity lamps that Avery had pulled down from the ceiling and the soft chirping of the positronic monitor. The data terminals and chairs were gone, dissolved back into the substance of the ship; the work table was reconfigured into a body-contour slab that held the immobile figure of Mandelbrot. A function robot with four long, mantis-like arms stood behind Avery, handing out utensils as he asked for them, while another floated a foot over Mandelbrot’s head, carefully monitoring his positronic brain functions and ensuring a stable supply of power to the critical synthecortex.

. Derec and Avery crouched over the robot’s open chest, trying hard not to block each other’s light. They’d already removed most of Mandelbrot’ s chest plating and disco

“Micro-calipers. ” The function robot slapped them into Avery’s open hand. “Pentaclamps. ”

“Easy,” Derec said. “You’ve got a little bit of grisaille blast-welded on that buss bar. ”

“I see it. Think you can debride it?”

“I’ll try. Cutting laser. ” The robot started to hand a flashlight-sized tool to Derec, but he refused it. “Sorry. Make that the 10-milliwatt cutter. ” The large laser went back into the robot’s drawers, and it offered Derec a slim, dental-probe sized tool instead. After taking a moment to don protective goggles, Derec set to work.

“So,” Avery asked after a minute or two of silence, “where’s Ariel this morning?”

“Up in the gym,” Derec answered without taking his eyes off his work. “Working out. ” He made another tiny cut and a

“I’m extracting-no, it’s stuck on something else. Can you see what it is?”

. Derec removed his goggles and scrutinized the offending part. “Seems free to me. I can’t-ah, there it is. ” He dropped his goggles, stepped back from the table, and rubbed his eyes. “Frost, we’re going to have to remove the neck retainer. ”

“All of it?” Avery sounded very disappointed.

“That is the standard procedure. Unless you want to risk spine alignment problems. ”

Avery briefly set down the pentaclamps and put his hand on Mandelbrot’s chin. “We’ve got him pretty secure here. The head’s not going anywhere. I say we risk it. ”

. Derec shrugged. “You’re the doctor. I’ll hold while you decouple. ” He reached for the pentaclamps.

“No, son,” Avery said, taking the pentaclamps himself. “I hate to admit it, but your hands are steadier than mine. You’d better do it. Toolbot? Give Derec the two-millimeter splinedriver. ”

Wordlessly, Derec took the tool and set to work. In a few minutes they managed to decouple the front neck brace, extract the damaged sections of the cube cage, and sonic-weld the replacement bus sections in place.