Andre Norton (ed) (18 page)

"Not
particularly, sir. Its metabolism should be substantially the same as ours, and
until we contact the intelligent aliens I'm inclined to be chary of molesting
the local fauna. They might misinterpret it."

"Good
enough," said Chang. He put up his hand to help the creature down, but he
heard the alarm on Keston's lapel ring again, and waited, looking at the
verandah.

After a moment the men on it turned their
eyes to the skyline, and he turned and followed their example. A second's
horrified
indecision,
and he dumped the beast
unceremoniously and went up the ladder as fast as he could. As he put his foot
on the floor the screens went down and the snub nose of a mine-thrower became
visible on each side of the verandah. He turned to look.

Less
than half
a
mile away, on top of a slight rise that silhouetted
him against the sky, stood a robot exactly similar in all respects but one to
the one they had seen on the moon. The single difference was that this one was
moving.

He
came striding down the slope in the direction of the ship, arms swinging in
pairs to counter the motion of his legs, the sun glinting on his polished body.
He—not
it.
He
was more like
a
living
thing than Chang had imagined metal could look. At the edge of the burnt patch
he paused and surveyed them.

The little creature on the ground below the
verandah hesitated a moment, and then, as if in response to an unseen signal,
scuttered across the charred "grass" till it reached the robot. It
went up his legs and body as if it were scaling a tree and perched on his upper
left shoulder—the robot had four arms and therefore four shoulders
also—whereupon the latter turned around and began to stride the way it had
come.

On the skyline it paused to take one last
look at the ship, raised one "hand" as if in salute, and disappeared.

Keston exhaling loudly,
said, "A robot with pets, yetl"

Deeley
was staring at the place where the robot had been, a look of disbelief on his
face. He shook his head slowly.

Chang
said, "That makes critical massl Engelhart, get a heli after that robot
and find where, if anywhere, he's going. Make them carry heavy arms and screen
them well."

"Right, sir," said Engelhart crisply, going inship.
A moment later his voice was heard issuing
curt orders.

Chang waited impatiently, drumming on the
rail with his fingertips, humming snatches of tunes culled at random from his
memory. Shortly, a fast heli pulled away from the ship, its screens blanking it
out as soon as it was well clear, following the track left in the thick
"grass" by the heavy metal feet of the robot.

"Back
to your posts," Chang ordered his officers, and they went inship, sat down
at their control desks, relaxed but ready to snap into action at a single word.
They waited expectantly.

A quarter hour elapsed before Engelhart's
speaker chuckled to itself and he turned to Chang. "Radio from the heli I
sent after the robot, sir. The crew report they finally caught up with him— he
was running, and making a good hundred ten miles an hour at that—but in spite
of their screens, the moment they hove in sight he pulled up and sat down. At
the moment he's playing with the animal he was carrying, and it seems he's
content to stay put until they leave. They're circling overhead, hoping his
patience will wear out first, but they'd appreciate further instructions."

"Tell them to spray a tracer fluid on
him and get hull-down over the horizon. Then they can track him without being
seen themselves."

Engelhart
nodded and relayed the orders into his hanging mike.

Chang
turned to look out the viewport. A robot that could run at more than a hundred
miles an hour over unmade ground was no common automaton. How could a race that
built such machines have degenerated—abandoned its lunar stations and its
cities so completely that no traces could be found? And how long ago must it
not have perished if it had left so little sign of its presence?

But why had the robots not gone, too, if
their creators had gone?

Engelhart
said with faint amusement in his voice, "Sir, the crew of the heli did
what you suggested and tracked him from below the horizon, but after a while
one of them noticed the tracer impulses were getting rather diffuse, so they
took a look and found they were tracking a small stream. Looks like the robot washed
off the tracer as soon as they were out of sight and is now hell-bent for no
one knows where."

"All
right," said Chang wearily. "Call 'em back. But next time one of
those robots shows itself near the ship, have a heli on his tail at once and
follow him if it takes a year to make him move. Got that?"

"Excuse me, sir," said Engelhart.
He turned to his speaker, listened to the thin voice that crackled from it.
After a while he turned back. "The first survey heli's reported in, sir.
I'm having its photos developed at once, and there'll be a map ready in about
ten minutes."

"Good work, Engelhart," said Chang.
"How about your boys, Deeley?"

"I told them not to
break radio silence without reason, sir."

"O.K.
That reminds me. Keston, have you anybody monitoring the radio bands?"

"Yes,
sir, but we haven't got much so far. There's a little that's definitely static,
and some more that could very well be, but shows symptoms of artificiality.
They're breaking it in the analyzers now."

"Spoken
language?"

"Can't say, sir.
I doubt it—though of course some languages sound pretty odd. At a
guess, having heard a sample of it, I'd say it was basically
mathematical."

Chang
nodded slowly four or five times. He said, "Do you mean it's someone
reciting mathematical formulae?"

"No, sir.
I mean someone who thinks from a
mathematical foundation. He or she or it sounds like a digital computer at
work. There are two or three like that on different wave lengths. Then there
are
one or two that seem to be pictorial transmissions. I'll
let you know if we crack either of them."

"Good," nodded Chang. "Carry
on."

Engelhart said, "Sir, all the survey
helis are in now. The map should be ready fairly soon. I told them to spread it
out on a table in the mess—it's a sight too big to get in here."

Deeley was suddenly alert and bending over
his speaker. He exchanged curt comments with his correspondent and then turned
to Chang. He said, "Sir, my number two reports they're being observed by
an alien ship." "Where are they?"

"Galactic north of the planet, over the pole.
The alien isn't doing anything but sit and
watch. It's a small vessel like the one we found on the moon. They want to know
if they should do anything about it and if so what."

Chang said curtly,
"Hold it, KestonI"

"Sir?"

"Have
you any radio signals coming in from the galactic north that could conceivably
not be static or aurora?"

"I'll
find out, sir." He whispered into his mike, waited, listening.

On
the top of the hull the big d-f frames swung through varying angles, and a
tech somewhere in the bowels of the ship set a universal frequency oscillator
to searching the wave bands. After a few moments a voice bubbled from the
speaker, and Keston reported, "Yes, sir. One pictorial and one of the
other
sort
. But they're both so faint they're probably
leakage from a tight beam."

"Where's that beam
focused?"

"Can't tell without a thorough search, sir, but it's somewhere
south and west of here.
At a guess, less than five hundred miles away."

"Engelhart, have a couple of helis out
and look for any sign at all of a radio installation—a frame, a loop, an
aerial, anything— southwest of here and less than five hundred miles away. They
can ignore the area already searched because if it's within that it'll show up on
the photographs."

"Yes, sir.
One thing further, sir—you asked about signs
of the indigenous race."

"That's right," agreed Chang.
"Did they find any?"

"None at all, sir.
They saw several robots, with or without accompanying animals, and in
one place a herd of animals with one robot in attendance.
But
no other creatures at all."

"All right.
Get those helis out. We can investigate that
later."

"Right,
sir," said Engelhart, pulling his microphone towards him.

"Sir, what shall I tell my men to do
about the alien ship?" Deeley wanted to know.

"Carry on with their map work. If the
alien shows signs of hostility, get out from under—but fast. At the same time,
try and do nothing in a hurry that might be misunderstood. Got that? Who's in
command—a reliable man?"

"Sesraphokis,
sir.
He's no hothead."

"I'm
glad to hear it. Keston, watch for the alien ship when it comes down,
will
you?" Chang turned to look out the viewport again
at the green plain beyond.

Engelhart said, "Sir, the map's ready.
Shall we go down and have a look at it?"

"That's
pretty fast work, Engelhart. Congratulate whoever's responsible. Where's it
been set up?"

"Officers'
mess, sir."

"Right
then, let's go." Chang took a lapel speaker from his own control desk beside
the viewport, clipped it to his jacket, and he and Engelhart went down to the
mess.

The door opened on a crowd of people: photo
technicians moving around the main table with jars of developer and photo
retouchers; a few were putting final touches to the alignment of the map; along
the far wall a dozen men, the crew of the survey helis, stiffened to attention
as the captain entered.

A
thin man with contact lenses and rumpled blond hair came up to them, clicked
his heels. His hands were stained with developer and he carried a big wire
stereo-drying frame. He said, "The map's on the table, sir. I'm Carmody,
photo tech first class."

"Were
you in charge of this operation?" Chang wanted to know, nodding at the
table.

"More or less,
sir."

"A fine piece of work.
Let's see it."

They pushed through the crowd to the table
and surveyed what lay on it. It was a full-color exaggerated stereo reproduction
of the country within a hundred miles of the ship. At points on it rested small
plastic crosses in bright colors, indicating places of special interest.
Carmody handed his drying frame to a junior with instructions to make it and
himself
scarce, and picked up a pointer.

He
said, "Here's the ship, sir.
Right in the middle.
The north pole of the planet fortunately coincides almost exactly with galactic
north—this world is non-Draysonian and its axis remains permanently vertical,
so there are no seasons. North is over here, then, where I've hung this arrow.
To give you some orientation, here's the place where the helis lost the robot.
The stream's too small to show up well on this scale."

Chang
watched, nodding as Carmody flicked his pointer from place to place, referring
occasionally to a list in his hand, and his dry precise voice explained the
various crosses—robot seen here, robot seen there, two more seen somewhere
else, a herd of animals with a robot in attendance on the easterly side of the
ship, none of them going anywhere in particular. Apparently, as soon as the
helis came over the horizon and in spite of them being well screened, the
robots stopped going where they were going and waited patiently till the helis
moved on.
Frustrating.

The alarm on Chang's lapel rang softly, and
he said, "Hold on a moment, Carmody. Chang listening. What is it?"