Dean Koontz - Dark of the Woods

But he was no longer a child.

And there was solace to be had in this world, in the land of the living. If only he could keep both of them alive long enough to enjoy it and strengthen the bond of affection that joined them, he might eventually learn to stand up to adverse conditions without hesitation, without first falling back on the deathwish and the easy way out of a bad position.

"Gun forward!" he directed Proteus. "Fire one!"

The projectile struck the center Sherlock, tearing the delicate and complex machine into thousands of whirling, twisted pieces of junk. Now he had added yet another crime to his string of punishable acts on his record: willfully destroying a major piece of Alliance property. He wondered how many years that carried with it, and he felt an elation rise in him the likes of which he had not felt since he was a boy and had secretly violated one of the many rules his mother or father laid down for him.

The other two detection robots curved away to avoid the same fate, but he shouted for Proteus to track the one on the right and fire when on target. He was rewarded with a flash of green-blue light as the casing of the second Sherlock split and poured forth a long stream of mechanical guts.

He turned to look for the third of the devices, but he could not locate it. "Damn!" he snapped.

"It disappeared between the trunks of those trees, straight ahead," she said.

"Let's go. It'll have to follow us. Maybe, if we make it move, we'll get a look at it."

They struck out for the trees, moving as swiftly as the terrain and the weather permitted. Proteus floated ahead of them, watchful of the deep shadows through which they must pass. Now that the Sherlocks had been identified by Davis as enemies, the protection robot would be constantly alert until the third device had been demolished. It did not withdraw its projectile weapons barrel through its flawless shell but maintained it in firing position as it scanned the woods with all of its senses. It was more likely to have luck finding the Sherlock than it would have had finding a man under the same conditions, for the Alliance detection system would be radiating leaked power plus the traceable sensor emanations of its multiple tracking facilities. By the virtue of the very same instruments it used to keep touch of them, Proteus could keep its position known.

They entered the copse of trees and weaved between the smooth boles, following the path of some mountain deer herd which had passed this way and provided an easier thoroughfare than they had been used to in the last several hours.

"It only takes one of them, doesn't it?" Leah asked, marching along behind him, bent a little to accommodate the weight of the suitcase.

"What?" he asked, not looking back. There wasn't any time to look back now.

"One Sherlock. To let them know where we are."

"That's right."

"Then, no matter how fast we walk, no matter how far we go before they can get police on the mountain, they'll still have us pinpointed?"

"Proteus will find it and destroy it, eventually."

"But until he does, shouldn't we take one of these other trails that cross this one every once and a while? If we moved in the wrong direction, and we make a few thousand feet before Proteus can destroy the Sherlock, then they will be left with the wrong fix on us as their last bit of data. As soon as the Sherlock is finished, we backtrack, pick up this path again, and go the way we really want to go."

He stopped so suddenly that she almost walked into the back of him, and when he turned around, her face was nearly up against his chest. He kissed her nose, said, "How come you're smarter than me?"

"I'm not."

"You've proven it a couple of times now."

"It's just that you've never been in a war. You don't understand about things like this as well as I do. You'll learn." She said it with such sincerity that he was forced to laugh again, though the situation certainly did not merit mirth.

"There's a cross trail just ahead," he said. "Left or right?"

"Doesn't matter. Maybe right, since we'll be bearing just slightly to the left when we start down the other side of this mountain."

"Let's go," he said, leading the way, taking the right turn and striking off on the false trail. He just hoped Proteus would locate the Sherlock and destroy it in time to let them get back to the right trail and make some distance on it before the blue uniformed boys arrived.

Proteus's plasti-plasma gurgled.

It seemed an interminable time that they walked, though he knew it could not have been more than three or four minutes. But each step away from the trail they intended to regain seemed like a step into a swamp from which there was no egress — a swamp lined, beneath the brackish water, with quicksand. He even fantasized, for a moment, that the Sherlock might be quite aware of their plan and only leading them on long enough for the soldiers to arrive. But that was hogwash, for the Sherlock could not think, not even as much as Proteus. It was a densely packed shell of seeking equipment, nothing more. It was a game machine, a very clever one at that, but not a man.

Still, it would not show itself. At least, not visually. He wished there were some way he could know if Proteus had it spotted. He remembered having often pondered the simplicity of being a machine, of seeing the world in black and white, in quantities of good and bad without shades of gray in the middle. Now he realized a few other values in a machine's existence. There was no fear, no worry. No anxiety — and therefore no urgency. He wished there were some way to make Proteus aware of the value of these ticking seconds that slipped by them so terribly fast.

The projectile weapon made a whoofing noise as Proteus blasted at something almost directly ahead, through the trees. There was an explosion, light and smoke, then silence.

"He got it!" Leah cried.

"Let's see before we celebrate," he said, rushing forward to the spot where the projectile had struck. There, steaming in the snow, melting hollows in it, were dozens of chunks of the blue-husked Sherlock.

Leah dropped the suitcase and slapped her hands against her bulkily clothed hips, laughing much as he had seen the other Demosian girls laughing when they had been playing games with the mythical demons in the forest back at the Sanctuary. He was intrigued by the way these people could mix joy and humor with the direst of events, the manner in which they never lost track of the things that should be appreciated in life no matter how many tons of dross and ugliness those nuggets were buried under.

"Fast now," he urged, turning and pushing past her to lead the way back to the other trail. "They'll be here in moments if they've taken a chance of sending a copter up in this storm."

They gained the first herd path in two minutes, moving at a trot. When they got there, he insisted taking the suitcase from her was the wisest course, since — for a short period anyway — he could run faster with it than she could and, without it, she would be able to keep up. She did not argue this time, perfectly aware of the urgency involved and the truth of it. She was, just as she said, a good soldier. Had it been better for her to struggle with the luggage, she would have refused; but seeing the wisdom of his suggestion, she complied.

Time passed much too quickly for comfort.

There was no sound but the wind, the rattling of the branches overhead, and the squeak of their feet in the snow.

He estimated their remaining time before the arrival of the troops at a little more than five minutes. He tried counting seconds as they ran, but he lost track so often that he gave it up and concentrated on moving just a few feet per minute faster than they already were.

For a time, it seemed as if they were the only living beings in all the world, two figures in a landscape without purpose and without meaning. All other things were inanimate: cold, snow, sky, earth, stark trees, strangely stilled wind…