Stephen Leigh - Changeling

“Yes, but it’s the first.”

“It won’t be the last. I will show you ways to deal with them. This is our territory, not the WalkingStones’. They are driving away the game we live on and making this a barren place. Once the WalkingStones and their Hill of Stars are gone, the game will return and the kin can live as they please. We will take our territory back again.”

“You will show us how to kill them?”

“I will.”

KeenEye paused. She looked from the dead WalkingStone to SilverSide. “Then lead us, SilverSide,” KeenEye said in a rising shout and let out a glad cry in BeastTalk.

SilverSide took a strand of wires from the gutted Hunter. She quickly plaited another necklace from the colorful wire and knotted the bright coil around KeenEye’s neck. Carefully, she then did the same with each of them. “There;’ she said when it was done. “We wear the signs of our victory. Now, follow me. We must learn more about our enemy.”

SilverSide dropped to all fours. With a quick lope, she ran into the forest, moving westward toward the Hill of Stars.

Howling, the rest of the kin ran behind her.

“Katherine Ariel Burgess, you’re a fool.”

The image in the mirror didn’t seem inclined to answer the accusation. Ariel scowled at herself and slapped at the contact. The mirror dissolved in a shimmering crystalline haze and was replaced by a pastoral sunset scene. That only made her more angry, reminding her of the acrimonious morning a week ago.

She’d told herself that Derec would wait, that he’d still be there when she came back from her long walk. But he hadn’t waited.

When she’d finally cooled down and called the house in mid-afternoon, Balzac, the household robot, had informed her that Derec and Mandelbrot had left for the port several hours before. Ariel had called the port, wondering what she’d say if he was still there, rehearsing the lines in her mind.

I ’ ve changed my mind, Derec. I want to go with you.

But he’d already gone, and she had no idea where it was he was heading.

Ariel didn’t know whether that made her angry or sad or both at the same time. She simply felt confused. The intervening days hadn’t made things any better. Sleeping alone each night was too vivid a reminder.

She came out of the personal, wandering aimlessly through rooms that now seemed far too large and empty. She stared out the windows, fiddled with the reader, flicked on the holovid and as quickly turned if off again.

With a start, she noticed that the computer terminal was blinking. Feeling a sudden surge of hope, she started to press the access key. Stopped.

“Balzac?” she called.

The robot trundled from its wall niche in the next room. “Mistress?” it said in a flat, mechanical voice. Balzac was a utility model, unsophisticated and plain.

“The message on the terminal. Why didn’t you answer the call?”

“I monitored the message, but it was for Derec and did not demand a reply.”

“Who was it from?”

“ ‘Who’ is imprecise in this case. The message was a faint relay from a central computer system.”

Ariel’s lips pressed together. She inhaled slowly, thinking. “Thank you, Balzac. That’s all I require.”

The robot nodded and left the room. Ariel waited until it was gone and the house was silent again, then spoke her codeword to the terminal: “Euler”-the name of one of the supervisor robots on Robot City. Nothing happened. She wrinkled her nose.

She knew Derec’s code word as well; he’d made no attempt to keep it a secret from her. “Aranimas,” she said.

A foil screen scrolled open; glowing letters flickered across it as Ariel leaned closer. The message was short and succinct:

CITY UNDER ATTACK BY NON-HUMANS. IMPERATIVE WE RECEIVE OUTSIDE AID.

The message was followed by a sequence of coordinate numbers for the location. Ariel smiled. “Okay, Derec,” she said to the screen. “If the mountain has run away from Mohammed, Mohammed will chase it. Won’t you be surprised when I show up?”

She turned away from the computer, suddenly excited. This would serve him right. “Balzac!” she called. “I need you to make some arrangements.”

“Mandelbrot, the Robot City has to be somewhere on that large continent there-see where the two rivers meet in the forested area? The computer says that’s where the last message was ‘waved from.”

Mandelbrot, at the controls of their craft, punched in coordinates. “Have you been able to get the city’s central computer to respond?”

“No,” Derec admitted glumly. “Either I’m not doing something right or the chemfets only give me access to the original Robot City’s computer. Before, all I had to do was think a message and it went through. This Central won’t talk to me or the original Robot City’s computer. It’s just beaming out the distress call at regular intervals.”

“Then it must be expecting someone to answer; otherwise, why signal at all?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. I haven’t figured it out yet. I’m just as puzzled as you are.”

Derec watched the long curve of the world flatten as they approached. It was a pretty world, he decided. He might have chosen it himself. It seemed a calm and gentle place, much like Aurora, though he could see the spiraling arms of a storm just touching the eastern shores of the continent below, and he knew that underneath the pastel blue-white would be dark, streaking clouds and raging winds.

Untamed, this world was. Which was very unlike Aurora.

And very much like Ariel.

The thought crossed his mind, unbidden. She’d not sent any messages to him after she’d stormed out of the house; in fact, she’d disappeared entirely. He’d made calls to a few places trying to find her before they’d left, but to no avail. She seemed to have dropped from sight. It had been very hard to leave without saying goodbye. And because he knew that was exactly the effect she’d been after, he’d gone.

He’d begun to wonder if she’d be there when he came back. There was a sullen ache in him at the image of an empty house. It was going to hurt. It was going to hurt more than he wanted to think about.

To take his mind off Ariel, he reached in front of Mandelbrot and toggled a switch to bring the world into closer focus. Unbroken treetops swayed in a light wind.

“I don’t see any evidence of a city,” he said. “If we weren’t looking specifically for it because of the signal, I’d swear this place was barren of any technology. It has to be there, though. If so, it sure hasn’t spread out as much as the original. Have you seen any evidence of other life, Mandelbrot?”

“No, Derec. The nightside umbra shows no obvious large habitations, which would be lighted, I would think-though we haven’t seen this continent at night yet. The atmospheric sampling does indicate a small amount of industrial waste, which is very likely the result of your city. You remember the effect the other one had on its environment. “

Derec did. The massive, out-of-control building spree of the first Robot City had resulted in immense ecological side effects. The horrendous deluges that daily inundated the city had nearly killed both him and Ariel until he’ d reprogrammed the central computer. “Yes, I remember,” he said. “I hope this one keeps a better handle on things. Take us down. Let’s see what’s going on.”

“Derec, I advise against landing in the city itself. Assuming we can even find it.”

“Why not, Mandelbrot?”

The robot’s eyes gleamed as it turned to him. “We do not know what kind of attack this city is facing,” he said. “I have checked for other ships in orbit and found nothing, but I am still concerned that a city under attack will have defenses against ships. You cannot communicate with the central computer. Given that, I would be afraid that it might deem an unidentified ship an enemy and take measures to protect itself.”