William Wu - Emperor

Obviously, Hunter’s pursuit would become obvious if he simply cantered up behind them, since even Wayne would hear that. Hunter could, however, draw closer slowly. When he heard the first faint sounds of hoofbeats up ahead, he could pace them at a distance until he formed a specific plan.

If Ishihara’s hearing equaled his own, however, then Ishihara might hear Hunter’s horses at the same time. The question of stealth might in fact turn on uncontrollable variables, such as the direction of the wind or the echo pattern off the surrounding slopes. He would have to remain aware of those as he continued on his way.

Now that he had identified the tracks, however, he did not have to study each hoofprint carefully. He could see the trail plainly enough. Instead, he turned his attention to the condition of his mount. The tired animal kept slowing down, and had to be prodded forward.

Aftermore than a mile, the tracks of his quarry still followed the road. Hunter had expected more effort at evasion, but postulated that Ishihara, under the First Law, could not take the risk of allowing the humans to flee through the mountains in the darkness. Another possibility was that Wayne had simply decided to forget about evasion. He might be taking his companions as far as they could go straight down the road before their mounts wore out.

Hunter still expected that the two mounts ahead of him would tire more quickly than his own. All of them had traveled a long way earlier in the day, but the mounts ahead of him were, by his calculation, carrying two riders each; one was merely a donkey, whose short legs had to take many more strides to keep up with the horse. Maybe they were gambling that Hunter’s substantial weight would tire his horse first, instead.

He considered that possibility unlikely, but the burden on his horse was real. To minimize it, he moved to Jane’s mount in order to rest his own. Wayne did not have that option.

In the lobby the innkeeper gave Steve a small brass oil lamp before sleepily returning to bed. Leading Marcia upstairs, Steve was relieved to find the corridor quiet. He turned to Marcia to say good night. She stopped at the door to her room, looking at him uncertainly in the shifting light.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked quietly. “Everybody else here is asleep. We’ll be okay.”

“I know,” she said softly. “But…”

“What?” He could see that her arrogance had vanished. “What is it?”

“I was thinking about your other missions. Were they like this?”

“Like this? What do you mean?”

“Well, how dangerous were they? When you talk about buccaneers and dinosaurs and everything else, were you really in serious danger?”

“Yes. We were.”

“I don’t think the risk became real to me until Hunter was kidnapped.”

Steve nodded. “I know. All of you who live in cities in our own time have robots around you constantly.”

“Yes. I never even thought about it before because I was so used to it.”

“I think we’re in less danger now than usual. Hunter is between us and Wayne and Ishihara.” He gestured toward the rooms around them, “We should keep quiet and just go to sleep, so we don’t wake up the kidnappers.”

Marcia nodded and opened the door to her room. “Of course. Sorry.”

“Make sure you bar the door behind you,” he added. “Light your candle with this.” He carefully handed her the brass lamp and waited while she took it into her room. A moment later, she brought it back out, silhouetted by the candle flame flickering behind her on a small table.

“Good night.” She yawned again and went into her room, closing the door behind her.

Steve waited in the hall until he heard her slide the bar into place. Then he went into his own room and did the same. In a few minutes, he was sound asleep.

As the hours passed, Hunter could feel Jane’s mount tiring. Both horses walked more slowly. He changed mounts again, but his horse now had to be kicked more often to keep up the pace. The moon was about to set. His magnified vision revealed that the tracks ahead of him remained on the road. However, his hearing no longer detected the sound of hoofbeats ahead.

This puzzled him. Considering the amount of weight the mounts ahead of him had to carry, he had expected that he would either have drawn close enough to hear them by now, or else he would have seen the tracks leave the road for the forested hills. Since Hunter had already concluded that Ishihara would not take that risk at night, he was not surprised to see the tracks continue on the road, but he had apparently missed something.

Hunter reined in and dismounted. He kneeled to examine the tracks. Even his magnified vision needed help now that the moonlight had faded.

Carefully, he studied the depth of the tracks and then compared them to those of his own horses. He also saw that the hoofprints his own mount made now, shuffling wearily on the road, were much shallower than the ones just a few feet back, when Hunter had still been in the saddle. Suddenly he realized that the horse and donkey in front of him were no longer carrying the amount of weight they had been when he had begun tracking them. From the saddle, in the waning light, the difference in the appearance of the hoofprints had been too slight for him to see, but it was clear now.

Somehow, those he was following had dismounted and left the road without leaving footprints. Hunter had been fooled, most likely by Ishihara lifting Wayne and Jane directly from their mounts into the trees. He had also miscalculated Ishihara’s interpretation of the danger that the forested hills would offer to his human companions at night.

That triggered his own First Law concern. If Ishihara’s judgment was questionable, then Hunter could not conclude that the humans with him were safe, as he had believed to this point. He hoped they were hiding in one spot, maybe for the humans to rest. That would be less dangerous than hiking through the mountains.

Hunter concluded that Xiao Li was probably riding the horse now and leading the donkey. His weight was slight enough not to alter these hoofprints significantly. Certainly the tired animals would not have continued down the road all night on their own. At least one rider had to be urging them forward.

Now Hunter had to decide how to investigate all these surmises. He had two essential problems: the near-exhaustion of both his horses and the deepening darkness. Both problems could be improved by waiting several hours.

Once his horses had rested, even for a short time, they would move a little faster. Daylight would allow him to follow tracks even in the forest. Now that Wayne, Ishihara, and Jane were on foot, he would have the advantage.

Hunter hobbled his horses and sat down by the side of the road to conserve his energy and wait for dawn.

Jane waited in the forest with Wayne and Ishihara. Neither of them insisted on holding her every moment. All three of them knew that she could not outrun Ishihara, so she did not bother trying.

A short time earlier, at Wayne’s suggestion, Ishihara had lifted Wayne and Jane from their mounts to sturdy branches of trees near the road. Then he had followed them. Once they had all jumped to the ground on the far side of the trees, in the darkness away from the road, they waited for Wayne to decide what to do next.

Meanwhile, Xiao Li had ridden on down the road with their mounts. Ishihara had allowed this because he knew that Hunter would not harm the boy. Since Xiao Li had followed them up here on his own, Ishihara felt he would be safe on this road a little longer.

“We can’t fool Hunter for long,” Wayne said. His voice was strained and anxious.

“What do you suggest?” Ishihara asked.