“Computer,” he said. “Review landing sites. Skip the ones on the beach. They’ll be guarded.”

“LANDING SITES COMING ON SCREEN.”

“Which one is the closest to the crops now?”

“IT IS MARKED IN BLUE.”

“Can you describe it?”

“IT IS A MAIN THOROUGHFARE IN THIS PART OF THE CITY, STRAIGHT AND OF SUFFICIENT SIZE FOR A SAFE LANDING. THE SHIP WILL HALT APPROXIMATELY 6.4 KILOMETERS FROM THE AGRICULTURAL FIELD.”

“What are the chances that Hunters will be waiting for us when we get there?”

“UNKNOWN, BUT VERY HIGH. THEY ARE CERTAINLY IN THE AREA AND WILL SEE AND HEAR THE SHIP ON ITS FINAL APPROACH. IF THEY ARE NOT WAITING, THEY WILL CONVERGE QUICKLY.”

“Faster than last time?”

“DEFINITELY.”

Jeff looked at Ariel again. She hadn’t moved. Behind them, Derec seemed to be asleep. Neither of them would run very far.

Chapter 13. Into The Mountains

Wolruf had been trotting up and down the blocks, growing more frantic in her search for a moving vehicle of some kind. Inside the buildings, most machinery ran smoothly without even the presence of function robots. Finally she spotted a small wheeled function robot rolling at a good clip along a side street.

She took off at a dead run for it. Oblivious to her, it turned a corner and disappeared from sight. By the time she got there, it had gained more distance on her and was angling across a wide street. None of the slidewalks would take her that way.

She was slowing down, about to give up, when it abruptly changed direction toward a doorway. The door opened automatically, timed so that the function robot did not have to slow down at all. She forced herself to hurry on.

Wolruf was not in particularly good condition. Since joining Derec, she had been starved on several occasions, overfed on others, injured, and-like all of them except Mandelbrot-sometimes overworked and stressed to her limit. She was now basically healthy, but she had not had exercise like this for a long time.

Then she saw the function robot emerge from the doorway and zip across the boulevard again. It mounted a slidewalk this time and actually came back toward her. Panting heavily, she turned and ran for the slidewalk, angling toward a likely intersection point with it as it rolled along the moving slidewalk.

She got a better look at it as she converged on it. It was only about a meter square and two meters high. The wheels, as she had first identified them, proved to be a bed of spheres that gave it the capacity to alter direction without turning its body.

The body of the little robot was smooth and featureless. Wolruf had no chance of catching it if it passed her again, considering how exhausted she was. As she closed with it, she leaped, scrabbled for a hold, and managed to hang on.

The robot immediately slowed down. It did not stop, however, so she clung to its body and rode. At least her body heat had left the stationary surfaces on the ground. Now she had to catch her breath and hope this thing didn’t carry her right into the view of a Hunter.

She realized that she had no idea what this was programmed to do. From its size and what she had seen, she guessed it was a courier of some sort, perhaps for small parts and tools. That might account for its slowing down in response to her weight, but not otherwise reacting. Right now, though, it was taking her away from the mountains that she desperately wanted to enter.

Suddenly it moved onto the stationary shoulder, slowed down, and came to a halt. She looked around, puzzled, and saw nothing. Then it started across the street.

She raised up and looked off to her side, which was now the way they were going. A large Hunter robot was striding down another slidewalk toward them. When it had seen her, it had obviously instructed the function robot to move toward it.

Wolruf jumped off the function robot and ran the other way, turning the first corner she reached. A slidewalk here would carry her in the direction she wanted, so she mounted it and went into a trot. At the next corner, she jumped off and turned another corner. The Hunter could move faster than she could, and she was tiring rapidly even after her brief rest riding the courier, or whatever that thing had been.

She had only moments left to think of something.

With no other recourse, she headed straight for the mountains, only a few blocks away. Another slidewalk would help, though of course the Hunter could ride it, too. As the boulevard bordering the foothills came into view, she looked behind her.

The Hunter was in full view and running down the moving slidewalk toward her.

She glanced quickly in both directions as she crossed the boulevard. The street was empty as far as she could see on both sides. Then she was across it, darting among the trunks of tall trees.

She climbed the slope as fast as she could, ducking under branches and dodging bushes. The forest showed signs of the careful Robot City planning: The types of trees and bushes varied with a certain regularity, as did their sizes. Planting had been done with the long view in mind, both of harvesting and of soil usage.

As she bent low to pass under the arching branches of a large bush shaped something like a simple water fountain, she realized that she just might gain some ground here. Her size was a considerable advantage in the close maze of growth. As far as she had seen, the Hunters were uniformly among the tallest and bulkiest of the humanoid robots.

If only she could gain enough time to rest.

Derec awakened in the berth, at first puzzled by his surroundings. Then he remembered, vaguely, that Jeff and Ariel had somehow reclined his seat into an entirely flat position so that he could rest more comfortably. He lay quietly for a while, staring at the ceiling.

Thankfully, he had not experienced any of those wild dreams in some time. Their weirdness was frightening. Yet he felt worn out, even after sleeping.

Maybe he had been having those nightmares and not remembering them. The chemfets were growing inside him like an organic parasite. Their symptoms also evolved, like those of a disease. Not having those dreams, or at least not remembering them, was yet another sign of how far beyond the early stages his condition had advanced.

He reached over to one of the screens and sent it back up into the ceiling. When he rose up on one shoulder to look around, he saw the silhouettes of Jeff and Ariel in the front of the ship. They were turning around at the sound of the wall screens moving.

“Derec?” Ariel said softly. “How are you feeling?”

He cleared his throat and swung his legs over the side of the bed, hiding the pains in all his muscles.

“Derec?” She repeated, moving to him.

“A little better,” said Derec. He started to stand, then decided not to take the risk of falling.

“I had one of my…memory fugues again.”

“Really? How bad was it?” He looked up at her in surprise. “You haven’t had one for some time.”

“I don’t know how bad it was.”

“What?”

“Jeff told me I was just staring at nothing. And I don’t remember it at all.”

“Maybe you phased back to the time before I had your new memory developing again. Right into that empty period. Anyhow, it’s over.” He sighed. “As for me, my symptoms have been…changing.”

She looked at him without speaking.

Derec knew she understood that meant he was getting worse.

“We have to land,” said Jeff, joining them. “I can’t do anything for either one of you if…if something happens again.”

“Then you’ve heard from Mandelbrot?” Derec asked.

“No. We haven’t. But our fuel is running low.”

“All we’re using here is enough for life support,” said Ariel.

“And for evasive changes in direction. Landing and takeoff will also use a lot.” Derec nodded. “All right. Do you have any plan of action?”