Chapter 14. The Agricultural Park

Twilight had fallen on the mountain pass by the time Derec plodded after Jeff and Ariel to its far side. They waited for him to catch up and he leaned an arm across Ariel’s shoulders when he arrived. Together, the three of them looked out over the green valley below.

The valley was divided into many different fields, all of them tended by function robots. The hoes were easily identified, even at this great distance. There were others moving about, some clipping and spraying. The lower slopes leading into the valley were terraced and cultivated, also.

“This has to be the place,” said Derec. “Robots just don’t need this stuff.”

“I agree,” said Jeff. “This is Avery’s grocery store. Or at least, his produce market. If he has livestock, they must be somewhere else.”

“They would require different care and processing. “ Derec nodded. “And these robots are too efficient to put this here and Avery a thousand kilometers away. I’m betting he’s in the neighborhood, someplace.”

“And we made it,” said Ariel. “This far, anyway.”

“We couldn’t help leaving a few footprints here and there,” said Jeff. “And those Hunter robots may have sensors I can’t even imagine. They don’t have to stop for the night, either.”

“They’ll spot all kinds of details we left behind,” said Derec. “Broken branches and things like that. As much as I hate to say this…we’d better move on.”

“Some of them probably went to the other pass,” Ariel pointed out. “There won’t be as many behind us.”

“That pass leads to this valley, too,” said Jeff. “We might just meet them coming the other way.”

Ariel shook her head. “You’re so optimistic. Come on.”

They started down the slope and soon entered the cultivated rows of some plant that none of them could identify. It grew in a straight stalk with stiff, narrow leaves angling sharply upward, roughly three meters high. The stalks were planted close together, forcing them to walk in single file between the rows.

Jeff looked back over his shoulder nervously. “We’re leaving a track even I could follow. Look down.”

Derec looked. The soil was freshly turned and damp. Their footprints were clear and deep. “These robots must hoe and water constantly.”

“It hasn’t gotten any darker,” said Ariel. She looked up at the sky. “It should have by now.”

“Lights must have come on,” Derec said. “I can’t tell from where, though. The function robots here may need some to work at night. Or else this is growth light of some kind for the crops.”

Jeff was pushing experimentally between two stalks in one of the rows. “Come on. We can squeeze between these. We have to break up our trail a little.”

The others followed him through. The next row was identical to the previous one as far as Derec could see. They walked down it for a while, then found another spot where they could push through into the next row down into the valley.

“Up there,” said Derec, pointing. “We have to catch it. Come on!”

Some distance ahead, a function robot was moving away from them at a moderate speed. The body of this robot was roughly a cube two meters on a side. It seemed to advance on a bed of vertical spikes that chewed into the ground as it walked forward, thereby hoeing the soil it covered. At intervals, it stopped and sent tentacles out to each side that stabbed into the earth in the rows of crops and pulled out small plants into its own body.

Jeff ran for it. As Ariel tried to help Derec along, he glanced at the rows of crops as they passed. Apparently that stabbing motion cut the roots of unwanted plants that had grown up between the desired crops. The weeds were drawn into the function robot, ground up, and deposited through the bottom to be left behind as instant compost. He could see the tiny bits here and there in the soil now that he was looking.

“I got it but I don’t see any way to stop it,” Jeff called. He was now sitting on the body of the hoer, facing backward.

“Stupid thing,” said Ariel. “I wish it had a positronic brain so we could order it around.”

“No,” said Derec, struggling after her. “It could also report to the Hunters, in that case.”

The hoer would not wait for them, but every time it stopped to weed they gained on it a little. At last they were able to climb on board with Jeff, where they sat awkwardly on its crowded top.

“Now we just need some luck,” said Jeff. “If this thing stays out of the sight of the Hunters until it takes a few turns here and there, they won’t be able to track us easily after all. All the rows have the same appearance after these things go through them.”

“I can use the rest,” said Derec. “But we have to figure out where Avery is while we can. I didn’t see any buildings in this valley when we came in.”

“I didn’t either,” said Jeff, shaking his head.

“Then what else do you remember?” Ariel asked. “From your father? Anything.”

“I thought about it while we were climbing up the mountain,” said Jeff. “But I didn’t have breath to talk. You remember how I told you that Avery wanted to know about cultures that could endure?”

Ariel nodded. Derec was alert but too tired to respond.

“My father told him that two groups exist even now, in space, that are descended in a straight line from ancient Earth. Both of them have continued to evolve in Spacer communities, but their longevity really got Avery’s attention.”

“What were they?” Ariel asked.

“One is the Spacer minority culture descended from China through a couple of migrations on Earth. The other is the Spacer Jewish communities.”

“What did he want to know about them?” Ariel made a face. “I don’t see how this is going to help us find him here.”

Jeff shrugged. “I do recall that he didn’t care about their details. My father tried to tell him that both these cultures had continued to evolve in space. He even said that in many ways they were totally unrecognizable from their ancestral Earth cultures. But all Avery wanted to know was how they had survived as specific entities.”

That was consistent, Derec thought to himself. The guy only cared about his own project and what he could do to improve it.

“He was looking for clues for Robot City,” Ariel said. “To make it endure across the centuries. That’s what he was researching with Professor Leong. He needed to program cultural values into the city. But we haven’t really seen very much of that.”

Derec forced himself to speak. “I’m sure that he reprogrammed the city while we were on Earth. I think after the incidents surrounding the performance of Hamlet, the robot creativity scared him. He couldn’t have his robots committing crimes against each other.”

“The arts aren’t the only part of culture,” said Jeff.

“What do you mean?” Ariel asked.

Derec shifted slightly so that he could hear Jeff better. The hoer moved right along, still hoeing and weeding. The sky above them now looked dark, but a soft glow of light from somewhere illuminated the rows of crops.

“My father gave Avery two reasons for the cultural survival of those groups while they were on Earth. One is that the original cultures had very strong family units that passed values on. The other is that, outside of their native countries, both groups on Earth experienced limited assimilation as minorities and often faced prejudice from the majority culture.”

“But only on Earth?” Ariel said.

“That’s right. Modem Spacer families aren’t personally close the way families used to be, I guess. And now the ethnicities are from one planet to another, or Spacer versus Earth.”

“My mother didn’t like Solarians,” said Ariel. “They program their robots funny or something.” She smiled. “She told me a joke once that went-”

“How could Avery have used that information?” Derec asked firmly, stopping her with a hand on her arm.