“Hunter,” Jane said quietly. “Tell me under the Second Law. You’re having a First Law problem over Rita’s disappearance, aren’t you?”

“Affirmative,” said Hunter.

“I instruct you to discuss it with us. Why is this worse now than it was late last night?”

“You know my inattention has allowed Rita to leave the safety of my protection. By now, she may have come to harm. As you slept, I reviewed my data about Port Royal and the buccaneer society. The chance of her having come to harm last night is very high.”

“I understand,” said Jane. “Now listen carefully to your roboticist.”

“Yes?”

“You are still dealing only in probabilities. Rita may still be perfectly well, but in potential danger. She, and we, need you at peak efficiency.”

“I am clearly not at peak efficiency. If I had been last night, I would have not have lost her.”

“I dispute that judgment. None of us had any reason to think she would slip away from us of her own accord.”

“You humans are not obligated by the First Law to look after her.”

“Your misjudgment of her behavior is not in and of itself a First Law Failure.”

“It led to one. After all, the First Law says in part that a robot may not allow a human to come to harm through inaction. It makes no exception for errors of judgment.”

“Nor does it blame you for what may be happening. Until and unless you know that Rita has been harmed, you don’t know that you have broken the First Law.”

“Come on, Hunter,” Steve interrupted with forced cheer. “Enough talk. Let’s find Rita.”

“All right.” Hunter still sounded uncertain, but he led them away from the booth. “We shall walk around some more. I have continued sending out a radio signal to her communicator, but she has not responded.”

Jane caught Steve’s eye and smiled. Sometimes his pragmatic suggestions were worth more to Hunter than all of her theoretical arguments combined. Steve fell into step with her behind Hunter.

They found the waterfront changed. Instead of the wild, carousing buccaneers, Jane saw the ordinary people who kept the town functioning. Small fishing boats swayed on the waves out at sea; shopkeepers were just hanging out their wares. In fact, a few of the earliest fishing boats were already returning to the docks with their morning catch.

“Great climate, huh?” Steve spread his arms expansively. “Light breeze, blue water, tropical flowers everywhere. I never see anything like this in the Mojave Desert.”

“It’s beautiful here,” Jane agreed. She was still watching Hunter, but he now seemed to be acting almost normally as he looked at and listened to their surroundings.

“Pretty carefree life-style around here, isn’t it?” Steve nodded toward a woman chasing a couple of barefoot toddlers around a fruit stand.

“Yes, it is,” Jane said, amused at thescene.

“Hey, not you, too. Come on. You can still enjoy the climate while we look for Rita.”

“I have to admit, I’m worried about her. This is a pirate town, after all.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, me, too. But do you have any ideas about how to find her?”

“No, not really.”

They continued to search for another hour without success. Even when the buccaneers who had been carousing the night before stumbled out to start their day, they were hung over. None of them were especially belligerent, but Hunter couldn’t find anyone who could tell them where to find Roland.

“I have a suggestion,” Steve said finally. “If it won’t upset your First Law.”

“Yes?” Hunter stopped to look at him.

“We really should split up and look through more of the town than the waterfront.”

“I cannot risk-”

“Separating from either of us, I know,” said Steve quickly. “Look, we aren’t going to run out on you. And now we each have communicators. Jane and I will go together; if we run into any kind of problem, at least one of us can call you.”

“I’ll stay with Hunter,” said Jane. “In case we have to discuss the First Law more.”

“Then I’ll be fine alone,” said Steve.

“Very well,” said Hunter. “You will be careful?”

“Promise,” said Steve.

7

As Steve jauntily marched away down a side street, Jane watched Hunter carefully.

“Hunter,” said Jane. “This question of your efficiency under the First Law came up during our last mission. I know that a clear, serious failure to obey the First Law can force a positronic robot to shut down. How close are you to making that decision?”

“I am not approaching that point yet.”

“For the same reason you functioned through this doubt last time, as well?”

“Yes. My responsibility to take care of you and Steve forces me to continue functioning longer than I might in our own time, where you could better take care of yourselves or find another robot to help you.”

“Good,” said Jane. “You’re right; we need you and so does the larger mission to find MC 2. Please focus on the fact that we have no one to take your place.”

“Agreed,” said Hunter.

Rita woke up with a surge of excitement at the first hints of dawn shining through the cracks around the closed wooden window. She dressed quickly and unbarred the door. Pausing to take a deep breath, she walked downstairs.

“Good morning, sweet lady,” said Roland, waving to her. He got up from the chair in which he had apparently been waiting for her. “I shall take you to breakfast.”

“I, urn, need a water pump to wash up and the private facilities.”

“Outside in the back,” said the tavernkeeper, who was wiping the bar.

When Rita had freshened up the best she could, she joined Roland again.

“I shall take you to the best stall in town,” said Roland, turning to the left. “It’s away from the waterfront about a block. On the docks, these drunken louts don’t always care what they eat.”

Rita laughed and walked with him. She liked looking around at the sights, enjoying the feeling that she was a part of the seventeenth century. Roland couldn’t tell just how much of a stranger she was to Port Royal; that was the best compliment to her expertise she had ever received.

Hunter could certainly find MC 2 without her; she had given them a lot of basic information about Port Royal’s history and culture already. She told herself that Hunter and his party didn’t really need her. Right now, she wouldn’t even mind if they went home without her.

After all, Hunter was the one who believed that almost any small action could change all of human history in the future. That sounded crazy to her, at least in this case. Suppose she spent the rest of her life in Jamaica. All she would have to do was be careful and stay out of Port Royal in 1692, when the big earthquake would drown the town forever. That would happen in twenty-four years. Certainly she wouldn’t ever do anything that would change history.

“Here we are,” Roland said cheerily, gesturing at a crowded open-air stall. “Buns, sweet cakes, meat pastries, dried fish, fresh fish, and fresh fruit. What is your pleasure?”

“Uh…I’m not sure. You know this place. Get me the best they have.”

“As you wish, of course. Are you a little hungry, or very hungry, or somewhere in between?”

“I’m very hungry.”

“Ah! I’m glad.”

Roland ordered two of nearly everything and carried it all on a couple of wide, green leaves to a plank table and bench. As Rita sat down, he went back to the proprietor and returned with two mugs of some kind of herbal tea. She bit carefully into one of the buns and found it quite good.

Rita ate quickly, being too hungry to indulge in conversation. Roland watched her with interest, pushing one item after another toward her. The dried fish was very salty, of course, as was the meat in the meat pastry. On the other hand, the bananas were exactly the same as in her own time, though a little more bruised.