Emperor

5

Out on the street, Hunter found shops already open. The aroma of various foods cooking reached him. People filled the street, walking among pony carts and pushcarts.

Steve fell into step next to Hunter. “This is a regular city, isn’t it? On an ordinary day. Where would MC 5 go around here to find clothes?”

“As always, I have only approximated the time when he will return to his full size,” said Hunter. “I believe yesterday was the earliest; he may not appear for another day or two. I suppose, like the other component robots, he will have to steal clothing when he first arrives, either from someone’s trash or maybe from a line of laundry hung up to dry in the sunlight.”

A line of people waited at the stall where Steve had asked for information the night before. Long wooden tables and benches had been placed out in front. Hunter could see a big pot of rice gruel simmering over an open fire burning in a brick hearth. Customers bought bowls of the gruel and small plates of pork and chicken strips and fresh vegetables to stir into it.

Hunter and Steve took places in line and bought three breakfasts. Atthe same time, Marcia and Jane sat down at one of the tables and reserved seats for them. While the humans ate, Hunter patiently observed their surroundings.

Most of the people Hunter could see were Chinese, either tending small shops, pushing vending carts, or walking briskly. They wore light, pajamalike loose jackets and trousers. A smaller number, dressed in embroidered silk gowns, were clearly more wealthy. A very few people he could see, however, were not Chinese at all, though they were wearing Chinese gowns.

“Marcia, of what origin are the two men walking toward us on the far side of the street?” Hunter asked. “In our own time, I would guess they were from the Middle East.”

She looked up from her bowl. “That’s a good guess. In this era, I’d say they are Central Asian Turks. Starting a couple of centuries ago, several waves of migrating Turks moved westward from Central Asia into the Middle East, which is one reason that many people of this appearance live there in our own time. The Mongol conquest of the entire region has facilitated travel in all directions and, as I said, Kublai Khan has hired many foreigners to work in his government. In fact, these Turks probably arrived by the Old Silk Road, just as the Polo family~”

“That’s interesting,” Steve said quickly. “But what about them?” He pointed to two men of East Asian ancestry whose gowns were similar to their own, but whose hair was tightly drawn up into a knot on top of their heads. “Nobody else has that hairstyle.”

“They’re Koreans,” said Marcia. “Korea has long been a part of the Mongol empire by this year.”

“I think I see some Arabs,” said Jane. “They’re right across the street.”

“Yes, that’s right,” said Marcia. “The Arabs conquered the Turks some centuries ago and introduced them to Islam. They had some reason to regret it; some of the Turks revolted and overthrew them all the way back to Palestine.”

“I’m glad no one’s fighting here,” said Jane. “I guess Kublai Khan pacified them all, huh?”

“For the time being.” Marcia nodded. “But in only a few hundred years-”

“Hunter,” Steve said earnestly, interrupting her again. “What are we going to do after breakfast? To find MC 5, I mean? What’s our plan of action?”

“This is a good place to begin,” said Hunter. “We will start today by becoming familiar with the neighborhood and simply looking for MC 5.”

“No reason to stop with that,” said Steve. “We can also ask around-maybe offer a small reward to people for giving us a lead on him.”

“Marcia, will that be acceptable in this society?” Hunter asked.

“Yes, it will.”

“Good,” said Steve. “And I guess, based on past experience, we have to keep an eye out for Wayne Nystrom and Ishihara, too. Maybe we should offer a reward for them.”

“I agree,” said Hunter.

“They haven’t stopped you before,” said Marcia.

“They have come close,” said Hunter. “We must remain alert for them.”

The night before, Wayne and Ishihara had shared a modest dinner of white rice and steamed fish in the village. They had slept on pallets in a bedroom in one of the small houses. Though modest, the room was clearly a place of honor; Wayne noticed that the elderly man and his slight, stooped, gray-haired wife vacated it for them and went out to sleep in the main room with seven other people who seemed, by their mutual resemblance, to represent two more generations of the same family. Unable to communicate, Wayne could not protest. In any case, he wanted to maintain the pose that he and Ishihara were good spirits, and he was sure the peasants assumed good spirits would expect hospitality of this sort.

Wayne had fallen asleep quickly, and had slept soundly. When he finally awoke to the sound of roosters crowing outside and people speaking in the main room of the house, he felt well rested but hungry again.

He found Ishihara sitting against the closed door of the room, watching him.

“Morning,” Wayne said quietly. “Did you observe anything interesting during the night?”

“No. However, I can announce some minimal progress in learning the local language.”

“Really? How?”

“During the night, I have repeatedly reviewed my memory of all our contact with the villagers to this point. At the time we first met them, the First Law required that I focus my attention entirely on the potential danger to you. After I was satisfied that you were safe, I began reviewing the gestures and conversation of the villagers; also, of course, I was able to observe more of their conversation and gestures during dinner last night. When they rose early this morning, I was able to hear some of their speech through the door of our room.”

“Wait a minute. I’m no linguist. What’s the point of studying their gestures?”

“It was the only way I could begin to pick up vocabulary. For instance, every time someone passed or received a bowl of rice, the wordfan was used in conversation.”

“So you’re sure it meansrice? What if it means,hungry, ormore of the same? ”

“You have identified the problem exactly,” said Ishihara. “Right now, I am making educated guesses. However, I will begin speaking some of these words and see how our hosts respond. I gave you only one example.”

“What else?” Wayne got up and began getting dressed. “More vocabulary?”

“More than that. The basic sentence structure has some similarities to English. The simple declarative sentence goes, subject, verb, object, in that order. When they ask questions, the tone goes up at the end, the same as in English. But the vocabulary is tonal; the lilt you give to each word separates it from what in English would be homophones.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll take your word for it. But you think you can learn it?”

“Gradually, I will develop some ability to speak with them, yes.”

Wayne finished dressing. “Well, I guess it’s time for breakfast. Let’s go out and try it. And let’s see if we can get some local clothes this time.”

“Yes, I agree we should do that.”

When they opened the door and entered the main room, Wayne saw that it was crowded with people. Everyone who lived in the house turned to look at them, as did as many of their neighbors who could jam inside. Everyone fell silent.

The elderly woman spoke up, pointing to the big pot of rice gruel simmering over the fire.

“Fan,”said Ishihara, with a casual nod.

One of the younger women picked up a wooden bowl and ladled gruel into it. Another woman spoke quickly to several children, who got up and made room at the hearth. Wayne and Ishihara accepted their bowls and sat down.

Wayne ate in silence, but occasionally he met someone’s eyes and smiled slightly. Ishihara, however, attempted to make casual conversation. Wayne knew that Ishihara’s ability to learn the language far outstripped his, so he did not try to participate.

He watched with amusement, however, as Ishihara pointed to different people and objects around the room, apparently learning vocabulary. Their hosts were eager teachers, especially the children. Everyone smiled with approval at Ishihara’s successful efforts to communicate.

By the time Wayne had finished his second bowl of bland gruel, Ishihara was speaking and gesturing, frequently pointing upward. The villagers nodded with guileless wonder as they looked again at both their guests. Finally the conversation came to a pause.

“What did you say?” Wayne asked quietly.

Their hosts turned to him, fascinated by hearing him speak his strange language again.

“I have made some progress, I believe,” said Ishihara. “They are more convinced than ever that we have fallen from the sky as spirits.‘Guei’ appears to mean an evil spirit, maybe an equivalent to a demon or devil. They do seem convinced that we are notguei. By the way, all the nouns seem to be collective, without a plural. You may need to pick up a few phrases.”

“You seem to be learning the language without much trouble,” said Wayne.

“The first stage is the most difficult,” said Ishihara. “As I hear more words and more varied sentence structures, my learning curve will rise sharply. Right now I am most effective when discussing physical objects, such as requesting more rice gruel. Concepts such as spirits and demons still make uncertain communication.”

The villagers watched them without speaking.

“I want to follow up the idea we had last time-of stopping Hunter and his team first,” said Wayne.

“Do you have a specific plan in mind for our current situation?”

“Maybe. Look, if we can interfere with Hunter’s team, then we’ll have a free hand to find MC 5. When we tried that before, you and I were acting alone. If our hosts, here, will help us in the belief that we’re, uh, good spirits, maybe we can really distract Hunter this time.”

“We must handle this very carefully,” said Ishihara. “I cannot allow any actions that might harm the people of this village or the human members of Hunter’s team.”

“All we have to do is slow down the bunch of them,” said Wayne. “Send them on a wild-goose chase or divide them so that Hunter spends his time trying to gather his team again instead of looking for MC 5.”

“By involving the villagers, we increase our chance of altering history in a significant way.”

“Well…you must admit, we’ve made numerous small changes already, and so has Hunter’s team. Nothing seems to have changed, has it?”

“You and I have not been back to our own time to see if they have had an effect.”

“Our presence in Roman Germany had not altered the front between the Germans and Soviets in 1941. Our collective activities in the time of the dinosaurs and in Jamaica in the 16005, before you joined me, had not made any visible alterations, either.”

“Granted, but I insist we must remain very careful. Do you have a plan?”

“Yeah, I think so. Can you tell them that we’re looking for Hunter and his team, and that Hunter is an evil spirit we must locate?”

“I believe I can convey that idea,” said Ishihara. “But I cannot identify Hunter’s human team as evil spirits. Doing so might endanger them too much.”

“Then tell them that Hunter, the evil spirit, has duped certain innocent humans into helping him, and they should not be hurt. Is that acceptable?”

“I will tell them that Hunter is a good spirit who is temporarily misguided.”

“Yeah, okay.” Ishihara turned to the elderly couple and switched to Chinese. He spoke to them for several minutes, sometimes shaking his head. Finally he turned to Wayne again. “I think I have conveyed my point.”

“Are they willing to help?”

“Most of the villagers have to work in the fields. However, some of them are going to the city market with produce to sell. They have no work animal, so they have to pull and push their cart on the road themselves. We can go with them and they will help.”

Wayne smiled, nodding approval to their hosts. “Thank you.”

Several of them nodded back, also smiling. They seemed to understand his meaning just tine.

Hunter walked through the streets with his team members after they had finished breakfast, with Jane beside him. Steve and Marcia actually led, to maintain the appearance of being the hosts, but Hunter quietly told them when and where to turn. His calculations indicated that MC 5 would probably return to full size somewhere within several particular blocks, rather than on the street, but the margin of error was too large to be certain. These blocks were similar to the ones near the inn-full of small shops and open-air eateries, with peddlers pushing carts up and down the street.

“ Jane.” Hunter spoke in English. Since they were masquerading as foreigners anyway, being overheard here would not matter. “How do you think MC 5 might have behaved here if he has already returned to full size?”

“Well, these shops have all kinds of stuff, including clothes. He may find something to wear without too much trouble.After that, I don’t know. I know that his specialty in Mojave Center was administration of the city.”

“Do you think he might move toward the center of government administration here?”

“It would be a logical move for him,” said Jane. “But I don’t know exactly what that would mean in this society. He’d have to figure that out, too.”

“Marcia.” Hunter stopped walking. Steve and Marcia turned and joined Jane. “Do I understand that the center of government here is ultimately Kublai Khan himself?”

“Yes, that’s correct,” said Marcia. “He is surrounded by a huge Chinese bureaucracy, but he is the final authority. In fact-”

“Jane,” Hunter interrupted, turning to her. “ Jane, would the imperatives of the Laws of Robotics impel MC 5 to seek out Kublai Khan?”

“That’s hard to say,” Jane said thoughtfully. “Well, let me think out loud for a moment. I was thinking that his own programming as a specialist in city administration would draw him in that direction. But of course, his underlying motive under the First Law would be to lessen the harm to humanity by improving the quality of government.”

“What else might he do?” Hunter asked.

“Well, he could get caught up in more mundane First Law activities, I suppose.”

“Huh? Like what?” Steve asked.

“Such as helping laborers avoid accidents. Or stopping fights he happens to see. Any sort of individual incident that might attract his attention.”

“Sounds to me like we should start spreading the word, like I suggested before,” said Steve. “Once we’ve offered a small reward to anyone who leads us to MC 5, we can just take casual strolls up and down the streets.”

“I agree,” said Hunter. “You and Marcia will pick the people to approach.”

Steve glanced at Marcia. “Let’s get started.”

“Excellent,” said Marcia. “I suggest we offer a graduated system of rewards. To most people on the street, a single copper is worth enough to get their attention. Suppose we offer one copper for someone who reports a sighting of MC 5, two for someone who can lead us to him, and three for someone who brings him to us. If they bring him soon-”

“Hold it, will you?” Steve demanded. “Why do you have to make it so complicated? We can just-”

“Make it up as we go along?” Marcia raised one eyebrow haughtily. “Maybe you’re offended that I’m developing your own precious idea.”

Startled, Steve fumbled for something to say.

“Please proceed,” said Hunter. “Both of you.”