Predator

15

Hunter moved through the forest steadily, usually at a brisk walk or even a slow jog. Sometimes the dense trees and bushes forced him to slow down. He often had to climb over rocks and fallen tree trunks. Still, at the very least, he was sure that he was keeping an even pace with MC 1.

As Hunter maintained his pursuit, he recorded in his memory everything he saw and heard for future reference. He knew that MC 1‘s head start had begun from the moment the component robot had left the camp the previous afternoon. Still, he was hoping that MC 1 had continued his earlier pattern of staying close to the camp. In any event, Hunter would not go too far from it in case the humans called him with an emergency.

Near midday Hunter came to a sudden halt at the edge of the stream. He was upstream from the point where he and Chad had been fishing. MC 1‘s tracks led into the water, but he could see that they did not lead out on the opposite bank.

He is learning,Hunter thought to himself. He waded into the cold, swirling water and stopped to look upstream and downstream.

The water sparkled in the sunlight. If MC 1 had been only a short distance ahead, Hunter could have detected which way he had gone. If he had gone upstream, the water here would have been muddy for a while, with the muddy streambed kicked up by his footsteps. Conversely, if he had gone downstream, it would have remained clear.

The water was clear now, but too much time had passed for that to mean anything. MC 1 had certainly been out of the water for hours, giving the stream time to clear no matter which way he had gone. Hunter magnified his vision and carefully studied each bank on both sides, up and down the current.

Hunter saw no sign of footprints leaving the water. He had no way of judging how far to look in the direction that the stream was flowing before looking upstream instead. Fortunately, he found MC 1‘s tracks another nine meters downstream. MC 1 had left the water on the opposite bank, still running.

“Good move,” Hunter thought with grudging appreciation. MC 1 had certainly waded much faster than Hunter had been able to follow him. That meant MC 1 had gained some distance on him.

Hunter jogged after him, always alert for predatory dinosaurs. His senses brought him advance warning of heavy footsteps and sometimes sounds of eating or even breathing before he could see any animals, so he avoided most creatures of significant size before he encountered them. He could hear the smaller animals scampering out of his way through the underbrush.

Soon Hunter realized that MC 1 was making a wide curve to the left, taking him back to the brook nearly fifty meters downstream. Before long, MC 1’s tracks entered the water again, leaving Hunter with exactly the same choice he had made before. He still had to pick a direction arbitrarily. This time he waded upstream to look for MC 1’s tracks.

After a kilometer of carefully studying the ground and brush on each side of the stream, Hunter turned and moved downstream another kilometer. At this point, he had virtually lost the trail. MC 1 could have chosen to go in either direction for any distance he chose. Hunter ducked under a low-hanging branch and stopped to consider the problem, still standing in the flowing water.

“Excellent performance,” Hunter thought. His respect for his fellow robot was sincere, despite his need to catch MC 1 and take him home.

The data Hunter had gathered at this point told him that in MC 1’s evasive patterns so far, he had never continued in a straight line for more than ten meters. That did not mean he could not or would not do so, but it lowered the odds. He had set up a pattern that used many curves and circles, often crisscrossing his own path.

Hunter suspected that MC 1 had somehow managed to get out of the water unnoticed within ten meters of the spot where he had entered it. He had done this without leaving a track or a broken branch that Hunter had seen. Hunter began to examine that area again, magnifying his vision even more.

With great care Hunter moved through the water, slowly studying every centimeter of the bank and each branch and twig above it. He ignored the leaves brushing his face and ducked the overhanging branches with single-minded dedication. When he had reviewed the same area, he still had no sign of where MC 1 had left the stream.

“I am losing too much time,” Hunter thought, standing up straight. He moved a slender, leafy branch away from his face, then suddenly looked at it again. For the first time he looked up at the different tree branches that overhung the stream from each side.

At first he saw nothing. Then he turned, still using his magnified vision, and looked upstream. Four and a half meters away, a branch arched over the water low enough for MC 1‘s arms to have reached it. The branch was thick enough to support his weight and Hunter could see scratches on the bark that had been made recently.

“It could have been an animal,” Hunter reminded himself cautiously. He waded upstream for a closer look. Then he followed the marks on the branch to the right bank. He stepped out of the water, seeing marks that indicated the route of something or someone. The marks continued on the tree at a height of two and three meters. On the far side, deep footprints showed him where MC 1 had jumped to soft ground, well out of sight of the water.

Grimly satisfied, Hunter followed the trail again.

“What a jerk,” Steve muttered as he hiked angrily through the forest. He was anxious to get away from Chad’s sneer though he knew that his knowledge about dinosaurs and scientific matters was not the equal of the other man’s. The whole unpleasant conversation had started with a question that Steve felt had been reasonable. Chad just took every chance that he could find to insult Steve.

Despite his anger, Steve was not reckless. He walked toward the stream so he would have it as a landmark. By the time he reached it, he had cooled off. He decided to sit down by the water and relax.

“This is a ridiculous place and time to be sitting around,” he said out loud.

After a while, he stood up and worked his way upstream, just looking around. Then he saw a fairly large two-legged dinosaur bending over the bank, drinking.

Steve had no idea what species it was. Still, it looked big enough to ride. It was dark green and moved in a fairly slow, calm manner. He couldn’t see its face.

Slowly, Steve crept toward it, expecting it to hear him and run at any moment. It remained where it was, however, lifting its head to listen and look around, then dipping back down to drink again. Steve found himself moving up on its left side.

Steve felt a surge of excitement at the idea of jumping onto a dinosaur. He shook loose his lasso, picking out the angle of this throw. The next time the dinosaur raised its head, Steve tossed the rope.

The loop landed on the top of the dinosaur’s head, but part of it rested on its duck-shaped bill. The dinosaur shook its head and plunged into the water, then hesitated uncertainly. The shaking motion had thrown off the lasso. Steve ran forward and leaped for the dinosaur’s back.

He landed sideways across the back of its neck, clutching for a handhold. The dinosaur reared up on its hind legs, screeching in surprise. The trees overhead whizzed past in a blur as Steve spun backward through the air and splashed into the cold brook.

The water was less than a meter deep. Steve pushed himself to his feet, watching the startled dinosaur flee through the underbrush. He climbed onto the bank, looping his rope around one forearm. “Time for a bath, anyway,” he said aloud, grinning ruefully.

Late in the afternoon, Hunter was still moving quickly through the forest following a fairly clear section of MC 1’s trail. Suddenly, he stopped. He had left the camp behind at some distance and the First Law just would not let him go too far from the humans. Reluctantly, he noted the direction of MC 1‘s trail and turned back.

He walked directly back toward the camp. It was a much shorter route than following the meandering path he had taken all day while tracking MC 1. Fortunately, he had heard nothing from the emergency transmitter.

Hunter was still an eleven-minute hike from the camp at a moderate speed when he heard an authoritative human male voice in the nearby trees.

“Stop, robot. Do nothing more except obey my further instructions.”

Hunter could hear the man’s heartbeat and a faint gurgle in his digestive system, proving that he was human and not a humaniform robot. Hunter stopped and remained motionless, as the Second Law required.

A man he did not recognize stepped out of the forest cover and came up in front of Hunter. He wore a small backpack. According to the data Hunter had been originally programmed with, this man was middle-aged and of northern and western European descent. Obviously, he too had come from the future, but these facts were all that Hunter could deduce about him.

“Identify yourself,” said the man.

“I am R. Hunter, humaniform robot.”

“I was pretty sure you were a robot. Not many humans are as big, strong, and single-minded as you are. I’ve been watching you when I could keep up. Now, tell me if you know who I am.”

“No.”

“You will call me Wayne. You will make no attempt to contact your party in any way. Do not do anything that would help you evade my Second Law imperatives. Acknowledge your understanding and cooperation.”

“Acknowledged, pending only a First Law imperative.” Hunter realized that now he could not shut off his hearing to avoid Wayne’s orders.

“Of course, of course. We will approach your camp together. You will make every effort to keep yourself hidden and you will make no move that would cause me to give myself away. I will show you that the humans in your party are in no danger. Acknowledge.”

“Acknowledged.” Even as the Second Law required him to obey, Hunter realized that Wayne’s priorities were clearly not the same as his own. He could also see by Wayne’s clear and precise instructions that this man was accustomed to dealing with robots and their priorities.

“With my instructions still in force, lead me back to your camp.”

Hunter did so. He walked slowly, required by his orders, to remain quiet and out of sight and to pick a route that would help Wayne do the same. When the camp was in sight through the forest cover, he stopped.

Wayne came up next to him.

Chad was sitting against the base of a tree trunk, reading and entering information into his belt computer. Jane was standing in a small open area, looking up at a pterosaur gliding lazily across the sky. Steve was not visible.

“Your First Law concerns should be satisfied,” Wayne whispered. “Right?”

“I do not see one member of the party.”

“Maybe he’s in the tent or out at the latrine or something,” said Wayne.

“I cannot be sure he is safe.”

“Then tell me if you have any reason to believe he is in danger.”

“I have no specific reason, no.”

“Then the Second Law is still in force. Come with me.” Wayne turned and crept away.

Hunter felt a twinge of uncertainty under the First Law, but nothing in the behavior of Chad and Jane suggested that they were worried about Steve. The imperative of the Second Law was clear and direct. He slipped through the brush after Wayne, wondering where they were going and why Wayne wanted his companionship.

Jane loved watching the flying creature circling overhead against the blue sky. It was so much like a bird and yet strange and different at the same time. She could hardly see it because of the heavy forest canopy, but she watched it for as long as she could before it finally glided out of sight.

Under a tree, Chad yawned and frowned at the little screen on his belt computer.

“What were the flying ones like?” Jane asked.

“Hm? Oh, the pterodactyls?”

“I guess so.”

“Well, the pterodactyls aren’t actually dinosaurs, for one thing.” Chad squinted up at the sky, but none were in sight at the moment.

“What are they?”

“They’re actually a suborder of pterosaurs, or flying reptiles. The pterosaurs are cousins, you might say, of dinosaurs.” He referred to his belt computer. “Let’s see what we have here on them.”

“Are birds descended from them?”

“No. Birds have a separate ancestry. Here we are. Early pterodactyls were as small as a sparrow. By this time, though, in the Late Cretaceous, some of them were huge. They could have wingspreads up to twelve meters.”

“Wow.”

“They had long, curved necks and long faces. Some had teeth and some didn’t. They either had short tails or none at all and some had big crests on their heads.”

“There it is again. What kind is that?” Jane pointed excitedly.

“Again?” Chad jumped up. “You mean you saw it before? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well-I don’t know. I was just so caught up in watching it, I forgot-”

“Thanks a lot,” he snapped, hurrying to the open area where he could see the sky.

Jane backed away a little and looked up again.

Chad looked up at the shape in the sky and quickly entered some of its traits, muttering to himself. “No tail. Very long, sharp crest on the back of its head.”

“It glides, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s not flying real hard or anything.”

Chad nodded. “We can’t see if it has teeth from here, of course. Can’t really judge its size, either, without a reference point in the sky.”

“It’s definitely not sparrow-sized,” said Jane. “I think that wingspan could be three or four meters or more.”

“Yes, it could.” Chad studied the screen for a moment. “Well, I don’t have enough detail to give us an exact species. We just can’t see it well enough.”

“Do you have any educated guesses?” Jane suppressed a smile, remembering his earlier argument with Steve about educated surmises of this sort.

“Could be a pteranodon,” Chad said slowly. “Except that those fossils have been found in Kansas, not Alberta. It ate fish, back when Kansas was under water. This one might be a close relative, though.”

“Kansas? That’s a long way.”

“The pteranodon weighed about fifteen kilograms and had wingspreads of up to eight meters. It was probably endothermic and may have had fur.”

“Fur! Really?”

“Maybe.”

“I wish we could see one up close,” said Jane, still watching the flying reptile glide through the sky.

“Me too,” said Chad. “Still, at least we’ve seen one. Maybe pteranodons lived in Alberta. I’ll consider the possibility anyway. The ocean isn’t too far from here in this time period, just as in our own, so it would have plenty of fish.”

Jane nodded, watching as the creature drifted out of sight again. Chad certainly knew his subject. Still, she felt he was somehow missing the experience.

She turned to look at Chad, who was still referring to his belt computer. He was so concerned over gathering and classifying data that he just didn’t seem to be enjoying the sheer wonder of watching the pterodactyl. Maybe that was the quality in him that seemed to bother Steve.