Isaac Asimov's Robots and Aliens 1 - Changeling by Isaac Asimov

Author:Isaac Asimov
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-07-10T20:19:51+00:00

CHAPTER 14

AROUND THE CAMPFIRE

It was difficult to hear anything above the racket Derec and Mandelbrot made moving through the woods. Derec quickly realized that there was no hope he’d be able to survive by hunting for food. He’d starve first.

They’d seen very little wildlife except during their rest periods. Otherwise, whatever animals lived here simply fled from the clamor of their passage.

Shapes skittered through the trees ahead of them, birds took to the air with shrill cries. But a new sound intruded, making Derec cock his head quizzically.

“Did you hear that, Mandelbrot?”

Derec had stopped, leaning on the walking stick he’d cut from a dead branch and breathing heavily. They were struggling up a slope tangled with dense, close underbrush and tenacious, sticky-leaved vines; the place seemed to have been designed to give them trouble. The sun was already behind the hill and dropping rapidly, and Derec’s legs itched wherever the plants had scraped skin through his clothing. Mandelbrot, ahead of him and sounding in dire need of an overhaul, was moving very slowly with his malfunctioning leg. The robot stopped and turned his head around, the neck grating metallically.

“I have heard several things, Master Derec. Which sound were you referring to?”

“The howling. There—you hear that?”

Very faintly, a mournful wail greeted the dusk. Another voice joined the first, then several others. The mournful chorus continued for several seconds, then went back to the solo voice once more. The forest seemed suddenly very dim and dangerous. Derec shivered involuntarily.

“That sends cold chills down my back,” he said.

“There are thermal blankets in the pack,” Mandelbrot told Derec. “Let me get one for you—”

Derec smiled. “It’s not that kind of chill. It sounds like recordings I’ve heard of wolves—made before they became extinct.”

The barking howls began again, echoing and reverberating among the slopes.

Mandelbrot’s neck joint screeched again as the robot looked up slope. “Their voices are complex,” he said. “In some ways it reminds me of Wolruf’s language. “

Mention of the caninoid alien’s name made Derec nod; he missed Wolruf, missed her quick wit and odd temper. “I wish it were, believe me. At least then we might get out of this mess. We have to find a place to camp for the night, Mandelbrot. Any level and halfway open space will do. I don’t want to get caught out here in the open during the dark.”

“My data banks say that even in the days before Earth was settled, most wild animals were afraid of humans. They very rarely attacked anyone without provocation.”

“Well, I’m not going to count on them having been fed the same data. Let’s keep going, Mandelbrot. Maybe at the top of this hill...though from the size of it I’m beginning to think we should promote it to mountain.”

It took them another hour to struggle to the summit. There, the trees thinned out and finally disappeared on a wind-swept, rocky ledge that, looming above the surrounding hills, gave them an excellent vantage point.

Every last muscle in Derec’s body ached from the exertion of the climb.

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