Chapter Nineteen

 

“Thanks, Tanna. You follow as quickly as you can.” Corree trotted along the narrow track until it meandered back into the mountains. She studied a patch of soft soil near the path and found several of the sharp lines criss-crossing an oval shape that she knew was the robot’s footprint. The footprints seemed to wander from side to side, indicating the robot was feeling the effects of being on Mendel.

Getting to her hands and knees, Corree began the familiar mutation into the swift mountain cat. Soon she was galloping at a speed twice as fast as what she could do in her normal form. The sun was warm―Corree ignored it as long as she could. When it was directly overhead, she found a shady overhang and rested for a short while. Sometime later, she jerked out of sleep and noticed the shadows. With a growl, Corree leapt out from her shelter and sped down the path. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but realized as hard as they had traveled, it was inevitable.

As she loped along, Corree wondered what she would do when she caught up with the robot. There was no plan; she only knew she needed to stop it. When the sun set, Corree continued, running along paths she had traversed before with Riss. The downward slope helped. Just after the first moon rose, she was gazing down on the Federation ship. There was no sign of the robot. It had arrived before her and had probably already sent out a message to its leaders.

She clawed the ground in frustration. Then a thought-touch made her pause.

Corree?

Joshee?

Come down. We’re just inside the forest.

Corree padded down the path, keeping an eye on the ship. There was still no sign of the robot. It must be inside. She approached the river and surprised to see two logs across the chasm, forming a bridge. How could they have done this in plain sight of the ship? Corree slipped into the forest and mutated back to her own form. Joshee and the others materialized from the undergrowth.

“What?” she began. “Why are you here?”

“We wanted to help,” Joshee replied. “So we came back from the Ologian base and got here before the robot did. Is he the last robot?” He pointed to a spot just to the left of the ship, and Corree saw something piled in the shadows.

It was the remains of the robot. They crossed the bridge. “How did you do it?” She stared at the heap of metal, plastic and bio-plastic parts. When she nudged an arm, it separated from the shoulder and clattered onto the ground. A round, red eye gazed up at her, but it was dull now. There was no life. She wondered about the stones and poked around some more.

“We’re pretty good shots. We used anything we could find,” Joshee boasted. “Rocks, arrows, spears. It wasn’t in great shape anyway with one arm half blown away, staggering around like it had drunk too much jumper tree sap.”

Corree grinned her appreciation of her family and began looking for the stone. She prodded the metal parts with a stick, trying to look underneath them without touching any of it.

Joshee was at her side, smiling from ear to ear. “You looking for this?”

He held the cavern crystal. “Yes!” She reached for it, then hesitated. She had the big one from Alogol, she didn’t need another one. “You hang on to it. These crystals have interesting…powers.”

“I’ll say they do. This one seems to make me feel like I can do anything.”

“Just be careful with it.”

“Don’t worry, Corree. I’ll take care of it.”

Now she asked about the other thing that concerned her. “Did the robot get inside?”

Kollin shook his head. “We didn’t give it a chance.”

Relief swept over her. “Good. Now comes the hard part.”

“Hard part?” Breka asked.

“How long do you think it will be before the Federation tries sending more, even better, robots? She kicked the robot’s crumpled body and immediately regretted it. Pain shot up her leg.

“What can we do, Corree?” Breka asked, “Except wait for whatever they send and try to destroy them?”

“Destroy the science base where we were created.”

They all looked at her as though she was sun struck. “And how do you figure to do that?” Kollin asked with a snort.

“In the ship.”

“Didn’t know you knew how to fly one,” Joshee commented.

“Haven’t tried, but Jeron taught me a great deal about Federation technology and he showed me the controls of the ship we came back on. I have to make the attempt.”

“Wow, that’s a lot to take on, Corree,” Joshee replied softly.

“Corree?” Kollin asked.

“What?”

“Robots don’t need air, do they?”

“No.”

“That ship might not have air. You may not be able to take it. You may have to wait for another ship after all.”

“No, if this last robot had succeeded, there would have been a need for air,” Corree began. “One of its orders was to capture me or Riss, alive if possible.”

“Did it tell you?” Breka asked.

“In a matter of speaking,” she replied. She realized it was time to tell them everything that had happened.

When she finished, Joshee whistled. “I hope they never figure out all you can do.”

Corree hoped they didn’t either. Then something occurred to her. “Hmm, that may be just what will help us succeed.”

“I don’t understand,” Breka admitted.

If the robot hadn’t been totally destroyed, Corree thought, studying the parts heaped up near the ship. She looked inside. There were two robots sprawled near the doorway. If they could put a robot back together and get enough of the fluid she had used to travel through the robot.

“What are you thinking?”

“Putting one of these robots back together and controlling it.”

There was silence for several moments.

“Now I know you’re crazy,” Kollin muttered.

“Maybe, but now I realize why Jeron made me study so much information on robots. He kept saying we’d have to deal with them.”

“But will your studying be enough to be able to build one?”

“I don’t know,” Corree admitted. “But I’m going to try. And I’ll need your help.”

“We’ll help!” her family chimed together.

“What do you want us to do first?” Breka asked.

“Gather up all the parts and we’ll see what we have. We should be able to use what’s left from all of the robots here to make one useful one.”

Her family began picking up various limbs, pieces of metal and plastic. Corree gingerly picked up the eye that had caught her attention before. She placed it on a tray Joshee had found and continued looking through the robot rubble. She was even more grateful to Jeron when she could identify all the pieces they gathered. When they finished their scavenging, there were plenty of limbs and parts. Using a stoppered hollow limb, Corree had also extracted what she hoped was enough bio-synthetic fluid to make a put together robot work.

Tanna and the others descended down the mountain path just as the second moon set in the east. They looked as exhausted as she felt.