Dean Koontz - Strange Highways

by Steven Leonard

  Fifteen minutes later, Leeke said, "I believe I'll follow Tuttle's example. I need time to consider my responses to this afternoon's hunt."

  Curanov knew that Leeke was only making excuses to be gone. He was not a particularly gregarious robot and seemed most comfortable when he was ignored and left to himself.

  Alone with Steffan in the lodge, Curanov was in an unpleasantly delicate position. He felt that he, too, needed time to think inside a deactivation nook. However, he did not want to hurt Steffan's feelings, did not want to give him the impression that they were all anxious to be away from him. For the most part, Curanov liked the young robot; Steffan was fresh, energetic, obviously a first-line mentality. The only thing he found grating about the youth was his innocence, his undisciplined drive to be accepted and to achieve. Time, of course, would mellow Steffan and hone his mind, so he did not deserve to be hurt. How then to excuse oneself without slighting Steffan in any way?

  The younger robot solved the problem by suggesting that he, too, needed time in a nook. When Steffan was safely shut away, Curanov went to the fourth of the five wall slots, slid into it, pulled the hatch shut, and felt all of his senses drain away from him, so that he was only a mind, floating in darkness, contemplating the wealth of ideas in his data vault.

  Adrift in nothingness, Curanov considers the superstition that has begun to be the center of this adventure: the human being, the man:

  Though of flesh, the man thinks and knows. He sleeps by night, like an animal. He devours other flesh, as does the beast. He defecates. He dies and rots, is susceptible to disease and corruption. He spawns his young in a terrifyingly unmechanical way, and yet his young are also sentient. He kills. He can overpower a robot. He dismantles robots, though none but other men know what he does with their parts. He is the antithesis of the robot. If the robot represents the proper way of life, man is the improper. Man stalks in safety, registering to the robot's senses, unless clearly seen, as only another harmless animal - until it is too late. He can be permanently killed only with a wooden implement. Wood is the product of an organic lifeform, yet it lasts as metal does; halfway between flesh and metal, it can destroy human flesh. If killed in any other way, by any means other than wood, the man will only appear to be dead. In reality, the moment that he drops before his assailant, he at once springs to life elsewhere, unharmed, in a new body. Although the list goes on, Curanov abandons that avenue of thought, for it disturbs him deeply. Tuttle's fantasy can be nothing more than that - conjecture, supposition, imagination. If the human being actually existed, how could one believe the Central Agency's prime rule: that the universe is, in every way, entirely logical and rational?

  "The rifles are gone," Tuttle said when Curanov slid out of the deactivation nook and got to his feet. "Gone. All of them. That's why I recalled you."

  "Gone?" Curanov asked, looking at the shelf where the weapons had been. "Gone where?"

  "Leeke's taken them," Steffan said. He stood by the window, his long, bluish arms beaded with cold droplets of water precipitated out of the

  air.

  "Is Leeke gone too?" Curanov asked.

  "Yes."

  He thought about this, then said, "But where would he go in the storm? And why would he need all the rifles?"

  "I'm sure it's nothing to be concerned about," Steffan said. "He must have had a good reason, and he can tell us all about it when he comes back."

  Tuttle said, "If he comes back."

  Curanov said, "Tuttle, you sound as if you think he might be in danger."

  "In light of what's happened recently - those prints we found - I'd say that could be a possibility."

  Steffan scoffed at this.

  "Whatever's happening," Tuttle said, "you must admit it's odd." He turned to Curanov. "I wish we hadn't submitted to the operations before we came out here. I'd do anything to have my full senses again." He hesitated. "I think we have to find Leeke."

  "He'll be back," Steffan argued. "He'll return when he wants to return."

  "I'm still in favor of initiating a search," Tuttle said.

  Curanov went to the window and stood next to Steffan, gazing out at the driving snow. The ground was covered with at least twelve inches of new powder; the proud trees had been bowed under the white weight; and snow continued to fall faster than Curanov had ever seen it in all his many journeys.

  "Well?" Tuttle asked again.

  "I concur," Curanov said. "We should look for him, but we should do it together. With our lessened perceptions, we might easily get separated and lost out there. If one of us became damaged in a fall, he might experience a complete battery depletion before anyone found him."

  "You're right." Tuttle said. He turned to Steffan. "And you?"

  "Oh, all right," Steffan said crossly. "I'll come along."

  Their torches cut bright wounds in the darkness but did little to melt through the curtain of wind-driven snow. They walked abreast around the lodge, continuing a circle search. Each time that they completed another turn about the building, they widened their search pattern. They decided to cover all the open land, but they would not enter the forest even if they hadn't located Leeke elsewhere. They agreed to this limitation, though none - not even Steffan - admitted that half the reason for ignoring the woods was a purely irrational fear of what might live among the trees.

  In the end, however, it was not necessary to enter the woods, for they found Leeke less than twenty yards away from the lodge. He was lying on his side in the snow.

  "He's been terminated," Steffan said.

  The others didn't need to be told.

  Both of Leeke's legs were missing.

  "Who could have done something like this?" Steffan asked.

  Neither Tuttle nor Curanov answered him.

  Leeke's head hung limply on his neck, because several of the links in his ring cable had been bent out of alignment. His visual receptors had been smashed, and the mechanism behind them ripped out through the shattered sockets.

  When Curanov bent closer, he saw that someone had poked a sharp object into Leeke's data vaults, through his eye tubes, and scrambled his tapes into a useless mess. He hoped that poor Leeke had been dead by then.

  "Horrible," Steffan said. He turned away from the grisly scene, began to walk back to the lodge, but stopped abruptly as he realized that he should not be out of the other robots' company. He shuddered mentally.

  "What should we do with him?" Tuttle asked.

  "Leave him," Curanov said.

  "Here to rust?"

  "He'll sense nothing more."

  "Still-"

  We should be getting back," Curanov said, shining his light around the snowy scene. "We shouldn't expose ourselves."

  Keeping close to one another, they returned to the lodge.

  As they walked, Curanov reviewed certain disturbing data: 9. He dismantles robots, though none but other men know what he does with their parts ....

  "As I see it," Curanov told them when they were once again in the lodge, "Leeke did not take the rifles. Someone - or something - entered the lodge to steal them. Leeke must have come out of his inactivation nook just as the culprits were leaving. Without pausing to wake us, he gave chase."

  "Or was forced to go with them," Tuttle said.

  "I doubt that he was taken out by force," Curanov said. "In the lodge, with enough light to see by and enough space to maneuver in, even with lessened perceptions, Leeke could have kept himself from being hurt or forced to leave. However, once he was outside, in the storm, he was at their mercy."

  The wind screamed across the peaked roof of the lodge, rattled the windows in their metal frames.

  The three remaining robots stood still, listening until the gust died away, as though the noise were made not by the wind but by some enormous beast that had reared up over the building and was intent on tearing it to pieces.

  Curanov went on: "When I examined Leeke, I found that he was felled by a sharp blow to the ring cable, just under the head
- the kind of blow that would have had to come suddenly from behind and without warning. In a room as well lighted as this, nothing could have gotten behind Leeke without his knowing it was there."

  Steffan turned away from the window and said, "Do you think that Leeke was already terminated when ..." His voice trailed away, but in a moment he had found the discipline to go on: "Was he terminated when they dismantled his legs?"

  "We can only hope that he was," Curanov said.

  Steffan said, "Who could have done such a thing?"

  "A man," Tuttle said.

  "Or men," Curanov amended.

  "No," Steffan said. But his denial was not as adamant as it had been before. "What would they have done with his legs?"

  "No one knows what they do with what they take," Curanov said.

  Steffan said, "You sound as if Tuttle's convinced you, as if you believe in these creatures."

  "Until I have a better answer to the question of who terminated Leeke, I think it's safest to believe in human beings," Curanov explained.

  For a time, they were silent.

  Then Curanov said, "I think we should start back to Walker's Watch in the morning, first thing."

  "They'll think we're immature," Steffan said, "if we come back with wild tales about men prowling around the lodge in the darkness. You saw how disdainful Janus was of others who had made similar reports."

  "We have poor, dead Leeke as proof," Tuttle said.0

  "Or," Curanov said, "we can say Leeke was terminated in an accident and we're returning because we're bored with the challenge."

  "You mean, we wouldn't even have to mention - human beings?" Steffan asked.

  "Possibly," Curanov said.

  "That would be the best way to handle it, by far," Steffan said. "Then no second-hand reports of our temporary irrationality would get back to the Agency. We could spend much time in the inactivation nooks, until we finally were able to perceive the real explanation of Leeke's termination, which somehow now eludes us. If we meditate long enough, a proper solution is bound to arise. Then, by the time of our next data-vault audits by the Agency, we'll have covered all traces of this illogical reaction from which we now suffer."

  "However," Tuttle said, "we might already know the real story of Leeke's death. After all, we've seen the footprints in the snow, and we've seen the dismantled body .... Could it be that men - human beings - really are behind it?"

  "No," Steffan said. "That's superstitious nonsense. That's irrational."

  "At dawn," Curanov said, "we'll set out for Walker's Watch, no matter how bad the storm is by then."

  As he finished speaking, the distant hum of the lodge generator - which was a comforting background noise that never abated - abruptly cut out. They were plunged into darkness.

  With snow crusted on their chilled metal skins, they focused three electric torches on the compact generator in its niche behind the lodge. The top of the machine casing had been removed, exposing the complex inner works to the elements..

  "Someone's removed the power core," Curanov said.

  "But who?" Steffan asked.

  Curanov directed the beam of his torch to the ground.

  The others did likewise.

  Mingled with their own footprints were other prints similar to but not made by any robot: those same, strange tracks that they had seen near the trees in the late afternoon. The same tracks that profusely marked the snow all around Leeke's body.

  "No," Steffan said. "No, no, no."

  "I think it's best that we set out for Walker's Watch tonight," Curanov said. "I don't think it would any longer be wise to wait until morning." He looked at Tuttle, to whom clung snow in icy clumps. "What do you think?"

  "Agreed," Tuttle said. "But I suspect it's not going to be an easy journey. I wish I had all my senses up to full power."

  "We can still move fast," Curanov said. "And we don't need to rest, as fleshy creatures must. If we're pursued, we have the advantage."

  "In theory," Tuttle said.

  "We'll have to be satisfied with that."

  Curanov considered certain aspects of the myth: 7. He kills; 8. He can overpower a robot.

  In the lodge, by the eerie light of their hand torches, they bolted on their snowshoes, attached their emergency repair kits, and picked up their maps. The beams of their lamps preceding them, they went outside again, staying together.

  The wind beat upon their broad backs while the snow worked hard to coat them in hard-packed, icy suits.

  They crossed the clearing, half by dead reckoning and half by the few landmarks that the torches revealed, each wishing to himself that he had his full powers of sight and his radar back in operation again. Soon, they came to the opening in the trees that led down the side of the valley and back toward Walker's Watch. They stopped there, staring into the dark tunnel formed by sheltering pines, and they seemed reluctant to go any farther.

  "There are so many shadows," Tuttle said.

  "Shadows can't hurt us," Curanov said.

  Throughout their association, from the moment they had met one another on the train coming north, Curanov had known that he was the leader among them. He had exercised his leadership sparingly, but now he must take full command. He started forward, into the trees, between the shadows, moving down the snowy slope.

  Reluctantly, Steffan followed.

  Tuttle came last.

  Halfway down toward the valley floor, the tunnel between the trees narrowed drastically. The trees loomed closer, spread their boughs lower. And it was here, in these tight quarters, in the deepest shadows, that they were attacked.

  Something howled in triumph, its mad voice echoing above the constant whine of the wind.

  Curanov whirled, not certain from which direction the sound had come, lancing the trees with torchlight.

  Behind, Tuttle cried out.

  Curanov turned as Steffan did, and their torches illuminated the struggling robot.

  "It can't be!" Steffan said.

  Tuttle had fallen back under the relentless attack of a two-legged creature that moved almost as a robot might move, though it was clearly an animal. It was dressed in furs, its feet booted, and it wielded a metal

  ax.

  It drove the blunted blade at Tuttle's ring cable.

  Tuttle raised an arm, threw back the weapon, saved himself - at the cost of a severely damaged elbow joint.

  Curanov started forward to help but was stopped as a second of the fleshy beasts delivered a blow from behind. The weapon struck the center of Curanov's back and drove him to his knees.

  Curanov fell sideways, rolled, got to his feet in one well-coordinated maneuver. He turned quickly to confront his assailant.

  A fleshy face stared back at him from a dozen feet away, blowing steam in the cold air. It was framed in a fur-lined hood: a grotesque parody of a robot face. Its eyes were too small for visual receptors, and they did not glow. Its face was not perfectly symmetrical as it should have been; it was out of proportion, also puffed and mottled from the cold. It did not even shine in the torchlight, and yet ...

  ... yet ... obvious intelligence abided there. No doubt malevolent intelligence. Perhaps even maniacal. But intelligence nonetheless.

  Surprisingly, the monster spoke to Curanov. Its voice was deep, its language full of rounded, softened syllables, not at all like the clattering language the robots spoke to one another.

  Abruptly, the beast leaped forward, crying out, and swung a length of metal pipe at Curanov's neck.

  The robot danced backward out of range.

  The demon came forward.

  Curanov glanced at the others and saw that the first demon had backed Tuttle almost into the woods. A third had attacked Steffan, who was barely managing to hold his own.

  Screaming, the man before Curanov charged, plowed the end of the pipe into Curanov's chest.

  The robot fell hard.

  The man came in close, raising his bludgeon.

  Man thinks, though he's of flesh
... sleeps as an animal sleeps, devours other flesh, defecates, rots, dies .... He spawns his young in an unmechanical manner, although his young are sentient .... He kills ... he kills ... he overpowers robots, dismantles them, and does monstrous things (what?) with their parts .... He can be killed, permanently, only with a wooden implement ... and if killed in any other manner, he does not die a true death, but at once springs up elsewhere in a new body ....

  As the monster swung his club, Curanov rolled, rose, and struck out with his long-fingered hand.

  The man's face tore, gave blood.

  The demon stepped back, bewildered.

  Curanov's terror had changed into rage. He stepped forward and struck out again. And again. Flailing with all his reduced strength, he broke the demon's body, temporarily killed it, leaving the snow spattered with

  blood.

  Turning from his own assailant, he moved on the beast that was after Steffan. Clubbing it from behind, he broke its neck with one blow of his steel hand.

  By the time Curanov reached Tuttle and dispatched the third demon, Tuttle had sustained one totally demolished arm, another smashed hand, and damage to the ring cable that, luckily, had not terminated him. With any luck, the three robots would survive.

  "I thought I was finished," Tuttle said.

  Dazed, Steffan said to Curanov, "You killed all three of them!"

  "They would have terminated us," Curanov said. Inside, where they could not see, he was in turmoil.

  Steffan said, "But the prime directive from the Central Agency forbids the taking of life-"

  "Not quite," Curanov disagreed. "It forbids the taking of life which cannot be restored. Which cannot be restored."

  "These lives will be restored?" Steffan asked, looking at the hideous corpses, unable to understand.

  "You've seen human beings now," Curanov said. "Do you believe the myths - or do you still scoff?"