Weft angled her head, gazing at him. "I will address that in due course. But Escape has a larger mission than merely impressing you with the danger. I would like to review history with you."
Havoc smiled. This fabulously endowed creature was capturing his incidental fancy, as perhaps she intended.
"Take off your clothes and sit on my lap and you may review anything you wish with me."
"In due course, if necessary. But I prefer to do the review first."
"I was joking."
"I wasn't."
Intriguing. "Which specific history?"
"The origin of the machines."
"That is so far back as to be lost to our records."
"But there is a major conjecture that can be animated. That leads into my point."
"The origin of the machines will show why they must be abandoned?"
"Yes."
"Then you will sit on my lap?"
"Yes."
"And not before?"
She approached and sat on his lap, clothed. Her posterior was marvelously evocative, immediately inciting his urge to breed, and there was a musky mist about her that intensified it. "Would you be able to focus on history if I did this nude?"
He laughed. "I couldn't even focus on it clothed. Point made."
"In due course," she said again, lifting off that point.
"Those who sent you certainly knew how to get my attention."
"Yes. There was a selection process, and I was deemed the one most likely to succeed with you. You like my type."
"I am not certain of that. Your appearance is only one aspect of you."
"Yes. It was the other aspects that selected me."
Now he was really intrigued. "Let's proceed to history." He touched a button on the console, and the surface became a window into an appealing landscape. "Locale?"
"This." She handed him a disk. "It is fictionalized, but we think accurate in essence."
He pressed it into a slot on the console, and in a moment a new picture formed. It was of a male Maker, lurking at the edge of a Blue Chroma zone. Not far within it grew a tree bearing large blue bundles of substance. The Maker was clearly hungry for the fruit, but cautious about entering the magic zone.
Then the image shifted, and it was Havoc standing there, eying a large blue pear. He peered around, listened, and sniffed the air. There was an odor of predator, but it did not seem fresh. It was probably safe to go for the pear.
Suddenly another man charged past Havoc and lunged for the tree. He grabbed the pear, turned, and started back.
The predator was so swift it was just a huge blue blur. It caught the man in its jaws and crunched him in half with one bite. Then it picked up one half and gulped it down, keeping one paw on the other half in case it should try to escape. The predator was just an animal, not smart. But effective. It had half buried itself in dirt, masking its odor, and waited, perhaps for days, until the prey came for the pear. Now it was assimilating the half before tackling the other half.
Havoc was shaken. There, but for sheer chance, had gone his life. The Chroma zones were dangerous. But they were where the fruit was. Makers had to eat. That meant risking the zones.
The attrition rate was 99% per generation. Only one in a hundred Makers survived until breeding age. Then, fat with accumulated protein, they produced 100 offspring, and the attrition began again. It was a desperate existence.
Meanwhile the pear lay on the ground where the man had dropped it when chomped. It had rolled near the edge of the Chroma zone. Havoc fetched a long branch and poked it into the zone, trying to hook the fruit. The predator saw the motion and whirled, snapping at the branch. The wood flew up to either side, cleanly severed. And the pear, nudged, rolled on out of the zone.
Havoc picked it up and ate it. It was large, and filled his belly. Now he was close to having mass enough to breed.
Soon he would be prowling for a female.
But right now his mind worked on the problem of food. He had survived almost to maturity by cleverness and luck, but luck could not be trusted. There had to be a better way. Could he fashion a stick that could harvest fruit safely while he remained in the nonChroma zone?
Then he thought of another approach. That stick had served better as a distraction than a harvester. Its motion had attracted the attention of the predator. What about a stick intended as a distraction, so that a man could then dash across to fetch the fruit? It would be risky, but less risky than venturing into the zone without a distraction.
Havoc was an unusually smart Maker, which helped account for his survival so far; he had outlived 90 of his siblings. Intelligence, caution, and luck counted for much. He had been cautious about the pear; the other Maker had not been, and had died as a result. It was still luck, because Havoc had not known the other was there or that he would run out like that. But he hoped not to have to depend on further luck. So he turned his smarts to the project of making a predator distraction.
Something that could move on its own, so as not to require him to hold on to its end, as with the stick. Something that could roll, like the pear. Maybe a wheel. He knew of wheels; they were used on wagons to haul building supplies.
What about a little wagon, with four wheels, and something to make it go?
It took several days, but Havoc came up with a little wagon with a fifth wheel mounted on top, supporting a tightly stretched length of elastic vine. The vine was wound around the front axle, and when he let the wagon go, it pulled itself off the axle, causing the front wheels to turn, propelling the craft forward. It was far from perfect, but it worked.
He made several of them. Then he approached a Yellow Chroma zone where a banana tree grew. Several bananas were ripe. He smelled predator, and knew this was a trap. But this time he intended to spring it.
He released a wagon. He rolled toward the tree, making a satisfying scuttling noise because of the unevenness of the wheels.
And a yellow leopard pounced. It caught the wagon and bit down on it. There was a crunching sound as the teeth chomped through wood and vine. The elastic wire caught on a tooth, and the leopard pawed at it, trying to clear it. The predator was facing away from the tree.
This was the time. Havoc released another wagon to run in front of the creature. Then he ran behind it, to the tree. He grabbed a handful of ripe bananas and dodged back the way he had come. Meanwhile the leopard, with vine still dangling from its jaw, pounced on the second wagon. It hadn't yet learned that these moving things were inedible.
Havoc made it safely back with the fruit. His ploy had been a success!
That was the first machine.
Havoc survived until full maturity. Then he went prowling for a female. And there she was, fat and sassy. She was mature, but not quite ready to breed. She wanted to be assured he would survive long enough to complete her breeding cycle. Her name was Weft.
"I'll show you," he said. And he demonstrated the little wind-up wagons.
Weft was not stupid. No Maker who survived to maturity was. She immediately saw the advantage, and soon learned how to make wagons herself.
Then they mated. He was really potent and she was fully accommodating. He pumped a bolus into her cloaca, and they both suffered a transcendent orgasm.
During the next few hours she formed a massive egg and laid it in the protective hollow of an old tree. Then she went to fetch another meal, while Havoc guarded the egg. Soon she returned, fed, and he went for his own meal. Both needed to eat well for the continuing effort. Fortunately it was now much easier than it might have been, because of the wagons.
Next day they mated again, and he ejaculated another large bolus into her as they both had an extended climax.
The fact was, with a 99% attrition rate, mature Makers had to breed constantly as long as they lived. Few actually made it to a hundred eggs, but some non-survivors were able to lay ten or twenty before getting killed, so it averaged out.