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?"
"How can I scoff?"
"Then," Curanov said, "if you believe that such demons exist, you must believe what else is said of them." He quoted his own store of data on the subject: "If killed in any other way, by any means other than wood, the man will only appear to be dead. In reality, the moment he drops before his assailant, he springs at once to life elsewhere, unharmed, in a new body."
Steffan nodded, unwilling to argue the point.