“And your friends?”
“Traders as well.”
Vicinius nodded, looking them over again. He pointed to another of the warriors. That man also took a broad stance and cast his spear. It, too, sailed among the dense leaves and branches to strike a different tree trunk. He turned and grinned at Vicinius and Hunter.
“Very impressive,” said Hunter.
Vicinius pointed to another warrior, then nodded toward Gene. The other man tossed his spear vertically to the surprised historian. Steve stifled a laugh. “Good luck, Gene.”
“I’ll need it,” said Gene, grinning. He moved up next to Hunter, where he had more open space, and carefully gripped the spear. “Well, I don’t know about this.”
“You can do it,” said Jane.
“I wonder.” Gene took a deep breath and imitated the stance he had seen the warriors take. Then he clenched his teeth and threw the spear.
It flew forward but, halfway to its target, the shaft of the spear grazed an overhanging branch and glanced off to the left. It fell out of sight in the underbrush.
All the Germans laughed. So did Steve. Gene shrugged, still smiling.
This time a warrior stepped up without bidding from Vicinius. He threw his spear as well, striking another tree near the first two that had spears hanging from them. The other warriors, now much more relaxed than they had been at first, cheered good-naturedly.
Another warrior tossed his spear to Steve, who caught it with his free hand. “Uh-oh,” said Steve, grinning as he set down the leather bag between his feet. “You can’t do much worse than I did,” said Gene. “Go ahead. We’re only traders, after all.”
“Hey, I’m only a slave.” Steve reared back like the others and threw the spear. It, too, clattered against some tree branches halfway to its target and fell out of sight. The warriors laughed, as did Jane and Gene.
Several of the warriors ran to fetch the spears.
“Don’t I get a throw?” Jane asked, looking around at the other warriors. “I’m afraid not,” said Gene. “It’s a cultural matter with them.”
“Well, I probably wouldn’t do any better than you two, anyway,” said Jane. “Those things are heavier than they look,” said Steve. “I didn’t know it was so hard.” He picked up the leather bag again.
“You three have spirit,” said Vicinius.
‘We have more spirit than skill,” said Hunter. “However, I thank you for the game.”
“It is well,” said Vicinius. “You said you were traders from Gaul?” “That is right.”
“In what do you trade?” “Silverwork.”
“Silver, eh?” Vicinius glanced at the leather bag. Then he looked at Hunter’s face for a long moment. “Please come to our village. It is not far. You will be my guests.”
“Thank you.” Hunter knew that bringing strangers back to the village was an important decision. Vicinius might also be more cautious than usual because of the tension between the Romans and Germans now. However, the reason for his hesitation did not really matter.
Some of the other German warriors had already gone to fetch the spears. Then
Vicinius waved once and turned to lead the way through the forest.
Hunter followed him, remaining back a short distance to stay with his team. They were much slower than the Germans. As they picked their way through the forest, Steve was the most surefooted.
“Hunter,” Jane said quietly in English. “Something has occurred to me about the component robots.”
He waited for her to come up next to him. Then they walked together. “What is it?”
“I simply can’t believe that they have chosen when and where to go in the past purely by chance.”
“You feel they have specific motives behind their choices?” Hunter asked. “They must,” said Jane. “Random flight would have taken them to many parts of the world, far from the centers of historical focus.”.
“Why did MC 1 choose to go to what would become Alberta in the Late Cretaceous?”
“I have no way of knowing about that,” said Jane. “But Sir Henry Morgan was a historical figure, even though a minor one. And MC 3’s flight to the border of the Roman Empire just can’t be an accident.”
“Why do you feel this way?”
“In both Morgan’s time and especially now, most of the world was not well documented historically. The vast majority of land area is outside historical record. And most of the land within historical record does not have anything very significant occurring at any given time. For some reason, MC 2 and 3 chose to be in the area of recorded human history, even while intending to remain microscopic.”
“They represent only two of the six component robots,” said Hunter.
“I thought of that. As a roboticist, I was intrigued by this mystery, so before breakfast this morning, I got on the city computer. I found out that when MC Governor did certain tasks with the city, he sometimes delegated them to his component personalities.”
Hunter turned to her in surprise, holding a pine branch out of the way for her. “How did you learn that?”
“I asked for any information that might help identify the component robots’ separate abilities, tendencies, or personalities.” She took the branch from Hunter and in turn held it for Gene.
“I see,” said Hunter. “I was focused on MC Governor as an integral individual first, who split up. I did not think to approach the component robots as individuals while MC Governor was still functioning.”
“I found out that MC 1 specialized in the environmental impact of Mojave
Center on the surrounding area,” said Jane. “MC 2 specialized in general troubleshooting for MC Governor. MC 3 handled security concerns for Mojave Center. I’m sure these match up in some way with the places they chose to go.” She stepped over a large, fallen tree trunk and caught her cloak on a short branch.
“What about the other three component robots?” Hunter stopped to pull her cloak free.
“I don’t recall. I left my notes with my regular clothes back in Room F-12.” “You believe that these specialties reflect their choices of where and in what time period to hide?”
“Yes, even though they intended to remain microscopic forever. It may be a subliminal influence of their specialties, rather than part of their deliberate, rational thought. But if I can figure out what kind of influence MC 3’s specialty, for instance, had on him, I might have a shortcut for finding him here.”
“You say that MC 3 handled security matters for Mojave Center,” Hunter said.
“This strikes me as irrelevant to his presence here. Do you have any guess as to where he might be now, or where he would go here, with this information?” “No,” Jane said. “Not yet.”
The Germans quietly led the way through the forest. Hunter saw that they were still carefully watching the birds in the trees and stopping occasionally simply to listen. The dogs, too, were on the alert. He decided that they were still hoping to find prey for dinner, even on their way home.