They tried again. Walk, thought Coll. It wasn’t like Wolf at all. On Wolf everyone just knew what to do without even thinking. Now they were having to learn again.
Walk…
Cub took a half-step forward, and then another, and another. Its gyroscopes whined and Coll felt the Construct’s delight and fear as the ground kept coming. He could hear Brann muttering “one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four” behind him.
“We’re doing it!” he shouted. “We’re walking!” He looked ahead. “Hang on, this is the wrong direction. We need to turn round.”
“Yeah?” muttered Brann. “One-two-three-four, how do we do that then? One-two-three-four—”
“Just stop for now,” said Coll.
“One-two-three-four, how? One-two-three-four—”
“STOP!” shouted Coll.
Cub lifted his front paws, held them out like wings, and smacked head first into the ground again.
“Oof!”
“OW!”
“Brann!”
“It’s not my fault!”
There was a silence.
“All right,” said Coll at last. “Good. That was good. Let’s … try again, OK?”
Slowly Cub tottered south. Grassland was easy enough, flat and steady. After a while, they got the hang of turning, although Brann had to shout out the legs over and over to stop herself from accidentally attempting to fly. They tried running, but it ended badly.
“I can’t count that fast!” complained Brann.
“You don’t have to count,” retorted Coll. “You just run.”
“I’d like to see you ‘just flying’.”
In the end, they settled for a peculiar half-trot. It was faster than a human could walk, but not enough to catch up with Wolf.
“That’s not the real problem anyway,” said Rieka, and Coll nodded glumly. The real problem was they had no idea where to go.
At first, the grass had been churned up by Wolf’s paw prints and Dragon’s massive gouging claw marks. But then they reached the river and a bed of loose scree on either side. After that there was bogland. There was no trail.
They stopped for the night on the brow of a small hill, and Fillan led them on a foraging tour. He ordered them all about in a high bossy voice, clearly enjoying knowing things the others didn’t. But later he made stew, and Coll admitted it was delicious.
Rieka stayed back, working on Cub’s systems. After dinner, she brought something out, and Fillan’s face lit up.
“Kevin!” he shouted in delight.
The little Ant clattered forward and peered at Fillan. “Chick-chick?” it asked. “Chick-chick?”
“You fixed him!”
“Kind of,” said Rieka. “Its signal unit was ruined, and I had to reset the hive programming. It thinks you’re its queen.”
Fillan gaped at her, and then laughed. “Thank you!” He patted the Ant’s head. “Who’s a good Ant? You are! You’re Kevin the Ant, yes you are!”
Kevin did a strange little shuffle, almost like a dance, and Fillan laughed again.
“Great,” said Brann. “The annoying puppy has an annoying puppy.” But she didn’t say it unkindly. Fillan laughed again.
Later, Rieka and Coll stood and stared out at the countryside.
“Nothing,” said Rieka, peering through her binoculars. “No trail. They’ve could have gone east or west. Maybe even south into the Glass Lands.”
Coll considered. The Glass Lands were deadly. The earth there was black and charred, or glimmering as if half melted, and there was no clean water or food. Would Alpha have risked taking Wolf there? A few tiny pinpricks of light glimmered to the west and Coll pointed.
“That’s Scatter,” he said. “The settlement. Maybe they can help? They might have seen her…”
Rieka frowned. “Scatter’s a Wolf town. They may not like another Construct sniffing around.”
“The mayor knows me,” said Coll. “He knows I’m Alpha’s… He knows I’m with Alpha.”
Rieka lowered her binoculars and studied Coll. “Why do you find it hard to say?” she asked. “That she’s your mother?”
Coll ducked his head. “I don’t,” he said, embarrassed. “I mean, it’s just that she’s Alpha first, that’s all. That’s more important.”
