Tactical Error Read Online Free

spontaneity to engage in real
conversation. Then, on some rare occasion such as this, Bill would do his best,
and Lenna was reminded that she was probably better off with a reticent robot.
    She turned to survey the horizon to the west, knowing that the approach path
of the freighter was to have left her due east of the base. She had no idea of
the distance. The drop was to have been where some landform, such as the ridge
several kilometers to the west, offered protection from scan and radar. Without
any good maps of the planet, finding such a place as that had been entirely a
matter of chance. They could be ten kilometers short of their target, or a
thousand. If they could make their way to higher ground, then she could put
Bill’s optical scanners and sensors to the task.
    “Let’s be on with it, then,” she said, rapping
affectionately on the sentry’s hull. “I’ve got to keep moving
before I freeze.”
    “I contain no material which could freeze at the predicted
temperatures for this environment,” Bill offered for reasons that no one
could begin to guess.
    “Bully for you.”
    Leading the way, Lenna started out across the ice field. This was going to
be hard walking. She was really not cold because of the self-warming arctic
gear; she never had to worry about freezing, as long as she had a spare set of
fresh batteries to charge from Bill’s generator. But the loose snow and
broken rock and ice would make for very rough going. She had grown up in a
world that was as mountainous as it was wintry, although she had been an artist
and a part-time pilot rather than a ranger in the wild. She was most worried
about Bill, and what might happen if he fell over into a tight place. He was so
heavily armored that he weighed quite a lot, and he had two sets of legs but no
hands.
    “It was a better plan than your first one,” Bill proffered after
more than a minute of walking.
    Lenna turned to stare at him. It took her a moment to realize just what he
was talking about, their discussion of the stupidity of her plan for getting
them down having been brief and some time past.
    She shrugged, resuming their march. “I don’t see how it could
have been worse. Riding in to our destination inside a missile and then
parachuting down would hardly have been a rougher ride, as long as the
parachute opened at the end. It would have saved us this long walk in.”
    “I would not have fit inside a missile,” Bill explained in a
voice that conveyed simple, patient logic.
    “Oh, excuse me!”
    “Would you like for me to shut up?”
    “No, not at all. Who else would I have to talk to, out here in the
middle of nowhere? I am at your mercy.” She paused, having seen a small
movement in the snowfield just ahead. “What was that?”
    “What was what?” Bill asked.
    Lenna saw something move again, and pointed. “Look!”
    “Look!” An entire course of small, high-pitched voices
echoed her.
    Lenna could have tripped over her own face, she was so surprised. She looked
around, finding herself in the middle of a vast complex of small holes
skillfully hidden in the ice. A considerable number of the holes held small,
white-furred animals standing upright just above their burrows, peering at her
with bright eyes and perked ears. They were about the size of a very small dog,
certainly nothing for her to worry about. At least not as long as she had that
walking battleship staring over her shoulder.
    “What are those things?” Lenna asked quietly. All the
information there was to be had on this planet had been downloaded into
Bill’s secondary memory storage.
    “Ice gophers,” the sentry explained simply, then seemed to shift
gears. “Extensive colonies of ice gophers, numbering anywhere from less
than a dozen to several hundred, are borrowed into the ice of glaciers and ice
fields. The small but hardy pseudo-mammals are intelligent and gregarious, and
are noted to be very curious and fearless. The members of the colony are in
continual