The decision was made to go North. The weather was more stable in the North, and if there were any remaining human settlements or cities it was more likely we would find them up there. The security force for the colony would keep their shift rotation and Eliza already had several people volunteering for radio duty. Two radios would be kept running twenty-four seven, one that would remain on the channel we first heard the transmission from and another flipping through frequencies. The second radio would stop if and when it picked up any activity. This was not only to try to pick up another human colony, our hope was that it could pick up the robot language too. Martin Jones had already approached Eliza with an interest in building an analytic program to decode their communications. The kid was brilliant, and I had no doubt he could help us. When it came down to fighting, intercepting the enemy’s communications was vital. Since the system we put together for the expedition towards the beacon had gone so well, we outfitted the population with sleds. Each one held a portion of the remaining food, water, and medical supplies. Most of our computing power was hardwired to the systems that supported Gabriel so we were left with tablets. Underpowered compared to what we had in the shelter, but they would do the job.
Phoebe Rickman and the rest of the medical team were loath to leave behind the extensive suite of equipment at their disposal but I pointed out to them that either way things ended, we weren’t going to need it. Either we’d come across more humans or the androids would come for us. Long term medical conditions weren’t an immediate concern.
The first day passed slowly, giving me plenty of time to doubt everything we had done so far. I used the walk as a kind of meditation and set about attacking the problem from multiple angles. No matter what variables I mentally manipulated, the outcome was the same. Leaving was the most advisable option. It wouldn’t keep away the androids; undoubtedly the androids had bugged Eliza’s and my tablets, but I hoped that the weaker signal would be more difficult for them to trace. Spirits were surprisingly high. As much as anything else, the distraction was a welcome change from toiling endlessly without a clear goal. Determination was briefly replaced with fear when a drone like the one Marcus and I saw that night approached us as the sun started to set.
“It’s all right, be calm people!” Eliza held out her hands out. “We’ve seen this drone before!” She signalled the caravan to stop and waved to the little machine. It descended from its altitude to hover just above head height. The drone was far larger than we thought; when it came to rest, it was almost as wide as my arm width. I came to Eliza’s shoulder and waved at the drone. It waggled its rotors at me and I smiled. This one was similar to its cousin, a metal body reinforced with plastic. Unlike the previous drone, this one carried a small box of some kind underneath its central chassis. We heard a small whirring sound and the box opened to drop a piece of cloth to the ground. I leapt after it as the wind tried to carry the scrap away. On it were a set of coordinates, written in black ink. They didn’t appear to have been written by a human hand, the letters and numbers were too uniform for that. It looked like someone had stamped them on. That didn’t exactly bolster my hopes for the journey. It was a toss up whether the stamped characters were done by a human; it would be easy for an android hand to stencil them in. The only thing that gave me faith was the fact that it was unlikely the androids would spend this much time screwing with us. Machines were efficient; the fast solution is the best solution. Eliza plugged the coordinates into her tablet and we had a heading.
The drone stayed with us for part of the journey. Twice it made circuits around the entire convoy, like it was trying to get an idea of how many we were and what supplies we had. It backed off, then, resuming its flight path a couple hundred yards away. Seeing the confidence of their leader, quite a few people looked up to smile at the drone—some even waved. It became our mechanical friend, humming along in a flight path that took it to the edges of the gathering and back. Like our own little mechanical guard dog. The humans who reached out to us were trying to establish trust before approaching us directly. Sending a cute drone wasn’t a bad choice. As night began to fall, the drone peeled off and flew out of sight. Dinner was another bout of rations, but I wasn’t going to complain. Eliza was feeling stronger by the hour and we had a direction. Short of getting another hot shower, things couldn’t have been going better.
In true fashion, I later found out that I spoke too soon. Eliza had already fallen asleep by the time I pried myself away from the fire and I was sneaking into our tent as quietly as I could when I felt the change in air pressure. Somewhere above my head was a machine far more
