Strange Highways

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,