The Boy at the End of the World by Greg van Eekhout Page B

asked.
    â€œProbably.”
    â€œThen I need my radial extenders and lower nerve conduit.”
    â€œWell, I don’t think I’m going to find replacement parts around here, unless you can tell me how to build them with sticks and mud.”
    Click whirred a bit, then clicked, then hissed. He seemed very unhappy about this development.
    â€œVery well,” Click said, finally. “You must find a way to reconnect my femoral support rod to my lower radial strut.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œAn aluminum span-connector would do, though I’d prefer one of carbon-composite—”
    â€œClick? No aluminum here. No carbon-composite. We have to work with what’s around.”
    â€œAh,” Click said. His head dipped forward. “Unfortunately, robot parts do not grow on trees.”
    Fisher bent to look more closely at Click’s knee.
    â€œSo, this bit here needs to be attached to this thing there?”
    â€œUnless you would prefer to carry me, yes.”
    â€œHmm,” said Fisher.
    â€œOr, of course, you would be well advised to abandon me here in the mud—”
    â€œShut up. I’m thinking. Hmm. Hmm.”
    â€œYou are making repetitive noises,” Click said with a click.
    But Fisher ignored him. He took some of the roots Protein was eating—also ignoring Protein’s grunt of protest—and sawed them against a sharp-edged rock until he was satisfied with their lengths. By braiding a thick strand of root with some thinner ones, he created a somewhat-stiff, somewhat-flexible rod, and this he used to bridge the missing part of Click’s knee. He tied it in place with the very best knots he’d ever tied.
    â€œI am doubtful—,” Click began.
    Fisher hauled Click to his feet. “Just test it.”
    Click bent and flexed his leg. “Basic mobility is better than none,” he concluded.
    â€œYou were never more than basically mobile anyway.”
    They kept moving south, any way they could. Sometimes that meant trudging through mud along the river. Sometimes it meant splashing through bogs. Sometimes it meant hanging onto Protein’s back as the mammoth paddled through deeper marsh waters. And often it meant hiding from gadgets.
    Sunlight seldom broke through the clouds anymore, so using Click’s broken eye as a fire-starting lens no longer worked. Instead, Fisher picked up every dark rock along the route and banged it against every other rock. And after four miserable days of cold, raw fish for dinner and shuddering nights, with only the heat radiating from Protein’s body for warmth, he found two stones that made sparks when struck together. Flint.
    His first fire in days felt like a sunny embrace. But he only kept the fire alive long enough to cook his food. With gadgets still in the area, even a few minutes of fire was almost too much risk.
    He’d noticed that wood freshly broken from trees was sometimes sticky with resin, and that the resin burned long and slow, so he coated the tips of some sticks in resin to serve as small torches. These gave off very little heat but provided a small halo of light around which he could experiment with more complicated deadfall traps. He still hadn’t managed to catch anything with one.
    â€œWho do you think built them?” Fisher asked Click as his rather complicated assembly of rocks and twigs collapsed under its own weight.
    Click knew Fisher wasn’t talking about traps. He was talking about gadgets. It was not the first time Fisher had asked.
    For a long time, Click didn’t say anything. He merely processed, his head humming away. “I do not have a theory at this time,” he said finally. “There were no such machines in the Ark, and none in existence outside the Ark when it was sealed. And the Stragglers had no more access to technology than you do now.”
    Fisher picked a bone out of a charred piece of catfish. “But the gadgets are related to