Free Destiny Doll by Clifford D. Simak

How many other intelligences, in how many different forms, had heard that voice Smith had heard and had been lured to follow it?
    "Do they ever tell you," Sara asked, "what it is they hunt for?"
    He grinned crookedly. "They are secretive," he said.
    "But this other humanoid," Sara reminded him. "The one who came alone, accompanied by the robot . . ."
    "Robot? You mean the metal humanoid very like himself?"
    "Don't play dumb," I snapped. "You know what a robot is. Those hobbies there are robots."
    "We not be robots," Dobbin said. "We be honest hobbies."
    "You shut up," I said.
    "Yes," said the gnome. "The one with the robot. He also went away and did not come back. But in time the robot did. Although he would tell me nothing. He had not a word to say."
    "And the robot still is here?" asked Sara.
    The gnome said, "A part of him I have. The part that makes him function, I regret very much, is gone. The brain I suppose you call it. The brain of him is gone. I sold it to the wild hobbies that dwell in the wilderness. Very much they wanted it, very much they paid. Still I could not refuse them. It was worth my life to do it."
    "Those wild hobbies?" I asked. "Where do we go to find them?"
    He made a shrugging motion. "No telling that," he said. "They wander wide and far. Most often they are found north of here. Very wild indeed."
    "What did the wild hobbies want of Roscoe's brain?" asked Sara. "What possible use could it be to them?"
    He spread his hands. "How could I know?" he asked. "They are beings one does not question closely. Very rough and wild. They have a hobby's body, but heads they have like you, and arms, and they yell most loudly and are unreasonable."
    "Centaurs," said Tuck. "There are many of them, I understand, spread throughout the galaxy. Almost as common as the humanoids. And they are, I understand, as the gentleman here says, most unreasonable. Although I have never met one."
    "You sold them only the braincase," I said. "You still have the robot's body here."
    "They did not want the body. I still have it here."
    I dropped the space lingo and switched to English, speaking to Sara. "What do you think?" I asked. "Do we try to track down Knight?"
    "He would be the one . . ."
    "If he is still alive, he'd be an old, old man by now. I think the chances are he is not alive. The robot came back. He'd not have left Knight if he were still alive."
    "We might find out where he was heading," Sara said. "If we could get the braincase and put it back in Roscoe's body, he might have some idea of what Knight was looking for and where it might be found."
    "But he wasn't talking. He wouldn't tell the gnome."
    "He might talk to us," said Sara. "After all, we're his people. It was people like us who made him and if he had any loyalty, which I suspect he had, that loyalty also was to a human being."
    I turned back to the gnome. "All right," I said, "we'll need the robot's body and maps of the planet. A supply of water. The hobbies to carry us and our packs and . . ."
    He threw up his hands in horror, backing away from me, shaking his head stubbornly from side to side. "The hobbies you can't have, he said "I have need of them myself"
    "You didn't let me finish.," I said. "We are taking you along."
    "That you cannot do," shrilled Dobbin. "He must stay to warn the creatures on incoming ships and get them under cover against the killing wave. Sire, you must understand . . ."
    "We'll take care of all of that," I said. "We'll shut off the beam. If there is no beam to lure them, no one will ever come."
    "But you can't shut it off," wailed the gnome. "No one can do that, for the location of the transmitter is something that we do not know. I have never found it. I have hunted and the others before me hunted and it has not been found."
    He stood before us, dejected. Somehow or other the props had been knocked out from under him.
    'Well, I'll be damned," I said.
    "It makes sense," said Sara. "It had me puzzled all the time. Whoever built this