Wild MULEs go wherever they want to. MULEs dislike working, the colony just exploits them to work about non-stop and for no wage, don't expect to find them working land in the wilderness. Maybe they would gather in herds, based on those natural (or unnatural) instincts they have developed. You would sooner or later find them roaming free like minks from a farm visited by the A.L.F. The MULEs would simply live their lives in peace and freedom.
Most of the answers you seek are in the MULE instructions booklet:
YOU HATE HIM. YOU NEED HIM.
It means something, M.U.L.E. Multiple Use Labor Element.
Everyone expected him to be perfect for planet pioneering. Mining,
farming, and general hauling capabilities -- he could do it all.
It was the unexpected stuff, however, that made a M.U.L.E. a M.U.L.E.
He was born -- if you can call it that -- in an underground lab in the
Pacific Northwest. A major defense contractor had gone out of its way
to get the job and they were stoked.
Stoked, that is, until the detailing robots went out on strike. Costs
ran over. Senators screamed. And when the dust had cleared, the job
was finished by a restaurant supply firm, a maker of pre-school
furntiture, and the manufacturers of a popular electric toaster.
It shows.
No one quite knows how it is that a M.U.L.E. is able to record
intergalactic phone messages. Or why he can be used to cook simple
dinners. Or how he pulls in any ballgame broadcast, anywhere in the
universe.
Above all, no one ever dreamed that he would go berzerk and run
away if treated carelessly.
No one expected any of that, to be sure.
But you've got a planet to settle. And for now, he's all you've got.
Good luck. You'll need it.
