The Family Tree (32 page)

D
ora knotted her hands into fists and hit the wall. “Damn,” she said. “He should have been warned….”

“We never had the chance to warn him,” said Abby. “The thing is, how are we going to get him back?”

“Describe the happening, Blanche!” demanded the countess. “Who was it took the prince?”

“Umminhi…”

“We know that, dear. Calm down. Describe them. Perhaps Dora can tell something from their clothing, or their size or something.”

Blanche fluttered for a few moments more, eventually calming down enough to say, “They came in a vehicle. It had a room in the front for the umminhi, and rooms along the sides with doors. The umminhi had caught a kannic person who looked rather like Oyk, and they were putting him into one of the little rooms along the side. The prince saw this, and he stepped out of the trees and demanded to know what they were doing.

“One of the men had a long pole in his hand. He reached out with it before the prince could move, and swooped him up. It was a net on the pole, I think. The umminhi laughed very loudly and they put the prince into another of the little rooms, then they stood looking at him for a long time, shaking their heads, then they got in the front room of the vehicle and it moved away. I followed, among the trees, calling the prince’s name, and he screamed at me to get help.” She moaned. “I should have told him to be more careful!”

“Which direction did the vehicle go?” demanded Dora.

Blanche shivered. “I was on the near side of the avenue, and it went to my left.”

“Toward town,” said Dora. “Were there words on the side of the vehicle?”

“Yes. I did not read them. They were in a circle around some kind of emblem….”

“Animal control truck,” said Abby. “Has to be.”

“We’ll go in your car,” said Dora. “We’ll need to get to the pound as soon as possible.”

“Why?” demanded the countess. “Why such a hurry?”

“He might be…injured,” said Dora. “He was wearing clothing, and he probably doesn’t have the sense to keep his mouth shut. The animal control officers are going to tell everyone they’ve caught a talking pig, and it won’t be an hour before the media find out, plus maybe the people at Randall Pharmaceuticals. Edgar Winston may have been their chief genius, but other people out there are working on the same thing!”

“I will go with you,” the countess announced.

“With all due respect,” said Dora. “We will be better able to save the prince if we go alone. I am a law enforcement officer. That is my job. I have identification that entitles me to go into places and ask questions. It would be better if I could do that without people wondering why I have animals with me.”

“She’s right,” said Izzy. “We will be safer staying here.”

“We are not accomplishing our mission here,” said Soaz.

“No,” agreed Abby. “But, as we’ve said before, you’re going to have to trust us to help you accomplish your mission. Your job is to find your Woput, ours, as I see it, is to help you, but first, presumably, you want Prince Sahir saved.”

The visitors could only agree.

“I wish one of us could go along. Even Blanche…,” said the countess.

“The safest ones to go along would be Oyk and Irk,” said Dora. “They’re laconic anyhow, and lots of people ride around with dogs in the car. We’ll take them, if you like.”

Dora brushed her hair, got into her jacket, and was met at the foot of the stairs by Oyk and Irk, both of whom announced their readiness to go along.

“Do you know the command,
heel
?” asked Dora.

“It is one we use with puppies,” admitted Oyk in a grudging growl.

“Well, it’s one that will keep you safe,” said Dora. “One of you heel to me, and the other one to Abby, left side, close, and you’ll be almost as safe as if you were on the leash. And for heaven’s sake, don’t say anything!”

They jogged down the street to the avenue, where Abby’s car was parked, top down, beside the custodial tree. Oyk and Irk got in the back. As soon as they started to move, the two kannids put their front feet on the window and stuck their heads out into the windstream.

“Why do you do that?” Dora asked.

“Oh, the smells,” said Oyk. “The wonderful smells, going by so fast, it’s like…oh, it’s like…”

“Music,” said Irk. “It feels exactly as I have heard Prince Izakar describe music. Crescendos. Diminuendos. Arpeggios. Harmonies. Melodies. Ahhhh.” He took a
deep breath, nostrils quivering, then let it out again with a sigh.

Dora and Abby exchanged glances. “Well,” said Dora, “haven’t you wondered?”

“Not really,” he said. “I always figured they liked the smells.”

“Musically?”

He shrugged. “It’s probably the only analogy he could come up with. I think taste would be closer, personally. A meal created by a master chef, complete with wines….” He licked his lips. “Where is the pound, by the way?”

She gave him directions. It was past noon when they arrived at the hill overlooking the city. Oyk and Irk stopped smelling the wind and sat quite erect on the rear seat, taking it all in.

“It’s a lot bigger than Palmody,” said Oyk.

“It’s a lot bigger than anything,” Irk agreed.

“It’s too big, and that’s what we meant when we said there are too many of us,” remarked Abby, making a left turn onto a cross street busy with pedestrians.

“Umminhi,” said Oyk gravely, as though his worst fears had been realized. “Ganchi umminhi.”

A few more turns, a bumpy crossing over railroad tracks, and they came to the long, low building that housed the pound.

“I want you to understand the dangers and communicate them to your colleagues,” said Dora in a low voice. “So I’m going to try to get you in there. Heel, just like before, and if the guy in charge says you have to leave, you wait until Abby takes you out, understand?”

“We would be perfectly capable of coming out by ourselves,” said Oyk.

“Not unless you understood human speech,” growled Dora. “Which you must not let on that you do!”

The two subsided, putting themselves in close heel position and staying there as Abby and Dora negotiated the doors. The desk inside was empty. Dora pushed a
brightly labeled button, and they sat down to wait.

“What’s our story?” asked Abby.

“You’re my neighbor, you lost your pig, I’ve brought you down to see if they have it.”

“And if the pig has been talking?”

“I’ll think of something,” muttered Dora.

There was noise beyond the double doors, shouting and laughter.

“Dora,” whispered Irk. “I hear Prince Sahir.”

She stared down at him. “You can hear him?”

“My ears are very good. He’s talking. He’s yelling, in fact. He’s calling them sons of menstruating mares. That is very dirty talk.”

“Oh, Lord,” said Abby.

“All right,” Dora mused. “We say he isn’t a talking pig, he swallowed a microphone.”

“I’ll try,” said Abby.

They got up from the bench and pushed their way through the double doors. Beyond a file room and office was another door, this one opening on a long aisle between cages. The people at the end of the aisle were conducting an excited conversation, above the sound of which rose a frenzied voice.

“You let me out at once, you hear, you beasts, you creatures, fit for nothing but riding on, you evildoers…”

Abby began laughing loudly. This attracted the attention of the people at the end of the aisle, who turned and moved toward them as Abby shouted, “You’ve got my pig! Good, I thought I’d lost him.”

Abby was at once surrounded. He began a long, complicated story about the pig and the microphone, while Oyk and Irk slipped around the group and trotted down to the end of the aisle. Inside the cage raged a furious Sahir, his clothing torn, one ear crumpled. He opened his mouth to scream at the sight of Oyk and Irk.

“Don’t say a word,” whispered Oyk. “Not another word.”

Prince Sahir subsided, seething.

“Dora and Abby are trying to get you out. Don’t say a word more to any umminha, not any. If Dora and Abby can’t get you out, remain silent. The more you talk, the more they will be determined to keep you. You must make them think you are a creature! If it were me, I’d get those clothes off.”

“Hey,” came a shout from down the aisle. “What’re those dogs doing there?”

“They’re mine,” said Dora in a firm, no nonsense voice. “Come, Irk. Come, Oyk.”

Obediently, with a last warning look at Sahir, the kanni turned and trotted back up the aisle.

“Heel,” said Dora.

A belligerent man in a brown shirt was saying, “Swallowed a microphone, eh? So how come he seemed to be answering questions we asked?”

“Well, it’s got a receiver and transmitter,” Abby said. “My brother’s at the other end, listening and answering. He’s a practical joker, and he’s the one who dressed up the pig and put the mike in his food trough, then the pig swallowed the microphone and got out of the yard…. Well, you know the rest.”

“And you can prove this is your pig?”

Dora knelt down and patted Oyk, whispering urgently, “What was he wearing?”

“Trousers, robe, headcloth, all white cotton,” muttered Oyk.

“He was wearing trousers, a robe, and a headcloth, all white cotton,” said Dora.

“I guess that’s your pig, all right,” said the brown-shirted man. “Well, I’ll tell the lab people when they come that he’s yours, and you can get him from them.”

“What lab people?” asked Abby.

“People from Randall Pharmaceuticals,” said the brownshirt. “Ramon, there, he used to work for Randall. He called them as soon as the pig got here, figured it was one of their animals. They said they were missing a talking pig, but they didn’t know what he was wearing. You know what he’s wearing, but you say he don’t re
ally talk. So, I figure, you work it out between you.”

Dora thought of using her badge, then discarded the idea. Actually having Sahir at Randall might get them some information they needed.

“Well, then, Abby and I’ll just go down and see Piggy,” she said.

They were not allowed to go alone. When they arrived outside the pen, they found Sahir, naked as a sausage, lying sprawled on the ragged remnants of his clothing.

“Poor Piggy,” said Dora in a cooing voice. “We’re going to get issums home just as soon as we can, but issums has to go to Randall Pharmaceuticals first, because they thought issums was a talky pig. They cut up talky pigs to see what makes them talk. That’s all right. Dora and Abby will go to Randall Pharmaceuticals and bring issums home, very soon.”

The cage’s occupant glared at her from piggy eyes in which all sign of intelligence had been overlaid by anger and shame.

“Squee-uink,” said Prince Sahir.

W
hen the Randall Pharmaceutical truck showed up half an hour later, complete with animal cage in the back, Dora and Abby waited until Sahir had been loaded—silently—then followed the truck to the lab. Just inside the gate it turned to the right and drove down the lane that led past the animal pens. Using her badge to get past the gate, Dora directed Abby to follow them. Beside the last pens she saw the driver leaning out of his window, talking to Joe Penton.

“Oyk and Irk,” she said softly. “When we get down there, you see if you can wander around the pens very quietly and assess what’s going on. Do any of those animals talk? Are they intelligent? The men seem to be putting the prince in with the other pigs. Let’s hope he makes friends easily.”

Abby parked between the truck and the pens. Dora got out on the side nearest the men while the dogs left quietly on the other side and trotted away. Abby got out
to lean nonchalantly against the car while Dora strolled over to join Joe and the driver.

“Joe,” she said, raising a hand. “How’s things?”

“Hi, Sergeant,” he said. “You still working on this case?”

“Still am. Actually, it’s my day off, but my friend over there lost his pet pig, and when we found it at the pound, the guy there said Randall had claimed it. You know anything about that?”

Joe shook his head in disgust. “It’s Bill, you know, Bill Twenzel? He gets this call, and he thinks it’s some kinda practical joke, so he plays along, he says sure, if it talks, it’s our pig. Then it turned out it wasn’t a joke, they really had a pig that talked, so by this time one of the muckety-muck lab guys here, Marsh McGovern—who’s a VIP, Very Idiotic Pain in the Ass—he hears this conversation about a talking pig. So this guy, Marsh, he sends the truck, and here we are with one of the bosses innerested in this pig.” He unlatched the gate of the pen and held it open while the driver manhandled Sahir through it, then shut and latched it once more. The driver raised a hand in farewell, then took himself and truck back the way he had come.

Dora persisted, “So you’re saying even though he belongs to a friend of mine, you can’t let us have him?”

“I’m sorry, Sergeant, but you know, orders is orders. I can’t let him go, not until Marsh sees him. Prob’ly tomorrow. I’ll explain it and the guy’ll let me turn him over to you.”

“Well, it was a joke, sort of,” said Dora, quite loudly, hoping Sahir would pay attention. “He swallowed a microphone, like in a cordless phone, you know, so he must have sounded like he was talking.”

“I be damned. Marsh McGovern, he’ll probably want to X-ray him.”

“Today?” asked Dora, trying not to betray the panic this announcement provoked.

“Nah. He’s all tied up today. Tomorrow, like I say. He’ll see the mike on the film, and he’ll know it was a
false alarm. Ordinarily, it wouldn’a happened, but Marsh’s got this wild hair, you know. He’s just sure one of these days, some animal is going to mutate and start talking. The other lab people, they laugh at him, but I guess he’s smart enough, except for believing in UFOs.”

“Why UFOs?” drawled Abby, who had walked over to the pigpen and was reaching his hands through the wire to scratch the backs of two friendly inhabitants. Prince Sahir sat in one corner, naked, morose and scowling. “What have UFOs got to do with animal mutations?”

“Well, he figures that’s where the mutation will come from, you know? He’s positive men didn’t evolve here by themselves. He thinks ETs came, millions of years ago, and they mutated an ape so we’d evolve. And now it’s time for some other animal to make a great leap forward, that’s how he talks.”

“Well, I guess tomorrow is good enough. One day away from home won’t kill him.” Dora dug the side of her shoe into the soil. “Say, Joe, my friend has to run an errand. Is it okay if I stay here and look at the animals until he gets back?”

Joe shrugged, cast a quick look up the hill, and said, “I don’t guess anybody’ll mind. If they do, just say you’re still investigating, you know.”

He wandered on about his duties. Dora and Abby had a whispered conversation, after which Abby took off in his car, stopping at the gate to explain he’d be returning. Dora, meantime, wandered among the pens, looking for Oyk and Irk.

She found them outside a cage housing a small black bear and two cubs. Both kanni looked up alertly when Dora came around the corner, and Oyk—who was slightly larger and had a curlier tail—came trotting over.

“She talks,” he said. “Six kanni talk. The scuinans in with the prince talk. That’s all so far.”

“My God,” whispered Dora.

“Who is your god?” asked Oyk. “You speak of it often.”

Dora gritted her teeth. “Another time, Oyk. Right now I’ve got to figure out…do the people here know that the animals…that is, the…ah, other tribes can talk?”

“They say their protector knew. They called him Daddy Eddy. But he taught them not to talk to anyone but him.”

“What other creat—that is, people might be here? Raccoon, ah…armakfatidi?”

“There is one, but she grummels.”

“From something Dr. Winston did?”

“No. I think all armakfatidi grummel, always have grummeled. Just, no one could hear them before our time.”

“Onchiki?”

“The scuinans say the onchiki were taken inside.”

Oyk watched her fixedly while she frowned at her feet, murmuring, “We’ll have to get them out of here somehow. They’re not safe here, not in the long run, not with Edgar Winston dead.”

They started down the next line of cages, Oyk trotting ahead and eyeing the inhabitants of each pen with interest. He went around a corner, was out of sight for a few moments, then came speeding back. “Pheleda,” he said, turning once more and looking over his shoulder at Dora. “Wants to talk to you.”

She hurried, stopping short as she rounded the corner and confronted the large cat who awaited her. Lynx, she said to herself. Not quite that large, but otherwise, much like. So like Soaz as to be his sister. Oyk murmured to the big cat, and she came close to the fence. “Is it true you have a male with you?” she purred, rubbing herself against the wire. “The dog says you do.”

“Yes,” whispered Dora.

“I’d like to meet him. It’s very lonely here. I’m all by myself.”

She went back to her sheltered bed and lay down, fixing Dora with wide, golden eyes. “Tell him,” she called.

Dora moved away, shaking her head, trying to get her tumbling thoughts into an order that made sense. Edgar Winston had done whatever he had done, had created whatever he had created, and then the Woput killed him. But the Woput didn’t kill the creations. So, possibly, the Woput didn’t know Winston had yet succeeded. And he mustn’t know!

Oyk came to walk beside her, then Irk. They did not talk. The three of them strolled, trying to appear casual, stopping outside each cage to inspect the inhabitants, whispering to them, but receiving no further response. It was impossible to know whether the animals could not or would not talk, and Dora felt her frustration growing.

It was Irk who heard Abby returning. They met him at the corner, where he sat in the car, making a great crumple of a paper bag and a small box.

“You got one,” said Dora.

“I got one,” he confirmed, displaying the small battery powered receiver-transmitter assembly. “It’s the smallest one they had. A pig might be able to swallow it.”

Dora took it from him and went to the corner pen, where seven pairs of eyes watched her curiously. “This device,” she said, displaying it, “should be found in your pen. It should look chewed, and it should be found in your…droppings. It will explain how one of you seemed to be talking when, in fact, we all know you can’t.”

She reached through the wire and laid the device on the ground. One of the pigs, not Sahir, came to pick it up and carry it to the back of the pen. Several pairs of eyes looked it over carefully before returning to Dora.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Thank you,” said someone. It was the same voice she had heard earlier in the summer saying, “Poor guy.”

“We’ll be back,” she remarked. “We think it would be a good idea to get you out of here.”

“We can dig out anytime. Any of us,” said the same voice. “We can even hide the holes.”

“Why haven’t you?” she asked, carefully not looking at the pen.

“Nowhere to go,” said the voice. “We figure, we’d have to have someplace to go. Daddy Eddy said it isn’t safe out there.”

Dora nodded, then raised her voice and called, “Joe?”

His voice came from up the hill. “Over here. You need something?”

She walked toward the voice. “Just saying good-bye. Hey, this is really a marvelous collection of animals. Almost a zoo.”

Joe emerged from behind a feeder and leaned against a post, becoming expansive as he gestured widely at the pens. “This’s only part of it, Sergeant. Dr. Winston, when he finished with some of his experiments, he used to give some of the animals to friends of his, like pets, you know? Even with all these here, I bet he gave twice that many away.”

Dora kept her face carefully neutral, clenching her hands into fists to hide the fact that they trembled. “What kind of animals, Joe?”

“Oh, he had some bears, bigger ones than here, you know. Here you can’t keep anything really big. They was just cubs, but they was getting big. He has friends with a place in Alaska, and they took the bears up there. Then he had some goats, and some beavers, oh, a whole bunch of different ones. He’d been doing this research for a long time, started when he was just a young man. He was retirement age, you know, almost seventy. They let him stay on.”

Dora said, “Well, don’t let anybody do anything to Abby’s pig, okay? Call us first.”

“What’s your number?”

She wrote it down for him, home and precinct. “Maybe I can save you a call? What time tomorrow you think I could see this guy Marsh?”

Joe didn’t know. Joe would find out. Joe would call her.

“I guess this is the best we can do right now,” said Abby as they headed out the gate. “It’s after twelve. You want to have lunch?”

“I’ve got information for the whole family, and they’ll all be hungry,” she said, with a glance at the two dogs. “Let’s stop at the market, instead.”