An Android Dog's Tale (3 page)

Their dull-witted pack animal seemed mostly
oblivious to its surroundings but would occasionally grab tasty
leaves, seedpods, and other morsels with its long, prehensile
tongue without pausing. It could walk and chew at the same time,
but much more might prove challenging to the slow beast.

In exchange for the meal the plants
involuntarily provided, it randomly deposited steaming brown lumps
of odiferous organic fertilizer behind it. This also carried a
certain fragrance of life but a much less pleasant one. The hearty
vegetation thrived on it, though, and would recover within a few
days, leaving little sign of their passage.

MO-126 perked his ears at the sound of
voices ahead and notified his partner.

“
We’re still well over a kilometer from
the village,
” the trade android replied, “
but your hearing
is better than mine. You have better visual acuity, too. Do you see
anyone?
”

The simulated canine scanned the area in
visible light and infrared. He saw humans picking fruit from a
nearby orchard and tending fields of tall grain farther away,
squatting to pull weeds or dredging irrigation ditches. Another
primitive, this one obviously male, stood by a stream. The man was
closer to them than the field workers were, but a patch of woods
obscured him from normal view. He gave no sign of being aware of
their presence. A fishing pole lay propped on a rock beside him
while he added his own contribution to the tinkling waters.

“
Yeah. There are a few people around. I
suppose it’s time for my dog act.
”

“
It’s always time for your dog act when
you’re outside a hub terminal. Remember this. You’re a dog. You
must act like one. I know you have basic information about normal
canine behavior, but observe the dogs you see here and notice how
they act. That’s all you need to do your first few times
out.
”

“Woof,” MO-126 said aloud while
transmitting, “
Got it. Bark, scratch, sleep. It’s a fairly
simple routine.
”

“
The problem normally isn’t the doglike
things you should do. The difficult part is all the things you can
do that you should not.
”

“
Don’t worry. I think I can restrain
myself from doing anything obviously brilliant. It’s not as if I
can talk to them even if I wanted to.
”

“
Paying attention without appearing to be
paying attention can be more difficult than you might think,
”
the trader cautioned.

“
It doesn’t sound that hard, but I’ll be
careful.
”

“
Good. When we get there, just wander
through the village and observe. Don’t go into any buildings unless
I call you, and don’t chase the chickens, even if you see the
village dogs do it.
”

“
You’re the human master and I’m the
well-behaved, faithful dog. I’ve got all that.
” He felt just a
little insulted. While he could not deny that he lacked any
first-hand, or first-paw, experience, the trader did not need to
remind him of the things covered in his basic orientation files. He
was not malfunctioning. He owed his artificial life to the
corporation, and he would show his appreciation by performing his
function well.

They approached the village, two androids of
the Galactic Organic Development Corporation, indistinguishable, at
least to humans, from a man and his dog. The pack animal laden with
their trade goods trudged docilely beside them. Bags, baskets,
small rough boxes, and crude clay jars rattled in the wooden
platform strapped to its broad back. Other goods hung on ropes and
in harnesses down its sides. In exchange for fresh produce and
dried herbs, they would offer obsidian knives, bone needles and
fishhooks, crude cloth, stone and wood tools, and even some of the
containers. They could safely leave anything not needed to carry
the items being received as payment. Their goods represented the
height of Neolithic technology, but they carried nothing the
villagers could not produce themselves, if they were so inclined.
Part of every android’s job was to see to it that they were
not.

The first villager to greet them was a dog a
bit larger than MO-126. It bounded toward them, barking, which
quickly attracted the attention of others. The canine chorus partly
conveyed a challenge. ‘This is our place. You are not part of our
pack,’ which, in the dogs’ minds, would include the humans, goats,
chickens, gonds, and other animals living among them. The barking
also notified the rest of the village of visitors approaching.
MO-126 followed the trader’s lead and did not respond. A
well-behaved dog would not.

They continued their slow trudge past a
somewhat orderly collection of about a hundred crude buildings of
wood, mud, stone, and grass toward a central open space of trampled
dirt, which included a fire pit and a well for water lined with
stones and sun-dried clay bricks. A bearded man with long, brown
hair dappled with gray emerged from one of the larger huts. He wore
a plain linen tunic that hung past his knees with loose sleeves
ending between elbow and wrist. Age and experience lined his face,
but other than a musky odor and a few missing teeth, he appeared
healthy and vigorous.

“
That’s Oslan,
” the trader
transmitted. “
He’s the current headman for this village. All our
dealings are done through him.
”

The trade benefited both parties. The
primitives received items that would take far more time and
practice to make themselves than required to produce the things
they offered in exchange. The corporation obtained highly prized
organic foods that it could sell for inflated prices to several
technologically advanced species across the galaxy, especially
those which normally subsisted on industrially grown or replicated
food. Most food producers in these high-tech civilizations expended
a great deal of effort and a considerable amount of money ensuring
their customers appreciated that their products were intentionally
formulated to be nutritious, delectable, and even healthier than
the expensively imported ‘natural’ alternatives. Nonetheless, many
self-proclaimed connoisseurs claimed the organic stuff just tasted
better. This might have more to do with clever promotion than with
gastronomy, but it did not matter. The market existed, and it was
lucrative.

MO-126 suspected that status provided much
of the appeal, at least among those species with a concept of
status. Anyone willing to pay a thousand times the cost of the
local nutritional equivalent of a carrot for one grown in
dung-fortified dirt on a distant planet by, as corporate
advertising proclaimed, ‘simple and happy sentient creatures living
in harmony with nature,’ must be someone with considerable wealth
and, well, taste. In that sense, taste might be a factor but not in
the way that the well-to-do consumer or snobbish food critics
claimed.

MO-126 made no value judgments based on
this. The corporation provided a product to satisfy a demand from a
willing market regardless of the reason that demand existed.
Projects like this required a high initial investment, but
amortized over the millennia they normally operated, they could be
big moneymakers. He owed his very existence to this fact and felt
privileged to support the corporation that created him, as he was
intended to.

“
While I’m arranging the trade, you
should wander around the village
,” the trader said
.
“
See what things are like. I don’t expect you to find any
problems, but be observant, and if you see any signs of emerging
technology-development or scientific-discovery faults, let me
know.
”

“
Can do,
” the artificial dog eagerly
replied. He looked forward to this, his first encounter with
humans. Observing them was what he was made to do.

“Master Trader Tork.” Oslan called out in a
voice of welcome and possibly relief. “You have come just in time.
But then, you always do, don’t you?”

“Oslan, my good friend,” the trader said,
extending his free hand in greeting. “Does this mean you have goods
to trade?”

“You know we do. The redfruit are ripe, and
we have plenty. There are also potatoes, carrots, peas, and herbs.
All the very best, I assure you. What do you have for us this
time?”

MO-126 slipped away as the headman and the
trade android, Master Trader Tork to the villagers, examined each
other’s wares and negotiated the exchange. This could take a while,
leaving the novice mobile observer android plenty of time for his
first examination of the primitives whose ancestors evolved on a
distant planet.

~*~

The corporation never abducted anyone. Such
an act would be a violation of Galactic Federation law. They simply
harvested the necessary cells from unwitting donors on their native
planets and bred a separate population on the project planets.
Humanoid nursery androids raised and cared for the first generation
of primitives born here. After that, they allowed things to proceed
more haphazardly. This particular village did not have a NASH
android currently assigned to it, but nursery androids of the same
basic type continued to operate in some others as surrogate
grandparents of a sort, often in the roles of healers or
storytellers to help ensure stability or social harmony even now
that the species was self-sustaining.

The cell extraction caused the donors no
harm, although no one consulted them on the matter. It would be not
only pointless but also dangerous to do so. The resulting myths and
legends could pollute their natural development. This remained one
of the strictest regulations on interstellar commerce enforced by
the Galactic Federation.

The law resulted from a political compromise
made many thousands of years before. One party wanted to prohibit
interference of any kind with emerging species. Another advocated
treating them as natural resources that could be claimed and
developed by whatever individual, group, or company that discovered
them. The compromise ultimately satisfied both parties. The first
accepted it because most species limited to only one planet
normally become extinct before long, so allowing businesses to
breed them on other planets provided a charitable means to prevent
this. The second party was actually relieved they did not get all
they wanted after certain unfortunate events on one of the project
planets of a major contributor caused a sharp drop in the company’s
stock value. It became clear after this that some primitive species
tend to object, often very expensively, if they learn they are
being ‘developed.’

The law as passed allowed the transfer of
non-sentient biological material from one planet to another, but it
prevented businesses from disrupting the natural physical or
cultural evolution of any sentient species on its native planet.
Once a species independently developed the ability to travel the
stars, it could be regarded as a potential customer, and different
regulations applied, most of those heavily weighted in favor of the
business community, especially the large corporations, which
generously contributed to political campaigns.

Companies were allowed far more leeway when
it came to species living on planets that did not spawn their
evolution, however, even when they were introduced by the company
involved. The major restriction was that the transplanted species
must be provided with a level of technology and culture considered
at least equal to those it already achieved on its own at the time
of its discovery. Once established on a different planet, members
of that species fell into a legal gray area somewhere between
employees and domestic livestock. Individuals in either category
could not be abused, endangered, or cheated. The legal definitions
for all of these were so vague that companies were usually
considered compliant as long as the primitives seemed content and
healthy. In questionable cases, interstellar corporate lawyers
sometimes argued that establishing the colony outweighed any minor
concerns because it spread the primitive’s species, which is, of
course, the goal of all life.

Despite this, the various star-faring
civilizations that comprised the Federation did not see the
relatively free hand extended to large businesses as a license to
exploit their primitive workers. Quite the contrary. Companies paid
their advertisers well to ensure the public knew that the
businesses were benefiting the poor savages in ways they could not
possibly comprehend. After all, any sentient species they
discovered would probably become extinct on its own. This was most
often the case. Based on statistical analysis of millennia of data,
for every one hundred sentient races that emerge, ninety-nine would
die out without ever achieving a written language, if left on their
own. Forty would succumb to natural disasters or climate
fluctuations, thirty to disease, twenty to predators, and the rest
to incredible stupidity.

Of the one percent that did eventually
achieve the ability to pass on information in written form to
subsequent generations, most died out before attaining anything
resembling the wisdom or technology necessary to venture to the
stars. It seemed such a shame after overcoming such hurdles, but
most self-destructed, sometimes intentionally, or at least mutually
assuredly. The odds were not good.

One race, the botraques, died out when a
religious leader came up with the concept of heaven. His followers
found the idea so enticing they could not wait to get there and
began dying through self-flagellation for imagined sins, prolonged
fasting, and other efforts to obtain spiritual purity. It was a
great time for the planet’s lowly scavengers but rather unfortunate
for the botraques, which otherwise exhibited a great deal of
potential.

Because of this, Federation laws looked upon
the removal of genetic material from primitive sentient species as
a legitimate conservation effort, the costs of which companies
could recoup by humanely utilizing the collected genetic material
to raise workers for their businesses. The plan benefited everyone
concerned.