An Android Dog's Tale (8 page)

“
They’re—,
” MO-126 began to protest.
He felt he should defend the humans, realizing that this might be
due to the canine basis of his programming. It hardly mattered
where the feeling came from. It was part of who and what he
was.

“
They’re employees of the Galactic
Organic Development Corporation, and so are we,
” Tork said.
“
They can perform their jobs better by living simple lives and
holding simple beliefs, and we can perform our jobs better by
helping them do so.
”

“
All right,
” the android dog said.
“
But I’m still bringing back the sheep. I’ll be there with them
sometime tomorrow. Make sure to give Galinda some food and
water.
”

~*~

The next morning, he waited patiently while
the lambs nursed and the larger sheep drank from the stream and
nibbled tender branches. When they seemed adequately prepared to
begin their trek back to the village, MO-126 approached them from
the opposite direction he needed them to go.

The old wether raised its wooly head,
turning it to one side and then the other to allow both of its
widely spaced eyes to get a good look at the unfamiliar dog. MO-126
stared back at it, trying to look authoritative and determined. He
could not be sure if the sheep noticed or what it meant to them if
they did. He observed dogs herding sheep before, and different dogs
apparently used different techniques. Some barked and nipped at the
sheep’s heels, and others seemed to push them from a distance and
stop and glare at them if they went the wrong way. He would try the
last method first. It suited his personality better.

He took a step toward the wether, but it did
not budge. Instead, it lowered its head and stomped its front feet
as if it planned to butt him. He suspected the demonstration was
just for show. Sheep, as a rule, were more sheepish. This old male
might have delusions about being a mountain goat or harbor other
wooly ideas.

MO-126 moved back and rethought his herding
strategy. If he could just get this large one moving, the others
were sure to follow. Apparently, subtlety would not work, so he
moved farther back to give him space for a good start. Then, he
turned and raced toward the wether, barking as he came. This time,
the male sheep reacted more the way sheep should. It ran, and the
others ran with it. Now he simply needed to make sure they stayed
together and went the right way.

Once the sheep were moving, herding them
came to him almost intuitively. The instinct must have been buried
somewhere in his canine programming. He gauged his speed,
direction, and distance from the flock to direct them the way he
needed them to go. It required no more barking.

Confident of his continued progress, he made
another call to his partner. “
I’ll be there in a couple hours,
probably less. How are things at the village?
”

“
Things change little in these places
from one century to the next, so it’s unlikely much could happen in
a day,
” was the trader’s accurate, albeit somewhat sarcastic
reply.

“
I meant about Galinda.
”

“
She’s still here.
”

“
Did you remember to feed her?
”

“
I slipped her some bread, cheese, and
water last night after everyone else was asleep. I almost had to
force her to take it. She said she needed to chase out her demon.
Trust me; getting involved in this is not a good idea.
”

“
We’re not getting involved. We’re just
helping out. Once they get their sheep back, they’ll all realize it
was a mistake and everything will be fine. You’ll see.
”

“
I wouldn’t count on that. We’re dealing
with primitive minds here.
”

“
Maybe, but they all can’t be
insane.
”

“
Sanity is a culturally relative
term,
” the trader claimed. “
When you get here, just keep the
sheep away from the rest of the villagers’ flocks, if you
can.
”

“
Why?
”

“
Just a precaution. I’ve been working
with these primitives a bit longer than you have, and I think
things might get complicated.
”

“
You haven’t been working with them that
much longer, just a few centuries,
” MO-126 protested.

“
I’ve also worked more closely with them.
I don’t think this is going to turn out as neatly as you
expect.
”

“
All right. I think you’re being overly
pessimistic, but I’ll try to keep them separated. It shouldn’t be
too hard. I’m getting the hang of this sheepdog job. I’ll call
again when I get there.
”

MO-126 closed the link. He did not
understand why the trade android expected trouble. Everything was
quite simple. The villagers thought the sheep were abducted by
demons, but when the sheep returned, the primitives would realize
they were mistaken. Obviously, the sheep just wandered off, and the
trader’s heroic dog found them and brought them back safe and
sound. Mystery solved. Case closed. He would get a grateful pat on
the head, and everyone would go home happy.

~*~

About an hour and half later, he saw sheep
grazing on the next hill. He raced around to the front of his tiny
flock and managed, with some difficulty, to stop them. They must
have sensed the other sheep and wished to rejoin them because they
kept trying to continue walking in that direction.

“
I’m here,
” he sent to Tork. “
I’ve
got the sheep less than half a kilometer east of the village. I
think they want to come home now.
”

“
Not yet. Stay there. I need you to make
some kind of noise that the primitives here in the village can
hear. Bark or howl or something. Try to make it distinctive so I
can tell them I recognize the call as meaning you need me to come
to you.
”

“
It seems unnecessarily complicated, but
I’m sure you have a good reason for this. One emergency dog signal
coming up.
”

He thought for a moment, cleared his throat,
and yelled, “Ruff, ruff, ruff, howlllllllllll.”

Unexpectedly, the villagers’ dogs responded.
Soon, howling came from several different spots in and around the
village. The cacophony made him feel like the leader of the pack.
He enjoyed it, so he did it again. “Ruff, ruff, howlllllll!”

“
That’s enough. You can stop now. We’re
coming,
” the trade android signaled.

“
Are you sure? How about a few more just
so they don’t suspect I know you heard me?
”

He raised his head and yelled, “Ruff. Ruff.
Hooowwwllllll!” The harmonizing from the village dogs grew louder.
The sheep seemed unappreciative and largely uninterested, although
the large male with them tried to baa along. It lost the tune
quickly and went back to grazing.

He found the canine chorus oddly appealing.
It did not have a beat or a melody, but there was a simple, basic
beauty to it, a kind of an a cappella atonal symphony. He did not
know if he was the composer, or the conductor, or just one of the
instruments. Probably all and none of those labels applied in one
way or another, and he closed his eyes to get in touch with his
inner dog.

A distinctively bipedal induced rustle in
the grass drew his attention. He opened his eyes and saw Tork. With
him were the village headman, Gault, and his sister, Ryenne.

“Woof,” MO-126 said by way of a
greeting.

“It appears as if my dog has found your
wayward sheep, Gault,” Tork said to the headman.

“I see that,” said the smiling village
leader. “I’m relieved and very pleased.”

MO-126 wagged his tail, expecting an
appreciative pat on the head at any moment.

“No, you’re not,” said his sister.

The android dog’s tail froze mid-wag.

“I’m not?” Gault asked. His brow furled in
bemusement.

“No. You’re not.” She eyed the sheep
suspiciously and then cast an accusatory gaze upon MO-126.

“I know the gods speak to you, Ryenne, but
I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about this,” Gault said. “These are
good sheep, and they have three healthy lambs with them. I am quite
happy to have them.” As well he should be. In a society in which
money did not exist, sheep represented wealth.

“No. You’re not,” she said again. “You
should be afraid. You should be very afraid.”

“Of three sheep and three new lambs?” the
headman asked.

“They’re not lambs,” she said ominously.

“Of course they’re lambs, Ryenne,” Gault
said. “Look at them. They’re small; they’re wooly; they each have
four legs, and they’re sucking on sheep teats. That’s pretty much
the definition of lambs.”

The holy woman shook her head in denial.
“They only look like lambs. You’re forgetting Mov’s chicken.”

The village headman cocked his head with
bemusement, but he apparently spotted the direction of her thoughts
because he soon caught her meaning. He knew her all her life and
must have witnessed many of her twisted journeys into the lands of
invisible nightmares and bizarre imaginings. He asked for
confirmation anyway.

“You’re saying those lambs are demons?”

“Of course they’re demons!” She rolled her
eyes with exasperation at the stupidity of her older brother. “The
ewes were possessed before they gave birth, so the demons were
spawned in the unborn lambs, just like in Mov’s chicken. These are
stronger creatures—strong enough to carry a demon, so they
survived. We need to kill them all, now, and then burn them before
they can carry their demonic seed to others.”

“
She’s bat-crap crazy,
” MO-126 said
silently to his partner.

“
Well, she is especially
imaginative,
” the android trader replied. “
From her
perspective, I’m sure it all seems quite reasonable.
”

“
Her perspective is from a high mountain
with too little oxygen in mystical la-la land.
”

“
You’re being unreasonably judgmental.
She’s a primitive.
”

“
She’s still crazy,
” the artificial
dog said.

“
Oddly enough, I think her brother is
considering that possibility, too.
”

The trader’s comment may have been prompted
by the fact that Gault just told her that she was being
unreasonable. Three sheep and three new lambs were not things to be
dispensed with needlessly.

“Better these six than all our flock,” she
told him.

“But how can we know for sure?” Gault
protested. “They don’t appear possessed to me.”

“I already know for sure, Gault. The gods
speak to me, remember?”

“Well, yes. But how can
I
know for
sure?”

“Don’t be stupid. You can know because I
told you.”

Whereas this might have been sufficient
explanation for him to allow an old woman to be beaten and starved,
quite possibly to death, it did not provide a strong enough reason
to sacrifice six sheep. He cautiously approached the small flock
MO-126 continued to watch over. The three adult sheep glanced at
the village headman, perhaps recognizing him as their owner. The
lambs stayed by their mothers, completely failing to do anything
overtly demonic.

“They look like normal lambs to me, Ryenne,”
Gault called back to his sister. She did not accompany him to
examine the demon animals.

“That’s what they want you to think,” she
said from a safe distance. “I can feel the evil in them from
here.”

Gault reached out to pet one of the lambs.
Its mother let him. The lamb bleated, “Maaa,” and stuck out its
tongue. It was not forked. There were no visible fangs. It did not
vomit pea soup or twist its head around. It did have strange,
horizontal pupils, but all sheep had those.

“I think this one is all right,” the village
headman said. He examined the other two and then the adult sheep.
“I think they’re all fine. Your demons must have left.”

“They’re not
my
demons! They’re here
because of Galinda. And how would you know, anyway? You’ve never
been able to hear the voices or see the visions. I can feel the
demons in them, I tell you. They’re there. Get away from them
before they call one into you, too!”

The android dog cocked his head, desperately
trying to see things from her perspective, and failing. Dogs, as a
rule, have less imagination than humans do, and their manufactured
likenesses shared this trait. They just saw things that were really
there and did not feel compelled to invent stories to explain them.
In this case, he felt both of the humans were wrong. They were
Ryenne’s demons, and they were still alive and well. They just were
not what or where they thought they were.

The headman took a step back at her warning
and then looked at his sister, and then at his sheep, and then at
his sister again. MO-126 did not know the village headman well, but
he seemed a pragmatic sort. His analytical expression made the
android dog suspect that he was mentally comparing the relative of
value of six healthy sheep to that of one deranged woman.

Gault approached the sheep again and
examined them more thoroughly, despite his sister’s continued
cautions. If Tork understood the primitives’ worldview as well as
he implied, Ryenne’s inner visions would be as real to Gault as the
images his own eyes revealed. Possibly better because he only saw
the surface of things while she saw the spirits beneath. This added
to the fact that the sheep were just sheep and she was family led
MO-126 to suspect that both the sheep and the old woman back in the
village would not live much longer.

The headman reached his decision. “The sheep
are fine, Ryenne. They’re coming back with us.”

On the other hand, sheep are valuable, and
once dead, they stay dead. There remained some chance his sister
would come to her senses.