Cautionary Tales (25 page)

Doane nodded, remembering. He was actually the same age as Ian, twenty, and in his prime. But of course that was a secret they kept well. Others assumed he was two or three, and no more than a guide dog, rather than a trusted friend.

“And you sniffed out the kindhearted neighbor, Chloe, and she took you in,” Ian continued. “She was always kind to lost things. And when she caught on to your nature, she kept the secret, and did not return you to the project to be euthanized. That was the first reason we loved her.”

Doane wagged his tail, agreeing.

“Then when I was five, and blind, they thought I was another unaffordable failure. But I simply had a different kind of telepathy, that they had overlooked. Catching on that I was doomed, I used my ability to escape. I was soon lost in the wilderness that surrounded the project, frightened, helpless. But you tuned in on me from afar, bless you, and led Chloe to me, and she took me in too. She saved my life, and gave me an excellent home. She's not my mother genetically, but she is in the sense that counts. That was the second reason we loved her.”

Doane agreed again.

Ian smiled. “If anyone overheard me talking to my dog, they would think I was tetched or merely trying to reassure you with the sound of my voice. They would not know that when we touch we have what amounts to telepathic rapport. You feel my feeling, which is what counts, and I feel yours. We understand each other on a level few others do.”

Doane looked at him and nodded.

“Which is a reminder of my own slice of telepathy,” Ian continued. “I know you looked at me because I can eavesdrop on your perceptions. I know you nodded in a human fashion because your glance at me shifted perspective. Similarly I can see, hear, and feel what those physically close to me do. I can't read their minds, but I know what they're paying attention to. So I am not really blind, merely unable to use my own eyes. I can read by tuning in to the reading of the person beside me. The project supervisors were looking for their version of telepathy, which was an impossibly full connection to another person's mind, so missed the partial types that were really more feasible. Such as your ability to divert spot attention from yourself, so that you became forgettable. Such as my ability to see where they looked, to read their written orders, and act accordingly.”

He shook his head. “Like that man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. They were great on prices. I can't blame them; it took me years to figure out the distinction between the viewpoints of others and my own. So I seemed crazy, not relating to their world. At one point I was labeled as severely autistic. But I merely had not yet gotten a handle on my ability. Just as you had not on yours. It was only with the nurturing support of Chloe that we achieved our full potentials.”

That ability had served him increasingly as he grew. Chloe sent him to school, after home-schooling him several years, because she said he needed to get experience interacting with his own kind. It had not taken long for the local bully to orient on him as easy pickings.

“You got lunch money, blindbutt? Give it here.”

Doane bristled, sensing the threat, but Ian quieted him with a touch. He had to fight his own battles. “I have my own lunch.”

“Give me that.”

“No.”

The bully stared at him, and he saw himself through the bigger boy's eyes: a thin boy wearing dark glasses, carrying a bag with a cell phone, lunch, notebook, pencils, and his folded cane. “How's that again, creep?”

“I think you understood me the first time.”

“Okay, here's something for
you
to understand, shitface.” The bully cocked his right fist.

Ian didn't wait for the blow to land. He dodged to the side and swung his bag at the bully's head. It smacked him hard against the side of his face.

The bully was more astonished than hurt. The blind kid had struck back. It must have been a lucky score.

“Okay, mush-brain. Now you're really going to get it.” The bully cocked both fists and set himself for a fast one-two series of punches.

But even as he moved, Ian dodged again, this time to the other side, guided by the boy's own vision. He got behind the bully, swung the arm with the bag around his neck, and yanked him back off-balance. “Lay off,” he said into the boy's ear. “Or I will make you be like me.” With his free hand he pressed against the bully's face, a finger touching an eye. “Shall I demonstrate?” He pressed just hard enough to make the point.

This time the bully got the message. No easy pickings here. “Okay.”

Ian let him go. Then he turned his back and walked away, openly showing his contempt. The bully stared after him. Had he tried to attack from behind, Ian would have ducked and whirled and punched him in the solar plexus, another move he had rehearsed. None of these moves would have worked well had he been sighted, but because the bully thought he couldn't see, he was unconsciously careless, leaving himself open to sucker counterattacks. But he could see what the bully saw, and that guided him quite effectively. He was physically fit, and able to move with an assurance that sighted people underestimated. That underestimation was critical to his success in dealing with them.

The bully never bothered him again.

Ian did well in school, listening carefully and making notes. He could see through the eyes of his nearest classmates, but did that only to have an awareness of the layout of the classroom. He did not want to give himself away.

The girls liked Doane, and the dog liked their attention, but that was as far as it went. As Ian matured, no girl wanted to date him. They were polite to him, even nice, but, well, he was
blind.

Prospects were better in college, and he did get dates. But no serious interest.

The stewardess approached with a meal, and Ian had to cease remembering. He could not see her directly, but she saw her own reflection briefly in the darkened window, and she was trim and pretty. The kind of girl he would have liked to date, had any been interested in a blind man. There it was again.

When she departed, he quietly put the sausage down for Doane, who really liked meat of any kind.

After the meal Ian resumed his summation, as it was his way of dealing with the crisis of the moment. “Then there was Catto, a decade later. The invisible cat.”

Doane wagged his tail, sharing the humor.

“Not literally true, of course. His partial telepathic ability was to cloud men's minds so that they could not see or hear or smell him. So when the project concluded that he was a failure because he couldn't read minds, and took him to the disposal chamber, he disappeared and escaped. You tuned in from afar again, knowing his nature, and we went out to fetch him. Chloe didn't mind that he ate a lot; she loved him as another lost thing, and he prospered. That was the third reason we loved her.”

Now she was dead. What were they to do? Ian had done well in school because of her constant support. He was smart enough, but needed the emotional endorsement. Chloe had truly believed in him. Now he would be on his own—rather, the three of them would be—but he knew they couldn't cope. He wasn't remotely equipped to make it in life without Chloe's guidance and support, and the others, as animals, had no resources in the human world.

The plane descended. Soon enough they caught a taxi home. The house was locked, but Ian had a key, and they entered the familiar premises.

Only then did Ian break down, sobbing for the loss of the only other human being he had loved. Doane howled, sharing the grief.

Then they organized for the immediate need. The near future was opaque, but the present was urgent. “We have to find Catto,” Ian said. “He had to go out to hunt, when the food in the house ran out, and he's bound to hunt the wrong things. There'll be trouble.”

They set out, dog and man, heading into the local forest. Doane sniffed out Catto's scent trail, and Ian tuned into the dog's vision so that he could proceed with confidence using only his white-tipped cane.

All too soon they found the area. There were three men, local farmers by their garb, talking. “Hey mister!” one called. “You blind? Don't go in that copse!”

“I am blind,” Ian agreed without annoyance. “I am safe enough, with my guide dog.”

“That's not what I meant,” the man said. “It's no place for a sighted person, let alone a blind one. There's a monster in there. We're going to get a permit to start a ring of fire and burn it out.”

That was exactly what Ian had feared. “I have traversed this forest many times. There is nothing dangerous in it.”

“Maybe not, before. But this is now. There's a monster, a ghost, and it's dangerous.”

Ian forced a laugh. They had encountered Catto, all right. “Ghosts are fine for spook stories, but we all know they don't really exist.”

“Tell, him, Frank.”

“Here's what I seen,” Frank said, clearly shaken. “My dog smelled something and he ran into that copse. Then he yelped, and I ran in after him. There he was, lying dead, his throat torn open. Something killed him. Something big. I knew it was close by; the hairs on my neck raised. There was a smell, then it faded. I pulled my gun and looked, but couldn't see or hear nothing. I stood there, and then I saw it.” The man gulped audibly.

“Saw what?” Ian asked, anticipating the answer.

“The ghost footprints. They just appeared right before me, pressing into the ground. Big ones, like maybe a bear. But there was nothing there. That's when I knew it was a ghost monster. It killed my dog, and might have killed me, but I got the hell out of there.” The man was still terrified.

Definitely Catto. Because though he might seem invisible, he could not hide his footprints once he left the area, and they appeared. Frank thought they were being made as they came into view, but that was not the case. They were there all the time, but hidden.

As for their size: hardly surprising. Because Catto was no house-cat. He was a tiger. Chloe hadn't cared: he was a lost kitten, and she loved him. She had covered for him for years, making sure he had plenty of meat to eat and keeping him out of mischief. Ian and Doane had taken Catto for walks in the wood, cautioning him, and he had trusted their judgment. They were a team.

But if Catto got hungry enough, would he attack a man? Ian could not be quite sure. It was better to make sure the big cat never got that hungry. Meanwhile the superstitious farmers might have reason to be scared.

“Ah, here comes the gasoline,” the first man said as a fourth man arrived, hauling a large fuel can.

“Well, thanks,” Ian said, pretending nonchalance. “We'll be moving along now.” He touched Doane's back, and the two walked on toward the copse.

“Wrong way, mister!” the man yelled. “The monster's there.”

“If I see it, I'll tell it to go away,” Ian responded as though oblivious. Obviously he wouldn't see it, because it was invisible and he was blind, but the farmers surely didn't get the humor.

They entered the copse, and no one followed.

Doane sniffed. Catto was near. He wouldn't dim his odor for Doane.

“Catto,” Ian murmured. “Come in close. Make us all invisible.” This was part of their teamwork: they had done it before, as a game.

The tiger did. Catto had known and trusted them most of his life, because of familiarity and the telepathy.

They walked in a tight formation back the way they had come. The four men were busy pouring gasoline, starting a big circle around the copse. None of them paid any attention. Catto was diverting their sight. Only their footprints would remain, appearing belatedly. With luck these would not be noticed.

They made it safely back to the house, smelling the smoke of the gasoline fire behind them. The farmers would be satisfied that the invisible monster had been burned out, and that was best.

But a man stood at the door. “I can't see you, but I know you're there,” he said. “I've got a heat detector. We need to talk.”

Doane growled and Catto was ready to pounce, but Ian cautioned them back. He couldn't see the man either, but the view from his eyes was competent. At his touch, Catto ceased his effort, and they became visible and audible. “Go inside,” he told the man. “We'll join you.”

They settled in the living room, the animals on their favorite couches. The three of them gazed at the man.

“I am John Mawker,” he said without preamble. “I am from the Project, of course.”

This was like dealing with the bully. The man thought he had the advantage, but he might underestimate them. “The one that considered us failures,” Ian said evenly. “That was going to destroy us.”

“True. Our greatest failure was in not recognizing the nature of the successes we had. Since then we have grown smarter, as an institution. We want you back. All three of you. Now that your benefactor is gone, it behooves you to consider our offer.”

“What offer?” Ian did not trust this man, but their situation was desperate, and they had to listen. The alternative would be to flee the region, hiding from normal people, foraging in garbage cans, and trying to escape pursuit by people from the project who knew their nature.

“I see you understand,” Mawker said.

“Understand what?” Ian asked tightly.

Mawker smiled. “I am moderately telepathic myself. Mainly I pick up moods. It's clumsy compared to the talents the three of you have perfected. But believe me, I understand you.”

“What offer?” Ian repeated.

“One you can't refuse. Return to the project, and you will be protected and nurtured much as Chloe did for you. We were aware of this kindhearted normal woman, but left her alone, because she was doing our job for us, and better than we had done it. Did you really think we could be ignorant of a neighbor who took in our charges? She knew nothing of us, as far as we know, though she might have suspected. Now that is over, and we must act to secure you. We can't allow you to range uncertainly amidst the populace. The project has always been secret and must remain so. We require your cooperation.”