Race Against Time (7 page)

"He's an alien spy, but he's your dog. Great!"

"A gomdog made into a real dog. Information: Would he betray his master?"

"Data insufficient," the voice said.

"If he had been taken as a puppy or whatever it was and taught to be a dog, and he associated with one person like that for a year and a half—a real dog would never do anything to hurt that person. Would a gomdog?"

"Data insufficient."

John contained his frustration, knowing Betsy would smirk if she saw him express it. "What do you need to know?"

"Protein content of gomdog's diet. Diversity ratio of training. Preconditioning. Planetary environment. Pedigree."

Betsy became interested. "Gomdogs must be more special than we thought."

John was nervous now. He did not look at Canute. "He ate a lot of table scraps. He was supposed to stick to dog food, but he likes everything, and I'm softhearted."

"Softheaded,"
Betsy muttered.

"I guess it was a high-protein diet. Why is that important?"

"Sapience of the species is directly affected by early diet."

"As with human beings, too," Betsy said. "And probably all living things. That means he's smarter than he's supposed to be. Because you fed him wrong."

"I
like
him smart!" John snapped. "Diversity ratio of training—I didn't train him much at first. We were just pals. Then later I showed him how to do all kinds of tricks, like jumping fences, hiding things, playing 'stranger'—I guess it was pretty diverse. And he learned awfully quickly. I even used to read him stories, just for the fun of it, and discuss my homework."

"That means you gave him a good education," Betsy said. "You really set out to dedog him, you know."

He ignored her. "I don't know about preconditioning. I guess he was told to act like a dog. He was a week or two old when I got him—pure white, no spots at all. There can't have been much else, at that age—I mean, how much can a week-old
anything
learn? But he always did
look
like a dog. I guess his pedigree is normal—a gomdog is a gomdog, isn't it? And the planetary environment is earthlike."

"So would this gomdog betray his master?" Betsy asked.

"Qualified answer," the communicator said. "Assuming unmodified purebred stock, ad hoc conditioning with proper reinforcement, diverse but informal training—gomdog would be capable of willfully betraying his associates but would be unlikely to do so without extreme provocation. Probability eighty-four percent."

"Probability of
not
betraying is eighty-four percent?" John asked tensely.

"Correct."

Betsy crowded John away from the communicator. "How smart would it be?"

"Eighty percent of human norm, fifteen percent margin of error."

"So Canute has an I.Q. between sixty-eight and ninety-two!" she exclaimed. "And it may be even more if some of those assumptions are wrong." She turned to John. "He may have been given super-potent food, you know. Why would they leave a thing like that to chance? He may be as smart as we are!"

"I doubt it," John said cautiously. "He's smart, but not that smart."

"You
hope!
He could be smart enough to conceal his smartness from you. How would you know?"

That stumped him. "Well, if he is, he's still loyal. What's wrong with being that smart?"

"As if we hadn't just gone through all that! He might make a very bad enemy."

"So
that's
what you're driving at! Did you ever stop to consider that he might also make a very good friend?"

"Your
friend, not mine."

John stared at her. "You're jealous of a
dog!"

"Don't be ridiculous!" But her flush gave her away.

"Why didn't you bring
your
pet?" he asked.

"Carry a birdcage along on a jailbreak?" she demanded witheringly.

"I thought parakeets could be trained to stay close without being caged."

"Mine
was
—inside. Outside it would have flown away."

"Oh." He felt awkward. "I'm sorry." Then: "Was it a real bird?"

"I don't think so. Not an earth bird, anyway. Let's not talk about it."

"Well look—you can make friends with Canute. It isn't as though—"

"Forget it," she said sharply.

For a while they rode in silence, watching the monotonously green landscape passing below. John estimated that they had come over a thousand miles already, for the taxi had accelerated to super-jet-plane velocity and maintained it. He had yet to see a city or even a town the size of Newton. There were no roads and few fields. Only occasional shapes—octagons?—that might have been factory buildings except for their complete lack of smoke or access. Apartment houses, maybe—he had picked up mentions of these. Giant complexes of octagonal residences with shared sanitary and culinary facilities. Why the Standards should prefer to live in such constricted warrens, when all this unused countryside was available....

"I'm sorry," Betsy said. "Try asking information at what age a gomdog matures."

John shrugged and inquired.

"Eighteen years," information replied.

"Eighteen years!" John was astonished. "That's about the same as
us!"

"Not surprising, if it is as intelligent as we are," Betsy said. "You can't mature in a year and know everything someone else has learned in ten or fifteen."

"But then Canute is still a puppy—his mind would be like that of an eighteen-month-old human baby. Even if he's going to be as smart as us, that's a long way off."

She nodded. "So call him a dog."

John was immensely relieved. "I'm forgetting what I started out to do!" he exclaimed. "We have to change Canute so they can't spot him anymore."

"If the scan is visual."

"It is for
us.
When we changed clothing and color, they didn't know us."

"We're
human.
An animal might have a bug implanted. Something to home in on."

"So we're human. We could still be bugged the same way. Why should they bug the dog when it's
us
they want in the zoo?"

She spread her hands in overelaborate bafflement. "Ask information."

But at that point they felt a shift in course. They were coming down—to the coordinate of the third zoo? They exchanged glances, but neither cared to suggest what they might encounter there.

John spotted it first. "That's no American town! It's a walled city!"

Betsy looked. "That's Wei!" she exclaimed. "Pei's city! What a coincidence!"

"One chance in five," John pointed out. "Really, one chance in two, since we're obviously not heading for your place or mine or Ala's. So it was really an even bet that we'd strike pay dirt—if the coordinates meant anything." He looked again. "And I guess they did."

"Oh, shut up. Your reasoning is ludicrous." But she remained pleased. John decided that Yao Pei and his residence must have made a strong impression on her, and he felt a tinge of jealousy.

"Why don't you call him by his first name?" he inquired.

"Pei
is
his first name. His given name, I mean. The surname comes first, in China."

John contemplated the massive brick ramparts, the tall corner towers, and the handsome tiered roofs of the enclosed buildings. This city was formidable and beautiful. No wonder it had impressed her.

For a moment he was afraid the taxi would land outside the wall, because they were coming in very low. The barrier was a good twenty-five feet tall, surrounded by a moat, and almost as thick as it was high, to judge from the depth of the main gate. The top was crenellated, providing excellent cover for riflemen—no,
archers,
he corrected himself—and the great gates seemed impervious. But they passed over and dropped at last into a central park. No need to storm the bastion!

But why hadn't the Standards installed some kind of electronic warning system, to prevent twenty-fourth-century taxis from straying onto these secret premises? Had John been running the show....

John and Betsy looked at each other again, and he realized that he was running a show of his own—and had planned no better for it. "We can't just walk in," Betsy whispered, as though her voice could betray them. "I don't know my way around. I never really saw the city like this. I was unconscious or something when I—"

"I know."

"And we're stained brown, not yellow."

That was another awkward detail. "How do we tell who is real? This is much larger than Newton! There must be a thousand people here!"

"I'll recognize Pei."

"Sure. And all the men of this Oriental metropolis will just parade by the taxi so you can pick him out!"

"You don't have to be sarcastic!"

She was a fine one to talk! "Sorry," he said, not sorry.

"They're coming," she said, peering out. "The Chinese."

Catalyzed by that pressure, John came to a decision. "Canute can find the real ones. I'll run interference. You take the taxi up out of danger until we're ready."

"I don't know how to operate it!" she wailed.

John knew what she meant but had no time for sympathy. "Don't get hysterical. You don't have to operate it. Just tell it any coordinates, then tell it these ones when it's time to come back."

"I can't remember the number!"

"Here." He grabbed for a pencil to scribble the number—and came up against the empty cloth of his tunic. For an instant he was baffled; then: "Information will remember it! Just ask!"

"How do I know when it's time?"

The man shapes were coming quite near, and she
was
becoming hysterical. He realized she was making excuses to avoid going by herself.

"Guess!" he shouted. "Give Canute something to smell—something Pei touched.
Hurry!"

Hands shaking, she obeyed. She brought out a tiny object from a little purse she had salvaged from her other clothing. "Cowrie shell," she said, holding it stiffly down for Canute. "They use them for money...."

"Canute! Find that person!"

The dog sniffed, woofed, and wagged his tail.

"Let's go!" John cried. He held the key before him and leaped through the door, Canute beside him. Too late. The yellow-colored Standards were already there: two men in ground-length, belled robes.

"Who are you?" one demanded. "Don't you know no spheres are allowed in the enclave? Suppose
they
saw it?"

"Go find!" John whispered to Canute, slapping him on the flank. The dog bounded off.

"Hey!" one of the challengers cried. "What's that?"

Then the taxi lifted.

As the two men stared in dismay, John slipped away.

"Hey!" the man cried again. "You, Stan!"

John ran. That was the idea: As long as they were chasing
him,
Canute could search the city without undue interference. Of course, John had to keep from getting caught himself, and then he would have to bring the two Chinese purebreds to the park, unobserved, and hope Betsy timed it properly—if she didn't lose her nerve entirely.

"Stop!" the man called. "You're not painted! If
they
see you...."

John swerved between bushes, jogged down a flowery footpath, half-crossed and half-hurdled a small decorative bridge, and ran into the city proper. The pursuers fell behind.

Suspicious, John slowed and looked back—and saw them walking nonchalantly.

Of course! They did not dare raise a loud hue and cry, because that would call attention to the "Standard" running loose in the city. If the two true Chinese took note, the whole zoo project would be in peril, particularly after the mix-up that had already introduced the Chinese boy to white American Betsy. On the other hand, the pursuers would be unlikely to give up, and more would undoubtedly close in as the word quietly spread. They might use that same knockout weapon that had put him away when he was with Ala. (Was that only yesterday?) And they were familiar with the city, whereas he was not. So he'd better lose himself quickly.

John sprinted down the street, turned a corner, and almost crashed into a roadside fruit stand. Oranges, bananas, pineapples, assorted melons, and others he didn't recognize—he was hungry! But he didn't have any money, or even cowrie shells.

"Papaws—thirty cash," the vendor began, then did a double take. "Standard! Get out of here, before—"

"I'm an inspector," John said without premeditation.

Confused, the vendor let him pass. John turned another corner, dodged down a narrow alley, turned again, and came up against the city wall. This place—Wei, Betsy had called it—looked large only because it was strange. It was actually only a few hundred yards across.

A sentry paced along the top of the wall. John ducked back out of sight, stifling his loud-seeming panting, but found that he had nowhere to go. The street had no close offshoots, and the houses here were like blank screens: impassive and forbidding. No porches, no windows. Even their front gates were shielded by smaller walls.

But he heard people coming behind him. By now there were a number, and they had a pretty good idea where he was. John ran back toward the wall, hunching low so as to avoid discovery by the soldiers there, and found what he had prayed for: a space where the slanting wall surface parted from the vertical house surface. He scrambled in.

By this time Canute should have located the real Chinese, Yao Pei and his female counterpart. Maybe the dog was already on his way back, to pick up John's own trail. All he had to do was hide and wait and let Canute sniff him out. But
where?
He couldn't get into any of these formidable residences, and even if he could, it would only raise another shocked cry from the owner.

One slipper turned against a piece of rubble in the crevice. John jumped and caught himself by spreading his arms against the walls on both sides. If he got a foot jammed here....

He intersected another street. His hands were filthy, and his tunic was badly smudged, but neatness was nothing compared to his giveaway color and clothing. Should he walk down this block, hoping that he would not be spotted? No—that would be begging for trouble he couldn't afford.