An Android Dog's Tale (2 page)

The area around the two ships bustled like a
disturbed anthill. Machines of various kinds, some resembling large
gray crabs and others more like self-propelled shop-vacuum cleaners
with arms, unloaded the larger and bulkier spacecraft. The
motionless silver ship was busiest of all. During its century in
transit, it prepared and planned the start of this new project, and
now it put those plans into effect, monitoring all of the ongoing
activities and directing the actions of the robots busily working
in and around its boxy neighbor.

Within a year, plants thrived nearby that
never grew on this planet before. Grains and vegetables native to
the planet it visited a century before photosynthesized nutrients
using light from a star different from the one that fueled their
evolution. Specially designed and recently manufactured robots
harvested native trees. Others processed the lumber; still others
carefully transplanted seedlings of completely different and
unrelated trees.

A black, elongated cube, superficially much
like those that probed Earth, emerged from the survey ship. It
glided noiselessly to a stream and released the first nonnative
animals to attempt to create a life and a future for their species
on this planet.

The fish, hatched in one of the ship’s
several bio-tanks and unaccustomed to the feel of the flowing
water, floated motionless along with the current at first. Their
instincts and an encouraging splash from one of the probe’s
appendages soon prompted them to explore their new environment. The
ship calculated the probability of them surviving to reproduce to
be ninety-eight percent, and it felt pleased.

More animals emerged from a ramp leading
from an opening in the larger of the two interstellar craft. Robots
herded a procession of goats, pigs, sheep, and other herbivores
noted for their undiscriminating taste in food into transport craft
that would take them to different areas around the planet where
they could live and breed. After extensive analysis, the ship
concluded that they could eat many of the native plants, and it had
slightly altered the genes governing their instincts to encourage
them to do so.

All was proceeding according to plan.

~*~

50 Years Later

(Galactic Standard Year 223603)

F
ifty years later,
the ship looked down with satisfaction on a small village in a
field that previously held nothing but tough, native grasses and
large, grazing beasts. Buildings made of wood and mud with thatched
roofs of native grass defined the dirt paths between them. The
unmistakable odor of domesticated livestock from several of these
structures proved the efficacy of the ship’s efforts. Several goats
snoozed quietly in one. The building next to it provided a home to
a like number of pigs. Another held chickens. A pair of dogs slept
in the shade of a tree. Sheep grazed in a fenced area nearby, and
small gardens and cultivated fields grew cotton, wheat, beans,
carrots, potatoes, and other vegetables.

A humanoid male, outwardly indistinguishable
from the sentient bipeds the ship discovered a century before,
other than that he was cleaner and better clothed, left the largest
building and headed toward the goat shed. He carried an empty
bucket and wore an unadorned long-sleeved cotton tunic that reached
his knees. His brown eyes, dark brown hair, and short beard were
unremarkable. By all appearances, he seemed a quite ordinary
thirty-something year old man, unlikely to draw attention in almost
any human settlement—except there have never been humans on this
planet before, and back on Earth, as the Pleistocene Age rode its
glaciers to the end of their frigid road, the height of fashion
consisted of a custom-tailored mammoth skin.

He casually milked one of the goats and then
carried the filled bucket back to the largest of the buildings.

Inside, one hundred wooden cribs lined the
two longest walls. A human infant occupied each. Some slept. Some
squirmed. Some cried out for attention. The last were answered by
several attendants with kind, elderly faces and calm mannerisms.
They spoke quietly among themselves and to the babies in an
idealized picture of stereotypical grandparents.

The man with the bucket placed it on one of
several long tables forming a line down the center of the room and
left. A matronly-looking woman began to ladle the milk into clay
bottles topped with leather nipples.

Outside, a crowd of robots of various
configurations walked, rolled or glided up the ramps of both ships,
taking themselves and all the other noticeably high-tech equipment
inside. After the last of a long line of laden robots entered the
larger and homelier of the two ships, the hatchway closed. With a
burst of air disturbing the leaves, dirt, and grass beneath, the
bulky ship rose, hovered a moment, and then began to rotate, making
the words written on the side clearly visible.

Galactic Organic Development Corporation

Specializing in natural produce from across
the galaxy.

Caringly grown, cultivated and harvested by
simple sentient life forms.

No artificial ingredients, pesticides,
herbicides, or mechanized equipment used in processing.

Guaranteed 100% organic.

The smaller ship watched it leave and then
reabsorbed its own landing struts. It took great satisfaction in
completing a job done well. The project it established here should
bolster corporate profits for many millennia to come.

It notified the new project manager of its
intention to leave.

4,197 Years Later

(Galactic Standard Year 227800)

(Project Year 4247)

In which Mobile Observer Android 126 first
encounters humans.

T
here were no paths
here—or anywhere. The corporation discouraged paths, especially
those that led anywhere. Anyone who might be watching would have
seen a man, his dog, and his pack animal zigzagging seemingly at
random through tall grass, between trees and bushes, around rock
outcroppings, and across shallow streams. If a direct way to get
from where they were to where they were going existed, they would
have intentionally avoided it. But no one watched and no direct
routes existed, just as it should be.

MO-126 took in the sights. Everything
remained new to him, but most of what he could see nearby merited
no more than a glance—even less if it could be avoided. His
position in front of his partner and their pack animal, together
with his height, or lack thereof, currently limited his view to the
patch of weeds around him. It was not especially interesting, but
it did have advantages over being behind the slow-moving gond, a
position which allowed little more than a clear view of its wide,
shaggy legs and even less attractive portions of its anatomy.

He glanced over his shoulder at the android
walking a few steps behind him. His partner, being bipedal, enjoyed
a higher vantage point. MO-126 did not envy him his height because
it came with additional responsibilities, among other things.

The trader outwardly resembled the sentient
primitives the corporation introduced to work this project. He wore
a simple, knee-length tunic of woven flax linen. The sandals on his
feet were made of the tanned hide of the same kind of beast now
carrying their trade goods. Nothing about the two travelers would
pass as remarkable in any of the villages in the region.

The humanoid trader led their mission, and
he chose the indirect routes they would take to get to all the
villages that Field Operations told them to visit on this
assignment. The large animal he walked beside, and ostensibly led
by a slack, leather strap, was one of a varied species of normally
docile herbivores native to this planet. The frugal process of
evolution gifted these plodding beasts with all the speed and
intelligence they required to survive. Lacking in natural
predators, they did not need to be especially quick in either
area.

In the wild, small herds of the huge, hairy
gonds grazed and foraged the landscape, moving behind their herd
leaders at a rate of about half a kilometer per day, if they were
in a hurry to get to an especially appetizing patch of forage.
Domesticated, they could be harnessed to pull plows or drag rocks
and stumps from fields, which they did without complaint or any
sense of urgency. They could not be beaten or bribed to move much
faster. Their intelligence measured just slightly higher than the
vegetation they consumed and slow was the top speed at which they
could move, which suited corporate interests perfectly because it
matched their plans for human development here.

A familiar sensation, like a metallic ping
in the middle of MO-126’s low forehead, demanded his attention. His
partner was signaling him.

“
Slow up. We’ll follow this stream for a
while.
”

No obvious logic lay behind the route the
trade android chose, which was probably why he chose it and why he
would choose a different but equally circuitous way back. MO-126
had no right or reason to question him, but he could not help
wonder why they must be so cautious. His orientation files assured
him that the primitives working this project were content and that
they were not especially inclined to wander from their villages. It
seemed unlikely they would try to discover where the trader came
from or where he went after he left. Necessary or not, standard
operating procedures dictated that they disguise their route when
in the field, and the trade androids followed procedures.

Upon reflection, MO-126 supposed this rule
made a certain amount of sense. Leaving an obvious trail would only
encourage the villagers to do something they should not. It would
be best for all concerned if the humans did not stray. MO-126’s
Corporation programming assured him of the truth of this.

He trod along at the edge of the shallow
stream beside the trade android and their beast of burden. Frogs
croaked warnings and small fish darted from the shallows into
slightly deeper water, causing splashes and ripples that startled a
small, long-beaked bird pecking along the shore into taking
flight.

A pair of brown ducks waddled farther up the
bank as he approached. He felt an urge to chase them, but he
resisted. His orientation interviewer warned him that such things
might happen from time to time, an unfortunate side effect of his
design. The biological template used for his outward physical
appearance also influenced his cognitive and behavioral systems. To
perform his function well, he would need to keep such latent
instincts in check.

Another signal from his humanoid companion
made MO-126 realize that he had once again outpaced him. He stopped
for the minute it would take his partner to catch up. The trade
android could go no faster than the hairy beast he led, and MO-126
could not seem to manage to go that slow for long, despite the fact
that his four legs were much shorter than those of the pack
animal.

“
You’ll get the hang of it
,” the
trader said using their integrated short-range communication
subsystems. “
It may take a while. It took the last mobile
observer I worked with five years before he learned to shuffle
along slowly enough.
”

“
I wish that knowledge was loaded into me
when I was activated,
” MO-126 replied. He lacked the ability to
speak aloud, at least not in any manner resembling language. It
would be an anomalous ability and therefore the corporation did not
include it in the design of non-humanoid androids. He accepted the
wisdom of this, but it still seemed inconvenient.

“
If you were just a robot that would
work, but it’s not possible with androids,
” the humanoid trader
said. “
Our cognitive matrixes are unique. Information can be
exchanged but not skills. You have to learn things like that
yourself, just like a human—or, in your case, a dog.
” The
trader smiled good-naturedly, a response ultimately resulting from
a subroutine in his firmware but no less indicative of a genuinely
felt emotion.

MO-126 already knew that skills must be
learned by personal experience. It took him an hour after his
initial activation simply to learn to walk without tangling his
legs. He wished it could be otherwise, but he could not complain.
The primitives were even more limited, and he felt a touch of
sympathy for them. They were born virtually helpless with only a
few basic instincts. Everything else they needed to know they must
learn the hard way through observation or trial and error. When
MO-126 awoke from his initial activation two days ago, he could
already function independently and knew everything he needed to
fulfill the duties of a mobile observer android, at a basic level,
at least. A two-day-old human infant could do little more than
feed, and it relied on its mother for that.

The primitives did possess one attribute he
mildly envied—thumbs. Like its biological template, his design
lacked these handy digits. After many years of observing humans,
the Galactic Organic Development Corporation, which ran this
agricultural project, concluded that a canine form provided the
best solution for discreet ground observation. Humans accepted
them, even liked them and made them part of their groups, and they
did not alter their behavior or hide their intentions in their
presence as they tended to around people. They did not ignore dogs,
exactly, but they seemed to regard them as a normal part of the
landscape and tended to pay them the same amount of attention.

They left the creek and trudged overland.
The round, flat feet of the gond trampled the wild grass, bushes,
and small trees it plodded over, breaking stems, flattening leaves,
and crushing the residue into the thick, rich soil. MO-126’s
sensitive olfactory subsystems detected and identified the smells
it created. He could name every element, every compound, every kind
of molecule that mingled together to fill the air with their
essence, but the combined aromas conveyed something beyond a simple
collection of empirical data. They triggered a subjective
sensation, a feeling of life. He found it somehow compelling.