An Android Dog's Tale (22 page)

MO-126 sniffed the air. “
Smells like
fish,
” he commented to his partner as they approached the
settlement with their gond-drawn wagon. The last two thousand years
saw the spread of wheel technology, boats, and the use of copper,
gold, and other metals. All of these remained sufficiently
primitive to allow the project to continue, but its eventual
termination grew more certain with each passing century.

Their wagon, laden with trade goods, rumbled
along the bank of the wide, flowing river to their left. To their
right, not far in the distance, people picked ripe fruit from squat
citrus trees.

“
Fish and citrus,
” Tam said.
“
That’s what the primitives have here. Those and chickens. They
trade with another village further along the coast for vegetables
other things. That’s one of the reasons it’s so important to
mitigate this problem as soon as possible. If we don’t, it will
spread.
”

Keep the project going. This remained the
ultimate objective of everything they did and the criteria by which
all their actions were measured. The corporation incorporated this
goal into every android produced here. It formed part of their
identities, an intricate component no less than fingers or fur. It
should be enough, but sometimes MO-126 questioned. He wondered if
he could choose a different meaning for his existence, his life. He
did not know what that might be. Without thumbs, most kinds of
creative efforts were unavailable to him, but there must be
something other than maximizing corporate profits he could strive
to accomplish.

A scattering of outlying beam and stucco
cottages marked the edge of the settlement. A few humans paused to
regard the travelers as they passed by with their laden wagon. A
boy at a well dropped the bucket he was filling and ran toward the
village.

“
He’s probably going to tell the headman
about us,
” Tam said.

“
I’ll notify the team stationed
here,
” the android dog said.

The reply came immediately. “
They’re at
the shore,
” MO-126 relayed. “
Ned’s telling stories to some
of the villagers right now. They’ll meet us later.
The resident
NASH android posed as an elderly storyteller. Ned and his partner,
a canine mobile observer he called Moby, were stationed here six
years already. “
He says you should use Trade Negotiation
Contingency Protocol 1D until he has a chance to explain the
situation.
”

“
That’s standard in these situations, but
you can acknowledge. It looks like the headman’s heard of our
arrival. Here he comes now.
”

The old man who came to meet them smelled of
fish. But then, many things here did to some extent. Fish hung
drying on racks in the sun; they provided a major staple of their
diet, and they played significantly in such industry as they
possessed. Fish oil was their medicine of choice for just about any
ailment, and it was a component of the glue and paint they used on
their boats. Anything not smelling of fish smelled of citrus, or a
nose-wrinkling combination of the two.

“Master Trader, welcome. My name is Sydon.
I’m the trade negotiator and arbiter for our village.”

“Tam,” the trader said, introducing
himself.

“We can offer good trade to you, Trader Tam,
fruit, dried fish, pickled fish, fish sauce, fish oil, fish paste,
fish sausage, and various arts and crafts.”

“Made from fish?” Tam speculated.

The village elder raised his bushy gray
eyebrows. “Fish? No. Shells, mostly. Many lovely and sometimes even
useful things can be made with shells, although we also have some
fine things made with fish leather. The other traders who visited
us didn’t seem much interested in them. Perhaps you would like to
see some?” he said hopefully.

Sydon stepped aside to make way for a goat
cart filled with orange fruit. The man leading it nodded a greeting
and continued on toward a cluster of clapboard buildings.

“No, whatever you normally trade will be
fine,” Tam said. “Can we see what you have?”

“Certainly. Just this way.”

He turned and followed the course the goat
cart took moments earlier. It angled off to one of the smaller
buildings while Sydon led them to the largest. It was filled with
baskets of fruit on wooden shelves that went from the stone floor
to the three meter high rafters. If this amount of fresh, natural,
organic fruit were for sale just a few dozen lightyears away, it
would be worth as much as the ship that brought it there.
Admittedly, that would be a small, automated transport, but it was
still reasonably expensive because of its temporal stasis field
generator. Those did not come cheap. Lockweed Intergalactic still
held the patent on the design.

The heavy scent of sweet citrus almost
overwhelmed the android dog’s olfactory subsystem. Dogs are not
natural fruit eaters and most find the odor—distracting, rather the
way a human might regard the odor of a well-aged dead rat, which
dogs tend to find compelling in a ‘let’s roll around on this
because it’s so nice’ kind of way.

Tam lifted an orange sphere from one of the
baskets and examined it closely. He squeezed. He sniffed. He held
it at arm’s length, eyed it suspiciously, and said, “Hmmm.”

“Is there something wrong?” Sydon asked.

“I’m not sure,” Tam replied. “May I borrow
this? If we choose not to trade, I’ll make sure to return it to
you.”

“If you choose not to…. But these are fine
fruit, I assure you.”

Tam dropped the orange in his shoulder bag.
“Yes. They may be. For now, I’d like to see some more of your
charming village.” Which it was in a rustic sort of way, if one
overlooked the pervasive odor of fish, the incontinent livestock,
and the open sewage ditches. It did have a nice view of the
ocean.

“Um, sure. I can show you—”

“Oh, I don’t want to trouble you. I’m sure
you have much to do. If I can leave my wagon here, I’ll just wander
around on my own for a while.”

“If that is what you wish.” He seemed
nervous and regarded Tam with a look of uncomfortable resignation.
MO-126 took this as a normal reaction. Traders never hesitated to
trade for his fruit before.

“For now,” Tam said. “I’ll come find you
later, if that would be all right.”

Sydon nodded his agreement and left them
outside by the trader’s wagon. When he disappeared around the
corner of the building, they contacted Ned.

“
I’m on my way there. See you in a few
minutes,
” the resident android storyteller said.

Tam shooed away a chicken perched on his
wagon. It fluttered to the ground with an annoyed squawk. Some
unspoken agreement seemed to apply in most villages, which allowed
chickens, dogs, goats, and other domestic beasts to enjoy an
interspecies truce and freedom to roam unmolested among the huts
and hovels of their ostensible owners. It even applied to cats—as
long as anyone was watching them.

The trade android made a pretense of
examining the contents of his wagon so as not to appear to be
waiting for someone he could not possibly be expecting.

When Ned arrived with his faithful canine
companion, he and Tam exchanged greetings verbally, in case anyone
might be watching, and then continued with more important matters
via radio transmissions.

“
I’ve been in the fruit warehouse,
”
Tam said. “
I saw no signs of writing.
”

“
They’re not using it there, yet. They’re
still a bit wary of the idea, I think. Change, you know. It scares
some people.
”

“
That should help. How are they using
it?
”

“
Record keeping, believe it or not. It’s
simple and clever. A fisherman or farmer or whatever comes in, and
a clerk makes a mark on a soft clay tablet identifying who it is,
what he brought, and how much. Then, when the stuff is traded, the
recording clerk marks what it was traded for and keeps a tally for
each person. It’s more like accounting than writing, but it will
lead to that, and to money. It pretty much has to. It will become
too unwieldy otherwise.
”

“
Where did they get the idea?
”

“
A young primitive came up with it. He’s
the clerk. They’ve started calling him the Numbers-Keeper. They
used to call him Ronny.
”

“
Okay. Let’s meet this wonder boy and see
what he’s up to.
”

~*~

They found Ronny in a small building nearby,
busy counting oranges from the newly arrived cart. The sparseness
of whiskers on his face showed him to be a young man, barely out of
his teens, if that. He glanced up from his efforts when the
androids, led by Ned, entered through the open doorway.

“Master Storyteller, is something wrong? You
look worried.”

“No, nothing. Um, just a touch of illness, I
suppose. Must have been those clams last night. It’ll pass soon
enough, if you know what I mean.” He followed his hasty explanation
with a weak, joking smile. MO-126 was impressed. Ned mimicked human
behavior well. Tam always seemed a bit too stiff. Most of the trade
androids did. The nursery androids definitely possessed a more
human quality.

“This is Master Trader Tam,” Ned continued.
“He’s interested in the tally thing you’ve come up with.”

“Master Trader Tam,” Ronny said. “I’m
honored. I’m more than happy to show you. It might be useful to you
as a way to help you keep track of your trades. That’s really all
it is.” He motioned to a clay tablet on one of the tables. Other
tablets lay in stacks on tables and shelves nearby.

“Every time someone brings something in, I
make a mark on one of these tablets. Each person has a different
one, a mark, that is. Then, I make a mark for what it is he
brought. Different kinds of fruit and fish and stuff all have their
own marks, too. Then, I just make marks for how many. I’m doing
oranges now for Ernie. That’s his mark there, and next to it is the
mark for oranges, and each line after that means ten of them. For
anything less than ten, I make a dot for each one. Simple,
huh?”

Tam scowled. “And you came up with this
yourself, did you?”

“Yeah. I wanted to help. It was real
confusing before and not really fair. This way, if you bring in a
lot to trade, you can get more—”

“Are you saying the traders don’t bring
enough for everyone?” Tam said accusingly.

“Um, no. Not that. The traders have always
been more than generous. It’s just that, well, it seemed right, you
know?”

“No. I don’t think I do. Villages provide
things the traders want and the traders provide things the
villagers need. We don’t count and nitpick about it. We see what is
of value and we trade what has value. There is an underlying trust
that adds to the purity of the things traded. This is how it’s
always been and the way it should remain. Goods tainted by
these—marks are stripped of their essence. They hold no value.”

“Is there something wrong, Master Trader
Tam?” Sydon, the village headman entered the hut, which provided
too little space for everyone among the shelves of clay tablets.
Since Tam was already uncomfortably close to the unfortunate Ronny,
Ned and the two android dogs shuffled to make room.

“I was walking by and I heard you talking in
here. You sounded displeased about something,” the headman
added.

Tam spun to face Sydon. “Displeased? Yes.
And disappointed. You have tainted your fruit, Headman. The
goodness of them has been stolen by lying marks.”

“I…I…I don’t understand.”

“These…
things
take meaning from the
things they count. They mark down words that people don’t say. I
sensed something wrong before, and now I know why.”

“But this is just a better way to count
oranges,” Ronny protested. “It doesn’t harm anything. It just helps
us remember—”

“And if someone eats the orange, does the
mark that counts it disappear?”

“Well, no.”

“Aha! That means that something of it is
still there. If it’s not the fruit itself, it must be something
else. The essence of the orange has been taken from it and captured
in the mark. And then, I suppose, you plan to use those marks to
decide who gets the things traded for them. That gives them power
over your village leaders who should be deciding such things using
the wisdom of their years, not marks on clay. You’re giving these
little scratches life and power over people. That is simply
wrong.”

Before either of the two humans could object
to this less than rational argument, Tam pulled the orange from his
bag and tossed it to Sydon.

“You may have this back. It is worthless to
us.”

He turned away and left the building. The
other androids followed him out, leaving the two humans behind,
speechless.

“That should do it,” Tam said. His face no
longer showed anger or disgust or any other emotion other than,
perhaps, satisfaction with a job well done. “How many others are
helping Ronny with his number keeping?”

“So far, he’s the only one,” Ned said.

“We’ve probably caught it in time, then.
Unfortunately, we’ll loose this trade. That’s a shame. Those are
good fruits.”

They returned to the still packed wagon, and
Tam readied to depart.

“Wait! Wait, Trader Tam.” Sydon ran toward
him, waving. His anxiety was the only thing causing him to hurry. A
gond pulling a large wagon could not possibly outrun him.

“Yes, what is it?”

“We have other things we can trade. Things
not yet counted. Things that, um, still have their purity in
tact.”

The trader made a show of considering this
for a moment. “I will wait until the morning and you can show me
what you have. I will make no promises.”

With that, he led the gond to the edge of
the village to establish a temporary camp.