An Android Dog's Tale (27 page)

The Mark Seven installed here might also be
plagued by feelings of guilt over the termination of the project it
oversaw. MO-126 was no expert in such things and could do nothing
about it, regardless. If the PM did fail, he could only hope it did
not turn out anything like Corporation Project HD-X86G-1. Shortly
after the termination of that project, for reasons much like those
that occurred here, the PM suffered what experts later termed a
‘catastrophic malfunction.’ It somehow rapidly poisoned and
thickened the planet’s atmosphere. This indeed proved catastrophic,
deadly, in fact, for the various forms of life on the planet,
including the introduced workers, which in this case were hairy,
muscular but basically nonaggressive bipeds known as nanders. It
also created something of a public relations inconvenience for the
corporation, although they could not be held legally accountable
for the PM’s actions after they officially terminated their
project. The PM was, by then, an independent legal entity. Still,
the corporation did suffer a blow to its reputation and might have
been urged to pay compensation to the nander’s home planet under
different circumstances. It proved impossible in this case because
the nanders never progressed past stone tools on their home planet
and certainly never developed anything like a global
government.

If, on the other hand, the Mark Seven just
burned itself out, which is what happened most often when behavior
similar to that of this PM arose, it would be of no concern to the
corporation. It would not even be much of a problem to the few
androids still on the planet. They could survive without PM
oversight, so even if its malfunction resulted in total failure,
they might be inconvenienced, but they would not be at risk,
provided it did not destroy the hub terminals and the equipment in
them.

MO-126 watched another shooting star on the
darkening horizon. This one may have been a natural meteor, but it
was probably another satellite burning away its existence in the
atmosphere. The PM must have altered its orbit with this intent. It
appeared to be intentionally destroying at least some of the
remaining project infrastructure. The android dog did not know
termination protocols well, but he felt quite sure that this was
not in accordance with standard operating procedures. Those
satellites were necessary to maintain communication between and
among the remaining androids, and probably several other
things.

Staying behind may have been a mistake.

He became even more convinced of this when a
general announcement from the PM demanded his attention.

“
The day of judgment has come and found
us wanting. The end is upon us.
”

That sounded far from encouraging.

MO-126 remained on the hill, waiting for the
next sign of the apocalypse. It failed to live up to his
expectations, a fact which did not disturb him overly much. He did
not look forward to the end of this world. He had come to like
it.

He heard nervous chatter among the NASH
androids and one more general broadcast from the PM about
everything being pointless, or something like that. He’d stopped
paying much attention by this point. Another satellite died a fiery
death, followed by radio silence. Leaves still rustled in response
to a gentle breeze. Birds continued to call for mates. Insects did
not cease chirping and buzzing, but he received no more signals
from the PM or the others. The communication network was gone.

Well, that’s it then. The PM must have
committed electronic suicide without taking the planet with it.
Things could have been much worse. He sent out a general call just
to make sure. No one answered.

He lifted his head and howled like a dog. He
could not explain exactly why, but part of it may have been a call
of mourning over the death of the PM. The rest may have been to
herald his new freedom. He was not exactly alone. Several other
androids, mostly NASH units, decided to retire here, but he was,
for the first time in his life, totally free to be anything he
chose to be. So were the humans. Their fate rested in their own
hands now, and it was unpredictable.

He stood, shook off the dust in his fur, and
then headed down the mountain. It was time to try new things.

1,004 Years Later

(Galactic Standard Years 243250 - 243260)

In which MO-126 adopts a boy and herds some
sheep.

O
ver the next
thousand years, MO-126 came upon other androids every now and then.
All were humanoid NASH units. Some occupied themselves as healers,
teachers, storytellers or other pastimes that allowed them to
satisfy their urge to interact positively with people. MO-126’s
options were far more limited, and this may have been one reason
why he seemed to be handling the changes better than many of his
bipedal peers.

It would be wrong to say that the rapid
change in human culture upset them, exactly, but some found it
difficult to adapt. The instability grated on their deep-seated
programming, which regarded change as something bad that should
happen infrequently and as slowly as possible. Humans, on the other
hand, unmanaged and unrestrained by Corporation mitigation actions,
often pursued change as a good thing. Some, of course, did not, but
changes now occurred at a far greater rate than they were allowed
to when the project ran. Villages grew into towns; trade increased
along rivers and coastlines; the use of money expanded; empires
rose and fell; languages and religions merged into regional
standards along with systems of measurement and writing. Humans
made advancements in various technologies from weaving to metal
working, but it was by no means a steady march of progress.

In some places, humans themselves
discouraged progressive development far more brutally and no less
effectively than the corporation had. Powerful elites with vested
interests arose. Cruel dictators and repressive religious
institutions effectively squelched anyone who spoke against them.
They enforced systems of unjust property ownership, imposed slavery
and oppression on those without the power to resist, and went to
war with one another to extend their dominance even farther.

The NASH androids regarded such things as
unfortunate, but they were not designed to resist established
power, to lead rebellions, or to oppose tyranny. Such tendencies
would have been contrary to corporate interests. Most of the
androids who stayed behind coped as well as they could and
continued to do things they enjoyed, things that resonated with
their engineered personalities—helping people in the routines of
their daily lives even in those places where their routines bore
little resemblance to those with which the androids were long
familiar.

MO-126 simply tried to avoid such places,
which is why he spent the majority of his time wandering the
eastern half of the continent where the people began forging
cooperative agreements even before the corporation officially
terminated the project. It wasn’t exactly a nation, and it wasn’t
entirely peaceful, but it did have a name. From the mountains to
the eastern coast, the people called it Eastfield. Additional names
existed for various sections of it, but the people here were
already forming a larger and mostly peaceful community. MO-126
found this encouraging.

As the years went by, he heard from fewer
and fewer other androids. Without the satellite network, his
ability to communicate with his peers was limited to his internal
short range communication subsystem, which possessed an effective
range of only a handful of kilometers. Not hearing from any other
androids, therefore, did not necessarily mean there were none, just
that there were none near him attempting to communicate.

He last he heard from one was almost two
decades ago. She told him she planned to voluntarily deactivate for
a while, just until things settled a bit. When he asked how long
she expected that to be, she told him until someone wakes her. He
heard from none since and wondered how many others decided to put
themselves in hibernation, or something even more drastic.

One thing remained much the same since the
time of the project. There were few roads between settlements and
those that did exist were little more than narrow, infrequently
used trails. The corporation’s bio-matrix transplant from the
humans’ home planet included no animals that could easily be bred
into beasts of burden. This hindered land travel over any distance,
which of course was the original intent. Only one type of native
beast suitable for such things existed, gonds, and they traveled
even slower than a human at a walking pace.

MO-126 went from place to place, from year
to year, never staying anywhere long. He saw humans build and
destroy, create and steal. He met people he liked—from a safe
emotional distance. He saw some he did not like, and he kept even
farther away. But everything felt…unstable. Even he found the pace
of change dizzying. He would go to a village one day and return to
it as little as a hundred years later and find it unrecognizable.
The people, the buildings, everything except the more durable bits
of landscape would be different, and sometimes, not even those.
People carved mountains, cleared forests, changed harbors and
coastlines…. They were constantly changing, adapting themselves and
their environment as if searching for some elusive harmony.

After a few centuries of this, he decided to
take a break from humans, so he ran with a pack of wild dogs for a
while. He enjoyed it, but they definitely lacked much ability for
stimulating conversation. He left when one of the bitches started
to take an annoyingly romantic interest in him. He wasn’t about to
go
that
native. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to her. Her
biological clock was ticking and she probably wanted puppies.
MO-126 didn’t even have a biological clock.

~*~

One day, he came upon a little village in
the eastern half of the continent that seemed so sleepy he almost
believed he could hear it snoring. It occupied a bit of
undistinguished flat land a bit closer to Hub Terminal Ten than to
Hub Terminal Four, which still put it in the middle of nowhere. No
roads worthy of the name led to it, and no rivers navigable by
anything larger than a canoe or small raft flowed nearby. It seemed
like a good place to get away from it all.

He approached the collection of thatched,
wattle and daub buildings cautiously. He learned long ago that one
never can tell with humans. They might welcome him; they might
ignore him; they might try to hunt him down to make him the main
course of a feast. As with most such places, the village dogs
noticed his arrival first, or at least they were the first to do
anything about it. He knew the routine. They barked from a distance
and postured with bristled fur and bared teeth. He dipped his head
submissively and allowed their approach.

After a round of wary sniffing, they allowed
him to continue. A couple of them persisted in trying to engage him
in the canine equivalent of idle conversation, which, to a human,
might look more like play. He tried to ignore them. They eventually
abandoned their boring visitor and returned to the important tasks
they interrupted before he arrived, which mainly consisted of
sleeping in shady spots and occasionally scratching or licking
themselves, processes that apparently demanded careful attention.
MO-126 never could understand why.

An old man sitting on a spindle-backed
rocking chair outside one of the huts, gummed a piece of overripe
fruit he sliced with a short, bronze knife. He glanced toward the
android dog and squinted nearsightedly before returning his
attention to his sweet snack.

A boy who could not have been older than ten
years ran to the old man on bare feet, his dusty and frayed tunic
fluttering behind him.

“Gumper!” the boy said. “Your gond is doing
it again.”

“Confound it,” the man said, slowly rising
from his chair. He reached for a wooden staff leaning against the
wall of the hut. “Where’s Beaty? Why didn’t you tell him?”

“I…I couldn’t find him. He said he had to go
take care of something and left me to watch the sheep. I thought he
was just going off to take a leak, but he was gone a long time, and
he didn’t answer when I called.”

“Probably went courting that girl again,”
Gumper grumbled. “He’s almost as bad as the gond. Come on. Let’s
see what we can do.”

They rushed off as quickly as the old man
could move. The situation mildly tickled MO-126’s curiosity, and,
having nothing better to do, he followed behind them.

The old man and the boy soon arrived at a
fenced pasture enclosing about an acre of stubby grass and weeds. A
flock of seven sheep inside nervously attempted to evade the
overtures of a clearly amorous bull gond, which must have gotten in
through a break in the fence. It probably knocked it down just for
this purpose. It would not have done so with anything resembling
planning, of course. Gonds simply tended to ignore obstacles when
their tiny minds became set on something. It may not have even
noticed a fence in the way.

“Stupid beast. If I didn’t need him to pull
the plow, I’d have Beaty turn him into boot leather.”

“If we don’t do something, he’s going to
turn those sheep into mutton,” the boy said with some urgency.

MO-126 observed such behavior in gonds
several times before. The old man was right. They were stupid
beasts. People sometimes remarked on the stupidity of goats and
sheep, but they were geniuses compared to gonds. Even chickens,
which could claim little with regard to higher intellect, could
reason better than gonds. They could count their own chicks, up to
a limit, anyway. As the largest native land animals, and with no
natural enemies, gonds never needed to be smart. Their survival
required just two basic instincts—eat and breed, both of which they
normally did in a fairly persistent but unhurried manner.
Throughout the course of their evolution, this sufficed. Until the
introduction of species from the human home world, it was all they
ever needed. Their quadruple stomachs could digest just about any
plant growing on the planet. Any reasonably large animal with four
legs that they could catch was probably another gond, and there was
at least a fifty percent chance of it being of the opposite gender.
Since embarrassment also did not appear on their short list of
evolutionary endowments, this was not an issue. Gonds never needed
to be overly discriminate in their choices of meals and mates, so
they weren’t.