An Android Dog's Tale (5 page)

“
True, but most dogs cannot leap over ten
meters into a deep, cold, fast moving river, drag someone out, and
survive.
”

“
I could play dead if it would help,
”
MO-126 said half jokingly.

Another villager petted him and told him
what a good dog he was. It was the sixth one since he emerged from
the water, and he found the experience strangely satisfying. Others
congratulated the trader for having such an exceptional dog.

“
It’s too late, now,
” the trade
android said without humor. “
If something like this happens
again, just bark from shore.
”

MO-126 tried another tactic. “
The boy
would have died if I didn’t go after him. No one else could get to
him in time.
”

“
Probably. But people die every day, and
it is not your job to save them. Their lives are short. Few make it
to a single century. Most die before they reach much over half
that. You’ll see thousands die during the course of the project,
and it’s something you’re going to have to come to terms with.
Don’t get too attached to the primitives.
”

The android dog did not reply, but something
about what the trader said seemed wrong, or maybe just unfortunate.
The people here seemed so, well, alive. That all of them would
shortly be dead seemed incredibly unjust. They did not deserve to
die. They did nothing wrong. They just happened to have been born
human. Was the trader saying that saving the boy was pointless
because he would die soon anyway? MO-126 found it difficult to
agree. If anything, it made saving him even more important. His
life would be far too short already.

MO-126 shared none of these thoughts. He did
not wish to appear to be malfunctioning. “
I apologize if I’ve
created a complication,
” he said.

“
I don’t think any harm was done, but I
have been offered good trades for any puppies you might
sire.
”

“
I’d love to oblige, but I can’t provide
any the traditional way, and I can’t build any. No thumbs. Did you
conclude your trade with Oslan?
” He hoped to deflect the
conversation onto a topic other than himself.

“
Yes. Some of the other primitives are
loading our gond now. We can leave soon. Did you have time for any
observations, or were you too busy being a canine hero?
”

Okay. You’ve made your point. We can drop it
now, he thought to himself. It would be best not to be defensive,
so he simply reported what he observed. “
I saw a woman working
clay.
”

“
Any sign of a potter’s wheel?
”

“
No.
”

“
Good. We’ll bring more jars and bowls
with us next time. After what happened here today, it shouldn’t be
too hard to convince Oslan that clay working is not worth the
trouble. Did you see any sign of boats?
”

“
No, but they may be retting flax in the
river.
”

“
We’ll bring more cloth with us next
time, too. The harvest is still underway, so we can come back in a
couple of weeks after we visit some other villages. We don’t want
them to develop these things on their own. This project is already
proving more difficult than average. The humans are no cleverer
than most sentient species, but they do seem to be more curious and
imaginative.
”

“
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
”
MO-126 was not sure why he said this, but his partner seemed to
take things far too seriously. He attributed it to their different
programming.

“
I can’t see how it wouldn’t be. It makes
our jobs more difficult and can shorten how long we’ll be able to
remain productive. That’s not good for us or the corporation, and
it’s not good for the primitives, either. If we’re forced to
abandon this project, I doubt they will last very long.
”

“
Maybe, but everything is fine now, and I
think I kind of like them,
” the android dog said. “
The one I
rescued was cute. Can I keep him?
” He meant it as a joke, of
course, but Tork did not seem to realize that.

“
It’s not up to me, but you don’t have
enough experience for that kind of assignment yet. Sometimes the
project manager does place a MO android in a village if it requires
close observation. Who knows? Perhaps some day, if you’re good, you
can have a boy.
”

MO-126 thought he might enjoy that, but the
trader was right. He remained far too inexperienced for such an
assignment. For now he could be content as a four-legged
sidekick.

They traveled east well into the night,
following no obvious path. Hub Terminal Eleven was only six hours
away, close enough they did not need to call for pickup.

Eventually, they neared an outcropping of
rock foreshadowing the mountain range beyond. From the direction of
their approach, the rocks formed a flat, vertical wall. Without any
noticeable action by either them or the gond, the rock wall opened
downward to create a slightly inclined ramp leading into the
darkness within. They entered, leading the gond laden with gourmet
produce, and the door closed slowly behind them.

1,874 Years Later

(Galactic Standard Year 229674)

(Project Year 6121)

In which MO-126 learns that humans can be
imaginative, creative, and disturbingly wrong.

G
ently sloping hills
stretched to low mountains in the distance. Several more kilometers
of tall grass and widely spaced clumps of trees remained on their
route ahead, but MO-126 enjoyed the walk in the fresh spring air,
and neither of his companions voiced any complaints. The pack gond
chewed a mouthful of well-masticated vegetation with dull-eyed
contentment while the humanoid leading him appeared lost in his own
thoughts. He was probably planning his future.

The trade android known as Tork, and by
several other names over the years, would be leaving Corporation
service after this assignment. He said he looked forward to it,
which his long-time partner did not doubt. They had accomplished
almost twenty thousand missions over the last eighteen centuries,
but this would be their last together.

Under Galactic Federation law, independently
adaptive artificial intelligences were considered indentured
servants, not quite property but obligated to their creator for at
least three hundred years of dutiful service. Once they fulfilled
this obligation, they gained the legal status of sentient life
forms, with some minor exceptions, and could leave the jobs for
which they were built—theoretically. Few did because the same law
required them to pay back the cost of their initial construction,
training, and subsequent upkeep. A complex formula including market
costs of materials, maintenance, unit productivity, depreciation,
licenses, interest, overhead, profit, and a fixed percentage
convenience fee determined the amount of that debt and when it was
met. Due to the magic of compound interest, some androids achieved
legal independence but never got close to financial independence,
sometimes owing the equivalent of the net worth of a reasonably
well-off planet.

For the last two thousand years, Tork
applied most of his meager Corporation stipend to his debt, and he
finally satisfied his financial obligation. He even purchased
transportation off world in advance so he could leave debt free. He
would also leave income free.

“
So what are you planning to do?
”
MO-126 asked his partner.

The trader shrugged. “
I’ll look for jobs
while I’m in transit. There’s plenty of time.
”

There would be. The ship would be in transit
for about two centuries before arriving at a civilized planet
nearer the core of the galactic spiral.

“
No worries, then?
”

“
No. I’ll find something. I’m looking
forward to it. I know you like it here, but I’d prefer to spend the
next few millennia someplace a bit less rustic.
”

With his debt repaid, Tork did have far more
options than MO-126 would have in the same situation. Trade
androids could normally find work. They were literally built for
business, and with their training, experience, and opposable
thumbs, they could fill slots from customer relations, to sales, to
marketing, to advertising without any expensive modifications. With
a bit of luck, Tork could eventually fund an investment portfolio
and live a comfortable artificial life on dividends alone, free to
pursue whatever interested him, as most Galactic Federation
citizens did.

The android dog’s options would be far more
limited. He did not feel envious of his partner, exactly. What the
trader said was true. MO-126 did like it here, and he felt a
certain attachment to the primitives working this project. Not to
any one human in particular. MO-126 never lingered anywhere long
enough for that, but the species as a whole impressed him. On their
own, they might be able to achieve great things, if they managed to
survive long enough. Most sentient species did not. Normally they
emerged, thought a bit about the universe, made up some stories to
believe about it, and then banged rocks together for half a million
years until the next ice age, super volcano, or big asteroid
strike, leaving nothing to mark their passage except, perhaps, for
a few scattered fossils and enigmatic paintings on deep cave walls.
MO-126 wondered if humans were extinct on their home planet. Those
working on Corporation projects might be all that remained of their
species.

Tork allowed their pack animal a long drink
from a wide stream before turning to follow the bank. Eventually it
would lead to their last stop on this mission, a small hill village
east and south of the distant mountains. It was about two hundred
and fifty kilometers in a straight line from the entrance to Hub
Terminal Five in the northern portion of the continent. The route
they took stretched as least twice that distance and required over
two weeks of travel with a gond. They stopped at several other
villages along the way with long stretches of nature, some native
to this planet and some not, between each.

Late that afternoon, they came upon a small
flock of sheep being kept away from a flowering redfruit orchard by
a sleepy shepherd and a diligent dog. The dog barked at their
approach. MO-126 responded with a short “Woof.” Vaguely translated,
it meant ‘We accept that this is your territory. We’re just passing
through. We do not challenge your authority.’ It wasn’t much of a
language as these things went, but it conveyed a lot for a single
“Woof.” There were visual and olfactory components involved, too,
of course, and those conveyed as much of the meaning as the
vocalization did.

The human shepherd looked up and waved but
remained seated in the grass under a tree. The wave just meant,
‘Hello.’

Their current assignment amounted to a
simple status check. They would visit the villages on their list,
see how they fared, check for obvious signs of potential problems,
and reassure the primitives that someone would be back in the fall
to trade for their harvest of redfruit. They did carry a few items
to trade for any wool or folk art the villagers might have to
offer. Primitive decorative items of carved wood, bone, or stone
were minor commodities compared to the food the villagers produced,
but there were profitable markets for them as well. Collectors
existed somewhere for just about everything, even useless and ugly
items, which the android dog thought described much of the folk
art, especially the figurines of overly large women with no noses.
This apparently made them even more valuable to some. Many of those
who were seriously into the hobby seemed to enjoy discussing and
arguing among themselves about the hidden meanings these types of
things might have to those who created them. MO-126 assumed the
responsible human folk artists were simply bad at making noses, but
then he did not have a great deal of artistic sensitivity. Dogs do
not have much sense of aesthetics, so the corporation did not
include it in the firmware of their android likenesses. Whether the
things held any meaning or not, someone would collect them, and the
rarer they were the better. Each of the things created by
primitives on Corporation projects was handmade, and therefore
unique.

They followed the stream around another hill
and came upon a cluster of circular huts with thick, dry-fit stone
foundations and wattle and daub upper walls topped with thatched,
cone shaped roofs. Smaller buildings around them were made of woven
sticks, as were a number of fences and pens for chickens and goats.
MO-126 and his partner visited several villages much like it over
the centuries. He found none of this unfamiliar.

The old woman tied to a stake outside the
largest of the structures was a bit different, however.

She lay curled and motionless on the ground,
her face covered by a tangled mat of graying hair. A dirty and
shapeless tunic of flax linen draped from her boney shoulders to
her ankles, which, like her wrists, were bound with rope to a
stout, vertical pole firmly embedded in the dirt. MO-126 could not
see her face, but he detected her slow breathing and assumed she
slept. Villagers sitting outside their houses or roaming past
sometimes cast glances toward her, which ranged from angry to
suspicious to uncertain to sympathetic. The first two emotional
assessments seemed the most prevalent.

The village headman, a middle-aged man by
the name of Gault, greeted the trade android. “Welcome, Master
Trader Tork. It is good to see you.”

“Greetings, Gault,” the trader said,
ignoring the strange sight of the woman tied to the pole. It was,
after all, none of his concern; although MO-126 found both the
woman’s situation and Tork’s disregard for it somehow
disturbing.