An Android Dog's Tale (9 page)

“Oh, no. Now the demons have you, too,” she
whimpered. She turned to Master Trader Tork and clutched the sleeve
of his tunic. “You must stop him,” she pleaded.

The trade android patted her shoulder
benignly the way a nursery android might comfort a small child.
“Why?” he asked.

She searched his artificial eyes, which
gazed back at her with apparent innocence. A look of confusion
froze on her face until he smiled at her.

She screamed and snatched the obsidian
dagger he wore at his hip. “You, too!” she yelled, pushing away and
holding the sharp, black point toward him.

“Calm down, Ryenne,” her brother called.
“There is no need for this.”

She swiveled and pointed the dagger toward
her brother. “No. Stay away!”

He slowed but continued to approach. The
sheep followed him.

MO-126 growled softly, fearing she might try
to stab her brother. His reaction ultimately resulted from routines
embedded deep in his firmware, but it signaled a legitimate warning
nonetheless.

She shifted her attention briefly to the
threatening dog. Her eyes grew ever wider as she switched her focus
from him, to her brother, to the trader, and then to the sheep. She
screamed again, turned, and ran toward the village.

~*~

“
I’m going to run ahead and make sure she
doesn’t do something hasty,
” MO-126 told his partner.

Leaving Tork and Gault to lead the sheep
back toward the village, he raced past Ryenne. She ran as if demons
were chasing her, which she undoubtedly believed to be the case.
The artificial dog kept his distance, circling well around her, and
reached the spot where the old woman was tied ahead of her.

Galinda was muttering to herself when he
arrived, sitting in her own filth and heedless of the stench.

He turned to face the approaching mad woman
not tied to a pole.

Ryenne waved the dagger dangerously. “Be
gone, Demon! I command it!”

Galinda lifted her graying head at the sound
of Ryenne’s voice. She raised her arms as much as the rope would
allow and echoed the holy woman’s words. “Be gone, Demon!” she
croaked.

This gave MO-126 an idea. Galinda did not
know that Ryenne was addressing him or, more specifically, the
demon she believed resided in him. The old woman apparently thought
the village’s speaker to the gods was trying to cast out the evil
spirit in her by scaring it with the knife. This might allow for a
better solution than any the canine android imagined possible only
a minute ago.

He charged toward Ryenne. She abruptly
backed away, almost tripping in the loose dirt. Before she could
regain her footing, he turned and lunged at Galinda, snapping and
growling a finger’s width from her tortured face. He could tell he
scared her because of the shriek and the puddle.

His behavior apparently confused Ryenne
because she froze, staring at him, the knife held loose and
forgotten in her hand.

Come on, psycho lady, he thought. Don’t
start being sane now. He turned and growled again at the woman tied
to the stake. She cowered, drawing in her scraped and wrinkled
knees beneath the smeared tunic.

Ryenne ventured closer, again waving the
knife, this time far less certainly. MO-126 dodged and snapped at
both women in rapid succession. They shied away, Ryenne by
retreating a few steps and Galinda by moving to the opposite side
of her pole.

“Be gone, Demon,” Galinda choked out. MO-126
hoped she would say that again. Ryenne was being less
accommodating, but he could still make this work.

“
I hope you’re nearby, Trader. I need
you,
” he broadcasted.

“
I can hear you. What are you
doing?
”

“
I’m casting out demons. When you get
here, try getting the villagers to chant, ‘Be gone,
Demon.’
”

“
What?
”

“
Just do it, and when things calm down,
tell Ryenne what a good job she did.
”

“
What are you talking about?
”

“
You’ll understand. You’re a clever
android. Get here quickly.
”

“
We just left the sheep with the rest of
the flock. I’ll be there in a minute.
”

A crowd formed around the pole. So much
entertainment in so short a span of time was a rare event in
villages like this and not something to pass by.

Ryenne, obviously not one to ignore an
attentive audience, resumed her threats with the knife. Now,
however, her movements became more theatrical. The wild madness she
exhibited before diminished. She even remembered her line. “Be
gone, Demon.”

MO-126 cringed and yelped as if beaten and
congratulated himself on his acting ability. “
Now would be a
good time, Tork,
” he signaled.

“Be gone, Demon,” the trade android’s voice
rang out above the sounds of the gathered crowd.

“Be-Gone-Demon,” Tork said again, spacing
the words to prompt the others to join in.

“Be-Gone-Demon.” A few people in the crowd
took the cue.

“Be-Gone-Demon.” This time, Galinda croaked
along.

“Be-Gone-Demon.” Ryenne joined in, and then
Gault. Soon, the whole village seemed to be chanting the three
words.

MO-126 howled, and snapped, and rolled in
the dirt. He wanted the villagers to believe he fought an invisible
demon as a good dog should, but their perceptions of the event
could be shaped by what they heard afterward. He counted on Tork to
take care of that. The trader could communicate with the primitives
in their own language.

The android dog screamed what he hoped would
sound like a victory howl. He snapped again at a vacant spot of air
and shook his head violently as if he held an invisible demon
clamped fatally in his jaws. The crowd hushed to watch the finale,
and he dropped his imagined prey.

“
Are you done?
” the trade android
asked. Sarcastic overtones were embedded in his transmission’s
metadata.

“
Yeah. I think so. Pretty good, huh?
You’re up. Do you know what to do?
”

“
I have a pretty good idea.
”

Tork stepped out of the crowd. “It’s gone, I
think. Ryenne, you’ve done it. You scared the demon out of Galinda.
I think it tried to enter my dog, but he must have fought it
off.”

Before the holy woman could answer, he
strode into the open area near the post and addressed the old woman
tied there. “Can you still feel it, Galinda? I’m sure it is gone,
now. In fact, I believe there are no demons near here at all.”

“Woof,” MO-126 said in full agreement with
his partner’s last statement.

“Well,” the old woman began, “I was pretty
scared. I knew Ryenne just wanted to help, but when your dog came,
well, he frightened me something awful. I know something happened.
My heart was racing like I’d just run all the way to the orchard
and back. All of a sudden, I felt more alive, and I felt like I
really wanted to stay that way, if you know what I mean. I think
you’re right. I think the demon fled from me then, and it tried to
go into your dog because he was sure fighting with something.”

Tork smiled sagely and nodded. “What do you
think, Gault?” he asked, turning to the village headman. “Are your
people and your sheep free of danger now?” He placed a special
emphasis on the sheep.

Gault glanced at his sister who stood by
herself, still holding Tork’s knife. Her attention seemed to shift
from one thing to another rapidly. Not all of the items catching
her interest were readily apparent, and some probably resided only
within her head.

“Well, I don’t see any signs of demons,” the
village headman said cautiously, again glancing at his sister.

She gave no sign of noticing.

“Well, then, Ryenne must be truly blessed by
the gods,” the android trader said loudly.

This, she noticed because she turned toward
him and said, “What?”

“The gods have blessed you, Ryenne,” the
trader said. He took a step toward her but did not come too close.
The unstable woman still held his dagger. “I don’t know how you
managed, but somehow you got my dog to help you, and together you
scared the demons away.”

“She’s always been persuasive when it comes
to animals,” her brother said.

“Rommy’s goat never tried getting back into
the redfruit grove after she hit it with a stick,” a voice from the
crowd said.

“I remember that,” another voice chimed in.
“She pulled that log right out of the fire and smacked it in the
head. It went cross-eyed and ran back to the goat pen with the tip
of its ear still smoking.”

“Very persuasive,” Gault said.

“Well, I don’t suppose it matters how,” Tork
said. “She did it! Congratulations, Ryenne. You may have saved your
village. You certainly saved Gault’s sheep and poor old
Galinda.”

“The gods speak to me.” The uncertainly in
her voice probably owed little to any doubts about her personal
relationship with the gods but rather arose from the way in which
recent events unfolded.

“Thank you, Ryenne,” the old woman said from
her place in the dirt. “Gods bless you.”

“Galinda,” Ryenne mumbled, waving the knife
in the old woman’s general direction.

“Here, let me do that for you,” Tork said,
deftly moving forward and snatching the knife. “I’m sure you’re
exhausted.”

“The gods speak to me,” she said again.

“I’m sure you hear them often,” he replied
tactfully. “Right now, I think you should rest.”

“I’ll help her,” Gault said, taking her by
the arm. “Come along, Ryenne. You’ve had a busy day.”

She let her brother lead her away, and Tork
went to cut Galinda’s bonds.

~*~

“
Thanks for getting involved,
” MO-126
said as his partner secured the gond’s load a couple of hours
later. They would be leaving the village soon. “
I know you
didn’t want to.
”

“
You left me little choice,
” Tork
replied. “
Half of the villagers thought you were possessed by
demons after your performance, and they would have had both you and
that old woman consigned to a bonfire before the day was out. I had
to make sure they saw it a different way. The PM would be very
upset if the primitives shifted the ashes afterward and discovered
your cordilith skeleton.
”

“
Your concern for my well-being is
touching.
”

“
And your disregard for Corporation
protocols is appalling. Your behavior could have jeopardized this
project.
”

“
What do you care? You’re leaving after
we’re done here,
” the canine android reminded him.

“
Loyalty to the corporation is written
into my firmware. Call it instinct. Acting against their interests
feels wrong.
” He pulled the last leather strap tight and
secured it with a wooden buckle.

“
I didn’t act against their
interests,
” MO-126 protested. “
The villagers didn’t learn
anything new. They still believe Ryenne speaks to the gods and all
that.
”

The trade android took the pack animal’s
lead, and they began their slow march away from the village.

“
Yes. We were lucky
,” Tork said
.
“It could have been much worse. They could have ended up doubting
everything Ryenne had told them.
”

“
I don’t see why that would be so
bad.
”

“
You don’t?
”

Actually, he did. He knew why it would be
bad for the corporation, in any case. He remained less convinced
about the harm it might do to the primitives. “
What bothers me,
I think, is that so many of them were ready to blame the old woman
for stuff that she could not possibly have done,
” he said.

“
They didn’t blame her; they blamed her
demon.
”

“
But that’s nonsense.
”

“
Not to them. You must understand that
people like Ryenne give the primitives something to believe that
makes sense to them. It keeps them happy and productive, and it
keeps them from asking dangerous questions that could harm them and
undermine the project.
”

“
It just feels like we’re, well, not
exactly lying, but not doing them any favors, if you know what I
mean.
”

“
The corporation has done them more
favors than they can possibly imagine. Look at them. What do they
have going for them?
”

“
Well, thumbs, for one thing,
” the
android dog said.

“
Thumbs. Yes. And those let them grab
stones and bang them together to make sharper stones, which they
need because they’re slow; they have short teeth and no claws; they
take long to mature; they usually only give birth to one child at a
time, and they have no great ability to understand anything
complex. Their likelihood of survival on their home planet was not
that great, and if they aren’t extinct there, they probably soon
will be. Here, the corporation has given them agriculture, relative
freedom from predators, and enough distance from one another that
they don’t have to compete for resources—and hygiene. Don’t forget
hygiene.
”

“
Hygiene?
”

“
Basic cleanliness. Washing. Not pooping
in the same pile of weeds they sleep in. Judging from the files
that I saw of the survey mission to their home planet, the
ancestors of the primitives here were disgusting. They probably
still are, if they’re still around. I think it’s close to certain
that they aren’t doing as well as those here.
”

MO-126 reluctantly agreed. All of the things
the trade android said were true. He viewed several of the files
from the original survey mission to the humans’ home planet during
breaks between missions. The corporation used them in ‘before and
after’ good will advertising. They showed primitive humans huddling
in the snow, running (unsuccessfully) from predators, and hunting
large herbivores that, as often as not, helped alleviate hunger,
not by providing meat, but by leaving fewer mouths to feed. Then it
showed clean, well-fed humans, happily hoeing fields and their
smiling children dancing around them on the corporation project
planet. There could be no doubt that the people here lived much
better lives than their ancestors had. If humans did still survive
on their home planet, he doubted their situation changed much since
then.