Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [115]
“As the day grows late, my escorts often become anxious,” the K’eremu continued, “but they are too respectful of a manifestly superior intelligence to insist on my leaving. I only do so to humor them—and to get back here to get something to eat.”
“I guess I’m easy.” Lying prone on his rugenstein thing, its cushioning tendrils wriggling unnaturally beneath him as they massaged his belly, George looked up at Walker out of eyes that were presently more curious than soulful. “Something the matter, Marc? Food not to your liking anymore? Temperature not adjusting to your taste? Daily workload of doing nothing and having to find something to occupy your time making mischief with your stressed-out human psyche? Feeling guilty for having been dropped into a swell setup like this?”
Walker shifted uneasily in his chair. Between him and the dog but a good distance from the moisture-loving Sque, a fire burned brightly a few inches above the floor. Its purpose was solely decorative, since a word from any of the residents could instantly adjust the ambient temperature within the room. He had sometimes wondered, but had never gotten around to inquiring, as to the hovering conflagration’s source of fuel and combustion. In the end, it was enough that the building provided it on request. It was bright, and cheery, and hinted of home, yet remained somehow . . . cold. An odd condition, to say the least, to ascribe to a fire.
“It’s comfortable, George. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was ‘swell.’”
“You don’t have to go that far,” the dog responded. “Whenever the need arises, I’ll say it for you. ‘This setup is swell.’” Woolly eyebrows narrowed, and his tone grew suddenly serious. “You’re unhappy.”
“Not unhappy, George. Not unhappy. Homesick.”
The dog let out a disgusted snort and sank his snout deeper into the affectionate shag. The rug purred contentedly as it continued to caress him. “I’ve seen a determined poodle scare off a pair of burglars, I’ve laid between rails while twenty minutes of freight train clanked past a foot over my head, I’ve fished a whole, slightly overdone chateaubriand out of a restaurant Dumpster—but I’ve never yet met a contented human. What is it with you apes, anyway?” Both eyes rolled ceilingward in irritation
“I can’t help it, George. I miss home. I miss . . . things.” Walker gestured behind his chair, back in the direction of his room. “Don’t get me wrong: The Sessrimathe have been great to us. And their technology is— Well, if I could transfer the specifics, any tenth of a percent of what we’ve been exposed to would make me the wealthiest man on Earth. But it’s not everything. I don’t think any technology is. I miss the corned beef and Swiss at the corner deli near my condo. I miss Chicago pizza. I miss the tang of the wind off the river, and the sight of crowds shopping downtown at Christmas. I miss dumpy, ordinary, mind-numbing television. God help me, I miss television commercials. I miss knowing if the Bears are going to make the playoffs, and if there’s another Daley matriculating in the political wings, and what the cocoa crop projections are for the Ivory Coast and the PNG and the Caribbean.” He sighed heavily.
“I miss dating, and going home with a date, and even getting rejected by a date. I miss the water cooler at work and the begonia on my little twelfth-floor porch. I miss reading about what’s happening in the world and the newest hit singer and the latest movie and the next can’t-put-it-down book.” He looked down at his friend, his voice (if not his eyes) misty with remembrance. “Don’t you ever miss anything, George?”
The dog spoke without lifting his muzzle. Swathed in rug, it made him hard to understand. “Dogs are grateful for whatever they happen to possess at the moment, Marc. Humans are always missing too many things.”
Walker looked