Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [16]
“Well, here we are,” he muttered aloud as he bent over to pat the dog on the top of its woolly head. “Two terrestrial mammals cast adrift on a sea of alien indifference.”
“Don’t mix metaphors with me, bud. This isn’t the time or the place for it.”
He froze. The words were not an auditory illusion. He had seen the dog’s mouth move, had heard the sounds spoken. Which meant the canine shape he was staring down at could not be a real dog. It was an alien invention, perhaps designed and fabricated in some unimaginable alien workshop to ease his loneliness and mitigate his melancholy.
The dog spoke again. “Why did you stop petting me? I haven’t had anybody pet me in days.” Retracting its tongue and turning, the fuzzy head nodded in the direction of the corridor. “The Vilenjji won’t pet me. I’ve asked them to, but they just give back with that flat, fish-eyed stare of theirs.” The tongue reemerged again as its owner panted softly. “Wish they’d take me for a walk once in a while, though. I get tired of hanging around the alley.” Peering past Walker, who had suddenly turned into an unmoving poster boy for a life modeling class, the dog chirped excitedly, “Hey, you’ve got a pond!” Uttering a single, sharp bark, he bounded past the gaping commodities trader.
“Wait—wait a minute!” Awakening from his trance, Walker rushed after the dog.
Not wanting to get wet, or do anything else until he understood better what was happening, he was reduced to standing and calling from the shore while the dog swam and played in the portion of lake. Only when he’d had enough did the mutt dog-paddle out, trot onto shore, and shake himself dry. Absently, Walker wondered if the watching aliens were recording this, too, and whether they were discussing animatedly among themselves the dog’s built-in means of shedding water from its fur.
Sitting down, the mutt began cleaning himself. In between methodical, energetic licks, he squinted up at the bewildered human whose enclosure he was presently sharing.
“I’m from Chicago. Illinois.” When a dazed Walker still hesitated to reply, the dog prompted, “You?”
“The same. Chi—Chicago.”
“Hey, we’re neighbors! Whaddya know? Well, a big woof to that. What’s your name?”
Walker swallowed hard and sat down on a convenient rock. “Marcus Walker. Everybody calls me Marc. And you—yours?”
Refreshed from its brief swim the dog pushed its forelegs out, stretched, and crossed its paws. “‘Dumb mutt’ is one. I often answer to ‘Get out of there!’ ‘Shithead’ is probably the most common.”
Still tense inside, Walker found himself warming to the animal. Despite its unnatural ability to converse, it did not act like something that was the cold, calculated product of an alien manufactory. Both its sense of humor and its kinked hair reminded him of an old friend he hadn’t seen in years, a crazy defensive tackle on his university team. “I can’t call you that. How about George?”
“‘George.’” The dog considered the suggestion carefully, the heavy brow crinkling in thought. Then it nodded, ears like kitchen scouring pads flopping against the sides of its head. “Beats ‘shithead.’ George it is. You’re no sweet-smelling bitch, Marc, but it’ll be nice to have a companion for a change, someone from home to talk to.”
Walker started to grin. “I was thinking the same thing.” Then his eyes, and his thoughts, turned again to the still-empty corridor. “You said that the ‘Vilenjji’ wouldn’t pet you. Those are my—our—captors?”
Newly anointed “George” nodded. “Snooty bastards, aren’t they? As soon spit on you as talk to you—though I don’t know if they have any spit. Leastwise, I’ve never seen one salivate. Hard enough to get an idea of what all their externals do without trying to visualize the functions of their insides.”
Walker nodded knowingly, then asked the question he had to ask. “You’re not some kind of alien plant, are you? Something these Vilenjji have cooked up to get me to act differently?”
“Funny,” George replied,