Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [20]
George shrugged. “Only one way to find out. Nothing we can do about it if they do.”
Walker rose from where he had been sitting. With the setting of the “sun,” the temperature was starting to cool rapidly. “Actually, I was going to ask you if you’d stay.”
The dog spoke while sniffing industriously at the entrance to the tent. “Us terrestrials have to stick together. At least until we find out what the Vilenjji ultimately want with us.”
Despite his boredom, his isolation, and his continuing depression, as he walked over to the entrance Walker fervently hoped that day still lay far in the future. “It’s a big tent. There’s plenty of room. Glad to have the company. Just one thing.”
George looked up at him. “I’ll go outside to do my thing, if that’s what you’re wondering. Technically I’m not housebroken, because I’ve never had a house, but I don’t do business where I sleep.”
“It’s not that.” Walker felt slightly uncomfortable, having to put into words a request he had never previously had to articulate. “It’s just that, well—do you mind if I pet you once in a while?”
The dog grinned back up at him and replied, in an excellent impersonation of the commodities trader’s voice, “Actually, I was going to ask you.”
When the hooting of a counterfeit owl woke Walker up in the middle of the night, he found a warm, dark mass pressed tightly up against him. Somehow, the dog had wormed its way into the sleeping bag without waking its principal occupant. Walker’s initial reaction was to shove the furry lump out into the tent proper. Instead, he ended up gently raising his left arm and circling it over the warm body, to snug it just a little closer. Deep in sleep, George snuffled once, then lay quiet. The arrangement worked well enough for the rest of the night, except for one time when the dog woke the commodities trader a second time by kicking out with his hind legs. Walker decided to persevere and ignore the kick. He would get used to it.
He’d once had a girlfriend who snored, but never a sleeping partner who kicked.
Perhaps the Vilenjji did not care where George slept, Walker reflected the following morning. More likely, they were pleased to have a new relationship to study. Walker did not care. After weeks of isolation, it was good to have company, and an affable dog was better than nothing. A chatty, talking dog who’d had his IQ boosted was a good deal better.
Their captors must have been pleased. Breakfast brought forth not only the usual food bricks, but a flexible metal bowl full of bite-sized food cubes. Maybe it was the presence of his new companion, but the new food reminded Walker uncomfortably of kibble. It didn’t taste like dog food, however. The blue ones tasted like chicken. The pink ones tasted like the blue ones. The yellow, lavender, green, and gold ones all tasted like boiled brussels sprouts, which only proved how little the Vilenjji actually knew about human beings. As if by way of unintentional compensation, two silvery sapphire cubes tasted like fresh banana pudding.
As soon as his palate encountered one of the latter cubes, he made a show of consuming it and its complement as slowly as possible, running his face through the gamut of expressions of ecstasy. Whether his performance would result in more of the silver banana-ish cubes being provided he did not know, but he was determined to try. Although he did not make the connection, what he had done was the human equivalent of George wagging his tail. To top it all off, in addition to the usual cylinder of water, there was a second, smaller one full of some pale gingery liquid. Though it tasted like weak cola, it might as well have been champagne. By the time he had finished eating, Walker felt as if he had consumed the equivalent of a full five-course meal at the best restaurant in New Orleans.
That was when he noticed George looking at him oddly.
“Well, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” the dog replied. “Did I say