Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [30]
“No.” Walker had to admit that he had not. “What we need is more knowledge of this place. How it works, who’s in charge, what’s waiting for us when this journey is over.”
“And then what?” the dog inquired.
“I don’t know.” Walker sounded more cross than he was, more irritated at himself than at his companion. “Research pluses and minuses first, then make your bid. When you have all the relevant knowledge.”
“I’d settle for an extra ration of food cubes,” George responded. “But then, I’m a dog. We don’t think as far into the future as humans do.”
“Lucky you.” In tandem, they leaped the next row of ground-hugging bushes.
“Maybe you’re hurting yourself by thinking too much, Marc.” As Walker finally slowed to a halt, breathing hard, bent over with his hands on his knees, the dog trotted around to stand in front of him. He was panting lightly. “Maybe what you need to do is forget the era you evolved from. We’re all of us oxygen breathers in and on the same boat here together. Concentrate on what brought your ancestors and mine out of the caves together. Get back to basics. That’s all we’ve got going for us in this place. There’s no Internet, no cell phones, no interstellar 911 to call.” He pawed at the ground with one foot.
“Like, for example, you dig deep enough here, you find metal. What kind of metal I don’t know, but that’s something. A piece of knowledge. Digging may not be a real useful skill for a commodities trader in Chicago, but we dogs have never lost the ability, or the inclination to pursue it.
“Instead of reacting like you have been to what the Ghouaba did, you need to learn to control your reactions better. Keep your feelings to yourself. In other words, learn how to become a model prisoner. The less trouble you cause, the better you behave, the more rewards you’ll get and the less attention the purple-skins will pay to you. I don’t care what kind of equipment they’re using to keep an eye on our activities. Unless they’ve got one Vilenjji assigned to each captive, every now and then someone is going to be overlooked. Just like your picking up that gadget was overlooked.” The tail wagged. “We want you and me to melt in with the rest of the overlooked. We want to be counted among the contented critters in cages who don’t need constant supervision to make sure they don’t do something daft.”
Walker straightened, took a deep breath. All around them, other captives from other worlds were sleeping, lazing, conversing, eating, exercising, and, in a few cases, engaging in activities that were as utterly unfamiliar to him as they were ultimately unfathomable. Among the assembled, who were engaged in pursuits most likely to attract the attention of the Vilenjji? Who were more likely to be ignored, either because they were harmless or better yet, boring?
He nodded in silent agreement with George’s wisdom. That was it. That was the answer—for the foreseeable future, anyway. From this moment forward, he would strive to be as boring as boring could be. Boring enough so that the Vilenjji would all but forget about him as their interest turned to other, more unpredictable inhabitants of the enclosure.
And while he was striving to bore, he would make it his task to learn as much as possible about his fellow captives as well as his captors, while drawing as little attention to himself and to George as possible.
It was amazing to observe the scruffy mutt in the act of making friends. If dogs were born with an inbred skill, friend-making was it. Tail wagging, tongue lolling, George would saunter up to something that looked as if it had stepped out of a dilettante London writer’s opium dream and bark a cheerful greeting. Receiving the modulated sound waves via the appropriate organic mechanism and having them translated by the Vilenjji’s internal implant, the apparition thus addressed would bend, kneel, fold, twist, or otherwise respond physically to bring itself more in line with the dog. Within a few minutes, they would invariably