Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [31]
Walker tried, but he simply did not have his four-legged friend’s knack for ingratiating himself to others. It was a failing that troubled him, because he did not understand it. Back home, he had moved with ease among acquaintances at work and at play. His senior year at university, his teammates had voted him cocaptain. From childhood, he had always gotten along well with people.
Not-people, apparently, were a different matter entirely.
Yet as he trotted from one alien encounter to the next, George was customarily greeted with welcoming cries, squeals, honks, squeaks, whispers, and hoots, whereas Walker’s appearance was habitually met by uncertainty, if not outright apathy.
“You have to try harder, Marc,” George instructed him one day. “Everyone remembers or has been told of what happened to the Tripodan. By now, everyone also knows what occurred between you and the Ghouaba. What applies among humans and, to a certain extent, among dogs on Earth applies equally here. Set one inmate to spy on another and the job of containment becomes easier for the keepers.” Turning, he gestured toward the center of the grand enclosure, where representatives of three species had gathered.
“See how hesitant that group is even though they’ve been meeting happily together for weeks beneath that tree? Everybody here would like to trust everybody else, with the obvious exception of the Ghouaba. But no one is sure who might inform on them to the Vilenjji and who might not.”
Seated on the cushioning ground cover, a discouraged Walker pitched pebbles toward a sculpted depression in the soil covering. “What’s to inform about? My finding that Vilenjji device was an exception, wasn’t it?”
Tail-wagging slowed, the dog nodded. “As far as I know, it was. But nobody’s sure what kind of activity, short of murder, the Vilenjji might not approve of, and nobody wants to risk finding out. So despite the smiles, or the equivalent thereof, everyone here exists in a state of permanent paranoia. Whether that’s an intentional consequence on the part of the Vilenjji or just fortuitous for them no one can say. But it’s no less real for that. Don’t you find yourself constantly looking over your shoulder, toward the nearest corridor, to see if they’re watching in person?”
Rising, Walker let the last pebbles fall from his hand. “All the time. You can’t help it.” He indicated the enclosure in which they stood. “There’s nothing else to look at, anyway.”
“There is if you have friends.” Approaching the human, George pawed at his right leg. “Come on, Marc. I’ll help you.”
“All right.” The commodities trader looked down into the dog’s bright, alert eyes. “But I’m not going to lick anyone. Or anything.”
George snickered. “Don’t say that until you’ve met the Kitoulli sisters.”
It wasn’t a question of being subservient, Walker slowly learned. More a matter of showing respect, not only for the representative of another sentient species, but for their particular problems and concerns—even if one didn’t understand everything that was being said, or shown. It took a while, but under the dog’s tutelage Walker slowly got the hang of it. The results were immediate, and welcome. Inhabitants of the enclosures who had previously shied away from him, or wandered off, or turned their backs (or the equivalent thereof) on him grew gradually more voluble. Having George available to act as an intermediary certainly helped. Nor did a willing Walker take umbrage on those increasingly infrequent occasions when the dog would point out one of the human’s faux paws, as George liked to refer to them.
It took weeks. But there came a day when Walker no longer felt it necessary to have George along if he experienced the desire to engage something strange and otherworldly in casual conversation. So far had he come in his social development that he believed he had made the acquaintance of most of his fellow captives. Most, but not all.
One outlying enclosure located on the far side of the grand central mingling area from his own fragment of ship-borne Sierra Nevada particularly