Service Goat

by Piers Anthony

  “On my innocent way,” she said, and kissed him.

  She stopped by the doctor's house, and she and Linda went shopping together, as they had become friends. In fact Venus was using the woman as a model of what the perfect woman should be, hoping to get there herself some day. She caught Linda up on the call. “We're waiting for the callback,” she said. “It looks good, but they haven't committed yet.”

  “If you go to the school in the last school hour, you can quietly tell York and Isabel, and also Sam, because he'll be picking Isabel up for a date after school.”

  “Good enough. I'll do that.” Venus was pleased to see Sam and Isabel making it; they seemed well matched, apart from their participation with this project.

  The day passed with no callback. Maybe it took time for a bureaucracy to make a decision, especially one as important as this.

  She went to the school at that later time. The principal saw her immediately, listened, and moved on, making no outward show of the contact. She was just a former student checking in. Then she went to Miss Isabel's classroom and waited just inside the door. The teacher came to her when the children were doing their reading practice. “Ben made the call this morning. They seem receptive. We're waiting on their decision. We're keeping the goats in the sky and the stasis hidden until the deal is actually made.”

  Isabel nodded as if it were routine school business and returned to the class activity. Venus caught Callie's eye and nodded; the girl knew it was about the call.

  Then, just before the final bell, there was a commotion. Isabel's intercom buzzed. Venus heard the Principal's voice. “Soldiers are here. The school is in lockdown. I sent them to the wrong classroom, but they'll untangle that soon. You know what to do.”

  “Thank you,” Isabel said quietly. Then she looked at Callie and made a small motion with her head: come here.

  The girl and goat came immediately. “I think they're after you,” Isabel murmured tersely. “Exit by the emergency side door. Sam is there. Go with him. Disappear quickly.”

  Callie and Nanny quietly exited the classroom. The other children saw them going and said nothing. It was the conspiracy of silence. Venus knew exactly how that was.

  The door burst open and armed men entered. “Where's the goat?” the head trooper demanded. His name tag said BRUTUS and he wore army sergeant stripes on his sleeve.

  Miss Isabel looked surprised. “Do you by any chance mean the Service Goat that assists one of my pupils? This is perfectly in order; Service Animals are allowed and it does not disrupt the class. In fact my students are very well behaved.”

  Brutus knew he was being stalled. “Yes, that one. I don't see it.”

  “Perhaps they are using the lavatory.” Miss Isabel addressed the class. “Children, do any of you know where Callie is at the moment?”

  “I think she had to go poop,” a boy said, and several others tittered. They liked being naughty in a good cause.

  “Check the lavatory,” Brutus said to one of his men.

  In a moment the soldier returned. “It's empty.”

  Brutus looked sternly at the teacher. “Ma-am, this is government business. Failure to cooperate can get you arrested. Where is that goat?”

  “Arrested!” Miss Isabel said, amazed. “On what possible grounds?”

  The children picked up on the will of the teacher. “We're getting rested!” one exclaimed, and the others cheered.

  “Quiet, class,” Miss Isabel said with mock severity. “Brutus is an honorable man.” This was a quotation from a recent lesson, Shakespeare, and it signified the opposite, as the children knew. Venus had to stifle a smile. The teacher was stalling to give Callie and Nanny time to get well clear.

  Brutus was not amused. “Grounds? Interfering with legitimate government business.” He touched his sidearm meaningfully.

  Miss Isabel stood beside the American flag that every classroom had. She assumed a heroic posture. “Shoot if you must this old gray head.” More quotation, this time from John Greenleaf Whittier. “But spare your country's flag,” she said.

  The children burst out laughing. They loved seeing history and classic poetry coming alive, especially in this wild personal setting.

  “That does it! You're under arrest.” Brutus marched menacingly forward.

  Venus had to intervene. “You can't do that! She's a teacher in her own classroom!”

  “You too,” Brutus said, and one of the other soldiers grabbed her arm.

  Too late Venus realized that this was more than a quest for the goat. They were after the human collaborators too, and of course they knew who they were. Ben wasn't the only one who could do spot research. They had simply gone after the most valuable one, Nanny, first. Venus had walked into their grasp.

  But Callie and Nanny had escaped. That was most of the point.

  “Free them! Free them!” the children chanted enthusiastically, as if they were at a demonstration. But it was of no avail; Venus and Isabel were soon in handcuffs and on their way to the military headquarters.

  There they were perfunctorily separated. Venus was taken to a private office where she was interviewed by one Lieutenant Maplin, according to his name tag. He hardly glanced at her, which made her wonder whether he was gay, because she normally commanded close male attention even when modestly garbed.

  He shuffled his papers. “You are Venus Intra, mistress of Benjamin Hemoth,” he informed her.

  “Common law wife,” she corrected him. So they did know about her survival and current life under her assumed identity. She wasn't surprised.

  “Whatever. You know about the goat.”

  “What about the goat?” She was determined to tell them nothing they didn't already know. She was privately outraged by the betrayal: instead of making the sensible deal, they were trying to take the goat by force. It might as well have been gang warfare. “Where is my husband?”

  “Where is the goat?”

  So Callie and Nanny had gotten away. “You didn't catch them,” she said, not bothering to conceal her satisfaction.

  “Yet. Where are they hiding?”

  “How would you expect me to know? I was busy getting arrested on trumped up charges in the classroom while they went their own way.” She took a breath that would have mesmerized any normal man. This one was definitely gay. “So what now?”

  “You know about the aliens.”

  “What aliens? Nanny Goat is Callie's savior and my friend.”

  “The aliens who tried to make a deal.”

  “The deal you betrayed? Lotsa luck getting anything now, you turd.”

  “We shall see.”

  She was taken to a larger holding chamber. And there, to her surprise, were the others: Sterling, Linda, York, Isabel, and Ben. She ran to Ben's arms. “They cheated,” she said.

  “They did,” he agreed angrily. But in the course of the embrace, he squeezed her buttock twice: their signal of warning. Something else was going on.

  Then she caught on: they must all have been questioned separately, then put together for a reason. The military brass must be hoping that in their relief to be together again they would let some key news slip. Every word they said was being recorded. “They asked me where the goat was,” she said. “I said I didn't know, but I guess she wasn't caught.”

  “I think not,” Isabel said. “Sam's not here.”

  And Sam was driving them somewhere. But where could they go to escape the swarming soldiers?

  Then Sam was ushered into the chamber. He had after all been caught. Venus suffered a moment of despair.

  Then she realized that Sam was alone. No Callie. No Nanny.

  Isabel went to embrace and kiss Sam. “What happened?” she asked him.

  “I took them where they wanted to go,” he replied, and Venus noted that same covert bottom pinch she herself had received. That said things about this couple's relationship, and about what Sam was saying: he was lying.

  “And were was that?” Isabel asked as they sat
down together.

  “To the forest. Nanny got in telepathic touch with the alien ship, and they sent down a lander. They picked them up. Then I got out of there, only to be intercepted by the troops. But they were too late: Callie and Nanny are gone.”

  “Gone where?” Isabel asked.

  “Into the sky. After that, who knows? I think they were mad about being betrayed.”

  “They're in space?” Isabel asked, seeming amazed.

  “Where else? It isn't as if there's anything left here for them.”

  “It seems the betrayers slit their own collective throat,” Sterling said. “They could have had an excellent deal if they hadn't gotten greedy.”

  The others nodded soberly.

  But Venus knew there was an unspoken elephant in the room. If what Sam told them was a lie, what was the truth? And why didn't the pursuing soldiers know it? Why were they trying to trick the group into spilling something?

  Where were Callie and Nanny?

  Chapter 14: Conclusion

  Callie left the classroom, her hand firmly on Nanny's back. She knew there was trouble, and that she and Nanny were the target. They had hoped so much that the deal would work out and all would be well; maybe she should have known better. So now they had to escape. Then maybe they could figure out what was next.

  They looked around. There was Sam. “Miss Isabel said to go with you,” Callie said. “There's trouble in the school.”

  “So it seems,” he agreed. “I heard the commotion. They're after you, of course. This way.” He led them to his car, and they climbed in. Callie buckled her seat belt while Nanny lay on the back seat, and kept her head forward so that Callie could touch it. “I guess my date with Isabel will have to wait.”

  “We're sorry,” Callie said.

  “Don't be. Your welfare is more important.” He started the motor and pulled out into the street.

  Only to be flagged down by a soldier. “Hey mister, you can't leave here!”

  “Don't stop!” Callie said urgently.

  “Oh, I know. Hang on.”

  Instead of stopping, he gunned the motor and forged past the soldier. He skewed into the street while the soldier was running to his vehicle. He accelerated along the street, then abruptly slammed on the brakes and slewed around a corner. Then around another.

  “Been a while since I've driven like this,” he said. “We're not supposed to do it with an ambulance. It's fun!”

  After a few more turns he slowed and merged with traffic on a larger street. “Now we're hiding where they won't look, thinking we'll be speeding directly out of here. I think we've lost them.”

  “It's like a roller coaster,” Callie said breathlessly. “Or maybe a bumper car ride.”

  “Close enough,” Sam agreed. “Now where to? We can't take you home; that's the first place they'll look.”

  Callie communed with Nanny. “To the forest.”

  “The forest? There are only a few drivable trails there. They'll cut us off and soon trap us.”

  “Not soon enough. The herd is sending down a lifecraft.”

  “Wow! They going to pick you up? Take you to their ship?”

  “Not exactly.” Callie hesitated. “Sam, are you a good liar?”

  “Honey, I'm not lying to you. I'm trying to help you escape.”

  “We know. But Nanny and I have an idea. We'll need you to—to cover for us, so we can do it. But you'll need to be able to lie, at least for a while. Can you do it?”

  “Callie, I like to think of myself as an honest man. But yes, I can lie, if I have to. Knowing what's at stake here, I'll do it for you. But the lie will have to have some evidence to back it up, or it won't last long enough to do you any good.”

  “Yes. Here it is: that Nanny and I catch the lifeboat and fly up to the herd ship. The boat will wait just long enough so they can see it take off, so they know that much is true. But we won't be on it.”

  “Kid, you're playing one dangerous game. But I'll help you all I can.”

  “It's safer than letting the betrayers have their way.”

  “Good point.” He reached across to pat Nanny on the head, receiving a jolt of support in return.

  They came to the forest and drove down a trail. “Let us off here,” Callie said. “You go on along one more mile and wait. You'll see the lifeboat land and then take off. Just before the soldiers catch up to you. So they'll see it too.”

  “Got it,” Sam agreed. He stopped and let them scramble out of the car. “God, I hope you know what you're doing!”

  “So do we,” Callie said, and waved as they ran into the brush.

  They hid in the foliage, watching the car drive away. Soon after it came a procession of army jeeps, never pausing to look around. After a time the jeeps returned, and they saw that Sam was on one. He had been arrested. Still they waited.

  There was a gentle bleat. There was a goat, just like Nanny only with a slightly different pattern of colors. This was one of the other three does.

  Nanny and Nanny Two briefly linked their prehensile horns, communing, and Callie got the message: Two was here to be with Ira. Nanny gave her all the information they had on the boy, which wasn't much, but was enough.

  Then they started walking. The address was about five miles away. They didn't hurry, being more concerned with staying out of sight than moving fast. Callie walked between the goats, a hand on each, her senses correspondingly magnified. They had some receptive telepathy and were aware of the human minds in the vicinity; that was how they knew when to pass unnoticed.

  In due course they came to Ira's house. Now they became bold. They marched right up to the front door, and Callie knocked.

  It opened and a woman stood there, Ira's mother. “What on earth!” she exclaimed, seeing a child and two goats.

  “Please, I'm Callie, with my Service Goat. We came to see Ira,” Callie said. “We're friends.”

  “Ira! He has no such friends. What--” She broke off, because Two moved her head to touch the woman's hand with a horn.

  There was hardly a pause. “Yes, of course. Please come in.”

  Then they were entering a padded playroom where the ten year old boy idly slapped the wall while the nurse watched tiredly. She looked up, startled to see the intruders, but made no protest when Ira's mother caught her eye.

  “Ira, this is Callie,” the mother said. “She has come to visit you, with her—her pet goats.”

  “Don't want any,” the boy said truculently.

  Nanny Two walked up to him. “Pet her,” mother said in the voice of maternal command.

  The boy reluctantly obeyed. He slapped the goat's shoulder.

  And froze. Then he hugged Two around the neck and cried.

  “What is happening here?” the nurse asked.

  “You'll see.” Mother faced son. “Ira, this is your Service Goat. Keep touching her.”

  The boy stood up straight, his hand on the goat's back. His demeanor had been transformed. “Oh, yes! How sweet the sound that saves a wretch like me.” He faced the nurse. “We won't be needing you any more, Pat. Thank you for your assistance.” Then his mother. “That's a lovely green dress you are wearing, mom. You are lovely too.”

  “I have to make a call.” She lifted her cell phone. “Prentice, this is Patience. You need to get home in a hurry. No, it's not bad news. Just get here.”

  Ira looked at Callie. “You brought her. Why?”

  “I'm like you. Maybe worse. I have no eyes. But with Nanny I can see perfectly well, and think better too. I knew it would be the same with you.”

  “I understand. Now I can see and hear better than since I had the illness, and my mind is clearer too, and I feel great. All because of the goat. But we've never met. Why bring such a treasure to a stranger? I know it's not out of the kindness of your heart. I don't mean you're a bad person, just that it doesn't make a lot of sense. I don't deserve anything from you, least of all this.”

  “There's a problem maybe your dad can fix. We had
to get to him. He'll understand, once he meets Nanny Two.”

  “Yes he will,” Ira agreed. “This changes my life.”

  They heard a car slew into the drive. A man charged into the house. “Dear, what's going on?”

  Patience gestured to the two children and two goats.

  “Hi dad!” Ira said brightly. “This is my friend Callie. And this is my Service Goat. I'm whole again, because of them. They need your help.”

  “You got a Service Goat,” Prentice said, awed.

  “I sure did. Callie brought her. Now I can go back to school and my friends. I've got things to do, loads to catch up on.”

  Prentice remained amazed. “You see me. You hear me. Your mind is sharp.”

  “Nanny Two is helping me. That's what she does. Dad, she's great! I've got my life back! Come pet her.”

  Prentice came up to do that, joining the conspiracy. “So it's all true,” he said. “It's a miracle.” He looked at Callie. “But don't you know they betrayed you? I made my report and recommended the proffered deal, and the warmongering greed-heads took over. I had no power to stop them, to my shame.”

  “I know,” Callie said. “But I also know you can stop it, if you really want to. You know how.”

  Prentice hesitated. “This would be extremely irregular, perhaps an abuse of my position.”

  “Dad,” Ira said meaningfully.

  Prentice decided. He plainly loved his son. He brought out his own cell phone and touched a number. He evidently had a line that bypassed the bureaucracy and personal secretaries. “Sir, Prentice here. I need to see you tonight. I'll bring my son and his Service Goat. You will want to see them. Trust me.”

  Mrs. Covert glanced at Callie. “You and your Service Goat will stay with us until this is settled. You must be tired and hungry.”

  “Yes ma'am,” Callie said obediently. She really had nowhere else to go at the moment. She had not thought it through beyond this point.

  Soon Prentice, Ira, and Nanny Two were on their way in a limo. Callie and Nanny were having a late dinner of spaghetti and dried corn while Callie talked with Patience, who was now also part of the conspiracy. “Yes, Nanny is alien, from a planet a thousand light years away. It took them three thousand years to get here. They're worried about their star: it might flare and burn their world up. So they want to plant peaceful enclaves on other habitable worlds so they won't all be wiped out.”