The Worlds of George O

by George O. Smith

  Two things worked in Lincoln's favor. First, he was in a district where the food merchant expected to lose a fair slice of his wares--and hoped sincerely that those who stole were truly in need. And second, his fumbling, inept attempts at comestible kleptomania were happily covered over by an outburst of customer indignation over some overcharge or underservice or soft spots in the hard cheese. With clerk, manager, and customer in a full-throated round of hand-waving billingsgate and threats to call upon the Peacekeepers from either side of the mangle, Terry Lincoln found it easy to grab a handful of fruit, some slices of cheese, and a few other odds and ends that were taken simply because they were available.

  It was hardly a balanced diet, but Terry was a fifteen-year-old human and, as Humanity knows from the Galactic Center to the oscillating clusters, this has the appetite of a bottomless pit, the metabolism of a blast furnace.

  And so he staved off starvation--and fairly well, for the lack of the formal breakfast still remained in his mind, while at the same time he was running a continuous snack-theft as the opportunity came.

  Twenty miles a day is a fair trek for the seasoned traveler through wilderness. Lincoln hardly had to hack his way through jungle with a machete, but the pitfalls of running afoul took their own toll. For example, he knew that breaking out into a dead run would bring trouble.

  And so by nightfall on the second eve, Lincoln was still making his way in the wrong direction.

  * * * *

  By nightfall, Terry had passed beyond the ring of filth and squalor that was characteristic of the blight area. His surroundings were now quieter, sedate, with a nostalgic touch of days that had been, but now long gone, glory. It was an area in its dotage, remembering the past alone, for it had no future but to fall into the widening circle of blight. Its present was no more than the dull state of transition from an active and fruitful past to a deadly, sordid loss of all value.

  Finding a place to sleep was a problem here. This was no neighborhood where gangs of delinquents roamed to meet and choose up sides to find their pleasure where it was to be found. The neighborhood was old, but it was clean, and it looked clean, and it smelled clean. Just as there was no trash in the gutter, there was no crypt below the stairs, upholstered with cast-off blanket and mattress.

  The lack of a ready-made pad did not bother Terry as much as it might have. He did not, of course, analyze his feelings about the matter. But the behaviorist would have used the situation to demonstrate the value of experience. Last night, in sheer fatigue, Terry had found lodging when he needed it. Call it, if you must, luck. Today, he had survived a hostile environment; he had eaten, and he had maintained his freedom and, although his sense of direction was wrong, he felt that he had made progress.

  Terry Lincoln, for the first time tossed out on his own, had passed his first twenty-four hours in the jungle. And it has been said that a human, physically weak compared to his animal contemporaries, and poorly endowed with tooth, nail, claw, and grown-on fur coat, can be dropped anywhere that life exists and emerge as master so long as he can survive the first diurnal period.

  Terry had never heard this statement. But in his mind tomorrow was a new day, and since he'd survived this one, he would survive tomorrow.

  The hours of the night passed along, and with them went some of Terry's self-confidence. Again, without his realizing it, he was almost desperate; he was forced to take his chance with what was available. He had no choice. He was forced by his circumstance to make do.

  Making do was chancy. Without a ready-made, under-the-stairs assignation-pad to preempt throughout the entire district, Terry was forced to seek an alternative. There were many, none of them truly safe. The district was old in the years of the city; it sported the houses of elder grandeur now on their way to seed or to be broken into half-sized rooms for mass dwelling. These relics of olden graciousness were equipped with the wide verandah, with the broad swing, the chaise, glider, patio lounge, or sofa provided for the afternoon or evening relaxation.

  It was a vagrant's choice. Terry could either go on, on, on and on until he dropped, or he could take the chance of being found by a late homecomer or an early riser. The world was still not his to run.

  So that night he slept on a chaise that was at least a generation older than he. But it was comfortable and clean.

  * * * *

  Terry's awakening was not at the hands of an irate householder, but of his own. As dawn grayed the sky, his internal alarm clock, set early to avoid the early morning discovery, ran fast through subconscious anxiety. It rang long before there was any real danger of being discovered by the normal citizen of the area.

  He had been discovered by another. On the floor beside the chaise lay Beauregarde.

  Beauregarde was a tired dog. He had been at his tracking without sleep since Peter Hawley had shouted the order to find Terry, bring the kid to Understanding and return him whole. Beauregarde was a loyal dog, and his master's order was dog's law. Then, having trailed the youth to this pad, Beauregarde used sensible logic to conclude that part two of the order could wait until both of them were awake. Having found Terry, Beauregarde took time for sleep; it had been a long day for him, too.

  But as young Lincoln began to stir, Beauregarde came wide awake. He yawned with a splendid display of dog teeth, stretched fore and hind quarters, passed a forepaw over his nose, and sat on his haunches, looking at Terry Lincoln. In fair imitation of Peter Hawley's frequent sally when finding one of Earth's misplaced, he asked, "Terence Lincoln, I presume?"

  Terry recognized Beauregarde for what he was: Terrestrial dog, and undoubtedly here on Coleban as part of the Terrestrial Office. His own name, in the dog's modulated whine and controlled growl, was quite recognizable to the youth, but the rest was wholly lost, even though the dog used a Terrestrial dialect quite close to Lincoln's own.

  It was, of course, one thing to know that such as the intelligent dog existed and that intelligent dog was a great help to his master. It was something again to meet one face to face. A bit puzzled how to begin, Terry nodded and said, "I'm Terry Lincoln, and somehow I'm lost."

  The dog waved his plume and replied, "I am Beauregarde. I belong to Peter Hawley, the chief troublemaker in Coleban."

  "Beauregarde--Peter Hawley--the what--?"

  "Sorry. You have not Understanding," said Beauregarde, speaking as slowly and as clearly as he could. "I'm Beauregarde. Peter Hawley is my master. Peter Hawley is the Terrestrial agent here in Coleban. We work together. I--er--let's get out of here!"

  The simple phrases got through, and the urgency of the last one was quite clear.

  Without asking why, Terry followed the dog out of the place onto the sidewalk; he found out why a moment later when a man appeared on the spot they'd left.

  * * * *

  "How did you know?" asked Terry.

  "Scent," said the dog. "He smelled of trouble."

  "I didn't hear you...."

  "I--smelled--him--coming," said Beauregarde, as slowly and as clearly as he could.

  To add communication, the dog lifted his nose high and sniffed audibly. The communication of sound and pantomime got through to Terry, who nodded.

  It became evident to Terry that theirs was a one-way communication link. The dog had Understanding. He had not. Therefore the dog could understand him, but he could not completely understand the dog. Since the dog could understand him, he said, "Let's go."

  They reached the corner, and Terry turned to continue in the direction he thought to be toward the spaceport. "It can't be far," he said.

  "What--can't--be--far?"

  "The spaceport."

  "It's on the other side of Coleban," said Beauregarde.

  "Er--huh, please?"

  "Sorry. Spaceport--is--on--other side of city."

  "But it should be right out here--?"

  "No. You--got turned--around."

  "Okay," said Terry resolutely. "Let's go."

  He about faced and began to walk toward the
center of Coleban. The dog puzzled for a moment and then said, "Stop!"

  Terry stopped, puzzlement in his face. "Look, Beauregarde, I want to get back to the spaceport."

  "Right--smack--through Coleban?"

  "Why not?"

  "Won't make it."

  "Why not?"

  "Coleban--won't let you. Us."

  Beauregarde sat on his haunches. Like his master, he was big for action and little for the pussy-foot operation. Diplomacy was the show of fang and the sound of the deep-throated snarl and the canine willingness to tackle anything organic enough to bleed when bitten. Dimly, to the dog's ability to think in terms of intrigue, came the hard-to-follow logic that the Peacekeepers of Xanabar had some unknown reason for herding the kid out of town and isolating him. Certainly the youth's present freedom did not represent the inability of a planetful of trained operators to put the arm on an outlander who lacked Understanding.

  With little hope of reaching the meaning or the reason, Beauregarde came to the conclusion that they were fairly safe from the clutches of the Peacekeepers so long as they did not attempt to beat their way through the city to the spaceport.

  With extreme patience, the dog said, "Terry, try to understand me. We must make our way to the spaceport by the roundabout way."

  "But can't you help me?"

  "I can help," said Beauregarde quite clearly. "I can see that you are not molested or harmed. I cannot slip you into an inside pocket and smuggle you through the lines of the ungodly."

  "I don't understand."

  * * * *

  Beauregarde took in a deep breath and let it out in a dog-sigh. "That's the problem," he said. "You haven't yet got Understanding. If you had, this would make sense to you--

  probably more sense than it does to me."

  Of this, Terry grasped little more than the obvious statement that he lacked Understanding.

  "Well," said Beauregarde, eyeing the youth, "Peter said that I'd have to bring you to Understanding before we would beat our way through this mess."

  "Understanding?" asked Terry.

  "You--need--Understanding."

  "And you can bring it to me?"

  "No.--I cannot. But I--can--bring you to Understand."

  The difference was lost on Terry. He had never heard of either Mahomet or the mountain, and so whither went thither was neither an issue nor a puzzlement. It simply did not exist.

  To Terry, the acquisition of Understanding was to follow something like a comprehensive final test, or passing a stipulated age... or something he did not understand.

  It was, in fact, the last. It is impossible to explain Understanding to he who has it not and quite unnecessary to mention it to he who has it.

  "Look," said Terry, "Why don't we barge in and throw our weight around?"

  Beauregarde looked at Terry. The kid was speaking the language known best to both Beauregarde and Peter Hawley, but the process of tying into a platoon of the Peacekeepers required more than Understanding. It required the like of Peter Hawley to quarterback the operation, for Peter had the timing, the play, the gimmick, and the right tone of voice to cut this kind of mustard.

  Without Understanding, Terry was not going to be of any help. With it, Terry and Beauregarde could communicate; and although there could be but one Peter Hawley in Beauregarde's life and admiration, Terry with Understanding could be a big help to Beauregarde and his grasp of the way Peter Hawley might have operated in the same circumstance.

  The dog faced Terry and said, "I can--help you. But you--will find me--a responsibility. First--I must be fed."

  This Terry managed to follow. The concept of a predatory carnivore taking his food where he caught it was for the dictionary, the encyclopedia, and the course in paleontology and primitive life that he might be forced to take at Scholar's Cluster next semester.

  Domestic animals were fed.

  He said, "If you're hungry, we'll have to steal food, you know."

  "Yes," said Beauregarde. "But how?"

  "Yes--but--what?"

  "How--are we--going to steal--this food?"

  Terry Lincoln looked at Beauregarde. He saw a short-haired animal of about eighty-odd pounds, in his own estimation, standing a bit more than a half-meter at the shoulder. One thing occurred to him: this Terrestrial dog was harder and faster than he, so the fast footwork belonged to the dog. So he said, "I'll make some sort of a fuss, and while they are looking at me, you grab something to eat."

  "Good boy," said Beauregarde.

  * * * *

  VI

  They approached the market from opposite sides. The boy was inconspicuous except for his disheveled appearance, which was out of place in this district. The dog was as conspicuous as a billboard, for Xanabar had no such four-footed animal, but Beauregarde kept his identity concealed by animal tactics until the action began.

  The operation backfired.

  The unkempt youth was obviously one of Xanabar's great underprivileged. His actions also indicated that he was not quite bright. So if this benighted youth was forced to steal his food, common decency required that he be fed, and neither merchant nor customer felt moved to raise an outcry. Instead, they treated Terry's fumbling attempts at shoplifting to the backside observation. Those who could not turn their backs managed, somehow, to be looking over there; anywhere but at the youth who hoped to create a stir.

  However, the stir was created by Beauregarde.

  The dog was by no means unknown to the people of Coleban, although less than one out of a thousand had ever seen him in the flesh. The only dog in this part of the galaxy, Beauregarde had appeared in picture and video as a member of the Terrestrial Office.

  But as Terry had realized, knowing that such a thing as Terrestrial dog existed and meeting the animal were two different items on the agenda.

  Beauregarde swooped in with his headlong gallop, hindpaws scissoring in front of the forepaws for the spring, then the stretch for distance. It was a magnificent sight, a spectacle of animal in full flight. Unfortunately for any plan made by Terry Lincoln, the citizens of Coleban bent their attention to the dog. There were "oohs!" and "ahs!" as the dog went racing through, but not one of them moved aside or made the expected opening.

  Beauregarde was barricaded from the counter by spectators.

  It remained to Terry Lincoln to remember what they were there for. Since things had gone in reverse--including the eyes of the onlookers, Terry found it easy to latch onto a fair grab of edibles.

  And he remembered. Beauregarde was the hungry one. So Terry loaded up on stuff that looked as though it would satisfy the dog's appetite.

  "A fine haul," said Beauregarde, "but did you remember to snatch a can opener as well?"

  The words were lost on Terry, but the facts were quite plain. Much of the fodder Terry had grabbed was brilliantly labeled in seven-color stereograms that made the mouth water.

  These tidbits were encased in a container carefully designed to withstand any invasionary force that was not equipped with the special device furnished by the company that sold the food. Animal tooth and nail were ineffective; and whereas a mechanic might breach one of the containers, Terry was totally without tools.

  So Terry shared his own food with the dog, mentally kicking himself for being so thoughtless.

  Beauregarde, on the other hand, let Terry divide his food. Beauregarde was quite capable of foraging for his own, and he was far from lazy, but the main task was to bring the youth to Understanding, and this was one way to do it.

  * * * *

  With this simple act, their roles reversed--or more properly, were rightfully established.

  Terry saw in Beauregarde an end to his problem of being lost, strayed or stolen.

  Indeed, he might have remained so, ultimately gaining Understanding in the gutters of Coleban, as many of the Xanabarian youth did. But with the arrival of Beauregarde, he was no longer alone. He was part of a "they" relationship, or companionship.

  But if Terry expected
Beauregarde to lead him through Coleban, either boldly through the serried lines of the Peacekeepers or stealthily through the shadows of night, he was mistaken.

  Beauregarde was not a ministering angel. Beauregarde was a weapon; a trained dog of war. When he walked die streets of Coleban or any other city in the sprawling galactic empire of Xanabar, some feared him and some admired him; but all of them knew that this was dog, Terrestrial dog, intelligent Terrestrial dog. And any person who traveled with Terrestrial dog was himself a Terrestrial, of Earth, Sol III. And like any weapon, Beauregarde served two purposes. Calm and unruffled, he was a potent force, but not very useful in the unviolent run of life. Aroused, he was an unsheathed menace, and the sensible thing was to see that Beauregarde was not angered, that his master was not angered. For it was well known that Terrestrial dog would not hesitate to charge into completely unreasonable odds at the order of his master.

  As a traveling companion, Beauregarde was tops. But as an asset to Terry Lincoln's hope of being returned immediately to home and fireside, Beauregarde became a first-class responsibility.

  Beauregarde could not manipulate the handle on a water-bubble. Beauregarde could not open doors. Beauregarde could not walk unnoticed along the sidewalks of Coleban, although Terry could so long as no one accosted him. Even before Beauregarde arrived, Terry had learned that the way to walk unnoticed through a city full of strangers is to walk quietly and utter not a sound. Open the yap and utter a word, and all around you know you for what you are: an outlander.

  * * * *

  The days passed. Beauregarde was not the total loss he said he would be; the dog knew his way around, and he had the dog's Understanding. Beauregarde also had a fine sense of direction, and he knew City Coleban. So Beauregarde did the navigating, and Terry followed the dog's directions and suggestions. Slowly they were circling the central city, making their way through the roughly annular transition area that sprawled between the blight-that-was and the blight-to-be.