The tale attempts to rationalize the mutations, attempts even to explain the Dogs as modifications of the primordial strain. No race, the story says, can become improved if there are no mutations, but there is no word concerning the need of a certain static factor in society to ensure stability. Throughout the legend it becomes abundantly clear that the human race placed little value upon stability.
Tige, who has combed the legend to bolster his contention that the tales actually are human in their origin, believes that no Doggish storyteller would have advanced the theory of mutation, a concept which runs counter to everything in the canine creed. A viewpoint such as this, he claims, must have sprung from some alien mind.
Bounce, however, points out that throughout the legend viewpoints which are diametrically opposed to canine logic often are presented in a favorable light. This, he says, is no more than the mark of a good storyteller—a twisting of values for certain dramatic shock effect.
That Man is presented deliberately as a character who realizes his own shortcomings there can be no doubt at all. In this tale, the human, Grant, talks about a “groove of logic” and it is apparent that he senses something wrong with human logic. He tells Nathaniel that the human race is always worried. He fastens an almost infantile hope upon the Juwain theory as something which might yet save the human race.
And Grant, in the end, seeing the trend of destruction inherent in his race, passes the destiny of humanity on to Nathaniel.
Of all the characters which appear in the legend, Nathaniel may be the only one having an actual historic basis. In other tales which have come from the racial past, the name Nathaniel is often mentioned. While it is patently impossible that Nathaniel could have accomplished all the deeds which are attributed to him in these tales, it is generally believed that he actually lived and was a figure of importance. The basis of that importance, of course, has been lost in the gulf of time.
The Webster family of humans, which was introduced in the first tale, continues to hold a prominent place throughout the rest of the legend. While this may be another piece of evidence to support Tige’s belief, it is possible that the Webster family once again may be no more than a mark of good storytelling, a device used to establish a link of continuity in a series of tales which otherwise are not too closely linked.
To one who reads too literally, the implication that the Dogs are a result of Man’s intervention may prove to be somewhat shocking. Rover, who has never seen in the legend anything beyond pure myth, thinks that here we are dealing with an ancient attempt to explain racial origins. To cover up actual lack of knowledge, the tale develops an explanation which amounts to divine intervention. It is an easy and, to the primitive mind, a plausible and satisfactory way to explain something of which nothing at all is known.
III
CENSUS
Richard Grant was resting beside the little spring that gushed out of the hillside and tumbled in a flashing stream across the twisting trail when the squirrel rushed past him and shinnied up a towering hickory tree. Behind the squirrel, in a cyclone of churning autumn-fallen leaves, came the little black dog.
When he saw Grant the dog skidded to a stop, stood watching him, tail wagging, eyes a-dance with fun.
Grant grinned. “Hello, there,” he said.
“Hi,” said the dog.
Grant jerked out of his easy slouch, jaw hanging limp. The dog laughed back at him, red dish rag of a tongue lolling from its mouth.
Grant jerked a thumb at the hickory. “Your squirrel’s up there.”
“Thanks,” said the dog. “I know it. I can smell him.”
Startled, Grant looked swiftly around, suspecting a practical joke. Ventriloquism, maybe. But there was no one in sight. The woods were empty except for himself and the dog, the gurgling spring, the squirrel chattering in the tree.
The dog walked closer.
“My name,” he said, “is Nathaniel.”
The words were there. There was no doubt of it. Almost like human speech, except they were pronounced carefully, as one who was learning the language might pronounce them. And a brogue, an accent that could not be placed, a certain eccentricity of intonation.
“I live over the hill,” declared Nathaniel, “with the Websters.”
He sat down, beat his tail upon the ground, scattering leaves. He looked extremely happy.
Grant suddenly snapped his fingers.
“Bruce Webster! Now I know. Should have thought of it before. Glad to meet you, Nathaniel.”
“Who are you?” asked Nathaniel.
“Me? I’m Richard Grant, enumerator.”
“What’s an enum … enumer—”
“An enumerator is someone who counts people,” Grant explained. “I’m taking a census.”
“There are lots of words,” said Nathaniel, “that I can’t say.”
He got up, walked over to the spring, and lapped noisily. Finished, he plunked himself down beside the man.
“Want to shoot the squirrel?” he said.
“Want me to?”
“Sure thing,” said Nathaniel.
But the squirrel was gone. Together they circled the tree, searching its almost bare branches. There was no bushy tail sticking out from behind the boll, no beady eyes staring down at them. While they had talked, the squirrel had made his getaway.
Nathaniel looked a bit crestfallen, but he made the best of it.
“Why don’t you spend the night with us?” he invited. “Then, come morning, we could go hunting. Spend all day at it.”
Grant chuckled. “I wouldn’t want to trouble you. I am used to camping out.”
Nathaniel insisted. “Bruce would be glad to see you. And Grandpa wouldn’t mind. He don’t know half what goes on, anyway.”
“Who’s Grandpa?”
“His real name is Thomas,” said Nathaniel, “but we all call him Grandpa. He is Bruce’s father. Awful old now. Just sits all day and thinks about a thing that happened long ago.”
Grant nodded. “I know about that, Nathaniel. Juwain.”
“Yeah, that’s it,” agreed Nathaniel. “What does it mean?”
Grant shook his head. “Wish I could tell you, Nathaniel. Wish I knew.”
He hoisted the pack to his shoulder, stooped and scratched the dog behind the ear. Nathaniel grimaced with delight.
“Thanks,” he said, and started up the path.
Grant followed.
Thomas Webster sat in his wheel chair on the lawn and stared out across the evening hills.
I’ll be eighty-six tomorrow, he was thinking. Eighty-six. That’s a hell of a long time for a man to live. Maybe too long. Especially when he can’t walk any more and his eyes are going bad.
Elsie will have a silly cake for me with lots of candles on it and the robots all will bring me a gift and those dogs of Bruce’s will come in and wish me happy returns of the day and wag their tails at me. And there will be a few televisor calls—although not many, perhaps. And I’ll pound my chest and say I’m going to live to be a hundred and everyone will grin behind their hands and say “listen to the old fool.”
Eighty-six years and there were two things I meant to do. One of them I did and the other one I didn’t.
A cawing crow skimmed over a distant ridge and slanted down into the valley shadow. From far away, down by the river, came the quacking of a flock of mallards.
Soon the stars would be coming out. Came out early this time of year. He liked to look at them. The stars! He patted the arms of the chair with fierce pride. The stars, by Lord, were his meat. An obsession? Perhaps—but at least something to wipe out that stigma of long ago, a shield to keep the family from the gossip of historic busybodies. And Bruce was helping, too. Those dogs of his—
A step sounded in the grass behind him.
“Your whiskey, sir,” said Jenkins.
<
br /> Thomas Webster stared at the robot, took the glass off the tray.
“Thank you, Jenkins,” he said.
He twirled the glass between his fingers. “How long, Jenkins, have you been lugging drinks to this family?”
“Your father, sir,” said Jenkins. “And his father before him.”
“Any news?” asked the old man.
Jenkins shook his head. “No news.”
Thomas Webster sipped the drink. “That means, then, that they’re well beyond the solar system. Too far out even for the Pluto station to relay. Halfway or better to Alpha Centauri. If only I live long enough—”
“You will, sir,” Jenkins told him. “I feel it in my bones.”
“You,” declared the old man, “haven’t any bones.”
He sipped the drink slowly, tasting it with expert tongue. Watered too much again. But it wouldn’t do to say anything. No use flying off the handle at Jenkins. That doctor! Telling Jenkins to water it a bit more. Depriving a man of proper drinking in his final years—
“What’s that down there?” he asked, pointing to the path that straggled up the hill. Jenkins turned to look.
“It appears, sir,” he said, “that Nathaniel’s bringing someone home.”
The dogs had trooped in to say good night, had left again.
Bruce Webster grinned after them.
“Great gang,” he said.
He turned to Grant. “I imagine Nathaniel gave you quite a start this afternoon.”
Grant lifted the brandy glass, squinted through it at the light.
“He did,” he said. “Just for a minute. And then I remembered things I’d read about what you’re doing here. It isn’t in my line, of course, but your work has been popularized, written up in more or less nontechnical language.”
“Your line?” asked Webster. “I thought—”
Grant laughed. “I see what you mean. A census taker. An enumerator. All of that, I grant you.”
Webster was puzzled, just a bit embarrassed. “I hope, Mr. Grant, that I haven’t—”
“Not at all,” Grant told him. “I’m used to being regarded as someone who writes down names and ages and then goes on to the next group of human beings. That was the old idea of a census, of course. A nose counting, nothing more. A matter of statistics. After all, the last census was taken more than three hundred years ago. And times have changed.”
“You interest me,” said Webster. “You make this nose counting of yours sound almost sinister.”
“It isn’t sinister,” protested Grant. “It’s logical. It’s an evaluation of the human population. Not just how many of them there are, but what are they really like, what are they thinking and doing?”
Webster slouched lower in his chair, stretching his feet out toward the fire upon the hearth. “Don’t tell me, Mr. Grant, that you intend to psychoanalyze me?”
Grant drained the brandy glass, set it on the table. “I don’t need to,” he said. “The World Committee knows all it needs to know about the folks like you. But it is the others—the ridge runners, you call them here. Up north they’re jackpine savages. Farther south they’re something else. A hidden population—an almost forgotten population. The ones who took to the woods. The ones who scampered off when the World Committee loosened the strings of government.”
Webster grunted. “The governmental strings had to be loosened,” he declared. “History will prove that to anyone. Even before the World Committee came into being the governmental setup of the world was burdened by oxcart survivals. There was no more reason for the township government three hundred years ago than there is for a national government today.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Grant told him, “and yet when the grip of government was loosened, its hold upon the life of each man was loosened. The man who wanted to slip away and live outside his government, losing its benefits and escaping its obligations, found it an easy thing to do. The World Committee didn’t mind. It had more things to worry over than the irresponsibles and malcontents. And there were plenty of them. The farmers, for instance, who lost their way of life with the coming of hydroponics. Many of them found it hard to fit into industrial life. So what? So they slipped away. They reverted to a primitive life. They raised a few crops, they hunted game, they trapped, they cut wood, did a little stealing now and then. Deprived of a livelihood, they went back to the soil, all the way back, and the soil took care of them.”
“That was three hundred years ago,” said Webster. “The World Committee didn’t mind about them then. It did what it could, of course, but, as you say, it didn’t really mind if a few slipped through its fingers. So why this sudden interest now?”
“Just, I guess,” Grant told him, “that they’ve got around to it.”
He regarded Webster closely, studying the man. Relaxed before the fire, his face held power, the shadows of the leaping flames etching planes upon his features, turning them almost surrealistic.
Grant hunted in his pocket, found his pipe, jammed tobacco in the bowl.
“There is something else,” he said.
“Eh,” asked Webster.
“There is something else about this census. They’d take it anyhow, perhaps, because a picture of Earth’s population must always be an asset, a piece of handy knowledge. But that isn’t all.”
“Mutants,” said Webster.
Grant nodded. “That’s right. I hardly expected anyone to guess it.”
“I work with mutants,” Webster pointed out. “My whole life is bound up with mutations.”
“Queer bits of culture have been turning up,” said Grant. “Stuff that has no precedent. Literary forms which bear the unmistakable imprint of fresh personalities. Music that has broken away from traditional expression. Art that is like nothing ever seen before. And most of it anonymous or at least hidden under pseudonyms.”
Webster laughed. “Such a thing, of course, is utter mystery to the World Committee.”
“It isn’t that so much as something else,” Grant explained. “The Committee is not so concerned with art and literature as it is with other things—things that don’t show up. If there is a backwoods renaissance taking place, it would first come to notice, naturally, through new art and literary forms. But a renaissance is not concerned entirely with art and literature.”
Webster sank even lower in his chair and cupped his hands beneath his chin.
“I think I see,” he said, “what you are driving at.”
They sat for long minutes in silence broken only by the crackling of the fire, by the ghostly whisper of an autumn wind in the trees outside.
“There was a chance once,” said Webster, almost as if he were speaking to himself. “A chance for new viewpoints, for something that might have wiped out the muddle of four thousand years of human thought. A man muffed that chance.”
Grant stirred uncomfortably, then sat rigid, afraid Webster might have seen him move.
“That man,” said Webster, “was my grandfather.”
Grant knew he must say something, that he could not continue to sit there, unspeaking.
“Juwain may have been wrong,” he said. “He might not have found a new philosophy.”
“That is a thought,” declared Webster, “we have used to console ourselves. And yet, it is unlikely. Juwain was a great Martian philosopher, perhaps the greatest Mars had ever known. If he could have lived, there is no doubt in my mind he would have developed that new philosophy. But he didn’t live. He didn’t live because my grandfather couldn’t go to Mars.”
“It wasn’t your grandfather’s fault,” said Grant. “He tried to. Agoraphobia is a thing that a man can’t fight—”
Webster waved the words aside. “That is over and done with. It is a thing that cannot be recaptured. We must accept that and go on from there. And since it was my family, since it was g
randfather—”
Grant stared, shaken by the thought that occurred to him. “The dogs! That’s why—”
“Yes, the dogs,” said Webster.
From far away, in the river bottoms, came a crying sound, one with the wind that talked in the trees outside.
“A raccoon,” said Webster. “The dogs will hear him and be rearing to get out.”
The cry came again, closer it seemed, although that must have been imagination.
Webster had straightened in the chair, was leaning forward, staring at the flames.
“After all, why not?” he asked. “A dog has a personality. You can sense that in every one you meet. No two are exactly alike in mood and temperament. All of them are intelligent, in varying degrees. And that is all that’s needed, a conscious personality and some measure of intelligence.
“They didn’t get an even break, that’s all. They had two handicaps. They couldn’t talk and they couldn’t walk erect and because they couldn’t walk erect they had no chance to develop hands. But for speech and hands, we might be dogs and dogs be men.”
“I’d never thought of it like that,” said Grant. “Not of your dogs as a thinking race—”
“No,” said Webster, and there was a trace of bitterness running in his words. “No, of course, you didn’t. You thought of them as most of the rest of the world still thinks of them. As curiosities, as sideshow animals, as funny pets. Pets that can talk with you.
“But it’s more than that, Grant. I swear to you it is. Thus far Man has come alone. One thinking, intelligent race all by itself. Think of how much farther, how much faster it might have gone had there been two races, two thinking, intelligent races, working together. For, you see, they would not think alike. They’d check their thoughts against one another. What one couldn’t think of, the other could. The old story of two heads.
The Works of Clifford D. Simak Volume One Page 58