by Craig Spence
Monkey, ball, duck, stick, bone, slipper, Einstein recited, visual images of the words appearing in quick succession in Bertrand’s thoughts along with the audio. Elaine, Professor, Bertrand, Ariel, Libra.
Bertrand blinked. The pup stared. Einstein’s lips, tongue and vocal chords couldn’t possibly shape themselves to the requirements of human speech, but he was able to add words to his tellies. “Incredible!” Bertrand gasped.
She mean, the dog repeated once more, then trotted across the compound to join his sister at the perimeter fence.
Libra glanced up at Bertrand without raising her head. Her tail thumped.
“How long have you known?” Bertrand demanded.
She couldn’t say, of course. Speech and the ability to read calendars were, after all, beyond her capabilities.
Frank Hindquist stood at the window of his darkened office, watching the cars whiz down Highway 1 toward Vancouver. If only they knew! he laughed. Their city would be transformed someday. By order of the Global Council it would be remade into a true metropolis, a place the councillor for America North could be proud to call his seat of government. Grand avenues, colossal monuments, towering buildings . . . he imagined a city bristling with the symbols of power, with his name chiseled into the foundation stones of its history.
That was where Highway 1 led, although not a single sign proclaimed it and none of the motorists were aware of it — yet.
In the meantime there were more mundane matters that needed attending to, and right away. If he didn’t move quickly, the SMART litter might be separated. He could not allow that to happen.
“Get me Councillor Vladimir Petrovitch,” he instructed his computer.
The machine went through its security routines and Petro-vitch materialized on Hindquist’s desk monitor. “Hello!” the affable Russian boomed. “Welcome my friend. What can I do for you?”
“Have you seen the latest surveillance concerning the SMART project?” Hindquist asked impatiently.
“Yes. I have looked it over.”
“Then you know the dogs can actually talk, Vladimir.”
“I know the boy says they can, Frank. That’s hardly conclusive. Professor Smith hasn’t detected the ability in his experiments and the boy seems reluctant to let his father know about it, perhaps because it isn’t so.”
Hindquist stifled a shout. He needed Petrovitch on his side and getting into a spat wouldn’t help.
“I want you to see something else, Vlad,” he continued calmly, pushing a button on his console. A surveillance shot of Professor Smith and Elaine came up on the screen.
“I think she’s going to okay it,” Professor Smith was saying gleefully.
“Oh, Alex, that’s wonderful.”
“At first it was the same old story: ‘We can’t let them off campus Alex’, ‘It goes against all or our regulations’, ‘They’re worth millions to this university’. But when I told her that keeping the dogs confined might actually skew our results, she sat up and took notice.”
“So, she’s going to let us relocate them?”
“Yup,” Professor Smith said, beaming.
Elaine whooped and hugged him. “When, Alex?”
“As soon as we’ve found appropriate placements. Libra and Einstein will be coming home with Bertrand and me. Ariel’s going to ask if she can bring Genie home.”
“And I’ll take the other three,” Elaine said firmly.
“What?” Professor Smith looked doubtful.
“They’re not going to be separated, Alex. They’re too intelligent for that. It would be like splitting up a human family. If I take them, we can at least bring the litter together from time to time. Besides, it will give me a reason to visit you. Bertrand won’t object if I’m bringing Libra’s pups, will he?”
Hindquist cut the segment before the two of them kissed.
“This is what I was afraid of Vlad,” he said. “We’ve got to move quickly or the litter will be split up.”
Ivan Petrovitch sighed, shaking his head. “I’ll see what I can do,” he grumbled.
Hindquist grinned. He’d won. The Russian was prepared to support him before the Global Council. Petrovitch had probably seen the value of the SMART dogs all along, but hadn’t wanted Hindquist’s influence on the council to grow. With the litter in imminent danger of being split up, though, the Russian had no choice but to show his hand.
They said good night. Hindquist savoured his victory for a second or two, leaning back in his swivel chair. Then he rocked forward and punched the intercom button. “Come in, gentlemen,” he barked. “Over here,” he gestured toward a set of chrome and leather chairs as the Gowler brothers and Dr. Molar entered his office.
“Progress reports.”
“All’s ready, sir,” Charlie Gowler responded smartly.
“Ready here, too, Frank,” Doctor Molar said.
“You’ve tested the blowgun?” Hindquist grilled Charlie.
“Yup. We caught a mongrel just the right size and took her out to the old gravel pit. One shot and she was done. The gun works like a charm.”
Bob squirmed.
“Stop your moping!” Charlie said. “You didn’t have to do anything but watch, did ya?”
The younger Gowler studied his shoes. Obviously he had no stomach for the blunt end of reality.
“We go in Sunday night,” Hindquist announced.
“Sunday!” Charlie croaked.
“Yes,” Hindquist confirmed dryly. “You said you were ready.”
Charlie nodded vigorously. “We’re ready,” he promised. “Aren’t we, Bobby?”
What could his brother do but agree?
“Good,” Hindquist said.
“Step up your surveillance at the university, gentlemen,” he ordered. “We don’t need any surprises at this stage of the operation.”
Einstein couldn’t help but be amazed at his own body. His legs were getting longer, his muscles firmer. Already the puppy chub was melting away and the outlines of a young dog were emerging. How had his body done that? Professor Smith might know. Bertrand had tried to explain genetics and cell division, but even though Einstein’s grasp of human language was improving daily, it wasn’t good enough for him to understand college level biochemistry.
Genie teased him relentlessly about his academic bent, dubbing him ‘The Brain’.
He smiled. Her ribbing made him proud. It was Genie’s way of complimenting without getting sappy. She wasn’t interested in abstract science herself. Genie only wanted to know how things worked if the knowledge might be useful someday. Physics was more to her liking. How much force could a lever generate? How far would a projectile fly given an initial velocity? That sort of thing. She was forever calculating angles of attack, trajectories, estimated times of arrival. It drove Einstein crazy.
As for the others, they stared blankly whenever ‘egghead’ topics were brought up. Cap, especially, grew impatient, accusing Einstein and Genie of showing off. Of course that didn’t stop him from boasting about his physical strength at every opportunity, or from besting everyone else at play fighting. Einstein didn’t want to think it, but Cap definitely showed some of the traits of a leader . . . or a bully.
He glanced across the kennel at his mother, who’d been watching him.
Why are you inside? she wanted to know. Why aren’t you out in the yard with the others?
Einstein shrugged. He liked being alone.
That’s okay, she allowed. But too much time alone isn’t good for a young dog.
He sensed a deeper concern, which Libra didn’t quite know how to express. A telly materialized of him and Genie on one side of the pound; Cap, Breeze, and Blizzard on the other. At the same time Einstein felt the constricting pressure of his mother’s sadness bearing down on him. She was unhappy with the rift dividing her litter.
He replied by showing Cap’s angry face.
You must keep trying, she implored.
I do try! he protested. But no matter what he and Geni
e did, the rivalry only got worse. At first it had been just Cap, but he’d pulled Breeze and Blizzard into his orbit. Now they shunned Einstein and Genie too. Was it because Professor Smith had singled Einstein and Genie out for continued trials? Could Cap be jealous?
Libra countered these notions with a gentle admonition.
Every dog has his strengths, she reminded.
He understood that. He and Genie might have been clever at figuring out the meaning of human words, but that didn’t make them any better than the others.
Just different, I know Mom, he finished her thought.
What did Genie think? Libra wanted to know.
Einstein squirmed. He didn’t want to tell on his sister or disappoint his mother, but he couldn’t lie either. She doesn’t feel the same as me, he said.
A flash of anger tinged with sadness emanated from Libra.
Brother against brother, sister against sister — this is not good, she warned.
You know what’s going to happen in the next few days, don’t you? she reminded accusingly. Professor Smith hadn’t made it official yet, but everyone in the lab knew he had negotiated the SMARTs’ relocation to private homes. The litter will be scattered, Libra informed Einstein. They would be freed from the SMART kennel, but separated from each other.
Einstein recoiled in shock. You mean we won’t be with you?
Certainly not all of you.
Will Genie and I be separated?
You won’t be together the way you are now.
Why didn’t I think of that? Einstein groaned.
Suddenly the thing he wanted most — his freedom — was tainted. Gloomily he circled a couple of times and flopped down on the floor with a dejected grunt. Why did everything have to come with a painful price attached? Why couldn’t the SMART litter be free and together?
“How do you speak Dog?” Ariel asked.
Bertrand shrugged. “I don’t know how I do it Airee. It just sort of happens.”
“Like being gifted, you mean?”
“I guess,” he squirmed.
“And it doesn’t happen with any other kind of dog except the SMARTs?”
He nodded. “Just with Einstein and Genie so far. Libra and I can exchange thoughts and feelings, but not words. She doesn’t think in words.”
“So far?”
“The other pups are beginning to catch on, I think, but they aren’t able to transmit talkies yet. I guess they’re still at the baby talk stage. In fact Cap is pretty mad about it. He’s jealous of Einstein and Genie, I think.”
They were sitting at their favorite table in McBurney’s Coffee House. Ariel, who had been thoughtful and somewhat subdued all day, had launched into the conversation without warning.
“Why do you call them talkies?” she asked.
“Pretty obvious,” Bertrand said. “Talkies were the first movies with soundtracks. Actually, Einstein used the word without knowing it had already been invented.”
“Is it like silent movies, then, the way you and Libra communicate?”
“Sort of,” he said. “We can send each other pictures, smells, feelings, even sounds. But not words.”
“So with Einstein and Genie it’s sort of like a radio broadcast?”
“More like TV,” Bertrand corrected. “Words and images at the same time.”
“Have you told your dad yet?”
He sipped at his mocha thoughtfully. “No,” Bertrand answered. “And I don’t want you blabbing about it either. Not to anyone. Promise.”
Ariel frowned.
“If Dad finds out, he’ll want to do a whole bunch of new experiments on all of us,” Bertrand explained. “And if Dean Zolinsky finds out, she’ll change her mind and make it even harder for us to get the SMART dogs freed. I’m keeping this under wraps until the SMART dogs are in their new homes.”
“Okay,” she agreed. “But on one condition.”
Bertrand rolled his eyes. “What’s that?”
“You teach me to speak Dog,” she said earnestly.
For a second he looked surprised, then grinned. “Well, I suppose we can give it a try,” he said.
“Right now?”
“I guess . . . ”
“Okay. What do we do?”
He thought about it for a second, then said, “I’ll send a telly and you try to pick it up. Pretend you’re a radio receiver. Imagine yourself scanning every frequency, searching for a signal you know is out there.”
“But I’ve already tried that with Genie dozens of times and it’s never worked,” Ariel objected.
“Genie’s just a pup. I’m going to send you a triple-whammy, high voltage telly that will probably be picked up by communications satellites around the world. Ready?”
She nodded. He closed his eyes and scrunched his face in concentration. For her part, Ariel opened up her mind.
Nothing.
Bertrand didn’t give up. His face reddened and his knuckles turned white. Obviously he was throwing every ounce of energy he could into the transmission.
Still nothing.
“Hey!” someone shouted. “Look at that!”
Startled, Ariel glanced out the plate glass window. A cluster of dogs had gathered and was sitting outside, watching Bertrand. Their heads were all tilted inquisitively, as if they had been summoned by one of those high-pitched whistles only dogs can hear.
“Oh my God!” someone shrieked.
More dogs were coming, most of them mangy looking strays, some groomed lapdogs dragging leashes. They wove in and out of traffic, ignoring the angry calls of their owners. And cats! Cats were slinking out of back allies and gathering at the window, too, without any concern at all about the pack of dogs surrounding them.
“Bertrand!” Ariel whispered urgently.
But he was so intent on beaming his message he couldn’t hear.
Suddenly the dogs all started howling in unison and the cats began yowling wildly. Inside the café a crowd pressed around Bertrand and Ariel’s chairs, gawking at the pandemonium.
“Birdie, look!” Ariel shouted, grasping his arm and shaking him hard. “Look outside!”
He snapped out of his trance and stared at her, disoriented. “Did you get it?” he grinned stupidly.
Ariel flicked her gaze, first out the window, then at the milling crowd, signaling frantically for him to play dumb.
“Wow!” he gasped, seeing the swarm of dogs and cats. “Where’d they all come from?”
“It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” a fellow right next to them was saying. “It’s as if someone was transmitting a message for them to congregate right here.”
“Maybe it’s got something to do with the café’s wireless network,” someone else suggested. “Could it be sending some kind of signal that’s drawing them? I wonder what it’s doing to us.”
Now that Bertrand had stopped transmitting, the animals outside looked as puzzled as everyone else. Some trotted away, still others were dragged off by annoyed owners. The cats scattered, suddenly remembering their fear of canines.
“What did you say in your message?” Ariel whispered once the crowd had dispersed.
“I just sort of shouted ‘Hello! How are you?’” he answered.
“I didn’t pick up a thing, and nobody else in the café did either,” Ariel moped.
“Jeez, Airee. I don’t know what to make of this.”
“Neither do I,” she forced a smile. “But whatever it is, the signal is obviously specific and quite powerful. It’s incredible, Birdman!”
“Yeah, I guess it is,” he grinned sheepishly.
“Drink up!” Ariel said. “Let’s get going.”
Genie!
Ariel concentrated hard, gathering the power of her thoughts then letting the words go like lightening bolts.
Nothing.
Genie continued roughhousing with Einstein across the yard, not paying the slightest attention. For the better part of an hour Ariel had been trying to communicate telepathically to her dog.
She hadn’t been able to receive Bertrand’s signal; perhaps Genie could receive hers. But so far Ariel’s transmissions had fizzled like wet fireworks.
“This is stupid!” she muttered, resting for a moment.
She remembered something Bertrand had said once: you could only communicate in Dog if you “really believed”.
What did that mean?
The grass tickled her legs. A breeze shushed in the treetops. The vast blue vault of the sky arched overhead. All these sensations were beyond doubting. Was that what it meant to believe? To accept something without question? Ariel frowned. She had never questioned her senses. Why should she? “If you’re stupid enough to doubt that the buildings of Triumph University are real, you could always take a run at one of them,” she grumped.
Talking dogs, though. That was another matter entirely. To really believe in such a phenomenon you would have to be prepared to say so, even though all your friends would laugh in your face. You would have to be like Bertrand.
For a long while Ariel sat stewing. She might have stayed like that the rest of the afternoon, but her gloomy thoughts were interrupted by the scrabble of paws on her leg and a cold nose nuzzling her hand. Genie wanted some attention.
Ariel beamed. “You are a real friend,” she said, laughing. “That’s what I believe.” Scrambling to her feet, Ariel mussed Genie’s fur. Genie wriggled and barked with pleasure. Who cared that they couldn’t exchange tellies? Ariel thought. There were other ways of expressing love, and that was how she’d communicate with her Genie.
Cap, Breeze, and Blizzard wrestled in the far corner of the pen, the occasional yelp or growl interrupting Einstein’s fitful snoozing. When roused, he’d watch them for a minute, only to nod off again, sedated by the warm rays of the declining sun and the hush of the afternoon breeze. Life was good. Except . . . Cap, Breeze, and Blizzard were still on one side of the compound, he and Genie on the other.
It’s not right, he said to his sister.
If he doesn’t like us, that’s his loss, Genie sniffed. She was lying on her back, where she’d been since her human, Ariel, had left for the day. I don’t want to play his stupid games anyway. He always has to be boss and referee!