by Allen Steele
Star stayed where he was until he was sure that the boid was gone, then he raised himself from his belly and, ever so cautiously, eased himself through a break in the thicket.
Within the nest lay a half-dozen eggs, pale yellow and spotted with small reddish blotches, each nearly the size and shape of a football. Star had seen eggs before, in the coops where the chickens were raised; he’d also seen what came out when those eggs hatched, and once when he was a puppy he’d made the mistake of killing a few chicks, and had been spanked for it. But these eggs were different; they were not forbidden to him.
Carefully stepping into the nest, Star sniffed at the boid eggs for a moment, feeling their warmth with the tip of his nose. He prodded one with his right foreleg, and watched as it rolled over on its side. Then he opened his mouth, grasped it in his jaws, and clamped down hard. The shell resisted for only a moment before it shattered; he tasted yolk, oily and sour, and found something soft at its center. He tried to swallow the embryo, but it made him ill, so he vomited it and proceeded to the next egg.
It didn’t take but a minute for him to destroy everything he found. A soft growl escaped his throat as he thrashed his way through the nest, crushing some of the eggs with his forepaws, biting others with his mouth. When he was done, Star raised his left leg and urinated long and hard upon the broken shells.
Then he leaped from the nest and dashed off into the tall grass, running as fast as he could for the safety of the settlement.
He’d just reached the safety of the nearest perimeter gun when, from the distance behind him, he heard an outraged shriek. Star stopped, gazed back in the direction in the direction from which he just come. He raised his hind leg again and pissed on the gun’s tripod. Then, having marked his territory, he sauntered past the gun.
Revenge had never been more sweet.
Carlos was angry at Star for having disappeared all day, and scolded him when he finally returned home, yet the other members of the pack were impressed. One by one, they sniffed his fur with curiosity, catching the boid scent that lingered on his body; Star allowed Barney and Trixie to lick some of the yolk that had dried on his muzzle. These nonverbal clues revealed more than mere words could have possibly conveyed: Star had found a way to kill the boids.
And so, two days later, when Star once again stole away from the settlement, Barney, Trixie and Dexter went with him. Sally wanted to come along, too, but after much growling and many hard-eyed looks, she reluctantly stayed behind; as pregnant as she was, she was much too heavy to run fast.
The dogs went into the grasslands, and once again they picked up the scent of a boid and tracked it to a nest. This time, there was no adult guarding it; Star showed Barney, Trixie, and Dexter how to destroy the five eggs they found, then they fled back the way they came. But before they returned to camp, Dexter’s nose picked up another boid-scent, and when they followed it, they came upon yet another nest. This one they demolished as well, and once again their work was undiscovered until after they reached the safety of the perimeter guns.
The dogs didn’t know this—and neither did their humans, at least at the time—but they’d unwittingly timed their raids to coincide with the boids’ annual spawning season, which occurred during the first month of Coyote’s long summer. If they’d waited any longer, then the nests would have been filled with newborn hatchlings that would have also been guarded more closely by their parents. Yet since boids often left the unhatched eggs alone during the day in order to go hunting, they became easy targets for the dogs…and the boids hadn’t yet adapted to the intrusion of four-legged aliens who could locate their nests through sense of smell and who, unlike swampers and creek-cats, hadn’t learned to give them a wide berth.
Day after day, over the course of the next two weeks, the dogs sneaked away from Liberty during the early morning. It became easier to find the boid nests, but it was never less dangerous; more than a few times, a boid would spot them, and then they’d have to flee for their lives. But they presently learned how to detect the presence of the avians before the boids saw them; taking cover beneath clingberry bushes, they’d lay low until the creatures stalked past. They hunted as a pack, and never allowed themselves to be separated from one another.
As wars went, it was a silent one, conducted with secrecy and stealth. All the two-leggers knew of it was that the dogs would mysteriously disappear for hours upon end, only to come home late in the afternoon, their fur matted with clingberries. Star was often spanked by Carlos; he accepted his punishment with scarcely a whimper, frustrated that his human didn’t understand what he was doing, yet satisfied by the quiet knowledge that he was protecting his companion.
And then, early one morning before the sun had risen, Star awoke to hear…nothing.
Climbing up on Carlos’s bed, he gazed through the open window, listening intently to the cool breeze as it gently drifted across the savannah. For the first time in his life, he didn’t hear the mating cries of boids, and although he stared long and hard at the grasslands, he didn’t see hostile eyes reflecting the light of the ringed planet far above.
When Carlos awoke a few hours later, he found his dog curled up at his feet, sound asleep. Giving Star a fond scratch behind the ears, Carlos told him that he was a good boy; Star yawned and stretched, then fell asleep again.
The colonists were puzzled for awhile as to why the boids that once haunted the grasslands around Liberty were suddenly no more to be seen or heard. Believing that the creatures had learned to avoid the perimeter guns, they congratulated themselves for their technological ingenuity. Never once did any of them seriously suspect that the dogs had anything to do with it.
And the dogs, of course, kept their own secrets.
AN INCIDENT AT THE LUNCHEON OF THE BOATING PARTY
I swear to you, it was an accident. I never intended to interfere with the past; indeed, I had been trained to avoid doing anything that might alter the timeline. It was just a fluke, a minor mistake. And it wasn’t as if I changed history. Not much, at least.
Let me explain…
The night before, the Miranda dropped me on the outskirts of Chatou, a village on the Seine about fifteen kilometers southwest of Paris. The timeship was in chameleon mode when it made its brief touchdown; no one observed my arrival. After making my way into town, I took a room at a small inn, one which the advance team had already selected as appropriate for a young lady traveling on her own. My cover story, if anyone asked, was that I was from Orleans and on my way to Paris to visit my brother. No one at the inn was curious, however, and I spent the night unnoticed.
The following morning, I made a point of asking the innkeeper to recommend a place where I might have lunch. He told me about several cafes in town, but I pretended to be uninterested until he happened to mention the Restaurant Fournaise, located on a small island in the Seine near Chatou. Oh, but that’s perfect! How may I get there? The innkeeper, being a proper host—who says the French are rude?—immediately sent a boy down to the waterfront to hire a boat for me.
It was a warm Saturday in late August, 1880; the first colors of autumn were upon the trees, and although the air was humid, nonetheless there was a breeze upon the river. As the oarsman paddled his rowboat toward the island, I caught sight of the restaurant: a three-story chateau, built of red brick and white limestone, rising above a small wooden pier where several sailboats and canoes had been tied up. A second-floor balcony overlooked the Seine, and I could make out several figures standing beneath its orange-striped awning.
I tried not to stare, even though I felt a rush of anticipation. Here was the place where one of the great masterpieces of European art had been—that is, would be—created. Yet I wasn’t greatly concerned. After all, this was only a Class-3 mission: very low-risk, with minimal danger and little chance of affecting the timeline. Not at all like other historical surveys undertaken by the Chronospace Research Centre, such as the Class-1 expeditions to the Battle of Little Big Horn or the sinking of the Titan
ic. Indeed, it was only because Chief Commissioner Sanchez had a personal fondness for the 19th century Impressionist movement that I was allowed to undertake this sortie in the first place. Perhaps it wasn’t as important as, say, witnessing the Kennedy Assassination, but nonetheless history would be served by whatever I managed to discover.
Reaching up to my hat as if to keep it from being snatched away by the breeze, I surreptitiously activated the recorders concealed within its band. From here on, everything that I saw and heard would be stored in memory. The oarsman helped me out of the boat, and I walked down the pier to the ground floor entrance.
The maitre’d met me at the door, inquired if I needed a table. Oh, no, I’m here to meet a friend for lunch. I believe I may be early, but we’re supposed to rendezvous on the balcony. Raising an eyebrow, he smiled knowingly. Oui, of course. This way, please. And then he led me inside, escorting me up a flight of stairs and through the dining room, until we reached an open door leading to the balcony.
A long row of small, square tables, each covered with white linen, with wooden chairs arranged around each one. The maitre’d seated me at the end of the balcony, asked if I’d like some wine while I waited. Of course, merci. A short bow, then he vanished, leaving me alone.
Pretending to be a young mademoiselle waiting for the arrival of a gentleman friend, I gazed down the row of tables. Here and there, people were having lunch; they were casually dressed in the fashions of the period, the women wearing long dresses, the men in light cotton jackets. Upper middle-class Parisians, out for a weekend in the country: a morning spent rowing upon the Seine, followed by a leisurely lunch at the Fournaise. Chatting amongst themselves, they paid little attention to me.
At the far end of the balcony, an artist’s easel had been set up. It held a large canvas, nearly two meters long by a meter-and-a-half wide; behind it were two tables, both set with plates, glasses, platters of grapes, and several bottles of wine, yet oddly vacant, as if a large party had recently been seated there, then suddenly vanished. Only two men were present: both in sleeveless white undershirts, each sporting a yellow straw hat. They were carrying on a conversation, one leaning against the railing with his back to the river, the other sitting on a wooden chair turned backward to the nearer of the two tables.
I knew who they were, of course, from my prior research. The man at the railing, the one with the beard: Alphonse Fournaise, the son of the restaurant’s owner. And the younger man sitting nearby—that would be Gustave Caillebotte, an excellent painter in his own right, not to mention a wealthy patron of the arts who’d helped support many of his friends by buying their works, even when no one else would. Yet the artist himself was nowhere to be seen; he’d disappeared, leaving behind only a palette and a clay jar holding several damp brushes.
Here was my chance. Rising from my seat, I casually strolled down the balcony, my hands clasped behind my back, pretending to be idly curious. Neither man took notice of me as I drew closer.
The painting was still incomplete, but nonetheless it was immediately recognizable. More than a hundred years later, conservators at the Phillips Collection would submit the finished work to X-ray examination, and discover a charcoal undersketch beneath the surface, much like the first draft of a novel that had not been entirely erased during subsequent revisions. That was what I saw now: black-and-white drawings of figures, lacking definition, seated at the tables or standing in the background, like the ghostly afterimages of men and women who’d long since left the scene.
Yet the artist had begun to use his oils to fill in the details. At the right side of the painting, two men spoke to a woman in a black dress who cupped her ears with gloved hands, as if hearing an indecent comment she didn’t appreciate. In the foreground to the left, a pretty girl played with an English terrier she’d put upon the table. Behind her, Alphonse leaned against the balcony, gazing in the direction of the woman with her hands against her ears; Alphonse struck that same pose even now, and it was then that I realized that the artist had been at work on his portraiture just before he’d left the easel.
The rest of the scene, however, still existed only as a rough sketch. There were charcoal smears here and there upon the canvas, where the artist had carefully adjusted postures, making one man in the far background a little shorter than the other, turning another woman’s face toward the camera instead of away. And, yes, just as art historians suspected, the awning was missing; it would be added later, perhaps in the last stage of composition, to add a subtle balance to the painting. Seeing this, I couldn’t help but smile. There was another sailboat on the Seine that would never be seen…
“Pardon, madam?” Alphonse had finally noticed me. “You find something amusing?”
“No, no…not at all.” I hastily stepped back from the canvas. “I was…I was simply admiring, that’s all.”
He scowled at me, but Gustave grinned. “You like this?” he asked, half-turning in his chair to gaze at me. “It pleases you?” When I nodded, he looked back at his companion. “See? Just as I told you. The hell with the Solon. Art is meant for the people…”
“Explain that to Zola.” Alphonse folded his arms across his chest. Until now, I hadn’t realized just how muscular he was. He may not have been very handsome but, I had to admit, he had a nice body. “Claims that you and colleagues haven’t produced any great work. Did you read what that idiot wrote about Claude’s last show…?”
“Hush. Don’t let Pierre-Auguste hear that.” Gustave glanced at me again. “Don’t mind us. We’re just here to sit for a friend. He’s gone off to answer the call of nature…”
“And I wish he’d hurry.” Alphonse rolled his eyes in disgust. “How long does it take him to piss, anyway?”
I’m sure I blushed, but it wasn’t because of the indelicacy of his remark. One by one, Pierre-Auguste’s friends had come to this balcony, to pose for hours on end while he added their likenesses to his painting. The scene itself might have been imaginary, but the people in it were real. Even looking at the rough sketch, I could name them all. The actress Ellen Andree. The Baron Raoul Barbier. Charles Ephrussi, the editor of the Gazette des beaux-arts. Models and writers, journalists and politicians. Even his fiancée, Aline Charigot, who’d brought along her small dog.
He hadn’t painted this scene all at once, though, but had brought them in for individual sittings, one or two at a time. It had taken weeks, perhaps months to get this far. And when he was away from the canvas, what they’d said behind his back…
Suddenly, a door opened behind me, “Alphonse, where’s your damned sister? She was supposed to be here by now.”
Looking around, I saw a young man walk out onto the balcony. Slender, of average height, he had deep-set eyes and a trim goatee that was beginning to grow bushy at the chin. His white smock was that flecked with daubs of paint, and his face was almost as red as the pigments on his fingernails.
“I have no idea.” Alphonse removed his hat to wipe sweat from his forehead. “I told her that today was her turn, that she wasn’t to be late…”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Striding past me with scarcely a glance in my direction, Pierre-August walked to the railing, held a hand up against the sun as he gazed up at the sky. “I’m losing the light. What does she expect me to do, finish this in the studio?”
“Well, you could…” Catching the irate expression on his friend’s face, Gustave wisely stopped himself. “I’m here. Go ahead and paint me. I’ve got nothing else to…”
“No. I’m sorry, but not yet. I…” Turning away from the railing, Pierre-Auguste clenched his fists in frustration. “I can’t work that way,” he said, patiently trying to articulate his thoughts. “There’s a certain form, a certain process. Left to right, understand? I’ve already had to compromise once with Paul, Jeanne, and Eugene…I don’t want to have to do it again.”
Alphonse shrugged. “Well, look, the table’s all set up.” He gestured to the wine bottles, glasses and plates on the table between h
im and Gustave. “That’s easy enough. You’re finished with me. Now you could…”
“No! I wanted Alphonsine to be here today! I told her to be here, and now…”
“Well, then, damn it,” Gustave said, “if you can’t get Alphonsine, then use her instead.”
And then he pointed to me.
I promise, I swear, I totally insist…if I could have cut and run, I would have done so. All I had to do was back away, claim that I had another engagement, find some sort of excuse…
But I didn’t. To this day, I don’t know why. Maybe I was caught up in the moment. Perhaps it was only vanity. It might have even been because this was the way history intended it to be. I don’t necessarily believe in predestination, yet nonetheless you have to take it into consideration. It may have been that I was simply meant to be there.
In any case, I didn’t refuse. Pierre-Auguste was peeved that his chosen model didn’t show up when she was supposed to, so he turned to the nearest woman he could find. I went to the railing and struck the pose that he’d intended for Alphonsine in his charcoal sketch: leaning forward, with my right hand cupping my face and my left arm draped across the railing, my eyes turned toward the empty chair where the Baron would be seated. Alphonse stood nearby, glaring at me because I’d taken his sister’s place in the composition. Gustave drank wine and told raunchy stories about various members of Parisian high society that made it difficult for me to maintain the coy smile that Pierre-Auguste wanted.
The session lasted most of the afternoon. When it was over, the artist offered to pay me a fee for my services. I demurred, however, and beat it out of there before anyone thought to ask my name. The maitre’d was a little surprised that I left before my lunch companion arrived, but I suppose that it wasn’t the first time he’d seen a girl stood up by a date.