The Pet Plague Page 2

  He left the agricultural plots through a gate in the secondary barrier and was pleased to have to wait only a few moments for a passenger sled. Commuter service had been cut twice in the last few years. Each time the “temporary” cutbacks proved permanent. He wondered idly why that was so, but didn't really give it much thought.

  “B-36,” he told the sled as he boarded, scanning for a seat. There were none, but he lived only half a mile from the test plots and seldom sat down anyway.

  He stepped off the conveyance a little later, giving not a thought to the efficient way the sled had recorded his destination, scooted off over super conducting rails and deposited him and two other passengers at a point designed to cause the least average walking distance for the three of them.

  Jamie's position enabled him to afford a fairly expensive apartment near the outskirts of the Enclave. He could barely see the central towers from there. His complex sported rather rare buildings of only two stories, containing twenty or so units each. There was an expanse of food growing areas interspersed within them; the Enclaves supported fewer and fewer purely decorative plants as time went on. Food production was more important.

  A short walk brought him inside the complex to his own ground floor apartment, situated strategically with the door facing out toward the common swimming pool. He waved to a bare breasted young woman of somewhat more than casual acquaintance as he passed and noted with a slight frown the slick furred body of a black otter descending the slide. He really preferred for the pool to be reserved for humans during the day unless, of course, Woggly wanted to go for a swim. In that case it was different; Woggly was almost human.

  The door opened automatically as he neared, recognizing the signal from his body computer.

  “Greetings, kind master,” Woggly said, wagging his tail.

  “The mighty human has returned,” Fuzzy Britches purred from his favorite perch atop the back of the lounger. He stretched languidly, then settled back again. His whiskers twitched, as if sensing a mouse in the pocket of Jamie's coveralls.

  “You've been practicing,” Jamie accused. He directed a stare toward the curly haired cat. His fur was a mix of multiple colors all tangled together, as if a rainbow had been run through a blender and poured over him. Both animals looked much the same as their ancestors except for larger, high domed heads and heavier necks and forequarters to support the added weight.

  “Not so,” Fuzzy Britches answered, jumping down from his perch. Jamie wondered idly why they didn't have the holo on. They spent a good deal of their time watching it while he was out, when not occupied with patrolling the complex for stray rodents.

  “You can go to hell for lying, Fuzz. Have you eaten?"

  “Only a little,” Woggly said, advancing to lick Jamie's hand.

  “You can, too, Wog,” Jamie said. He scratched the dog's ears, then sniffed. An odor of wet fur assailed his nostrils. “Say, what's that smell? Have you guys been swimming?"

  Fuzzy Britches didn't consider the question worth answering. He would as soon have made friends with a feral rat as taken a swim. Woggly nodded a firm no, but continued nuzzling and licking Jamie's hand as if his denial carried a caveat with it.

  “What's that smell, then?” Jamie sniffed again, then headed toward the bed room.

  “Wait!” Woggly barked. Jamie turned and stared at the shaggy brown dog. What was going on?

  “Strange dog in there,” Fuzzy Britches said, coming over and rubbing against Jamie's shins. He looked up smugly, dangling imaginary feathers from his mouth.

  “A strange dog? Whose is it? Who let it in?"

  “Woggly did,” Fuzzy Britches said, disclaiming any responsibility.

  “Woggly?"

  Woggly rolled over on the floor in an exaggerated surrender reflex, tail tucked between his legs and front paws akimbo.

  “Oh get up, Wog, and stop acting silly,” Jamie said. “Why did you let it in? You know you're not supposed to have guests while I'm gone. Whose dog is it, anyway?"

  “Feral dog,” Fuzzy Britches announced from a neutral position. He licked a paw and rubbed it lazily over his ears, as if suggesting that a feral dog in the house was nothing out of the ordinary.

  “Dios y Santos!” Jamie exclaimed, borrowing one of his late father's favorite expressions. “And you let it in here? Why didn't you give an alarm?” He could hardly believe it.

  “Wog said not to,” Fuzzy Britches demurred, absolving himself of any responsibility.

  “That's no excuse. Since when have you started listening to Wog, anyhow? Damn, that must have been the one that broke in this morning. And you let it in here? What in hell do you think Alvarez will say if he finds out? He'll want both your hides for rugs, not to mention my own. Damn, damn, damn."

  Woggly nuzzled Jamie's hand again then backed off when he saw that Jamie was having no part of it. He lowered his haunches to the floor and tried to look contrite. “He has a message, boss."

  “Don't give me that ‘boss’ routine. I know who the real bosses are around here. Just what is this ever-loving message that made you let a damn feral dog hole up in my own bed room? I warn you, Wog, this better be good."

  “He says message is from feral human."

  That gave Jamie pause. It was a well know but seldom discussed fact that there was a scattering of humans still living in the wilds, protected from harm by their own coterie of enhanced animals, but not as masters; rather, they owed their existence to the usefulness of their hands to their pawed cohorts and to the inventiveness of their human minds, something that the genetic engineers had had little success in transferring to other species. He couldn't imagine any sort of message from a feral human important enough for his pets to let a fugitive dog hide out in their own home. Nevertheless, he trusted Woggly's judgment enough to at least listen to what the strange dog had to say before sentencing it to it's death in a general alert, or from his own laser gun. The fact that Fuzzy Britches had not raised a hue and cry influenced him even more. The cat was the more intelligent of the two animals.

  “Bring him in here, Woggly,” Jamie ordered. He patted the gun holstered at his side for reassurance.

  Woggly barked at the bed room door. It opened and he scurried inside. Jamie heard a muted conversation interspersed with non-threatening growls and whines. Enhanced animals had their own conversational shortcuts when talking among themselves. A moment later Woggly returned, leading a short haired dog of in determinant breed, somewhat larger than his own moderate size. It (or rather, he, Jamie noticed) was rather less bedraggled than he had expected, although he still smelled of wet fur. Jamie suspected that Woggly had coerced him into cleaning himself up and standing under the flea-killer for a moment before being presented.

  “This is Conan,” Woggly announced hopefully.

  The feral dog approached Jamie and raised a paw. He bent over to shake it before realizing what he was doing. “My God,” he thought. “I'm shaking hands with a feral dog in my own living room!"

  “All right, Conan,” he said. “My name is Jamie Da Cruz. You wait right here, right here, understand, while I get a drink, then you have ten minutes to explain yourself.” He retreated to the kitchen and poured a shot of bourbon over ice, hesitated, then added another shot, wincing at how much that depleted the bottle. Branded spirits were very scarce in the Enclave, and he had no idea when he would be able to replenish his store, if ever. He fingered his still holstered laser gun and checked the time by pressing his thumb and forefinger together. The numerals glowed through his thumbnail—he would have to call the office soon; both Jeannie and Alvarez were waiting to hear from him, he was sure.

  Back in the living area he took his usual place in the big lounger but kept it in an upright position. Both dogs sprawled side by side on the carpet, forepaws out. Conan sniffed at the sculptured shag, puzzled at the faint life scent he detected. Fuzzy Britches jumped up to his usual perch atop the back of the lounger, ears cocked forward. Jamie touched a spot on his forearm to induce his b
ody computer to transfer a permanent recording to the home archives, then took a long pull from his glass. “OK, Conan, it's your show,” he said.

  The dog spoke in a low guttural voice, in broken, badly accented English. “Human live with pack, mine, say come with him, her, say talk with Great Being, say talk fast ... quick...” He seemed to be searching for a word.

  Woggly interrupted. “He says message is urgent."

  Jamie took another sip of bourbon. That the message was urgent, he had no doubt; nothing else would have prevented Fuzzy Britches from setting off an alarm, not to mention letting a strange dog into his home. However, what was urgent to the cat was not necessarily so for him, nor for the Enclave in general.

  “What ‘Great Being’ are you talking about? Do you mean one of your humans? Or is it an animal?"

  The fugitive dog turned and spoke to Woggly, mixing whining noises with barely understandable English phrases. Apparently, the feral dog had only a limited speaking vocabulary, although he seemed to have no trouble understanding conversation addressed to him. Again Woggly interpreted. “He say Great Being not human, not animal, doesn't know what. He say look at his neck thing."

  For the first time, Jamie noticed the crude leather collar around Conan's neck. Depending from it was a small blue-green disk, hardly more than coin size. He bent closer to inspect it, but it offered no other distinguishing features.

  “Use hand,” Conan said, sitting up and approaching Jamie's lounger. Tentatively he closed his hand around the disk. Immediately, images exploded in his mind, blurry and disconnected, like dreams run in fast motion. He saw a planet as it appeared from space, brown and blue and streaked white; what appeared to be a spaceship, but unlike any ever built by man; a cluster of beings, orange colored with six writhing appendages and large head-like protuberances; a whirling kaleidoscope of other scenes with no human reference, ineludible. A sense of urgency, coupled with impending doom pervaded the flashing images at the end. He dropped the disk abruptly, as if it had grown too hot to hold. Instantly, the images vanished from his mind.

  Jamie shook his head. “What in hell was that?"

  “Message from Great Being,” Conan said.

  “That's a message? Let me try it again.” Again, the storm of strange images assaulted his mind. Prepared this time, he held onto the disk, but he learned little more. The same fast action scenes repeated, then repeated again, a closed loop. Shaken, he sat back in the lounger. He finished his drink in two long gulps and tried to make sense of what had happened.

  “Wog, Fuzz, did you guys try it?"

  The pets barked and meowed assent.

  “What did you see?"

  “Cartoons,” Fuzzy Britches said.

  “Funny pictures,” Woggly agreed.

  Jamie nodded. It was about what he would have expected of the pets. Intelligent as they were, concepts such as space beyond earth was beyond their grasp, but both were smart enough to have realized that the feral dog carried something important enough to await a human decision before sounding an alert. He wasn't certain himself that the images contained in the disk related to anything in the real world, but that didn't matter. Of immediate importance was the technology implied. He knew of nothing resembling the technique in the Houston Enclave or any other. It was time to call Security Section and report the presence of Conan.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 3

  Security, however, was already aware of Conan, by sight if not by name. Shortly after Jeannie had left the office to go home and change, Carlos Alvarez had received a message from one of Jamie's neighbors, an erstwhile girl friend who had not taken kindly to being dropped in favor of his newest bed mate. The fact that she had a 1A genome equal to Jamie's, and that Jeannie was of a lesser classification had only whetted her anger. Now she saw a chance to pay him back and took swift advantage of it. As soon as she saw that the strange dog entering Jamie's apartment was not wearing the standard Enclave collar she called the Genetic Engineering department. Alvarez, recognizing her as one of Jamie's former lovers took the call himself. Being somewhat voyeuristic, he even listened patiently to the girl's theories concerning miscegenation of genome types. Immediately afterward, he called Security Section.

  Jamie's impression of Alvarez as an incompetent, pompous data shuffler was somewhat less than accurate. Alvarez might not have kept up with the latest methods in genetic engineering, but he was a shrewd judge of who had, and he had become more than a little fearful of Jamie's competence. His dislike of Jamie's pets, and pets in general, gave him no little satisfaction as he talked to John Whitmire, chief of Enclave security. “That's right,” he said. “Da Cruz reported a feral dog intrusion at one of the test plots where he's screwed up some new protein flora, and just now I've gotten a report that a strange dog was seen entering his apartment. Yes, it was wearing a collar, but it didn't appear to be a standard one, and we've received no other information on the intrusion. I think this one must be it. No, John, I have no idea why he would try to conceal a feral dog; I'm just giving you what was reported to me. Yes, John, I would appreciate it if you would check it out. Let me know, please. Thank you.” He cut the link to Whitmire and began closing the office for the day. At first he intended to catch a sled for the old Galleria area and relieve some tension, but on second thought decided it would be more fun to head directly to Jamie's apartment complex and be present for the confrontation. That was a boss’ prerogative, after all.

  John Whitmire was less enthusiastic about Alvarez's report. He knew the man from department head meetings and was not impressed, especially in view of his well known prejudices concerning enhanced animals. Nevertheless, he couldn't simply ignore the call. A possible breach of the Enclave's defenses was too serious a matter; it would have to be investigated.

  He scanned his monitor to see who might be available for the duty. There was precious little choice. The infrequency of breaks in the Enclave barriers lately had caused him to assign most of his agents not on duty outside to liaison and intelligence gathering of off world activities. Moon City and the space stations were still theoretically part of earth, but that was only theory. In practice, they were not only independent, but increasingly hostile and disdainful of the mother world. With the failure of national governments, they had taken over the means of space travel and extracted a huge price for weather forecasting, rare moon minerals, and exotic materials which could only be manufactured in the weightless environment of space. Whitmire thought that if the space colonies were not still dependent on earth for some of their own requirements, they would break all contact with earth and go their own way, unencumbered with the disastrous ecological consequences of the pet plague. He found it incumbent to keep many of his agents involved in space matters, especially in light of the deteriorating conditions on earth. Besides, it did no harm to know what the other fellow was thinking.

  He finally decided on a ranger to follow up on Alvarez's report. Rangers were agents especially trained for assignments in the wilds, their specialty being to keep watch on territory outside the Enclave and to report on any threatening developments among the enhanced feral animals. There was a ranger available, he saw: Kristi Carson, currently near the end of a well earned leave from exploring the vast piney woods of east Texas.

  His monitor picked her up in a rough section north of the old loop. He winced at the area she was in, and winced even more when she appeared in full holographic splendor on his screen. She was totally naked, her back propped against a large pillow. A sizable dog lay beside her on the bed, eyes open and alert. Her right arm was curled around a female body which he recognized as another of his rangers. She was obviously enjoying herself and made no attempt to blank out any part of the hologram. Kristi was not one to worry about other people's opinions.

  “What do you want, John? I'm on leave,” she said, emphasizing the point by pulling the other woman's head down to her breasts.

  “Sorry,” Whitmire said, trying his best to ignore her activities. “I'm rec
alling you, but maybe just for this evening. There's been a break-in, and you're about the only agent available on such short notice."

  Kristi shook her blond hair and disengaged herself from her companion. “Ah, well, I'm about ready to get back to work. Where is this alleged break-in?” She stood up and began pulling on her clothes, underpants and the standard Enclave coveralls. Whitmire admired her figure as she dressed. Not only was she one of his best agents, she was one of his most attractive ones. Her long blond hair contrasted nicely with the oddly tanned parts of her body, a blend of cream and brown. Her breasts were perfectly formed, with small pink nipples, and just large enough to set off her small waist and moderately flared hips. Her figure was a reflection of more than two generations of genetic selection by women of the enclaves. In her age group, there were very few sagging breasts or over padded flesh. She had high Swedish cheekbones and long tapered legs. Looking at her, Whitmire wished he were forty years younger.

  “The break was in the experimental ag section, but the report I got suggests that a feral dog may be holed up in the apartment of one Jamie Da Cruz. Take a sled to B-36, then you can find him at building 9, apartment 3. Use your own judgment from there."

  “On my way,” Kristi said, relief in her voice. She really was tired of playing. A little work would be a welcome change, picayunish as this appeared to be.

  Carlos Alvarez closed his own office, but in the reverie of his old mind he was still picturing the delightful aspect of Jamie Da Cruz being caught in the company of a feral dog and failed to clear his conversation with Whitmire from the section computer. After he left, his assistant saw an opportunity and called it back up. His assistant's goals were a little more long range. Don Cadena reported not only to Alvarez, but to the government of Moon City as well. His dark past had caused him to be recruited by the government there years ago. In this case, he doubted that anything of importance had taken place, but decided to keep abreast of the case of the feral dog anyway. It was good practice, and you never knew—sometimes the most insignificant incidents could turn out to have great consequences.