An Android Dog's Tale Read online

  Books by D.L. Morrese

  An Android Dog’s Tale

  Defying Fate (Combined eBook Edition)

  The Warden Threat (Defying Fate Part 1)

  The Warden War (Defying Fate Part 2)

  Amy’s Pendant

  Disturbing Clockwork

  An Android Dog’s Tale

  One Artificial Dog

  Ten Stories

  Fifteen Thousand Years

  D.L. Morrese

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Fuzzy Android Press

  (http://fuzzyandroid.wordpress.com/)

  in cooperation with Smashwords

  ISBN: 9781311283337

  Copyright © 2013 by D.L. Morrese

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  Author’s Notes on this Edition

  I wish to thank Alex for his help with cover ideas, Rowan for editing, and all the beta-readers, proofreaders, editors, and others who volunteered their time and attention to the publication of this novel. The finished work is far better than it could have been without you. Any flaws that may remain are entirely the fault of the author.

  Units of Measure

  Time, distance, and other units of measure reflected in the story that follows have been converted, along with the languages, to something understandable by readers living on Earth at the dawn the 21st Century. It was either this or put a conversion table and glossary at the end of the book, and no one likes those.

  Regarding Androids

  Androids, by definition, are automatons that resemble humans. In this book and those that follow, the term is used to refer to constructed beings with human-like cognitive abilities rather than an exclusively humanoid physical appearance. To do otherwise would simply be species-ist. Many of the androids you will meet in these books don’t look like people, but they do sometimes think and act like them.

  Maps

  Some readers like maps, so one showing the relative locations of hub terminals is included in the paper edition of this book. It is not in the digital edition because it does not show up well on most compact reading devices. If you are reading a digital version of this book and wish to see some maps, you can find them on the author’s website, http://dlmorrese.wordpress.com/, along with other information.

  Contents

  Prologue - A Species with Potential

  One - People Like Clay (In which Mobile Observer Android 126 first encounters humans.)

  Two - Sheep Lost and Demons Found (In which MO-126 learns that humans can be imaginative, creative, and disturbingly wrong.)

  Three - Dare Not Stray (In which curiosity is discouraged.)

  Four - Split Plea (In which MO-126 realizes that sometimes people just can’t get along with each other.)

  Five - Wheels of Discontent (In which discoveries are made and a person is lost.)

  Six - Unacceptable Marks (In which things must not be written.)

  Seven - Making Choices (In which choices are made and something is overlooked.)

  Eight - Shutting Down (In which some things end and others begin.)

  Nine - A Dog and His Boy (In which MO-126 adopts a boy and herds some sheep.)

  Ten - A Final Note (In which MO-126 says goodbye.)

  Prologue - A Species with Potential

  Just under 20,000 years ago

  (Galactic Standard Year 223447)

  The sleek, silvery ship approached a pale-blue planet orbiting a yellow star in the Milky Way’s Orion–Cygnus spiral arm. It analyzed its preliminary readings and assessed the potential of what it observed from orbit. Initial results were promising, so it released atmospheric drones to obtain more data.

  Animal life flourished in and around the forest below. Trees waved their leaf-filled branches in a mild summer breeze. Songbirds vocally proclaimed their existence or greeted one another hopefully in their quests for mates, while predators eyed them as possible meals. Plants and wildflowers beyond the trees painted the landscape in a multitude of colors. Butterflies fluttered through the air spreading pollen and life to fulfill their part in the complex dance of the biosphere. Small fish splashed in a clear stream babbling nearby while the water flowed on to join one of nature’s arteries.

  A short, hairy biped was pissing in it.

  The ship shifted its focus to a spot nearby where several of the creatures gathered. Twenty or so males, females, and offspring mingled around a fire. They grunted short words in a limited vocabulary and made exaggerated gestures, clearly communicating, sharing information, and possibly even telling stories. Some sat quietly, deep in thought, or at least something resembling it. A couple carnivorous quadrupeds roamed among them, sharing food and parasites like part of the family.

  The bipeds were definitely tool-makers, and the ship noted their skills at creating useful and artistic things out of stones, sticks, and select body parts from various dead animals. Perhaps some day the descendants of this group of odoriferous vermin collectors might build something like the ship watching them from orbit. It wasted no time estimating the odds of this happening. The question of what they might achieve on their own in the future did not matter, other than as a mild, speculative diversion. Only their current achievements held any relevance to the decision it must make, and now their technology appeared limited to stone tools and fire. The ship decided they warranted a closer look.

  It recalled its tiny drones and prepared devices with additional capabilities to complete an extended survey. The small dark spheres dropped like seeds from the silent craft and went about their business collecting the required data.

  For a year, the probes gathered samples and information. The ship needed to understand all it could about the sentient primitives. It must know how they behaved, how they bred, what they ate, and how they interacted with their environment. It must learn how they learned. Only then could it make its final determination.

  Complex algorithms evaluated sensor readings of the atmosphere, soil, water, flora, and fauna. Specialized equipment conducted tests on a wide array of biological samples. Once satisfied with the quality of the data and the results of its analysis, the ship made a decision and released additional probes. These were even more complex than those that preceded them. One might consider them intelligent if not sentient. They all possessed the ability to forecast likely outcomes and to cope with new and changing situations. Some might call this imagination or creativity. Neither the probes nor the ship that spawned them dwelled on the issue. They did not care how others might regard them. They existed for a purpose, and their only goal in life was to fulfill that purpose. Unquestioning devotion to duty such as theirs would be the envy of any military officer and most political, religious, and business leaders.

  One of the most sophisticated probes glided silently in the darkness. Its flat black surface reflected nothing under the single large moon and crisp starlight. A few nocturnal animals noted the whisper of its landing but did not betray its arrival to the sleeping bipeds now huddled in a cave behind a small, smoldering fire for warmth and protection.

  The device, about the size and general shape of a small modern refrigerator lying on its back, settled on the ground. From inside came a faint whirring sound and then a ser
ies of clicks. A moment of silence followed and then a soft scraping sound as several small sliding doors opened on its surface. They clicked into place simultaneously, and an assortment of devices and gadgets emerged and froze in place from two dozen compartments. Now the device resembled, to some extent, a very large and possibly pregnant Swiss Army knife showing off all of its attachments.

  It began to move, slowly rising until it hovered no more than fifteen centimeters from the ground with a distinct impression of readiness. A faint hush of air accompanied its purposeful progress toward the cave where the slumbering bipeds kept wildlife at bay with the glowing embers of their fire and their fearsome snoring. The probe paid neither any mind and went inside.

  After a snakelike hiss of escaping gas from one of the probe’s attachments, the snoring abruptly stopped. Little more than a darker image among the shadows, it hovered over one of the females. She lay on her back, seemingly sound asleep, her chest gently rising and falling with her breath. The probe extended some of its more delicate attachments to examine her quite intimately.

  It went from sleeping form to sleeping form, touching, probing, examining, and gathering tissues and data until it subjected each individual to its scrutiny. The sleeping canines received the same close examination.

  Once it collected all it came here to get, it exited the cave entrance and drew its assorted devices and tools back into its shell. With a startling snap, the compartment doors on the device shut in unison and the probe accelerated skyward. The subjects of its scrutiny would wake the next morning unaware that anything out of the ordinary occurred.

  The spaceship in orbit circled silent and majestic while black probe after black probe queued beside it like supplicants to their sovereign, awaiting their turn to add the fruits of their individual efforts to the grand project. Several days passed before it retrieved the last of the devices. The additional data added to its already massive stores, and it processed, categorized, analyzed, and made decisions to further its assigned objective. It found the work challenging and enjoyable.

  Within the ship, cryogenic storage units clicked into operation. Mindless automated devices filled them with organic material obtained from the planet below. Manufacturing centers began disassembling the willing probes while computers worked on designs for the next incarnation of their components. Other devices began synthesizing chemicals and compounds that would be accumulated and stored for later use.

  Satisfied with all it achieved so far, the ship left Earth orbit. It looked forward to the next step of this new project and felt confident of its ultimate success.

  ~*~

  105 Years Later

  (Galactic Standard Year 223553)

  A century later and twenty-four lightyears away, another planet, white, blue, and green like the first, provided the final destination of the ship’s current mission. The magnificent craft rested proudly on landing struts like delicate columns from a classic Greek temple made of silver. Time and distance took no obvious toll on the space-faring vessel. Another ship, boxy, rectangular, and strictly business, squatted nearby. It could have been the first ship’s ugly stepsister, or perhaps its ancient grandmother, if such familial relationships applied to constructed entities. They rested side by side in a field of long, fibrous grass. A herd of large, dull-eyed animals, like an ill-conceived and extremely unlikely cross between a hippopotamus, water buffalo, and wooly mammoth, grazed placidly nearby, efficiently turning the native grasses into piles of steaming brown fertilizer.

  The area around the two ships bustled like a disturbed anthill. Machines of various kinds, some resembling large gray crabs and others more like self-propelled shop-vacuum cleaners with arms, unloaded the larger and bulkier spacecraft. The motionless silver ship was busiest of all. During its century in transit, it prepared and planned the start of this new project, and now it put those plans into effect, monitoring all of the ongoing activities and directing the actions of the robots busily working in and around its boxy neighbor.

  Within a year, plants thrived nearby that never grew on this planet before. Grains and vegetables native to the planet it visited a century before photosynthesized nutrients using light from a star different from the one that fueled their evolution. Specially designed and recently manufactured robots harvested native trees. Others processed the lumber; still others carefully transplanted seedlings of completely different and unrelated trees.

  A black, elongated cube, superficially much like those that probed Earth, emerged from the survey ship. It glided noiselessly to a stream and released the first nonnative animals to attempt to create a life and a future for their species on this planet.

  The fish, hatched in one of the ship’s several bio-tanks and unaccustomed to the feel of the flowing water, floated motionless along with the current at first. Their instincts and an encouraging splash from one of the probe’s appendages soon prompted them to explore their new environment. The ship calculated the probability of them surviving to reproduce to be ninety-eight percent, and it felt pleased.

  More animals emerged from a ramp leading from an opening in the larger of the two interstellar craft. Robots herded a procession of goats, pigs, sheep, and other herbivores noted for their undiscriminating taste in food into transport craft that would take them to different areas around the planet where they could live and breed. After extensive analysis, the ship concluded that they could eat many of the native plants, and it had slightly altered the genes governing their instincts to encourage them to do so.

  All was proceeding according to plan.

  ~*~

  50 Years Later

  (Galactic Standard Year 223603)

  Fifty years later, the ship looked down with satisfaction on a small village in a field that previously held nothing but tough, native grasses and large, grazing beasts. Buildings made of wood and mud with thatched roofs of native grass defined the dirt paths between them. The unmistakable odor of domesticated livestock from several of these structures proved the efficacy of the ship’s efforts. Several goats snoozed quietly in one. The building next to it provided a home to a like number of pigs. Another held chickens. A pair of dogs slept in the shade of a tree. Sheep grazed in a fenced area nearby, and small gardens and cultivated fields grew cotton, wheat, beans, carrots, potatoes, and other vegetables.

  A humanoid male, outwardly indistinguishable from the sentient bipeds the ship discovered a century before, other than that he was cleaner and better clothed, left the largest building and headed toward the goat shed. He carried an empty bucket and wore an unadorned long-sleeved cotton tunic that reached his knees. His brown eyes, dark brown hair, and short beard were unremarkable. By all appearances, he seemed a quite ordinary thirty-something year old man, unlikely to draw attention in almost any human settlement—except there have never been humans on this planet before, and back on Earth, as the Pleistocene Age rode its glaciers to the end of their frigid road, the height of fashion consisted of a custom-tailored mammoth skin.

  He casually milked one of the goats and then carried the filled bucket back to the largest of the buildings.

  Inside, one hundred wooden cribs lined the two longest walls. A human infant occupied each. Some slept. Some squirmed. Some cried out for attention. The last were answered by several attendants with kind, elderly faces and calm mannerisms. They spoke quietly among themselves and to the babies in an idealized picture of stereotypical grandparents.

  The man with the bucket placed it on one of several long tables forming a line down the center of the room and left. A matronly-looking woman began to ladle the milk into clay bottles topped with leather nipples.

  Outside, a crowd of robots of various configurations walked, rolled or glided up the ramps of both ships, taking themselves and all the other noticeably high-tech equipment inside. After the last of a long line of laden robots entered the larger and homelier of the two ships, the hatchway closed. With a burst of air disturbing the leaves, dirt, and grass beneath, the bulky ship rose, hovere
d a moment, and then began to rotate, making the words written on the side clearly visible.

  Galactic Organic Development Corporation

  Specializing in natural produce from across the galaxy.

  Caringly grown, cultivated and harvested by simple sentient life forms.

  No artificial ingredients, pesticides, herbicides, or mechanized equipment used in processing.

  Guaranteed 100% organic.

  The smaller ship watched it leave and then reabsorbed its own landing struts. It took great satisfaction in completing a job done well. The project it established here should bolster corporate profits for many millennia to come.

  It notified the new project manager of its intention to leave.

  One - People Like Clay

  4,197 Years Later

  (Galactic Standard Year 227800)

  (Project Year 4247)

  In which Mobile Observer Android 126 first encounters humans.