An Android Dog's Tale Read online

  There were no paths here—or anywhere. The corporation discouraged paths, especially those that led anywhere. Anyone who might be watching would have seen a man, his dog, and his pack animal zigzagging seemingly at random through tall grass, between trees and bushes, around rock outcroppings, and across shallow streams. If a direct way to get from where they were to where they were going existed, they would have intentionally avoided it. But no one watched and no direct routes existed, just as it should be.

  MO-126 took in the sights. Everything remained new to him, but most of what he could see nearby merited no more than a glance—even less if it could be avoided. His position in front of his partner and their pack animal, together with his height, or lack thereof, currently limited his view to the patch of weeds around him. It was not especially interesting, but it did have advantages over being behind the slow-moving gond, a position which allowed little more than a clear view of its wide, shaggy legs and even less attractive portions of its anatomy.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the android walking a few steps behind him. His partner, being bipedal, enjoyed a higher vantage point. MO-126 did not envy him his height because it came with additional responsibilities, among other things.

  The trader outwardly resembled the sentient primitives the corporation introduced to work this project. He wore a simple, knee-length tunic of woven flax linen. The sandals on his feet were made of the tanned hide of the same kind of beast now carrying their trade goods. Nothing about the two travelers would pass as remarkable in any of the villages in the region.

  The humanoid trader led their mission, and he chose the indirect routes they would take to get to all the villages that Field Operations told them to visit on this assignment. The large animal he walked beside, and ostensibly led by a slack, leather strap, was one of a varied species of normally docile herbivores native to this planet. The frugal process of evolution gifted these plodding beasts with all the speed and intelligence they required to survive. Lacking in natural predators, they did not need to be especially quick in either area.

  In the wild, small herds of the huge, hairy gonds grazed and foraged the landscape, moving behind their herd leaders at a rate of about half a kilometer per day, if they were in a hurry to get to an especially appetizing patch of forage. Domesticated, they could be harnessed to pull plows or drag rocks and stumps from fields, which they did without complaint or any sense of urgency. They could not be beaten or bribed to move much faster. Their intelligence measured just slightly higher than the vegetation they consumed and slow was the top speed at which they could move, which suited corporate interests perfectly because it matched their plans for human development here.

  A familiar sensation, like a metallic ping in the middle of MO-126’s low forehead, demanded his attention. His partner was signaling him.

  “Slow up. We’ll follow this stream for a while.”

  No obvious logic lay behind the route the trade android chose, which was probably why he chose it and why he would choose a different but equally circuitous way back. MO-126 had no right or reason to question him, but he could not help wonder why they must be so cautious. His orientation files assured him that the primitives working this project were content and that they were not especially inclined to wander from their villages. It seemed unlikely they would try to discover where the trader came from or where he went after he left. Necessary or not, standard operating procedures dictated that they disguise their route when in the field, and the trade androids followed procedures.

  Upon reflection, MO-126 supposed this rule made a certain amount of sense. Leaving an obvious trail would only encourage the villagers to do something they should not. It would be best for all concerned if the humans did not stray. MO-126’s Corporation programming assured him of the truth of this.

  He trod along at the edge of the shallow stream beside the trade android and their beast of burden. Frogs croaked warnings and small fish darted from the shallows into slightly deeper water, causing splashes and ripples that startled a small, long-beaked bird pecking along the shore into taking flight.

  A pair of brown ducks waddled farther up the bank as he approached. He felt an urge to chase them, but he resisted. His orientation interviewer warned him that such things might happen from time to time, an unfortunate side effect of his design. The biological template used for his outward physical appearance also influenced his cognitive and behavioral systems. To perform his function well, he would need to keep such latent instincts in check.

  Another signal from his humanoid companion made MO-126 realize that he had once again outpaced him. He stopped for the minute it would take his partner to catch up. The trade android could go no faster than the hairy beast he led, and MO-126 could not seem to manage to go that slow for long, despite the fact that his four legs were much shorter than those of the pack animal.

  “You’ll get the hang of it,” the trader said using their integrated short-range communication subsystems. “It may take a while. It took the last mobile observer I worked with five years before he learned to shuffle along slowly enough.”

  “I wish that knowledge was loaded into me when I was activated,” MO-126 replied. He lacked the ability to speak aloud, at least not in any manner resembling language. It would be an anomalous ability and therefore the corporation did not include it in the design of non-humanoid androids. He accepted the wisdom of this, but it still seemed inconvenient.

  “If you were just a robot that would work, but it’s not possible with androids,” the humanoid trader said. “Our cognitive matrixes are unique. Information can be exchanged but not skills. You have to learn things like that yourself, just like a human—or, in your case, a dog.” The trader smiled good-naturedly, a response ultimately resulting from a subroutine in his firmware but no less indicative of a genuinely felt emotion.

  MO-126 already knew that skills must be learned by personal experience. It took him an hour after his initial activation simply to learn to walk without tangling his legs. He wished it could be otherwise, but he could not complain. The primitives were even more limited, and he felt a touch of sympathy for them. They were born virtually helpless with only a few basic instincts. Everything else they needed to know they must learn the hard way through observation or trial and error. When MO-126 awoke from his initial activation two days ago, he could already function independently and knew everything he needed to fulfill the duties of a mobile observer android, at a basic level, at least. A two-day-old human infant could do little more than feed, and it relied on its mother for that.

  The primitives did possess one attribute he mildly envied—thumbs. Like its biological template, his design lacked these handy digits. After many years of observing humans, the Galactic Organic Development Corporation, which ran this agricultural project, concluded that a canine form provided the best solution for discreet ground observation. Humans accepted them, even liked them and made them part of their groups, and they did not alter their behavior or hide their intentions in their presence as they tended to around people. They did not ignore dogs, exactly, but they seemed to regard them as a normal part of the landscape and tended to pay them the same amount of attention.

  They left the creek and trudged overland. The round, flat feet of the gond trampled the wild grass, bushes, and small trees it plodded over, breaking stems, flattening leaves, and crushing the residue into the thick, rich soil. MO-126’s sensitive olfactory subsystems detected and identified the smells it created. He could name every element, every compound, every kind of molecule that mingled together to fill the air with their essence, but the combined aromas conveyed something beyond a simple collection of empirical data. They triggered a subjective sensation, a feeling of life. He found it somehow compelling.

  Their dull-witted pack animal seemed mostly oblivious to its surroundings but would occasionally grab tasty leaves, seedpods, and other morsels with its long, prehensile tongue without pausing. It could walk and chew at the same time, but much m
ore might prove challenging to the slow beast.

  In exchange for the meal the plants involuntarily provided, it randomly deposited steaming brown lumps of odiferous organic fertilizer behind it. This also carried a certain fragrance of life but a much less pleasant one. The hearty vegetation thrived on it, though, and would recover within a few days, leaving little sign of their passage.

  MO-126 perked his ears at the sound of voices ahead and notified his partner.

  “We’re still well over a kilometer from the village,” the trade android replied, “but your hearing is better than mine. You have better visual acuity, too. Do you see anyone?”

  The simulated canine scanned the area in visible light and infrared. He saw humans picking fruit from a nearby orchard and tending fields of tall grain farther away, squatting to pull weeds or dredging irrigation ditches. Another primitive, this one obviously male, stood by a stream. The man was closer to them than the field workers were, but a patch of woods obscured him from normal view. He gave no sign of being aware of their presence. A fishing pole lay propped on a rock beside him while he added his own contribution to the tinkling waters.

  “Yeah. There are a few people around. I suppose it’s time for my dog act.”

  “It’s always time for your dog act when you’re outside a hub terminal. Remember this. You’re a dog. You must act like one. I know you have basic information about normal canine behavior, but observe the dogs you see here and notice how they act. That’s all you need to do your first few times out.”

  “Woof,” MO-126 said aloud while transmitting, “Got it. Bark, scratch, sleep. It’s a fairly simple routine.”

  “The problem normally isn’t the doglike things you should do. The difficult part is all the things you can do that you should not.”

  “Don’t worry. I think I can restrain myself from doing anything obviously brilliant. It’s not as if I can talk to them even if I wanted to.”

  “Paying attention without appearing to be paying attention can be more difficult than you might think,” the trader cautioned.

  “It doesn’t sound that hard, but I’ll be careful.”

  “Good. When we get there, just wander through the village and observe. Don’t go into any buildings unless I call you, and don’t chase the chickens, even if you see the village dogs do it.”

  “You’re the human master and I’m the well-behaved, faithful dog. I’ve got all that.” He felt just a little insulted. While he could not deny that he lacked any first-hand, or first-paw, experience, the trader did not need to remind him of the things covered in his basic orientation files. He was not malfunctioning. He owed his artificial life to the corporation, and he would show his appreciation by performing his function well.

  They approached the village, two androids of the Galactic Organic Development Corporation, indistinguishable, at least to humans, from a man and his dog. The pack animal laden with their trade goods trudged docilely beside them. Bags, baskets, small rough boxes, and crude clay jars rattled in the wooden platform strapped to its broad back. Other goods hung on ropes and in harnesses down its sides. In exchange for fresh produce and dried herbs, they would offer obsidian knives, bone needles and fishhooks, crude cloth, stone and wood tools, and even some of the containers. They could safely leave anything not needed to carry the items being received as payment. Their goods represented the height of Neolithic technology, but they carried nothing the villagers could not produce themselves, if they were so inclined. Part of every android’s job was to see to it that they were not.

  The first villager to greet them was a dog a bit larger than MO-126. It bounded toward them, barking, which quickly attracted the attention of others. The canine chorus partly conveyed a challenge. ‘This is our place. You are not part of our pack,’ which, in the dogs’ minds, would include the humans, goats, chickens, gonds, and other animals living among them. The barking also notified the rest of the village of visitors approaching. MO-126 followed the trader’s lead and did not respond. A well-behaved dog would not.

  They continued their slow trudge past a somewhat orderly collection of about a hundred crude buildings of wood, mud, stone, and grass toward a central open space of trampled dirt, which included a fire pit and a well for water lined with stones and sun-dried clay bricks. A bearded man with long, brown hair dappled with gray emerged from one of the larger huts. He wore a plain linen tunic that hung past his knees with loose sleeves ending between elbow and wrist. Age and experience lined his face, but other than a musky odor and a few missing teeth, he appeared healthy and vigorous.

  “That’s Oslan,” the trader transmitted. “He’s the current headman for this village. All our dealings are done through him.”

  The trade benefited both parties. The primitives received items that would take far more time and practice to make themselves than required to produce the things they offered in exchange. The corporation obtained highly prized organic foods that it could sell for inflated prices to several technologically advanced species across the galaxy, especially those which normally subsisted on industrially grown or replicated food. Most food producers in these high-tech civilizations expended a great deal of effort and a considerable amount of money ensuring their customers appreciated that their products were intentionally formulated to be nutritious, delectable, and even healthier than the expensively imported ‘natural’ alternatives. Nonetheless, many self-proclaimed connoisseurs claimed the organic stuff just tasted better. This might have more to do with clever promotion than with gastronomy, but it did not matter. The market existed, and it was lucrative.

  MO-126 suspected that status provided much of the appeal, at least among those species with a concept of status. Anyone willing to pay a thousand times the cost of the local nutritional equivalent of a carrot for one grown in dung-fortified dirt on a distant planet by, as corporate advertising proclaimed, ‘simple and happy sentient creatures living in harmony with nature,’ must be someone with considerable wealth and, well, taste. In that sense, taste might be a factor but not in the way that the well-to-do consumer or snobbish food critics claimed.

  MO-126 made no value judgments based on this. The corporation provided a product to satisfy a demand from a willing market regardless of the reason that demand existed. Projects like this required a high initial investment, but amortized over the millennia they normally operated, they could be big moneymakers. He owed his very existence to this fact and felt privileged to support the corporation that created him, as he was intended to.

  “While I’m arranging the trade, you should wander around the village,” the trader said. “See what things are like. I don’t expect you to find any problems, but be observant, and if you see any signs of emerging technology-development or scientific-discovery faults, let me know.”

  “Can do,” the artificial dog eagerly replied. He looked forward to this, his first encounter with humans. Observing them was what he was made to do.

  “Master Trader Tork.” Oslan called out in a voice of welcome and possibly relief. “You have come just in time. But then, you always do, don’t you?”

  “Oslan, my good friend,” the trader said, extending his free hand in greeting. “Does this mean you have goods to trade?”

  “You know we do. The redfruit are ripe, and we have plenty. There are also potatoes, carrots, peas, and herbs. All the very best, I assure you. What do you have for us this time?”

  MO-126 slipped away as the headman and the trade android, Master Trader Tork to the villagers, examined each other’s wares and negotiated the exchange. This could take a while, leaving the novice mobile observer android plenty of time for his first examination of the primitives whose ancestors evolved on a distant planet.

  ~*~

  The corporation never abducted anyone. Such an act would be a violation of Galactic Federation law. They simply harvested the necessary cells from unwitting donors on their native planets and bred a separate population on the project planets. Humanoid nursery androids raised
and cared for the first generation of primitives born here. After that, they allowed things to proceed more haphazardly. This particular village did not have a NASH android currently assigned to it, but nursery androids of the same basic type continued to operate in some others as surrogate grandparents of a sort, often in the roles of healers or storytellers to help ensure stability or social harmony even now that the species was self-sustaining.

  The cell extraction caused the donors no harm, although no one consulted them on the matter. It would be not only pointless but also dangerous to do so. The resulting myths and legends could pollute their natural development. This remained one of the strictest regulations on interstellar commerce enforced by the Galactic Federation.

  The law resulted from a political compromise made many thousands of years before. One party wanted to prohibit interference of any kind with emerging species. Another advocated treating them as natural resources that could be claimed and developed by whatever individual, group, or company that discovered them. The compromise ultimately satisfied both parties. The first accepted it because most species limited to only one planet normally become extinct before long, so allowing businesses to breed them on other planets provided a charitable means to prevent this. The second party was actually relieved they did not get all they wanted after certain unfortunate events on one of the project planets of a major contributor caused a sharp drop in the company’s stock value. It became clear after this that some primitive species tend to object, often very expensively, if they learn they are being ‘developed.’

  The law as passed allowed the transfer of non-sentient biological material from one planet to another, but it prevented businesses from disrupting the natural physical or cultural evolution of any sentient species on its native planet. Once a species independently developed the ability to travel the stars, it could be regarded as a potential customer, and different regulations applied, most of those heavily weighted in favor of the business community, especially the large corporations, which generously contributed to political campaigns.