Service Goat

by Piers Anthony

  As it happened, the groundskeeper was there. He recognized the danger. “Clear back, away from it, slowly,” he called with simulated calmness. “Do not touch it. Just get away.”

  But the raccoon was having none of that. It oriented on the children and advanced. Its urge was to charge and bite, spreading the virus.

  A girl screamed.

  The raccoon heard her and moved in her direction.

  “We've got to stop it,” Callie said. “We've got to—to kill it. So it can't bite anyone.” She paused as Nanny queried her. “But maybe it can hurt you too!” she protested.

  No. The goat's flesh was alien. It would not be affected.

  Callie braced herself. “Then do it. I'll be all right.”

  The goat left her, then charged the raccoon. Nanny intercepted the creature with her sharply pointed, forward aiming horns. She speared it, lifted her head, and heaved it high through the air, out of the school yard. It was already dead.

  The children cheered. The groundskeeper stared. “Movable horns?” he asked himself unbelievingly. He had of course seen the goat around the school, and knew she was a Service Animal, but had not directly interacted with her.

  Callie fought to control her own horror of her abrupt blindness and isolation. “Wash the blood off her horns!” she called.

  “Yes, of course,” the man said. “That blood must touch no one.” Then he called to the goat. “Nanny, come to the faucet. I must wash you off.”

  The goat bleated agreement. Callie couldn't see her, but sensed her movement. She was going to the man. There was the sound of water flowing. The children cheered again.

  “There you go, girl,” he said. “You're clean. But I don't see how you could—I mean, your horns are curved back, same as always. But what I saw--”

  “Pat her!” Callie called.

  “Good girl,” the man said, patting the goat's shoulder. “Oh, my!”

  He had joined the conspiracy.

  The principal, aware of the commotion, came out. “What happened here?”

  “There was a rabid raccoon,” the groundskeeper said. “The goat—handled it.”

  “She would,” Applebaum agreed. He glanced at the children. “Nothing happened here, right?”

  “Right!” the children chorused. They might differ with the principal, and fear him occasionally, but when it came to the goat, they were all on the same side.

  Nanny returned to Callie. Now her personal horror faded out, and she could see again. Separation had been a horror; still, she had handled it. That gave her pride.

  But not all the children in the yard had been part of the conspiracy, and some of them had seen the changing horns. Naturally their stories would not be believed, especially when not supported by other children or the groundskeeper, but word was inexorably leaking out.

  Back home, Callie explained what had happened to Sterling and Melinda, including the changing horns. Now Nanny demonstrated for them. Her horns rapidly straightening out, becoming sharply pointed, aggressive weapons, then curled back into place. Her hooves, too, could become deadly weapons. Indeed, she was no ordinary goat; she was a combat creature. But she would never hurt a friend.

  “And an alien planet can be a dangerous place,” Sterling said. “So a data-gatherer needs to be able to defend herself. I'll bet that's not all you can do.”

  It was not. But Nanny showed her powers only when the need was critical.

  “The secret is tottering on the edge of discovery,” Sterling said grimly. “This is mischief.”

  “Not as much mischief as losing a child to rabies,” Linda said.

  “But the newspaper will be catching on. There are some pretty sharp reporters. Soon there'll be articles.”

  “Maybe not,” Linda said with false hope.

  There were no articles, because the reporters went first to Principal Applebaum, who assured them that though there had been an incident with a rabid raccoon, the groundskeeper had bravely speared it and killed it. Goat? What did the goat have to do with this? That was simply a Service Animal, similar in this respect to a dog, there to assist a blind child.

  The Principal was an admirable liar.

  But the pressure was building. Six months seemed prohibitively far distant, yet also distressingly close, considering the likely loss of the goat.

  Chapter 9: Revelation

  They were both tired from their night of desperate passion, but the decision was firm: Venus would visit the goat that evening. Then they relaxed and slept for much of the day, holding hands. Because they knew Venus would have to be at her best for this dreaded encounter. It might indeed take her out of the game.

  Ben drove her to the Doctor's house. They kissed one last clinging time, then she got out, while he waited in the car. Venus knew she was impressive; she was dressed conservatively in a skirt and blouse with a high decolletage, sensible low-heeled shoes, minimal makeup, and her hair in a neat ponytail. There was nothing seductive about her; she was just a pretty girl.

  Her time with Ben was slowly making her that way inside as well as outside. He was teaching her discipline and responsibility, as well as an increasing concern for whatever effect her actions had on the world beyond. She was growing up. She liked that.

  She walked up to knock on the door. They had not called ahead; she wanted to surprise them.

  The door opened to show a mature and handsome woman with iron gray hair: the doctor's wife. “Yes?”

  “Please, you don't know me, but I must talk to you. My name is Venus.”

  The woman frowned. “If you are selling something--”

  “I know about the mobile horns.”

  The woman took stock. “I am Melinda Stevenson. Come in, please.”

  And there they were, waiting to see the visitor: Doctor, Girl, and Goat. The doctor's hair matched the color of his wife's tresses, while the girl was a blonde who would be pretty when she grew up, except for the eye bandages that were not fully concealed by her dark glasses. The goat looked like a quite ordinary doe. “Uh, hello,” Venus said, abruptly out of sorts. She somehow had not thought to rehearse this encounter.

  “My husband Sterling, our foster child Caladia, and her Service Goat Nanny,” Melinda said. “This is Venus. She knows about the horns.”

  The air in the room seemed to congeal. “What is your business with us?” Dr. Stevenson asked curtly.

  “Please, this is awkward,” Venus said. “May I sit down?” Which was not what she had intended to say; it just came out.

  Melinda gestured to a chair, and she and the doctor took chairs facing it. The girl stood beside the goat, her hand firmly on its back. Her face was oriented on Venus, and it was oddly as if she were looking at her. But of course she was; she could see via the goat. They had concluded that almost at the outset. It simply was eerie to be the object of that eyeless vision.

  Venus had discussed with Ben how much she should tell them, and they had decided that when she touched the goat it would probably all come out, so she might as well tell the truth up front. “I am the—the associate of a man who is researching about the goat. About Nanny. I'm his—his common law wife. We know that Nanny has remarkable powers, among them the ability to enable Caladia to see, to impose silence about them on others, and to move her horns so that she can stab a dangerous animal if she needs to.” It was getting easier, now that she was in it. “We think that Nanny is an alien creature, but we don't know what she is doing here on Earth. We need to know more, but people don't talk much about the goat.”

  “What man is your husband?” the doctor asked. “For whom is he researching?”

  He was accepting her married status! Venus took an immediate liking for him. “He is Benjamin Hemoth. He--”

  “Behemoth,” the doctor said. “Formerly a newspaper reporter. He did good work. But he was fired.”

  “Because of me,” Venus said candidly. “I was with a teen gang he was investigating and we needed to stop him. I slipped him some of the drug, and it sent hi
m on a rampage. It wasn't his fault. But I couldn't testify on his behalf because, well, I'm officially dead. He—he forgave me and took me in when the gang got blown up. He's a good man, and I love him. I'll do anything for him.” She was saying more than she planned, but she was under tension and it was pouring out on its own.

  “For whom is Ben researching?” the doctor repeated.

  “We don't know. It's just an anonymous voice on the phone, but the pay is good. We think maybe it's a government office. They're interested in aliens.”

  Now the girl spoke. “Do you want to touch Nanny?”

  There it was. “It, the—the thought of it terrifies me. I know that touch can change a person. But it's the only way to learn the truth about her. Because nobody will talk. I've got to join the—the conspiracy of silence. Only I can't promise to be silent myself.”

  The doctor and his wife looked at the girl and goat. It was plainly their decision.

  “They'll both have to touch,” Caladia said. She was only seven years old, but she seemed to be the one in authority here.

  “You mean Ben?” Venus asked, “He can't do that! That's why I'm doing it. To protect him.”

  The girl's dark glasses looked right at her and she smiled, which was unsettling. “We'll see. We know about protecting the ones we love. Now it's your turn.”

  Girl and goat stepped forward together, perfectly coordinated, approaching Venus. They stood before her, within reach. “I need to warn you that there are two kinds of touches,” Callie said. “The innocent one that the children do, and the serious one that only key people do. Yours will be serious. It won't hurt you, but will shake you up. You don't have to do it.” Her evident maturity and certainty remained unsettling. This was a child only in body.

  “But if I don't, we'll never know more about the—about Nanny.”

  “Yes, you won't.” They waited.

  What could she do? Venus reached out unsteadily and touched the goat's neck.

  And rocked back without letting go. It was as if she had touched a high voltage wire, and was being electrocuted. Only it was information that was pouring into her, and attitude. Suddenly she understood the enormous significance of the goat's presence and mission. Her own spying mission paled beside it. This was a contact between worlds, the first interplanetary association, of transcendent importance.

  And she couldn't share it with anyone else. Only with those who already knew, like the doctor and his wife. And—the thought brought the information—Sam the EMT man, the schoolteacher Miss Isabel, and Principal Applebaum. They were the elites, the chosen few, almost like disciples. She was joining an extremely privileged group.

  She felt unworthy.

  “No, you are worthy,” Callie said. “You just don't really know it yet. Now fetch Mr. Hemoth.”

  “But he-- he's not supposed to touch the goat,” Venus protested. “To avoid being compromised. I'm supposed to tell him what I have learned here.” She paused, halfway smiling. “Though it would take years, if I could do it at all. There's just so much!”

  “We understand,” Melinda said. And of course they did. They had touched the goat. “Tell him. He must decide on his own. We'll wait.” She seemed to know how Ben would decide.

  Venus nodded. She got up and left the house. She walked out to the waiting car. She got in beside Ben. “I touched it. I can't tell you. Except to say that they want you, and it won't hurt you.”

  “Kiss me.”

  What? Oh, he wanted to see if she was still the girl he knew. And she was. In fact her feeling for him was unchanged. It was the rest of her mind that had changed, and not in any bad way. She was infinitely more than she had been, and it was wonderful. “I can do better than that.” She kissed him ardently, then hiked up her skirt. “Get your pants down.”

  He did. Sex was awkward in the front seat of a car, but she knew how to do it. She sat on him, facing away, and carefully lowered herself on him as she drew her panties aside. His hands took hold of her breasts under her blouse, and he was in the midst of it. She flexed with him, helping him get there, as she always did. She simply loved having his passion, any time, any way but this time there was special reason: to prove herself in the way he best understood.

  “You haven't changed,” he gasped as he finished.

  She held her place, keeping him in her a while longer. “I have changed, marvelously, but not with respect to you. Now maybe you can believe me when I say you need to touch the goat. It will change you enormously, but you will be glad of it.”

  “The way someone high on that drug is glad of it, until the crash?”

  “No. It's not a drug high—believe me, I know!--and there is no crash. It's just a phenomenal expansion of awareness and understanding. But you don't have to do it. Nobody does. In fact we're near the limit now; there can't be too many people fully connected.”

  “We're?”

  She smiled, though he couldn't see it in this position. “I have joined them, Ben. It's a big part of my identity, now. But I haven't left you. There's no competition, any more than between a lover and a friend.”

  “I don't trust this.”

  “And I don't blame you. I'd feel the same if you had touched and I hadn't. I just—would like you with me on this, because I want what's best for you, and this is it.”

  “Like a religion?”

  “No religion. I never did need religion, and have no use for it now. And I'll stay with you and do whatever you want, regardless, just as always. I love you, Ben, and think I always will. But I'd like it if you touched. It would give us one more shared experience, a huge one.”

  “And the only way I'm going to find out what you're talking about is by touching that goat.”

  “Yes, really. But you sure don't have to. You have to want to.”

  “Would touching that goat enable me to complete my mission?”

  Venus thought about it. “I don't know, Ben. You'd have the information, but you wouldn't be able to tell it to your employer. Just as I can't tell you now.”

  He considered as they got their clothing back in order. “I think I have no choice.”

  “Just trust me on this: it won't hurt you.”

  “I believe you believe that.”

  “One thing about telepathy, which I think this is: there can't be any lying. You know its the truth.”

  “Telepathy by touch?”

  “Yes. The physical touch enables the minds to communicate via the nerves of the body, all at once. It's like electricity, not limited the way words are.”

  “And if I decide instead to drive away from here and never return?”

  “I'll go with you, Ben, and I won't nag you about it. I love you. But I think it's now or never, for the goat.”

  He sighed. “It probably is. I've got to take it while I can, rather than wonder ever after. I'm a reporter; I can't pass up good information. Even if it destroys me.” He got out of the car and started walking to the house.

  Venus hurried to join him. “Believe me, you won't regret it.”

  “I am already regretting it.”

  She smiled. “Not for long.”

  Chapter 10: Dilemma

  Callie was relieved when Venus came back; she wasn't sure she would, because the man might be understandably suspicious. Only people who actually touched Nanny were sure.

  Her companion was a monster of a man, a walking block of muscle with a little black hair on top, but not unfriendly. “This is my husband Benjamin Hemoth,” Venus said. She smiled. “Nicknamed 'Behemoth'; you can see why. I told you about our relationship.”

  “Welcome, Benjamin,” Doctor Stevenson said, rising to shake his hand. “I have read some of your newspaper pieces. You're a sharp observer.”

  “Thank you,” Ben said. “But--”

  “I told them, dear,” Venus said.

  “She did,” the doctor said. “How she caused your firing, but you forgave her. We believe her.” He gestured. “This is my wife, Melinda. Our foster daughter Caladia. And N
anny Goat, who as you surely know, is more than she seems. We have all touched her.”

  “I came to touch her,” Ben said. “I had to. Venus threatened to leave my bed empty if I didn't.”

  “I didn't!” Venus flared.

  “He's teasing you, dear,” Linda said. “Men find such things funny.” She sent a mock dark glance at her husband.

  “But she did make clear that something in her has fundamentally changed,” Ben said, “and that I won't properly understand it unless I join the so-called conspiracy of silence. Since I need information that only the goat can provide, and I love Venus, I am constrained to join her.”

  “Women do have their ways,” Sterling said with the corner of a smile.

  “But you have to want to,” Callie said. “We can't afford to waste key touches.”

  Ben nodded. “It is time for the games to end. I have considered difficult alternatives, and I do want to.”

  Callie and Nanny walked up to him and stood. Ben reached out and patted the goat's neck. And stood frozen for a moment.

  “And now at last I do understand,” he said. “This is so much more than I imagined.”

  “You are our most important contact,” Callie said, reading it from Nanny's assessment. “We have much to discuss.”

  Ben turned to Venus. “I apologize for doubting you, dear.”

  “I knew you'd see the light.”

  Soon they were comfortably seated, except for Nanny, who was most comfortable standing. “I don't want to be unduly pushy,” Ben said. “But I have a reporter's mind, and I tend to orient on anything incomplete or unfinished. I appreciate the way Nanny helps Callie to function, especially by enabling her to see without eyes of her own. There is a tremendous amount of information available here, and now I understand how Nanny is actually a representative of an alien culture that is in the process of surveying habitable planets for life and especially sapience. But there are notable gaps. Where, for example, is the alien spaceship? Who is piloting it? What is their attitude toward Earth?”

  The Doctor and his wife exchanged a glance and shrugged. “We never thought to inquire.”