The Heart of Dog

by Doranna Durgin

  "Very well," Vasi replied, abandoning hope that the Queeb was playing another trick on him. He summoned the beast with a tap of one hand against his leg, watching as it leaped forward with delight in every body part and surging through the bio'face. It sat before him, waiting for instructions.

  Vasi hesitated before giving the 'find' signal with both hand and thought, his uncertainty plain to read in the faint shuddering of his neck flaps, had any of his companions the perception to see it.

  Strangely, the beast hesitated as well, its face lifted to one side as though it studied him, ears perked upwards.

  "Find," Vasi said quietly, sure his voice could carry no emotion to confuse the animal.

  The canid whirled on its haunches and headed for the glacier, looking back over its shoulder as if to be sure they followed. Vasi grabbed his poles and settled his pack, then started moving. The first part of their climb would simple enough. As soon as winter had eased, Ebbet had hired a crew of laborers to blast a ramp up one side of the glacier's face. Gravel and debris, melted clear this spring, formed a roadway from the valley floor to the top of the ice sheet. A good, steady slope. They were all fit and trained for this—the First expected their Triads to be able to cope with fieldwork. Vasi resolutely kept his eyes focused on the happily wagging tail ahead of him, between glances at the instrumentation festooning his left arm and wrist.

  He'd grown up on mountainsides and his every instinct told him this was the wrong time to be on this one. The sooner he and the beast found the suspected Hoveny site, Vasi reasoned coldly, the sooner they could start running for their lives.

  ~~~

  Every Hoveny find on Aeande XII had been made in these mountains, old upthrust sea beds now eroded to reveal their former life as city-lined coasts. Their low altitude was a gift. Even the canid panted comfortably and Medya was able to make a running commentary of their trek into her recorder, much of it laden with cheery-sounding phrases in her own tongue, as though she too found Comspeak inadequate. Vasi thought he might ask her, when they were back in camp. If they got back to camp. The wind had tilted over the peak and was spinning columns of loose white snow, catching sparks from the sunshine. A warning.

  They were now traveling on the ice sheet itself, lint on the mountain's blue-white shoulder. There was a path, beaten into the snow and smoothed by the same crew who had provided the ramp. It saved the Triad's strength for what mattered—if they found it. The orbital and aerial surveys only located possibilities. It was up to him, Vasi realized as he moved one foot carefully ahead of the other, never trusting a path he hadn't made himself.

  And the canid. The beast wore boots on its feet as well today, a necessity as the sun's warmth softened the snow into a glue prone to stick and accumulate on any surface. It had only taken one such excursion without the boots to prove their value to both canid and Vasi, who'd had to use his bare hands to melt the hardened ice balls trapped between the beast's sore and bleeding footpads. The bio'face had shared the discomfort—and the easing of it.

  The discomfort hadn't slowed the beast. When on the hunt, the canid was determined, Vasi had to admit. Its keen senses of smell and hearing were their guide, not as accurate or sensitive as instrumentation, but exquisitely more discerning. Humans had finally convinced the First that their beasts were able to distinguish true Hoveny ruins, with their characteristic construction materials, patterns of decay, and faint sounds of hibernating technology, from those of other civilizations.

  He wasn't convinced the damn dog could find anything but trouble.

  Vasi flexed his six-fingered hands around the handles of his walking poles. He should be towing a sled himself, laden with sensors. He'd packed one this morning, but Ebbet had dismissed the need for such equipment, along with three years of Vasi's training and skill, with one flick of a gloved tentacle. The scruffy beast, the Queeb asserted, was all they'd need. Since Professor Emeritis Y Ebbet of the 114th Siring by Raken was the being with a reputation to risk, Vasi could hardly protest.

  Yet. The beast might work for food pellets and carry itself, Vasi thought bitterly, but if it failed to locate anything worthwhile, he'd protest, in writing, with enough adjectives to make his feelings clear even in Comspeak.

  They walked, single-file, the canid leading and Vasi behind, for the better part of another hour. The Tidik divided his attention between the clouds skittering by overhead and the crosshairs on the locator strapped to his right wrist, which would let him know when they were standing on the suspected Hoveny site.

  Suddenly, Vasi's pole went deeper into the snow than he'd expected, and he pulled up short. The beast stopped as well, head cocked towards him. A hand signal and the canid eased down to its belly, chin on its paws. It seemed glad of the rest.

  "Are we there?"

  "Don't move," Vasi snapped, raising his arm to bar both his companions. He took a step back, then another, before probing the path ahead ever—so—gently with his extended pole.

  Snow crumpled away, as if he'd touched some area of rot. The resulting hole was small, but intensely dark, promising depth. "Crevasse," the Tidik said tersely. The path continued beyond, its surface unmarked and innocent.

  There wasn't talk of turning back. Instead, the Triad pulled out safety lines and tied themselves together at intervals long enough to prevent all three from dropping into the same hidden crack. Even the canid was leashed. When ready, Vasi signaled it to move forward and they continued, going around the crevasse, testing every footstep. The Tidik and Queeb planted their walking poles deeply into the snow as emergency supports each time Medya, their heaviest and so most at—risk member, followed them across any chancy area.

  Midday, but the air temperature was plummeting. Vasi didn't need instruments to tell him so—he watched the frosty beard forming along the canid's jaw and a single icicle grow from the dribbling of its moist nose. When he felt it shiver, he halted their procession to adjust the warming rings strapped around its middle and chest. Its natural covering was useless in this environment, little more than short wiry hair, white with random blotches of black too small to soak up appreciable radiation from the sun. The beast, for all its lack of brain matter, appeared to understand and stood patiently, tail swaying side-to-side.

  "We should be almost there," Medya mumbled around the nutrient tube stuck between her teeth. The cold couldn't touch the Brill through those layers of blubber and thick outer skin, but she suffered from the demands of steady movement, far preferring quick bursts of activity followed by naps. Ebbet was almost impossible to discern within his bulky thermal suit, with its broad faceplate instead of the goggles worn by his two-footed and two-eyed companions. He bounced impatiently from foot to foot. Protected like this, even an old Queeb like Ebbet could outmarch them all.

  "We'd better be," Vasi said without taking his eyes from the cliff in front of them. They'd turned to parallel the leading edge of the glacier, cutting across what would someday be a valley if the climate of this world continued to warm as predicted. "I don't want to move any closer to those—" he used his pole to point.

  Overhangs of snow draped each dip and ledge along the cliff's face, beautiful and ominous. The wind played with them, pretending to carve but really building the edges out further and further. Gravity would ultimately win, Vasi knew. Best not be anywhere downslope when that happened.

  "Storm, avalanche, or crevasse," Medya laughed. "You suggesting a bet, Sai Vasilo, or just being your cheery self?"

  The Tidik felt the flaps on either side of his neck rising with fury. "You mock me," he accused, wishing his voice was anything but calm, so the others would for once realize how much he meant what he said. "I know mountains as you do not." The canid made a strange noise—a growl deep in its throat, as if agreeing with Vasi and sharing his temper. It could, perhaps, through the bio'face. An odd ally.

  And, strangely, one the Queeb respected. He bent over to look at the canid, then straightened to direct his faceplate in Vasi's direction. "My apologies, Fin
der Vasilo," Ebbet said. "Yes, I'm aware of your expertise. It was one of the reasons I requested you for my Triad." Before Vasi could do more than blink, the Queeb continued. "The spring avalanches will bury this potential find, but I've no wish to join it. Do you feel we have time to find it and plant our markers, or should we leave—now? You decide."

  Medya made an unhappy sound but said nothing more.

  Vasi studied the peak. The wind still whipped the clouds up and away, though he didn't doubt that could change on an instant. A cautious being wouldn't be on this glacier today. Cautious beings didn't make major finds. "Another hour, no more," he decided, splitting the difference between his common sense and his desire. "After that, this site will have to wait until melt."

  ~~~

  Vasi knew they were close by the jolt of excitement through the bio'face. He signaled Ebbet and Medya to hold position, giving the canid more leash as it began coursing back and forth over the same area. The tech manual had described this behavior, but he hadn't seen it before. His own thrill as they closed on their prey would have been just as obvious to another Tidik. Vasi couldn't control how his frills opened wide, venting pheromones of hunt and happiness. The canid wagged its tail as though sensing his reaction, but didn't stop its feverish examination of what seemed only a slight bulge in the glacier's surface.

  "Could be a rock outcrop under the ice, something hard enough to force it up like this," Ebbet said, his voice rising as though urging the Finder to contradict him.

  Vasi consulted the one sensor he'd been able to bring, a detector discriminating enough to reveal if a vein of ore or refined metal lay beneath them. "No," he obliged, unable to make his own Comspeak anything but flat and even. "Whatever's down there isn't natural. I'm detecting traces of Barsium III." He didn't need to remind his Triad that the substance was rare in this part of space, and favored by the Hoveny in their structures.

  The canid didn't need confirmation. Its tail whipped madly back and forth, surely chilling the blood flowing through the appendage, then the beast rolled in the snow as if this could somehow smear the scent it so adored into its fur—a quirk of its nature Vasi was quite familiar with, following those too-ripe fish parts thoughtfully left outside his sleeping quarters.

  Still, ridiculous as the beast looked, staggering joyfully to its feet, Vasi longed to express his own satisfaction as clearly. The Queeb and Brill, patting one another wherever they could reach with rather incoherent shouts of joy, both took turns to look at him as though waiting for some sign. Vasi sighed inwardly. If they really looked at him, if they smelled the air as even the beast knew to do, they'd know this was the happiest moment of his life.

  He tried. "I am honored to be present at such a discovery, Professor Emeritus. Thank you again for your faith in me," Vasi paused then added honestly, "and for the opportunity to operate the bio'face."

  If the damn dog had helped find a new Hoveny site, he owed it that.

  ~~~

  "Grasis' Glory." Medya turned her great head almost completely around on her shoulders to gauge how far they'd already paced away from Ebbet and their sleds, trying to locate the outer boundaries of the site. "This wide? Are you sure, Finder?"

  Vasi studied the canid. He'd given it food and water, and as much rest as any of them dared in this place of hazard. It was weary, yet its willingness came through the bio'face, a willingness to strive as long as he, Vasi, the present center of the beast's small universe, asked for the effort. "He's sure," the Tidik answered, gesturing to how the canid's nose hovered about the snow, nostrils dripping so the hairy lip below remained crusted with ice. Its small body pulled on the leash, as though impatient for them to follow.

  Medya followed, step by ponderous step, watching, as he did, for any sign of another crevasse. "You realize if your beast is accurate, Vasi," she said with a cheery wheeze, "this must be one Grasis-sucking ruin."

  Vasi didn't try to puzzle out her reference. The canid had paused, nose up and working at the air. Then its unreadable face turned to his and he felt a sudden, formless anxiety through their link. "Something's wrong," he warned without hesitation, his neck and chin flaps snapping closed with dread.

  Time seemed to stop and listen to the words, as if as frozen as the wasteland of ice stretching on all sides. It hardly budged as Vasi whirled around, somehow sensing the direction of their danger. It scarcely started again before the cliff shrugged off its winter load of snow and ice, sending the avalanche towards them as a wall of shattered white.

  ~~~

  There was a saying. His father had been a mountaineer and used to drill this saying into a younger Vasi, day after day, trip after trip, upslope or downslope. The present-day version fought to remember it in the darkness, spitting out snow to mouth the words: "Mountains get so big because they eat fools."

  Fool? Maybe. Deaf and blind, but not mountain—food. Not yet. Vasi struggled to focus. First, assess himself. Nothing broken, but he was completely disoriented. Buried, but he'd instinctively curled his arms over his face and ducked away from the onrush of snow. His arms had some room to move. He could breathe.

  Joy!!!!! The bio'face filled with warmth as his return to full consciousness must have reached the canid. Warmth and pain. Vasi pushed aside snow until his left hand could reach his right wrist, fumble for the leash attached to it. He found it and pulled, dismayed as the tension disappeared. A clamp or the leash itself had given way. Waves of imposed joy and pain and fear alternated in his head, but he didn't have the heart to scold the poor creature. There was comfort for both in knowing they weren't alone.

  Comfort, but what he really needed was to know which way was up. His locator couldn't help him. If anything, it added to the confusion as the indicator lights reflected from the snow, overwhelming any dim natural light that might penetrate and give the Tidik a clue where to start digging. He fought away panic, the real enemy. His environment suit would protect him from the cold. There was a distress beacon built into it. He could feel its vibration against his ribs, so it must have been activated by the force of the avalanche. But he couldn't stay buried like this, waiting for some possible rescue. He had to get out, find the others.

  Hunt. Find. Not the words, but sensations rippling through the bio'face. Vasi smelled his own fear and tried to control it, concentrating on the link, sending back what he hoped was encouragement. Could the beast be free? Its body was small and light. It might have floated to the top of the torrent of snow.

  Top. Vasi's mouth was dry. He bit viciously on his own tongue, tasting the sweet flatness of blood. He kept his lips closed and didn't swallow. After a moment or two, he parted his lips very slightly. The warm liquid flowed out the left side of his mouth and over his cheek, stinging the sensitive tissue lining his neck flaps. So. Vasi reached to his right, and started to dig his way to the surface, refusing to doubt.

  Minutes or hours? He couldn't be sure without checking his wrist chrono, but didn't give into that impulse. It would take as long as it took. One gloved hand reached up to carve deeper into what was now a tunnel the width of his shoulders, the other taking the snow and carefully pushing it back and under him, patting it firm. He inched his way further up. Steadily, patiently. He would defeat the mountain.

  He didn't battle alone. The bio'face surged with another's determination. Somewhere above him, two small paws were churning through the snow, two more shoving it back and away. Exhaustion, fear, pain. Echoes of his own or the beast's? It no longer mattered; both were sustained by their common need, to reach each other. They were brothers, bound by more than the device in Vasi's head.

  The Tidik had almost fallen asleep, though still digging, when a flare of joy roused him. There was a pressure then a sudden chill on his right hand. As he realized what had happened, he cursed happily.

  The damn dog had stolen his glove.

  ~~~

  Finder Sai Vasilo Aris pulled his feet free one at a time, and fell rather than sat down, his lap immediately filled with writhing canid. Fortu
nately, its paws stayed away from the more sensitive parts of his anatomy. Vasi hugged the creature to his chest to still it, then looked around himself, trying to understand what he saw.

  It was as if the glacier had been stirred by Medya's giant god. The sunlight struck at chunks of blistered ice and shattered rock protruding through the snow, sank into lines and drifts of blood—red dust. Nothing remained of their equipment or the trail. Nothing of Ebbet or Medya.

  There was something else. Almost absently, Vasi noted the gleaming bronze of what could be the tip of a pillar or corner of a wall, close enough to touch. The Hoveny site Ebbet had so feared losing beneath the avalanche had, with the perversity of the mountain, been revealed instead.

  He paid it no further attention, pushing the weight of the canid from his lap in order to stagger to his feet. A hand signal. "Find them," Vasi ordered desperately. "Find them." He did his best to picture the other two members of their Triad for the beast, unsure if that type of information could pass across their link.

  The beast stared up at him, head tilted to one side in apparent confusion. It was panting heavily, the warming rings intact, but blood streaked its white flanks. There was more wherever its worn front paws stepped; blood also stained the snow it had dug away to save him. He asked the impossible again, Vasi thought with despair, and didn't even know how to phrase the question.

  His neck flaps opened with stress, pumping useless pheromones of hunt, need, anxiety into the frigid air. "I can't find them myself," he pleaded, nonsensically, as if the beast could understand the colorless words.

  Its nostrils worked at something. Vasi stared, then relaxed his flaps further, the way he would to communicate his urgency to one of his own. "Find them," he whispered, repeating the hand signal.