by John Varley
“So is it morning outside? How long have I been in here?”
“Almost twenty-four hours.”
That was longer than I had ever been away from Sherlock. I was so worried about him I could hardly think straight.
“Hey, I’m going out of my mind with boredom. Every prison movie I ever saw, the inmates get to leave their cells for exercise now and then. How about it? A deck of cards so I can play solitaire. Or you can join me if you want and we can play gin rummy.”
“I told you, this isn’t a prison.”
“Well, a cage by any other name . . . come on. A book or two? A screen so I can watch old movies?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
* * *
—
What he could do was a dilapidated player. It wouldn’t pick up any current shows or news, but the crystal had several hundred thousand movies and shows in the archive. There were even a few I hadn’t seen.
I began counting off the days with hash marks, in the time-honored manner of jailbirds everywhere. I made a mark on the wall every time breakfast was served.
Soon I had fifteen marks on the wall.
The player saved me from going crazy. I unrolled the screen and started going through the menu. I looked at a lot of jailbreak movies, and a lot of black-and-white noir. I had seen many of them before.
In the film of Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely, Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe is drugged and locked up in a private sanatorium in Bay City. It is run by a beefy broad named Frances Anthor. Marlowe clocks her a good one with his fist; it does him no good.
But someone gets careless, and Marlowe staggers out of the place through a scene of violent chaos.
Could I do the same? I still had no idea of what was beyond that door, but I might never find out if I just lay back and took it all.
What Marlowe does is overpower the attendant. So one evening—it had to be evening, Tom had told me the entree was pasta primavera—I waited by the side of the door and when it opened, I upended the tray out of Tom’s arms and up into his face.
Tom looked surprised and hurt, and then I was past him and out the door.
He might have been careless, but he was a lot quicker than I had expected. I got one short look at a long corridor with doors opening to either side, then I was overcome with what must have looked like an epileptic seizure. I’d seen them in the movies. I never passed out, but I was totally helpless. I watched as Tom pocketed the taser, then he leaned over and shook his finger at me. He said nothing but dragged me back to the room. There were noodles all over his face and chest.
Breakfast the next morning was cold oatmeal and a stale bun. It went like that for three days, then he relented with a really great Caesar salad and roasted veggies. Tom just couldn’t resist being a good cook.
I marked off twenty-five days.
* * *
—
Prison routine can be so stultifying that when something changes, it can throw you for a loop.
One morning, Tom showed up to collect my breakfast tray and there was someone with him. Call him Dick. He was enormous, and carried what looked like an electric shock stick, colloquially known as a cattle prod. He slapped it into his palm a few times.
“Are you going to give me any trouble, Mr. Bach?” he asked.
“Not a bit,” I said. “In fact, we’re going to be friends, so you can call me Chris.”
Dick looked at Tom.
“Is he trying to be funny?”
“He t’inks he’s a private gumshoe, always makin’ wit’ da wisecracks. A wiseguy, dat’s what he is.”
Okay, Tom had boned up on the old lingo as a counterattack to my attempts at sarcastic tough-guy dialogue. Donuts were sinkers. Coffee was joe. Milk was moo juice. Toast was a raft. Butter was axle grease. I found it as annoying as he must have found my lame bits of dialogue. What he didn’t know was that I acted the tough guy so I could almost convince myself that I wasn’t scared.
“No, no trouble,” I said, quietly.
“Turn around, face the wall, hands behind your back.”
He cuffed me and slipped a hood over my head. I tried to control my breathing, but the heartbeat was racing away. Each of them took me by an elbow and walked me out of the room. It all had the air of being marched to an execution. I hoped that was just my imagination running away with me.
Then we stopped, and they took the hood off. I looked all around. I managed to look behind me and saw a big air lock. I knew it was the standard sort used for cargo on freighter ships. So I had been right. My cell had been aboard a ship.
But where we were now was airtight, too, which means stuff had been built right up to the side of the huge ship, tight as a barnacle on an ocean liner. And I recognized where I was. It was an open plaza in Irontown.
The fact that they didn’t care that I saw the ship or the Irontown space scared me. If a kidnapper lets you see his face, it probably means you are not going to survive the experience. I had worried about that during the twenty-five days of my imprisonment; but Tom was such an amiable, harmless-seeming guy that I had a hard time taking it seriously. Now, with the appearance of Dick, I wasn’t so sure.
But what really scared me had little to do with what was happening now. I recognized this place though it was much changed. This was the mall where I had been burned to a crisp. That realization weakened my knees so much that Dick had to catch me and get me back to my feet.
They took me across the open space, bustling with people. We approached a small restaurant with delicate twisted-metal chairs and tables outside. There was a lovely woman seated at one of the tables. People were coming and going, asking questions and getting quick, brusque answers. There was a hot-fudge sundae on the table beside her, and she took a spoonful as I got nearer, then glanced up at me and smiled.
I saw the sign on the wall behind her. Aunt Hazel’s Ice Cream Emporium.
The woman got to her feet, then she looked alarmed. I heard a commotion behind me and turned around to see what was happening.
A pack of twenty or so dogs was coming at us, full speed, growling. In the lead was Sherlock.
eighteen
SHERLOCK
Spike said And he did that.
Lassie said
I said And I did that.
Rin Tin Tin said
(This will be a little difficult to explain.
(Sherlock limped deeper into Irontown, dazed and confused, though the bleeding had stopped. He doesn’t remember a lot from that time until he stumbled onto a pack of wild dogs.
(It could only happen in Irontown. In the rest of the world, runaway or abandoned dogs and other pets are quickly rounded up by bobbies and either returned to their owners, adopted out, or euthanized. But the Heinleiners and other Irontown residents were so dedicated to the idea of minding one’s own business that so long as a dog didn’t bite someone or crap in the public walkway or make a nuisance of herself in some other way, they let her alone. They even set out food and water for these feral animals. Individual dogs would often bond with a human who treated them kindly and leave the street life. But others chose to remain wild and free. The pack Sherlock encountered was composed of such animals. But there was one crucial difference. Many of them were CECs.
(Sherlock has seldom socialized at all, and never with another CEC. He was hardly prepared for what that was like. By interfacing with the computers they were able to communicate in a way that was sort of like telepathy. And it presented some real challenges for me, as the interpreter.
(Obviously they did not speak to each other in words. But they were able to convey ideas and, especially, feelings in a way that no dogs had ever done before. They could share fairly complex information with each other. As an exampl
e, when Sherlock first found the pack, they saw that he was hurting badly. The alpha, αSpike, a Dalmatian, and the rest of the pack knew where there was a veterinarian who would treat dogs. They told Sherlock this, guided him to the right place, and scratched on the door. He collapsed on the floor once he was inside.
(The vet’s name was Sorenson, and she knew that some of the αSpike pack were CECs. She had some experience of them and was able to learn from αSpike that Sherlock had a master, but was separated from him. The dogs were not able to make her understand that Chris Bach had been kidnapped and was in trouble, but she did understand that Sherlock did not want to find a new home. He just wanted to be treated and released. She agreed, treated and bound up his wounds, injected him with some substance that energized him considerably, gave him a Bowser Bow-wow Bacon-flavored Doggie Snack, and sent him on his way.
(And the great search for αChris was under way.—PC)
αSpike said
I said
αSpike said
I stayed on my back. I said
αSpike said
I said
With that, I was accepted into the pack.
* * *
—
I was happy that the vet, Dr. Sorenson, took care of my stabbing wound. She also put some medicine on my other scrapes and bruises. Then I departed with αSpike and the rest of our pack.
I did not know I could talk to other dogs. The voices and pictures in my head had always been cold and without feeling. But when I was with the pack, voices and feelings were warm and welcoming.
It was a good pack. But I could only talk to some of this pack.
αSpike was the pack alpha, and I submitted to him without question. I did not want to fight any battles with αSpike or anyone else. All I wanted to do was look for αChris. Also, although I am a very smart dog, I could see at once that αSpike was even smarter. αSpike could count to one two three four five . . . and up to twenty. That is how many dogs were in the pack. Twenty. That is a large pack, I think.
Not all the pack were smart like me. Here are the smart ones:
αSpike, a Dalmatian.
Sarah, a golden retriever. She was the alpha bitch. (Sherlock’s word, again, and I will not use it again.—PC)
Fritzi, a Doberman female.
βRin Tin Tin, the beta male.
Lassie, a collie. When I sniffed her ass I could tell she had recently been in heat, and was now going to have some puppies.
Oskar, a Rottweiler who was always looking for a chance to challenge αSpike for pack leader. I steered clear of him.
Then there were the dumb ones. These ordinary dogs hung out with us but they were not a part of our plans. They were a Chihuahua named Pedro, a Papillon named Henri, a Jack Russell terrier female named Jackie, and an Irish setter named Colleen. There were others but I do not know their names. Jackie and Pedro were always yapping around and making nuisances of themselves until Oskar snapped at them. That would shut them up for a little while. But they could not help themselves, and were soon running underfoot again. I have learned that a word for dogs like that is “high-strung.”
Our names came from our masters, like my name of Sherlock. I was named Sherlock by αChris. But most of the other smart dogs did not come from happy homes like I did. αSpike and Lassie and Rin Tin Tin and Oskar had escaped from a place called a laboratory, where humans had been doing experiments on them. I do not really understand what that means, but I do understand that the way of making dogs like me supersmart came from laboratories. I think that that is why αSpike is supersupersmart. They did something to him.
* * *
—
Lassie was the CEC dog who had a good clock in her head. She knew what time it was. She knew when we could find good things to eat.
Lassie said
Fritzi said
The others all agreed that Tony’s five-cheese ravioli with clam sauce was very good food.
Lassie said
The rest of the pack agreed that they were hungry, too.
αSpike said
Rin Tin Tin led the way. I learned that he had the best map in his head. I had no map in my head because we were in Irontown. But as we moved through Irontown, a map grew in my head. One day I might be able to find my way to places like Tony’s trattoria by myself.
The pack found our way to an alley that ran behind Tony’s trattoria. There were bins of garbage that smelled interesting. Tony came out the back door with a big bucket in one hand and a stack of steel dishes in the other. He set down the bucket and then he scratched αSpike behind the ears. αSpike tolerated this. I felt αSpike’s feelings, and I understood that αSpike did not like humans very much, but he knew how to get along with them. Then Tony started setting the dishes down.
Tony said, “I scraped all the food folks left on their plates into the bucket. Lots of ’em tonight. Plus a lot of stale bread and some meat that I can’t sell. But you ladies and tramps don’t mind, do you?”
He scraped the food into the dishes and went back inside.
αSpike went to a bowl and started to eat. We held back, then slowly approached the other bowls. The alpha always eats first, all dogs know that. But stupid little Pedro tried to eat from αSpike’s dish. Spike growled at him and nipped his ear. Pedro squeaked like a little mouse and ran away.
After Oskar had eaten, I sniffed at what was left in the bowl, and ate that. But a few minutes later, it came back up.
Sarah said
I said that I was, and she ate it.
* * *
—
The pack had a den where we could all spend the night. It was near a heating duct, so it was warm. I liked the warm air. It made my sores feel better. We huddled together, the smarties in one group and the dummies in another. I told them that I had not run away from αChris, my master.
I told them that I loved my master and that I wanted to find him.
I told them about all the good things αChris had done for me. I told them about being a private detective and about how αChris and I were partners. I told them how we went looking for people.
The smarties from the laboratory were very impressed. The smarties who had escaped from bad masters were also impressed. None of them had ever had a master who cared for them. None of them had ever had anything to do except look for food.
The laboratory smarties had grown up without the love of a human. They wished they knew what it felt like to be partners with a human. I tried to tell them. The laboratory smarties had grown up in small cages. They were smart, and so they were bored. There was nothing for them to do. αSpike was supersupersmart, and so he was even more bored than the others. He knew that even the dummies in the pack were bored if they did not have something interesting to do.
αSpike said
The other smarties agreed this would be a good thing to do. They were ready to go out sniffing at once.
αSpike said
Everyone agreed that this should be so.
Spike said and chase some balls.>
Everyone sat up and was excited at the idea of chasing balls. I was excited, too, but I knew I was still too sore to chase balls.
In the park, someone who loved dogs had set up a machine that threw balls far across the green grass in the park. I have learned that these balls were called tennis balls. I watched my pack chasing balls. When they captured them, they brought them back and dropped them back into the machine.
It looked like fun. But I wanted to find αChris. That was all I could think about. I hoped the game would end soon.
The game did end, and Lassie told us where the next good place to find food was. I do not remember where it was, but we knocked over some bins to get the food. I ate some bread with bits of cheese and ham, and I did not vomit this time.
* * *
—
Later we went back to our den.
Spike said
Oskar said
I told them . . .
(This is probably the part that is the least translatable of all the things I heard from Sherlock. Even dogs can’t describe to each other how one specific human smells. But Sherlock was able to say quite a few things that were part of Chris’s smell. Sherlock said it was a “shitload” of smells. None of them meant anything to me and they won’t mean anything to you, but as before, telling me how Irontown smelled, Sherlock would not just skip over it because of my scent-blindness. And amazingly, if Sherlock is to be believed, he managed to communicate a pretty good idea of the scent the pack should be sniffing for.—PC)
The days went by beyond my counting. They went by beyond even αSpike’s counting, and αSpike can count to twenty.
Irontown was bigger than αChris had known. We sniffed out many humans who smelled something like αChris, but every time one of the pack would bring me to smell him, it was not αChris.
The map inside my head grew and grew. We went to the edges of Irontown, and beyond into the mapped world. This was dangerous since there were dogcatchers when we left Irontown. Little Pedro was not quick enough to escape them. One day I looked back and saw him being picked up by a female human in a uniform. He was barking and barking and barking, but it did not do him any good.
