“No, Mr. President. Not at all.... Well, actually ... Oh, look! They've responded!"
As motionless as granite, three Grand Tetons in a bunker, they stared at the screen as the message came in. It said: AT THE REQUEST OF A SPECIES THAT WE HAVE ENTERED INTO A MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH, WE ARE ELIMINATING A THREAT TO THE FUTURE BALANCE OF POWER IN THIS PART OF THE GALAXY. YOUR SPECIES, NOT REPRESENTING A THREAT, IS NOT BEING EXTERMINATED. PREDICTIONS INDICATE THAT YOUR SPECIES WILL NOT EXPAND BEYOND THIS STAR SYSTEM, DUE TO ITS SELF-DESTRUCTIVE NATURE. FURTHERMORE, WE ARE BOUND BY INTERSTELLAR CODES THAT FORBID THE TOTAL ELIMINATION OF ANY SPECIES THAT HAS ALREADY ACHIEVED FULL SENTIENCE.
OUR CONTRACTED TASK IS THE COMPLETE ELIMINATION OF YOUR CANINE SPECIES. PREDICTIONS INDICATE THAT, IF UNCHECKED, THEY WILL ACHIEVE FULL SENTIENCE AND INTELLIGENCE IN 178,000 OF YOUR YEARS—SOONER IF ASSISTED BY HUMANS. PREDICTIONS ALSO INDICATE THEY WOULD THEN RAPIDLY SPREAD THROUGHOUT THE GALAXY AND DESTROY THE PLANS OF THOSE WE REPRESENT.
Harrison felt an unannounced and unwelcome creaking in the fuzzier recesses of his harried mind and stared at Blix suspiciously. No. No, not even this loon would jeopardize his job by writing a fake response as some type of perverse joke. It had to be the real thing.
He shook his head. “Contracted assassins. Mercenaries. Sent across interstellar space in a preemptive attack to kill our dogs? Preposterous. I can't address the nation with a story like this and then find out it's wrong. It will be tough enough to do even if I'm certain it's true. How can we be sure they aren't still interested in wiping us out?"
Blix was frowning, staring at his computer screen, and didn't seem to hear the question, but Kimmells answered readily. “Well, sir, one thing that's puzzled us from the start is the lack of damage. It's—"
“Lack of damage?"
“Yes, sir. What I mean is the low amount of damage with each individual incineration, not the total number of attacks. You see, obliterating that much solid matter instantly should cause tremendous heat and an enormous shock wave. But most of the heat and force is being dissipated, somehow. It's as if they're actually trying to protect us. Sir."
“And the planet,” said Blix, while still puzzling over the alien message. “Otherwise, 200 million of such energy releases would almost certainly devastate the Earth."
“200 million?” Harrison asked with a shudder.
“Yes. The number of dogs on Earth. But that's a very rough guess. It's likely more. I could—"
Harrison jumped from his chair. The latest bizarre parade of facts steamrolling its way through his mind had just coalesced into bleak understanding. He ran to his speechwriter. “No time to prepare a speech. Just give me notes. I need to be on the air in two minutes. I need to warn everyone to stay away from their dogs!"
Staring at his president with an expression customarily reserved for a lunatic sporting a weapon, his mouth stayed open, unmoving. There was a tremor in the eyes as he tried to keep them focused on his boss. But after Harrison sat down and explained the situation he relaxed (somewhat) and they quickly started working out what to say.
“I understand some dog owners can be a bit fanatic,” Harrison said. “Do you think they'll all listen to me? Or will some refuse, hugging their dogs into oblivion in some sort of defiant act of devotion and self-sacrifice?"
“I really wouldn't know, Mr. President. I'm a cat person."
“Yeah. Me too,” Harrison said, contemplating whether it had been a mistake not to get a dog within the last couple years. Suddenly a new worry descended upon him.
He scurried back to Kimmells and Blix. “We need to at least attempt to change their minds. We can't just let them destroy our dogs while we sit and do nothing.” No longer worried about the destruction of humanity (or his own survival), he was now fighting back irrepressible and prophetic images of enraged dog ex-owners marching on the White House for the next eighteen months.
Blix jumped up. “I'm so glad you said that, Mr. President! There's no way dogs can achieve sapience in a mere 178,000 years. They're just, well—no disrespect intended—they're just not that smart."
They sent a formal protest: there had to be an error—dogs could not possibly develop such highly evolved intelligence so fast.
This gave Harrison the opportunity, in his speech to the nation, to pronounce that he was personally attempting everything humanly possible to stop the alien assault diplomatically, as we had no chance of stopping them militarily.
But the bulk of his speech was simply an appeal to get everyone to put immediate distance between themselves and their dogs. Due to the urgency of the situation, he had not even spoken with other world leaders yet. Lives had to be saved, and his first responsibility was to the citizens of the United States.
That was a good touch, he thought. Of course, his subordinates were communicating with every government in the world, but that was a small detail better left out at a time when he would need all the political capital he could get.
He poured empathy into his speech. He knew their pain, but this was the only way. He felt the intense sorrow and depth of their sacrifice, but every dog owner must act immediately to protect their lives and the lives of their children. Like a mighty redwood that has had the core of its trunk hollowed out by cruel forces of nature, yet still lives, we must do our duty; we as a nation must soldier on.
No sooner had he finished his speech than a message came back from the aliens: WE HAVE MADE NO ERROR IN PREDICTION. THE TIME INTERVAL STATED IS ACCURATE.
After deliberating, they sent a new message—one designed to give a response of more than thirteen words: “Our data on evolutionary development, canine brain capacity, and intelligence levels suggest it would take more than ten times as long as you state for dogs to evolve as you claim. How do you account for such rapid development?"
Soon the answer came: YOUR PRIMITIVE EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES AND ASSUMPTIONS ARE INACCURATE. THE MANIFEST CAPACITY OF A SPECIES TO LEARN IS NOT AS IMPORTANT A FACTOR IN LONG-TERM DEVELOPMENT AS A WILLINGNESS TO LEARN.NO OTHER SPECIES ON YOUR PLANET EXHIBITS AS MUCH EAGERNESS TO LEARN AS YOUR CANINE SPECIES DOES. THIS SHOULD BE EVIDENT TO YOU BASED ON THEIR ENTHUSIASM FOR DOING TRICKS, STUNTS, OR OTHER TASKS, NO MATTER HOW CONDESCENDING OR ANNOYING. IT IS THIS CAPACITY, ALONG WITH ALARMINGLY PROLIFIC BREEDING, THAT WOULD HAVE SWIFTLY PROPELLED THEM TO FULL SENTIENCE AND DOMINATION OF THIS ARM OF THE GALAXY.
That would have swiftly propelled them.... Harrison contemplated the bleak finality of those words. He wrestled with what to do, even as he puzzled over how they knew so much about us. TV, no doubt. TV signals blabbing about us every day, heading omni-directionally into space. The same TV he repeatedly told his wife and nanny to keep the kids from watching. His kids, who were so proficient at avoiding their schoolwork. His offspring, his progeny, who apparently represented no threat to the cosmos.
Over the next several days, he tried in vain to persuade them to cease. They refused. He tried to get a delay, time to negotiate or come up with other options. They again refused; time was of the essence in their contract with the species they represented. In short order, all dogs were eliminated from the surface of the Earth, along with wolves, jackals, and coyotes. Then, as promptly as the aliens came, they left.
* * * *
The devastation and terror created by the attack caused a worldwide economic slump. It was sharp and severe, though not as great as some in decades past. But this one felt deeper. The emotional loss, many would even say the spiritual loss, was unmitigated. The planet had been violated.
There was vitriolic anger toward the nameless aliens, who came to be known as the Butchers. Those who mourned the loss of their companions could not strike back at them and were even cheated out of the opportunity to have a physical image to curse, a face to hate.
Numerous incidents of unprovoked attacks on cat owners and an increase in wars around the globe seemed to prove the Butchers’ claims about our species. Mankind did indeed know how to be self-destructive.
In the U.S., which had
been particularly hard hit, the human population gave its best shot at returning to normal. They sought out ways to carry on.
After statues, monuments, and other shrines had been lovingly erected in memory of their pets, people turned to other sources of companionship. They adopted turtles, hamsters, parrots, and pigs. Many prior dog owners got cats—and were forced to make the necessary adjustments. Others took in raccoons, ferrets, otters, and even skunks ... after prudent alterations had been made. They even did it despite laws to the contrary. And laws were changed. Rapidly. The times cried out for change (as much as any increment of time could possibly be expected to cry out for anything), and even old politicians can learn new tricks when forced to do so.
By the time the Earth pirouetted its way around the Sun again to the spot in its orbit we call Easter, the intense demand for rabbits was overwhelming. But, as fortune would have it, the rabbits complied enthusiastically. Rabbits always do.
Many former dog owners, with ceaseless devotion, endeavored to teach their new cats any number of tricks. The cats proved to be wholly uncooperative, some even disdainful.
Others had better luck. Crows were said to be able to learn a few words, and some would even play fetch with marbles or small rubber balls. One man from Minnesota trained his parrot to sing the Star-Spangled Banner. In defense of his bird and its rendition, he said, “Well, he ain't perfect, but he sure is better than some people I've heard sing it."
No one could argue with that.
Otters, it was found, would hang their heads out of moving car windows just like dogs, and—as a bonus—they could learn a wide array of tricks. Being the providential creatures that they were, they became popular overnight.
Pigs could be taught to wake their owners (albeit with a limited degree of finesse) at just the right time of the morning, and altered skunks were discovered to be amazingly affectionate. They also had the side benefit of scaring off burglars and pesky door-to-door salesmen.
But parrots would not fetch the morning paper, and pigs were sadly lost when it came to the finer points of how to retrieve a stick. Cats could not be trained to bark in an attempt to frighten the mailman, and skunks would not bring slippers to their owners. Despite mankind's best efforts, life was not the same.
Very few people blamed President Harrison for the disaster, and he received high marks for many eloquent, consoling speeches. But when November rolled around, they voted him out of office in one of the most crushing landslides in modern American history.
He was trounced by the junior senator from Missouri, a father of four, who had been the proud owner of a Malamute and two Dachshunds.
* * * *
On the morning of January 16th, President Harrison descended in the elevator along with four Secret Service agents, whose protests he had overridden by coming here. But for now, he was still president, and they still worked for him.
“It's safe, guys. Relax.” Carefree lately, having fully accepted his defeat, he smiled at them as they got off on the bottom floor. But they weren't much for smiling back.
It wasn't in their nature.
Major Parker, head of the local operation, greeted him. “Glad you could make it, Mr. President."
“Oh, I couldn't pass up this opportunity, Dane. It was now or never for me."
They passed through four blast doors, each one closed in their wake. Harrison contemplated the two thousand feet of rock above them. He also contemplated the brave members of the intelligence and military communities who had been lost in this campaign.
“What's the latest count?"
“1,287, sir."
“1,287? That's up quite a bit, isn't it?"
“It sure is. In fact, six more just this morning,” he said proudly.
As they walked into the main hall, Harrison was surprised to find himself overcome with emotion. Nearly seven hundred dogs were neatly assembled in rows and columns in front of him.
“This room's more packed than some of my campaign rallies,” he said, feigning a puzzled scratch of the head. “And a more enthusiastic crowd, too."
And they were. Tails were wagging that belonged to Irish Setters, Dalmatians, German Shepherds, and Pomeranians. From Golden Retrievers to English Sheepdogs, Labradors to Papillons, there were thirty-seven breeds represented, as well as a broad assortment of mutts.
He had been briefed prior to coming, just as he would have been for a press conference. Stay away from the Husky in the front row—you give him a little attention and he'll demand more. And the Cocker Spaniel next to him bites. Yes, exactly like the press.
“These are all local dogs, Mr. President."
“Yes, I know.” Only thick lead containers with no air holes had proven safe to transport the dogs in. Other attempts had resulted in dogs and the government officials moving them being destroyed. Limited air supply had necessitated carrying sedated dogs from nearby locations only.
“And a proud lot they are,” Harrison said.
“Sir, I understand we may be working out a cross-breeding program with the Russians. Any word?"
“Oh, that's for the next administration to decide. I'm out of that picture. But the Russians do have a sizeable population. And the Brits, too. The Brits have more than we have in Colorado."
“Really? I didn't have details. They keep me in the dark down here."
Harrison laughed. “They probably do. They do that sort of thing. Well, I'll tell you something you don't know, then. When the Egyptians were informed of the alien inability to see through solid rock, they successfully barricaded about fifty of them in a tunnel underneath one of the pyramids.
“That's fabulous, sir."
“I tell you, Major. Those Butchers may be right about us. We may not make it. We may end up destroying ourselves ... perhaps with the same finality with which they destroyed my career. But I'll be damned if we're going to let them cheat Earth out of its rightful place in the galaxy."
A Pembroke Welsh Corgi barked in agreement.
“I have something to show you, sir. Over here.” He led the president to the far side of the room, where forty-two dogs were separated into seven rows of six each. One of the trainers held up three fingers. They all stood on their hind legs and raised their right front paws, giving the president a salute.
“Ho! That's wonderful!"
“Well, Mr. President, you are still the Commander In Chief, after all."
“Ah, not for long. Not for long."
“Well, I can guarantee you, sir, every one of them would have voted for you if they could."
“Hah. I could have used their support. But I'm afraid that would have required a Constitutional Amendment."
He knelt in front of a Golden Retriever. “What's your name, soldier? Would you like to be given the right to vote?"
“His name is Buddy, Mr. President,” his trainer said.
Buddy indicated his voting preference with his tail.
He looked into Buddy's eyes. And at that moment President Harrison understood, far too late, what a fool he had been for never having owned a dog.
The Corporal grabbed the disk and turned around. “Get the Frisbee, Buddy!” he yelled. He tossed it toward the Golden Retriever.
Buddy came to full alertness as the plastic disk sailed his way. It was headed over him, a fairly long throw. His tail wagged randomly, but his eyes followed the disk's movements exactly.
“Catch it, Buddy!"
Buddy was watching the exact angle and speed of the disk. With an eager burst of enthusiasm he ran after it, not taking his eyes off it even to blink. It was rising up on the right hand edge ever so slightly ... it would soon change course, curve back, dip to the left. He kept running. He knew full well he would soon have to turn and run back the other way; he wasn't fooled a bit. But he enjoyed chasing it in both directions, then catching it at the earliest possible moment. That was the best way to play the game, the way that made it the most fun.
He reversed course, whipping his head up to stay on track with t
he disk. It was losing speed and altitude now, and he could project exactly when and where he would be able to jump and grab it. Another second went by, and he confirmed the projection. Two and three-quarter seconds after that, he jumped. This moment represented the culmination of the game, the point of success or failure.
He had timed it perfectly. His teeth bit down, and it was now his. The plastic of the disk tasted like triumph.
“Great catch, Buddy!"
He trotted proudly toward his owner. He liked this new owner who gave him these games to learn. At first, this person had smelled like a stranger. Soon thereafter he smelled like an acquaintance, maybe even a neighbor. But now he smelled like an owner, and Buddy loved that. It filled him with a sense of belonging and security.
He surrendered his prize and then started to trot back to his position, to practice the game once more. He even was beginning to like this new home—these big, square caves with doors and smooth walls and ceilings. But he missed going to the park: the old place with the soft grass that smelled like nature, the fresh breezes that smelled like exhilaration, and the brilliant sky overhead that shone like freedom.
The man prepared to throw the disk again, and, in less than the brief flicker of a dog's heartbeat, faster than the wag of a joyous tail, Buddy forgot all about the park. Because the game was ready to begin anew. He loved all these amazing games: this flying disk, the balls, the stick, and many more. He even liked the new ones where he held up a paw or spoke when his owner showed him a particular object or held up the same object two times in a row. Those games were harder, but he vowed to keep learning them.
The man threw the disk again, and he studied it to see precisely how it would behave this time. He would keep analyzing this game until he mastered it. Just like the other games, he would learn them all. The disk soared overhead, and once again exhilaration ruled the universe. He bounded after it. It was leaning differently this time ... this disk was delightfully, deviously tricky. But no matter what, he would keep working at it until he was flawless. At every opportunity, with every breath, he would keep striving, he would keep learning. His reasoning for this was as resolute as it was straightforward.
Analog SFF, June 2006 Page 13
