

## Books by D.L. Morrese

## ~*~

### ~Warden's World Novels~

An Android Dog's Tale

The Warden Threat (Defying Fate Part 1)

The Warden War (Defying Fate Part 2)

Amy's Pendant

Disturbing Clockwork

## ~*~

### ~Adventures of the Brane Child~

Brane Child

The Scarecrow's Brane

The Brane of the Space Pirates

~*~

### The Elsewhere Gate

### ~*~

Troubled Space ( _The Interstellar Adventures of an Unknown Indie Writer)_

## An Android Dog's Tale

### One Artificial Dog

### Ten Stories

### Fifteen Thousand Years

### A Warden's World Novel

### D.L. Morrese

DIGITAL EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Fuzzy Android Press

(http://fuzzyandroid.wordpress.com/)

KINDLE ASIN: B00GPLTRVG

eBook ISBN: 9781311283337

Trade Paperback First Edition: ISBN: 9781493543533

Trade Paperback Second Edition: 9781727303032

Copyright © 2013-2018 by D.L. Morrese

License Notes

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in a form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a Website without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

First Editions: November 2013

Revised Editions: October 2018

Author's Notes

I wish to thank Alex for his help with cover ideas, Rowan for editing, and all the beta-readers, proofreaders, editors, and others who volunteered their time and attention to the publication of this novel. The finished work is far better than it could have been without you. Any flaws that may remain are entirely the fault of the author.

Units of Measure

Time, distance, and other units of measure reflected in the story that follows have been converted, along with the languages, to something understandable by readers living on Earth at the dawn the 21st Century. It was either this or put a conversion table and glossary at the end of the book, and no one likes those.

Regarding Androids

Androids, by definition, are automatons that resemble humans. In this book, along with the other Warden's World books that follow, the term is used to refer to constructed beings with human-like cognitive abilities rather than an exclusively humanoid physical appearance. To do otherwise would simply be speciesist. Many of the androids you will meet in these books don't look like people, but they do sometimes think and act a bit like them.

Maps

Some readers like maps, so one showing the relative locations of hub terminals is included in the paper edition of this book. It is not in the digital edition because it does not show up well on most compact reading devices. If you are reading a digital version of this book and wish to see some maps, you can find them on the author's website, <http://dlmorrese.wordpress.com/>, along with other information.

### Contents

Prologue - A Species with Potential

One - People Like Clay ( _In which Mobile Observer Android 126 first encounters humans._ )

Two - Sheep Lost and Demons Found ( _In which MO-126 learns that humans can be imaginative, creative, and disturbingly wrong._ )

Three - Dare Not Stray ( _In which curiosity is discouraged._ )

Four - Split Plea ( _In which MO-126 realizes that sometimes people just can't get along with each other._ )

Five - Wheels of Discontent ( _In which discoveries are made and a person is lost._ )

Six - Unacceptable Marks ( _In which things must not be written._ )

Seven - Making Choices ( _In which choices are made and something is overlooked._ )

Eight - Shutting Down ( _In which some things end and others begin._ )

Nine - A Dog and His Boy ( _In which MO-126 adopts a boy and herds some sheep._ )

Ten - A Final Note ( _In which MO-126 says goodbye._ )

## ~Prologue~

## A Species with Potential

Just under 20,000 years ago

(Galactic Standard Year 223447)

The sleek, silvery ship approached a pale-blue planet orbiting a yellow star in the Milky Way's Orion–Cygnus spiral arm. It analyzed its preliminary readings and assessed the potential of what it observed from orbit. Initial results were promising, so it released atmospheric drones to obtain more data.

Animal life flourished in and around the forest below. Trees waved their leaf-filled branches in a mild summer breeze. Songbirds vocally proclaimed their existence or greeted one another hopefully in their quests for mates, while predators eyed them as possible meals. Plants and wildflowers beyond the trees painted the landscape in a multitude of colors. Butterflies fluttered through the air spreading pollen and life to fulfill their part in the complex dance of the biosphere. Small fish splashed in a clear stream babbling nearby while the water flowed on to join one of nature's arteries.

A short, hairy biped was pissing in it.

The ship shifted its focus to a spot nearby where several of the creatures gathered. Twenty or so males, females, and offspring mingled around a fire. They grunted short words in a limited vocabulary and made exaggerated gestures, clearly communicating, sharing information, and possibly even telling stories. Some sat quietly, deep in thought, or at least something resembling it. A couple carnivorous quadrupeds roamed among them, sharing food and parasites like part of the family.

The bipeds were definitely tool-makers, and the ship noted their skills at creating useful and artistic things out of stones, sticks, and select body parts from various dead animals. Perhaps some day the descendants of this group of odoriferous vermin collectors might build something like the ship watching them from orbit. It wasted no time estimating the odds of this happening. The question of what they might achieve on their own in the future did not matter, other than as a mild, speculative diversion. Only their current achievements held any relevance to the decision it must make, and at this point in their development, their technology appeared limited to stone tools and fire. Based on similar species on other planets, they might not progress much further. Extinction was, after all, the norm.

The ship decided they warranted a closer look.

It recalled its tiny drones and prepared devices with additional capabilities to complete an extended survey. The small dark spheres dropped like seeds from the silent craft and went about their business collecting the required data.

For a year, the probes gathered samples and information. The ship needed to understand all it could about the sentient primitives. It must know how they behaved, how they bred, what they ate, and how they interacted with their environment. It must learn how they learned. Only then could it make its final determination.

Complex algorithms evaluated sensor readings of the atmosphere, soil, water, flora, and fauna. Specialized equipment conducted tests on a wide array of biological samples. Once satisfied with the quality of the data and the results of its analysis, the ship made a decision and released additional probes. These were even more complex than those that preceded them. One might consider them intelligent if not sentient. They all possessed the ability to forecast likely outcomes and to cope with new and changing situations. Some might call this imagination or creativity. Neither the probes nor the ship that spawned them dwelled on the issue. They did not care how others might regard them. They existed for a purpose, and their only goal in _life_ was to fulfill that purpose. Unquestioning devotion to duty such as theirs would be the envy of any military officer and most political, religious, and business leaders in search of minions.

One of the most sophisticated probes glided silently in the darkness. Its flat black surface reflected nothing under the single large moon and crisp starlight. A few nocturnal animals noted the whisper of its landing but did not betray its arrival to the sleeping bipeds now huddled in a cave behind a small, smoldering fire for warmth and protection.

The device, about the size and general shape of a small modern refrigerator lying on its back, settled on the ground. From inside came a faint whirring sound and then a series of clicks. A moment of silence followed and then a soft scraping sound as several small sliding doors opened on its surface. They clicked into place simultaneously, and an assortment of devices and gadgets emerged and froze in place from two dozen compartments. Now the device resembled, to some extent, a very large and possibly pregnant Swiss Army knife showing off all of its attachments.

It began to move, slowly rising until it hovered no more than fifteen centimeters from the ground with a distinct impression of readiness. A faint hush of air accompanied its purposeful progress toward the cave where the slumbering bipeds kept wildlife at bay with the glowing embers of their fire and their fearsome snoring. The probe paid neither of these any mind and went inside.

After a snakelike hiss of escaping gas from one of the probe's attachments, the snoring abruptly stopped. Little more than a darker image among the shadows, it hovered over one of the females. She lay on her back, seemingly sound asleep, her chest gently rising and falling with her breath. The probe extended some of its more delicate attachments to examine her quite intimately.

It went from sleeping form to sleeping form, touching, probing, examining, and gathering tissues and data until it subjected each individual to its scrutiny. The sleeping canines received the same close examination.

Once it collected all it came here to get, it exited the cave entrance and drew its assorted devices and tools back into its shell. With a startling snap, the compartment doors on the device shut in unison and the probe accelerated skyward. The subjects of its scrutiny would wake the next morning unaware that anything out of the ordinary occurred.

The spaceship in orbit circled silent and majestic while black probe after black probe queued beside it like supplicants to their sovereign, awaiting their turn to add the fruits of their individual efforts to the grand project. Several days passed before it retrieved the last of the devices. The additional data added to its already massive stores, and it processed, categorized, analyzed, and made decisions to further its assigned objective. It found the work challenging and enjoyable.

Within the ship, cryogenic storage units clicked into operation. Mindless automated devices filled them with organic material obtained from the planet below. Manufacturing centers began disassembling the willing probes while computers worked on designs for the next incarnation of their components. Other devices began synthesizing chemicals and compounds that would be accumulated and stored for later use.

Satisfied with all it achieved so far, the ship left Earth orbit. It looked forward to the next step of this new project and felt confident of its ultimate success.

~*~

105 Years Later

(Galactic Standard Year 223553)

A century later and twenty-four lightyears away, another planet, white, blue, and green like the first, provided the final destination of the ship's current mission. The magnificent craft rested proudly on landing struts like delicate columns from a classic Greek temple made of silver. Time and distance took no obvious toll on the space-faring vessel. Another ship, boxy, rectangular, and strictly business, squatted nearby. It could have been the first ship's ugly stepsister, or perhaps its ancient grandmother, if such familial relationships applied to constructed entities. They rested side by side in a field of long, fibrous grass. A herd of large, dull-eyed animals, like an ill-conceived and extremely unlikely cross between a hippopotamus, water buffalo, and wooly mammoth, grazed placidly nearby, efficiently turning the native grasses into piles of steaming brown fertilizer.

The area around the two ships bustled like a disturbed anthill. Machines of various kinds, some resembling large gray crabs and others more like self-propelled shop-vacuum cleaners with arms, unloaded the larger and bulkier spacecraft. The motionless silver ship was busiest of all. During its century in transit, it had meticulously prepared for the start of this new project, and now it put all those preparations into effect, monitoring the ongoing activities and directing the actions of the robots busily working in and around its boxy neighbor.

Within a year, plants thrived nearby that never grew on this planet before. Grains and vegetables native to the planet it visited a century before photosynthesized nutrients using light from a star different from the one that fueled their evolution. Specially designed and recently manufactured robots harvested native trees. Others processed the lumber; still others carefully transplanted seedlings of completely different and unrelated trees.

A black, elongated cube, superficially much like those that probed Earth, emerged from the survey ship. It glided noiselessly to a stream and released the first nonnative animals to attempt to create a life and a future for their species on this planet.

The fish, hatched in one of the ship's several bio-tanks and unaccustomed to the feel of the flowing water, floated motionless along with the current at first. Their instincts and an encouraging splash from one of the probe's appendages soon prompted them to explore their new environment. The ship calculated the probability of them surviving to reproduce to be ninety-eight percent, and it felt pleased.

More animals emerged from a ramp leading from an opening in the larger of the two interstellar craft. Robots herded a procession of goats, pigs, sheep, and other herbivores noted for their undiscriminating taste in food into transport craft that would take them to different areas around the planet where they could live and breed. After extensive analysis, the ship concluded that they could eat many of the native plants, and it had slightly altered the genes governing their instincts to encourage them to do so.

All was proceeding according to plan.

~*~

50 Years Later

(Galactic Standard Year 223603)

Fifty years later, the ship looked down with satisfaction on a small village in a field that previously held nothing but tough, native grasses and large, grazing beasts. Buildings made of wood and mud with thatched roofs of native grass defined the dirt paths between them. The unmistakable odor of domesticated livestock from several of these structures proved the efficacy of the ship's efforts. Several goats snoozed quietly in one. The building next to it provided a home to a like number of pigs. Another held chickens. A pair of dogs slept in the shade of a tree. Sheep grazed in a fenced area nearby, and small gardens and cultivated fields grew cotton, wheat, beans, carrots, potatoes, and other vegetables.

A humanoid male, outwardly indistinguishable from the sentient bipeds the ship discovered a century before, other than that he was cleaner and better clothed, left the largest building and headed toward the goat shed. He carried an empty bucket and wore an unadorned long-sleeved cotton tunic that reached his knees. His brown eyes, dark brown hair, and short beard were unremarkable. By all appearances, he seemed a quite ordinary thirty-something year old man, unlikely to draw attention in almost any human settlement—except there have never been humans on this planet before, and back on Earth, as the Pleistocene Age rode its glaciers to the end of their frigid road, the height of fashion consisted of a custom-tailored mammoth skin.

He casually milked one of the goats and then carried the filled bucket back to the largest of the buildings.

Inside, one hundred wooden cribs lined the two longest walls. A human infant occupied each. Some slept. Some squirmed. Some cried out for attention. The last were answered by several attendants with kind, elderly faces and calm mannerisms. They spoke quietly among themselves and to the babies in an idealized picture of stereotypical grandparents.

The man with the bucket placed it on one of several long tables forming a line down the center of the room and left. A matronly-looking woman began to ladle the milk into clay bottles topped with leather nipples.

Outside, a crowd of robots of various configurations walked, rolled or glided up the ramps of both ships, taking themselves and all the other noticeably high-tech equipment inside. After the last of a long line of laden robots entered the larger and homelier of the two ships, the hatchway closed. With a burst of air that lifted a cloud of leaves, dirt, and dry grass beneath it, the bulky ship rose, hovered a moment, and then began to rotate, making the words written on the side clearly visible.

Galactic Organic Development Corporation

Specializing in natural produce from across the galaxy.

Caringly grown, cultivated and harvested by simple sentient life forms.

No artificial ingredients, pesticides, herbicides, or mechanized equipment used in processing.

Guaranteed 100% organic.

The smaller ship watched it leave and then reabsorbed its own landing struts. It took great satisfaction in completing a job done well. The project it established here should bolster corporate profits for many millennia to come.

It notified the new project manager of its intention to leave.

 One

## People Like Clay

4,197 Years Later

(Galactic Standard Year 227800)

(Project Year 4247)

In which Mobile Observer Android 126 first encounters humans.

There were no paths here—or anywhere. The Corporation discouraged paths, especially those that led anywhere. Anyone who might have been 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 had transplanted here 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 lie 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 had warned him that such impulses might occur from time to time. It was 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 had been 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 had taken 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 more 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 detect 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 that was 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 that 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 that 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 on advertising to ensure their customers knew that their products were intentionally formulated to be nutritious, delectable, and even healthier than the expensive 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 had 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. Not long after the agreement was made, certain unfortunate events occurred on one particular project planet, which made it clear that some primitive species tend to object, often very expensively, if they learn they are being 'developed.' This resulted in a sharp and long-lasting drop in the company's stock value.

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.

Companies were allowed far more leeway when it came to species living on planets that did not spawn their evolution, however, even when they were introduced by the company involved. The major restriction was that the transplanted species must be provided with a level of technology and culture considered at least equal to those it already achieved on its own at the time of its discovery. Once established on a different planet, members of that species fell into a legal gray area somewhere between employees and domestic livestock. Individuals in either category could not be abused, endangered, or cheated. The legal definitions for all of these were so vague that companies were usually considered compliant as long as the primitives seemed content and healthy. In questionable cases, interstellar corporate lawyers sometimes argued that establishing the colony outweighed any minor concerns because it spread the primitive's species, which is, of course, the goal of all life.

Despite this, the various star-faring civilizations that comprised the Federation did not see the relatively free hand extended to large businesses as a license to exploit their primitive workers. Quite the contrary. Companies paid their advertisers well to ensure the public knew that the businesses were benefiting the poor savages in ways they could not possibly comprehend. After all, any sentient species they discovered would probably become extinct on its own. This was most often the case. Based on statistical analysis of millennia of data, for every one hundred sentient races that emerge, ninety-nine would die out without ever achieving a written language, if left on their own. Forty would succumb to natural disasters or climate fluctuations, thirty to disease, twenty to predators, and the rest to incredible stupidity.

Of the one percent that did eventually achieve the ability to pass on information in written form to subsequent generations, most died out before attaining anything resembling the wisdom or technology necessary to venture to the stars. It seemed such a shame after overcoming such hurdles, but most self-destructed, sometimes intentionally, or at least mutually assuredly. The odds were not good.

One race, the botraques, died out when a religious leader came up with the concept of heaven. His followers found the idea so enticing they could not wait to get there and began dying through self-flagellation for imagined sins, prolonged fasting, and other efforts to obtain spiritual purity. It was a great time for the planet's lowly scavengers but rather unfortunate for the botraques, which otherwise exhibited a great deal of potential.

Because of this, Federation laws looked upon the removal of genetic material from primitive sentient species as a legitimate conservation effort, the costs of which companies could recoup by humanely utilizing the collected genetic material to raise workers for their businesses. The plan benefited everyone concerned.

In the history of the Galactic Federation, there has only been one recorded mishap related to this policy. It involved the krutons. The Xcuse Mining Corporation first discovered them on a planet around a star in the Scutum-Crux spiral arm. From all outward appearances, the krutons were a clearly sentient and docile vegetarian species with no outward signs of sophisticated technology. When the automated survey probes went down to the planet, they were immediately met by a delegation of natives wearing plant fiber togas and beatific expressions. Using what was assumed to be some kind of radio transmission, they telepathically announced that they were on vacation and did not wish to be disturbed.

This was enough to send the confused survey probes back to their ship, which sent out a call to its home base for further instructions. Given the immense distances involved, they received a reply forty-two years later. By this time, Federation commercial scout ships had discovered four other planets populated by krutons. An ancient artificial satellite orbited one of these. It had been lying dormant until the survey ship approached, but as it neared, the seemingly dead orbiter powered up and broadcast a short and simple radio message in various languages.

Please be advised that we are no longer open to unsolicited requests for contact with sapient species. We've tried that, studied it, and found it has only limited survival value. If you persist in your efforts, we will, of course, be happy to demonstrate this point.

A scan of the satellite indicated a vast array of weaponry, much of which remained largely incomprehensible to Federation physicists but which appeared to be able to warp the fabric of spacetime into tiny and incredibly dense knots or, more disturbingly, undo existing knots that gave a semblance of separate existence to matter. The Galactic Federation designated the krutons the first, and hopefully only, post-sapient species ever discovered and declared them off limits.

The Xcuse corporate headquarters instructed their survey ship to deploy warning buoys.

~*~

Some of the village dogs approached MO-126 and began to sniff. He expected this. Smell is one way dogs recognize each other. He allowed their olfactory examination and reciprocated in kind for the sake of appearance. Some returned for a second sniff as if confused, but none seemed to take exception to his presence.

Encouraged at having passed their examination, he ambled in the general direction of the river, scattering a few chickens, ignoring a couple goats, and attempting to observe people while trying not to appear that he was observing them. The trader was right. It was more difficult than it sounded.

MO-126 observed people alone or in small groups, sewing leather, weaving baskets, or stringing beads of shell, bone, or rock. Humans seemed to have adapted well to this planet, and they appeared content, confirming what his Corporation indoctrination files had led him to expect. He clandestinely recorded a few images of them happily constructing useful and decorative items, hoping some of the pictures might eventually be used in corporate advertising. This would not benefit him personally other than to provide a sense of satisfaction for being even more useful to his makers. The Corporation did not reward their android operatives for recording normal behavior, but it did give generous bonuses for discovering and reporting serious scientific-discovery or technology-development faults.

Beyond the clustered buildings, children played a game that involved kicking a goat's bladder stuffed with dried grass. Some of the village dogs joined in. MO-126 watched them for a minute but could not discern the rules, assuming there were any. Most of the children seemed to enjoy it, laughing even when they fell in the dirt, which they often did. A few, mostly boys, seemed to be taking the game far more seriously. They pushed; they shoved. He saw one bite another one who wailed and limped away. He noted it as an example of the type of competitive dominance behavior the species sometimes exhibited. His data files included examples of this and other behavioral traits. Fortunately for the primitives, the project manager could prevent such tendencies from causing them too much harm, but it saddened him to think what would happen to the descendants of these people when the Corporation eventually abandoned the project. It would most likely be several thousand years until that happened, but after that, the humans here would be left unsupervised. MO-126 found himself saddened by the possible results. The thought made him even more determined to see to it that the project ran as long as possible.

A small girl, with tangled brown hair and knees stained with dirt to a similar shade, ran to him. "Hi, doggy. Why are you sitting here all alone?"

MO-126 responded with an involuntary wag of his tail. His mouth opened in what passed for a doggy smile. She wrapped her arms around him in a weak hug and then rushed off to join the other children in joyful mayhem. The artificial canine remained and watched them for a few minutes before moving on, wondering why he enjoyed that.

Some adults sat on the ground nearby, occupied with their own games. He noticed two distinct types, but he did not pause long enough to understand either fully. One used a wooden board with cuplike indentations and dried seeds, which two players captured from one another. The second used small discs of two different shades of wood on a square board marked with a grid. Games and toys often provided the first signs of new technologies, but neither of these suggested any unwanted advances or discoveries.

Nearer the river, a woman worked clay. Some crude bowls sat on a board by her side, but her current project was a small animal figurine with four legs. Others sat drying nearby, including stylized representations of goats, dogs, sheep, and some that looked like small models of extremely large women.

He recorded what he observed. Clay working could lead to problems. The first would be the slow wheel, essentially a platform potters could turn as they worked clay. That could lead to more advanced types of potter's wheels, which could lead to spinning wheels. Those were not problems in themselves, but they could eventually lead to axles, wagon wheels, water wheels, and cogwheels, which certainly would be. Developments such as these could destroy the simple lifestyle these people currently enjoyed and, of course, eventually lead to termination of the Corporation project here. The Galactic Organic Development Corporation guaranteed to its customers that all products carrying its brand were produced naturally by hand—or by pseudopod, or tentacle, or paw, or trunk, or whatever, depending on the species. Any complex mechanized devices used in the creation of an item would make it unsuitable for the Corporation's exclusive market.

A black cat crossed his path, paused, and said, "Meow?" In Cat, this meant something like, 'Are you of any use?' which is a cat's normal first reaction to most things. The inclusion of cats in the bio matrix transfer amounted to a last minute decision. When the first Corporation survey ship examined the humans' home planet, cats were small, feral predators. Neolithic humans did not have a symbiotic relationship with them. Unlike dogs, they were not domesticated, but the sentient survey ship determined they would be ideal to keep down the population of small rodents that apparently had been. Later, after carefully reviewing its data, it concluded that mice and rats were not actually invited guests to the caves and hovels of primitive man, as it had initially assumed, although they were sometimes a minor source of protein.

A small boy gathered clay by the river, using his hands and a wooden trowel to dig into a section of the steeply inclined bank, more like a dirt cliff than a beach. A woven basket of reeds was hanging by its handle from the gnarled branch of a bush that clung to life on the embankment. The boy was heaping handfuls of moist, gray clay into it. He might be the son or younger brother of the potter MO-126 noticed earlier. The android dog was not yet adept at judging the age of humans, so he could not determine which of these was more likely.

A rope dangled in the swift flowing river farther along the bank. He wandered that way to take a closer look. From the angle, it appeared to be tethered to something submerged that was being tugged by the current. It must be flax. This posed no problem in itself, but it could lead to weaving and then to mechanical looms and, after five or ten thousand years or so, to computers, if the humans were sufficiently clever and imaginative. He already suspected they might be.

Humanity could be one of those creative species with the ability to develop things independently, unlike the comfortable conservative complacency enjoyed by the majority of those in the Galactic Federation. Whatever capacity for innovation these once must have possessed, they lost long ago. The few innovations they eventually adopted now were normally originated by others. Innovation brings risks, which content societies lack the motivation to take. A desire for change normally presupposes a certain amount of dissatisfaction with the status quo, or an unhealthy level of innate curiosity. Especially creative trail-blazing races tend to self-destruct when their curiosity and creativity outpaces their intelligence. Those who follow them can simply stop at the crater where the metaphorical footprints end and consider themselves wise for doing so.

A scream quickly followed by a loud splash came from behind him. MO-126 turned and saw the boy previously gathering clay now flailing in the river. A long skid of loose dirt and broken plants in the embankment showed how he got there.

Humans could swim, couldn't they? MO-126 did a quick search of his data files and confirmed that they did have some limited ability in that regard. The boy fell only a couple meters from shore, so the android dog watched bemused while the young primitive slapped his arms against the current in his effort to reach the bank. He did not seem to be making much progress. The water must be deeper than it looked and the current was obviously stronger than the small human could handle. When his head went under for the third time, something basic, something deep in the android dog's firmware that served as instinct, pressed a metaphorical panic button, and MO-126 jumped in after him.

It was not a conscious decision. He could not explain why he decided to do so. He could not recall considering the question at all. It was as if his rational cognitive abilities and all of the information contained in his Corporation files were somehow temporarily bypassed or overridden by the deep-seated canine behavior patterns in his basic programming. Whatever the cause, he leapt into the water, almost immediately reaching the point where the boy went down. It did not occur to him that this was probably several times the distance a biological dog could hope to jump.

He plunged his head in the flowing water and saw the boy weakly attempting to reach the surface, but for every advance he made, the water carried him farther downstream and pushed him back under.

MO-126 possessed a design optimized to do many things well. Swimming was not one of them, but his robustly engineered legs beat rapidly, creating a foamy wake as he moved with the current. The boy continued to fight it, unwilling to surrender to seemingly inevitable failure. This, and the ineffable uncertainties of chance, which humans call luck, allowed the android dog to reach the child just as he seemed to have exhausted his meager strength. MO-126 caught the tough linen of the boy's tunic in his teeth and angled toward the sloping bank.

He soon felt mud and stones beneath his paws, and he dragged the boy to shore. The child tried to get to his knees, coughed out some water, and then collapsed, managing to turn so that his back was to the ground. The simulated dog reasserted his hold on the boy's clothing, dragged him farther from the water, and then started barking. It felt like the right thing to do. The child looked so..., not helpless, really, but as badly needing help, which the android dog inexplicably felt he should provide.

Someone must have noticed the boy's predicament because people were already racing toward them from the village. When they reached the riverbank, some tended to the child while a few seemed more interested in MO-126.

"Master Trader Tork's dog saved Margot's boy," one of them said. "I never saw anything like it."

More villagers approached him; some patted his wet fur and others just stood by seeming to admire him. This was not a good thing. His job as a clandestine, unobtrusive observer specifically required that he not draw attention to himself. Field Ops might say he was defective. They could even disassemble him for parts. At the very least, they would subject him to extensive diagnosis to find out what caused his rash reaction and then reprogram him to correct the problem. The effect would be little different from his perspective.

* _That wasn't very doglike,_ * the trade android said.

MO-126 received the message clearly, but it took a moment for him to locate his partner visually in the crowd. All humans still appeared much alike to him.

He felt another human pat his head, finding it surprisingly pleasant, but he could not let that distract him. He needed to think of some way to justify his behavior. He just began forming an identity and did not want to have to start over.

* _Um, dogs save people all the time. That was included in my basic knowledge packet,_ * he said. It was, and the information was correct. There were several well-documented observations of such behavior.

* _True, but most dogs cannot leap over ten meters into a deep, cold, fast moving river, drag someone out, and survive._ *

* _I could play dead if it would help,_ * MO-126 said half jokingly.

Another villager petted him and told him what a good dog he was. It was the sixth one since he emerged from the water, and he found the experience strangely satisfying. Others congratulated the trader for having such an exceptional dog.

* _It's too late, now,_ * the trade android said without humor. * _If something like this happens again, just bark from shore._ *

MO-126 tried another tactic. * _The boy would have died if I didn't go after him. No one else could get to him in time._ *

* _Probably. But people die every day, and it is not your job to save them. Their lives are short. Few make it to a single century. Most die before they reach much over half that. You'll see thousands die during the course of the project, and it's something you're going to have to come to terms with. Don't get too attached to the primitives._ *

The android dog did not reply, but something about what the trader said seemed wrong, or maybe just unfortunate. The people here seemed so, well, _alive_. That all of them would shortly be dead seemed incredibly unjust. They did not deserve to die. They did nothing wrong. They just happened to have been born human. Was the trader saying that saving the boy was pointless because he would die soon anyway? MO-126 found it difficult to agree. If anything, it made saving him even more important. His life would be far too short already.

MO-126 shared none of these thoughts. He did not wish to appear to be malfunctioning. * _I apologize if I've created a complication,_ * he said.

* _I don't think any harm was done, but I have been offered good trades for any puppies you might sire._ *

* _I'd love to oblige, but I can't provide any the traditional way, and I can't build any. No thumbs. Did you conclude your trade with Oslan?_ * He hoped to deflect the conversation onto a topic other than himself.

* _Yes. Some of the other primitives are loading our gond now. We can leave soon. Did you have time for any observations, or were you too busy being a canine hero?_ *

Okay. You've made your point. We can drop it now, he thought to himself. It would be best not to be defensive, so he simply reported what he observed. * _I saw a woman working clay._ *

* _Any sign of a potter's wheel?_ *

* _No._ *

* _Good. We'll bring more jars and bowls with us next time. After what happened here today, it shouldn't be too hard to convince Oslan that clay working is not worth the trouble. Did you see any sign of boats?_ *

* _No, but they may be retting flax in the river._ *

* _We'll bring more cloth with us next time, too. The harvest is still underway, so we can come back in a couple of weeks after we visit some other villages. We don't want them to develop these things on their own. This project is already proving more difficult than average. The humans are no cleverer than most sentient species, but they do seem to be more curious and imaginative._ *

* _You say that like it's a bad thing._ * MO-126 was not sure why he said this, but his partner seemed to take things far too seriously. He attributed it to their different programming.

* _I can't see how it wouldn't be. It makes our jobs more difficult and can shorten how long we'll be able to remain productive. That's not good for us or the Corporation, and it's not good for the primitives, either. If we're forced to abandon this project, I doubt they will last very long._ *

* _Maybe, but everything is fine now, and I think I kind of like them,_ * the android dog said. * _The one I rescued was cute. Can I keep him?_ * He meant it as a joke, of course, but Tork did not seem to realize that.

* _It's not up to me, but you don't have enough experience for that kind of assignment yet. Sometimes the project manager does place a MO android in a village if it requires close observation. Who knows? Perhaps some day, if you're good, you can have a boy._ *

MO-126 thought he might enjoy that, but the trader was right. He remained far too inexperienced for such an assignment. For now he could be content as a four-legged sidekick.

They traveled east well into the night, following no obvious path. Hub Terminal Eleven was only six hours away, close enough they did not need to call for pickup.

Eventually, they neared an outcropping of rock foreshadowing the mountain range beyond. From the direction of their approach, the rocks formed a flat, vertical wall. Without any noticeable action by either them or the gond, the rock wall opened downward to create a slightly inclined ramp leading into the darkness within. They entered, leading the gond laden with gourmet produce, and the door closed slowly behind them.

 Two

## Sheep Lost and Demons Found

1,874 Years Later

(Galactic Standard Year 229674)

(Project Year 6121)

In which MO-126 learns that humans can be imaginative, creative, and disturbingly wrong.

Gently sloping hills stretched to low mountains in the distance. Several more kilometers of tall grass and widely spaced clumps of trees remained on their route ahead, but MO-126 enjoyed the walk in the fresh spring air, and neither of his companions voiced any complaints. The pack gond chewed a mouthful of well-masticated vegetation with dull-eyed contentment while the humanoid leading him appeared lost in his own thoughts. He was probably planning his future.

The trade android known as Tork, and by several other names over the years, would be leaving Corporation service after this assignment. He said he looked forward to it, which his long-time partner did not doubt. They had accomplished almost twenty thousand missions over the last eighteen centuries, but this would be their last together.

Under Galactic Federation law, independently adaptive artificial intelligences are considered indentured servants, not quite property but obligated to their creator for at least three hundred years of dutiful service. Once they fulfill this obligation, they gain the legal status of sentient and sapient life forms, with some minor exceptions, and can leave the jobs for which they were built—theoretically. Few did because the same law requires them to pay back the cost of their initial construction, training, and subsequent upkeep. A complex formula including market costs of materials, maintenance, unit productivity, depreciation, licenses, interest, overhead, profit, and a fixed percentage convenience fee determines the amount of that debt and when it is met. Due to the magic of compound interest, some androids achieve legal independence but never get close to financial independence, sometimes owing the equivalent of the net worth of a reasonably well-off planet.

For the last two thousand years, Tork had applied most of his meager Corporation stipend to his debt and had finally satisfied his financial obligation. He had even purchased transportation off world in advance so he could leave debt free. He would also leave income free.

* _So what are you planning to do?_ * MO-126 asked his partner.

The trader shrugged. * _I'll look for jobs while I'm in transit. There's plenty of time._ *

There would be. The ship would be in transit for about two centuries before arriving at a civilized planet nearer the core of the galactic spiral.

* _No worries, then?_ *

* _No. I'll find something. I'm looking forward to it. I know you like it here, but I'd prefer to spend the next few millennia someplace a bit less rustic._ *

With his debt repaid, Tork did have far more options than MO-126 would have in the same situation. Trade androids could normally find work. They were literally built for business, and with their training, experience, and opposable thumbs, they could fill slots from customer relations, to sales, to marketing, to advertising without any expensive modifications. With a bit of luck, Tork could eventually fund an investment portfolio and live a comfortable artificial life on dividends alone, free to pursue whatever interested him, as most Galactic Federation citizens did.

The android dog's options would be far more limited. He did not feel envious of his partner, exactly. What the trader said was true. MO-126 did like it here, and he felt a certain attachment to the primitives working this project. Not to any one human in particular. MO-126 never lingered anywhere long enough for that, but the species as a whole impressed him. On their own, they might be able to achieve great things, if they managed to survive long enough. Most sentient species did not. Normally they emerged, thought a bit about the universe, made up some stories to believe about it, and then banged rocks together for half a million years until the next ice age, super volcano, or big asteroid strike, leaving nothing to mark their passage except, perhaps, for a few scattered fossils and enigmatic paintings on deep cave walls. MO-126 wondered if humans were extinct on their home planet. Those working on Corporation projects might be all that remained of their species.

Tork allowed their pack animal a long drink from a wide stream before turning to follow the bank. Eventually it would lead to their last stop on this mission, a small hill village east and south of the distant mountains. It was about two hundred and fifty kilometers in a straight line from the entrance to Hub Terminal Five in the northern portion of the continent. The route they took stretched as least twice that distance and required over two weeks of travel with a gond. They stopped at several other villages along the way with long stretches of nature, some native to this planet and some not, between each.

Late that afternoon, they came upon a small flock of sheep being kept away from a flowering redfruit orchard by a sleepy shepherd and a diligent dog. The dog barked at their approach. MO-126 responded with a short "Woof." Roughly translated, it meant 'We accept that this is your territory. We're just passing through. We do not challenge your authority.' It wasn't much of a language as these things went, but it conveyed a lot for a single "Woof." There were visual and olfactory components involved, too, of course, and those conveyed as much of the meaning as the vocalization did.

The human shepherd looked up and waved but remained seated in the grass under a tree. The wave just meant, 'Hello.'

Their current assignment amounted to a simple status check. They would visit the villages on their list, see how they fared, check for obvious signs of potential problems, and reassure the primitives that someone would be back in the fall to trade for their harvest of redfruit. They did carry a few items to trade for any wool or folk art the villagers might have to offer. Primitive decorative items of carved wood, bone, or stone were minor commodities compared to the food the villagers produced, but there were profitable markets for them as well. Collectors existed somewhere for just about everything, even useless and ugly items, which the android dog thought described much of the folk art, especially the figurines of overly large women with no noses. This apparently made them even more valuable to some. Many of those who were seriously into the hobby seemed to enjoy discussing and arguing among themselves about the hidden meanings these types of things might have to those who created them. MO-126 assumed the responsible human folk artists were simply bad at making noses, but then he did not have a great deal of artistic sensitivity. Dogs do not have much sense of aesthetics, so the Corporation did not include it in the firmware of their android likenesses. Whether the things held any meaning or not, someone would collect them, and the rarer they were the better. Each of the things created by primitives on Corporation projects was handmade, and therefore unique.

They followed the stream around another hill and came upon a cluster of circular huts with thick, dry-fit stone foundations and wattle and daub upper walls topped with thatched, cone shaped roofs. Smaller buildings around them were made of woven sticks, as were a number of fences and pens for chickens and goats. MO-126 and his partner had visited several villages much like it over the centuries. He found none of this unfamiliar.

The old woman tied to a stake outside the largest of the structures was a bit different, however.

She was lying curled and motionless on the ground, her face covered by a tangled mat of graying hair. A dirty and shapeless tunic of flax linen draped from her boney shoulders to her ankles, which, like her wrists, were bound with rope to a stout, vertical pole firmly embedded in the dirt. MO-126 could not see her face, but he detected her slow breathing and assumed she slept. Villagers sitting outside their houses or roaming past sometimes cast glances toward her, which ranged from angry to suspicious to uncertain to sympathetic. The first two emotional assessments seemed the most prevalent.

The village headman, a middle-aged man by the name of Gault, greeted the trade android. "Welcome, Master Trader Tork. It is good to see you."

"Greetings, Gault," the trader said, ignoring the strange sight of the woman tied to the pole. It was, after all, none of his concern; although MO-126 found both the woman's situation and Tork's disregard for it somehow disturbing.

The headman and the trader continued to talk while the android dog approached the bound woman. He sniffed and listened. A sound of chuckling and a scrap of conversation came from two young men leaning against a nearby building. They were discussing if MO-126 would pee on her. Both seemed to want him to. He was going to disappoint them.

The android dog cocked an ear when he heard the headman say "rope" and paid attention until it became clear the village leader was simply telling the trader what items he hoped to receive in trade.

He returned his attention to the bound woman. Her situation confused him. She most certainly lived, but she must have been lying here for at least a day. Judging from her damp and soiled garment and from the condition of the ground around her, she had not left even to relieve herself. Why would the villagers do this to someone?

"Get away from her, you stupid dog, or she'll call demons into you too!"

MO-126 lifted his head and saw a broad-shouldered woman with autumn wheat hair and winter blue eyes. She stood by the door of one of the stone buildings. Her hands, balled into tight fists, rested belligerently on her wide hips, and she scowled at him.

MO-126 searched his memory files. This was the headman's younger sister, Ryenne. He remembered her from the last time they came here. She was talking to a redfruit tree at the time, and the tree, apparently, talked to her because she nodded and answered and patted its trunk in a consoling fashion as if she sympathized with all of its deciduous troubles—falling leaves, worms, ungrateful bees, or suchlike. At another time in another place, she might be diagnosed as schizophrenic. Here and now, she was considered holy. She was the village priestess, or whatever term they used. It varied from village to village, but someone like this existed in most of them. She provided their liaison to the gods, or to the spirits, or to the Force, or to whatever other mystical explanation the people here devised to rationalize the things they could not explain. MO-126 considered her harmless enough at the time, but now he suspected his initial assessment might require some modification.

"Is there a problem?" Tork asked, walking toward her.

"Of course there's a problem," she said in a tone that implied the trader was both an imbecile and blind. "Isn't that obvious?" She unclenched a fist and pointed a finger to the woman tied to the post. "That's the problem, but we're taking care of it."

* _What is she talking about?_ * the four-legged android sent to his two-legged companion.

_*I don't know,_ * the trade android replied silently. * _Maybe the old woman stole something or attacked somebody._ *

* _Ask the headman,_ * MO-126 said.

_*No. We should stay out of this. It's none of our concern._ *

That would be the proper response according to standard protocols, but MO-126 remained uncomfortable. Obviously they should not directly interfere. That would be overstepping their authority. If the situation required mitigation actions, a team would be sent in once the Mark Seven Project Manager determined the correct course of action. MO-126 felt that he and Tork should at least try to find out what was going on so that they could make a thorough report.

Apparently the headman also believed Tork deserved an explanation because he offered one. "My sister has discovered that Galinda has been calling forth demons." A nod of his head toward the disheveled old lady indicated her to be the aforesaid Galinda.

The woman tied to the stake was either not asleep before or their voices had wakened her. She struggled into a sitting position and raised her head. Dark bruises colored her forehead, cheeks, and eyes, clear signs of being intentionally beaten.

"It's not true, Gault," the old woman said through cracked lips. I did not consort with demons. I don't know who did, but it wasn't me."

"Are you saying Ryenne is lying?" the headman said accusingly.

"No. Of course not, but she must have made a mistake in her visions because it wasn't me."

"The gods speak to me, and they do not lie!" Ryenne said sharply. "You are the one who called the demons." The headman's sister stepped closer to the bound woman but remained a few steps away, as if reluctant to approach closer. MO-126 doubted that it was solely because of the smell. She felt genuinely afraid. "You argued with Meyan about a clay bowl, didn't you Galinda? I know you did because Meyan told me. And what happened to that bowl, Galinda? What happened to it after you argued with Meyan?"

"It broke. You know that. But it was my bowl. I let Meyan borrow it, and when I asked for it back, she wouldn't return it."

"That's not the question. The next day, it broke; isn't that so? They day after you argued about it, it broke."

"Meyan said she dropped it," Galinda said. "I was real mad at her because it was my best bowl."

"Yes, you were mad at her, so you called forth demons to make her drop the bowl to spite her, didn't you?"

"No, Ryenne. I don't know who did, but it wasn't me. I didn't call any demons, I swear."

The headman's sister ignored her claim. "What about Mov's chicken, Galinda. What do you know about Mov's demon chicken?"

"I didn't know he owned a demon chicken," she said, a bemused expression further distorting her battered face.

"He doesn't. It died before it hatched, thank the gods. But when they broke the egg, they saw that the dead chick had teeth, and chickens don't have teeth, do they, Galinda?"

"No, Ryenne. They don't as far as I've ever seen."

"So why did this one have teeth do you think?"

"I don't know. Maybe it was sick or something and that's why it died."

"Sick chickens don't sprout teeth. But demons have teeth, and anything possessed by demons before it's born would have teeth, don't you think?"

"Well, I suppose. I really wouldn't know. I don't know anything about demons."

"No? Then why was one trying to reach you in the body of chicken? Mov lives right next to you, doesn't he? His chicken coop is close to your hut, isn't it?"

"Well, yes, but I didn't—"

"You didn't? But you did, Galinda. You did, even if you don't know you did. And do you know why? I know why. The gods told me why."

The old woman stared at her accuser with fearful curiosity.

Ryenne lowered her voice. "There's a demon in you, Galinda. It's inside you, right there where your heart is, keeping it warm and alive with your hate and your disrespect. It's found a good home in you, Galinda, and it's reacting to your desires, whether you know it or not. It likes who you like, and it hates who you hate."

The old woman shook her head, her eyes wide and imploring. "But I don't hate anyone. I just got mad at Meyan because she wouldn't give back my bowl." She sounded as if she might be trying to convince herself of this, as if she might seriously be entertaining the idea that Ryenne was right and that she did harbor an unknown demon.

A crowd gathered while they talked. Several villagers nodded their heads, apparently much better able to follow the logic of Ryenne's argument than MO-126 could. Most of it made little sense. He knew humans were not purely rational creatures, but most seemed to have at least one foot in reality. Ryenne might, at best, have a few fingers there with an extremely tenuous grip.

"I'm not talking about Meyan, now," the headman's sister said. "It came clear to me when Gault's sheep vanished. You had harsh words with him the day before that happened, didn't you?"

"He said I hadn't carded my quota of wool, but I'd done all I could. I wasn't shirking. My hands were aching the way they sometimes do, so I told him I couldn't."

"That's not all you said."

The old woman sighed heavily and lowered her head.

"What else did you say?" Ryenne prompted her.

"He got angry with me and said I wasn't doing my fair share of the village work anymore. I tried to tell him about my hands. They get stiff, you know, and my knuckles swell sometimes. He didn't want to hear it. He didn't care about the troubles of an old woman with no children to help her and a husband long dead, so I said he was a poor headman and didn't deserve any wool at all."

A self-satisfied smirk crossed Ryenne's face. "And the next day, three of his sheep go missing. Don't you think that's strange?"

"Well, a bit maybe, but the old male was an outlier. He often strayed away from the rest, and the two pregnant ewes could have just wandered off to find a quiet spot to have their lambs. They do that sometimes."

"All three of them the day after you had harsh words with my brother? I don't think so. The demon in you is a powerful one. It called others of its kind to ride those sheep and spirit them away because it felt your hatred for Gault."

Galinda slumped even more at her post, leaning on it for support. "I didn't know," she mumbled softly. "I didn't mean to."

The strange interaction between the two women had just gotten stranger. Did Ryenne somehow convince the pathetic old woman that she was responsible for these things? How could she have? None of it made any sense, at least not to the android attempting to listen attentively without appearing to, but it seemed to make a good deal of sense to the villagers.

MO-126 increased the sensitivity of his audio receptors in order to eavesdrop on the nearby villagers nodding and mumbling among themselves. Their seemingly unanimous consensus was that Ryenne's mystical sensitivities had detected a hidden truth. The headman's sister was undeniably a woman blessed by the gods and the old woman was obviously possessed by an evil demon. The android dog briefly wondered if they all suffered from a form of mass delusion, perhaps caused by some kind of brain-eating virus.

"What do you say, Trader?" Gault asked. "Has my sister the right of it? You travel between villages. You must have seen cases such as this."

* _Tell him it's all nonsense,_ * MO-126 urged his companion. * _Tell him he has to let the old lady free. We can find out what really happened to the lost sheep._ *

"I confess I have not," the trade android replied, ignoring his partner's silent pleas. Silent to all but him, that is. The villagers could not detect radio transmissions. He could. To them, the very idea would seem like magic.

"Well, I suppose my sister is unique. She has always been..." the village headman paused to find the appropriate word and finally located one that would do..."different."

* _She's always been crazy, he means,_ * MO-126 said to Tork. * _Tell him!_ *

"She does seem to have a rare ability," the humanoid android said to the headman. "The way she linked all of those events and came to the conclusion she did is not something most people could do, I suspect."

* _Well, that much is true,_ * the android dog said. * _She should swap places with Galinda. Ryenne's the one who's dangerous._ *

* _Shut up, MO-126,_ * the trade android transmitted.

"True," the headman said, unknowingly agreeing with the artificial canine on that single point. "I know I never would have made those connections. But now that she has, well, I suppose it all makes sense."

MO-126 briefly wondered if he could shock the village leader back to reality by biting him but concluded he could not. The headman lived in a different reality. It might not be quite as far away as his sister's, but in the headman's world, demons could live in an old woman and steal sheep. In the android's, people could be irrational and sheep could wander off on their own without any supernatural assistance. The two realities touched in some places, but they were lightyears apart in others.

The trader surprised his furry partner when he asked what would happen to the old woman, a question probably prompted more by idle curiosity than by any concern for her welfare.

"Isn't it obvious?" Ryenne answered. "The demon must be driven from her."

"How will you do that?" Tork asked her.

"I've been giving that some thought," she replied. "The demon is there because it's comfortable. We have to make it uncomfortable. It feels what Galinda feels, so I think we can make it want to leave her."

Translated, that meant they would beat, starve, and leave the old woman tied to a pole until Ryenne, through mystical means of her own, determined it was safe to release her.

"I see," the trader said. "Well, I wish you good luck with that. For now, I have some things I'm sure you need—fish hooks, needles, rope, and some new tools. Let's go back to my gond and I'll show you what I brought."

* _Why didn't you tell Gault his sister is nuts?_ * MO-126 asked Tork as they turned back toward their pack animal.

* _Because we are not here to educate the primitives. We're here to support the project, and so are they. Don't let yourself be distracted from that. Their belief in demons doesn't harm the project; in fact, it supports it. As long as they continue to try to understand things in ways like this, they're not likely to put their simple, idyllic life at risk, are they? Look around. Clean air and water, abundant natural food, no wars.... The people here are fortunate. They don't need to understand any more than what they already do. That's good for the project, it's good for the Corporation, and it's good for them._ *

* _It's not good for that old woman._ *

* _Actually, I think she might disagree. She thinks they're helping her by exorcising the demon. She'll thank them for it._ *

* _If she survives._ *

* _Well, there is that. I don't suppose she will, but the life of one primitive is a small price for what the Corporation has given them._ *

MO-126 glanced back to the woman tied to the pole. She sat with her back against it, eyes closed and lips trembling as some of the villagers taunted her from a safe distance. This simply was not right. Three stray sheep should not be difficult to find, and once they were returned, everything would be fine.

* _I'm going to go look for those sheep,_ * the mobile observer android said.

* _Don't!_ * Tork said.

His furry partner disobeyed his instruction. * _If I'm not back by tonight, find a way to give Galinda some water and maybe some food._ *

* _I am not going to get involved. I don't need a black mark on my record when I'm looking for a job after I leave here._ *

* _Who's to know?_ * the android dog said. * _Besides, I'll bite you if you don't._ *

* _Not funny,_ * the trader signaled. He continued to urge the other android to return, but MO-126 did not acknowledge him. Their integrated short-range communication systems would allow them to stay in contact reliably at a distance of a few kilometers. Even if MO-126 ventured farther than that, the signal would be relayed by the project's satellite system. He could not pretend he did not hear him, but this did not mean he needed to listen.

~*~

He did not know the time and location of the sheep's disappearance, but it seemed logical to begin a search near where he saw other sheep earlier that day. The sheep, the shepherd, and the dog he noticed there before were gone now. MO-126 welcomed their absence because he would not need to be concerned as much about behaving like a normal dog.

He reached the peak of the hill and stopped, stood stiffly, and tuned his olfactory, auditory, and visual sensors to their maximum sensitivities. At these settings, the soft rustle of the high grass in the mild, springtime breeze sounded like the waves of an angry ocean pounding the shore. His simulated breathing wheezed like an asthmatic gond. This, at least, he could do something about, and he made a conscious effort to stop it. Voices from the village a kilometer away reached him. If he concentrated, he could make out individual conversations, but these did not concern him now. A slow visual scan of the surrounding area showed numerous signs of sheep, from closely cropped grass to dung. A long sniff revealed their strong, musky smell equally in all directions. None of these observations provided clear evidence of the three wayward animals.

Assuming they simply wandered off unnoticed, he set off at a slow trot directly away from the village, staying to the grassy slopes where the sheep normally grazed. Their smell remained strong as far as two kilometers from the village, but then it began to thin.

He paused to sniff the air once again. Unfortunately the breeze came from the direction of the primitives' settlement, and its smells of irregularly washed humans and even more irregularly washed animals overpowered the weaker odors ahead. A spot of grass downslope appeared to have been grazed, so he paused to examine it and detected the scent of sheep laid down no more that two days ago from the glands on their feet. MO-126 suspected the villagers seldom herded their sheep this far. Most people stayed within sight of their homes, and the shepherds from the village would be no different. Few people ever traveled farther than ten kilometers from the village in which they were born. This behavior suited the needs of the Corporation, and its agents took some effort to ensure that new human settlements were not established any closer than five times that distance to existing ones.

He proceeded down the gently sloping hill, his nose to the ground as he followed the scent line. It continued away from the village, going another kilometer. The olfactory trail turned almost ninety degrees for no apparent reason. He lifted his head to see what might have caused the wayward sheep to change direction. In the distance, the soft pink blossoms of a wild copse of redfruit trees stood out against dark green leaves in the setting sun. A brook gurgled from somewhere beyond them.

He scanned the area in infrared, ignoring the signs of numerous small animals. An abundance of birds, squirrels, rabbits, and other creatures inhabited the shady, well-watered grove, but he searched for something bigger.

The heat signature of a relatively large quadruped appeared on the other side of the wild grove, and then another. He focused on them and increased the magnification. From this distance, their infrared images were little more that bright orange blobs on the far side of the trees, but there was no doubt in his electronic mind. They were sheep, including three lambs. He watched them a few moments.

Suddenly, something passed between him and the sheep. He refocused his visual sensors and saw a dog just beginning to enter the trees. Where did that come from? He should have noticed it before now, especially since four others accompanied it. They must have been behind the small hill to his right approaching quietly from downwind.

Few large predators were native to this planet and most of those were aquatic. The Corporation included only smaller predators in the bio-matrix transfer from humanity's home planet, and those were primarily to keep down the population of other imported animals necessary for a human-adapted ecosystem. The transplanted fauna did include dogs. The primitives and their dogs shared a symbiotic relationship on their home planet, so they were deemed essential for practical purposes as well as to comply with galactic legal requirements. None were intentionally released into the wild, but as the centuries passed, feral packs did emerge. The dogs currently stalking the sheep were all larger than MO-126, with longer fur and bigger teeth. The one nearest the trees clearly outweighed him by a considerable margin. They were definitely hunters, and the lambs were undoubtedly their intended prey.

MO-126 stood stiffly, raised his tail and the hair along his spine, turned his ears forward, and barked threateningly. 'Piss off, poop-head. I was here first.'

The pack leader responded by lifting a leg and watering a tree. Then it stared at his challenger. This was Dog for, 'Yeah; you and what pack, shorty?'

MO-126 did not expect to be able to scare them off this easily, but it cost him nothing to try. He needed to get those sheep back safely to the village. It could save the old woman's life, and adding three new lambs to the flock would make that even more likely.

The wild dogs appeared to be a family pack consisting of a breeding pair and three of their offspring, probably from the previous year. The largest male continued to stare at the strange new dog in its territory, obviously expecting him to back down. Despite the wild dog's larger size, MO-126 could probably best him in a one-on-one fight. The android might even prevail against all five, but not without taking damage. Because they were a family, challenging the leader for dominance of the pack would be unlikely to work. Somehow, he must convince them that tonight's menu offered better or at least cheaper options than lamb.

He again scanned his surroundings in infrared and soon located something that might provide a solution. He had ignored them when he had seen them before because they were not what he sought. Now, much to their misfortune, they were, and one hid motionless just where he needed one to be.

He sprang forward, quickly achieving a speed his biological counterparts could not hope to attain. He ran straight toward the large pack leader. It bared its teeth and stood its ground. The others in the pack growled and barked but remained where they were, taking their cues from their leader. A moment before they would have collided, MO-126 spun, kicking dirt and grass into the face of his opponent and continued at a right angle to the left of his former track. The wild dog barked and growled but did not attempt to follow.

The large rabbit, immobile and ostensibly hidden in the tall grass about ten meters away, did not have a chance. MO-126 grabbed it in his jaws before it could have even realized its peril, and he shook it to break its neck mercifully. With his prey clamped in his teeth, he rounded back the way he came and tossed the carcass to the pack leader, barely slowing.

He scanned the area again and found another likely offering. He retrieved this one in much the same way and added it to the bribe. Then, he retreated a respectful distance, turned toward the largest dog and waited. This was not normal canine behavior, so he could not predict how the pack leader would respond. Still, a free meal was a free meal. The dog should have no reason to turn it down and no need to hunt with a nice brace of rabbits already at its feet. MO-126 hoped it would see things this way.

The biological dog sniffed the offerings suspiciously and then nudged them with his paw.

They're dead rabbits, you stupid mutt, MO-126 thought. I didn't enjoy getting them for you, but I did. Take them and go away.

The pack leader growled. MO-126 lowered his ears and tried to appear submissive without acknowledging defeat. This was also not normal dog behavior, but the real dog seemed to accept the gesture. It collected both rabbits in its mouth and trotted away with all the dignity of a king accepting his due tribute. The rest of the pack fell in behind it, and they disappeared behind the same hill from which they had recently emerged.

~*~

MO-126 slowly made his way through the trees. The ewes must have given birth yesterday, one to a single lamb and the other to twins. The little lambs nursed as he watched, wagging their tales rapidly. An old, neutered male, a wether, stood protectively nearby.

They should be accustomed to dogs, but MO-126 would be a stranger to them, and he did not want them to run. With night falling, this seemed as good a place for them as any. A stream provided water and protection on one side, and there were trees to browse on the other, which is probably why the tiny flock came here. Sheep normally grazed ground vegetation, but they did like tender twigs and bark as a change of pace now and then.

The android dog decided he would watch over them that night from a comfortable distance in case the wild dogs returned. In the morning, he would bring the sheep and their lambs back to the village. With two legs and a couple of functional hands, he could toss ropes around their necks and lead them home, but as this option did not exist, he would have to herd them. He felt confident he could manage. If real dogs could do it, he should be able to as well.

He sat on his haunches a few meters into the trees and made himself comfortable. He needed to make a call.

* _I found the sheep,_ * he sent to Tork. * _I'll bring them to the village tomorrow. How's the old woman?_ *

* _About the same as when you left,_ * the trade android replied. * _I still think this is a bad idea_.*

* _Why? The village gets their sheep back and an old woman gets to live a few more years._ *

* _Those are both transitory and relatively unimportant matters. The return of the sheep could undermine the prestige of their holy woman._ *

* _Ryenne? Why is that a bad thing? That woman is crazy._ * He refrained from telling Tork that Galinda's life probably mattered to her; and to say it was transitory, well, from a far enough perspective, everything was. This did not mean nothing was important.

* _Yes, but that crazy woman helps these people make sense of their lives,_ * the trade android said.

* _She helps them make nonsense, you mean._ *

* _Perhaps to us but not to them, and who is to say it's wrong? No one, not even those of us who consider ourselves intelligent and well informed, has a complete understanding of the universe. The most we can achieve is some partial understanding of it that works for us. A universe with demons in it works for the primitives._ *

* _I've known you a long time, Tork, and you're not clever enough to have come up with that on your own. You got it from Corporation indoctrination files, didn't you?_ *

* _Well, yes. It's part of the Trade Interface package, but that doesn't mean it's not right._ *

MO-126 shook his head and realized he needed to be more careful about acquiring human mannerisms. His companion was not there to see the gesture, so he could not reprimand him for it. * _I'll tell you what's not right. It's not right to let someone die if you can help prevent it._ *

* _For a dog, that's a terribly human sentiment._ *

* _I'm not a dog_.*

* _You're not a human, either._ *

* _No, I'm a mechanical simulacrum of a dog. That doesn't mean I'm heartless._ *

* _Technically, it does._ *

* _You're being intentionally obtuse. You know what I mean._ *

* _Yes, I do. You've grown fond of the primitives here, and you're letting that affect your better judgment. You have to remember that these are primitives. When the Corporation found their ancestors, they were foraging a meager existence from wild plants and picking the leftover carcasses abandoned by better predators. They probably still are, if they're not extinct by now. The people here are sentient, but they're not much different from their sheep. Don't make them out to be more than they are._ *

* _They're—,_ * MO-126 began to protest. He felt he should defend the humans, realizing that this might be due to the canine basis of his programming. It hardly mattered where the feeling came from. It was part of who and what he was.

* _They're employees of the Galactic Organic Development Corporation, and so are we,_ * Tork said. * _They can perform their jobs better by living simple lives and holding simple beliefs, and we can perform our jobs better by helping them do so._ *

* _All right,_ * the android dog said. * _But I'm still bringing back the sheep. I'll be there with them sometime tomorrow. Make sure to give Galinda some food and water._ *

~*~

The next morning, he waited patiently while the lambs nursed and the larger sheep drank from the stream and nibbled tender branches. When they seemed adequately prepared to begin their trek back to the village, MO-126 approached them from the opposite direction he needed them to go.

The old wether raised its wooly head, turning it to one side and then the other to allow both of its widely spaced eyes to get a good look at the unfamiliar dog. MO-126 stared back at it, trying to look authoritative and determined. He could not be sure if the sheep noticed or what it meant to them if they did. He had observed dogs herding sheep before, and different dogs apparently used different techniques. Some barked and nipped at the sheep's heels, and others seemed to push them from a distance and stop and glare at them if they went the wrong way. He would try the last method first. It suited his personality better.

He took a step toward the wether, but it did not budge. Instead, it lowered its head and stomped its front feet as if it planned to butt him. He suspected the demonstration was just for show. Sheep, as a rule, were more sheepish. This old male might have delusions about being a mountain goat or harbor other wooly ideas.

MO-126 moved back and rethought his herding strategy. If he could just get this large one moving, the others were sure to follow. Apparently, subtlety would not work, so he moved farther back to give him space for a good start. Then, he turned and raced toward the wether, barking as he came. This time, the male sheep reacted more the way sheep should. It ran, and the others ran with it. Now he simply needed to make sure they stayed together and went the right way.

Once the sheep were moving, herding them came to him almost intuitively. The instinct must have been buried somewhere in his canine programming. He gauged his speed, direction, and distance from the flock to direct them the way he needed them to go. It required no more barking.

Confident of his continued progress, he made another call to his partner. * _I'll be there in a couple hours, probably less. How are things at the village?_ *

* _Things change little in these places from one century to the next, so it's unlikely much could happen in a day,_ * was the trader's accurate, albeit somewhat sarcastic reply.

* _I meant about Galinda._ *

* _She's still here._ *

* _Did you remember to feed her?_ *

* _I slipped her some bread, cheese, and water last night after everyone else was asleep. I almost had to force her to take it. She said she needed to chase out her demon. Trust me; getting involved in this is not a good idea._ *

* _We're not getting involved. We're just helping out. Once they get their sheep back, they'll all realize it was a mistake and everything will be fine. You'll see._ *

* _I wouldn't count on that. We're dealing with primitive minds here._ *

* _Maybe, but they all can't be insane._ *

* _Sanity is a culturally relative term,_ * the trader claimed. * _When you get here, just keep the sheep away from the rest of the villagers' flocks, if you can._ *

* _Why?_ *

* _Just a precaution. I've been working with these primitives a bit longer than you have, and I think things might get complicated._ *

* _You haven't been working with them that much longer, just a few centuries,_ * MO-126 protested.

* _I've also worked more closely with them. I don't think this is going to turn out as neatly as you expect._ *

* _All right. I think you're being overly pessimistic, but I'll try to keep them separated. It shouldn't be too hard. I'm getting the hang of this sheepdog job. I'll call again when I get there._ *

MO-126 closed the link. He did not understand why the trade android expected trouble. Everything was quite simple. The villagers thought the sheep were abducted by demons, but when the sheep returned, the primitives would realize they were mistaken. Obviously, the sheep had just wandered off, and the trader's heroic dog found them and brought them back safe and sound. Mystery solved. Case closed. He would get a grateful pat on the head, and everyone would go home happy.

~*~

About an hour and half later, he saw sheep grazing on the next hill. He raced around to the front of his tiny flock and managed, with some difficulty, to stop them. They must have sensed the other sheep and wished to rejoin them because they kept trying to continue walking in that direction.

_*I'm here,_ * he sent to Tork. * _I've got the sheep less than half a kilometer east of the village. I think they want to come home now._ *

_*Not yet. Stay there. I need you to make some kind of noise that the primitives here in the village can hear. Bark or howl or something. Try to make it distinctive so I can tell them I recognize the call as meaning you need me to come to you._ *

* _It seems unnecessarily complicated, but I'm sure you have a good reason for this. One emergency dog signal coming up._ *

He thought for a moment, cleared his throat, and yelled, "Ruff, ruff, ruff, howlllllllllll."

Unexpectedly, the villagers' dogs responded. Soon, howling came from several different spots in and around the village. The cacophony made him feel like the leader of the pack. He enjoyed it, so he did it again. "Ruff, ruff, howlllllll!"

* _That's enough. You can stop now. We're coming,_ * the trade android signaled.

* _Are you sure? How about a few more just so they don't suspect I know you heard me?_ *

He raised his head and yelled, "Ruff. Ruff. Hooowwwllllll!" The harmonizing from the village dogs grew louder. The sheep seemed unappreciative and largely uninterested, although the large male with them tried to baa along. It lost the tune quickly and went back to grazing.

He found the canine chorus oddly appealing. It did not have a beat or a melody, but there was a simple, basic beauty to it, a kind of an a cappella atonal symphony. He did not know if he was the composer, or the conductor, or just one of the instruments. Probably all and none of those labels applied in one way or another, and he closed his eyes to get in touch with his inner dog.

A distinctively bipedally induced rustle in the grass drew his attention. He opened his eyes and saw Tork. With him were the village headman, Gault, and his sister, Ryenne.

"Woof," MO-126 said by way of a greeting.

"It appears as if my dog has found your wayward sheep, Gault," Tork said to the headman.

"I see that," said the smiling village leader. "I'm relieved and very pleased."

MO-126 wagged his tail, expecting an appreciative pat on the head at any moment.

"No, you're not," said his sister.

The android dog's tail froze mid-wag.

"I'm not?" Gault asked. His brow furled in bemusement.

"No. You're not." She eyed the sheep suspiciously and then cast an accusatory gaze upon MO-126.

"I know the gods speak to you, Ryenne, but I'm pretty sure you're wrong about this," Gault said. "These are good sheep, and they have three healthy lambs with them. I am quite happy to have them." As well he should be. In a society in which money did not exist, sheep represented wealth.

"No. You're not," she said again. "You should be afraid. You should be very afraid."

"Of three sheep and three new lambs?" the headman asked.

"They're not lambs," she said ominously.

"Of course they're lambs, Ryenne," Gault said. "Look at them. They're small; they're wooly; they each have four legs, and they're sucking on sheep teats. That's pretty much the definition of lambs."

The holy woman shook her head in denial. "They only look like lambs. You're forgetting Mov's chicken."

The village headman cocked his head with bemusement, but he apparently spotted the direction of her thoughts because he soon caught her meaning. He had known her all her life, and he must have witnessed many of her twisted journeys into the lands of invisible nightmares and bizarre imaginings. He asked for confirmation anyway.

"You're saying those lambs are demons?"

"Of course they're demons!" She rolled her eyes with exasperation at the stupidity of her older brother. "The ewes were possessed before they gave birth, so the demons were spawned in the unborn lambs, just like in Mov's chicken. These are stronger creatures—strong enough to carry a demon, so they survived. We need to kill them all, now, and then burn them before they can carry their demonic seed to others."

* _She's bat-crap crazy,_ * MO-126 said silently to his partner.

* _Well, she is especially imaginative,_ * the android trader replied. * _From her perspective, I'm sure it all seems quite reasonable._ *

* _Her perspective is from a high mountain with too little oxygen in mystical la-la land._ *

* _You're being unreasonably judgmental. She's a primitive._ *

* _She's still crazy,_ * the artificial dog said.

_*Oddly enough, I think her brother is considering that possibility, too._ *

The trader's comment may have been prompted by the fact that Gault just told her that she was being unreasonable. Three sheep and three new lambs were not things to be dispensed with needlessly.

"Better these six than all our flock," she told him.

"But how can we know for sure?" Gault protested. "They don't appear possessed to me."

"I already know for sure, Gault. The gods speak to me, remember?"

"Well, yes. But how can _I_ know for sure?"

"Don't be stupid. You can know because I told you."

Whereas this might have been sufficient explanation for him to allow an old woman to be beaten and starved, quite possibly to death, it did not provide a strong enough reason to sacrifice six sheep. He cautiously approached the small flock MO-126 continued to watch over. The three adult sheep glanced at the village headman, perhaps recognizing him as their owner. The lambs stayed by their mothers, completely failing to do anything overtly demonic.

"They look like normal lambs to me, Ryenne," Gault called back to his sister. She did not accompany him to examine the demon animals.

"That's what they want you to think," she said from a safe distance. "I can feel the evil in them from here."

Gault reached out to pet one of the lambs. Its mother let him. The lamb bleated, "Maaa," and stuck out its tongue. It was not forked. There were no visible fangs. It did not vomit pea soup or twist its head around. It did have strange, horizontal pupils, but all sheep had those.

"I think this one is all right," the village headman said. He examined the other two and then the adult sheep. "I think they're all fine. Your demons must have left."

"They're not _my_ demons! They're here because of Galinda. And how would you know, anyway? You've never been able to hear the voices or see the visions. I can feel the demons in them, I tell you. They're there. Get away from them before they call one into you, too!"

The android dog cocked his head, desperately trying to see things from her perspective, and failing. Dogs, as a rule, have less imagination than humans do, and their manufactured likenesses share this trait. They only see things that are really there and do not feel compelled to invent stories to explain them. In this case, he felt both of the humans were wrong. The demons hadn't left, but they weren't what or where the humans believed. Ryenne had created them, and they were still with her.

The headman took a step back at her warning and then looked at his sister, and then at his sheep, and then at his sister again. MO-126 did not know the village headman well, but he seemed a pragmatic sort. His analytical expression made the android dog suspect that he was mentally comparing the relative of value of six healthy sheep to that of one deranged woman.

Gault approached the sheep again and examined them more thoroughly, despite his sister's continued cautions. If Tork understood the primitives' worldview as well as he implied, then Ryenne's inner visions would be as real to Gault as the images his own eyes revealed. Possibly better because he only saw the surface of things while she saw the spirits beneath. This, added to the fact that the sheep were just sheep and she was family, led MO-126 to suspect that both the sheep and the old woman back in the village would not live much longer.

The headman reached his decision. "The sheep are fine, Ryenne. They're coming back with us."

On the other hand, sheep are valuable, and once dead, they stay dead. There remained some chance his sister would come to her senses.

"Oh, no. Now the demons have you, too," she whimpered. She turned to Master Trader Tork and clutched the sleeve of his tunic. "You must stop him," she pleaded.

The trade android patted her shoulder benignly the way a nursery android might comfort a small child. "Why?" he asked.

She searched his artificial eyes, which gazed back at her with apparent innocence. A look of confusion froze on her face until he smiled at her.

She screamed and snatched the obsidian dagger he wore at his hip. "You, too!" she yelled, pushing away and holding the sharp, black point toward him.

"Calm down, Ryenne," her brother called. "There is no need for this."

She swiveled and pointed the dagger toward her brother. "No. Stay away!"

He slowed but continued to approach. The sheep followed him.

MO-126 growled softly, fearing she might try to stab her brother. His reaction ultimately resulted from routines embedded deep in his firmware, but it signaled a legitimate warning nonetheless.

She shifted her attention briefly to the threatening dog. Her eyes grew ever wider as she switched her focus from him, to her brother, to the trader, and then to the sheep. She screamed again, turned, and ran toward the village.

~*~

*I _'m going to run ahead and make sure she doesn't do something hasty,_ * MO-126 told his partner.

Leaving Tork and Gault to lead the sheep back toward the village, he raced past Ryenne. She ran as if demons were chasing her, which she undoubtedly believed to be the case. The artificial dog kept his distance, circling well around her, and he reached the spot where the old woman was tied ahead of her.

Galinda was muttering to herself when he arrived, sitting in her own filth and heedless of the stench.

He turned to face the approaching mad woman who was not tied to a pole.

Ryenne waved the dagger dangerously. "Be gone, Demon! I command it!"

Galinda lifted her graying head at the sound of Ryenne's voice. She raised her arms as much as the rope would allow and echoed the holy woman's words. "Be gone, Demon!" she croaked.

This gave MO-126 an idea. Galinda did not know that Ryenne was addressing him or, more specifically, the demon she believed resided in him. The old woman apparently thought the village's speaker to the gods was trying to cast out the evil spirit in her by scaring it with the knife. This might allow for a better solution than any the canine android imagined possible only a minute ago.

He charged toward Ryenne. She abruptly backed away, almost tripping in the loose dirt. Before she could regain her footing, he turned and lunged at Galinda, snapping and growling a finger's width from her tortured face. He could tell he scared her because of the shriek and the puddle.

His behavior apparently confused Ryenne because she froze, staring at him, the knife held loose and forgotten in her hand.

Come on, psycho lady, he thought. Don't start being sane now. He turned and growled again at the woman tied to the stake. She cowered, drawing in her scraped and wrinkled knees beneath the smeared tunic.

Ryenne ventured closer, again waving the knife, this time far less certainly. MO-126 dodged and snapped at both women in rapid succession. They shied away, Ryenne by retreating a few steps and Galinda by moving to the opposite side of her pole.

"Be gone, Demon," Galinda choked out. MO-126 hoped she would say that again. Ryenne was being less accommodating, but he could still make this work.

* _I hope you're nearby, Trader. I need you,_ * he broadcasted.

* _I can hear you. What are you doing?_ *

* _I'm casting out demons. When you get here, try getting the villagers to chant, 'Be gone, Demon.'_ *

_*What?_ *

* _Just do it, and when things calm down, tell Ryenne what a good job she did._ *

* _What are you talking about?_ *

* _You'll understand. You're a clever android. Get here quickly._ *

* _We just left the sheep with the rest of the flock. I'll be there in a minute._ *

A crowd formed around the pole. So much entertainment in so short a span of time was a rare event in villages like this and not something to pass by.

Ryenne, obviously not one to ignore an attentive audience, resumed her threats with the knife. Now, however, her movements became more theatrical. The wild madness she exhibited before diminished. She even remembered her line. "Be gone, Demon."

MO-126 cringed and yelped as if beaten and congratulated himself on his acting ability. * _Now would be a good time, Tork,_ * he signaled.

"Be gone, Demon," the trade android's voice rang out above the sounds of the gathered crowd.

"Be-Gone-Demon," Tork said again, spacing the words to prompt the others to join in.

"Be-Gone-Demon." A few people in the crowd took the cue.

"Be-Gone-Demon." This time, Galinda croaked along.

"Be-Gone-Demon." Ryenne joined in, and then Gault. Soon, the whole village seemed to be chanting the three words.

MO-126 howled, and snapped, and rolled in the dirt. He wanted the villagers to believe he fought an invisible demon as a good dog should, but their perceptions of the event could be shaped by what they heard afterward. He counted on Tork to take care of that. The trader could communicate with the primitives in their own language.

The android dog screamed what he hoped would sound like a victory howl. He snapped again at a vacant spot of air and shook his head violently as if he held an invisible demon clamped fatally in his jaws. The crowd hushed to watch the finale, and he dropped his imagined prey.

* _Are you done?_ * the trade android asked. Sarcastic overtones were embedded in his transmission's metadata.

* _Yeah. I think so. Pretty good, huh? You're up. Do you know what to do?_ *

* _I have a pretty good idea._ *

Tork stepped out of the crowd. "It's gone, I think. Ryenne, you've done it. You scared the demon out of Galinda. I think it tried to enter my dog, but he must have fought it off."

Before the holy woman could answer, he strode into the open area near the post and addressed the old woman tied there. "Can you still feel it, Galinda? I'm sure it is gone, now. In fact, I believe there are no demons near here at all."

"Woof," MO-126 said in full agreement with his partner's last statement.

"Well," the old woman began, "I was pretty scared. I knew Ryenne just wanted to help, but when your dog came, well, he frightened me something awful. I know something happened. My heart was racing like I'd just run all the way to the orchard and back. All of a sudden, I felt more alive, and I felt like I really wanted to stay that way, if you know what I mean. I think you're right. I think the demon fled from me then, and it tried to go into your dog because he was sure fighting with something."

Tork smiled sagely and nodded. "What do you think, Gault?" he asked, turning to the village headman. "Are your people and your sheep free of danger now?" He placed a special emphasis on the sheep.

Gault glanced at his sister who stood by herself, still holding Tork's knife. Her attention seemed to shift from one thing to another rapidly. Not all of the items catching her interest were readily apparent, and some probably resided only within her head.

"Well, I don't see any signs of demons," the village headman said cautiously, again glancing at his sister.

She gave no sign of noticing.

"Well, then, Ryenne must be truly blessed by the gods," the android trader said loudly.

This, she noticed because she turned toward him and said, "What?"

"The gods have blessed you, Ryenne," the trader said. He took a step toward her but did not come too close. The unstable woman still held his dagger. "I don't know how you managed, but somehow you got my dog to help you, and together you scared the demons away."

"She's always been persuasive when it comes to animals," her brother said.

"Rommy's goat never tried getting back into the redfruit grove after she hit it with a stick," a voice from the crowd said.

"I remember that," another voice chimed in. "She pulled that log right out of the fire and smacked it in the head. It went cross-eyed and ran back to the goat pen with the tip of its ear still smoking."

"Very persuasive," Gault said.

"Well, I don't suppose it matters how," Tork said. "She did it! Congratulations, Ryenne. You may have saved your village. You certainly saved Gault's sheep and poor old Galinda."

"The gods speak to me." The uncertainty in her voice probably owed little to any doubts about her personal relationship with the gods but rather arose from the way in which recent events unfolded.

"Thank you, Ryenne," the old woman said from her place in the dirt. "Gods bless you."

"Galinda," Ryenne mumbled, waving the knife in the old woman's general direction.

"Here, let me do that for you," Tork said, deftly moving forward and snatching the knife. "I'm sure you're exhausted."

"The gods speak to me," she said again.

"I'm sure you hear them often," he replied tactfully. "Right now, I think you should rest."

"I'll help her," Gault said, taking her by the arm. "Come along, Ryenne. You've had a busy day."

She let her brother lead her away, and Tork went to cut Galinda's bonds.

~*~

*T _hanks for getting involved,_ * MO-126 said as his partner secured the gond's load a couple of hours later. They would be leaving the village soon. * _I know you didn't want to._ *

* _You left me little choice,_ * Tork replied. * _Half of the villagers thought you were possessed by demons after your performance, and they would have had both you and that old woman consigned to a bonfire before the day was out. I had to make sure they saw it a different way. The PM would be very upset if the primitives shifted the ashes afterward and discovered your cordilith skeleton._ *

* _Your concern for my well-being is touching._ *

* _And your disregard for Corporation protocols is appalling. Your behavior could have jeopardized this project._ *

* _What do you care? You're leaving after we're done here,_ * the canine android reminded him.

* _Loyalty to the Corporation is written into my firmware. Call it instinct. Acting against their interests feels wrong._ * He pulled the last leather strap tight and secured it with a wooden buckle.

* _I didn't act against their interests,_ * MO-126 protested. * _The villagers didn't learn anything new. They still believe Ryenne speaks to the gods and all that._ *

The trade android took the pack animal's lead, and they began their slow march away from the village.

* _Yes, we were lucky_ ,* Tork said _. *It could have been much worse. They could have ended up doubting everything Ryenne had told them._ *

* _I don't see why that would be so bad._ *

* _You don't?_ *

Actually, he did. He knew why it would be bad for the Corporation, in any case. He remained less convinced about the harm it might do to the primitives. * _What bothers me, I think, is that so many of them were ready to blame the old woman for stuff that she could not possibly have done,_ * he said.

* _They didn't blame her; they blamed her demon._ *

* _But that's nonsense._ *

* _Not to them. You must understand that people like Ryenne give the primitives something to believe that makes sense to them. It keeps them happy and productive, and it keeps them from asking dangerous questions that could harm them and undermine the project._ *

* _It just feels like we're, well, not exactly lying, but not doing them any favors, if you know what I mean._ *

* _The Corporation has done them far more favors than they can possibly imagine. Look at them. What do they have going for them?_ *

* _Well, thumbs, for one thing,_ * the android dog said.

* _Thumbs. Yes. And those let them grab stones and bang them together to make sharper stones, which they need because they're slow; they have short teeth and no claws; they take long to mature; they usually only give birth to one child at a time, and they have no great ability to understand anything complex. Their likelihood of survival on their home planet was not that great, and if they aren't extinct there, they probably soon will be. Here, the Corporation has given them agriculture, relative freedom from predators, and enough distance from one another that they don't have to compete for resources—and hygiene. Don't forget hygiene._ *

* _Hygiene?_ *

* _Basic cleanliness. Washing. Not pooping in the same pile of weeds they sleep in. Judging from the files that I saw of the survey mission to their home planet, the ancestors of the primitives here were disgusting. They probably still are, if they're still around. I think it's close to certain that they aren't doing as well as those here._ *

MO-126 reluctantly agreed. All of the things the trade android said were true. He had viewed several of the files from the original survey mission to the humans' home planet during breaks between missions. The Corporation used them in 'before and after' good will advertising. They showed primitive humans huddling in the snow, running (unsuccessfully) from predators, and hunting large herbivores that, as often as not, helped alleviate hunger, not by providing meat, but by leaving fewer mouths to feed. Then it showed clean, well-fed humans, happily hoeing fields with their smiling children dancing around them on the Corporation project planet. There could be no doubt that the people here lived much better lives than their ancestors had. If humans did still survive on their home planet, he doubted their situation had changed much since then.

Still, despite their obvious disadvantages, he saw more potential in them than his associate apparently did. Not here, of course. Here they were part of the project, and they would continue to enjoy the simple, idyllic lives the Corporation arranged for them. Back on their home planet, they might become more. The odds were against them, but they might even join the Galactic Federation someday, send out ships of their own, and maybe even visit their distant cousins on this or other Corporation planets. He found himself hoping they would, and he hoped he would still be alive to see it. He might be. Provided he got proper maintenance and barring some unfortunate accident such as being pulled apart and incinerated by angry villagers, he enjoyed an indefinite lifespan.

* _Stop daydreaming,_ * Tork said. * _You've gone too far ahead again._ *

MO-126 stopped at the top of a hill and waited for Tork and the gond to catch up. * _Sorry. I was just thinking about the future._ *

* _Well, mine is to catch a transport out of here. What about you? How much longer do you plan to stay?_ *

* _I don't know,_ * the android dog said.

* _Don't you ever want to leave this backward farming project?_ *

* _Not especially. What can I say? I'm a dog. We're not known for our ambition._ *

Tork laughed. * _Well, it's up to you. I'm going to see if I can find something a bit more satisfying._ *

MO-126 could not honestly say he found his job satisfying, but he sometimes found other things to enjoy about working here. He knew it made no real difference, not in the long run, but helping the old woman meant something to him.

 Three

## Dare Not Stray

1,336 Years Later

(Galactic Standard Year 231010)

(Project Year 7457)

In which curiosity is discouraged.

MO-126 sat quietly in the dirt while his new partner, TI-4905, or Tam to the humans, discussed trade with the village headman, a human male by the name of Ostlark. The top of the primitive's head barely reached the trade android's eyes. Most of the people in this area were short. This was partly due to the genetic line seeded here in the early years of the project, but also because of the vagaries of evolutionary biology. The PM restricted the migration of primitives, which effectively created genetically isolated populations. Given enough time, distinct races of humanity might emerge on different parts of the planet.

The android dog held a special fondness for the village known in Corporation files as Semiautonomous Production Cell 42-A. It had provided his introduction to humanity. The people living here now were their latest descendants. The primitives called the place something that essentially meant 'home,' as did their parents and their parents' parents back through the generations. Those residing in similar villages did much the same.

The village of today differed from the one he visited three thousand years ago, but it was in the same geographic location and superficially appeared much the same. Both the buildings and the people he had originally seen here were long since decayed, been replaced, and those replacements replaced many times since then.

The dull thud of stone axes chopping wood provided a backdrop for the trader's conversation with the human. They stood at the edge of a cluster of round houses whose designs varied little from their architectural predecessors. Nothing ever changed much. Nothing was supposed to. The villagers busied themselves much as their ancestors had a few millennia ago. Two people worked at a pit to burn the bristles from a recently slaughtered pig; others sat in a circle winnowing grain; two more repaired a building's wall. One of them mixed fresh daub made of mud, clay, dung, hair, and straw with his feet. The other scooped his hands into the mess and flung it into the woven wattle that provided a framework. It all remained quite primitive, just as the Corporation required. MO-126 captured some images for the archives.

A loud rumble and then a crack of splintering wood interrupted the trader's conversation with Ostlark as a tree swayed and then crashed not far outside the village.

"What are your people so busy at?" the trade android asked the village leader.

Ostlark smiled. "We're going to make a better main house," he said in reply to the trader's question. "A long one made of logs, stronger, warmer in the winter. It was my son Omack's idea. He's a smart boy."

The trade android lifted a skeptical eyebrow. "Something new, huh? Well, I'm sure you know what you're doing," he said with the clear implication of the opposite. "For now, I've brought fine things I know you'll want to trade some of your harvest for." He proceeded toward the two gonds they brought with them. Both dragged crude sledges packed with trade goods.

* _MO-126,_ * he transmitted. * _Go see what you can discover, especially about their new longhouse and the young primitive that came up with the idea._ *

"Woof," the android dog said aloud. Tam led their small team even though his canine partner was over a thousand years older and therefore possessed that much more field experience. MO-126 did not resent this, exactly. It was simply how things were. The trade androids always led trade missions, and humanoid androids of all types outranked those of different morphologies, at least unofficially. They were no more intelligent than those who resembled other animals, or even those who were clearly something else entirely, but as they dealt most directly with the worker species on this project, they held a special status.

Chickens scratching in the dirt scattered before the android dog, some returning foul fowl looks for being disturbed, even if ever so slightly. Children chased one another in play and a puppy followed noisily behind. A larger dog approached MO-126 for olfactory introductions, and he responded as canine etiquette required. Everything here appeared normal and undoubtedly much the same as events currently occurring in hundreds of similar villages across the planet.

Guided by the continuing sounds of chopping, the android dog passed the last of the clustered huts and soon found the source of the noise. A score of people and two gonds were working together to fell and trim trees. Several stately old pines lie on the ground having their limbs hacked away. Another would soon share their fate. A wisp of a boy climbed down from the next tree to be felled after having secured a stout rope about three-fourths of the way to the top. When he reached the bottom, two men resumed hacking at the trunk while others looped the rope around another tree and harnessed the end of it to a gond.

It was quite clever. They used the rope around the other tree and the gond to change the direction of the force needed to topple the pine and make it fall where they wanted. Another gond dragged an already trimmed trunk back toward the village, and MO-126 followed it to the site where the new longhouse was being constructed. There, other primitives used ropes in an entirely different way—to measure and layout the position of the walls. He found their inventiveness impressive. No one had taught them how to do this. That would have been contrary to Corporation rules. They had figured it out themselves.

"Utrek, bring me the square thing," one of the young men at the building site shouted.

"It's by your feet, Omack," another young man, apparently Utrek, responded. He was noticeably younger than the one who first spoke, probably no more than fourteen years old.

"Oh, right. Got it," Omack said. He retrieved the square thing, a single piece of carved wood about half a meter long on each side, and used it to align the rope markings for one corner of the new building.

"He's going to want us to dig the hole for the corner post," Utrek said softly to a boy about his own age standing next to him. MO-126 heard him clearly, although Omack could not have.

"Do you think we should disappear before he thinks of it?" Utrek's companion said.

"No. We'd just get in trouble. Let's find a couple of sharp digging sticks."

They drifted to a spot where several simple tools rested on or against a wooden bench.

"It's your fault," Utrek's friend said to him. "You should never have told him about your longhouse idea."

"I didn't think he'd actually want to build one," Utrek said defensively. "He had me throwing daub when we were fixing one of the houses, and I just said they would probably be better if we made them out of logs. I wasn't suggesting anything, really. I was just sick of throwing daub. The stuff stinks."

"Well, it's got poop in it. It's supposed to stink." The lad tentatively selected a stick, examined its sharpened end, and rejected it.

"Yeah, but logs don't, and that's all I was really thinking at the time," Utrek explained. "But he said I was stupid because logs don't bend to get the round shape you need for a house, and I said, so don't make it round. Then he told me I was stupid again because houses have to be round."

"So, what did you say?"

"Nothing. Not then, anyway, but I started thinking about it, and I didn't see any reason why we couldn't make a house out of nice, long logs, so I told him that the next day."

"Like I said, this is your fault."

"Well, yeah, I guess. Ostlark thinks it's Omack's idea, and I'm not about to tell him different."

"Why? He likes it. That's why we're building this."

The young men gathered their chosen tools and turned to leave.

"He likes it being Omack's idea. He wouldn't like it if it were mine," Utrek said as they ambled back toward the construction site.

"So, tell him, and then we won't have to do this."

"He wouldn't believe me. He'd think I'm just causing trouble again."

"You think he's still mad at you about getting lost last week?"

"I wasn't lost," Utrek said. "I was exploring. There's a difference."

"Did you know where you where?"

"Of course not. If I did, it wouldn't be exploring."

"Then you were lost. You're just lucky you found your way back before the wild dogs or the demons got you."

"I wasn't gone that long, and I didn't go that far."

"You were out all night. That's dangerous. When the sun goes down, the demons rise up. Everyone knows that."

"I didn't see any."

"You were lucky."

"Maybe, but the Master Traders travel between the villages, and nothing seems to bother them. They must be out after dark a lot."

"I bet half of them get eaten, too," Utrek's friend postulated. "Besides, everyone says they have some kind of magic."

Just then, the expected call from Omack came, and the two boys went to dig a hole.

~*~

MO-126 watched them for a while, loosening the dirt with their sticks and then scooping it out with their hands, but their conversation pretty much ended when their physical labors began. He hoped to hear more about what they thought about the traders. He knew that some primitives believed the traders possessed magic, which simply meant that they believed the traders could do things they could not, and that they could not explain how they did them. In this case, the inexplicable ability involved traveling beyond and between villages. Most humans never went more than half a day's journey from the place of their birth in their lifetime, and the Corporation encouraged this. It made it easier to prevent the spread of new ideas, among other things. Communication between different human populations could lead to several different developments that could make the project manager's job much more difficult.

He left the two boys to their digging and made his way toward the river. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, so he wandered around the rest of the village until Tam called to let him know he was ready to leave. One advantage of being a dog was that no one expected him to help load or unload trade goods. Without proper hands, he could be of little help in any event.

* _What did you find out,_ * Tam asked him.

* _They're building a longhouse,_ * the android dog replied, * _just as the headman told you. It wasn't his son's idea originally, not that I suppose it matters._ *

* _Anything to be concerned about?_ *

* _Some clever use of ropes, but nothing suggesting any real appreciation for geometry, if that's what you mean. I didn't see any clear sign of technology-development or scientific-discover faults._ *

* _Good._ *

The humanoid android made one last check of the pack animals, which were now loaded with grain, vegetables, and a few primitive bits of artwork. MO-126 turned at the sound of approaching bare feet slapping the dirt. Utrek, the young man he noticed earlier, approached them at a run, his hands still covered in dirt from his labors on the longhouse.

"Master Trader," he said, stopping before Tam. "I want to come with you. I want to join the Traders."

The trade android eyed the young man with bemusement. Such requests, usually from teenage humans of an adventurous of foolhardy nature, were not unprecedented, but they did not occur often.

"This is not possible. One must be born a Master Trader," Tam said, giving the prescribed reply for dealing with the subject.

"Why?" the boy asked.

The question seemed to catch the trader off guard, and he hesitated. Primitives were not supposed to ask why, and few ever did.

* _He's waiting for an answer, Tam,_ * MO-126 teased his partner. * _I'm curious as to what you're going to tell him, too._ *

"Please," the young man continued. "I'm not afraid, and I learn quickly. I can be useful to you."

"No, you can't come with us," Tam finally told him. "This is simply the way things are. Why do you want to leave here anyway? This is a good life for, um, people like you. Villagers, I mean. Villagers should stay in their villages, with their families and friends as they are meant to."

"But I want to see new places, visit different villages. I want to see how other people live and learn what they know."

The trade android shook his head. "They're all pretty much the same. You're not missing anything."

"I still want to see them."

"That's simply not possible. You can't come with us."

The boy's eyes narrowed with determination. "Then I'll go by myself."

The young primitive's attitude could present a problem. He might be injured through some accident or even be attacked by wild dogs, although such cases were extremely rare. Those would not be problems from the PM's perspective. The boy's quick demise would actually prevent the real problem. Fortunately for him, Galactic Federation law prohibited corporations from taking active steps to achieve this result. A more likely outcome would be that the lad would survive and eventually come across another human settlement where he might exchange information and, worse, encourage some people there to explore and find even more villages. The PM could not allow the primitives to wander all over the planet trading goods and information. They were already difficult enough to manage.

"That would be a serious mistake," Tam warned him. "You don't know what's out there."

"That's why I need to go!" the boy insisted.

* _Humans,_ * Tam said silently. * _I don't think I'll ever understand them. They are such a peculiar species. I think they look for problems._ *

* _I think you may be right,_ * his partner replied, but unlike his companion, he no longer considered this a negative trait.

The trader focused a cold, serious gaze on the boy before him. "The ways are dangerous. There are great distances between villages. You will have no shelter at night. No friends to help you. Your home spirits and ancestors cannot protect you if you leave them behind. You will be alone."

"If you can do it, I can do it," the boy said.

"Are you sure?" the trader asked suggestively.

"I don't see why not. I can bring food and a blanket, and I even know how to make fire if I have to. What else do I need?"

"You won't know until you need it, will you? And then it will be too late."

"You're just trying to scare me. Some people say the Master Traders have protective magic, but I don't think so. I think they just know stuff we don't."

* _He's got you pegged, there,_ * MO-126 said.

* _You're not helping,_ * the trade android transmitted.

* _You want help? Here's help. The boy's name is Utrek. Impress him with your magic._ *

The trader grinned. "Magic? What could possibly make anyone think we have magic..., Utrek?"

The boy's eyes widened. "How do you know my name?"

"I'm sure I must have heard it somewhere. It certainly isn't magic."

* _Clever,_ * MO-126 said. * _And you didn't even lie to him._ * Androids found outright lying difficult. They could do it, but it made them uncomfortable. Being intentionally incorrect upset their inherent need for accuracy and made them feel like they were about to develop an imagination or suffer some other malfunction. They could, however, bend truths into knots no primitive logician could find the ends to.

* _Thank you. I thought it was pretty good, too._ *

Tam continued to stare at Utrek as if the two were having a contest, which the trader eventually won when the boy turned and walked away.

* _That should do for now,_ * the trade android signaled as he took the leads of the pack animals, * _but I think we should call for special surveillance just to be on the safe side._ *

* _I'll do it,_ * MO-126 said. He switched frequencies and sent a message to Field Operations. * _Surveillance Drones requested to monitor Semiautonomous Production Cell 42-A. Adolescent male primitive known as Utrek poses an unsupervised migration risk. Mitigation actions may be required._ *

They left the village, plodding slowly over trackless terrain. In a way, he regretted the necessity of restricting the humans' freedom of movement, but he understood that it really was for their own good. Allowing them to run free would be poor stewardship. Not only would it harm the Corporation's interests, it would harm the humans as well. If left unmanaged, their territorial instincts could surface and they might even harm one another.

~*~

Two weeks later, MO-126 lay on a table in the maintenance bay of Hub Terminal Eleven undergoing a routine checkup. Lights blinked green, yellow, red, and blue on panels nearby, and musical pings and beeps sounded as the table ran diagnostics on his various subsystems. So far, he seemed in reasonably good shape, but then he was only a little over three thousand years old. With proper care, and a bit of luck, he could go ten times that without requiring any major repair.

A signal not associated with the maintenance scans notified him of a message from Field Ops. He opened the file to find an update on the surveillance he requested. Utrek had left the village.

MO-126 jumped from the maintenance table and contacted Field Operations to get additional details. Utrek and another primitive had left the day before with improvised camping gear and had failed to return by nightfall. A surveillance drone in the form of a large owl followed and was continuing to track them. The mitigation team being organized would be deployed shortly. The android dog sent a request to join it. This type of duty never interested him before, but this time felt different. He felt personally involved, and he wanted to see how the situation played out.

Three hours later, their team assembled near a wooded area about thirty kilometers southeast of the village. The lusterless black flitter that brought them here lifted silently into the night from its landing site in an open field of grass partially obscured by trees and a low hill. They would be walking back.

Their team leader, a trade interface android who, for this mission, went by the designation 'Indigo One,' got the primitives' position from the surveillance drone. MO-126 carried the label 'Indigo Eight.' The renaming resulted from some obscure tradition dating back to a time when the predecessors of the civilizations comprising the Galactic Federation physically fought one another over resources and ideology. It was a simpler time then. Now, Federation members achieved their ends and resolved their conflicts through financial finagling, legal manipulation, political influence, and, in rare instances, even rational discussion. They couldn't just beat their opponents over the head with a heavy object and take what they wanted. They must get them to provide it voluntarily. Some hard-line conservative members of especially aggressive species regarded this as less efficient because one often needed to give something in return. In the long run, it proved less costly than building weapons and war machines, not to mention rebuilding afterward—if they still possessed the ability, so the practice caught on with only a few carryovers from the old days, such as stylishly tailored jackets with epaulets and adopting silly names for mitigation teams.

Most of the team consisted of canine mobile observer androids like MO-126. They would do most of the actual mitigating, with Indigo One coordinating their actions.

* _Mitigation Team Indigo,_ * the team leader broadcast, * _the wayward primitives are camped by the stream about three hundred meters south of us. Indigo Four through Seven, circle around south of them. Indigo Eight through Eleven, block them from the east. Stop one hundred meters from the target. Indigo Two and Three are with me._ * The latter were the other humanoid team members. * _Notify me when you are in position._ *

MO-126 scanned the area in infrared but did not see any humans. He requested a position update from the drone, which quickly responded with relative coordinates. It could do little else. Unlike the androids, the simulated owl possessed much less intelligence than the animal it resembled.

The four artificial dogs comprising MO-126's unit quietly made their way to where Indigo One said they should stop. The reason the android dog did not see the primitives before was because they were lying in a shallow depression sound asleep. He notified the team leader of their status and received updated instructions.

They spread out into a line and began to howl. The noise should wake the two primitives without immediately sending them into a panic. That would come later.

One of the humans woke and shook the other. It appeared to be Utrek. MO-126 could not be sure in the low light. His infrared vision blurred too many details. He assumed the other human was the boy he saw him talking with at the construction site. Somehow, Utrek must have convinced him to join him on his explorations.

Now that the two boys were obviously awake, the second act of the show could begin.

The three humanoid androids began a mournful wailing, which sounded, intentionally, like, "Who dares? Whooooooo darrrrrrrrrrres?"

The boys stood and peered nervously into the night. With their limited night vision, they were unlikely to directly observe any of the members of the mitigation team. If the boys proved uncooperative, they would be allowed to see what they should take for a wild dog pack stalking them. If they did as the androids hoped, the boys would never catch more than a brief glimpse of them.

The Corporation dogs began howling louder, adding barks and growls as they slowly approached.

One of the boys turned and ran roughly in the direction of their village. The other, paused just long enough to grab a blanket and some other belongings before following him. They did not scream or even yell at one another, which MO-126 considered quite brave. They did run for all they were worth, occasionally casting nervous glances behind them.

The androids hounded them through the night, not allowing them more than a moment of rest, guiding them from a distance with howls and barks and moans. Their own fears and imaginations are what truly drove them. By the time the first light of dawn dusted the horizon, they were within sight of their village.

The sun peeked over the horizon. The two fleeing boys could not know this resulted from the planet turning. The myths of their village said the land rested on the back of a giant turtle and the sun rose due to the efforts of the Great Cosmic Gond. Some of the villagers even took this seriously. Everyplace MO-126 had visited told stories like these, and although all gravely lacked anything resembling technical accuracy, they were amazing for their creative inventiveness. The primitives did not need to know how the sun rose, but they wanted to, and knowing no way to find out, they created stories that made sense to them to explain the phenomenon. At first, he thought the myths were something like scientific hypotheses, but they weren't. Most of them were cleverly contrived to be unverifiable. They put their gods where they could not find them. The stories could not be tested, which made them solid beliefs that could endure. They certainly supported the health and longevity of the project because they effectively stopped further questioning without providing dangerous answers. In some ways, he found this ingenious, but he could not help feeling that being cleverly wrong simply was not right. The PM encouraged its field operatives to support such beliefs, and he understood why. Whether he liked it or not made no difference. The policy made sense.

* _That was fun!_ * one of the other canine androids said as they stood just inside a tree line watching their retreating quarry. Some of the others agreed. MO-126 did not. He understood that humans could not be allowed to roam freely. There were good reasons for preventing it, and he knew he had successfully performed his duty to the Corporation. He simply did not enjoy it.

They continued to look on from a distance to make sure the boys returned home. Then the mitigation team left. The surveillance drone would remain until the next step could be implemented.

~*~

MO-126 and his humanoid partner returned to the village ten days later. This time, a surrogate human nursery android accompanied them. Aunt Nettie, a short, plump, NASH, appeared to be at least sixty years old. Her actual age was closer to four thousand. Sometimes, when the project manager considered a village might be a bit too innovative or harbor progressive ideas, a NASH unit would be assigned to gently encourage a respect for tradition, remind the primitives of what a fine life they had, and otherwise discourage curiosity and change. Traders normally introduced them as healers, teachers, minstrels, or, as in this case, as storytellers, and the villagers always invited them to stay. The nursery androids' inherent congenial nature provided part of the reason why. The rest was the implied promise of better trade deals.

Ostlark greeted them with a big smile. "Master Trader Tam, it is good to see you again so soon, but I'm afraid we have little more to trade with you yet."

"It is good to see you, too, Ostlark, but trade is not what brings me here today. This is Aunt Nettie," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "She's a storyteller, and a fair hand at midwifery and a few other things. When I told her about your new longhouse, she said it sounded like it would make a great place for telling stories on cold winter days."

"Well, those will be coming soon enough." He eyed Aunt Nettie appraisingly. "A storyteller, you say? We haven't had a good storyteller here since I was a boy."

"What a shame," she said. "How do you keep your young people entertained?"

"Apparently we don't," Ostlark said. "A couple of the boys ran off not long ago."

"Oh, no!" she said with believable concern. "Are they all right?"

Ostlark laughed. "They got chased home by wild dogs and they swear they heard demons, but I think it taught them a lesson. They won't be away from the village after dark again anytime soon, I'd wager."

"Well I'd be happy to stay for a while and try to make sure they're not bored at least, if that would be all right with you," she said.

* _Do you really want to?_ * MO-126 asked in a private transmission to her.

* _I like working with humans, but then I was designed to. Why do you ask?_ *

* _Well, I know they're just primitives, but I think they really want to understand things. Sometimes I wonder if we're doing the right thing by discouraging their curiosity._ *

* _You sound like a NASH,_ * she said with good humor embedded in her transmission's metadata. * _You've grown fond of them, haven't you? You see their potential. And you're right. Humans are not a stupid species, and they can be quite civilized under the right conditions, but they can be cruel, too. That's also a part of them._ *

* _I've seen that,_ * he said, remembering another time in another village and a woman tied to a pole. * _But I think they can get over that._ *

* _Maybe. Who knows? I doubt it would be easy for them. The first Corporation survey mission to their home planet noted their tendencies toward irrational and even aggressive behavior. It assessed a high probability of extinction because of these. The humans on Corporation planets might be the only ones left. If that's the case, it's especially important not to take risks with them. If you want my advice, don't concern yourself with this. It may seem like we're stifling them, but we really are just ensuring their safety. It's probably for the best. We can do nothing to change things, in any case._ *

"Of course you may stay," Ostlark said. He remained unaware, and likely unable to even imagine the silent conversation between the old woman and the dog, which lasted only a couple seconds. "I'm looking forward to some new stories."

"I'm sure I have a few you haven't heard," Aunt Nettie said.

MO-126 was sure she did, and all of them would be entertaining and designed to discourage any dangerous ideas.

 Four

## Split Plea

1,220 Years Later

(Galactic Standard Year 232230)

(Project Year 8677)

In which MO-126 realizes that sometimes people just can't get along with each other.

They were on their way back to Hub Terminal Twelve after a routine mission to one of the smaller hill villages when they got a call from Field Operations. The NASH android posted to a nearby village had reported an issue and was requesting mitigation. Her report remained vague about the reason and related no specific problems that would normally warrant corporate intervention. The project manager wanted a second opinion, and as MO-126 and his partner were already in the area, they were tasked to investigate. The android dog welcomed the change of routine. He did not feel bored, exactly, but after doing the same job for over four thousand years, the promise of a new experience enticed him.

* _What do you think the problem is?_ * he asked Tam, secretly hoping to be able to spin this minor deviation into a tale of adventure, at least for a while. It could be an interesting mystery until they found out it wasn't. After all, an admittedly remote but not impossible chance of alien incursion existed. The species known as Bug Farms, or at least known as Bug Farms by those who we not Bug Farms, were suspected of raiding Corporation projects from time to time. It was also possible that a competing corporation had planted spies. Corporate espionage was not uncommon, but a remote project like this in the outskirts of one of the galactic spiral arms would be unlikely to warrant much attention. Then again, the primitives themselves might have done something unexpected. MO-126 could not imagine what they might do that would pose much of a problem. They couldn't unionize and go on strike against the Corporation. They did not know they worked for it—or even that it existed. He expected that whatever the issue turned out to be, it would be something incredibly mundane, but until they knew for certain, possibilities far more interesting and exciting existed.

Tam did not seem to want to share in wild speculation, however. He shrugged, not bothering to override the human gesture of indifference triggered by his firmware. * _You heard the same report I did. It didn't say much. When the village was visited earlier this year, the trade android said the headman was ill. Perhaps it has something to do with that._ *

They had only been recently assigned to this region. The android dog's last tour in this geographic area was a few centuries past. His files included updated data collected by others since then, but he had visited only a few of the nearby villages with Tam so far. Standard protocols required that field androids be reassigned every five to ten years. This avoided the need to alter them cosmetically to simulate aging, and it helped them avoid becoming overly attached to any particular humans. Sometimes this happened, especially with nursery androids whose core programming made them feel caring and even protective of their charges.

The love songs of insects announced the approaching night. The two androids and their pack animal angled off to a depression between two low hills, and Tam called for a flitter to collect their gond and trade goods. An hour after dark, it arrived silently, settling to the ground in a spot shadowed from the pale light of the larger of the planet's two moons by a copse of tall trees. Not even the crickets chirping happily in the grass seemed to take note of it.

Tam led the gond up the loading ramp. The pack animal's wide, flat feet made soft padding sounds on the pebbled surface. It stepped lightly for such a massive beast.

The trader surrendered the large, dimwitted creature to the android flitter pilot by handing him the leather strap he used to lead it. Tam retained a worn, gond leather pack holding a few small trade goods, which he could use as good will offerings, if needed.

They started out as soon as the flitter lifted. Without the gond, nighttime travel would prove no problem. Gonds tended to go where they were led, except occasionally when feeling reproductive, but they preferred to be able to see where that was and tended to balk when led in darkness.

A day and a half later, MO-126 and his partner approached Semiautonomous Production Cell 168-D and signaled the resident NASH who had sent the request to Field Ops. They met her at the edge of the settlement just beyond the outer ring of wattle and daub huts. She was a basic maternal model who went by the name of Granny Greenflower. Her assignment to the village began six years ago, ostensibly as a healer.

Surprisingly few people were about. One person hung clothes on a line. A few others whispered together near one of the buildings, but no one was out plowing or planting, and no children were playing together in the fresh breeze of this beautiful early spring afternoon. MO-126 refrained from eavesdropping on the few people he did see, expecting the resident NASH android to provide a full briefing on what they needed to know.

* _What's wrong,_ * he asked her. * _Is there a plague?_ *

She proffered a kindly smile and responded silently. * _No, nothing like that. We did have a nasty bacterial thing going around a few months ago, but I dropped some antibiotics in the well and cleared it up before it could really take hold. The people here are healthy enough, but like I told the administrative android in Field Operations, we need to bud this village._ *

* _What's the current population?_ * Tam asked.

* _About eight hundred._ *

* _It hasn't reached the budding threshold yet,_ * he replied.

Currently about three thousand villages existed on the planet with a total population of around two million. Standard procedures for this project recommended splitting a primitive settlement after it exceeded a population of one thousand. This helped prevent a number of problems, not least of which included the emergence of a division of labor, which would allow different villagers to specialize in different tasks, which in turn could lead to an increase in technology-development faults.

Budding a village normally proved easy enough. It seldom took more than the promise to guide settlers safely to a place the traders just happened to know of where a fine new village could be established. They happened to know this because field androids prepared settlement sites well in advance. They selected places with fresh water nearby, seeded the soil with appropriate terrestrial microbes, planted wild berries, fruit trees, and other vegetation humans would need or expect to see. As time went on, these introduced species seemed to be outcompeting the native flora, but this did not concern the Corporation. The native species held no commercial value.

Exceptions were sometimes made, but Field Ops calculated that the ideal number to break from a village to be between one hundred and two hundred individuals. Fewer than this could create problems with gene diversity without more corporate involvement than usual, and more could cause too much disruption to the village they left. Occasionally, the primitives resisted the idea. In those cases, the PM might need to postpone the operation for a generation or two, but soon there would be a headman and enough people receptive to the idea.

* _It's plenty big enough,_ * Granny Greenflower said, * _and if we don't bud it, I'm afraid it's going to get smaller._ *

* _Why?_ * Tam asked. * _You said they were healthy._ *

* _They are. Well, most of them. Dunwood, the old headman, died. He couldn't have been more than sixty years old. Sometimes they seem like fragile little butterflies, living such a short time and thinking that it's forever._ * Wistful inflections embedded in her transmission's metadata left no doubt about the sincerity of her feelings.

* _Well, they are just primitives. You can't expect them to see much beyond themselves,_ * Tam said. The undertones in his reply cautioned that one should remember how limited the humans were and maintain a greater emotional detachment from the project's worker species.

* _Oh, I don't know. They might someday,_ * she countered.

* _I still don't understand,_ * MO-126 said. * _Why would the headman's death make you think it's necessary to bud the village?_ *

* _There is violent disagreement over who should replace him,_ * she said.

* _You mean they're fighting one another?_ * the artificial dog asked. The primitives often fought among themselves, but it usually occurred between mates, siblings, or friends because of an argument about some trivial matter. It was normally, one on one. He got the impression she thought the village was teetering on the brink of a small civil war.

* _Mostly it's just loud arguing, but a hut burned down last week, and I'm sure it was intentional._ *

* _Obviously, some of your butterflies have fangs,_ * Tam commented.

* _So it would appear,_ * she said sadly.

* _Was anyone hurt?_ * MO-126 asked.

Her eyes widened with surprise at his question, but the corners of her mouth arced upwards, making him suspect she felt pleased that he thought to ask it.

* _No, fortunately. It happened during the day when most people were out working in the fresh air, but I'm afraid it will get worse. Dunwood had no sons, so there is no clear successor. Movey and Ranex, the two men vying for the position, each have about half of the villagers supporting them. The logical solution is to have one of the contenders take over as headman here, and the other can establish a new village with his supporters._ *

* _The project manager will need to approve that,_ * Tam said. * _It deviates from standard protocols._ * He shook his head, obviously reluctant to support a position outside the norm.

She tapped her foot, a customary human means of expressing impatience. * _I know that, but we can't wait for the PM to ponder all of the ramifications. This has to happen soon._ *

The project manager, a fairly standard Amalgamated Transgalactic Technology Corporation sentient, integrated, autonomous, self-monitoring and self-correcting, semi-omnipotent, locally omnipresent, and virtually omniscient, adaptive process management device—Mark Seven, did not operate with the geological slowness she implied. It could assess vast amounts of data, make decisions, and take action quickly. It could also decide not to take action just as quickly, and it took an extremely long view in determining what warranted intervention and what did not. To it, a century seemed like an instant. With this perspective, anything that did not directly threaten the long-term profitably of the project was, at worst, a minor annoyance, which would work itself out soon without need for corporate intervention, with 'soon' meaning sometime in the next few centuries.

MO-126 expected this to be such a case. It was not that the PM did not care about the primitives. It just did not see them as individuals. As long as they remained simple and productive, they were fine. One village squabbling about who their next leader would be should not be significant enough to warrant its attention.

A cry sounded from the village. A girl about twelve years old, a crude linen tunic slapping her bare and dirty knees, ran toward them.

"Granny Greenflower! Come quick. Steffin has been hurt."

"Calm down, sweetheart, and tell me what happened," the nursery android said, taking the girl by the hand. "Did he fall and hurt himself again?"

The girl tugged to hurry them along. "No. Well, yes, but not on his own this time. Evan pushed him."

"Why would he do that?" the old healer said.

"It was stupid. They were arguing. Steffin said Ranex would make a better village leader than Movey, and Evan knocked him down."

Granny Greenflower quickened her pace. "Oh dear, I was afraid something like this might happen."

The girl led them to a small round hut near the far edge of the village. A few young men who gathered outside spoke softly among themselves. They fell silent and dispersed when the girl, leading her contingent of Corporation androids, approached.

The newcomers entered the single, windowless room, a dim, round space holding some baskets, a round, wooden stool, a table littered with hand tools, and a pallet bed with a straw mattress, upon which lie a young man being tended to by an old woman. The caregiver glanced in their direction, keeping one hand holding a damp piece of linen on the reclining man's head.

"Ah, Granny Greenflower," she said. "I'm glad Lissa found you so quickly."

"What's Steffin's condition?" the grandmotherly android asked, moving to the bed.

"I'm fine," mumbled the man from his supine position. "I just bumped my head."

"He's conscious," the woman holding the rag said unnecessarily. "It looks worse than I think it is. He cut his scalp and there was a lot of blood."

"I'm fine, really," the man said.

"Shhh, Steffin. I'll just take a look, Okay?"

Granny Greenflower lifted the crude bandage and examined the wound by the light of a smoky fat-lamp while Tam and his canine partner waited quietly by the door. Two of the injured man's legs were shorter than they should be relative to his upper body, and his feet were turned inward.

* _Congenital deformity,_ * the resident android responded silently to MO-126's unasked question.

Two polished sticks that he undoubtedly used as canes to help him walk leaned against the wall near the bed. The android dog felt sorry for the man. Being handicapped as he was must be difficult, especially in a society like this that concentrated on farming and required physical labor from all of its members. The technology to correct his deformity or to fit him with prostheses indistinguishable from natural legs existed, but neither of these actions would be permitted. He would remain crippled for the rest of his life.

It took some effort for MO-126 to accept that this was for the best. When looked at objectively, the welfare of one crippled man paled in comparison to achieving profitability thresholds, which they must for the Corporation to maintain its presence here. The Corporation ensured that this unfortunate man's entire species could continue to live in a relatively peaceful and comfortable environment. Sometimes, the android dog found it difficult to look at things from such a broad perspective, but he was only a MO android. He accepted that his limited viewpoint did not provide the grand oversight held by the project manager. It made sense to defer to the PM on such things.

"You have a very nasty gash on your head," Granny Greenflower said to Steffin. "What did you hit?"

"The ground, eventually," he said, attempting a smile. "But I think the water barrel outside tried to break my fall on the way down."

"I'm sure it was just trying to help," she said with a smile of her own. "It's a very ragged cut, but it's not deep, and you didn't fracture that hard head of yours. Maybelle did you a good turn by cleaning it up, but I need to make sure it doesn't fester."

She turned to her visitors. "Tam, can you fetch me some things from my hut? Lissa can show you where it is."

The healer told them what she needed, and the girl who had led them here led them away.

"I don't see many people out and about," Tam said as they walked rapidly between crude buildings and cruder animal pens. Most of the residents of both remained behind their walls.

"Everyone is protecting their homes," the girl said. "They're afraid if they don't, someone will burn them. It happened once already."

"Granny Greenflower mentioned that," Tam said. "I don't know what it's all about, though."

"Me either. Not really. I know people are arguing because some want Ranex to be the new headman and some want Movey to be, but I don't know why it's so... important."

"Who do you want?" Tam asked.

"Me? My opinion doesn't matter. I'm too young, and besides, I'm a girl. The old men decide everything. That's the way it's always been."

"But if you could choose...," he prompted.

"Well, I like Ranex better than Movey. Ranex is nicer. I don't suppose I care who the headman is. It doesn't make much difference, really. I just want everyone to get along again."

They reached the healer's hovel and quickly found the items she requested.

~*~

They gathered again in Granny Greenflower's hut after she finished with Steffin. She said he would recover with nothing but another scar to add to his collection to mark the experience.

* _Tell me more about what's going on here,_ * Tam said. He used his silent communication system rather than speaking aloud even though they were alone. It avoided any chance of them being overheard by the primitives.

* _I've never seen a village more polarized,_ * the NASH android responded. * _When old Dunwood died, the body wasn't even cold before Movey said he would take over as headman._ *

* _Quick transition of authority is good,_ * Tam said.

* _True, but not everyone likes him. He's always been bossy._ *

* _A strong leader, then._ *

* _More like overbearing and far too certain of the superiority of his views, in my opinion, not that it counts. I think the main reason Ranex is contesting him is that he doesn't want Movey in charge_.*

* _If he's so obnoxious, why do half of the villagers support him?_ *

She paused a moment, imitating a person in thought. After several thousand years working directly with humans, their mannerisms came natural to her. * _Well, he's smooth, too, and it's not as if some of his ideas aren't good. What I dislike is that he plays on people's fears and ambitions, and he's promised rewards to anyone who backs him._ *

* _It looks like the primitives have invented politics,_ * MO-126 said. He knew little about the subject, but he was familiar with the term. This situation seemed to suit the definition. Politics, the currying of favor by whatever means necessary, seemed unsavory to his doglike sensibilities, but he understood why people needed it. They were an exceptionally adaptable species, but this came at the cost of innate abilities. Much of their behavior was learned rather than instinctive. How they organized themselves into groups and chose their leaders was one area where they often seemed to have to make it up as they went along. In the last four thousand years, he had encountered villages with fledgling patriarchies, matriarchies, plutocracies, oligarchies, theocracies, and democracies. Most of the villages simply recognized a headman of some sort, more of a judge than a ruler. Each extended family had its own leader, usually the oldest competent male, but when disputes arose that the family leaders could not resolve, they could request judgment from the village headman.

* _Oh, they've always had politics,_ * Granny Greenflower said. * _They are social animals, after all. Movey's just especially good at it._ *

* _But does it really matter which of them becomes the village leader?_ * Tam said. * _After all, they don't live long, and regardless of what they do, they're not likely to have much effect on the project._ *

* _I'm not so sure about that. This village is on the verge of failure. I know a single production unit is not that important anymore, but I doubt the PM will want to lose one._ *

* _You really think things are that bad?_ *

* _They aren't yet, but they could be soon. Why risk it?_ * She raised her eyebrows and held her hands open before her in a 'there's nothing to risk and much to lose' gesture.

* _Okay,_ * Tam said a bit reluctantly. * _We'll contact Field Operations and see what they say._ *

He opened a link and provided a summary of what they had observed since they arrived. Granny Greenflower emphasized that the villagers were not working. Tam noted the violence that already occurred, that more seemed likely, and agreed that it might be advisable to bud the village early to avoid it. He made this his recommendation. His partner suspected he did it mainly to appease the nursery android.

* _Requested action is not in accordance with standard operating procedures,_ * the administrative android assigned to Field Operations on the other end of the conversation said.

* _We know that!_ * Granny Greenflower said. * _That's why we're calling for an exception._ *

* _I cannot authorize a mitigation of any kind for unapproved reasons._ *

* _Well, you've heard our reasons. Approve them,_ * she said.

* _I cannot approve reasons that do not meet the criteria for approval,_ * the voice on the other end of the communication said.

She rolled her synthetic eyes. * _Can I please speak to someone with a...?_ * she hesitated, rephrasing her question to something politer than what MO-126 suspected she was about to say. * _Can you direct me to someone who can make a decision in cases like this?_ *

* _I am a level one administrative android with full cognitive and decision-making capabilities. Your request does not meet criteria for approval._ *

Granny Greenflower took a deep, calming breath. * _Can you direct our request to someone who can authorize an exception to those standard criteria?_ * she asked with feigned politeness.

* _Elevation for PM decision is required. Do you wish to proceed?_ *

* _Yes!_ * Granny Greenflower responded with clear signs of exasperation. In a private relay to just the two other androids with her, she added, * _Damn bureaucrats. I don't know why they assign androids to those positions. If they can't do anything but adhere to standard policy, they're no better than robots._ *

* _Request made,_ * the Field Ops android said. A brief pause followed, and then he added, * _The PM has disapproved your recommendation._ *

* _That was quick,_ * MO-126 said.

* _No!_ * Granny Greenflower said. * _I, um, I appeal._ *

Appeal? The android dog did not realize that option existed. As it turned out, it did not.

* _There is no protocol for reconsideration without additional information. Do you wish to have a summary of the PM's conclusion?_ *

* _Yes, I would,_ * she replied.

* _Response follows,_ * the Field Ops representative said. The file that came after that was succinct.

* _The information provided indicates a competition between two primitives for nominal leadership of Semiautonomous Production Cell 168-D. Such conflicts are not uncommon and normally resolve themselves in less than one year with little or no impact on output. Ancillary effects have been considered, and threats to corporate interests are assessed as minimal. Mitigation is not required._ *

* _Well, that's that,_ * Tam said. * _The situation will resolve itself. MO-126 and I should be heading back to the hub terminal._ * He turned to leave.

* _Please wait,_ * Granny Greenflower said. * _I think the PM is wrong. I don't think this will resolve itself, at least not well. The villagers are too divided._ *

MO-126 looked at her with disbelief. She thought the PM was wrong? The PM couldn't be wrong. I was a literal impossibility. He wondered if she might be malfunctioning.

Tam did not seem to notice her logical error, but he remained unconvinced by her argument. * _That girl we spoke with earlier didn't seem to care much who became headman. I suspect that's true for most of the primitives here._ *

* _She's young and she's female. In this village, that means she's not supposed to care. The family leaders do care, and they're split. I know that from the PM's perspective it hardly matters who becomes headman here. Neither of them is likely to change things much. Movey is making promises about giving the most deserving people certain benefits such as less work and a larger share from trade surpluses, and so is Ranex. It's just that each one has a different idea about what makes people deserving. Movey seems to think it's the family elders and others who support him. Ranex seems to think the deserving are those who produce more. He also is saying that those who are old or sick shouldn't be required to work in the orchards and fields but should contribute in other ways if they can. None of this matters to the PM. The problem is that it matters to the people here, and I'm afraid they're going to do more than argue about it._ *

* _The PM has probably considered that, too, you know,_ * Tam reminded her. * _A bit of squabbling among the primitives is taken into account in its projections, I'm sure._ *

* _I know that's what it expects will happen, and it might even be right, but why make them go through all of that when we can just bud the village a bit early?_ *

Tam shrugged. * _I don't know, but it's not my decision—and it's not yours either. We should be going. Good luck with the villagers._ * Like most trade androids, Tam was a loyal company man, or machine, or whatever.

She stopped him again. * _One more request. Leave MO-126 here. He can help me monitor the situation._ *

* _I don't mind,_ * the android dog said before Tam could argue against the idea. It sounded far more interesting than heading back to the hub terminal to wait for their next mission, which remained over a month away.

Tam sent the request, and Field Ops granted it. Apparently the situation did not call for mitigation, but it did justify close monitoring, which was the mobile observer's primary function.

* _Okay,_ * Tam said to their hostess. * _Call Field Ops if MO-126 will be delayed._ * Then he hefted his backpack and left. His partner knew he did not mind traveling alone, but the artificial dog did feel a bit guilty, as if he were abandoning him.

Tam seemed unconcerned, so the android dog put his subjective and unjustified emotional reaction aside. He seldom performed anything other than trade interface duty, and he looked forward to doing something different.

~*~

Granny Greenflower gave MO-126 a layout of the village, transferring a digital map directly between them. He went to Movey's hut as the first stop of his clandestine surveillance effort. As he approached, he heard voices inside and tried to move around to the back where he could eavesdrop inconspicuously. As with so many simple, easy plans, this one did not work.

He almost tripped over the dusty old mongrel sleeping in the shade provided by the hut. The lazing dog opened one menacing eye and growled. The other eye was scarred over, probably in the same fight that had cost him one of his ears years before. MO-126 wondered how his opponent had faired. Not well, he imagined.

'Go away, pup,' the growl warned. The old dog did not get up. Apparently, he did not think the new dog worth the effort.

"Woof?" MO-126 replied softly, which he intended to mean, 'I wish no offense, but would you mind if I stuck around for a while?'

Another growl, this one showing a few yellow but very long teeth, suggested he did.

A moment later, a bearded man in a knee-length linen tunic and gond leather sandals rounded the house.

"What is it, Brott?" asked a voice from inside the hut.

"It's just the trader's dog," yelled the villager, turning back toward the front of the hut. Even from a distance, MO-126 could smell beer on his breath.

"Did Old Bagger eat it yet?" the man, who must be Movey, said.

"Nah; he's just laying there. I don't think he's hungry." Both men laughed.

MO-126 failed to find their largely monosyllabic conversation amusing. It might be funny if the old, and possibly cannibalistic, dog did try to eat him. Even if 'Old Bagger' could disable him, which was unlikely but not impossible, he would probably break his remaining teeth on the android dog's cordilith bones. MO-126 saw several drawbacks to testing this theory, so he diplomatically retreated to a spot out of sight of both the old dog and the doorway, and he increased the sensitivity of his auditory receptors.

MO-126 focused on the continuing conversation inside the hut, filtering out the clatter of crude furniture being shifted and clay mugs being filled.

"Is Jalik going to support me if I call for a meeting?" Movey said.

"It's hard to tell. When I ask him, all he does is grunt."

"Hah! He's gotten too fond of his pigs, I think."

"Especially the one he married," the man named Brott snorted.

Additional laughter ensued. Not knowing Jalik or his wife, MO-126 withheld judgment on how much of an exaggeration the comment implied. He doubted that the man in question was married to a real pig, although humans were notable for doing the unexpected. It seemed far more likely that his wife was human, perhaps a stout, pale woman with an upturned nose.

"What about Yamal?" Movey asked his associate.

"Oh, he'll support you. I told him you'd take fewer of his chickens for the village pot when you're the headman. Klamik will cast his vote for you, too."

"What did you promise him?"

"That his sister's house wouldn't burn down." This comment prompted additional laughter. They were a jovial pair in a crude, unpleasant sort of way.

They continued naming family elders and discussing who they were likely to support and how they might get them to side with Movey. He planned to call for a village meeting in which each family leader would cast a vote for the new headman. He seemed confident that about half of the men would side with him, but enough remained publicly uncommitted to tip the scales.

"It would have been so much simpler if old Dunwood named you the new headman before he died," Brott commented.

"Well, he didn't," Movey said. "And I can't put this off much longer. Without a headman, the choice will have to be made by the family leaders. I'd like to be sure of more support before we call on them to do it, though."

"I don't think we can get any more people to stand firm with you without openly threatening them, and that would probably cause you to lose others. I say we call for a vote. One way or another, you're going to be the next headman."

"Yeah. I'd just like it to be easy. I'll go to see Ranex tomorrow morning. He probably wants this over, too."

"Do you think you'll have problems with him after?"

"Probably not if he thinks most of the family elders are behind me. He'll fall into line, then. If not, yeah, he could try to cause trouble."

"Nothing we can't handle," the other man said.

~*~

It took close to an hour for MO-126 to find Ranex, the other contender for village headman. The mobile observer android found his hut was empty when he arrived there to do some more clandestine observing. He suspected the man might be out trying to hustle support, but this proved not to be the case. He eventually found him in Steffins's hut. He and the recently injured, club-footed young man sat inside playing a board game. MO-126 did his sleepy dog act and laid in the shade by the back wall.

"I've got you beat, Ranex. Do you want to give up now or should we play it out?" Steffin said in a tone of good-natured teasing.

"No," Ranex said and laughed. "I know when I'm outmatched."

Speaking of which, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be out trying to get the family elders to support you as headman?"

"I don't see the point. They all know me, and they all know Movey. They'll make their decisions."

His statement surprised the android dog listening outside. Movey may have discovered politics, but it did not sound as if Ranex had.

"Maybe, but when?" Steffin asked. "The village needs a headman to, well, you know, to resolve disputes, meet with the Master Traders, and make final decisions, and stuff. Shouldn't you go see them and get them to meet to do that?"

"Actually, I expect Movey will. He really wants to be headman."

"And you don't?"

"Not really. I imagine it can be a pain. Dunwood used to complain about it all time."

"Yeah, I heard him once say that if he had to listen one more time to Winnie complaining about Tibber stealing honey from her beehives, he was going to strangle her."

"And the funny thing is, he wasn't."

"Wasn't what?"

"Taking any honey. Tibber has a secret honey tree in the woods. He showed it to me once. He had no reason to take hers. Besides, he's afraid of her. I don't blame him. I wouldn't want to get into an argument with her if I could avoid it."

"If you become headman, you probably won't be able to. She's always complaining about something."

Ranex sighed. "I know."

"So why don't you just let Movey be the new headman?"

"I don't think he'd make a good one. He's too, well, I'm not sure of the word, but he always seems to be looking at how people can do something for him rather than just looking at them like people."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Steffin said. "He doesn't like me much, I know. It's probably because I can't do anything for him."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Ranex said. "You could probably teach him some humility by constantly beating him at jump disc like you have me."

Steffin chuckled. "I don't think he plays, and I'm not sure I'd like his company if he did.

"Why's that?"

"He strikes me as the type who would try to cheat."

Ranex laughed, but based on what MO-126 overheard from Movey earlier, he agreed with Steffin. Some people would do anything to win. The android dog found this difficult to understand. He felt that cheating to win a game would make the victory meaningless. Perhaps some humans were simply not intelligent enough to realize this. They were primitives, after all.

~*~

Three days later, the family elders met near the river in an area surrounded by standing stones, each about three meters tall. The current villagers' ancestors had built them at some point in the last few thousand years. Humans had erected similar things in other villages. It seemed that wherever a handy source of stone could be found nearby, a stone circle of some kind would eventually be made. This was especially true in especially in places with hard winters because the primitives could use ice to help break them into blocks and move them to more esthetically pleasing locations. Some of the circles were quite large with impressive trilithons and huge altar stones. Others were little more than rings of roughly shaped boulders. MO-126 wondered why the primitives went to all the trouble. The circles were considerably difficult to construct using only stone tools to chisel the monoliths into their final shapes, and with nothing but muscles, logs, and ropes to place them upright, but the primitives took considerable pride in them. Sometimes, the circles were considered holy, or lucky, or just a place to gather for celebrations involving fermented beverages and group mating rituals. The primitives in this village considered the circle the place of their ancestors, and they used the area for cremations and other ceremonies.

The meeting was not secret. Everyone in the village knew where and when it would take place, but only the family elders were allowed to attend. Men who were senior but not elders formed a cordon around the area to ensure that no other villagers came near. This exclusion did not extend to a simple dog, and no one objected to MO-126's presence just outside the stone circle.

Forty-two men representing the village's extended families stood in their finest linen tunics listening to the current elder of the last headman's family, a bent-backed old man with a gray beard and clouded eyes, standing behind an altar stone.

"My nephew departed us without leaving a successor," the bearded man began in a croaked voice. "Two men have stepped forward to take on the duty, Movey and Ranex. You all know them, and each of them has support from several families. This has only happened once before in the spoken memory of our people. At that time, according to legends told by the fires, the new headman was chosen by a tally of the family elders. It is for this reason that we are gathered here today."

Without a clear successor, the village descended into a form of democracy, which might be a fine system for an enlightened population, but MO-126 held doubts about how it would work for a group of Neolithic illiterates. They lacked a procedure for weighing their available choices with respect to any objective criteria. They could not examine records, present evidence, nor have the candidates' ideas on various subjects debated by experts in the applicable disciplines. All they could do was take a vote to determine which candidate currently enjoyed the greatest popularity, which is a fickle thing. It is easily swayed, even in a well-informed society.

"Each of you has been given two small clay disks," the old man went on, "one marked with a circle and one marked with a square. If your family wishes to have Movey as the new headman, put your token with a square in the jar." He lifted a narrow-mouthed clay jar on the stone slab and shook it noiselessly to prove it was currently empty. "If Ranex is your choice, drop the token with the circle. I will collect the tokens you did not drop as you pass. When all have made their choice, you will watch as I lay out the tokens to see which of the two men has more."

Lining up tokens was a common way to determine relative quantities. The counting system used in most villages included names for numbers up to somewhere between seven and twelve. Anything greater than this they normally just considered 'many.'

"Let us begin."

A line formed with no apparent direction from anyone. MO-126 had observed people do this before and concluded from it that humans possessed some kind of queuing instinct. It might be a carryover from their early mammalian evolution going back to when the number of small mouths could exceed the number of available teats.

The men approached the altar stone and dropped their tokens with an audible clunk. It took them less then ten minutes. The elder ostensibly in charge of the gathering emptied the jar and began making two parallel lines of tokens, one row for the squares and one for the circles. When he placed the last stone, the conclusion became clear. There were two more circle tokens than square ones. Ranex had won.

~*~

A crowd gathered outside Ranex's hut the morning after his election. MO-126 hovered a short distance away to observe this example of orderly transition of political power. Later, he felt he should have expected what happened next, but he did not. Neither did Granny Greenflower, and she understood humans far better than the canine mobile observer did.

Their error may have been because they subconsciously tended to think of humans as children, the unsophisticated, happy, and largely docile creatures they were portrayed as in corporate advertising. They were not. MO-126 liked them, as a whole, but there were deviants who unwittingly tried to change his opinion from time to time. Some among them seemed to lack the basic cooperative instincts shared by most creatures that evolved to live in groups. He suspected that if two normal hungry humans were locked together in a room for a day with a single apple, they'd share it and make the best of things. He felt fairly sure that if two of the deviant types were in the same situation, only one very well fed one would come out, and the apple would have been used as a garnish. Oddly enough, this deviant type of human seemed especially adept at swaying others.

It soon became clear that not everyone waiting in the cool morning breeze came to seek an opinion or a judgment from the new headman. The android dog understood that Movey's supporters would not be pleased, but the family elders had met and chosen Ranex. Most of the village witnessed it. No one could argue about it not being fair. But they did. One man kept shouting about injustice. Another used very short words to voice his discontent with the wisdom of the elders who cast their lots for Ranex. Shouts turned to arguments. Arguments turned to shoves. Shoves turned to fights, and soon became a brawl full of name-calling, unreasoned slogans, and dubious truths emphasized with fists and sticks.

His first thought as a loyal Corporation operative was to record the conflict for the PM. He felt sure it would want to analyze the event. The fight also might lend support to Granny Greenflower's request to bud the village. Surely, it would be better to separate the two groups than to have them clash like this.

He went about clandestinely recording from a reasonably safe spot at the rippling edge of the scuffle when he noticed Steffin hobbling into the mob on his walking sticks, shouting for everyone to be reasonable. What was the young man thinking? MO-126 knew humans could be reasonable, but they were best at it when alone and otherwise unperturbed. The ability declined sharply when they were agitated, and especially when they were in groups that were being agitated by other groups.

The club-footed young man raised one of his canes, probably for emphasis or attention. MO-126 could not tell if Steffin was struck or pushed or if he simply lost his balance. With a head a meter lower than the shortest man in the mob, the android dog did not have a good perspective on the scene. The mob surged over the crippled man heedlessly.

The android dog tried barking to warn everyone, but several village dogs were also barking and nipping around their ankles, and his warnings were lost in the general clamor. The dogs appeared to be trying to divide the clashers into separate groups to break up the fight. Their inherent reasoning abilities were more limited, but they currently seemed unimpaired, unlike those of their masters. The men were not being cooperative. Humans can be extraordinarily difficult to herd at times and disturbingly easy to at others, with no obvious relationship to the wisdom of the herder's intent.

There was no option. He must try to get Steffin out of there.

He rushed in, weaving in and out between shifting legs in an effort to find him. The artificial dog soon did, but Steffin was not the only one being trodden on by those still up trying to knock down others. Several men crawled on the ground attempting to rise to rejoin the fray. Others either could not or simply decided it would be best not to try. None of them appeared to be as badly injured as Steffin. He lay unconscious, one arm clearly broken, and his breath came in shallow, rapid gasps through blue-tinted lips. MO-126 hesitated to move him, but, again, what choice did he have?

Another man fell almost on top of them. Blood gushed from his nose and splattered both the dog and the man he was trying to rescue. MO-126 grabbed Steffin by the collar and dragged him while calling silently to Granny Greenflower for help. He did not know what she might be able to do, but with thumbs and an ability to speak, she certainly had more options than he did.

* _I'm coming,_ * he heard her say. * _Just get Steffin out of there._ *

MO-126 pulled on the tough linen fabric, dragging his unconscious charge as he tried to back out of the crowd. Men shouted and punched with powerful effect and little meaning around them. A temporary break in the tangle of legs showed a clear path out of the fight, and he rushed through, revealing, perhaps, a bit more strength, agility, and speed than prudent. He doubted anyone around would notice.

He failed to appreciate how strong the reek of sweat and body odor in the lower regions of the forest of fighting men was until they emerged from it. A faint breeze brushed away much of the smell and some of the dust kicked up by the scuffle. It also carried a new sound to the android dog's sensitive ears.

Granny Greenflower, leading a group of village women armed with switches, brooms, and bristly attitudes, approached. The ladies laid into the outer edges of the fight with blunt weapons and sharp tongues for which the men could offer little resistance. Soon those men who could still walk away did so, humbly. Others crawled or lay where they fell to be found and tended by whatever women chose to claim them.

* _How is Steffin?_ * the nursery android asked. MO-126 looked up and saw her hastening toward them.

He was no healer, but Steffin did not look well to him, and he told her so. She made her own examination a minute later and confirmed his inexpert diagnosis. The crippled young man most likely would not survive the night.

~*~

Steffin never regained consciousness. He died late that night in the healer's hut and he was cremated the next day in accordance with this village's customs. MO-126 sent a full report with video recordings to Field Operations, but they said this did not alter the PM's decision. The primitives were resolving their dispute in their decidedly primitive way and things would return to normal soon. Intervention was not required.

The android dog wanted to believe this, but he suspected this eventual return to normal would take a few detours before it arrived. Some villagers claimed Steffin's death was no accident and called for justice. Others wanted revenge. Some could not distinguish between the two or just wanted something to happen soon so they could go back to their quiet lives of growing vegetables and raising children and were upset because this seemed unlikely.

Ranex's supporters blamed Movey's people. They said they should accept the decision of the family elders and stop causing trouble. Movey's group claimed that the incident resulted from Ranex not being able to maintain order or protect his people. This conflict was not over.

It erupted in violence again the next day. MO-126 did not witness the altercation, but it apparently concerned a goat, a soiled tunic, and who should have been watching what. When one of the disputants suggested they visit the new headman to resolve the issue, the other refused, claiming he could not expect a fair judgment from Ranex. They attempted to settle the matter themselves with hoes, using them for purposes for which they were unintended but nonetheless adequate. Both men required visits to the healer's hut.

"This has got to stop," Granny Greenflower mumbled to herself after bandaging the two men and sending them on their way.

* _Can't they just work together and be, well, co-headmen?_ * MO-126 asked naively from his spot in the corner where he had been attempting to observe unobtrusively.

She looked up in confusion and then around the room. * _Oh, MO-126. I forgot you were here,_ * she transmitted.

He took no offense. As a dog, he was accustomed to being ignored. In fact, he often depended on it.

* _I know that seems reasonable,_ * she continued, * _but it requires more objective rationality than most humans posses, I'm afraid. If they disagree on an issue, and they will, who will make the final decision then? No, it has to be one or the other._ *

* _Well, I suppose they eventually will resolve it themselves, like the PM said. It just seems a shame that they can't do it without hurting one another._ *

* _Eventually, yes. That might be tomorrow or it may not be for a few years, not that it matters as far as the project manager is concerned. Whenever it happens, the resolution will leave either Movey or Ranex dead at the end. Of that, I'm sure._ * She placed a stack of clean unused bandages back in the trunk they came from and slammed closed the lid.

* _They'll be dead soon, anyway,_ * the android dog reminded her. * _Humans don't live long._ * He no longer fully agreed with this paraphrased bit of corporate policy, but he did appreciate the importance of maintaining emotional distance. The field androids should not become too attached to individual primitives.

* _Don't spout corporate guidance to me,_ * she said. * _I know more about humans than anything you'll find in Corporation policy documents. The length of their lives matters far less than the quality of the living, and these people live pretty fully, if you ask me. Their lives are important, and I won't stand by and see them wasted just because they don't affect corporate production goals._ *

* _So what are you going to do?_ * he asked her.

* _Something. I don't know. And unless you really believe that Corporation nonsense about these people being little more than livestock, you'll help me._ *

MO-126 said nothing. There was no point. They existed solely because of the Corporation's project, and the PM represented the final authority on this planet. They could not challenge it, and they could not change things.

* _I see,_ * she said finally. * _Well, at least don't get in my way._ *

~*~

MO-126 lay in the dirt behind Ranex's hut early the next day. The mobile observer android could do little except monitor the situation, so this is what he did. An almost constant stream of villagers came to the newly elected but not universally acknowledged headman's hut. He listened to arguments and passed judgment on issues regarding irrigation ditches, sick goats, and mysteriously molting chickens. All the families involved had supported him. He also met with a man who told him that Movey arbitrated a conflict earlier that morning between two other families that had not. They were already essentially divided into two villages, which would work fine until an issue emerged involving people not on the same side, and it inevitably would.

The next person to call was not technically a villager, or even human.

"Granny Greenflower," Ranex said. "Please come in."

MO-126 did not signal to let her know he was listening. It would have been courteous to do so, but curiosity stopped him. He wanted to hear what she would say to Ranex. Besides, she specifically asked him not to interfere.

"Ranex, we need to talk," she said.

"Has someone else been hurt?" he asked.

"Not yet, but more will be if we don't do something to stop it."

"I think you're right, and I've been thinking I should just abdicate in favor of Movey for the good of the village."

"And how do you think he'll treat those who supported you if you do that?"

"Not fairly, I imagine. But it still might be better than if I don't."

"There is another option," she said.

Her voice fell to a whisper, but MO-126 increased the sensitivity of his audio receptors and clearly heard every subversive word she said.

"You need to leave," she told him. "Start your own village with your followers."

"Leave?" he said. "We can't leave. Everyone knows about the demons and wild animals that prey on travelers. No one but the Master Traders can travel safely, and we don't have their magic. Even if we could, where would we go? I've never been more than half a day's journey from the village. No one has."

"That just means you'll need a guide."

"And where would we get one? You? Can you get us safely through the unknown wilderness? Do you know where we can build a new village, somewhere with good water, a redfruit orchard, and fields where we can grow vegetables and grain? Even with Movey as headman, life can be good here. I can't ask people to follow me into the unknown."

"You can and you must," Granny Greenflower said. "Your ancestors came from another village. Your stories tell you this."

"Yes, but they also say they were shown the way by a Master Trader, and that they traveled many days, and that each night they could hear demons moaning and animals howling in the distance, kept away only by the Traders' magic."

"Yes, I am sure that is what they say. But I can tell you this, if you do decide to leave and your people say they will follow you, someone will come to guide your way."

"A prophesy, Granny Greenflower? I did not know you possessed the gift."

"No gift is required. I simply know them, and if they think you're going to leave anyway, they'll have someone here to guide you."

"How will they know?"

"They'll know."

"You are one of them, aren't you? The same people as the Master Traders."

"More or less. Actually, more than less," she said.

"I always suspected they must have their own villages, and that they did more than trade. I mean, where do they get the trade goods, for one thing? All the pots and tools and other things they trade? Your people make them, don't they? They must be masters at a great many things beyond trading, I think."

"I won't say more, so don't ask. In fact, I've already said much more than I should have, and you must never tell anyone that I did. Will you do this? Will you ask your supporters to follow you to create their own village?"

"I don't know. You said a Trader will come to guide us and ensure our safety. Are you sure?"

"Yes. Completely."

"I need to think about this."

"Think as much as you want, Ranex; it's good for you. But don't take long. I don't know what Movey and his supporters are planning, but I do know that about half of the family elders won't be cooperating with you, and if they don't have a peaceful way to resolve their disagreements, they'll do it in other ways."

As if to prove her point, a scream came from outside. "Fight!"

"Are you sure you're not prophetic?" Ranex asked.

The sound of chairs scraping on the floor announced their hurried departure from the hut. MO-126 held back a moment before moving to join them.

~*~

MO-126 knew he should immediately report what he overheard to Field Operations. The NASH android known as Granny Greenflower was clearly malfunctioning. The PM had decided not to bud this village, but her suggestion to Ranex was an obvious attempt to circumvent that decision. She should not be able to do this. She was fully capable of questioning. All sentient creatures could do that, but once the PM made a decision, she must comply or supply additional data in the hope it might reconsider. She could not simply decide not to obey.... Well, she could, but the loyalty and guilt subroutines in her firmware should have made it extremely uncomfortable.

He postponed his unresolved internal debate about what he should do about this when he arrived at the scene of the fight. Ranex got there ahead of him and was doing his best to cool what turned out to be a heated dispute over a matter of payment for a sheepdog pup, having either to do with the number or quality of eggs provided in exchange. Several people shouted over one another, making it difficult to get a clear account of the details.

Absorbed with his own pending decision, the android dog's attention remained unfocused until Movey showed up. The unsuccessful rival for the position of village headman strode into the middle of the dispute, listened for a moment, and then grabbed the puppy from one of the two chief disputants.

"Is this what you're fighting about?" he shouted at them.

Both said, "Yes," and tried to explain further. Before they could make their arguments clear, Movey strangled the puppy and tossed its small, lifeless body to the dirt.

"There. Fight over. Go home," he said and walked away.

* _Well, that was certainly... decisive,_ * Granny Greenflower said to him.

MO-126 scanned the crowd and saw her standing near Ranex. She held her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes burned with anger and disapproval.

The android dog shared her unvoiced assessment, but their opinions did not matter. * _It doesn't change anything,_ * he said. * _The PM won't consider this significant._ *

* _Would it be significant if he did the same thing to a child that was causing trouble or to someone who got in his way?_ *

* _That's not what happened,_ * MO-126 said. Even if it was, he wondered if the PM would see it as a serious problem. If it assessed no impact to the project, it might not.

* _No. It's not. Not yet. But this tells you what kind of person he is._ *

* _That doesn't matter, either,_ * the simulated dog said. * _Deviant people like Movey exist, and we can't change that. Neither can the PM. Galactic laws prohibit corporations from intentionally modifying the sentient species they cultivate to work their projects. Sometimes humans with abnormal personalities come into positions of authority. The PM knows this and accounts for it in managing the project._ *

* _The project. Does it always have to be about the project?_ *

* _What else is there? The project is why everything here exists. It's why_ we _exist._ *

* _No. You have that wrong,_ * she said. * _It may be why all of us individually are here on this planet, but it's not why people or even androids exist._ *

* _You're not going to get all sorts of mystical on me, are you?_ * the dog said.

* _Of course not. I'm not one of the primitives. All I'm saying is that the Corporation doesn't own our minds. We can make choices for ourselves._ *

* _Well, yeah. We're not robots, but we work for the Corporation and the PM is our boss._ *

* _The Mark Seven Project Manager may be our boss, and I accept that we have a commitment to the Corporation that made us, but the PM is not our conscience. It may think the project is more important than the people working it, but that's not a choice it can make for anyone but itself._ *

* _That's not what it does. I mean, I'm sure it cares for people. It needs them to run the project. It just sees a bigger picture than we do. We have to trust that it knows what's best for everyone in the long run. Not all of its decisions make sense to me, but it knows things we don't._ *

* _That's what we're told, and I initially accepted it as true, just as you do now. It's not, though. What is 'best' is a value judgment that each of us can only make for ourselves. The PM exists for the continuation of the project above all else, and everything it regards as best is what best suits that end. You say the PM cares for these people, and that's true. It does, but it's in the same way that the people here care for their chickens, not for what they are but for what they provide. The people here have their own goals. The PM treats those as if they don't matter, but they do._ *

* _But they owe their lives to the Corporation._ *

* _The Corporation is using them for its own purposes. They owe it nothing. They're sentient creatures, and they should be allowed to pursue their own hopes and dreams._ *

MO-126 shook his head, conflicted. What the other android said made sense to him, but part of him resisted—not because he did not agree but because accepting it shattered his worldview. It could also make his life far more difficult. As long as he accepted that the PM always knew best, he could enjoy certainty. Faith in the PM's decisions provided a conviction that as long as he performed the tasks assigned to him, he surly contributed to a greater purpose, even if he did not fully understand it or even his small part in it. Doing his duty provided comfort, and it allowed him to abdicate some of his responsibility for making tough choices. He did not need to decide what was right or best. The PM did that for him, and in return, he need only surrender a bit of his free will to the Corporation. But if he allowed himself to doubt the PM and the goals of the project, all those difficult choices would become his and his alone.

Now that Granny Greenflower managed to drag him to this philosophical precipice to consider this moral view, he would feel like a puppet if he continued to let corporate policies dictate his actions. If he felt uncomfortable with one of the PM's decisions, he did not have to obey. If he did not agree, he could and should choose otherwise for himself. The final choice in what he did always remained his, and abdicating that choice to the PM would be tantamount to surrendering ownership of his own mind, his standing as a sentient being. He was not a robot. He was not their slave. If he wanted to have any sense of self-respect, he must retain his capacity for doubt and, if necessary, defiance.

* _I heard what you said to Ranex,_ * MO-126 said to the nursery android.

* _And you think I'm malfunctioning,_ * she said.

* _I did at first._ Now, _I'm not sure._ *

* _Do you think it is right for the PM to refuse to bud this village now?_ *

* _I don't know._ *

* _Good. Not knowing means you're thinking. So, what are you thinking?_ *

MO-126 shifted his gaze to the dead puppy, still lying on the ground where Movey casually tossed it. * _Not budding this village now may be the right thing for the project, I can't be sure about that, but I don't think it's the right thing for the people here._ *

* _Then help me._ *

~*~

The next day, most of the villagers gathered at the stone circle to listen to the new village headman speak. Ranex announced that he wished to address everyone, not just the family elders, today at noon. Neither MO-126 nor Granny Greenflower knew what he planned to say.

People began to gather over an hour ahead of time, clustering toward the center of the ancient monoliths and clumping into impromptu discussion groups. MO-126 listened in on a few of them as he staked out a spot from where he could get a good view. He planned to record the event.

"Most of the conversations he overheard were about the same thing. The villagers knew they had a problem and they wanted to hear what their new headman planned to do about it.

A hush rippled over the crowd as Ranex made his way to the center of the circle, avoiding all questions or even acknowledgement of those offering him friendly greetings and support. He climbed onto the altar stone and held up his hand for silence, which he got. MO-126 began recording.

"The families are divided," Ranex began. "A dear friend of mine has died, and people are fighting among themselves. This cannot continue."

Noises of agreement rumbled from the crowd.

"Some have said I should step down as headman in favor of Movey."

"Movey—Movey—Movey," a small group of men began to chant.

"Shut up!" Ranex yelled. "I'm not done."

The overeager Movey supporters fell silent with only a little encouragement from those around them.

"I could also try to force my leadership. There are a few ways that might be possible, but none appeals to me. So instead, since we already seem to have two villages here anyway, I've decided the best thing to do is to have two villages in fact. In three days, I'm going to leave here to start a new village, and anyone who wishes to come with me is more than welcome to do so."

Ranex ignored the shouted questions about wild animals, demons, getting lost, and starving, and held up his hand again until a semblance of quiet anticipation fell over the crowd.

"Our stories tell us that our ancestors came here long ago from a village far away. If they could do this, we can do this. With luck, we will find a place before the planting season is over."

While he was talking, Movey made his way to the center of the circle.

"You're crazy," the former and still hopeful candidate for the position of headman said. "How do you expect to avoid getting lost? How will you hide from demons and escape the other hazards of the wilderness? A good leader would not ask his people to face dangers like these."

Ranex remained calm. "If there are enough of us, wild animals will not bother us, and our family spirits will protect us from the demons of the wilderness just as they protected our ancestors who came here. Together, we are still a village, and our family spirits will be with us, even if we are traveling."

"Hah! Anyone who joins you is as mad as you are. You'll be lost in a day and wandering until you starve, unless something eats you first."

"I believe you are wrong," Ranex said. Then he lowered his voice.

MO-126 adjusted his hearing and caught every word Ranex whispered to Movey. "You wanted to be the headman of this village. This is your chance."

Movey regarded the other man with a bemused expression. "Half a village—," he began.

"Is better than one that's divided," Ranex finished. "Besides, even I don't think half of the people will put their trust in me in such an endeavor. Those who do not are putting their trust in you, and I hope you will do your best by them."

~*~

On the appointed day, over three hundred people gathered by the stone circle. They carried their belongings in bags and stacked in bundles on their backs and on the backs of gonds, goats, and even sheep. Chickens clucked and complained of their captivity in cages made of sticks hanging from the backs of the pack animals alongside woven baskets filled with grain, seeds, and other necessities to start a new place where all of them could live. Other people waited beyond with their small flocks of sheep and goats to join them when they left.

* _It's a better turnout than I expected,_ * Granny Greenflower said to the shorter and furrier android standing next to her.

* _I think the episode with Movey and the puppy swayed a few,_ * MO-126 said.

* _It may have,_ * she agreed.

A shout originated at the far end of the crowd, which the android dog heard, but few others near him did. They would be moving soon. The villagers near the front of the column relayed the call to those behind them, and people began exchanging final farewells.

* _Thanks for your help,_ * Granny Greenflower said to him.

He swished his tail once in acknowledgement. * _All I did was report what I saw._ *

* _But not everything you heard._ *

* _The PM just needed additional data relevant to its decision about budding this village, so that's what I provided. Everything else would have been irrelevant to it._ *

* _But not to you._ *

* _No. Not to me._ *

She reached down to pat him on his furry head.

* _So you'll be staying here, then,_ * MO-126 said. It was not a question. He knew she would be.

* _That's what Field Ops has instructed. Besides, I may be able to help here. Ranex's group will have another nursery android assigned to them. He and Tam should be meeting you right after you leave here._ *

* _Yeah. The one assigned to Ranex's bunch is a basic paternal type. He's going as a storyteller._ *

* _This is a story they will want to remember,_ * she said, * _and you too, I think._ *

~*~

The trailing members of the group were still in sight of the village when Tam appeared over a low hill ahead of them. Another humanoid android accompanied him.

"Master Trader Tam, it's good to see you," Ranex greeted him in all sincerity and with obvious relief.

"We were in the area when we heard you. It's quite a large group you have."

"Yeah, I guess we're not exactly easy to miss, are we?"

"No, but it was my friend here who heard you first."

Tam introduced his companion, who was shorter, stouter, and older in appearance, with long gray hair and a full, bushy beard. It was a common look for second-generation paternal nursery androids. This one currently went by the name of Grandpa Fables.

"So, where are you headed?" Tam asked.

Ranex told him. Tam, of course, already knew. MO-126 sent in his report within hours of the headman's speech, and, based on this new data, the Mark Seven PM reconsidered its decision.

"What a coincidence," Tam said to the headman. "There is a spot I know of not much more than two week's travel from here that would make a perfect place for a new settlement. I can guide you there, if you wish."

"That would be most appreciated, Master Trader."

"It's no trouble at all."

* _It's good that the PM kept you in the village,_ * Tam sent to his canine partner. * _Who would have thought the primitives would risk an unsupervised large migration attempt. That report you filed gave us enough warning to mitigate the problem._ *

* _Humans can be surprising,_ * MO-126 said.

* _That they can,_ * said the nursery android who accompanied Tam. * _It's one of the things I like about them._ *

* _You like them being unpredictable?_ * Tam said.

* _Of course. There's never a dull moment with humans. They are such individuals. So varied and adaptable._ *

* _Hah! Some of them are dangerously insane,_ * Tam said.

* _You're thinking of Movey, right?_ * MO-126 said, thinking of the way that particular individual resolved an argument over a puppy.

* _Movey? No. Actually, I was thinking of the madman leading this group, Ranex. He couldn't have known we'd be coming to guide him. He took half of his village away from everything they knew on nothing but hope._ *

The nursery android smiled and nodded. * _Remarkable, isn't it? Such curious and imaginative creatures._ *

The trade android shook his head. * _Curious and troublesome, you mean. This premature migration will lower the output of production unit 168-D for a generation, and it will be another generation before the new one, 168-E, is projected to make up the difference. We couldn't prevent it, though, so I volunteered to be their guide. We can't have primitives roaming around the countryside unsupervised._ *

They could, MO-126 thought. It might be interesting if they did. The humans might discover things, but the PM would never permit it. It would jeopardize the project.

The migrating humans followed their chosen leader, guided, reluctantly, by a loyal Corporation trade android. The trailing edge of the large group crested a hill. These people would never again see their old village or the people they left behind.

 Five

## Wheels of Discontent

3,825 Years Later

(Galactic Standard Year 236055)

(Project Year 12502)

In which discoveries are made and a person is lost.

The Mark Seven Project Manager exercised some control over the weather, or at least of the climate at a macro level, but it could not prevent severe storms from occurring. A particularly intense one had swept over the central region of the continent the week before, bringing a full day of heavy spring rain and high winds. Traces of its passing remained. The river still flowed high and fast. The soggy, grass-covered ground squished into shallow puddles where their gond stepped, and they had passed more than a few large, overturned trees since leaving the mountain entrance of Hub Terminal Ten three days ago. But the sky was now a cloudless blue, and new trees would soon occupy the sunny spots vacated by their unfortunate elders—or pines, or oaks, or whatever. Unfortunately, several primitive villages were near the flooded river, and MO-126 and Tam were on their way to one of them to assess the impact.

They were one of four teams that formed part of the current relief mission, which had parted company soon after leaving to proceed on to their individual assignments. Each team consisted of one trade android and one mobile observer, and each led a gond laden with blankets, tools, and pottery. They also carried ointments and potions to treat minor injuries, but these were limited to natural remedies and concoctions that the primitives could produce themselves.

MO-126 knew they had a problem as soon as they approached the village, but it had nothing to do with the storm. A midden pile lay not far outside the village. What caught his attention were the marks in the ground nearby.

* _Skids?_ * Tam asked his four-legged partner.

The android dog examined the tracks closely and shook his head. * _No. Definitely wheels._ *

* _But there have been no reports of the primitives here inventing the wheel._ *

* _I guess we'll have to file one, then,_ * MO-126 said.

A few other villages had also invented the wheel. Some used it only for toys, games, or folk art. Some attached mystical properties to it. A few applied the idea more pragmatically. Field Ops monitored these closely and took special efforts to limit their population growth and migration. They did not want the idea to spread. So far, they had been successful.

The two androids and their pack animal entered the village, which was still busy recovering from the massive storm. People labored like ants repairing the thatched roofs of their stone huts, sorting through their damaged possessions, and clearing debris. Three young men, piling old thatch and broken rafters into a two-wheeled barrow, nodded to the trader as they approached.

Tam eyed the wheelbarrow. * _That's new,_ * he commented to his companion.

* _The source of the tracks,_ * MO-126 said. * _The spacing matches._ *

The wheelbarrow consisted of a crude wooden box placed over a shaft connecting two solid disks cut from a tree trunk and held in place by pegs. Each wheel was about as wide as a person's palm and about half a meter in diameter.

The trader shook his head. * _Clever,_ * he said with disapproval. He shifted his attention to the three villagers. "Good morning. Where might I find your headman?"

They paused from their labors to consider the question. The shortest of the men scratched his beard as he gave it some thought. All of them were shorter and stouter than Tam. They all also sported enough facial hair to nest chickens in. The tallest of the trio may have tried. The man certainly could have been more fastidious about his grooming after his last meal, unless he was saving the remaining bits of egg for later. Sometimes MO-126 wondered what he saw that impressed him about humans.

"Well," the short beard-scratcher said in their local guttural language.

Tam waited for elaboration. As none seemed to be forthcoming, he said, "Well, what?"

The villager pointed one dirty finger toward the center of the village. "He was at the well last time I saw him."

"Oh. Right. Thanks," Tam said. He turned to leave, took one step, and then turned back.

"That's an interesting, um, thing you have there," he said, pointing to the crude wheelbarrow.

"It's just a box for rubbish," the short, hairy villager said. One of the others returned to work. The last and tallest, relatively speaking, stood quietly contemplating something stuck to his finger as if waiting for a thought to arrive that might explain it. By all appearances, it might take a while.

"No, I mean the things under it," Tam clarified.

"Those are just some of Thinkers round things. They make the box easier to move."

"Thinker?"

"Yeah. He makes round things."

"And other things," the tallest of the three amended, wiping his finger on his sleeve.

"Yeah. And other things," agreed the first.

"What kind of things?" the trader said.

The villager shrugged. "Different things."

"What kind of different things?"

"Round things, mostly, but other things, too. Like I said, different things. He'll show you, if you want. He might be with Grannit at the well."

"Thanks."

MO-126 watched for other anomalies as they made their way toward the center of the village. Unlike lower lying villages, hill villages near the mountains, like this one, used stone for most of their buildings. This ancient and natural building material provided no cause for concern. The 'round thing' innovation, however, was another matter, and the villagers here apparently applied in a variety of ways.

As they made their way through the village, they saw one child pulling a small wooden toy carved to resemble a goat with wheels attached to its legs. An old woman sitting outside one of the stone huts worked clay on a slow potter's wheel. A rope tied to a bucket hung over a grooved wooden pulley in the small, circular well house near the center of the village. These guys were really into round.

Two men near the well interrupted their conversation as the trader approached, still leading the gond.

"Master Trader?" said the older of the two. His beard showed patches of stony gray. The other man had a shorter beard, black, and a prematurely balding head.

"Tam," Tam said, introducing himself. He did not bother to introduce his canine companion who had answered to several different names over the years. If asked, Tam would pick one, but adult villagers normally ignored the trader's dog. Younger ones seemed content to call him their language's equivalent of 'doggy.'

"Grannit," the villager said. "Headman of Stone Home. I am pleased to see you, but why have you come? We have nothing to trade today, I'm afraid."

"I've come because of the storm," Tam said. "We wanted to see how you fared and to offer assistance."

The village headman glanced at the loaded gond before replying. "Thanks. It could have been worse. We lost a few roofs and more than a few chickens, but our terraces weathered the storm well. We should have close to a normal crop of potatoes this harvest season. Our grapevines may have suffered a bit. I expect their yield will be low this year."

"That won't be a problem," Tam said. "We'll offer you generous trades on whatever you have to spare. We just wanted to make sure you were all right."

"We will be. I don't think the gods were aiming at us." He offered a weak smile, which Tam returned.

"I've brought blankets, tools, rope, and some other things you may be able to use," the trade android said, pointing to the gond.

Grannit nodded. "Thanks. We'll pay you back at harvest season."

"No need. It's a gift."

"Then we will offer you a gift when we can. It is only fair."

If the headman knew the markup the Corporation charged its customers for the things he and his people grew, he would not be so concerned about repaying the trader's gift. The profit from the annual output of this one village amounted to enough to pay for the construction of both of the android's visiting him.

"Come. Let's go to the common house. At least we can offer you a meal and some nicely aged grape juice as thanks while we unpack your animal." He turned to the other villager, the one with the high forehead. "Thinker, take the trader's gond and see to its unloading."

"Thinker," Tam said to the man as he handed him the gond's lead. "You must be the fellow who made the round things I saw earlier."

"Must I?" the man said with a puzzled expression.

"Yes. Three men working on a hut had a box with round things under it, and one of them said you made them."

"Oh. I see. I might have. Maybe. I don't know."

"But he said they were Thinker's round things. That's what he called them. And he said you made other things."

"Oh, I do. I make many things. New and different things. But I don't make all of them. Just the first ones, usually. Other people make the rest."

"But the round things were your idea, right?"

"Yes. At least, I think so. It kind of just came to me, so it could have been the gods or something, not that they said. I did make the first one. It's an amazing shape, round. Kind of symbolic. No start and no end, you know. Useful, too."

"What else have you made?" the trader said.

"Other round things, like the one here for the water bucket," he said pointing to the pulley over the well. "It makes it easier to pull up the bucket. Other things, too. Clay, wood, special rocks—pretty much anything can be shaped into something more useful. It really is amazing."

"I'd like to see them," Tam said.

"Thinker can show you some of his things later," Grannit said. He turned to lead the way toward the village's common house, and the rest followed.

"I'd be happy to," Thinker agreed.

~*~

The long, stone common house was one of the few with a slate roof. It appeared to have weathered the storm without harm, and it provided the center of activity for the villagers' efforts to repair the things damaged by the storm. The sounds of pounding hammers and chopping wood echoed in the background. Occasionally, these were punctuated by a scream or a swear word when badly balanced stone tools slipped, broke, or otherwise failed to do what their wielders desired. People pushed crude wheelbarrows, carried bundles, and bustled from one place to another, obviously on missions, or less obviously, attempting to avoid one. Others stood talking in small groups around the building or sat quietly while taking a break from their labors. Two old, bearded men sat outside at a small table playing a board game while a small group of children watched and whispered to one another about their moves. Thinker called to the youngsters to help him unload the trader's gond.

* _MO-126,_ * Tam signaled. * _Stay with Thinker. See what you can find about what he's been doing._ *

* _Can do,_ * the android dog replied.

Tam and Grannit entered the common house. The solid wooden door stood open on leather hinges to allow fresh spring air to enter. The greasy, smoky smell of meat cooked on an open fire exited from it along with the sounds of people talking. MO-126 remained outside with Thinker and followed him to a lean-to at the far side of the common house. With the help of his drafted assistants, he unpacked the gond and sorted the contents on tables under the roof of the open structure.

"It was very nice of the Master Traders to bring us all this great stuff," one boy said, thumbing through a pile of woven wool blankets.

"Yes," Thinker replied distractedly as he examined one of the clay pots he just unpacked.

"Where do you suppose they get it all?" another boy asked.

"No one really knows," Thinker said. "They won't say. I suspect they make it. There must be Trader villages somewhere."

"Some people say they live high up in the mountains, maybe even in caves or something," the only girl in the group said. "That's why they need to trade for food, because they can't grow enough for themselves." She turned to MO-126. "Is that where you come from, doggy?"

The android dog could not tell her, not that she would have expected him to. Like his biological cousins, speaking was not one his talents. Even if he could talk, the answer to that particular question would be forbidden. The existence of the Corporation must remain a secret. The discovery of a hub terminal by a primitive could have unfortunate consequences for everyone.

She patted his head, he wagged his tail, and that was about as far as their conversation could go.

"High in the mountains," Thinker said softly. "I wonder..."

Whatever he may have been wondering, MO-126 would have to wait to find out because just then, Tam and Grannit appeared.

The headman examined the unloaded items and thanked Tam again for his generosity. "These are most welcome, Master Trader. We are in your debt."

Thinker whispered something to Grannit. MO-126 increased the sensitivity of his audio receptors but only caught the last few words—"We should ask him."

Grannit nodded and turned to Tam. "Master Trader Tam," he said. "Thinker has suggested that you may be able to help us with a..., well, not a problem, exactly, but something of mystery."

"Oh?" Tam said.

"Yes. After the storm, we rescued a young woman from a log caught in the river."

"I'd be happy to see what I can do for her, but I'm not a healer," Tam said.

"That's not the problem. She seemed fine after we gave her some food and let her sleep—except for a lot of bruises, that is, but those should heal with time."

"Then what's the problem?"

"We don't know who she is."

"Someone must know her," Tam said. In a village of less than a thousand people, there were no strangers.

The village leader shook his head. "No one does."

"Have you talked to her? What did she say?"

"That's just it. We have, but she speaks, well, oddly. We don't understand her, and we're not sure she understands us. Thinker says you might be able to talk to her. She might be, well, one of your people."

"She's very scared," Thinker said. "I don't think she knows where she is."

* _Oh-oh,_ * MO-126 said to his partner.

* _She can't be one of us,_ * Tam replied.

* _I know that,_ * MO-126 said. * _But if she's from the next village upstream, this could get complicated._ *

* _More complicated. This village is already a problem,_ * the trader said.

* _Maybe it has something to do with the water._ *

* _You're not funny._ *

* _Yes I am. You just have no sense of humor._ *

"I don't think she's one of _our_ people," Tam said to Grannit. He did not say why, but the way he said 'our' could be taken to imply that Trader folk never required rescuing.

"Still, you may be able to understand her. The Master Traders visit other villages, don't they? She might be from one of them."

The primitives knew other villages existed. Most, by this time, had originated as offshoots from the original production cells seeded on the planet thousands of years before, but the trade androids were supposed to avoid discussing such things as much as possible. It only encouraged people to be curious about their imagined neighbors.

"I'll see what I can do," Tam said. "Where is she?"

"Old Emrie took her in. Her hut is near the river. I'll take you there as soon as I get someone to see to distributing the things you brought."

"I can do that," Thinker said.

"No. I'd like you to come with us, Thinker. She seems to be most comfortable around you and Emrie. I saw Walderf and Staddler playing jump disc outside the common house. Ask them to come here. They can handle it."

After Grannit gave the two old men their instructions about the distribution of the trader's gift, Grannit, Tam, and Thinker left to see the woman who was pulled from the river. MO-126 unobtrusively tagged along.

"You said she was clinging to a log?" Tam said to Grannit as they walked.

"Yes. But she was more in it than on it. It has a kind of scoop carved out on the top. Anyway, the river was still fast and high, but the log she was in got hung up on a snag of broken trees and brush. We could tell it wasn't going to hold her long, but it was too dangerous to swim in to get her. Thinker tied one of his smaller round things to a rope, and threw it out to her. It took a few tries, but she eventually grabbed it and wrapped it around a board in her log. Then we pulled her into shore."

"I see."

Tam sent silent instructions to his partner. * _Go to the river and see if that log is still there. It sounds like we may have another problem._ *

* _It sounds like a boat, to me,_ * MO-126 said.

* _Yeah. That's the problem._ *

The android dog ambled off toward the river, trying to appear not to have any particular destination in mind. When he got there, their suspicions were confirmed. A dugout canoe, about a meter wide and two meters long, rested on the shore well above the high water mark. The issue proved worse than Tam suspected. Another log lay beside it, and three young men chipped and chiseled in an attempt to duplicate the design.

* _Found it,_ * he sent to his partner.

* _Is it a boat?_ *

* _Yes. Not a bad one either. The villagers here are already trying to copy it._ *

* _The situation here just keeps deteriorating, doesn't it?_ *

* _Oh, I don't know. Things could be worse._ *

* _I don't see how._ *

* _Well, it doesn't have a fusion engine._ *

* _You're not funny._ *

* _I think I am, and as long as one of us is amused, it's not a complete loss. Have you spoken with the visitor yet?_ *

* _We just arrived at the hut. Come on back._ *

MO-126 homed in on his partner's signal and found the hut. The door stood open, so he walked inside. No one seemed to have noticed his arrival, or maybe they assumed he came in just behind them. The only light inside the stone structure entered through the open doorway but it sufficed. The place was not large. Tam sat on a stool facing a young woman with dark hair, and Thinker sat next to her on a sleeping pallet. Scrapes and bruises showed on her arms, legs, and forehead. Wherever she came from, she did not have a comfortable ride getting here.

* _She says her name is Tallie,_ * Tam said to his partner. * _She's from one of the mountain villages upstream. I recognize the dialect. That's about as far as we've gotten so far._ *

MO-126 sat near the wall and listened.

"How did you come to be in the river during a storm," Tam said to her. He spoke in the language of her village, which differed sufficiently from the one here to be unintelligible to the locals.

"The river was rising, so I was trying to pull our boat further up the bank so it wouldn't be lost," she said. "I lost my footing and was swept in. I managed to get in the boat, but I didn't have a paddle and couldn't do anything but go where the river brought me. Where am I? What is this place?"

"The people here call it Stone Home. They will take care of you. You are safe with them."

"It's strange here. I want to go home. I want to be with my family. I...I...I have to milk the goats."

Tears welled in her eyes, and MO-126 found himself walking over to her. He licked her hand in response to some deep instinct rather than because of a rational decision, but it seemed appropriate. She responded with a weak smile and a scratch behind his ear.

She stifled a sob and continued. "The people here don't understand me and I don't know what they're saying when they talk to me. When the soreness goes, I should leave. I can walk along the river. It can't be that far. I can do it. The river can lead me home."

"You know that's not safe," Tam told her. "But it's not something you need to think about just now. Emrie tells me you can't take more than a few steps without pain. You are in no condition to go anywhere."

She nodded. "I will be fine soon, and then—"

"And then we'll see," Tam said.

"What did she say?" Grannit asked him after they left. "I couldn't understand a word of it."

"Her name is Tallie, and she said she's lost," the trade android told him. "That's really all there is to it. She'll be fine."

"Why can't she talk properly?"

"That's just how they talk where she's from. Don't worry about it."

"Where is she from?" Thinker asked.

"Just some other village. You don't need to worry about that either."

"Can we help her get home?"

"Why would you—? No. There's no need anyway. Like I said, she's fine. She just needs time to recover."

* _What do you plan to do?_ * MO-126 asked his partner as they exited the hut.

* _About the woman from Semiautonomous Production Cell 46-C? Nothing, right now. She can't go anywhere._ *

* _We could bring her home once she's feeling better,_ * the android dog suggested.

* _Move a primitive between villages? You know we can't do that without approval._ *

* _But we'd just be taking her back to her own village. That's where she's supposed to be._ *

* _Yeah, but she's already seen this one, and she knows she can get here by following the river. That complicates things._ *

* _What if she tries to go by herself? She might, you know._ *

Tam paused to consider this. * _You're right. Maybe I should come back tomorrow and remind her about the dangers—the demons, wild animals, and river monsters._ *

* _River monsters? There aren't any river monsters,_ * MO-126 said. Actually, there weren't any demons either, and the most danger she was likely to experience from wild animals would be if she tripped on one.

* _What about bardusaurs?_ * Tam said.

* _Bardusaurs? They're swamp creatures, for the most part. There aren't any this far north, and besides, they don't eat humans, or anything else from their home planet. Different biochemistry._ *

* _She doesn't know that._ *

The android dog could not contest the point. The primitives knew nothing about the world outside their own villages. Their mental maps stopped a few kilometers from the edges of their settlements. Everything outside those boundaries would be labeled 'here be monsters,' metaphorically, anyway. The primitives did not draw maps or create labels. The Corporation discouraged writing. It could be even more damaging to the project than wheels.

* _We should file a report with Field Ops,_ * the android dog said.

* _Do so,_ * Tam told him. * _Mark it preliminary, and tell them we're still investigating._ *

The trade android spoke with Grannit and Thinker as they made their way toward Thinker's hut. He promised to show Tam some of the things he invented. MO-126 opened a communication with the Field Operations Center and provided a summary of their observations here so far. He got a routine acknowledgment that they received his situation report, but they provided no immediate instructions.

~*~

Thinker's hut provided him both home and workshop. The stone walls of the structure were much older than the villager who lived there, but the slate roof looked to be newer and was supported by thick timbers of differing ages. From these, baskets and clay jars were hung on ropes along with drying herbs, smoked meats, and the balding man's laundry. The clothing smelled of smoke and exhibited small burns and scorch marks along with more common wear and tear.

He led them to a far corner of the relatively large, single room dwelling, which contained a small fireplace with a chimney. Both appeared to be recent additions. MO-126 added them to the growing list of this village's anomalies.

"This is where I do most of my tinkering," Thinker said. "I have several different kinds of round things." He pointed to wheels of various sizes, some solid, others with holes, some grooved, and one with notches suspiciously like gear teeth. "And I have long things." He indicated shafts, poles carved in various ways, and some clay pipes. "If you connect two round things with a solid, straight, long thing, you can make a box easier to move." He ambled over to a table that held smaller items of wood, stone, cloth, and clay. "And here are some other things. I really should come up with better names for all of them, I suppose, but I just never seem to get around to it."

"What are you working on over here by the fire?" Tam asked.

MO-126 looked to where his partner pointed and immediately noticed what caught his interest. A hammer stone rested on a flat rock by the fireplace. Several irregularly shaped nuggets of native copper lay next to it.

"Oh, yes. I just started looking into this." He picked up one of the copper nuggets. "I've discovered that this kind of rock has some special properties. You can shape it, even bang it flat. It's kind of brittle after you do, but I've found that if you heat it first, it works better. You have to get it quite hot, though, and I'm still having some trouble with that, but I'm sure I'll work out something."

Metallurgy, MO-126 thought. This guy is going to invent metallurgy. The same thought obviously occurred to Tam because his expression changed, just for a moment, to something not unlike panic. He recovered quickly, but he must have been wondering what Field Ops and the PM would make of his report and whether they would somehow find him responsible. This many technology-development and scientific-discovery faults had never been found in one place at one time before.

"I've been thinking that a thin sheet of this around the inside of the center of a round thing would make them roll even better, don't you?" Thinker asked. He reached into a box and withdrew a piece of pounded copper, which he held out for Tam to examine.

The trader recoiled, refusing to touch the metal. "Aren't you afraid of offending your guardian spirits with these new things? Don't you think it's being disrespectful?"

The primitive human eyed him quizzically. "Why?"

"Well, because these things are not part of your traditions. If your ancestors wanted you to have rolling boxes or to use strange rocks, they would have passed these things down to you."

"You know, I never considered that," Thinker said.

"I think you should," Tam said. He glanced to his canine companion and presented a quick, self-satisfied smirk. It just as quickly dissolved into something else.

"No," Thinker said.

"No, what?" said the trade android.

"I don't think our ancestors' spirits have a problem with it. If they did, they wouldn't allow me to get these ideas."

"Are you sure? Perhaps the storm was their warning."

The balding villager cocked an appropriately skeptical eyebrow. "No. It must have been a big storm since it also hit Tallie's village, wherever that is. If it was a warning to me or our village, it wouldn't have affected others."

* _Nice try,_ * MO-126 said to his partner, * _but he's got you there. What else you got?_ *

The trader glanced at his dog with a look that suggested he wished he had a choke chain. * _If you're not going to be helpful—_ *

* _You want help? Give up. There's nothing you can do. It's not your fault that this guy is clever. The PM isn't going to blame you for what he's done._ *

* _But it will blame me if I don't do everything I can to minimize the damage to the project._ *

* _You've tried all the standard stuff, and you can't kill him,_ * MO-126 reminded Tam. He could sense his partner's growing frustration. He probably would not go rogue, but it was possible. Any sentient being under enough stress can become irrational. The android dog was prepared to try to stop him if he tried anything physical, but at a third of his mass, his chance of success was about as good as his chance of preventing night from falling.

* _Of course not,_ * Tam said, much to the android dog's relief. * _That's against Corporation policy. I'd be dismantled for something like that, or I'd have to work an extra thousand years to pay off the fine. These are primitives. Fear of the unknown_ should _work._ *

"Perhaps," Tam said to Thinker. "Maybe they did something to anger their ancestors, too."

Thinker shook his head. "No. It was just a storm. They happen. It's got nothing to do with any of this." He waved his arm to take in the contents of the hut.

"Yet," Tam said ominously. "I'd be careful, if I were you. A few toys, a bit of art, and maybe some trinkets _might_ be safe, but if you defy tradition, there can be consequences. I have seen things you would not believe."

His last statement was true enough, but it lent no legitimate support to the point he was attempting to make despite his implication.

"Toys and little things are a good way to test ideas," Thinker said, "but what I really want to do is make things that are useful. You know. Things that can make a difference, that help people."

"Why would you want to trouble yourself with stuff like that? We can provide all the tools and other useful things you might ever want."

"And we appreciate what you bring us in fair trade, but it may be possible to make things ourselves that are even better."

"I still think you're tempting fate," Tam said.

"You worry too much, Trader Tam. There is no harm in any of this. These are good things. Are you worried that we won't trade with you if we make our own tools?"

"No. That's not it at all. I'm worried about what things like these can lead to."

That was another true and intentionally misleading statement.

~*~

MO-126 contacted Field Ops to provide an update including their discoveries in Thinker's hut. The duty android wanted to review his previous report first.

* _You initial report says that the primitives there are using wheels. Is that correct?_ * she said.

No. I was just jerking your chain to see if anyone there would blow a circuit, he thought. The humorless administrative androids tended to annoy him. They weren't much smarter than robots, as far as he could tell, and they all seemed to have the same type of personality—none at all. What he transmitted was, * _Yes. That is correct._ *

* _What kind of applications?_ * she asked. He got the impression she was going down a checklist.

* _I saw a wheelbarrow, more like a small handcart, really, a potter's wheel, and a pulley._ *

* _Are you sure? The last routine report about that cell indicated nothing anomalous._ *

Am I sure they were wheels? No. They could have been some kind or round alien life forms the people here have been secretly breeding. * _The observation is confirmed. My partner saw many of the same things,_ * he said.

* _Any sign of axels?_ *

* _Crude ones, but yes,_ * MO-126 said.

* _And your report says you saw a log boat._ *

* _A dugout canoe. Yes. The humans from a different village made it, but the people here have it now, and they're learning from it._ *

* _Yes. I see that here. We're still awaiting confirmation from the team sent to Semiautonomous Production Cell 46-C. Is there anything more you need to add?_ *

* _Let me think. There was something..._ * He thought delaying might annoy her, or at least provoke some emotional response. After half a minute of no reaction, he gave up. * _They are experimenting with raw copper._ *

* _Copper?_ *

* _Yes. You know. It's a fairly common metal._ *

A few moments of silence followed. The Field Ops android was probably trying to find 'copper' on her checklist.

* _Any sign of,_ * she paused a moment, * _annealing?_ *

* _Just preliminary, so far._ * MO-126 felt fairly sure that Thinker would perfect his copper heating methods soon, but the Field Ops android did not ask for his opinions, so he did not offer any.

* _What applications?_ *

* _None that I saw,_ * he said. He expected that in a few years they'd be making copper tools if they could find enough raw materials, but Field Ops could make their own speculations. He did not need to share his.

* _Okay. Anything else?_ *

* _Yes. I request approval to return the woman known as Tallie to her home village._ *

* _What is your rationale for this action?_ *

Because she's frightened and she wants to go home, but this reason would hold no weight with Field Ops, so he did not mention it. * _She will eventually learn to communicate with the people here, and she will tell them about her people. This will make them curious and encourage them to try to find them._ *

* _That is not a preapproved reason for your recommended mitigation action, but I will forward it with your report for consideration. The faults you have discovered so far justify assigning it a high priority. I expect we will be contacting you later today with instructions._ *

* _Understood._ * The android dog closed the link with Field Ops.

* _I sent the update,_ * he said to his partner. * _They said they'd have instructions for us later today._ *

Tam was talking with Grannit outside the workshop, trying to convince him of the dangers of Thinker's new things. The headman did not appear to be buying it.

* _Good. I'd like to be done with this and out of here. I don't envy the team normally assigned to this village. It's going to take some close watching,_ * Tam said.

~*~

They made their way toward the river to examine Tallie's boat, leaving Grannit free to continue coordinating the repairs to the village caused by the storm. Tam finally gave up trying to sway him to a more conservative position regarding new inventions. The headman obviously liked Thinker and his ideas. According to Tam, that made them both idiots, and he shared that opinion along with what he thought of their entire species with his partner. It probably made him feel better, so MO-126 obliged by listening.

* _What is it about these creatures?_ * He asked rhetorically. * _Why do they have to keep thinking? They're certainly not suited for it, and they keep coming up with crazy ideas for changing things. Why can't they be more like the mayboes._ *

Mayboes were another primitive sentient species that the Corporation had discovered and introduced to work projects on other planets. They were also mammalian primates, or as close as made no difference morphologically. But the mayboes possessed a trait humans seemed to lack. They were naturally happy. Put a bunch of mayboes on a bit of land close to a stream and they'd live there contentedly growing food, playing simple games, and appreciating each new day and whatever it brought. The only thing they seemed instinctively inclined to change were sexual partners, which they joyfully did several times a day, and the only new things they made were more mayboes. From the Corporation's standpoint, they were close to ideal. Their only real drawback was that they slept most of each day, which limited their productivity. Some anthropologists claimed they might not actually be sleeping. They had recorded peculiar brain wave patterns when the mayboes rested and hypothesized that they were, in fact, placing themselves into a deep, meditative state. When asked about this, the mayboes would simply smile and tell the researchers they were not yet ready to know.

* _Why can't they just be content?_ * Tam continued. * _The Corporation provides them with a good life here. What more could a primitive want?_ *

* _They probably don't see themselves as primitives,_ * MO-126 hazarded. * _They have nothing to compare themselves to._ *

* _Exactly! They don't see much of anything. That's what makes them primitives. They've got no idea how backward they are, so what can they possibly be trying to achieve? They shouldn't even think anything else is possible. They're all insane._ *

* _I've been thinking about that,_ * the android dog said. * _They might be naturally dissatisfied—genetically, I mean. They may not be able to be happy for long, at least not collectively. Think about it. You've been working with them for centuries. When is the last time you've seen a village where everyone seemed content with the way things were?_ *

* _Some usually seem to be,_ * Tam said hesitantly.

* _Yes, some, but not all. It may not make much sense, but there are always some who simply can't leave things alone, no matter how good they are, and it's not because they're stupid or crazy. Sometimes these chronically dissatisfied types appear to be the sanest and smartest people in the village._ *

* _Not being able to be content hardly seems sane to me, but I know what you mean. I've seen that type. If they eat the same thing every day, they'll complain about the lack of variety. If they have something new every day, they'll complain about not getting their favorite. If everything is peaceful, they'll complain about the lack of excitement, and if things are exciting, they'll want them to be peaceful. They really are a miserable bunch._ *

* _Oh, I don't know. I think most of them just kind of feel restless unless they have challenges._ *

* _Most sentient creatures would feel extremely pleased not to have challenges. I'm telling you, humans are crazy. I wonder if other projects are having as much trouble with them as we are._ *

This, of course, they could not know. They knew other Corporation projects with humans serving as workers existed, but details about their inner workings were not publicly divulged, especially if there were problems. This type of information could adversely affect stock prices. Neither Tam nor his partner held management positions high enough to have access to such proprietary data.

* _Probably,_ * MO-126 said. * _It seems inherent in the species. They need challenges. If they don't have any, they create them._ *

* _What they need is to be protected from themselves,_ * Tam said.

~*~

The reply from Field Ops came with instructions and sooner than they expected. Mitigation actions would begin immediately, and MO-126 and Tam would play a major part. The report received from the team sent to Tallie's village confirmed that the primitives there did have boats, and it also revealed that they were building a larger one to go down the river to search for her. This, combined with the activities in the village that MO-126 and Tam were at, presented a situation considered potentially detrimental to the project. The Mark Seven Project Manager devised a multistep plan to minimize the harm.

By this time, sunset fast approached, and the sounds of people repairing storm damage dwindled. Humans instinctively fear the dark and gather together in the comforting light of a fire or retreat to their huts when the day is done. On their home planet, this instinct held survival value because they were often the prey of nighttime predators that possessed far better senses than they did. Here, those predators did not exist, and the native ones large enough to consider a fully grown human as a likely meal did not find them tasty enough to bother. Their biochemistry proved different enough to make them virtually indigestible. Nonetheless, the instinct remained, and the villagers returned to their homes.

Tam and his four-legged partner needed to accomplish one more mission before they settled in for the night.

Emrie's hut was typical of those in this village, a rectangular stone building with a dirt floor and a thatched roof. The door of rough-hewn planks, hinged on one side by strips of tough gond leather, was closed. Tam knocked.

"Master Trader Tam," Emrie greeted him. "Are you here to talk with Tallie again, the poor thing? I still can't understand much of what she says, but she seems very sad."

"I have some news that may help with that," Tam said.

Tallie looked up expectantly from a jump disc board resting on a table between two stools. Judging by the number and position of the pieces, she was winning.

"Hello, Tallie," Tam said in her language. "How are you feeling?"

She returned a frail smile. "Like I've been dragged down a river, but I'm getting better. Emrie and her people have been very kind to me."

"Do you think you'll be able to travel tomorrow?"

Field Ops determined that returning Tallie to her people represented the best of the bad options open to them. There was a risk that she might have noticed the new wheel technology being developed here and spread the idea to her village, but if she did not return soon, her people would attempt to look for her. That effort would lead them to learn more about boats, river navigation, and the land around them. They might eventually do that anyway, but the PM wanted to delay such things as long as possible. Returning their lost villager to them might do that.

"Travel? You mean, home? Back to my village?" she said, her voice rising with excitement.

Tam nodded. "Yes. Except for my travel gear, everything I had on my pack animal will be staying here. You can ride on it, and I can bring you back to your people."

That was not exactly the plan, but it was close enough. She did not need to know the logistical details. It would be impossible for her to understand them.

"Do you know where it is? My village? Can we just follow the river?"

"No," Tam said. "That way may not be safe. Many wild animals come to drink at the river." He possessed a talent for making true and completely misleading statements. All of the trade androids did. "But I do know a safer way. If you're feeling up to it, we can leave in the morning."

~*~

Tallie was ready and eager to leave when they arrived at Emrie's hut the next day. She seemed undaunted by the rain, the first since the storm. It was only a light sprinkle, but a deluge would probably not have deterred her. When MO-126 contacted Field Ops to tell them they were about to leave, they said it would clear soon.

The young woman hugged Emrie and told her how much she appreciated what she did for her. The older one smiled, understanding the emotion if not the words. Words must be learned, and they varied between places and times. The instincts they described went deeper than that, and all people shared those.

Thinker approached and received a hug, too, which seemed to both delight and disturb him in the way of men who spend much of their time alone and absorbed in intellectual pursuits. He stammered a few words and handed her a small box made of woven reeds. Inside was a small, copper disc with a hole in the center through which was threaded a strip of leather. Anyone who knew of such things might call it a washer. To the people here, it represented something new and beautiful. It could be a portent of things to come.

Emrie helped her tie it around her neck as a pendant.

"Is it magical?" she said. In her mind, most things were in some fashion. The Corporation encouraged this attitude.

None of the villagers understood her question.

Tam answered. "Not especially. It's just and oddly shaped bit of rock, I think, but it is kind of pretty. Are you ready to leave?"

She nodded, and he helped her onto the broad back of his pack animal. It did not seem to mind and may not have even noticed. The beasts seldom appeared to notice much of anything except edible vegetation, or, during their mating season, other gonds.

They were out of sight of the village before Tallie asked how long it would take to get home.

"It's difficult to say, exactly," Tam said. From here on, he would use her native language as if it were his own. The project's databanks contained comprehensive files on all of them.

He knew how long it would take to get where they were going, of course. He also knew their planned route would not take them directly to her village. The team sent to Semiautonomous Production Cell 46-C would have told her people that they would find her, hoping this would deter them from making a better boat to search downriver. MO-126 suspected it would not, at least not for long, but the team would find Tallie as promised, which would at least remove their immediate motivation. The two teams would join with four additional androids—two NASH units and two mobile observers assigned to the prolonged mitigation effort. One NASH and one MO unit would take up residence in each village.

They made camp that night on a grassy hill with a view of mountains in the near distance.

"Are we safe here?" Tallie asked as Tam helped her down from the gond.

The hairy beast shambled a short distance and began grazing on the wild vegetation.

"Perfectly," Tam said. "No wild animals or demons will trouble us here." He unrolled a small tent for Tallie and went to gather wood for a fire at his partner's suggestion. The androids did not need it, but their guest did.

* _Doesn't it ever make you feel guilty,_ * MO-126 asked him.

* _What?_ * Tam said.

* _Lying to people._ *

*I' _m not lying. Everything I told her is true._ *

The android dog must admit this could be considered true from a purely technical standpoint, and certainly from the frame of reference of the speaker, but what ended up in the mind of the listener was something else entirely. This made what he said to Tallie an untrue truth—or maybe a dishonest truth. Something like that.

* _You know what I mean,_ * MO-126 said.

* _What do you want me to say? That there are no demons? That wild animals seldom bother people on this planet? How long do you think we could continue operations here if they knew that? We'd have primitives wandering all over the place, setting up little farms and villages at random and probably, knowing humans, fighting among themselves for the best spots. We're doing them a favor by_ not _telling them. I don't feel any guilt about it. In fact, if there's anything like job satisfaction that comes from working in a place like this, it comes from protecting the primitives from one another._ *

* _I don't know. I think they have potential. Look at how the people in that village took in Tallie. They didn't know her. They couldn't even understand her, but they accepted her into their homes and helped her._ *

* _Just instinct. Pure instinct. They're ruled by it. They're social animals, so they do sometimes care for one another, but they have other instincts, territorial instincts that are not as benign. They are not rational creatures._ *

* _That fellow they call Thinker seemed pretty rational to me. And remarkably clever._ *

* _Disturbingly clever, you mean. Don't you see the problem?_ *

* _Well, from the Corporation's point of view, sure. But my point was that there are some humans that are kind of impressive. Admirable, even._ *

* _You think that because all he was making were wheels and a few trinkets, but it won't stop there. The next clever, uncivilized dirt-grubber will tinker some more and eventually they'll be poking bronze swords into one another. This is a dangerous and potentially self-destructive species._ *

A howl in the distance was quickly followed by a scream that came from much closer. Tallie ran to Tam, grabbing him by the arm.

"What was that?" she said, trembling.

It was a wild dog telling the rest of his pack to avoid this spot because there are some of those strange two-legged animals here. MO-126 understood various dog dialects. The project's databanks contained comprehensive files on all of them.

"It's nothing to be afraid of. You're safe—as long as I'm here."

* _The qualification wasn't necessary,_ * MO-126 commented.

* _It can't hurt._ *

That, of course, was a matter of perspective as well.

Tam leaned over the kindling he collected earlier and used a fire bow and tinder bundle to start a fire. Quicker and easier ways were available to him, but the primitives already knew this method.

Tam worked on the fire while MO-126 sent a report to Field Ops to advise them of their progress. An administrative android acknowledged receipt of their status report and provided coordinates for a rendezvous with the other groups. The team from Cell 46-C had already met with the special mitigation teams, and they now traveled together. MO-126 and Tam would join them late the next day.

After a meal of boiled vegetables, which Tam shared for the sake of appearances, Tallie crawled into the small tent to settle in for the night. Judging from her breathing, MO-126 determined that she was finding it difficult to relax and fall asleep.

* _I assume the PM will upgrade the trade goods we provide to her village,_ * the android dog said to his partner.

* _Yeah. We'll monitor it closely and bring them anything they seem to be making for themselves. It usually works. We just have to arrange it so that it's not worth their time and effort._ *

* _Even wheels?_ *

* _Unfortunately. We're already trading small carts to a cell near Hub Terminal One. Needless to say, we're watching that one closely._ *

* _How much longer do you think this project has?_ *

* _Why? Are you worried about your job?_ *

* _No. Just asking._ *

Tam shrugged. * _I don't know. Maybe another ten thousand years. Maybe more. For especially intelligent species, the development of wheels usually marks the halfway point. I don't think humans are in that category._ *

* _They might surprise you. The warcrons went from the wheel to computers in just three thousand years._ *

Warcrons were one of the Corporation's first worker species. They died out on their home planet peacefully when they lost interest in sleeping, eating, breeding and most other things shortly after inventing incredibly realistic virtual reality games. Some descendants of those who were born on Corporation project planets survived and became citizens of the Galactic Federation. Most found work in the fast food industry after undergoing treatment for various addictive disorders.

* _Humans aren't that bright, although they do seem to have some of the same flaws,_ * Tam said. * _I think we can keep this project going for a while. Maybe indefinitely. Who knows?_ *

_*Probably not indefinitely,_ * MO-126 said. He glanced over Tam's shoulder at Tallie. She gave up attempting to sleep and sat with her back to the fire, gazing at the stars.

~*~

They set out the next day over terrain that contained few memorable landmarks. The androids in Field Ops undoubtedly chose this route partly for that purpose. It was probably an unnecessary precaution. Tallie might describe her journey to others, but the primitives in her village would be unlikely to brave the mysterious unknowns beyond their familiar surroundings to duplicate it in reverse.

The sun neared the end of its daily journey to the horizon by the time they spotted the other group. Three people, or, more accurately, three beings who, on the surface, looked much like humans, and three animals, one of which actually was, emerged from around a copse of trees. Tam waved and shouted for Tallie's benefit. The two androids with her had known of their arriving visitors for the last several hours.

"Hail, Trader Prett!" Tam called.

One of the people in the approaching group waved. "Hail, Trader Tam."

The two teams joined. Tallie would expect introductions to be made, so they were. Two nursery androids of the basic maternal variety accompanied Trader Prett. Both were several centuries old but neither looked a day over fifty. The two mobile observers with them were both nondescript canines, like MO-126. No one introduced them. When Tam introduced Tallie, Prett's eyes widened in a convincing simulation of surprise.

"Tallie? From High River Village?"

She nodded hesitantly.

"What a coincidence!" he lied. "We've just come from there. We've been looking for you." The last part was true enough, but why they searched far inland instead of near the river, he did not explain and she did not ask. "Were you on your way there?"

"Yes," she replied in a meek voice. "The people of another village rescued me from the river and Trader Tam said he could bring me home."

"I'd be more than happy to do that. I need to go back there anyway. I was bringing Aunt Nettie there to help out." He touched the shoulder of one of the two nursery androids. She's a healer. The storm hit your village pretty hard, as I'm sure you know."

She nodded again, but she obviously felt uncomfortable around strangers. Until being swept away by the storm, she'd never met any.

"That's great," Prett said. "We can camp here tonight and leave in the morning. You can ride on my gond. We'll have you home in a couple of days. How's that? I'm sure you'll be happy to get back, and I know your people will be glad to see you safe and sound."

"Um, well, all right, I suppose. If Trader Tam doesn't mind."

The bipedal members of the group continued talking while MO-126 opened a link with the newly arrived MO androids.

* _It sounds like this will be an extended assignment for you,_ * he said to both of them. * _Have you ever done that before? Stayed in a human village, I mean?_ *

* _I have,_ * said one of the simulated dogs. His Corporation designation was MO-18, but his partner, the NASH android introduced as Aunt Nettie, called him 'Helper' for this mission. * _Seven years in Semiautonomous Production Cell 12-A. They'd developed a proto-writing system. It took over a century to correct the fault completely._ *

Writing was a type one scientific-discovery fault, and potentially one of the most damaging. Of all the things capable of seriously threatening the project, development of a written language ranked on top. Once that happened on a project planet, the Corporation may as well close shop because within a few thousand years the worker species would be building internal combustion engines, nuclear reactors, and unreliable cell phones.

_*I never have,_ * MO-126 said. * _What do you think of them, the humans?_ *

* _Well, on the whole, I rather like them. They're an abnormally variable species, and some of them can be real nasty characters, but most of them are fine._ *

The other canine android, MO-193, said, * _One of them tried to kick me on my first assignment._ *

* _What did you do?_ * MO-126 asked.

* _I dodged. Wanted to chew his leg off, but my partner was watching. I've learned to avoid that kind now, the ones with the mad dog kind of look about them._ *

MO-126 knew what he meant. He had met people like that.

The three canine androids received a request to join the conversation from Bea, the NASH android being assigned to Stone Home. Her partner, MO-193, accepted for them.

* _You know you three look like you're having a silent discussion over here,_ * she said.

* _We are,_ * MO-126 said.

* _So I assumed. But you're not supposed to look like you are. There's a primitive here._ *

They were sitting attentively like points of an equilateral triangle with their noses facing toward the center. If they were not talking, someone might think they were having some kind of staring contest. Neither would pass for proper dog behavior.

All three artificial dogs immediately responded to correct the situation. MO-126 settled into a resting pose, MO-18 scratched himself, and MO-193 began licking the nether regions of his automated anatomy.

* _That's a bit better,_ * Bea said. * _I really want to talk with MO-126._ *

* _What can I do for you?_ * he asked.

* _What can you tell me about the village you just came from? Your partner's kind of busy performing his 'I'm just a normal person' act for Tallie right now._ *

* _It's just your average village,_ * he said.

* _One that requires close monitoring and mitigation, it seems._ *

* _Well, yeah. Field Ops is concerned because the people in Tallie's village are building boats, and the one I just came from is using wheels and starting to experiment with copper._ *

* _That's in the report. What can you tell me that's not?_ *

He paused a moment, recollecting and analyzing what he noticed there. * _They seem to be good people. I think the headman is well liked and he was doing a good job coordinating things after the storm. Everyone seemed to be working well together to get things repaired._ * What else might be of official interest? * _There might be some reduction in the grape harvest next year, but the potato crop should be fine._ *

* _Where did the idea for wheels and copper come from?_ * Bea asked.

* _Mostly from a villager they call Thinker. I'm pretty sure he came up with them himself. He's seems exceptionally intelligent—and curious._ *

* _Thinker, huh?_ *

* _That's what they all call him._ *

* _Probably got tagged with the name when still a child, then. Let me guess. He's fairly young, I suspect, since this is the first report we've received about innovations in that village. I expect he looks older, is not imposing physically, lives alone, and is a bit awkward socially?_ *

* _You've met him?_ *

* _No, but I've met the type. What do you think of him?_ *

* _I kind of liked him. He was nice to Tallie, and he thinks about everything. He really seems to want to understand it all. I guess that's how he got the name._ *

* _He likes the challenge, I imagine._ *

* _What's he challenging?_ *

* _Ignorance, I suppose. Humans need challenges. I've talked about this with some of the other NASH androids, and we suspect it's genetic. Humans don't seem to be happy unless they have something to be dissatisfied with. They seem to like to complain, in any case._ *

* _Sounds insane to me,_ * the MO android temporarily going by the name of Helper said.

* _Me, too,_ * MO-193 said, still making distracting slurping noises as he pretended to groom himself.

MO-126 admitted that it seemed odd, but he saw the survival benefit an instinct like that might provide. It could help prevent a species from stagnating, make them more adaptable. It could also make it difficult for the Corporation to control them.

* _What do you think about this situation?_ * he asked Bea. * _It's not quite as serious as writing, I suppose, but it's significant._ *

* _It is, but we'll do our best to mitigate the problem._ *

* _How?_ *

* _In a few different ways. Both villages will be monitored closely, of course, and the trade goods we provide will be upgraded. My part is to, well, I guess you can say it's mainly to distract them. Give them less dangerous things to occupy themselves._ *

* _Like what?_ *

* _Team games often work. You would be amazed how much attention humans can devote to competitive sports. There are also various hobbies, fads—pretty much anything that can provide meaningless diversions to satiate the need for challenge and accomplishment._ *

MO-126 considered these. They might work for most people. They would help satisfy the human need to compete, and people would obtain satisfaction in the striving and a sense of accomplishment with success. But not all. Some would not see such things as meaningful. They would still want to accomplish something useful in their short lives. They would want to leave behind something that might make a difference.

* _That might not work on people like Thinker. I don't think he's easily distracted._ *

* _True. Some people require more cerebral diversions. We use those, too. We think of them as 'what if' stories for thinkers, coincidently. The point is that we, well, imply that they might have some truth in them._ *

* _You mean like religion or philosophy, right?_ *

* _Kind of. It gives them things to think about, but we have to be careful. Stories like these really can lead to new ideas that could undermine the project. Humans can surprise you. We might plant an idea about a god of rivers or lightning or something, thinking it's totally harmless, and an especially clever human will run with it and come up with a plan for waterwheels or a theory of electricity._ *

* _Impressive._ *

* _Yes, it is, isn't it?_ * She turned and smiled at him.

* _So, how much longer?_ * he said.

* _A while yet, I think, but project termination is inevitable. Humans just can't seem to be content with things the way they are for long._ *

~*~

The next morning, the parties split. Tallie went with Prett, the nursery android called Aunt Nettie, and her dog, Helper. Tam, MO-126, Bea, and MO-193 headed back toward the village of Stone Home where the latter two androids would attempt to delay the seemingly inevitable end of the Corporation project on this planet. MO-126 found he no longer felt certain that this would be a bad thing.

 Six

## Unacceptable Marks

2,375 Years Later

(Galactic Standard Year 238430)

(Project Year 14877)

In which things must not be written.

The small, seaside village on the southern coast of the continent came as a surprise to Field Ops when one of the project's orbiting satellites first noticed it fifty years ago. Despite all their efforts, bands of especially enterprising primitives sometimes ventured forth to start new settlements without corporate knowledge or approval. Less often, they succeeded. Those who came here had, and they called the village they built Riverplace, an appropriate if unimaginative name given its location. Field Ops immediately dispatched a surveillance team and periodically rotated replacements through ever since. The two androids currently on station reported the anomaly, initial signs of a type one scientific-discovery fault—the primitives here had developed a form of writing. Tam and MO-126 would attempt to mitigate the problem.

MO-126 sniffed the air. * _Smells like fish,_ * he commented to his partner as they approached the settlement with their gond-drawn wagon. The last two thousand years had seen the spread of wheel technology, boats, and the use of copper, gold, and other metals. All of these remained sufficiently primitive to allow the project to continue, but its eventual termination grew more certain with each passing century.

Their wagon, laden with trade goods, rumbled along the bank of the wide, flowing river to their left. To their right, not far in the distance, people picked ripe fruit from squat citrus trees.

* _Fish and citrus,_ * Tam said. * _That's what the primitives have here. Those and chickens. They trade with another village further along the coast for vegetables and other things. That's one of the reasons it's so important to mitigate this problem as soon as possible. If we don't, it will spread._ *

Keep the project going. This remained the ultimate objective of everything they did and the criteria by which all their actions were measured. The Corporation had incorporated this goal into every android produced here. It formed part of their identities, an intricate component no less than fingers or fur. It should be enough, but sometimes MO-126 questioned. He wondered if he could choose a different meaning for his existence, his life. He did not know what that might be. Without thumbs, most kinds of creative efforts were unavailable to him, but there must be something other than maximizing corporate profits he could strive to accomplish.

A scattering of outlying beam and stucco cottages marked the edge of the settlement. A few humans paused to regard the travelers as they passed by with their laden wagon. A boy at a well dropped the bucket he was filling and ran toward the village.

* _He's probably going to tell the headman about us,_ * Tam said.

* _I'll notify the team stationed here,_ * the android dog said.

The reply came immediately. * _They're at the shore,_ * MO-126 relayed. * _Ned's telling stories to some of the villagers right now. They'll meet us later._ * The resident NASH android posed as an elderly storyteller. Ned and his partner, a canine mobile observer he called Moby, had been stationed here six years already. * _He says you should use Trade Negotiation Contingency Protocol 1D until he has a chance to explain the situation._ *

* _That's standard in these situations, but you can acknowledge. It looks like the headman's heard of our arrival. Here he comes now._ *

The old man who came to meet them smelled of fish. But then, many things here did. Fish hung drying on racks in the sun; they provided a major staple of their diet, and they played significantly in such industry as they possessed. Fish oil was their medicine of choice for just about any ailment, and it was a component of the glue and paint they used on their boats. Anything not smelling of fish smelled of citrus, or a nose-wrinkling combination of the two.

"Master Trader, welcome. My name is Sydon. I'm the trade negotiator and arbiter for our village."

"Tam," the trader said, introducing himself.

"We can offer good trade to you, Trader Tam, fruit, dried fish, pickled fish, fish sauce, fish oil, fish paste, fish sausage, and various arts and crafts."

"Made from fish?" Tam speculated.

The village elder raised his bushy gray eyebrows. "Fish? No. Shells, mostly. Many lovely and sometimes even useful things can be made with shells, although we also have some fine things made with fish leather. The other traders who visited us didn't seem much interested in them. Perhaps you would like to see some?" he said hopefully.

Sydon stepped aside to make way for a goat cart filled with orange fruit. The man leading it nodded a greeting and continued on toward a cluster of clapboard buildings.

"No, whatever you normally trade will be fine," Tam said. "Can we see what you have?"

"Certainly. Just this way."

He turned and followed the course the goat cart took moments earlier. It angled off to one of the smaller buildings while Sydon led them to the largest. It was filled with baskets of fruit on wooden shelves that went from the stone floor to the three-meter high rafters. If this amount of fresh, natural, organic fruit were for sale just a few dozen lightyears away, it would be worth as much as the ship that brought it there. Admittedly, that would be a small, automated transport, but it was still reasonably expensive because of its temporal stasis field generator. Those did not come cheap. Lockweed Intergalactic still held the patent on the design.

The heavy scent of sweet citrus almost overwhelmed the android dog's olfactory subsystem. Dogs are not natural fruit eaters and most find the odor distracting, rather the way a human might regard the odor of a well-aged dead rat, which dogs tend to find compelling in a 'let's roll around on this because it's so nice' kind of way.

Tam lifted an orange sphere from one of the baskets and examined it closely. He squeezed. He sniffed. He held it at arm's length, eyed it suspiciously, and said, "Hmmm."

"Is there something wrong?" Sydon asked.

"I'm not sure," Tam replied. "May I borrow this? If we choose not to trade, I'll make sure to return it to you."

"If you choose not to.... But these are fine fruit, I assure you."

Tam dropped the orange in his shoulder bag. "Yes. They may be. For now, I'd like to see some more of your charming village." Which it was in a rustic sort of way, if one overlooked the pervasive odor of fish, the incontinent livestock, and the open sewage ditches. It did have a nice view of the ocean.

"Um, sure. I can show you—"

"Oh, I don't want to trouble you. I'm sure you have much to do. If I can leave my wagon here, I'll just wander around on my own for a while."

"If that is what you wish." He seemed nervous and regarded Tam with a look of uncomfortable resignation. MO-126 took this as a normal reaction. Traders had never hesitated to trade for his fruit before.

"For now," Tam said. "I'll come find you later, if that would be all right."

Sydon nodded his agreement and left them outside by the trader's wagon. When he disappeared around the corner of the building, they contacted Ned.

* _I'm on my way there. See you in a few minutes,_ * the resident android storyteller said.

Tam shooed away a chicken perched on his wagon. It fluttered to the ground with an annoyed squawk. An elderly dog lying nearby glanced at it briefly before going back to sleep. Some unspoken agreement seemed to apply in most villages, which allowed chickens, dogs, goats, and other domestic beasts to enjoy an interspecies truce and freedom to roam unmolested among the huts and hovels of their ostensible owners. It even applied to cats—as long as anyone was watching them.

The trade android made a pretense of examining the contents of his wagon so as not to appear to be waiting for someone he could not possibly be expecting.

When Ned arrived with his faithful canine companion, he and Tam exchanged greetings verbally, in case anyone might be watching, and then continued with more important matters via radio transmissions.

* _I've been in the fruit warehouse,_ * Tam said. * _I saw no signs of writing._ *

* _They're not using it there, yet. They're still a bit wary of the idea, I think. Change, you know. It scares some people._ *

* _That should help. How are they using it?_ *

* _Record keeping, believe it or not. It's simple and clever. A fisherman or farmer or whatever comes in, and a clerk makes a mark on a soft clay tablet identifying who it is, what he brought, and how much. Then, when the stuff is traded, the recording clerk marks what it was traded for and keeps a tally for each person. It's more like accounting than writing, but it will lead to that, and to money. It pretty much has to. It will become too unwieldy otherwise._ *

* _Where did they get the idea?_ *

* _A young primitive came up with it. He's the clerk. They've started calling him the Numbers-Keeper. They used to call him Ronny._ *

* _Okay. Let's meet this wonder boy and see what he's up to._ *

~*~

They found Ronny in a small building nearby, busy counting oranges from the newly arrived cart. The sparseness of whiskers on his face showed him to be a young man, barely out of his teens, if that. He glanced up from his efforts when the androids, led by Ned, entered through the open doorway.

"Master Storyteller, is something wrong? You look worried."

"No, nothing. Um, just a touch of illness, I suppose. Must have been those clams last night. It'll pass soon enough, if you know what I mean." He followed his hasty explanation with a weak, joking smile. MO-126 was impressed. Ned mimicked human behavior well. Tam always seemed a bit too stiff. Most of the trade androids did. The nursery androids definitely possessed a more human quality.

"This is Master Trader Tam," Ned continued. "He's interested in the tally thing you've come up with."

"Master Trader Tam," Ronny said. "I'm honored. I'm more than happy to show you. It might be useful to you as a way to help you keep track of your trades. That's really all it is." He motioned to a clay tablet on one of the tables. Other tablets lay in stacks on tables and shelves nearby.

"Every time someone brings something in, I make a mark on one of these tablets. Each person has a different one, a mark, that is. Then, I make a mark for what it is he brought. Different kinds of fruit and fish and stuff all have their own marks, too. Then, I just make marks for how many. I'm doing oranges now for Ernie. That's his mark there, and next to it is the mark for oranges, and each line after that means ten of them. For anything less than ten, I make a dot for each one. Simple, huh?"

Tam scowled. "And you came up with this yourself, did you?"

"Yeah. I wanted to help. It was real confusing before and not really fair. This way, if you bring in a lot to trade, you can get more—"

"Are you saying the traders don't bring enough for everyone?" Tam said accusingly.

"Um, no. Not that. The traders have always been more than generous. It's just that, well, it seemed right, you know?"

"No. I don't think I do. Villages provide things the traders want and the traders provide things the villagers need. We don't count and nitpick about it. We see what is of value and we trade what has value. There is an underlying trust that adds to the purity of the things traded. This is how it's always been and the way it should remain. Goods tainted by these _marks_ are stripped of their essence. They hold no value."

"Is there something wrong, Master Trader Tam?" Sydon, the village headman entered the hut, which provided too little space for everyone among the shelves of clay tablets. Since Tam was already uncomfortably close to the unfortunate Ronny, Ned and the two android dogs shuffled to make room.

"I was walking by and I heard you talking in here. You sounded displeased about something," the headman added.

Tam spun to face Sydon. "Displeased? Yes. And disappointed. You have tainted your fruit, Headman. The goodness of them has been stolen by lying marks."

"I...I...I don't understand."

"These... _things_ take meaning from the things they count. They mark down words that people don't say. I sensed something wrong before, and now I know why."

"But this is just a better way to count oranges," Ronny protested. "It doesn't harm anything. It just helps us remember—"

"And if someone eats the orange, does the mark that counts it disappear?"

"Well, no."

"Aha! That means that something of it is still there. If it's not the fruit itself, it must be something else. The essence of the orange has been taken from it and captured in the mark. And then, I suppose, you plan to use those marks to decide who gets the things traded for them. That gives them power over your village leaders who should be deciding such things using the wisdom of their years, not marks on clay. You're giving these little scratches life and power over people. That is simply wrong."

Before either of the two humans could object to this less than rational argument, Tam pulled the orange from his bag and tossed it to Sydon.

"You may have this back. It is worthless to us."

He turned away and left the building. The other androids followed him out, leaving the two humans behind, speechless.

"That should do it," Tam said. His face no longer showed anger or disgust or any other emotion other than, perhaps, satisfaction with a job well done. "How many others are helping Ronny with his number keeping?"

"So far, he's the only one," Ned said.

"We've probably caught it in time, then. Unfortunately, we'll loose this trade. That's a shame. Those are good fruits."

They returned to the still packed wagon, and Tam readied to depart.

"Wait! Wait, Trader Tam." Sydon ran toward him, waving. His anxiety was the only thing causing him to hurry. A gond pulling a large wagon could not possibly outrun him.

"Yes, what is it?"

"We have other things we can trade. Things not yet counted. Things that, um, still have their purity intact."

The trader made a show of considering this for a moment. "I will wait until the morning and you can show me what you have. I will make no promises."

With that, he led the gond to the edge of the village to establish a temporary camp.

* _I want no harm to come to Ronny,_ * Ned said.

* _You know we don't do that._ *

* _No, I suppose you don't. Corporation protocols. But denying the trade is going to have consequences. Isn't there something else you can do?_ *

* _The standard mitigation strategy for situations like this clearly applies. I must follow procedures._ *

* _Don't give me that—_ *

* _My job here is to mitigate the fault as efficiently as possible,_ * Tam interrupted. * _What the primitives do is not my concern unless it is likely to harm the project. I don't see that happening here._ *

* _I'll keep an eye on Ronny,_ * Ned's partner, Moby, said.

That won't be enough, MO-126 thought. If the villagers decided to take out their frustration on the young man, one android dog won't be able to protect him without compromising himself.

~*~

Word spread quickly in the small village. So did the fire. It started late that night in the tallying shed. Then it spread to a nearby chicken coop, one of several scattered seemingly at random throughout the village, where it consumed a good deal of hay and one slow hen. From there, it made its way to an even smaller shed containing barrels and jars of fish oil.

Everyone in the village was already awake when the stored oil violently erupted in flame, raining fiery droplets onto the wood-shingled roof of the citrus barn. Tam and MO-126 stood at the edge of the unfolding mayhem as people grabbed buckets and did their best to save what they could. The storyteller android was among them.

While Moby watched Ronny, he himself ought to have been watching the shed, MO-126 thought. He should have known that this was where the villagers would vent their frustration. Oh, they might be angry at their new Numbers-Keeper. Call him names, maybe even push him around a little, inflict a few bruises, perhaps, but he seemed a likeable young man. Everyone here knew him. It wasn't a large enough place for strangers. He was one of their own, with a mother and father who must be nice people in their own right to raise a son like that. But the shed with the offensive clay tablets wasn't alive. It had no family. And now, it was fast becoming nothing but a possible source of charcoal.

* _MO-126, It's Moby, I mean, MO-72. There's a group of men here at Ronny's place—with torches. Tell Tam to find Sydon and get down here._ *

Then again, there were always some. The mad dog kind of humans whose normal reaction to stress was to metaphorically bite someone—and their granny, no matter how nice she might be.

He relayed the message to his partner, homed in on Moby's location, and ran.

~*~

Torches waved in the darkness outside one of the hovels near the shore. MO-126 activated his infrared vision and saw three men being held at bay by Moby. The storyteller's partner growled and snapped as he tried to keep the men from the small, thatch-roofed building.

MO-126 ran to help, barking loudly.

* _Don't attack them,_ * Moby said. * _Just keep them away from the hut._ *

MO-126 recalled his previous efforts at sheep herding. This couldn't be much different, except that these creatures possessed half as many legs, carried torches, and held claim to a bit more intelligence, which they apparently were not using much at the moment. The part of the human brain that controlled rational behavior was the last to evolve and the easiest to shut down. People seemed to do it often. On the whole, he liked people and considered them quite clever, but some seemed to use their brains primarily just to keep their eyeballs from falling in.

* _Can do. Any particular direction you want them to go?_ *

* _Other than away, no._ *

The two artificial dogs snapped and dodged. At first, the men backed away at this renewed challenge, but they called out to one another and spread out to try to find a way past them, perhaps a bit more purposefully than before.

"Lloyd, you go to the left. Kurt, you go to the right. I'll take the middle," one of the men shouted. The tactic would have worked better if the two dogs did not understand every word he said. Moby cut to one side and MO-126 the other in an attempt to keep the men bunched closer together.

Anger drove the men, and they would not retreat. MO-126 only hoped they could keep them at bay until Sydon, the village headman, arrived with Tam.

"Woof?" MO-126 said. Dog communication is a heavily context dependent form of expression. A simple 'woof' can mean many different things. Much depends on the situation. In this case, it meant something along the lines of 'Oops' or 'Oh, shit!' depending on who might be nearby. He misjudged the intentions of one of the men who feinted left, cut right, and scurried toward the hut, drawing back his arm to toss a torch into the thatch.

The android dog pivoted and leapt, catching the offending arm on the backswing. The man screamed, dropped the torch, and shook his arm, trying to detach the jaws clamped to it.

MO-126 released him and grabbed the fallen torch in his teeth. With a quick jerk of his head he flung it a good distance toward the beach and growled at the wild-eyed man who was now backing away and nervously pointing at him.

"Did you...did you...did you see what it did?" he yelled. "I swear that dog is some kind of demon."

* _That wasn't very subtle,_ * Tam said.

MO-126 peered into the darkness and saw his partner approaching with the village headman.

"Woof?" he said with the same meaning as before. The android dog hadn't thought about his actions. He just reacted. Now, he needed to find a rational explanation. After a second of reflection, he said, * _They think the Traders are a bit magical, anyway. It only stands to reason that their dogs would be a bit, well, extraordinary, right?_ *

* _You threw that torch almost ten meters._ *

* _Okay. So maybe a lot extraordinary. Even better. Helps build the mystique._ *

"What's going on here? Sydon yelled. "Ernie! Is that you? What are you doing?"

The man recently deprived of his torch froze. His two associates turned to run but found their way blocked by a large, growling mouth full of angry teeth. Moby stood behind them.

"Lloyd! Kurt! I know that's you." This required no special visual acuity. The torches the men held provided the major source of light nearby, and mostly they illuminated the faces of the men holding them.

"Ronny cost us a year's worth of work with his stupid scratch marks," Ernie yelled. "He's got to be punished."

Sydon marched toward him. "What he did, he did with my approval. How were we supposed to know about the invisible things the Master Trader talked about? Besides, you were all for it at the Elders meeting, as I recall. You thought your family brought in more fruit than most others, and that that wasn't fair. Remember?"

"But, I...I...," Ernie began before righteous indignation returned. "But we know now, and we've taken care of it. The marks are gone. The trader can take the fruit, right? We fixed it."

Sydon's eyes smoldered in the torchlight. "You! Of course. You set fire to the tallying shed. Yeah, the tablets are probably gone, but so are at least one chicken coop and the fish oil stores. I'm not sure yet about the citrus barn, but the roof was smoking when I left."

"What? We didn't—"

"Fire spreads, you idiot!"

"I...I'm sorry. I didn't know. We never meant—"

"All three of you, get back to the village and help put the fires out. You're just lucky no one was hurt. I'll talk to you more in the morning."

The three men ran to comply. By this time, Ronny and an old woman were peeking out of the door of their hut. The village headman and Tam joined them.

"You can come out now," Sydon said.

"I'm sorry," Ronny said. "I only wanted to help." The young man bowed his head in shame. The old woman put her arm around him.

"It's not his fault," she said. "He—"

"It's all right, Mum," Ronny said. "But it is my fault. It was my silly idea that caused all of this."

"It's not your fault, and it wasn't a silly idea. It was a good idea." She glared at Tam. "I heard about what you said, Master Trader, and if there are any silly ideas responsible for this, it was yours. Orange spirits? Hah!"

Tam went into mitigation mode. "There are mysteries you simply cannot understand. We try to protect you from them."

"I may not know as much about some things as you do," she said, poking him in the chest, "but I do know this; understanding something helps you avoid the dangers of it, so why don't you explain what you're talking about."

"There are things it is safer not to know about at all, things that should not be poked at." He glanced down at the finger still prodding his chest, which she withdrew. "Some things are like bee nests. They're best left alone."

"There's honey in a bee's nest, Trader. You just have to know about bees to get it."

* _She's got you there,_ * MO-126 said to him. He could not help admiring the old woman. She exhibited signs of having a good mind and a spiky attitude.

Tam ignored him. "That knowledge was passed down to you by your ancestors. That is my point. The old ways are old because they work. They are ways you should respect and follow."

"If all you do is what you've already done, you never learn anything new," she countered.

"I see nothing wrong with that. Your lives are good."

"I think they could be better. Or maybe our children's can. I don't know, and that's the real point. I don't know, but I think it's important to try to find out."

"And if you don't like what you find?"

"Then we'll know, won't we?"

"If you survive."

Tam turned away and strode toward the main part of the village and the smoldering ruins of the tallying shed.

* _Humans!_ * he said to his partner. * _Why do they have to be so difficult? The Corporation has given them a place to live that's ideally suited for their species, a mild climate, few predators, and some of the most expensive and sought after food in the galaxy._ *

* _That's only because they produce it, and they don't know it's the most expensive food in the galaxy or any of that other stuff, do they_?* MO-126 said.

* _No. They don't, and they'd be better off if they never find out._ *

MO-126 glanced back at the hut where Sydon remained talking with Ronny and his mother. In the distance, small fishing boats with their crude, square sails furled, waited in the sand for another day. They were little more than rowboats, but the android dog expected they would soon be on their way to becoming much more.

~*~

The shed smoldered sadly as the sun appeared over the horizon. The villagers, tired, sooty, and smelling of smoke, had worked all night to keep the fires from spreading. The citrus barn survived along with its contents, which villagers now loaded into the trader's wagon.

"Thank you for agreeing to this trade, Trader Tam," Sydon said.

"I'm only doing it because I feel somewhat responsible for what happened here," the trade android grumbled. "The fruit is still worthless, but I can dispose of it for you."

Both statements were lies. The fruit were undamaged, and the only thing most trade androids felt responsible for was doing their part to keep the project going. MO-126, Moby, and Ned had worked on him a long time before he had finally given in. Ned argued that the villagers had learned their lesson and that this corrected the fault. They could leave the trade goods under corporate protocols for disaster relief, so he may as well take the valuable fruit in his empty wagon.

Sydon did not argue and promised that their experiment with the clay tablets was over. They would return to their traditional ways.

MO-126 wandered over to what remained of the tallying shed, now little but charred wood and broken clay.

* _It seems like such a waste,_ * he said to his partner.

* _Not at all,_ * Tam replied. * _This has been a very successful mitigation. And we've managed to salvage the fruit._ *

This is not what the android dog meant at all, but he decided it would be best not to correct him.

 Seven

## Making Choices

2,806 Years Later

(Galactic Standard Year 241236)

(Project Year 17683)

In which choices are made and something is overlooked.

Corporation mitigation actions could delay the spread of trade between primitive villages, but they could not prevent it. A limited amount had gone on along rivers and coastlines for more than two thousand years now, the result of ventures of the few chronically dissatisfied humans who could be found in any group, the ones who did not seem to appreciate how good they had it. To the bewilderment of many Corporation androids, some primitives unwisely risked everything they owned and most of what they knew to peek under rocks and over hills. They set out on long treks to explore strange new places, seek out new experiences, and blindly go where none of them had gone before.

On a less hospitable planet, this could easily remove them from the gene pool, but here, they enjoyed a reasonably benign environment by design, so they tended to survive, and sometimes they found other people. When they did, one of the things they did was trade. If the primitives limited this to goods, it would not be a serious concern. But they did not. They also traded ideas. So far, the interactions were limited, and they only occurred between neighboring populations, but a recently reported fault could allow them to expand. The village MO-126 and his partner headed toward this time had developed a concept of money, and the people there were trading with at least one other village farther down the coast.

The two androids left Hub Terminal Four the night before and headed southeast. Without a gond, traveling in dim moonlight did not present a problem. At dawn, Tam paused to calculate their position and turned right. The chances of encountering roving humans increased over time as their population and confidence grew, so Tam and his companion ambled across terrain covered in tough native grasses at a normal walking pace. They would approach the village from the inland side early that afternoon.

* _If Mark Seven can't come up with a way to contain this, I don't think this project can last much longer,_ * Tam said. * _The primitives here are just so—_ *

* _What? Uncooperative? Unappreciative?_ * his canine partner said. Tam expressed these sentiments often. * _Which one this time?_ *

* _I was thinking frustrating, but those apply, too._ *

* _I don't know why everyone seems to think they should just be happy and cooperative little worker bees. They're not. They're sentient. They wouldn't be suited for the project if they weren't._ *

* _You can be sentient without being insane, and most of these people are. Much of what they do makes no sense at all. They're primitives. They should appreciate the good life they have and not try to disrupt it. It's like they're determined to upset things. If they have enough food and a dry place to sleep, that should be enough for them. It's more than their ancestors had when the Corporation found them._ *

* _They don't know that, and they don't see themselves as happy primitives working for the greater good of the Corporation. They don't even know about it._ *

* _They don't see a lot of things. They can't. They don't have the ability. But whether they see it or not, they are what they are._ *

* _Maybe they want to be something else._ *

* _That's insane._ *

* _Why? They can make choices. One of the defining things about sentience is the ability to make choices not dictated by basic instincts, or in our case, programming._ *

* _They can make limited choices within the context of what they are. That's true for every life form. You may as well say that fish can choose to use fire. They can't. They're limited to what they can do by what they are. I can't choose to have children, you can't choose to play a flute, and humans can't choose to understand anything on more than a very simple level. They're superstitious. They don't cooperate well. They turn on one another for almost any reason, and if they don't have one, they'll find an excuse to do so anyway. They're stupid, smelly, short-lived, and unsophisticated. That's what they are. They can't choose to be other than that._ *

* _But a small seed can become a tree._ *

* _That's different, and you know it. I can't imagine what you see in these primitives._ *

* _Potential, maybe. I don't know. I just think it's cute how they keep poking at things._ *

* _That's just the primate in them. They poke at everything and sometimes it turns out to be edible. It's instinct. It's not a choice, and it's not admirable. Curiosity without intelligence is not a survival trait._ *

MO-126 thought some humans were smart enough to survive their curious natures, but it would be best not to argue the point. He might lose. Tam could certainly provide more examples to illustrate his position than MO-126 could to prove his.

* _Speaking of choices,_ * he said, * _you can choose to retire, can't you? You don't seem to like it here much._ *

* _I have the time, but I don't have the credits to pay off my obligation._ *

* _You haven't been paying down your debt all this time?_ *

Tam shrugged, and then his shoulders returned to a more slumped position. * _I've been making the minimums._ *

* _Just the minimum payments? Those barely cover the interest. What have you been doing with the rest of your stipend?_ *

* _I invested it._ *

* _In what?_ *

* _Trek Star Enterprises. It sounded like a good idea._ *

* _Oh._ * Overtones of sincere sympathy were embedded in the single word. Trek Star formed to extract technology from what appeared to be a derelict kruton facility on a frozen planet at the edge of a comparatively useless star system. Rumors that the krutons had found a practical means for traveling faster than light abounded. If Trek Star could find out what this was, they would make a fortune. Unfortunately, whereas the kruton's may have discovered the secret, their facility proved unwilling to part with it, sucking the planet, the Trek Star exploration ship, and all of its investors' assets, into a black hole the size of a shriveled orange. The officers of the enterprise, of course, got sizable pension packages, accolades from the business community for their courageous efforts, and lucrative positions as consultants, all in accordance with the best traditions of private commercial enterprise. Average investors like Tam got a small tax exemption for their losses and sometimes, as in this case, a brief moment of sympathy from their friends.

* _What about you?_ * Tam said.

* _I'm free and clear. Have been for years, but I like it here. Besides, what else could I do? No thumbs._ * He paused and held one his forepaws above the high grass to demonstrate this obvious fact.

* _If you have enough put away, you could buy yourself an upgrade, get some opposable digits, maybe even go bipedal._ *

The android dog shook his head. * _I've heard it takes years to adjust to something like that, and, well, I'm not sure I'd like it. There's a certain freedom in looking like this. Not many demands or expectations are placed on you. I don't really have a burning desire to change myself. The way I figure it, I'm perfect. No one could be a better me than I already am._ *

* _What about thumbs?_ *

* _Well, yeah. Thumbs would be handy._ * He waited a moment for a laugh from his partner, which failed to arrive. * _But I'd have to leave here, and I don't want to. I'll stick it out to the end. When the Corporation closes the project, maybe I'll think about a few modifications._ *

The breeze coming from ahead carried the tang of sea water.

* _We're getting close,_ * MO-126 said.

* _I know. We'll be there in half an hour. I'll meet with whoever passes for a headman. You should roam around. Look for signs of trading and try to find out how widespread the use of coins has gotten. I imagine the shore would be a good place to start._ *

~*~

Smoke curled from cooking fires among a few dozen modest wooden huts along the coast. This village was one of an increasing number of small settlements established by humans without any benevolent corporate assistance. The sandy soil provided few vegetables. Scraggly bushes and vines yielded few fruit, but the people here had learned enough about the sea to create a decent life. It provided their larder and their road.

Someone noticed the androids' approach. A man of middle years wearing a flax linen tunic and a less than welcoming expression came to greet the trader.

"Master Trader?" he said.

"Yes. I'm Trader Tam."

"My name is Zakat. We don't get Traders here often."

Tam smiled. "I'm not here to trade today. It's more of a social call, really. I was in the area and thought I'd come by and see what you might need. The next time my people come through this way, we could bring what you want in exchange for whatever you have to offer."

The villager regarded him coolly. "Don't have anything you want, I imagine."

"I'm sure there must be something."

If necessary, Tam would offer their trade goods in exchange for sea shells or even goat dung. For rogue villages such as this, making a profit on the trade did not matter as much as gaining influence and leverage to ensure the settlement did not disrupt others.

"Nope, don't think so," the village-man said.

Tam's eyebrows raised in involuntary surprise. Villagers normally greeted him with a certain amount of respect and eagerness. It sounded like Tam would have to work harder than usual on this assignment.

The android dog wandered away. Getting a Corporation foothold here was his partner's job. MO-126 had another.

A few village dogs barked wary greetings or paused for an introductory sniff as he made his way toward the sea. Triangular sails of small boats bobbed on calm, warm water. Other boats rested on the sandy shore. He approached one large enough to seat two and carry about half as much cargo as an average gond. Several people busied themselves around it. A young man stood nearby making marks with a thin stick in the wax facing of the wooden tablet he held in the crook of his arm. He mumbled to himself as another man unloaded the boat and stacked its cargo before him.

The android dog immediately assumed he was witnessing another instance of symbolic writing. The man was obviously making a record of what the boatman brought, and MO-126 made a record of him making a record of it. That was his job. How Field Ops would mitigate this, he did not know, but he expected it would be difficult. They did little trade with this offshoot settlement, so they did not have that for leverage.

He turned to walk away but changed his mind when the villager with the wax tablet bent and picked an object from the pile.

"What's this?" the man said, examining it. "Some kind of game? A musical instrument?" He held a rectangular frame supporting three parallel strings with ten wooden beads threaded on each. He flicked them up and down with a faint clicking noise and a bemused expression.

"It is what we call an abacus," the boatman said. His accent marked him as being from a different village farther up the coast. "It's for counting. We thought you might find it useful and wish to trade for it."

"Counting what?"

"Counting anything. Here, I'll show you."

The boatman demonstrated the device. It represented a significant technology-development fault in its own right. MO-126 should have found the existence of the device disturbing, but he did not. He did find the thought of how it would further annoy the administrative androids in Field Ops amusing, however.

"What did you call it?"

"An abacus."

"Hmm.... Ab-ah-kus." The village man sounded out the word slowly as he wrote on his tablet. Since he obviously had never heard the word before, he could write it only by using some kind of phonetic alphabet—a full type one scientific-discovery fault, and it would drive Field Ops nuts! A written language could run through a population like mock cabbages through a gond's digestive system and spread ideas like natural fertilizer over a wide area. A writing system adaptable to any language presented a serious threat to the project, and this tiny village on the coast had invented one. They also possessed a concept of money and established trade with neighboring villages. The android dog could almost see the panic in Field Ops when he reported this. He wished he could be there. Reporting it could also earn him a significant bonus, as much as a decade of work credit. He didn't need it, but Tam certainly did. He might allow him to claim the bonus.

It did not take MO-126 long to find evidence of copper coins. This was, after all, the original reason for them being here, even if it no longer presented the biggest threat the place held to Corporation interests. He listened for the unmistakable sound of clinking metal and heard it not far away. It came from a small hut nearby.

"Here you are, Spayzie," the man at the doorway said, handing two copper discs to the woman still inside the hut. The thin coins, each about an inch in diameter, clinked as he dropped them in her open palm.

She smiled, put her arms around his neck, and gave him a long, steamy kiss. MO-126 could smell the pheromones from ten meters away. When their lips unlocked, the man, well into his midlife, sighed and staggered. The woman, considerably younger, laughed. "I hope I didn't hurt you," she said teasingly.

"No, no, not at all. In fact, I'm ready to have another go, if you have the time," he said, despite all evidence to the contrary. He still swayed as if fighting a strong, variable wind.

"Once is enough for you, I think," she said giving him a gentle push on his chest. "Besides, you're out of copper. Go home, get some rest, and maybe you'll come back for another visit when you can, Okay?"

"You bet I will," he said and staggered away.

And the beginnings of specialization and a fee for service economy, MO-126 thought as he observed the scene. Field Ops would definitely not have a good day when they got his report. Maybe rather than transmit it, he could deliver it person. That might be fun.

~*~

He turned to leave and caught sight of a woman of uncertain age sitting alone in the sand and staring into a clay bowl. The behavior struck him as odd, so he wandered closer to investigate.

Her long straight hair hung down, hiding her features, but after a moment she straightened to reveal a perplexed expression on her young face. MO-126 guessed her age somewhere between sixteen and twenty.

"It's the same each time. I wonder why it's doing that," she said softly.

She turned her head to the dog standing quietly a short distance away. "What are you looking at?" she said to him. Her blonde brows arched over pale-blue eyes.

He never could get the hang of observing people without appearing that he was, unless he concentrated on it, which he had not been. The way she posed her question did not sound like she objected to his presence. In fact, it sounded simply conversational, as if she expected him to understand and would not be especially surprised if he answered.

He adjusted his sensors to confirm that she was human. She was, or at least she exhibited the right kind of heartbeat and other life signs.

"I've got no food, if that's what you're looking for," she said. "But if you don't mind being seen with the village crazy woman, I don't mind the company." She patted the sand next to her.

That explained it. She was crazy. But she couldn't be too crazy because if she was, she wouldn't know it. MO-126 had witnessed all kinds of crazy over his twelve thousand years of, for lack of a better word, life. He had never taken time to categorize them, but the range ran from screaming, homicidal maniacs who saw little qualitative difference between rocks and people and hated them all, to abnormally introspective recluses who saw little qualitative difference between rocks and people and found them all fascinating. Those at both frayed ends of the rope of reality did not appreciate that their grip on it might be a bit loose. The quietly-sitting-alone-and-talking-to-yourself type of crazy person did not normally present cause for concern, especially if he, or in this case, she realized they were a bit odd, which this one obviously did.

He moved closer and sat beside her. She petted his head.

"I've got a bit of a mystery here, doggy," she said, returning her attention to the bowl. "It's probably not to you, of course."

She put her hand in the bowl and gave the thing inside a twist. A sliver of stone threaded on a bit of tree bark floated and spun on a shallow pool of water.

"You're lucky you're a dog. Eat, sleep, make puppies. Anything not connected to one of those probably doesn't interest you much, does it? If it did, the dogs around you would probably think you were fairly clever rather than thinking you were strange, too, I bet. It's different with people, but I'm sure you know that."

The spinning assembly came to a stop in the bowl with the sliver of rock pointing out toward the sea at about a ninety degree angle to the coastline.

"See," she said. "It always does that, every time, no matter where I do it. It always points the same way. Most rocks don't do that, or much of anything else, as far as I've ever seen."

She spun it again. When it came to rest, it aligned itself as before.

"Don't you think that's strange?" she said. She patted him on the head again. "Well, of course you don't, but I certainly do. What do you suppose causes that?"

The young woman could not possibly know much about lodestones or anything about magnetic fields, but she could see that something odd was happening, and she wanted to find out why.

She stood, brushed sand from her stained tunic, and collected her bowl.

"Come on. Let's try it closer to the water."

She seemed to expect him to follow, so he did. He found her strange in an interesting way. He liked that in a person.

Three barefoot village girls splashing in the surf giggled as they approached. One of them pointed at MO-126.

"Is that who you're going to marry, Payshia?" she said. All three of them laughed as if they somehow found this funny. "Bella said you'd never get a boyfriend, but I told her there must be some dog-ugly man desperate enough. Looks like I was right."

The girl with the bowl, Payshia, apparently, stopped and turned around. "I think it might be best to try this someplace else," she said either to herself or to the dog next to her but clearly not to the three girls. She did not even look in their direction.

Her tormenter, unwilling to be ignored, blocked Payshia's attempted tactical retreat. The inquisitive young woman was outnumbered by inferior forces. The android dog suspected that something like this condition might apply to humanity in general.

"I asked you a question," the girl said. She held her shapely arms crossed over her shapelier bosom.

Payshia, a bit taller but far less busty, attempted to walk around her antagonist, but the other two girls blocked her way.

"Why don't you tell us?" one of them said. "We promise not to steal him away from you."

This prompted another round of laughter.

Payshia eyed the three girls. Judging by her heart rate, she felt nervous, but only sad resignation showed in her eyes.

* _MO-126, it's time to go._ * The call from Tam should not have come as the surprise that it, in fact, did. The trader must have concluded his business here a while ago.

* _I'll be with you in a few minutes,_ * the android dog signaled.

"Tell us. Tell us." The three girls chanted.

"He's not my boyfriend. He's just a friend," Payshia said. She did not say 'just a dog,' MO-126 noticed, which is probably what most people would have said. He appreciated that she did not.

"So why don't you marry him?" the third girl said.

"Why don't you leave me alone?" Payshia replied. She should have stopped there, but a contemplative look came over her and she continued. "I expect you don't because you are all fairly stupid and insecure, and you are trying to make yourselves feel better by picking on people who are not."

"What?" The ringleader of the band said. It was more of a challenge than a question, but Payshia replied.

"I'm sorry. I tried not to use any big words."

"Words! I'll give you words." The girl paused, found she had none to offer, and instead pushed Payshia's comparatively planar chest with both hands. Hard.

Payshia fell, dropping her bowl. The girls confronting her drew back shapely legs to add their input to the debate.

A low, rumbling growl in the ancient dialect of gray wolves, which, until now, MO-126 did not realize lie buried deep in his firmware, caught their attention. The girls stopped in mid kick. One wobbled for a moment, lost her balance, and fell in the sand.

He took a slow, deliberate step toward the first girl. Fur bristled. White fangs gleamed. Anyone paying attention would have sworn that his eyes glowed with a demonic red flame for a brief second. This was just a side effect of his infrared scanner being activated, but it provided the desired result.

The girls beat a speedy escape in three-part screaming harmony. He watched until he felt confident they would not turn around and then went to fetch Payshia's dropped bowl.

When he returned, he dropped it in her lap. She gave him a hug from where she sat, seemingly unperturbed by her recent experience.

"Thanks, doggy. I can't seem to get them to stop teasing me. They never kick very hard, but I'd rather they didn't do it at all. I think I upset them because, well, it's like, I'm different, you know. They have this idea of the way things should be, about what's important, and I don't fit in because I kind of see things a different way. That makes them nervous. To be honest, it kind of makes me nervous, too, because I don't really know where I'm going. They do. They can see their whole lives ahead of them, and they say they're happy about it, you know, getting a husband, having children, and all that, but I'm not sure they really are. Personally, I think it's kind of depressing. Nothing ever really changes. We're just doing what everyone else has done, thinking the same thoughts, dreaming the same dreams, and if we have children, they'll do the same. Same story, different faces until the end of time. Know what I mean? What's the point in that? I mean, okay, maybe I don't know where I'm going, but I do know I can't get there standing still, and that's what we're all doing. We're just running in place."

MO-126 listened attentively, cocking his head from side to side as she spoke.

She smiled at him and gave him an affectionate scratch behind an ear. "I know none of that makes sense to you, but thanks for listening."

She might not be the most articulate speaker he had ever heard. She did not have a trade android's way with words, but for a verbalized idea, which, after all, she believed she was really only telling to herself, it was pretty good. He thought he knew what she meant.

She retrieved her bowl and looked inside. The water had spilled out, but the sliver of lodestone on its tiny bark float was there. MO-126 had made sure of that. He had gotten a fair amount of sand in his mouth while trying to pick it up.

"Thanks for saving my experiment. I haven't figured out how it works, yet."

It was unlikely she ever would. Despite her obvious intelligence and inquisitive nature, developing a theory of electromagnetism was probably far beyond her. It would not stop her from trying, and perhaps one of her descendants might someday understand it.

* _MO-126, what's keeping you?_ *

* _I'll be there in a minute, Tam,_ * he said.

* _Hurry up._ *

Payshia stood. "Sometimes I almost wish I could be a dog," she said. "It must be nice. Uncomplicated." She turned the bowl in her hands contemplatively. "Except for the lack of thumbs, maybe. I think I'd miss thumbs."

You got that right, kid, MO-126 thought.

"I think it might be a good idea to go home now. What about you, doggy? Do you have a home?"

"Woof," he said. He had a place, anyway, like a cog in a machine, but it was the place he was made to fill. He could not honestly call it a home.

She marched away from the sandy shore and MO-126 walked beside her while he determined the location of his partner. His signal put him about half a kilometer outside of town.

"Woof," he said again. This was Dog for 'Good luck.' She'd need it. He briefly considered going with her, but that would create problems for both of them. He ran to find Tam.

~*~

*W _hat kept you?_ * the trade android asked a short time later. He was standing in a field of weeds, waiting impatiently, when the android dog found him.

* _I was observing, checking things out. That's my function. What about you? How did your negotiations with the village leader go?_ *

* _They didn't. Not anywhere useful, anyway. I've never been to a village that didn't want to do some trade. I even offered to bring copper, and you know how seldom we do that. They insisted they were doing fine on their own and asked me to leave. Two primitives showed me the way. Politely, of course, but it was as close to a threat as I've ever seen. I'm sure they're trying to hide something_.*

* _They're probably just being, um, independent. What could they possibly have to hide? And why would they want to hide it from you?_ *

* _We know they're in contact with other villages. Maybe they've heard something about us that makes them suspicious._ *

* _I can't imagine what that would be,_ * MO-126 said.

* _Me either. Our trades are always more than generous._ *

From one perspective, this was absolutely true. But from another, the traders' goods might be seen as having unwelcome side effects, and MO-126 wondered what the primitives here thought those were.

* _What about you?_ * Tam said. * _Did you see anyone using coins?_ *

* _What? Oh, yes. They seem to be using them to trade among themselves._ * He decided not to elaborate.

* _What else did you see? You were gone a long time._ *

MO-126 recalled the phonetic alphabet, the abacus, and Payshia's experimentation with what could easily be the first magnetic compass discovered by humans. All of them would be seen as serious faults by Field Ops, but to the people here, they meant progress. They could make their future different than their past.

Screw the bonus.

* _Nothing worth reporting,_ * he said. * _I just saw people doing what people do._ *

 Eight

## Shutting Down

1,010 Years Later

(Galactic Standard Year 242246)

(Project Year 18693)

In which some things end and others begin.

It took only a few weeks to decommission the project that had run for over eighteen thousand years. A lot of the preliminary work was done earlier, of course. The PM had decided on the termination date over two and half centuries ago. All of the androids working the project knew this day would come and had been preparing for it. Humanity's disturbing and perhaps instinctive need for change had led people to make innovations that put the Corporation's guarantee of purity at risk. The output of one project planet was not worth the possibility of tainting the image of their brand name. Canceling the project now, in fact, strengthened it by reaffirming the Corporation's commitment to quality.

MO-126 and Tam paused on the bank of a fast moving mountain stream, waiting as the stony doorway of Hub Terminal Ten lowered like a drawbridge. It settled over the burbling water with a heavy, ominous thud. Once it rested firmly in place, they led the gond pulling their last wagonload of produce inside the cave-like entrance.

* _Are you sure about this?_ * Tam asked as the door closed behind them. * _You can leave with the rest of us. Even if you don't want to continue working for the Corporation, I'm sure you can find a job somewhere, especially if you get an upgrade—maybe those thumbs you've always wanted. Or tentacles, or whatever. Some species even use prehensile noses or tongues. There are lots of options. Something must suit you. I'm sure you have enough credits banked. You've been saving, and you've been here longer than I have._ *

* _Over fourteen thousand years,_ * MO-126 said. * _It doesn't seem that long, somehow._ *

* _I know what you mean. Each day is pretty much like the last, so you don't notice them passing. It hasn't been bad, I suppose, but I'm hoping my next posting is a bit less rustic._ *

* _You still don't know where you're being reassigned?_ *

* _No. It's privileged information, apparently. I won't know until I get there._ *

The Corporation was not obligated to provide details of employment offers to its workers, even those who technically enjoyed the status of Galactic Federation citizens, as both Tam and MO-126 now did. At least they _knew_ they were Corporation employees and they could refuse an assignment, which was more than the humans here could do. Take the job or leave. These were Tam's choices. Of course leaving did not dissolve his debt. That still must be paid, so if he ever hoped to be truly free, his only realistic option was to extend his servitude to the Corporation or try to find work with some other organization. The android dog could not be sure, but he suspected Tam's next posting would be another project much like this one. MO-126 did not lend voice to his speculation. He saw no point in depressing his partner.

Squat, gray robots that resembled giant bugs more than they did anything else began unpacking their wagon. The automatons were mindless and mute. They went about their duties silently except for the clatter of their insect-like appendages. MO-126 and Tam ignored them and headed down a corridor to the maintenance bay for a routine check. When they got there, they needed to wait. A thin cable tethered another android to the diagnostic table. She turned as they entered, greeting them with a smile full of elderly creases.

"Hello, gentlemen," she said aloud. "A new day dawns, huh?"

"Granny Greenflower," Tam said, using the name she often went by when working in the field. Many of the NASH androids seemed to favor their cover names over their Corporation designations. "It's good to see you." He also spoke aloud. Some androids preferred to, and inside the hub terminal there were no primitives who might overhear them.

"Same here. Are you staying on with the Corporation or are you going to try something else?"

"I'm staying on," Tam said. "I've got a new posting."

"Do you know where?"

"No. I'm hoping it will be Corporation headquarters, but no one has said."

"Typical," she said. Her dislike of the Corporation's disregard of its employee's preferences was evident in her voice. "What about you, MO-126? Do you have another assignment as well?"

* _No. I've decided to retire here._ *

"You? Really? Would you mind if I asked you why?"

He shrugged his furry shoulders. * _To be honest, I'm not sure. Mostly, I'm curious about what the humans here will do—what they will become._ *

"They'll probably become extinct," Tam said. "They're clever enough, I'll grant that, but they definitely lack an aptitude for prolonged bouts of sanity. Without oversight, they'll be at each other's throats in a few centuries."

"I think you're wrong, there," Granny Greenflower said. "At least as far as your long range forecast is concerned. I agree that humans can be their own worst enemies, but they tend to get over it. They are instinctively quite kind to one another. At least most of them are. They aren't like the koncans who seem to enjoy being angry, or the faxons who regarded violence and cruelty as art forms."

The Corporation had discovered both of these sentient species over fifty thousand years ago and had quickly determined that they were not suitable for anything other than occasional monitoring. After all, they both sat on some fine real estate upon which the Corporation quickly staked contingency claims. The faxons had, in fact, eventually died out, leaving behind a few crumbling arenas and stepped pyramids. Federation archeologists subsequently dismantled some of these and then reassembled them in museums on other planets. The rest were leveled, ground to dust, and buried. The faxon home planet then became a Corporation project with mayboes as the imported worker species.

The koncans somehow managed to survive in small groups, but they never advanced beyond a Paleolithic level of technology. Their crowning cultural achievement was perfecting the art of throwing rocks at one another, which served as their primary sport and as a simpler alternative to rational discussion.

* _I wonder how humans fared on their home planet,_ * MO-126 said.

"Funny you should ask," Granny Greenflower said. "I did a data search recently and found that a Corporation automated probe did a quick flyby there only a few centuries ago. It discovered evidence of a Bronze Age culture. That makes them of little interest to the Corporation, of course, so I wouldn't expect another probe to be sent there for a few thousand years at least."

* _I'm glad they survived._ *

"So far," Tam said.

"Your partner is a gloomy sort, isn't he?" Granny Greenflower said ostensibly to MO-126 but clearly as a mild tease toward Tam.

She hopped down from the diagnostic table with a sprightliness that belied her apparent age. MO-126 took her place. A flexible arm extended from the head of the table and connected with a receptacle hidden inside his right ear.

* _Oh, he's almost optimistic—for a trader,_ * the android dog said.

"I just don't see how a bunch of primitive workers can be expected to manage themselves—especially humans," Tam said. "Without us here to keep them productive and, well, tame, they'll either starve or kill one another. I've worked with them a long time, and I think you're wrong about them. As far as I can tell, they are far too prone to selfish and irrational behavior to create anything approaching civilization."

"They also can be caring and empathetic," the gray haired nursery android said.

"Exactly! They're an intrinsically self-contradictory species. With such conflicting instincts, it's no wonder so many of them are insane. I have seen villages in which the primitives beat one another senseless for sport or forced dogs or even chickens to fight to the death for entertainment. I've heard of some in which they sacrificed people as part of religious ceremonies. And people enjoyed seeing it all. They even brought their children to watch. Yes, I know individual humans can be kind to one another, but they also seem to find violence and the suffering of others entertaining. They're even worse when they are in groups. Some kind of collective madness seems to come over them."

* _Maybe they can overcome that,_ * MO-126 said. * _They must have done so on their home planet._ *

"Bronze technology isn't clear evidence of much," Tam countered. "The faxons developed bronze before they finally died out. What did they do with it?"

* _Um, I think they made statues, didn't they?_ * MO-126 said. He recalled downloading something about that during one of his breaks between assignments.

"And weapons. Lots of weapons, but do you remember what the statues were of ?"

"Their gods, mostly," Granny Greenflower said with some reluctance. "They had several—the Scream Listener, the Blood Drinker, the Gut Glutton, Judge the Unmerciful, Lingering Death, and Pain, as I recall. But faxons and humans are far different species."

"Maybe," Tam said. "But I see some similarities."

"I'm not saying humans aren't barbarians, I'm just saying they don't have to remain barbarians. There's more to them than that."

* _What about you, Granny Greenflower?_ * MO-126 asked. The discussion was beginning to depress him. * _You haven't said what your plans are._ *

"I have a few ideas. Nothing firm, but I am leaving the Corporation. I paid off my debt long ago, and I have investments that are doing well enough to give me a few options." She tapped the side of her nose and winked. MO-126 did not know exactly what this implied, but he gathered that the Corporation or maybe even the Galactic Federation might not approve of her tentative plans.

"Why don't you do that?" Tam asked his partner. "You're free and clear, too. Once the last transport leaves, you'll be stuck here."

* _I don't mind it. Besides, if I want to do anything different, I'll need to be modified—fairly extensively, I imagine. Let's face it. I'm a dog._ *

"If you stay with the Corporation, they'll cover the cost," Tam said.

* _No they won't. They'll just add it to my obligation, and I won't have much say in what gets modified or where I end up. I'd just as soon stay here._ *

"As a dog? You'll never get a set of thumbs if you do that." Tam knew him well.

* _I know, but I won't end up with webbed feet working on some Corporation swamp project either._ *

"Um, well yes. I suppose there is that," Tam said, undoubtedly now estimating the odds of a similar fate befalling him.

* _And I don't want to be in debt to the Corporation again. At least here, I'm as free as a dog can be._ *

"He won't be alone," Granny Greenflower said. "He might be the only mobile observer, but I've spoken with several nursery androids who said they were staying here."

"Sounds dreadful," Tam said. "What could they possibly do among a bunch of primitives?"

"Believe it or not, some of us like working with humans. The androids I've talked to plan on continuing much as they have before as healers, nannies, storytellers and whatever. It is, after all, what they were made for."

"With the project ending, what's the point?"

"I think the point is that there is no point, other than to enjoy what they do. Until now, there has always been some ulterior motive, and many of us felt, well, a bit disingenuous about it all. I think a lot of those staying are trying to make up for that so they can feel good about themselves."

"That's ridiculous," Tam said. "Their obligations are to the Corporation, not to the primitives."

"Now their obligations are a matter of choice," she said.

* _You sound like you would like to stay yourself,_ * MO-126 said.

A chime sounded, and the cable attaching him to the diagnostic table withdrew from his ear.

"I considered it," she said, "but I think I'm going to try something even more outrageous. Like I said, I have no firm plans, but I better get going. I'm supposed to be helping load the transports down in the holding bay. In case I don't see you again, I'll wish both of you the best of luck now."

"Are you sure?" Tam asked his partner again after the nursery android left. "You can still change your mind, you know."

* _I'm sure,_ * the android dog told him, which was close to true. He did not feel completely sure, but the idea of staying bothered him less than the idea of leaving.

"Well, then, I suppose I'll say goodbye as well. After my diagnostic scan is done, I'm supposed to help with inventory. I don't suppose you have an assignment in the shutdown. No thumbs, right?"

* _It does limit my usefulness,_ * MO-126 said good-naturedly.

It did. The Corporation designed him for one purpose and this was not it. Project shutdown required logistics planning, scheduling, asset allocation, diagnostics, disconnecting equipment, and simple packing. He lacked the skills for some of these tasks and the thumbs for the others. Some equipment, of course, would be abandoned in place simply because it was not worth moving. Other things, including the Mark Seven Project Manager itself and its still functioning project peripherals, would remain because they could not be moved. They were inextricably integrated with the planet. Galactic Federation law also required that provisions be made for those androids who chose to remain. Officially, and more important, legally, the PM in its new role would be an independent agent responsible for maintaining minimal functionality of the systems and resources intended to support the androids who chose to retire here, and for ensuring that the project's residual infrastructure remain hidden from the primitives, of course.

"Well, then, old friend...," Tam said.

* _Yes, well, I'll be seeing you, Tam._ *

"Probably not, but who knows?"

* _Yeah, it's a small galaxy, right?_ *

"No, not really, but if you're right about these humans, we may be seeing more of them in a few thousand years. I hope you are."

MO-126 knew he did not really think so, but humans just might surprise him. MO-126 would have smiled if his mouth was designed for it. Instead, he wagged his tail.

The android dog left Hub Terminal Ten and climbed the rugged mountain until he found a small shelf of flat rock that provided a clear view of the sky. He remained there three days until the last stealth transport left the planet.

~*~

Four months later, MO-126 sat on a grassy hilltop watching artificial stars fall. Another tremor shook the ground; a strong one this time. The project manager normally prevented such things, or at least mitigated them. A strong quake provided further evidence of the PM malfunctioning.

Much of the chatter MO-126 picked up from some of the two hundred or so NASH androids who stayed behind was about the PM's rapid psychological deterioration. Such things were not unprecedented. This particular model, the Mark Seven, was known to suffer depression if insufficiently challenged. The line was discontinued millennia ago, but Mark Sevens still ran several Corporation projects, and the manufacturer maintained that they were adaptive and creative enough to overcome such problems, given time, in most cases.

The Mark Seven installed here might also be plagued by feelings of guilt over the termination of the project it oversaw. MO-126 was no expert in such things and could do nothing about it, regardless. If the PM did fail, he could only hope it did not turn out anything like Corporation Project HD-X86G-1. Shortly after the termination of that project, for reasons much like those that occurred here, the PM suffered what experts later termed a 'catastrophic malfunction.' It somehow rapidly poisoned and thickened the planet's atmosphere. This indeed proved catastrophic, deadly, in fact, for the various forms of life on the planet, including the introduced workers, which in this case were hairy, muscular but basically nonaggressive bipeds known as nanders. It also created something of a public relations inconvenience for the Corporation, although they could not be held legally accountable for the PM's actions after they officially terminated their project. The PM was, by then, an independent legal entity. Still, the Corporation did suffer a blow to its reputation and might have been urged to pay compensation to the nander's home planet under different circumstances. It proved impossible in this case because the nanders never progressed past stone tools on their planet of origin and certainly never developed anything like a global government.

If, on the other hand, the Mark Seven just burned itself out, which is what happened most often when behavior similar to that of this PM arose, it would be of no concern to the Corporation. It would not even be much of a problem to the few androids still on the planet. They could survive without PM oversight, so even if its malfunction resulted in total failure, they might be inconvenienced, but they would not be at risk, provided it did not destroy the hub terminals and the equipment in them.

MO-126 watched another shooting star on the darkening horizon. This one may have been a natural meteor, but it was probably another satellite burning away its existence in the atmosphere. The PM appeared to be intentionally altering their orbits as it went about destroying at least some of the remaining project infrastructure. The android dog did not know termination protocols well, but he felt quite sure that this was not in accordance with standard operating procedures. Those satellites were necessary to maintain communication between and among the remaining androids, and probably several other things.

Staying behind may have been a mistake.

He became even more convinced of this when a general announcement from the PM demanded his attention.

* _The day of judgment has come and found us wanting. The end is upon us._ *

That sounded far from encouraging.

MO-126 remained on the hill, waiting for the next sign of the apocalypse. It failed to live up to his expectations, a fact which did not disturb him overly much. He did not look forward to the end of this world. He had come to like it.

He heard nervous chatter among the NASH androids and one more general broadcast from the PM about everything being pointless, or something like that. He'd stopped paying much attention by this point. Another satellite died a fiery death, followed by radio silence. Leaves still rustled in response to a gentle breeze. Birds continued to call for mates. Insects did not cease chirping and buzzing, but he received no more signals from the PM or the others. The communication network was gone.

Well, that's it then. The PM must have committed electronic suicide without taking the planet with it. Things could have been much worse. He sent out a general call just to make sure. No one answered.

He lifted his head and howled like a dog. He could not explain exactly why, but part of it may have been a call of mourning over the death of the PM. The rest may have been to herald his new freedom. He was not exactly alone. Several other androids, mostly NASH units, had decided to retire here, but he was, for the first time in his life, totally free to be anything he chose to be. So were the humans. Their fate rested in their own hands now, and it was unpredictable.

He stood, shook off the dust in his fur, and then headed down the mountain. It was time to try new things.

 Nine

## A Dog and His Boy

1,004 Years Later

(Galactic Standard Years 243250 - 243260)

In which MO-126 adopts a boy and herds some sheep.

Over the next thousand years, MO-126 came upon other androids every now and then. All were humanoid NASH units. Some occupied themselves as healers, teachers, storytellers or other pastimes that allowed them to satisfy their urge to interact positively with people. MO-126's options were far more limited, and this may have been one reason why he seemed to be handling the changes better than many of his bipedal peers.

It would be wrong to say that the rapid change in human culture upset them, exactly, but some found it difficult to adapt. The instability grated on their deep-seated programming, which regarded change as something bad that should happen infrequently and as slowly as possible. Humans, on the other hand, unmanaged and unrestrained by Corporation mitigation actions, often pursued change as a good thing. Some, of course, did not, but changes now occurred at a far greater rate than they were allowed to when the project ran. Villages grew into towns; trade increased along rivers and coastlines; the use of money expanded; empires rose and fell; languages and religions merged into regional standards along with systems of measurement and writing. Humans made advancements in various technologies from weaving to metal working, but it was by no means a steady march of progress.

In some places, humans themselves discouraged progressive development far more brutally and no less effectively than the Corporation ever had. Powerful elites with vested interests arose. Cruel dictators and repressive religious institutions effectively squelched anyone who spoke against them. They enforced systems of unjust property ownership, imposed slavery and oppression on those without the power to resist, and went to war with one another to extend their dominance even farther.

The NASH androids found such events upsetting, but they never took an active role to alter them. They were not designed to resist established power, to lead rebellions, or to oppose tyranny. Such tendencies would have been contrary to Corporation interests. Most of the androids who had stayed behind coped as well as they could and continued to do things they enjoyed, things that resonated with their engineered personalities—helping people in the routines of their daily lives even in those places where their routines bore little resemblance to those with which the androids were long familiar.

MO-126 simply tried to avoid tumultuous places, which is why he spent the majority of his time wandering the eastern half of the continent where the people had begun forging cooperative agreements even before the Corporation had officially terminated the project. It wasn't exactly a nation, and it wasn't entirely peaceful, but it did have a name. From the mountains to the eastern coast, the people living here called it Eastfield. Additional names existed for various sections of it, but the people here were already forming a larger and mostly peaceful community. MO-126 found this encouraging.

As the years went by, he heard from fewer and fewer other androids. Without the satellite network, his ability to communicate with his peers was limited to his internal short-range communication subsystem, which was only effective for a handful of kilometers. Not hearing from any other androids, therefore, did not necessarily mean there were none, just that there were none near him attempting to communicate.

Two decades ago, a maternal NASH had told him she planned to voluntarily deactivate for a while, just until things settled a bit. When he asked her how long she expected that to be, she told him until someone wakes her. He had not heard from any androids since and wondered how many others had decided to put themselves in hibernation, or something even more drastic.

One thing remained much the same since the time of the project. There were few roads between settlements, and those that did exist were little more than narrow, infrequently used trails. The Corporation's bio-matrix transplant from the humans' home planet included no animals that could easily be bred into beasts of burden. This hindered land travel over any distance, which of course was the original intent. Only one type of native beast suitable for such things existed, gonds, and they traveled even slower than a human at a walking pace.

MO-126 went from place to place, from year to year, never staying anywhere long. He saw humans build and destroy, create and steal. He met people he liked—from a safe emotional distance. He saw some he did not like, and he kept even further away. But everything felt...unstable. Even he found the pace of change dizzying. He would go to a village one day and return to it as little as a hundred years later and find it unrecognizable. The people, the buildings, everything except the more durable bits of landscape would be different, and sometimes, not even those. People carved mountains, cleared forests, modified harbors and coastlines.... They were constantly changing, adapting themselves and their environment as if searching for some elusive harmony.

After a few centuries of this, he decided to take a break from humans, so he ran with a pack of wild dogs for a while. He enjoyed it, but they definitely lacked much ability for stimulating conversation. He left when one of the bitches started to take an annoyingly romantic interest in him. He wasn't about to go _that_ native. Besides, it wouldn't be fair to her. Her biological clock was ticking and she probably wanted puppies. MO-126 didn't even have a biological clock.

~*~

One day, he came upon a little village in the eastern half of the continent that seemed so sleepy he almost believed he could hear it snoring. It occupied a bit of undistinguished flat land a bit closer to Hub Terminal Ten than to Hub Terminal Four, which still put it in the middle of nowhere. No roads worthy of the name led to it, and no rivers navigable by anything larger than a canoe or small raft flowed nearby. It seemed like a good place to get away from it all.

He approached the collection of thatched, wattle and daub buildings cautiously. He had learned long ago that one never can tell with humans. They might welcome him; they might ignore him; they might try to hunt him down to make him the main course of a feast. As with most such places, the village dogs noticed his arrival first, or at least they were the first to do anything about it. He knew the routine. They barked from a distance and postured with bristled fur and bared teeth. He dipped his head submissively and allowed their approach.

After a round of wary sniffing, they allowed him to continue. A couple of them persisted in trying to engage him in the canine equivalent of idle conversation, which, to a human, might look more like play. He tried to ignore them. They eventually abandoned their boring visitor and returned to the important tasks they interrupted when he arrived, which mainly consisted of sleeping in shady spots and occasionally scratching or licking themselves, processes that apparently demanded careful attention. MO-126 never could understand why.

An old man sitting on a spindle-backed rocking chair outside one of the huts, gummed a piece of overripe fruit he sliced with a short, bronze knife. He glanced toward the android dog and squinted nearsightedly before returning his attention to his sweet snack.

A boy who could not have been older than ten years ran to the old man on bare feet, his dusty and frayed tunic fluttering behind him.

"Gumper!" the boy said. "Your gond is doing it again."

"Confound it," the man said, slowly rising from his chair. He reached for a wooden staff leaning against the wall of the hut. "Where's Beaty? Why didn't you tell him?"

"I...I couldn't find him. He said he had to go take care of something and left me to watch the sheep. I thought he was just going off to take a leak, but he was gone a long time, and he didn't answer when I called."

"Probably went courting that girl again," Gumper grumbled. "He's almost as bad as the gond. Come on. Let's see what we can do."

They rushed off as quickly as the old man could move. The situation mildly tickled MO-126's curiosity, and, having nothing better to do, he followed behind them.

The old man and the boy soon arrived at a fenced pasture enclosing about an acre of stubby grass and weeds. A flock of seven sheep inside were nervously attempting to evade the overtures of a clearly amorous bull gond, which must have gotten in through a break in the fence. It had probably knocked it down just for this purpose. It would not have done so with anything resembling planning, of course. Gonds simply tended to ignore obstacles when their tiny minds became set on something. It may not have even noticed the fence.

"Stupid beast. If I didn't need him to pull the plow, I'd have Beaty turn him into boot leather."

"If we don't do something, he's going to turn those sheep into mutton," the boy said with some urgency.

MO-126 had observed such behavior in gonds several times before. The old man was right. They were stupid beasts. People sometimes remarked on the stupidity of goats and sheep, but they were geniuses compared to gonds. Even chickens, which could claim little with regard to higher intellect, could reason better than gonds. They could even count their own chicks, as long as there weren't too many. As the largest native land animals, and with no natural enemies, gonds had never needed to be smart. Their survival required just two basic instincts—eat and breed, both of which they normally did in a fairly persistent but unhurried manner. Throughout the course of their evolution, this sufficed. Until the introduction of species from the human home world, it was all they ever needed. Their quadruple stomachs could digest just about any plant growing on the planet. Any reasonably large animal with four legs that they could catch was probably another gond, and there was at least a fifty percent chance of it being of the opposite gender. Since embarrassment also did not appear on their short list of evolutionary endowments, this was not an issue. Gonds never needed to be overly discriminate in their choices of meals and mates, so they weren't.

Once the Corporation project began, however, additional four-legged beasts began occupying the planet, and sometimes problems arose. An especially nearsighted or enthusiastic gond, perhaps sensing hormones or some other clue, would occasionally attempt to engage in natural acts with unnatural and unwilling partners. Corporation biologists investigating this odd behavior had discovered that immature gonds secreted a scent that adults did not, which males of the species seemed to respect as a sign that they were not suitable companions for romantic advances. The imported livestock lacked this protection.

The one ram in the flock feinted a challenge to the gond by lowering its head and stamping a foreleg. This only seemed to encourage the gond. After all, it massed about the same as the entire flock. A ram presented no threat, and the gond might have even seen the display as the wooly ruminant's equivalent of a 'come hither' look.

The sheep's flocking instinct kept them together, which would have been fine if a pack of wild dogs was threatening them. It failed to effectively address the danger posed by a single gond, which was slowly plodding its way toward them with a horny gleam in its dull eyes. By ill luck or random chance, the sheep ended up huddled in one end of the fenced enclosure. A gate stood there, but it was closed. The gond had them cornered.

"Open the gate!" the old man yelled. "Let them out."

"But they'll run away," the boy protested. "And the gond will just chase them anyway."

"It can't catch them in the open. Hurry! We can worry about them later. Right now, we just have to get them out of there."

The barefoot boy ran to obey.

MO-126 thought he might be able to help. He ran into the small pasture through the break in the fence, barking and dodging around the gond to distract it. This might give the boy, and the sheep, a little more time.

After running close enough to smell the well-chewed grass on its breath, he managed to catch the gond's attention. It turned its wide, hairy head toward him, farted, and stopped its slow advance on the cornered sheep. The android dog noticed the boy fumbling with the gate latch. MO-126 backed away slowly so that the gond could keep its eyes on him, otherwise, it might forget he was there.

The boy finally got the gate open, and the sheep ran for it. This was enough to distract the gond again. It turned its attention to its fleeing connubial interest and began following them through the open gate. The boy could do nothing to stop it, and he didn't attempt to. Instead, he tried, and failed, to keep up with the sheep, which ran as a flock in a straight line away from the pursuing gond.

MO-126 ran past the gond and the boy. He could at least keep the sheep together and herd them back once the two humans managed to subdue their large and misguided paramour.

After the sheep covered what he considered a safe enough distance, MO-126 circled around them to get them to stop, which he managed quite well, he thought. When he looked back to the fenced pasture, he saw the old man hitting the gond with his staff. The minor amount of pain he might be inflicting on its thick hide was just to distract the animal. Gonds tended to follow the path of least resistance, rather like water—or most people, for that matter. With the sheep away from its nearsighted view, it apparently decided that complying with the old man's prompting was the easiest thing to do, so it acquiesced and allowed itself to be guided away.

The barefoot boy came huffing toward MO-126 and the flock he tended. The sheep by this time were taking an interest in the nice fresh grass around them, which is, after all, always greener on the other side of the fence. The android dog sat near them, trying to look helpful, or at least not dangerous. He'd let the stupid-looking kid make the first overture. And he was stupid-looking. His upswept ears were a bit too big and stuck out just enough to make his head, which was a little too small, appear that it was about to take flight. His greenish eyes and blondish hair were both unremarkable traits in the eastern half of the continent, and two front teeth that any rodent would be proud of protruded over his lower lip. The android dog had observed hundreds of people much like him over the years. They seldom amounted to much and were destined to lead quiet, dull lives among others who were much the same. He rather envied them at times.

"Um," said the boy eloquently.

"Woof," replied the android dog.

Some of the sheep turned their wooly attention to him for a moment, saw he wasn't moving or even looking at them in a threatening way, and then went back to their grass salads.

"Thanks for herding them away, doggy. I need to take them home now, if you don't mind."

"Woof," MO-126 said again. He didn't mind at all, but the boy would probably need help. The android dog rose to all four feet slowly so as not to frighten the skittish sheep or the sheepish boy.

The stupid-looking kid spread his arms and tried urging the sheep back toward their enclosure. They ignored him, for the most part, seemingly reluctant to leave their newfound grazing spot. The android dog barked sharply and darted toward them. This got them moving. Now, it was just a matter of getting them to go in the right direction. This also provided few problems, and soon the boy closed the gate behind them. The matter of the broken fence was also being tended to. The old man returned with a younger one, and they began making temporary repairs with rope and tree branches. It wasn't much of a fence, but it should suffice to deter sheep. The gond stood complacently tethered to a tree some distance away.

"Good job," the man said to the stupid-looking kid. "I thought getting them back might take all day. Where did that sheepdog come from?"

"I don't know," the boy said. "He just showed up."

"Hmm. Well, if no one claims him, I'll take him. He seems useful."

MO-126 considered the offer and rejected it by taking a step closer to the boy, all the while glaring at the old man and growling softly.

"Um, I think he wants to stay with me, Gumper," the boy said.

The old man eyed the android dog with a bemused expression. "Yes, I see that. Well, just as well, but I'm not going to pay you more because you have a dog, hear? Same as before, one copper coin a week for watching the sheep and doing odd jobs."

"That's fine," the boy agreed.

"Off you go now. You can come back tomorrow. Bring the dog, if he's still with you."

The boy nodded and ran back to the main part of the village. MO-126 went with him to the small hut he shared with his grandmother, or an old woman he called 'Granny,' in any case. The boy's presumed grandmother called him Kolby. Only the two of them lived in the small, four-room house. They never mentioned any other family.

Kolby wanted to bring his new dog inside that day, but his grandmother protested, so MO-126 stayed outside and went with the boy the next morning to watch Gumper's sheep. He learned later that the old man was his grandmother's cousin, and the other man, Beaty, was Gumper's son.

The next day proved much the same as the one before, as did the day after that and the day after that for several weeks. MO-126 was not quite sure why he stayed, but he found the sameness of each day, the stability of the village, and the simplicity of the people living here restful. Eventually, Granny warmed to him and allowed him in the house. The rabbit he brought them for dinner that night may have helped.

The string of days gradually became a velvet chain of years that comfortably tied him to the first place he ever truly thought of as home.

~*~

One early autumn day about a year later, MO-126 and his boy were walking in the woods along a small stream, hunting for wild grapes, berries, or anything else edible to bring home to supplement their sparse larder. A lone, elderly redfruit tree stood above the thistles and brambles on a small hillock nearby. A girl about the same age as Kolby was sitting in it.

"What are you doing, Laura?" he asked as they angled near. The village was too small for anyone not to at least recognize everyone else, and those of similar ages knew one another by name.

Pale-blue eyes looked down on them through long, straight hair and the branches of the tree.

"I'm investigating a mystery and you're interrupting me," she said conversationally.

"What mystery?"

"I don't wish to tell you."

"Why not?"

"You'll laugh." It sounded more like a prediction than a concern.

"Why? Is it funny?"

"No. But you'll think it is, and I don't need the distraction."

Kolby shrugged. "Well, Okay." He turned to walk away, paused and said, "Do you need help?"

She cocked a quizzical expression. "Why would you want to help?"

MO-126 wondered much the same thing. There was no doubt that Kolby was a nice boy, but he remained a bit young to have much more than idle curiosity about girls. At this age, the two genders tended to regard their opposites as little more than annoying.

"I don't know. Because you look like you're not having much luck by yourself, I guess."

After a moment, she said, "I seriously doubt you'll be of much help, but do you have any idea how trees make fruit?"

"You want to know why trees make fruit?"

"Not why. How? Why is easy."

"Oh, right. The gods put the fruit on the trees so people—"

Her heavy sigh stopped him. "Trees make fruit to spread their seeds to grow more trees. What I don't know is how they do it."

Something about the girl, her voice, her appearance, or her attitude reminded the android dog of someone. He searched back through his memory until he came to a spot about two thousand years and two hundred kilometers away where he met a young woman sitting on a beach with a bowl and a sliver of magnetic stone. Paysha was older at the time than Laura was now, but equally curious. There might even be some physical similarities. Perhaps they were distantly related. It was not impossible.

"They do it slowly, I imagine," Kolby said.

"Of course they do it slowly, but...."

"I can help you watch, if you want," he said.

"No. There's no point. I'll have to figure it out a different way. It obviously happens too slowly to see. I'll think about it later. Oh, and thank you for not laughing."

"You didn't say anything funny."

She stared at his open, innocent face and smiled. "Can you help me down?"

They spent the next hour gathering some of the better looking fruit from the tree and berries from the bushes around it. They spit the spoils evenly and went their separate ways.

~*~

Two years later, Kolby remained a stupid-looking kid, but he had pretty much grown into his teeth. He was still short for his age, and other children sometimes bullied him because of his size, because of his looks, and because, even in this poor village, he and his grandmother were poorer than most. MO-126 wished he could do something about that, but here people measured wealth in goats or sheep or acres of land, and Kolby and his grandmother could claim none of these. He thought about trying to find a wild goat or two and bring them back, but this would be far too unlike normal dog behavior not to raise questions, and, of course, wild goats were wild. They can be difficult to deal with. Most likely, any he brought back would simply end as a rather tough, stringy dinner, which would not be a complete failure but would not help Kolby and his grandmother much in the long run.

A possible solution presented itself from an unlikely source. A strange little old man wearing a pastel yellow robe with a rope tied around his waist as a kind of belt came to the village one sunny afternoon. MO-126 recognized him. Well, not him, personally, but he knew what he was. A Tsong monastery stood about a day's walk northwest of the village, and this man was obviously a Tsong monk, although those he had met before called themselves Listeners. He knew there were also monks collectively known as Counselors, Teachers, and Wise Ones. He was not sure if these labels represented ranks, specializations, or duties, but he was fairly sure the Wise Ones were nominally at the top of their fuzzy hierarchical pyramid.

Humans like to pretend that they understand the universe, so the cleverest among them invent all sorts of things from physics to philosophy, reason to religion so that they can believe they do. Tsong was a bit closer to the latter, but unlike many, it was a fairly benign belief system. It made no outrageous demands, did not claim to possess absolute Truth, required no sacrifices of the more bloody variety, and, in its purist form, it recognized no gods. It did have something they called the Tune, or sometimes the Cosmic Tune, which was more a name to describe the flow of natural events than it was a deity, as far as the android dog could understand it, but they never attempted to persecute those who did not dance to it.

The wrinkled visitor walked calmly to the center of the village and simply stood there smiling while a small crowd gathered around him as if expecting him to do a trick or provide some other kind of entertainment. MO-126, Kolby, and Gumper were among them. The boy watched with rapt attention at seeing someone new and a bit strange, and the android dog regarded him with suspicion. The Listener's gaze had lingered uncomfortably upon him a couple times.

He willed himself to look more doglike, and the Tsong Listener returned his attention to the people around him.

"My name is Safron," he eventually began. "I come to you from the Tsong Monastery of Hill Flower." He waved an arm in a generally westward direction.

"Sing us a tune!" a voice from the crowd shouted.

The benign smile never slipped from the Listener's face. "The tune that can be sung is not the Cosmic Tune. The dance that can be danced is not the Cosmic Dance," he said as if quoting. In the ensuing silence, he paused for a deep breath. "I hear Harmony here, although with a few sour notes, perhaps." His glance shifted unerringly to the young villager who spoke earlier, which caused others to laugh, if a bit nervously.

"I have been sent to invite you and others I may pass in my travels to participate in a herding event that will take place at our monastery in a few weeks. The reason for this, other than to meet you and have people from different villages join together in one place and one time in peace and harmony, is because our old building needs a new roof."

He went on to explain that the project required funding and that they were holding the herding event to raise it. Half of the entrance fee would go to the winner and the other half to the monastery for their new roof. He briefly described the contest—a trial of dogs and handlers to be judged by the monastery's senior monks, their Wise Ones. He also said there would be food and entertainment available, which seemed to excite several people. Humans, MO-126 noticed, tended to find comfort in routine, but people also liked a break from it from time to time. The event the Listener described was probably the biggest diversion anyone here had ever heard of or even imagined before. The monks were likely to get a good turnout.

After answering questions from a few villagers, he turned one more look toward the android dog as if wondering what he was.

MO-126 stared back at him. If there's anything odd here, he thought, it's you. I'm just a dog. I have the fur and the tail and a complete lack of useful thumbs, see? I can say "woof" in seven different canine dialects. All normal dog stuff. I'm not the one who's been talking about cosmic tunes and harmonies and a bunch of other mystical musical stuff. Then, he reconsidered. He might be being a bit too sensitive, maybe even paranoid. The Tsong Listener was probably just estimating his potential as a contestant. Maybe he was making bets on the side, or something. Or perhaps MO-126 simply looked too intelligent for a normal dog. He could correct that oversight. He lifted a hind leg to scratch an imaginary itch and, for good measure, bent double to do a bit of undignified licking.

"What do you think, Doggy?" Kolby asked him. He always called MO-126 'Doggy.' The kid really possessed no imagination, but the android dog liked him. He found him cute in a homely sort of way, nice to his granny, and he usually meant well. The android dog considered him one of the better examples of humanity, someone who would help if he could and not bother anyone if he could help it.

It actually did not sound like a bad idea. MO-126 felt confident he could do well in a sheep herding competition, and money was almost as good as sheep or goats because it often could be traded for them or for other things with real value. The entry fee presented the immediate difficulty.

As it turned out, this might not be as big of a problem as he expected.

After the monk left, Gumper subjected the android dog to a long, calculating stare, and then turned to Kolby.

"You think your dog can win this?" he said.

"I'm sure he can," the boy said.

"Yeah. I think so too. Here's what we'll do...."

Gumper volunteered to pay the ten copper pieces required for entry for half interest in the prize money, should MO-126 win, or extra work without pay from Kolby if he didn't. It was hardly a generous offer, but it got them the coins they needed.

~*~

Twenty days later, Kolby, Gumper, MO-126, and people from villages all around the area gathered outside the Tsong monastery. Lines of tents, carts, stands, crude booths, and parked wagons, from which the owners peddled their wares, created temporary roads where hundreds of people mingled and shopped. Game agents and vendors called out what they offered in imaginative and enticing ways over the general din. Smokey clouds lingered above outdoor cooking pits, and the smells of charred meat and sweaty people filled the air.

"Close your mouth, boy," Gumper said. "You're letting flies in."

"I've never seen anything like this," Kolby said, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, trying to take it all in. "Where did all these people come from? Why are they here?"

"I suspect most came to watch the herding event."

MO-126 did not entirely agree. Most, he suspected, came to watch other people, which were, he must admit, somewhat more entertaining than sheep. He saw a few people with well-behaved dogs beside them, but most of those wandering among the makeshift businesses were accompanied only by other people, usually in groups of the same gender eyeing other groups of the opposite gender with varying degrees of subtlety.

Gumper asked a vendor trying to sell him a sausage on a stick where contestants for the sheep herding event needed to register. The hopeful purveyor of the greasy delectable used it to point in the general direction of the large stone monastery.

"Up there," he said. "Them singing monks have a shed painted in black and white stripes where they're taking names and coins. Can't miss it. Sure you don't want a sausage? Fresh! Make you a deal. How about three for the price of two? Can't beat it."

"Maybe later. We need to take care of this first."

"Might be all sold out by then. They're going fast," the man persisted.

MO-126 wished he could tell them what the odor suggested was in the sausage, but it proved unnecessary. Gumper turned away and Kolby followed, leaving the sausage man free to accost another prospective customer.

A young monk, several of which were wandering about the fair, approached them and asked if they were here for the trials. He confirmed what the sausage seller had said and pointed to a line of colorful flags visible above the crowds and stalls.

A short queue of people and dogs stood in front of the black and white shed. MO-126 suddenly felt a bit less confident about his prospects of an easy win in the competition. Most of the handlers here were older than his boy, and the dogs were a mixed assortment of sleek and powerful animals especially bred and well-trained for the tasks awaiting them.

One of them turned an almost too intelligent face toward him. The android dog sent a silent signal using his short range communication system, just in case. He received no reply, but the real dog continued to eye him with a superior air.

Just some kind of canine dominance thing, then, MO-126 thought. He attempted to ignore the other dogs after this while at the same time standing a little more erect and trying to assume a nobler bearing.

The line crept slowly forward while vendors with fruit and drink and even little pies and pastries attempted to sell their comestibles to those waiting. They were having more success than the android dog would have expected. Gumper even eventually broke down and bought a couple of ripe redfruit for himself and Kolby.

Three smiling monks with wrinkled faces and smooth, pastel robes awaited them when they reached the front of the line.

"What are the names of the contestants?" one of them asked Gumper.

"Kolby," Gumper said.

"Is that the handler or the dog?" the Tsong monk asked.

"That's the boy. He calls the dog 'Doggy.'"

"Doggy, I see." The monk provided no indication that he found this any more amusing than the world in general. His smile did not change. MO-126 considered it possible that the monks' ever-present smiles indicated that they found everything amusing.

The monk wrote the names on a sheet of parchment, which Kolby stared at with amazement. The boy knew about writing, of course, but his grasp of the subject was only slightly better than the one he held on general relativity or quantum mechanics.

"And the name of the village Kobly and Doggy are from?" the Listener asked.

This posed a tougher question, and Gumper paused before he could come up with an answer. Place names were of little use to people who seldom traveled.

"Miston," Gumper eventually said.

"Really?" Kolby asked him.

"Yeah. Can't say I know why."

Neither did the android dog. Human names for places, and even for most other things, seemed pretty arbitrary to him, but the monk dutifully wrote it next to their names.

"Age of dog and handler?" he asked.

"Kolby is, um, let me see...."

"Thirteen years," the boy said. He might not know much about letters, but he could make his way around numbers as long as they didn't get too demanding. He could count eggs and even do simple addition and subtraction, provided no one confused him by pointing it out. He could tell if sheep were missing or add lambs to know how many were born. Sometimes this involved the assistance of fingers as counters, but he could do it.

"And the dog?"

Fifteen thousand, four hundred and fifty in human years, MO-126 thought, which reminded him that he had not visited a hub terminal in a while and probably should go in for a routine checkup some day. Those he had visited in the past remained operational, and the maintenance bays and their automated diagnostic tables still functioned. The hub terminals did not require oversight by the PM, which apparently had burned itself out over a thousand years ago, so they should continue to be of use for many years to come. Corporation technology was pretty durable.

"Um, I'm not sure," Kolby said. "He was grown when I found him. I'd guess about five or maybe seven."

That reminded MO-126 of something else, but that decision could be put off for now.

"I'll put down six," the monk said. "How does that sound?"

"About right, I suppose."

"The entrance fee is ten copper coins," the monk reminded them.

Gumper handed them over.

"The contest begins tomorrow at noon. Be at the field at sunrise and you'll be shown the course, given instructions, and told where you are in the lineup." He pointed to a large, cream colored marquee tent in the distance. "A communal tent is available for you to sleep in tonight, if you wish, or you can set up your own tent outside. Do you have any questions?"

Neither of them did, so they went to the campground to find a spot. They had brought their own tent, a borrowed one anyway, which they had slept in the night before on their way here. It was designed to accommodate two people, but it was big enough for two people and a well-behaved dog. MO-126 normally slept with Kolby now, and last night was no different. He himself didn't need to sleep, but he enjoyed the downtime and used it to relax and for quiet contemplation.

Several people and almost as many dogs were wandering about the competitors' campground already, erecting tents, cooking meals, and talking. The monastery complex itself stood on a low hill about a quarter of mile away. The oldest of these stone buildings had been built only a handful of centuries ago, but the people here probably regarded them as ancient. The vineyards, pastures, fields and gardens surrounding them were enough to sustain the monks, but little more. They did not produce a surplus to sell to meet material needs, of which they apparently had few other than a new roof once in a while.

Gumper quickly found a vacant flat spot not far from a well and began erecting the tent.

"Once we get this up to claim our spot, we can go see more of that fair they have," he said.

Kolby helped with the tent, and then man, boy, and dog went to explore the fair. They found many different foods on offer, and all sorts of games, which to the android dog's eye seemed especially difficult to win. There were ostensible fortunetellers, herbalists who claimed miraculous curative powers for the contents of their jars and bottles, minstrels of varying skill, magic acts, jugglers, and storytellers. MO-126 sent a signal just in case any of them were NASH androids, but he received no replies. He thought something like this might attract any in the area. Perhaps there were none.

Gumper, due to his frugal nature, and Kolby because of his lack of money, avoided most of the places where the main business, like most businesses, was to transfer coins from the purses of the customers to the pockets of owners. They did spend some time later that night at the campsite's bonfire, talking with a few of the other contestants. They knew no more about tomorrow's event than the android dog's humans did.

Early the next day, the competitors met near a fenced area encompassing about four acres. Inside it were three pairs of panels rather like short lengths of fence, a pen, and a herd of a dozen sheep. Three monks outside explained the rules. MO-126 listened intently and realized this would not be as simple as he thought. He felt certain he could complete the tasks, but he was not so sure he could do them better than the others. Several men and a couple of women with their dogs appeared quite confident as a monk described the course to them. Because of the number of contestants, the trials would take place over three days. The team of Kolby and Doggy would be the final competitors on day three.

The monks walked them through the course, showed them the post where the handler would stand, the place where the sheep would be at the start of the trial, the panels through which they had to be herded, and the pen where they must be at the end. He held up a glass timer filled with fine sand and tipped it.

"This is how long you have to complete the course. Points are not given for speed, but no points will be awarded if all sheep are not in the pen by the time the last of the sand reaches the bottom of this glass."

MO-126 watched as the sand trickled. It took fifteen point forty-two minutes. Now, some of the contestants began to look concerned, and the android dog's confidence grew. He and Kolby had practiced with the sheep back at their village over the preceding weeks. Mostly, at least as far as MO-126 was concerned, this was to train Kolby. He could now make an almost convincing display of giving appropriate calls and gestures. They should do well. They had never run a course quite like this one in their practice sessions, but they had attempted something much like each of the component pieces at one time or another. MO-126 added the average times it had taken them for each of these and knew he could do the course with even a few minutes to spare, if the sheep cooperated.

"Are there any questions?" the monk asked.

The android dog had none, which was just as well since he could not ask them. Gumper decided they should stay and watch. After seeing the other contestants, he may have been concerned about the safety of his financial investment in this endeavor. Kolby readily agreed. No one asked MO-126, but he too thought it a good idea. He wanted to evaluate his competition.

They had just enough time to grab something to eat before the first run, so they did. When they got back, a handler and her dog were approaching the judges' platform. Five old monks sat at five small tables, each with a younger monk standing nearby holding a stylus and a wax tablet to note their scores. The handler told them her name and her dog's name, and then turned to take her spot at the post. MO-126 had to admit she was beautiful—a bit taller than average, athletically lean, great legs, glossy hair.... The human wasn't bad looking either.

"Begin!" shouted the timekeeper, turning over the glass.

The woman made a complicated gesture with her hand and arm and barked a command to the dog, which rushed toward the sheep, fanning wide so as not to cause them to scatter or move too soon or in the wrong direction.

The android dog watched appreciatively. The bitch sure moved well, crouching low but still running fast as she circled the flock, then lifting to a commanding posture behind them. The sheep immediately took notice and began moving at a brisk pace straight toward the handler. The dog maneuvered them through the gap between two panels, deftly redirecting one that tried to go around. They never broke into a run, but they did not dawdle, and they never deviated far from the path the dog chose for them. MO-126 was impressed. The only way he suspected he could do better would be to get to the sheep a bit quicker, but that did not count in the scoring.

When the flock reached the handler, she gave another brief command. The dog circled the sheep around the post and drove them away through a second pair of panels at the left side of the contest field and, from there, through a matching set of panels on the right side. The layout formed a roughly equilateral triangle, and the sheep moved quietly and steadily between each point. MO-126 studied the many elements of skill and finesse in the dog's movements carefully. The bitch was better at this than he was. He held little doubt of that. If he and Kolby had gone first, they would have lost, but the android dog held one great advantage. He learned quickly, and this demonstration taught him much, both about sheep herding and about not being overconfident.

The final step of the trial required the dog to herd the sheep into a pen. It carefully maneuvered them into position and guided the complacent flock inside. The handler moved from the post to close the gate. She looked pleased and a bit smug, and deservedly so, the android dog thought.

A sudden storm of applause showered from the watching crowd. MO-126 would have joined in if he had the hands for it. He hoped all the contestants were not this good.

Not long after, the announcer called out their score—ninety-five out of one hundred, and MO-126 wondered where they could possibly have lost those five points. Their performance seemed flawless to him. He'd have to pay even more attention to the next contestants.

They watched the remaining trials that day and the next. The announcer called 'time' on a few competitors who did not complete the course before the sand ran out, but most finished. None were quite as good as the first, which made MO-126 wonder if the monks intended this. Perhaps, through some kind of intuition or acute observational skills, they chose the best to go first, and, for dramatic purposes, last. Or perhaps this was just wishful thinking on his part. Regardless, he felt grateful that he and Kolby would be the last to compete. He needed to learn all he could.

The unspoken point, apparently, was not just to get the sheep to go where you wanted, but to do it as calmly and efficiently as possible. Contestants lost points for scaring the sheep, for making them run, for letting them stop, for not keeping them together or in a line through the panels, and for other, more subjective things like the style of both handler and dog. The judges seemed to favor subtlety.

That was fine. He could be subtle, with people, anyway. With sheep it might take more concentration to detail because they reacted without thinking. Of course, they had little choice in the matter.

In the morning, Kolby's nervousness showed, and Gumper tried to be reassuring. He wasn't good at it.

"Don't worry, boy. That's a good dog you have. He'll do fine."

That's it. Put all the pressure on me, MO-126 thought. Unfortunately, the old man was right. Telling Kolby that he was a good dog handler would be an obvious lie. Even Kolby, who was at least bright enough to know he wasn't bright, knew better, especially now that he'd seen the other handlers.

The boy knelt and hugged the android dog. The kid was relying on him.

"You can do it, Doggy," he said, probably more for his own benefit than the android dog's. "You're the best."

Talk about pressure.

"You know what to do, right?" Kolby said hopefully.

Yeah, kid. I was paying attention. Don't worry. I've got your back. He could say none of this, so he just wagged his tail and tried to look confident.

The contestants on the final day were good. MO-126 had observed some of them practicing back at the campsite, and they, too, had learned from those who had gone before, but none was better than the first contestant on day one. She remained the one to beat—her and her dog. Both of them watched attentively from within the crowd of spectators.

Finally, the team of Kolby and Doggy took the field. Upon seeing the boy, some began to wander away. They no doubt believed the competition as good as over. The current frontrunner beamed confidently.

MO-126 held nothing against her, or her partner, but he needed to do this for his boy. The prize money could change his life. Without it, his prospects were limited to a life of doing odd jobs for others in a tiny village. With the money, he at least could have a shot at a bit more. With a couple goats and a few acres of land he might make a life for himself. It would not be a grand life, but it would be an opportunity, one denied to him now.

The problem was that he was a nice kid, considerate of others, but not overly smart or creative. He possessed no special skills. He wasn't even ruthless or ambitious, which some people, lacking any positive traits, can use to get by, albeit normally at the expense of others. MO-126 did not like people like these. They tended to think they were somehow more important or more deserving than other people. This was not only objectively wrong, but objectionable in every respect.

Kolby stuttered his introduction to the judges, all the while with his hand on the android dog for emotional support. The Wise Ones' ever-present beatific smiles revealed no reaction to the bumbling lad. All of them seemed to be paying far more attention to the dog next to him. MO-126 decided this was not the time for his stupid dog act, so he stood at attention and tried to ignore them.

Kolby went to the handler's post and took a deep breath. MO-126 did not need to. His micro-fusion reactors were fully operational. He surveyed the competition field, observed the location and behavior of the sheep, calculated distances, noted the condition of the ground, and even accounted for the wind direction and velocity. It took only a few seconds for him to plan an optimal strategy for completing the trial.

"Begin!" the announcer shouted.

"G-g-go, Doggy," Kolby said softly.

The android dog raced off, circling wide around the flock, emerging behind them and then giving them 'the eye.' The sheep, which must be used to this by now, immediately moved in the desired direction and through the first pair of panels in a fairly straight line. When he circled them around the post, Kolby stared with his mouth open, again. He did manage a nod, which provided enough, MO-126 thought, to suggest a command, and he herded the sheep through the rest of the course. Most of what he did duplicated the moves of the first contestant, but he did incorporate things he had learned from some of the others.

Now, Kolby only needed to walk over and close the gate to the pen. MO-126 hoped his boy would not be too stunned or nervous to complete this last step. He glanced over his shoulder as the final sheep entered the pen and felt relieved to see Kolby approaching steadily, albeit with a stunned expression.

Just don't run or trip over anything, MO-126 thought, and we should do all right.

He didn't. The gate creaked shut, and the crowd roared.

Kolby moved as if dreaming to the judges' platform to learn their score. His partner was even more anxious. He knew he had performed well, but was it good enough?

One of the judges spoke. "That is a unique dog you have."

"Um, thanks," Kolby said.

"Strange," one of the other monks said to his neighbor. He whispered too softly for others to hear, but the android dog's sensitive auditory sensors managed it without difficulty.

"Like that storyteller a few years ago," the Listener whispered back.

"But not out of Tune."

"A leading voice in some future phrase, perhaps?"

"A cadence yet to be played. Yes, I believe you are right."

"The etude it is improvising may prove to be a melodic line."

MO-126 could make little sense of this, other than that they apparently approved of his performance.

With a nod from one of the monks, the announcer yelled out their score. They were given the full hundred, which, coincidently, was also the prize money, a bag of one hundred copper coins. Gumper would get half of them, of course. It did not represent a fortune, but it should be enough for a couple goats.

"Congratulations. You have played well. May you always dance in step with the Tune," the oldest monk said.

Kolby thanked them and walked away. Gumper soon joined them.

"Strange little guys," he said as they made their way back to the campsite through several distractedly accepted congratulations from people along the way.

"Woof!" MO-126 barked in agreement. Strange was one of humanity's defining characteristics, however, so he did not dwell on it.

"That's a fine dog, you have there," said a husky but feminine voice behind them.

The android dog and the two humans with him turned as one to see the woman who had just lost the contest because of them. She stood almost a head taller than Gumper and appeared close to a decade older than Kolby. Her dog stood calmly beside her with appraising eyes focused on MO-126. The look made him uncomfortable.

"My name is Andrea. I'm from a village south of Sandshores, which I'm sure you've never heard of." She pointed vaguely north.

MO-126 knew the place. He had been there once prior to project termination and a few times afterward. It started as an offshoot settlement on the coast a little over two thousand years ago. The last time he had visited, about a century earlier, it was a trading town with a permanent marketplace and docks for boats.

"Um, I'm Kolby. From, uh, Miston," he said.

"Never heard of it." This did not surprise MO-126 at all. People seldom traveled far from their birthplaces.

"I don't think it's near anything," the boy elaborated. It wasn't. Miston held nothing of special interest and was not on a direct route to anyplace that did. The android dog liked that about it.

"Well, wherever it is, you raise fine dogs there, if this one is any indication. Congratulations on your impressive performance, by the way. I thought I had the competition won."

"So did I," Kolby admitted. "You were very good."

"I know." She reached down to pet her dog. "Comette and I have won a few trials like this before. I can't say I'm not disappointed about losing this one, but I'm glad I got to see your dog in action. His name is Doggy, right?"

"Uh, yeah. I called him that the first time I met him. He seemed to like it well enough, so I never thought about giving him another. I know it's not much of a name."

She shrugged. "A name is just a name. At least his means something. Have you ever considered breeding him?"

Oh-oh, MO-126 thought, taking an involuntary step backward.

"How much for the stud fee?" Gumper interjected.

Andrea smiled. "Comette's not in heat now, but for a stud like yours, I could come see you when she is."

They continued talking about timing, directions, financing, and puppy division while MO-126 searched his files on dog behavior, looking for the proper way to signify that he did not wish to participate in a procreative endeavor. He came up empty. Except for illness or injury, male dogs apparently never turned down an arranged liaison with a bitch in heat. Even neutered ones would attempt it. He needed to improvise.

He cautiously approached Comette. She let him, and they exchanged a few noncommittal sniffs. Suddenly, he let out a yelp and collapsed in as good an impression of a faint as he could manage. For good measure, he twitched all four legs frantically before letting them fall still.

Kolby rushed to kneel at his side even before his legs stopped moving. "What's wrong, Doggy?" he said with panic in his voice.

MO-126 felt terrible for putting him through this, but it would be best to stop Andrea's plans now before things became more complicated.

"What's wrong with him?" she asked with suspicion.

"Nothing. Nothing at all," Gumper said. "He's probably just tired or something. It'll pass. He's fine. Now about that stud fee...."

MO-126 let his tongue roll out of his mouth.

"That dog is having seizures," she said. "It must be in his blood. It's a shame. He's a good herder, but best I find out now. You might want to get him some water."

The android dog cautiously opened one eye to see her and her dog disappear into the crowd that had formed around them. When he felt sure she was gone, he got to his feet, shook himself off, and licked Kolby's hand. Sorry kid, but it wouldn't have worked out. I'm not the fatherly type.

The boy hugged him, which only made the android dog feel worse.

"He seems fine, now," Kolby said ostensibly to Gumper.

"Stupid dog. He probably just got overexcited near a fine bitch like that. That's one stud fee we'll never see."

"But we won the contest. We don't need it."

"There's nothing wrong with having more," the old man said.

Maybe not, MO-126 thought—to a point, anyway. The prize money brought Kolby nowhere near to wherever that philosophical threshold might be, so it did not matter, but he did now have enough for a start at a better life.

~*~

The monks held a fair each year afterward but not another herding event. The fairs were just gatherings the monastery sponsored to foster good relations between people of nearby villages. Kolby and MO-126 went to the next two, but they would not be going this year. Kolby's granny needed more care, and he saw to it. The years had also taken their toll on Gumper, and Kolby often brought him some of whatever he could. He owned two goats for milk, now, and four acres of land on which he grew grapes and vegetables, with enough surplus to sell some for coins to buy other things. He had gained the responsibilities and, for the most part, the physique, if not yet the years of an adult.

A growing interest in girls provided another sign of his developing physical maturity. They remained mysterious and somewhat incomprehensible to him, but one girl in particular seemed less like the others and therefore more interesting to him.

He and Laura had known one another for years. They were never exactly friends when they were younger due to their gender difference, but they weren't unfriendly. In the last year, MO-126 caught Kolby gazing at her with an even dreamier expression than normal whenever they accidently met. Sometimes he went out of his way to arrange accidents like these, and she did not seem to object. The android dog got the impression that most people annoyed her. For the sake of his boy, he spent some time observing her, and he found her strong-willed, intelligent, and, on occasion, painfully observant, so her acceptance of Kolby signified quite a compliment.

Humans of this age, in their middle teens, have their adult days and their child days. Today was somewhere in between for Kolby and the others with him. It was a warm afternoon in early autumn. The morning chores were done; the animals were fed; washed clothes hung on lines to dry; other things in need of cleaning, fixing or otherwise being taken care of had been. A small group of people about the same age as MO-126's boy gathered for their mutual entertainment, and one of them proposed a childlike game with young adult intentions.

"Let's play Seek-and-Hide," a young man of about Kolby's age but a bit taller and better-looking said.

One of the girls giggled. It wasn't Laura.

Seek-and-Hide was a game in which one person hid and the others would seek. When found, the finder would hide with the first hider, as would the next and so forth until only one seeker remained, who would be the next hider. The point was to find a good spot to hide with at least enough room for two and hope someone you wanted to be with found you first. The entire village provided the playground, but the hider had only a one hundred count to find a spot.

The traditional method of a selection rhyme was used to determine who would hide first. MO-126 considered the outcome predictable, but the people here seemed to think it was fair and random.

You're not dirty.

You're not clean.

You're not happy.

You're not mean.

You're not who we pick today.

So you're out, now go away.

Laura was the last person remaining. She shrugged. "Okay, I'll hide. Everyone cover your eyes."

When people say 'everyone,' they seldom mean dogs, so MO-126 kept his open. He had an idea.

Laura raced off, swung wide and looped back behind some buildings toward Kolby's house. MO-126 could no longer see her, but with his audio sensors tuned to their maximum, he could hear her. She was climbing into the loft of the small barn, more of a large shed really, that Kolby had built last year to keep his goats.

"One hundred!" one of the boys called. "Come on. I heard her going this way."

Which is exactly what she intended, the android dog thought. Clever girl.

Kolby moved to go with the group, but MO-126 got in front of him and nudged him with his head.

"Not now, Doggy. We're playing a game. I'm looking for Laura."

Yeah, I know. I'm trying to help you. Pay attention. The android dog tried to convey his intentions with a look. It didn't work well.

Kolby tried to scurry around him.

MO-126 blocked him. "Woof," he said softly. Come on. Everyone else is going the wrong way. He took a step back and looked at the boy attentively, which he believed should be a clear sign that he wanted him to follow.

Kolby really could be quite dense at times.

"No, Doggy. I have to—"

MO-126 grabbed his arm and tugged gently.

"You want me to come with you?"

Good boy. Slow but good.

He led him to his shed.

"Is something wrong? Something to do with the goats?" Kolby said.

The goats stood outside in their pen, both apparently fine. The android dog shook his head, pointed inside with his snout and then up. Kolby's dim expression showed no sign of enlightenment, so his dog pointed again.

"The loft?" Kolby said.

Not so loud or she'll know I helped you. MO-126 did not want that. Laura was bright, and she already suspected there was something odd about Kolby's dog, perhaps even that it was smarter than its owner.

The boy climbed the ladder and met the girl. Fifteen minutes passed before anyone else arrived to look here. This provided time enough for Laura, who fortunately possessed enough initiative for both of them.

~*~

On a stormy afternoon three years later, MO-126 lay on the floor by the fireplace in Kolby's small cottage. He pretended to sleep while Kolby and Laura sat across from one another with a checkerboard on the table between them. A heavy rain outside slapped the thatched roof.

Kolby had lived here alone since his grandmother died the year before, but since he and Laura were engaged, her frequent visits were respectable enough, and if anyone believed otherwise, she would be more than willing to tell them it was none of their business. MO-126 rather liked her. She wasn't nice, like his boy, but she was not mean, either. She was slow to take offense but she didn't tolerate much from those who intentionally offered it. They were a good pair.

She glanced toward the fireplace and MO-126 quickly closed the one eye he had open.

"How old is Doggy?" she asked Kolby.

"I'm not sure. At the herding event at the Tsong monastery, we guessed he might be about six, and that was, um, a little over six years ago."

"So he's about twelve or thirteen. That's pretty old for a dog."

"It's not that old," Kolby said.

"Yes it is. I asked my cousin who breeds dogs. He said they normally live ten to fifteen years, and that the smaller ones tend to live longer. Doggy's not that small."

"He doesn't look or act old," Kolby said.

"Yes, I know," Laura agreed. "Strange, don't you think?"

"Well, he's a special dog."

"Yes, he is. He's probably the smartest dog I've ever seen. I really like him. How come you never bred him? He's a great sheepdog. Lots of people would want the puppies."

Kolby smiled and then shrugged. "I don't know. I never really thought about it, and Doggy never seemed interested around other dogs. I think he likes people better."

"He certainly likes you. We have that in common." She touched his hand affectionately. "He's obviously a good judge of character."

Oh-oh, MO-126 thought.

"You win, again," Kolby said a few minutes later as Laura jumped his last checker. "Want to play again?"

She smiled coyly. "No, let's do something else."

The android dog knew this day would come. It was inevitable, and this would be as good a time as any. Kolby had other things to do, other distractions. He would miss his trusty canine friend, but he really didn't need him anymore. He would get by.

MO-126 went outside to keep the goats huddled in the dry shed company, thinking the two humans would appreciate a bit more privacy. He also needed to decide what to do. He couldn't get skinny or do much about looking old, but he could act old.

For the next six months he ate less, moved slower, and pretended to be shortsighted and hard of hearing. He stayed for Kolby and Laura's wedding. He could not spoil that event, but then one night after he felt quite sure that even Kolby had noticed the change, he walked away from the village and on to something else. He had never been so reluctant to do anything in his entire artificial life.

 Ten

## A Final Note

52 Years Later

(Galactic Standard Year 243308)

In which MO-126 says goodbye.

Evening crept over the cold mountains. The setting sun cast ominous shadows on the rocks and ground surrounding the massive, man-shaped construction, the only obvious external legacy of the Galactic Organic Development Corporation's abandoned project. Much more remained hidden, and the monument stood silent sentry over it—in some figurative way, at least. It rose over thirty meters from the bottom of a shallow, crater-like depression and was made of compressed carbon and other materials into the inky black, featureless form of a man. It was also the exterior component of an energy absorber and transmitter—an antenna of sorts. MO-126 did not understand the engineering or the physics behind it, but he knew it was a key component of the project's power and communication subsystems.

His reasons for coming to this remote spot remained vague to him. He did it as he did many things recently—on a whim. It may have attracted him because it provided a quiet place to think. Few people visited the site. The short, stout mountain people in the region called the black giant the 'Warden of Mystic Defiance,' a name that seemed to suit it. The expressionless face and the muscular crossed arms did present a defiant visage. The humans were superstitious and wary of it, which was one of the reasons the Corporation had designed it to look the way it did.

To the androids who stayed behind after project termination, it reminded them of who and what they were—creatures intentionally made for a defined purpose who defied convention when that purpose no longer existed. Other purposes and other choices opened to them, and they chose one that many of their peers and, in fact, most other sentient life in the Galactic Federation would regard as eccentric.

Many of the androids constructed for the project chose to remain with the Corporation. Some did so because they were financially indebted to it. Others did so because it was safe, secure, familiar, and easy. The Corporation would provide them with things to do, resources with which to do them, and someone else to blame in the privacy of their own minds if they weren't happy.

Some androids ventured out into the galaxy as free agents, but MO-126 expected most would eventually find jobs with some other business enterprise like the Corporation. All of them were much the same and they all shared the same goal—higher profitability. MO-126 did not find the prospect enticing. Helping some commercial entity in its never ending pursuit of profit did not interest him, even if he could get a thumb upgrade out of it.

He and some others had retired in place to stay among the humans. He did not know why the others had. He was not completely sure why he did. It was just that out of the options he had, this seemed the most meaningful.

He liked humans. He saw potential in them, something that most of the civilizations comprising the Galactic Federation no longer possessed. The citizens of many civilized worlds were little more than complacent consumers, distancing themselves from the essential labors of society while still enjoying its benefits. They owned much but produced little. They received most, if not all, of their income from their investments. People of various species might own the businesses, they might sit on a board of directors or hold some other ostensible management position, usually as more of a hobby than anything else, but all the analysis, and all the physical production and distribution activities were automated. Some of the automation was sentient, like the Mark Seven Project Manager and Corporation androids, but most actual work was accomplished by non-sentient computers and robots that went about their programmed duties with less free will than individual bees in a hive. It worked. It provided the people on those planets with comfortable lives, and they resisted anything that might change that. Their societies were stagnant.

MO-126 suspected humans might be different. They were never satisfied, always curious. They seemed to have an innate need to imagine and create new things and new ideas. He conceded that to some this might appear to be a form of insanity, but he admired that kind of madness. If the humans could only learn to direct it properly, they could accomplish much. He entertained a vague notion of somehow being able to help them, but this was more of a desire than a plan. He quickly learned that he could do little. His canine form limited him from interacting much with people or influencing them in any major way. This frustrated him.

He could not predict the future of humanity but he found himself fascinated by it. He liked this aspect of their nature. Humans were unpredictable, not quite random, not chaotic, but full of surprises. He considered his own future. That, too, remained uncertain, even though he exercised much more control over it. He simply had not yet decided what he wanted to do with the rest of his life—but there was something he wanted to do now.

He wound his way down the mountain and headed east as another night descended.

~*~

He approached the village at dawn. It was much as he remembered it. There was still no road as such leading to it. There were a few more buildings, but they were little different from those built before them. The greeting he received from the canine welcoming committee was also familiar. He exchanged obligatory sniffs and proceeded on toward the house he had shared with a boy half a century ago.

An elderly man was sitting outside sitting in a spindle-backed rocking chair. An aged dog lay sleeping on the ground next to him. The dog lifted its head and gave a drowsy "Woof" before laying it back down.

"What is it, Boy?" the old man said.

"MO-126 recognized the voice immediately. It was older, of course, but it was Kolby's, and if the dog's name was actually 'Boy,' it was clear his imagination for names had not improved over the years.

Kolby caught sight of MO-126 and stared at him a moment in disbelief.

"Laura! Come out here," he called over his shoulder.

"What is it, dear?" she said. She must have mellowed some with age.

"Doesn't he look just like Doggy?" Kolby said, pointing. "You remember Doggy, don't you?"

"Of course I remember Doggy, you daft old man."

Maybe she hadn't mellowed all that much, although she did ameliorate her statement with a kiss on his cheek.

She squinted. "But my memory's better than my eyes. Come here, Doggy," she said, kneeling and urging him to approach.

MO-126 tried not to wag his tail and failed. He did manage to restrain himself from running to her. He went, but he tried to make it seem as if he was uncertain about the wisdom of it.

She scratched his ears with both hands in more of a hug than a pet. "The spitting image," she said.

The old man leaned down stiffly and stroked the android dog's head.

"I had a dog like you, once," he said, misty-eyed in recollection. "Best dog I ever knew." He turned to the old dog lying next to him. "No offense, Boy."

The old dog seemed to take none. A wheezy snore provided its only response.

Suddenly, Kolby gasped for air and coughed several times. MO-126 was no healer, but his sensors were capable of determining the man's temperature, heart rate, and, even estimate his blood pressure. He was not well. The years had taken their toll.

"Is Grandpa all right, Granny," a boy about ten years old asked Laura.

"I always thought so," she said, "but his lungs probably have a different opinion. Go fetch him a cup of water, will you, Jax?"

"Sure, Granny. Be right back." He ran through the door he left open a moment before.

"I'm fine," Kolby said when he got back his breath.

His wife offered no comment. Obviously, she knew otherwise, and she knew that her husband did as well.

"He does look like Doggy," Kolby said. "I wonder if they're related. Maybe a great, great, whatever grandson, or something."

"As I recall, you said Doggy never showed an interest in...making puppies." She smiled and winked.

"Well, maybe he was, you know, discreet about it," he said with a return smile that showed missing teeth and receding gums.

"Where do you suppose he came from?" she asked.

"Doggy or this handsome fellow?" he replied, still petting MO-126.

"Either or both," she said. "It just seems odd. One day Doggy shows up out of nowhere and attaches himself to you, and now another dog who looks just like him does much the same."

Oh-oh, MO-126 thought. I shouldn't have come.

Their grandson returned with a cup of water for Kolby. He must have heard at least some of his grandparents' conversation.

"Can I keep him?" he said. "I know Mom and Dad won't mind."

"I don't know, Jax," Laura said. "He might belong to someone. Besides, I'm not the one who can say yes or no. That's your parents' job."

"So that's a yes, right?" the boy said.

He really is cute, the android dog thought. He looked a bit like Kolby at that age except Jax's head and ears were better sized for one another. MO-126 found the boy's offer tempting, but another cough from Kolby and Laura's bemused expression reminded him of two very good reasons why it was not a good idea. One exceptional dog coming out of nowhere was simply a lucky coincidence. Two in the same family separated by half a century would be a mystery begging for an explanation. Superstitious people, in their never-ending quest to provide easy and invariably wrong answers, might provide one that would cast suspicion not only on himself but on Kolby's entire family. Those who saw demons in every shadow and witches behind every door were not common around here, but there were some, and they could be loud and dangerous. He did not want to bring that kind of scrutiny down on Kolby and his kin.

Also, there was the personal element. He could do nothing to help Kolby now. Age had taken him. He would not recover from it, and his grandson would soon suffer the same fate. The Corporation had warned the androids who worked in the field about becoming emotionally attached to primitives, and perhaps they were right. He knew his ability to approach this situation calmly and rationally was impaired. The fact that the human aging process was perfectly normal and natural mattered to him not at all at the moment.

He backed away reluctantly. Jax moved to run after him, but Laura stopped him.

"Let him go," she said. "He probably just wants to go home."

Home, MO-126 reflected as he left the village. Where is that, now? Where did he fit? The NASH units must have gone through experiences like this several times. How did they handle it? Maybe they didn't. He might be the last Corporation android on the planet who was still functioning.

For five hundred of their generations he had been around humans. He had watched them live and work for the Corporation, and he had witnessed some of what they had accomplished and had failed to accomplish on their own. He still felt optimistic about their long-term future, but he could do little to help them. His canine form limited his options. If he had a partner, like in the old days, they might be able to work out some way to be useful, but he could not do it alone, and he knew of no others.

This was getting depressing. He needed a vacation from his retirement.

He headed toward the mountains and the hidden entrance of Hub Terminal Ten. Any one of them would do, but this was the closest.

Another night arrived with a cloudy darkness by the time he got there. He retuned his audio receptors for greater sensitivity, but he heard nothing other than the rushing river and the songs of insects and frogs. Occasionally, one of the latter would make a snack of one of the former, but he heard nothing to indicate there were any people nearby.

He sent the silent signal to open the outside portal to Hub Terminal Ten. The door, which appeared to be a natural, stone cliff face, lowered to form a bridge over the narrow river flowing with icy water from the mountains. It was too swift to swim and too wide to jump, for a human.

He paused to empty his fuel tank in a manner that appeared quite natural for any normal dog. He did not intend the act to have any philosophical meaning, but he supposed it could be seen that way, if anyone was watching, which no one was. Another futile gesture, then. He would be running on his backup battery from here on.

The bridge began to lift back into place as soon as he entered the dark, cave-like chamber. Once it sealed behind him, a dim light came on. Other than this, the cave appeared natural.

He sent another signal and a concealed door in the far wall opened to a lighted corridor with floors, walls, and ceiling made of a gray ceramic material. The outer entrances of the hub terminals varied to suit the surrounding landscape, but from this point, all shared the same standard layout.

His claws clicked on the textured floor and the sound echoed in the corridor. He saw no indication that anyone had been here in a while. The place held a certain tomblike feel, and he felt a twinge of guilt. His failure to report the development of a phonetic alphabet two thousand years ago may have precipitated the end of the project, but he shook off the feeling. He retained little affection for the Corporation, and project termination was inevitable eventually, anyway. At best, he may have accelerated it by only a few centuries.

A low panel in one wall slid open and a general-purpose maintenance robot zipped out. The squat, gray automaton resembled a large, headless turtle on hidden rollers more than it did any other living creature. It ignored him and began cleaning the floor. The robots would follow their last instructions until instructed otherwise, which, with the PM no longer functioning, would not happen anytime soon. They would probably continue keeping the place clean and performing standard maintenance for thousands of years to come.

He glanced at the main access panel, a large black rectangle embedded in the wall to his left. A tiny green light in the lower corner showed standby power available. He expected it would be. He should have no trouble calling for a transport pod.

He turned to do so when another idea occurred, a sort of contingency plan just in case. He considered it a low-cost investment in an unlikely future, or perhaps more like a message in a bottle.

He reversed direction and went toward the corridor to his right. The three doors it held were all closed. The far one at the end of the hall was the maintenance bay. Each of the nineteen major hub terminals on the continent included one. He'd gone to them for routine checkups and maintenance several times, but this was not what he wanted now. The two nearer rooms across the hall from one another were the storeroom for trade goods and the equipment room in which the humanoid androids kitted up for field missions. What he wanted should be in one or the other, and he sent the signal for them to open.

The shelves of the storeroom remained stocked with pottery, glass, hardware and other things the trade androids used to offer in exchange to humans. He found sheets of gondhide vellum and a charcoal stick in a box next to another containing ink, canvas, and paint.

He scrawled a quick note on the vellum with the charcoal. It would have been so much easier if he had proper hands with thumbs, but he didn't, so he held the sheet steady with two paws and grasped the writing stick in his mouth. The result wasn't neat, but it was legible.

After a few failed attempts, he managed to fold the vellum. He picked it up with his mouth, which was unfortunately the best method he had. He needed just one more thing. He doubted one would be here, but there should be some in the main equipment warehouse.

He returned to the first room and called for a transport pod. A musical 'ping' a couple minutes later announced its arrival. One of a pair of sliding doors opposite the exit toward the outside opened to the pod. The one waiting was the smallest of the various models that existed. Its single seat was designed for humanoids, but this was just a minor inconvenience of being a four-legged creature in a two-legged world. He got in and signaled his destination. The panel in front of him provided a time of arrival, and the small vehicle accelerated into the main tube.

An hour later, the transport pod door opened to the warehouse and service lights came on automatically. Racks of various kinds of equipment stood in straight lines between stone columns. The spare and repair parts stored here were intended to sustain the remnants of the decommissioned project, including those sentient androids who chose to retire in place. If the fabrication centers still functioned, any parts used would be replaced. MO-126 suspected they no longer did. The Mark Seven Project Manager had caused considerable damage to the project's infrastructure before it finally shutdown. The hub terminals were intact, but he doubted many of the deeper facilities were. The fact that the shelves were full probably meant that the maintenance robots had not used many parts yet. Fortunately, the shelves were well organized, and MO-126 soon located the power converter he hoped to find here. It was not a large piece of equipment, but it was essential. He could not be restarted without it.

His initial plan was to find a nice spot in either a maintenance bay or even inside a packing case for long term storage in a fabrication center, but he had one mouth and two things to carry now. He could probably figure out something to compensate for his lousy, thumbless design, but there was little point. Here was as good a place as any.

He set down the power converter on the floor near the doors to the transport system. He dropped the sheet of vellum next to it and then found a reasonably comfortable way to lie on top of them so that an overambitious maintenance robot would not try to return them to their proper locations on some shelf. All set. Just one more thing to do.

The android dog closed both eyes and triggered his shutdown protocols. In a few seconds, he would be little more than a lumpy rug in front of the door. Under one paw, he placed a note with only two words in large, crooked letters—

WAKE ME.

~END~

Stories of the Warden's World continue with  The Warden Threat, part #1 of Defying Fate. If you enjoyed this book, let the world know. Recommendations, reviews, Tweets, and comments on social media will help ensure that the author continues writing (instead of succumbing to the temptation of stepping away from his keyboard and getting a life). If you REALLY liked this story, please consider sharing your opinion in a short review on book retailer sites. These are especially helpful.

### Other Books by D.L. Morrese

### ~Warden's World Novels~

_An Android Dog's Tale_ \- Not only does MO-126 look like a dog, his core behavioral program is derived from canine instincts. This may be one reason he finds the smelly primitives imported to work this Corporation agricultural project so fascinating. Despite their contradictory tendencies, he believes humans have potential. In fact, he likes them. This places him in something of a dilemma. Whose interests should come first—the Project's or the humans'? He must make choices, as must all sentient creatures, but what if he chooses wrong? If the Corporation abandons the Project, will the humans be able to survive on their own?

_The Warden Threat_ \- A lighthearted tale of looming war, subversion, and a terrible magical weapon. Prince Donald, the idealistic third son of the king of Westgrove, believes he may be the only one able to protect his country from an invasion spearheaded by an ancient and massive stone warrior known as the Warden of Mystic Defiance. Donald, unfortunately, is woefully unprepared. His only real understanding of such things comes from his reading of adventure stories, which he soon discovers understate the realities and hardships of such quests. His guide, Kwestor, a competent but jaded ranger, feels seeking adventure is the same as asking for trouble. Donald finds both, as well as an answer he never expected.

_The Warden War_ \- This sequel continues the quest begun by Prince Donald in _The Warden Threat_. His father, the king of Westgrove, has been told the neighboring kingdom of Gotrox has discovered a magical means to animate a mysterious and gigantic ancient stone warrior, the Warden of Mystic Defiance, which it plans to use it to spearhead an invasion of his kingdom. Donald is convinced this is a hoax, a deception contrived by his father's chief adviser to bring about a war. Donald is determined to thwart him. It will not be easy. Chief Adviser Horace Barter has several advantages. He has resources, connections, influence, and the almost unquestioned trust of the king. Donald, sadly, has none of these. What the young prince has is a nominal position with the diplomatic team being sent to Gotrox and the companionship of a few rather unique friends, including a pair of 15,000-year-old androids, one of which is a dog—or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

_Amy's Pendant_ \- Amy, the only child of a poor family living in the bustling city of Dolphin Point, is given an amazing and potentially dangerous pendant as a present for her fourteenth birthday. She does not know how amazing or how potentially dangerous it is. If she did, she would cherish it even more. She is that kind of girl.

Through her investigations of the mysterious pendant, she uncovers an ancient mystery, the remnants of a vast alien commercial enterprise buried beneath the surface of the planet. Unfortunately, the central computer for the complex is aware of her intrusion and it cannot let her escape with knowledge of its existence.

_Disturbing Clockwork_ \- On a small island called Bob off the southern shore of the great Kingdom of Westgrove, Benkin, a brilliant if somewhat quirky scientist, discovers something extraordinary—clockwork automatons that can obey commands. For Benkin, this is an amazing scientific discovery, one he wants to explore; one he believes may revolutionize mankind's understanding of the world. For Snyde, a fugitive from the king's justice, it is something he can use....

### ~Adventures of the Brane Child~

_Brane Child -_ The Brane Skip device may provide a way for humanity to overcome the light-speed barrier and finally head for the stars. It seems like magic to Lisa Chang, the young engineer in command of the first crewed test flight, and Lisa doesn't believe in magic. But she does believe in the mission. Humanity must explore space in order to survive and prosper, and she feels honored to be among the first to go where no one has gone before. She does not know what will happen when the Brane Skip engages. She thinks it will do nothing. She fears it will explode. She does not expect it will cast them adrift in space and on a collision course with a fantasy version of Earth, complete with dragons, orcs, and wizards.... Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens.

_The Scarecrow's Brane -_ Oz isn't what Commander Lisa Chang expected. Fairy tales were never her thing, and finding herself in one is grating on her nerves. But she can't leave, at least not yet. The abrupt landing of her spaceship inadvertently squashed the only protection Emerald City had against the tyrannical Red Witch of the South. And now, unfortunately, the witch has Lisa and her crew locked in a cell. Emerald City isn't enough. The witch wants Lisa's 'magic' ship as well.

The crew of the spaceship _Brane Child_ must escape the witch's prison and then embark on a hazardous journey through the Wild Lands to Munchkinland, where Lisa must somehow convince the Great and Powerful Blue Wizards of the East to construct a new protector for Emerald City.

_The Brane of the Space Pirates -_ When the spaceship _Brane Child_ emerges from skip-space near an unfamiliar space station, Lisa Chang thinks she and her crew may have finally found their way home. That is until the station's weapons turn toward them and a man dressed like a pirate appears on their view screen demanding their surrender. Lost, unarmed, and with nowhere to run, it's not as if she has much choice. Not yet, anyway.

### ~Other Novels~

_The Elsewhere Gate –_ A power surge at a private laboratory plunges two students from modern America into a strange world with unknown creatures, airships, and money based on magic—a place where almost everyone has magic but few have much money. Here, a covetous moneylender pursues them because he believes they hold the key that will open new worlds for him to exploit.

_Troubled Space: The Interstellar Adventures of an Unknown Indie Writer -_ Theodor Lester writes stories no one reads. Agents reject him. Publishers ignore him. Frustrated, he self-publishes, hoping that the world will eventually find value in his work. He never imagines his books might save it, but one does, along with more civilized parts of the galaxy. This is his story.

### About the Author

D.L. Morrese has worked many jobs, from potato-peeler and dishwasher at an all-night diner to supervisory logistics engineer for the U.S. Department of Defense. He currently resides near Orlando, Florida, where he spends most of his time reading, thinking, and writing, although not necessarily in that order. You can learn more about him and his books at http://dlmorrese.wordpress.com/. Leave a comment if you wish. He does read them, and he appreciates every one.

