Fear Nothing

As Roosevelt and I turned to look at the video monitor, the four views on the screen resolved into one. The automated system zoomed in on the intruder and revealed it in the eerie, enhanced light of a night-vision lens.

The visitor stood in the eddying fog at the aft end of the port finger of the boat slip in which the Nostromo was berthed. It looked as though it had stepped directly out of the Jurassic Period into our time: perhaps four feet tall, pterodactyl-like, with a long wicked beak.

My mind was so full of feverish speculations related to the cat and the dog — and I was so unnerved by the other events of the night — that I was prepared to see the uncanny in the ordinary, where it did not in fact exist. My heart raced. My mouth soured and went dry. If I hadn’t been frozen by shock, I would have bolted to my feet, knocking my chair over. Given another five seconds, I still might have managed to make a fool of myself, but I was saved from mortification by Roosevelt. He was either by nature more deliberative than I was or he had lived so long with the uncanny that he was quick to differentiate genuine eldritch from faux eldritch.

“Blue heron,” he said. “Doing a little night fishing.”

I was as familiar with the great blue heron as with any bird that thrived in and around Moonlight Bay. Now that Roosevelt had named our visitor, I recognized it for what it was.

Cancel the call to Mr. Spielberg. There is no movie here.

In my defense, I would note that for all its elegant physiology and its undeniable grace, this heron has a fierce predatory aura and a cold reptilian gaze that identify it as a survivor of the age of dinosaurs.

The bird was poised at the very edge of the slip finger, peering intently into the water. Suddenly it bent forward, its head darted down, its beak stabbed into the bay, it snatched up a small fish, and it threw its head back, swallowing the catch. Some die that others may live.

Considering how hastily I had ascribed preternatural qualities to this ordinary heron, I began to wonder if I was attributing more significance to the recent episode with the cat and the dog than it deserved. Certainty gave way to doubt. The onrushing, macking wave of epiphany abruptly receded without breaking, and a churly-churly tide of confusion slopped over me again.

Drawing my attention from the video display, Roosevelt said, “In the years since Gloria Chan taught me interspecies communication, which is basically just being a cosmically good listener, my life has been immeasurably enriched.”

“Cosmically good listener,” I repeated, wondering if Bobby would still be able to execute one of his wonderfully entertaining riffs on a nutball phrase like that. Maybe his experiences with the monkeys had left him with a permanent deficit of both sarcasm and skepticism. I hoped not. Although change might be a fundamental principle of the universe, some things were meant to be timeless, including Bobby’s insistence on a life that allowed only for things as basic as sand, surf, and sun.

“I’ve greatly enjoyed all the animals that have come to me over the years,” Roosevelt said as drily as if he were a veterinarian reminiscing about a career in animal medicine. He reached out to Mungojerrie and stroked his head, scratched behind his ears. The cat leaned into the big man’s hand and purred. “But these new cats I’ve been encountering the last two years or so…they open a far more exciting dimension of communication.” He turned to Orson: “And I’m sure that you are every bit as interesting as the cats.”

Panting, tongue lolling, Orson assumed an expression of perfect doggy vacuousness.

“Listen, dog, you have never fooled me,” Roosevelt assured him. “And after your little game with the cat a moment ago, you might as well give up the act.”

Ignoring Mungojerrie, Orson looked down at the three biscuits in front of him, on the table.

“You can pretend to be all dog appetite, pretend nothing’s more important to you than those tasty treats, but I know differently.”

Gaze locked on the biscuits, Orson whined longingly.

Roosevelt said, “It was you who brought Chris here the first time, old pup, so why did you come if not to talk?”

On Christmas Eve, more than two years ago, not a month before my mother died, Orson and I had been roaming the night, according to our usual habits. He had been only a year old then. As a puppy, he had been frisky and playful, but he had never been as hyper as most very young dogs. Nevertheless, at the age of one, he was not always able to control his curiosity and not always as well-behaved as he ultimately became. We were on the outdoor basketball court behind the high school, my dog and I, and I was shooting baskets. I was telling Orson that Michael Jordan should be damn glad that I’d been born with XP and was unable to compete under lights, when the mutt abruptly sprinted away from me. Repeatedly I called to him, but he only paused to glance back at me, then trotted away again. By the time I realized that he was not going to return, I didn’t even have time to snug the ball into the net bag that was tied to the handlebars of my bicycle. I pedaled after the fugitive fur ball, and he led me on a wild chase: street to alley to street, through Quester Park, down to the marina, and ultimately along the docks to the Nostromo. Although he rarely barked, that night Orson flew into a barking frenzy as he leaped off the dock directly onto the porch-like afterdeck of the cruiser, and by the time I braked to a skidding halt on the damp dock planks, Roosevelt had come out of the boat to cuddle and calm the dog.

“You want to talk,” Roosevelt told Orson now. “You originally came here wanting to talk, but I suspect you just don’t trust me.”

Orson kept his head down, his eyes on the biscuits.

“Even after two years, you half suspect maybe I’m hooked up with the people at Wyvern, and you’re not going to be anything but the most doggie of dogs until you’re sure of me.”

Sniffing the biscuits, once more licking the table around them, Orson seemed not even to be aware that anyone was speaking to him.

Turning his attention to me, Roosevelt said, “These new cats, they come from Wyvern. Some are first- generation, the original escapees, and some are second-generation who were born in freedom.”

“Lab animals?” I asked.

“The first generation were, yes. They and their offspring are different from other cats. Different in lots of ways.”

“Smarter,” I said, remembering the behavior of the monkeys.

“You know more than I thought.”

“It’s been a busy night. How smart are they?”

“I don’t know how to calibrate that,” he said, and I could see that he was being evasive. “But they’re smarter and different in other ways, too.”

“Why? What was done to them out there?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“How’d they get loose?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Why haven’t they been rounded up?”

“Beats me.”

“No offense, sir, but you’re a bad liar.”

“Always have been,” Roosevelt said with a smile. “Listen, son, I don’t know everything, either. Only what the animals tell me. But it’s not good for you to know even that much. The more you know, the more you’ll want to know — and you’ve got your dog and those friends to worry about.”

“Sounds like a threat,” I said without animosity.

When he shrugged his immense shoulders, there should have been a low thunder of displaced air. “If you think I’ve been co-opted by them at Wyvern, then it’s a threat. If you believe I’m your friend, then it’s advice.”

Although I wanted to trust Roosevelt, I shared Orson’s doubt. I found it hard to believe that this man was capable of treachery. But here on the weird side of the magical looking-glass, I had to assume that every face was a false face.

Edgy from the caffeine but with a craving for more, I took my cup to the coffeemaker and refilled it.

“What I can tell you,” Roosevelt said, “is there were supposed to be dogs out at Fort Wyvern as well as cats.”

“Orson didn’t come from Wyvern.”

“Where did he come from?”

I stood with my back against the refrigerator, sipping the hot coffee. “One of my mom’s colleagues gave him