“This can’t be happening to me!” his partner said. “I’m supposed to be a human and look at me. I’m covered with fur!”
The commander frantically started to input information into the computer about his partner's newly acquired form. “Okay, now let's see.” He looked down at his partner. “You're obviously a quadruped.” He inputted, then looked again. “Short black and tan fur covering approximately ninety-eight percent of your body.” Inputting again, he then looked his partner up and down and inquired, “Where’s your uniform?”
“Oh, well let's see, hmm,” his partner said. “Since I’m now much shorter than before, I was able to just step out of it!” He began to raise his voice. “Now can we please find out what the hell happened to me?”
The commander looked at the pile of uniform clothes behind his partner and noticed something and spoke as he inputted it into the computer. “Short stubby tail.”
“What!” Looking behind, “I have a tail?”
The commander continued, “You have pointy ears along with a large proboscis.” He inputted and looked again, “And the most adorable almond eyes,” he said, trying to break the tension with humor, an old nervous habit.
“Cut that out!” he shouted, not in the mood for tension relief. “And tell me what . . .”
“Ah, here we go.” The commander interrupted. Using his index finger he started to scan down the information. “Ahh . . . you are a ‘Canis Lupus Familiaris’, ‘Caninus’, ‘Carnivora’. Oh! Oh!” He looked at his partner. “Just as I suspected. You’re a canine of the human race!”
“A human canine!” he said, shocked and dismayed, “What! Why! Who! – What?”
“Yes, a canine of the human race,” he said. “Specifically, a Doberman Pinscher.” He read the computer screen. “Let’s see here.” The closer they got to Earth, the more information the computer was able to update. “Thought to have been first bred around the human year of 1890 by Karl Friedrich Louis Dobermann . . .”
“I DON’T CARE! I care WHY! Why am I a human canine?”
“Technically, a canine of the human race.”
“Whatever the hell! Why am I a human canine?”
“Oh, yes, right.” He turned to his partner, “I’m not completely sure why. But, look at the bright side.”
“Bright side? What possible bright side?”
“Well, you're apparently still a male!”
The commander's partner quickly looked down at himself. “Oh, goodnight nurse! I’m exposed! This is so humiliating!” With confusion and anger building he asked, “Why am I a canine? Why would the Replicator replicate me into a human canine?”
Puzzled, the commander thought for a moment, “Well, I don’t know. There must be a reason.”
“Like, what?” The Doberman Pinscher asked.
The commander was silent for a moment. The only thing heard in the room was the hum of the computers. “Well . . . perhaps . . .”
“Well nothing! There’s absolutely no reason at all for this. I’ve studied the sub-folder we have on the humans preparing for this mission just as you did. They treat their canines as slave labor! They train them to do stupid tricks. And they're so dumb, they don’t even know it!”
“You really can’t say that,” the commander said. “The information we have on the human race is very limited, ever since The Great Fire of 4045.”
“Ah come on! They sniff each others' posteriors,” he said with an air of disapproval and disgust, “Theirbutts.”
Trying desperately to calm his partner down, the commander said, “Well, I guess that’s how human canines greet each other.”
His partner just stood there staring in disbelief. “What? Okay, tell me. Do human males greet each other by sniffing each others' posterior?”
“No of course not . . . well, I don’t believe so.”
“No! No they don’t.” After a moment his partner said, “I’m going to reactivate the Replication Computer and go through again. And this time this stupid computer better get things right!”
“No you can’t,” the commander said. “You know as well as I do you can’t. We can only go through replication twice. Turning into, then turning back. Anymore than that could cause irreversible damage. You know the technical aspects of replication. Now you’re an IPF Agent, start acting like one. We’ve gone through worse things than this together as Agents.”
His partner pondered this fact for a few minutes. He twitched his nose and flicked his newly formed ears. Then sat on his haunches. “I apologize for my outburst.” He sighed loudly, then said, “It’s just that, I’ve . . . we’ve been preparing for this mission for some time now. This historic mission. A mission that has never been attempted before ever in our history. A mission to infiltrate a world we know little about. A world that has no idea we even exist and isn't ready for the overwhelming reality of life beyond their galaxy. We have to get in, complete the mission, and get out unnoticed.” He paused for a few seconds. “I graduated at the top of my class. I have received commendations for outstanding police work for God's sake! Now I have to represent myself as a human canine! What will the history books say?”
The commander completely understood but was secretly glad it didn’t happen to him. “I am truly sorry about this. But there must be a reason the Replication Computer chose this form for you.”
His partner thought for a moment. “And that’s another thing. If I’m a human canine, a dumb, drooling human canine. Then — why — am — I — TALKING! If I was a human canine shouldn’t I be going, 'bark, bark and woof, woof'?”
“Well,” the commander said, suddenly realizing this, “yes, I suppose you're right. Perhaps the Replicator got human canines and Codas canines confused.”
“Oh! Confused is an understatement.”
“Well, you know those Codas canines. Once you get one of them talking you can’t shut them up.”
