was too awkward to keep carrying around. Gambiel was tired of working his launcher one-handed, and no sling or belt he could rig would hold on to the box’s slick, mirrored surface. More to the point, if the kzinti were using deep radar-or any radar at this distance-the box was a sure signal of his and Krater’s location. So it made most sense to abandon it, unload and abandon it, now.
Without more thinking, he pressed down on the disk.
The box changed, its surface slowly becoming a cloudy gray. It was like watching a time-lapse video of silver tarnishing. When the transformation was complete, a crack appeared along the keg’s length and down each end- face.
Gambiel forced the crack open with his hands and found himself blinking into a pair of wide-set, liquid eyes. They belonged to a face that was part of a rounded body covered in soft, white hair that was trimmed in intersecting globes of fluff. He was reminded of pictures he once had seen of Earth dogs
– useless, yapping, brainless pets. This animal, however, studied him with a wary expression and made no move to climb out of the stasis-box.
Gently, in case the animal should suddenly display teeth and snap at him, Gambiel felt around inside the box He quickly found the remaining contents: a long tubular device that had a fretwork of keys and finger-holes, like a flute, but no mouth hole for blowing; and three patties of wrinkled, brownish material that looked like freeze-dried meat, each wrapped in a tight plastic sheath. Gambiel assumed the meat was some kind of food ration for the “dog.”
He set the stasis-box, with the animal still sitting patiently inside it, down among the interwoven vines of the canopy. It was the “flute” that drew his attention.
He held it up with the end pointing at his mouth, like a clarinet or recorder, and tried to fit his fingers to the keys and holes. It didn’t work for eight fingers and two thumbs. He frowned and looked down along the flute’s length, counting. Yes, it did have more than ten positions-thirteen, in fact-but the spacing was wrong for human hands. Not surprising, considering that a billion years ago humans had not evolved on Earth, nor much else, other than bacteria and blue-green algae.
He raised the flute again, and Yip!
The dog had barked at him. Gambiel looked down. The animal’s eyes had grown big and it was trying to shy away from him.
Daff shrugged and began pressing keys at random, still looking for a hole to blow through. He heard a faint and almost familiar strain of music. He stopped fingering. Instead of breaking off in the middle, the tune wandered away from the notes and faded in a burble of sound. If this was a flute, Gambiel decided, it was a defective one.
He set it aside and looked at the dog, which seemed to be going to sleep on him.
“Come here, Fellah.”
The dog immediately straightened up and jumped out of the case. It came directly to Gambiel, sure-footing its way across the vines, and rested its chin on his knee. It looked up at him with an attitude of rapt attention.
“Yeah, you’re a good Fellah, aren’t you? Bright little guy, too. You know I won’t hurt you… It’s a good thing we found you first, instead of those kzinti.
They probably hate dogs-would if they had any in their Patriarchy, that is… And they’re big enough to do something about it, too… I figure they’d take you for a snack. You’re just about one bite to them.”
As he talked, the animal’s eyes slowly closed… falling asleep.
The darkness was beginning to grow around them, seeping in between the leaves, and Gambiel expected Krater to come down soon.
“Are you hungry, Fellah?” He picked up one of the meat patties and looked it over. No kind of heat tab or peel point in the wrapper. He drew his knife and slit around the edge.
The dog never lifted its head from his knee.
He pulled the plastic back and sniffed the patty. It smelled vaguely unpleasant, like dried meat saturated with chemical preservatives.
“You eat this stuff?” He offered it to the dog.
Fellah slid his chin off Gambiel’s leg and backed away. His eyes were still half closed and his head down between his shoulders. Gambiel knew very little about dogs, because they didn’t fare well in Jinx’s high gravity. But he decided the animal’s reaction was purely negative, a cross between “guilt” and “disgust.”
Gambiel shrugged and broke off a piece of the meat for himself He put it in his mouth, let his saliva soak it for a moment, and began chewing. It had no flavor, like chewing on wood pulp. He rewrapped the patty, putting it and the others in his pocket.
“What the hell are you doing?” Krater asked as she brushed aside a branch and climbed the last few meters down to his level.
“Trying one of these meat pies.” He took them out and showed her.
“You opened the box!”
“Well, we can’t keep carrying it. The stasis-field makes us sitting ducks for the kzinti.”
“But you should have -“
“Asked your permission? Well, would you have agreed?”
“Of course not.”
“So why would I ask?” He shrugged.
“You should have thought it through, Daff. That’s a artifact from a ancient xeno-civilization, older than life on Earth. You have no way of understanding what’s inside there.”
“Sure I do. A little dog, a flute-thing that doesn’t work, and some rations that don’t have much taste. I tried them on the dog, but it doesn’t-”
“You tried them on the dog!”
“And ace some myself. But why does that upset you so?” Krater ignored his question. She turned to Fellah and was peering at the little animal, which had crawled backwards in among the leaves. Only its eyes and nose, three shiny black marbles among the fluffy white fur, peered out at her.
“It does look like a dog,” she said. “How big is it?”
“About five kilos.”
“Does it have four legs, a tail, all that?”
“Yeah. I’ve seen holos of dogs before.” “And friendly?”
“Real friendly. I call him Fellah.”
Krater reached out a hand to it. “Come here, Fellah!”
The animal’s eyes grew wider and it backed farther into the foliage.
“Not that friendly,” Krater said.
“Well, he came to me.”
“Then you take care of him, because we have get moving. Our course is more -“ She looked around their bubble of cleaning, swung her arm off to the right. “- that way.”
Gambiel stood and stuck the flute into his belt, taking care not to bend the keys. “Hey, Fellah!”
The clog came out of its leaf hole and jumped into his arms.
“He does seem to like you,” Krater admitted. Gambiel reached down for the dull-gray box, forced it shut-but with the field off-and juggled it under his left arm. “Going to be awkward,” he said, hitching the dog around into the crook of his right arm. “Would you…?”
Krater shook her head. “I’m having enough trouble moving myself through these vines. Put the dog and the other stuff back in the box, why don’t you?”
“He’ll suffocate.”
“Then turn the field back on.”
“And let the kzinti use it to track us?”
“Then we have to leave the box,” she said.
“The Navy will pay a high ransom for an operating stasis mechanism. Could be worth your pension and mine together.”
“Then leave the dog”
“No, he’ll die up here. Starve to death, fall through to the forest floor, or get eaten by the kzinti. Besides, he could be valuable.”
