Lost and Found by Alan Dean Foster Read Free Book Online Page B

relationship with a slightly higher order of being, but as to why we seem to enjoy it so much.”
    One of the great unanswered questions, Walker mused. “What did you tell them?”
    Raising a hind leg, George began to scratch furiously behind his left ear. “I told them that while I couldn’t speak for all dogs, in my case it was just because I happen to like humans. Actually, I think that’s pretty universal, dogwise. Besides, I told ’em, who says it’s a subservient relationship? Not all, but many of us get a free place to live, free food, free medical care, and stuff to play with. Humans have to work their butts off all the time for any of that. All we have to do is lick the occasional face and whine piteously. You tell me who has the better deal.”
    “What’d they say to that?”
    George shrugged, dogwise. “They said a slave isn’t a slave unless it possesses the intellectual wherewithal to comprehend the condition of slavery. I told them to stuff it down their masticatory orifices.”
    Walker shifted on his stone. The corridor remained empty. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you have an awfully well-developed vocabulary.”
    George put one paw to the side of his nose. “Like I said: knowledge boost. I’d give it all back if I could. Talking is hard work. Thinking is harder. I’d rather be chasing cats. Wouldn’t you rather be chasing a football?”
    The commodities trader looked startled. “How did you know I played football?”
    “Didn’t. Lucky guess. You’re in better shape than most humans your age.”
    “Thanks.” Walker was quietly relieved. It was difficult enough to get used to the idea of a talking dog. He was not sure he could handle one that could also read minds. “You look pretty good yourself.”
    “Clean living,” George replied. “Plenty of cat chasing. Actually, I quite like kitties. But tradition is tradition, you know.”
    Walker nodded sagely. “Isn’t it going to be tough on you when we get out of here? Being so much smarter than the average dog, I mean?” He repressed the urge to pat the woolly head reassuringly.
    George snapped idly at an invisible fly. “What makes you think we’re going to get out of here?”
    That kept Walker quiet for a while. His silence did not seem to trouble George, who was content to rest his head on his forepaws and lie quietly in the artificial sun. Eventually the trader stood, studied their surroundings. The barrier between his mountain lake environment and that of the dog’s relocated urban surroundings was still unbarred. The realization that it might be closed off again at any time, at a whim of their captors, and that he might be separated from his garrulous new four-legged friend, left him unexpectedly queasy. He chose not to address the phlegmatic pooch’s terse observation directly.
    “Didn’t I hear you say something about them, these Vilenjji, taking you for walks?”
    Lifting his head from his paws, George nodded. “I keep asking them, and I keep getting turned down. Not that they have to worry about it. There’s nowhere to run to. Sometimes one or two of them will pay a visit to my cage.”
    “Enclosure, you mean.” Walker had no grounds for correcting the dog, other than psychological. It was easier to think of himself as being kept in an enclosure than a cage. “They come in?”
    “Sure. They know I’m not going to hurt them. I mean, I
could
bite. There’s nothing wrong with my teeth. But have you noticed the
size
of these mutes? What good would it do, ultimately, to take a chunk out of a leg flap?”
    “You’d get some honest satisfaction out of it,” Walker countered heartily, feeling a lot like taking a bite out of a Vilenjji himself.
    George snorted softly. “Then
you
nip one of them. Me, I’d rather keep getting my food bricks.”
    Walker thought back to the days when he had not been fed, remembering the hollow feeling that by afternoon had developed in the pit of his stomach. The dog was right. If he