Jamie Da Cruz worried not at all about the historical causes of his present problem. He simply waited impatiently for the maintenance crew to arrive. He was 36 years old, single, possessed of a 1A genome (and wonderfully grateful for the sexual implications thereof -- he didn't have to go looking; they came to him), and employed at a job he loved. He was the director of the agricultural experimentation section of the genetic engineering department, and the only fly in his ointment was his boss, Carlos Alvarez, who was behind the times and running scared. Not only that, Alvarez detested enhanced pets in general and Jamie's pets in particular. If he had his way, every enhanced animal in the enclave would be banished to the wilds -- or worse. Fortunately for Jamie and his pets, his viewpoint was in the minority. Other, more liberal leaders still saw the need for enhanced animals, especially the dogs and cats which not only kept the rodent population of the enclave down to almost nothing, but also were companions of the ranger security force which patrolled the peripheries of the enclave.
Jamie did worry about the day to day temperament of his boss. Carlos Alvarez was overdue for retirement, but he kept hanging on, reluctant to turn the reins over to a younger person. Jamie was in line for the job but doubted that he would get it if Alvarez had anything to say about the matter. Jamie's pets, Fuzzy Britches the cat and Woggly the dog were as well behaved as any other enclave animal, but they did reflect his own personality to a certain extent. On several occasions they had voiced sentiments in Alvarez's presence that Jamie would have kept quiet about. At an apartment party once, Fuzzy Britches had ventured the opinion that only pet owners should be in charge of human affairs so that they could benefit from the wise advice of enhanced animals. While Jamie agreed, to a certain extent, the remark hadn't helped his career prospects much.
"Hola! Que Paso?"
Startled, Jamie turned from his hypnotic fixation on the broached barrier and saw two Hispanic repairmen, accompanied by an excavation robot just settling on it's treads. As usual, his black hair and brown complexion had been mistaken for an accompanying facility in Spanish. Actually, he spoke only a smattering of the language; his looks derived from his Hispanic mother rather than his Anglo father, and she had decreed that her household would be a unilingual one. Politely, though, he searched his mind for an answering phrase in Spanish, but soon gave it up.
"Here," he said inadequately, and left them. The robot would perform all the work and make most of the decisions anyway, he thought wryly. Robots were almost as intelligent as humans, in a limited fashion, and when interfaced with the main Enclave computers could use their biomanipulators to perform almost any task assigned them.
Jamie was tired enough to skip going to the office to check on the status of the feral dog; he could do it almost as well from home anyway. He was ready for a long, tall drink and the promised back rub; he knew his mustache really didn't need trimming.
He left the agricultural plots through a gate in the secondary barrier and was pleased to have to wait only a few moments for a passenger sled. Commuter service had been cut twice in the last few years. Each time the "temporary" cutbacks proved permanent. He wondered idly why that was so, but didn't really give it much thought.
"B-36," he told the sled as he boarded, scanning for a seat. There were none, but he lived only half a mile from the test plots and seldom sat down anyway.
He stepped off the conveyance a little later, giving not a thought to the efficient way the sled had recorded his destination, scooted off over super conducting rails and deposited him and two other passengers at a point designed to cause the least average walking distance for the three of them.
Jamie's position enabled him to afford a fairly expensive apartment near the outskirts of the Enclave. He could barely see the central towers from there. His complex sported rather rare buildings of only two stories, containing twenty or so units each. There was an expanse of food growing areas interspersed within them; the Enclaves supported fewer and fewer purely decorative plants as time went on. Food production was more important.
A short walk brought him inside the complex to his own ground floor apartment, situated strategically with the door facing out toward the common swimming pool. He waved to a bare breasted young woman of somewhat more than casual acquaintance as he passed and noted with a slight frown the slick furred body of a black otter descending the slide. He really preferred for the pool to be reserved for humans during the day unless, of course, Woggly wanted to go for a swim. In that case it was different; Woggly was almost human.
The door opened automatically as he neared, recognizing the signal from his body computer.
"Greetings, kind master," Woggly said, wagging his tail.
"The mighty human has returned," Fuzzy Britches purred from his favorite perch atop the back of the lounger. He stretched languidly, then settled back again. His whiskers twitched, as if sensing a mouse in the pocket of Jamie's coveralls.
"You've been practicing," Jamie accused. He directed a stare toward the curly haired cat. His fur was a mix of multiple colors all tangled together, as if a rainbow had been run through a blender and poured over him. Both animals looked much the same as their ancestors except for larger, high domed heads and heavier necks and forequarters to support the added weight.
"Not so," Fuzzy Britches answered, jumping down from his perch. Jamie wondered idly why they didn't have the holo on. They spent a good deal of their time watching it while he was out, when not occupied with patrolling the complex for stray rodents.
"You can go to hell for lying, Fuzz. Have you eaten?"
"Only a little," Woggly said, advancing to lick Jamie's hand.
"You can, too, Wog," Jamie said. He scratched the dog's ears, then sniffed. An odor of wet fur assailed his nostrils. "Say, what's that smell? Have you guys been swimming?"
Fuzzy Britches didn't consider the question worth answering. He would as soon have made friends with a feral rat as taken a swim. Woggly nodded a firm no, but continued nuzzling and licking Jamie's hand as if his denial carried a caveat with it.
"What's that smell, then?" Jamie sniffed again, then headed toward the bed room.
"Wait!" Woggly barked. Jamie turned and stared at the shaggy brown dog. What was going on?
"Strange dog in there," Fuzzy Britches said, coming over and rubbing against Jamie's shins. He looked up smugly, dangling imaginary feathers from his mouth.
"A strange dog? Whose is it? Who let it in?"
"Woggly did," Fuzzy Britches said, disclaiming any responsibility.
"Woggly?"
Woggly rolled over on the floor in an exaggerated surrender reflex, tail tucked between his legs and front paws akimbo.
"Oh get up, Wog, and stop acting silly," Jamie said. "Why did you let it in? You know you're not supposed to have guests while I'm gone. Whose dog is it, anyway?"
"Feral dog," Fuzzy Britches announced from a neutral position. He licked a paw and rubbed it lazily over his ears, as if suggesting that a feral dog in the house was nothing out of the ordinary.
"Dios y Santos!" Jamie exclaimed, borrowing one of his late father's favorite expressions. "And you let it in here? Why didn't you give an alarm?" He could hardly believe it.
"Wog said not to," Fuzzy Britches demurred, absolving himself of any responsibility.
"That's no excuse. Since when have you started listening to Wog, anyhow? Damn, that must have been the one that broke in this morning. And you let it in here? What in hell do you think Alvarez will say if he finds out? He'll want both your hides for rugs, not to mention my own. Damn, damn, damn."
Woggly nuzzled Jamie's hand again then backed off when he saw that Jamie was having no part of it. He lowered his haunches to the floor and tried to look contrite. "He has a message, boss."
"Don't give me that 'boss' routine. I know who the real bosses are around here. Just what is this ever-loving message that made you let a damn feral dog hole up in my own bed room? I warn you, Wog, this better be good."
"He says message is from feral human."
That gave Jamie pause. It was a well know but seldom discussed fact that there was a scattering of humans still living in the wilds, protected from harm by their own coterie of enhanced animals, but not as masters; rather, they owed their existence to the usefulness of their hands to their pawed cohorts and to the inventiveness of their human minds, something that the genetic engineers had had little success in transferring to other species. He couldn't imagine any sort of message from a feral human important enough for his pets to let a fugitive dog hide out in their own home. Nevertheless, he trusted Woggly's judgment enough to at least listen to what the strange dog had to say before sentencing it to it's death in a general alert, or from his own laser gun. The fact that Fuzzy Britches had not raised a hue and cry influenced him even more. The cat was the more intelligent of the two animals.
"Bring him in here, Woggly," Jamie ordered. He patted the gun holstered at his side for reassurance.
Woggly barked at the bed room door. It opened and he scurried inside. Jamie heard a muted conversation interspersed with non-threatening growls and whines. Enhanced animals had their own conversational shortcuts when talking among themselves. A moment later Woggly returned, leading a short haired dog of in determinant breed, somewhat larger than his own moderate size. It (or rather, he, Jamie noticed) was rather less bedraggled than he had expected, although he still smelled of wet fur. Jamie suspected that Woggly had coerced him into cleaning himself up and standing under the flea-killer for a moment before being presented.
"This is Conan," Woggly announced hopefully.
The feral dog approached Jamie and raised a paw. He bent over to shake it before realizing what he was doing. "My God," he thought. "I'm shaking hands with a feral dog in my own living room!"
"All right, Conan," he said. "My name is Jamie Da Cruz. You wait right here, right here, understand, while I get a drink, then you have ten minutes to explain yourself." He retreated to the kitchen and poured a shot of bourbon over ice, hesitated, then added another shot, wincing at how much that depleted the bottle. Branded spirits were very scarce in the Enclave, and he had no idea when he would be able to replenish his store, if ever. He fingered his still holstered laser gun and checked the time by pressing his thumb and forefinger together. The numerals glowed through his thumbnail -- he would have to call the office soon; both Jeannie and Alvarez were waiting to hear from him, he was sure.
Back in the living area he took his usual place in the big lounger but kept it in an upright position. Both dogs sprawled side by side on the carpet, forepaws out. Conan sniffed at the sculptured shag, puzzled at the faint life scent he detected. Fuzzy Britches jumped up to his usual perch atop the back of the lounger, ears cocked forward. Jamie touched a spot on his forearm to induce his body computer to transfer a permanent recording to the home archives, then took a long pull from his glass. "OK, Conan, it's your show," he said.
The dog spoke in a low guttural voice, in broken, badly accented English. "Human live with pack, mine, say come with him, her, say talk with Great Being, say talk fast .. quick .. ." He seemed to be searching for a word.
Woggly interrupted. "He says message is urgent."
Jamie took another sip of bourbon. That the message was urgent, he had no doubt; nothing else would have prevented Fuzzy Britches from setting off an alarm, not to mention letting a strange dog into his home. However, what was urgent to the cat was not necessarily so for him, nor for the Enclave in general.
"What 'Great Being' are you talking about? Do you mean one of your humans? Or is it an animal?"
The fugitive dog turned and spoke to Woggly, mixing whining noises with barely understandable English phrases. Apparently, the feral dog had only a limited speaking vocabulary, although he seemed to have no trouble understanding conversation addressed to him. Again Woggly interpreted. "He say Great Being not human, not animal, doesn't know what. He say look at his neck thing."
For the first time, Jamie noticed the crude leather collar around Conan's neck. Depending from it was a small blue-green disk, hardly more than coin size. He bent closer to inspect it, but it offered no other distinguishing features.
"Use hand," Conan said, sitting up and approaching Jamie's lounger. Tentatively he closed his hand around the disk. Immediately, images exploded in his mind, blurry and disconnected, like dreams run in fast motion. He saw a planet as it appeared from space, brown and blue and streaked white; what appeared to be a spaceship, but unlike any ever built by man; a cluster of beings, orange colored with six writhing appendages and large head-like protuberances; a whirling kaleidoscope of other scenes with no human reference, ineludible. A sense of urgency, coupled with impending doom pervaded the flashing images at the end. He dropped the disk abruptly, as if it had grown too hot to hold. Instantly, the images vanished from his mind.
Jamie shook his head. "What in hell was that?"
"Message from Great Being," Conan said.
"That's a message? Let me try it again." Again, the storm of strange images assaulted his mind. Prepared this time, he held onto the disk, but he learned little more. The same fast action scenes repeated, then repeated again, a closed loop. Shaken, he sat back in the lounger. He finished his drink in two long gulps and tried to make sense of what had happened.
"Wog, Fuzz, did you guys try it?"
The pets barked and meowed assent.
"What did you see?"
"Cartoons," Fuzzy Britches said.
"Funny pictures," Woggly agreed.
Jamie nodded. It was about what he would have expected of the pets. Intelligent as they were, concepts such as space beyond earth was beyond their grasp, but both were smart enough to have realized that the feral dog carried something important enough to await a human decision before sounding an alert. He wasn't certain himself that the images contained in the disk related to anything in the real world, but that didn't matter. Of immediate importance was the technology implied. He knew of nothing resembling the technique in the Houston Enclave or any other. It was time to call Security Section and report the presence of Conan.