The Companions by Sheri S Tepper

Author:Sheri S Tepper [Tepper, Sheri s]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“I went out to ESC,” I said to Adam, later that afternoon. “On the way, I looked down the shoreline, and what did I see? Eight dogs, lapping water from the lake, like a pack of myth-wolves. It was I in the boat, counting dogs, but it could have been anyone, counting dogs.”

Adam flushed. “I knew you’d be angry, but he said they expected us to go along. I really couldn’t say no.”

“Say no to whom?” I demanded, outraged.

“Behemoth. Well, him and Titan both.”

As that penetrated, slowly, I felt my mouth hanging agape and snapped it shut. “I thought we were the ones who decided what was best, Adam. Are the dogs running things now?”

Instead of remorse, I saw amusement. “Of course they are! What makes you think they haven’t been running things for a long while?”

Now I really was stunned. “Explain,” I said, afraid I’d get started on a rant if I said anything more.

“Behemoth and Titan and Wolf have been in charge of their own lives since they were about…two years old. We don’t give them orders because they won’t follow orders. We ask them if they will comply with suggestions, and we tell them the reasons.”

“Such as?”

“Such as, will they pretend to obey orders to impress some visiting arkist who’s likely to be a big donor? Will they be friendly with Shiela, whom they dislike, because she can turn us out on the street if she wants to? Will they please be nice to Gainor Brandt, pretty much for the same reason?”

“They dislike Shiela?”

“They say she smells of too many layers.”

“Are they being nice to me because maybe I can help them?” I asked, my throat dry.

He shook his head. “No. They’ve never even questioned anything about you. They never questioned anything about Jon Point, either, while he was alive. If they help you or obey you, it’s because they see you as a pack somebody. Not the alpha dog, Behemoth’s definitely that, but a somebody, nonetheless.”

I felt the fume building up and fought it down. This was no time to get stirred up. “Can they count, Adam?”

“So far as I can tell, they’re discalculic, almost completely. They can distinguish between one and several, few and many, however. The pack has a certain weight or aura or completeness, and they expect that attribute to be there when the pack hunts. When something upsets the aura, they howl, sometimes for a long time. Frank and Clare and I are sort of pack adjuncts, so we’re part of the whatever, but we are definitely on the bottom rung. Not that they abuse us. They don’t need to because they know we’re no competition.”

With an effort, I pulled myself back to the original topic. “Remember the fix you got in the night you went to pick up Jarl Alred? There was a hostile crowd, you got all fired up, and you shifted to dog shape in order to break up the crowd. You were seen. The species police were all over the place and all over me.

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