sheriffs skepticism was slipping away even though he wanted to hold on to it.
“I’m telling you that it’s possible, that such a dog was in fact conceived by in
vitro fertilization of a genetically altered ovum by genetically altered sperm,
and carried to term by a surrogate mother. And after a year of confinement at
the Banodyne labs, sometime in the early morning hours of Monday, May 17, that
dog escaped by a series of incredibly clever actions that cannily circumvented
the facility’s security system.”
“And the dog’s now loose?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s what’s been killing—”
“No,” Lem said. “The dog is harmless, affectionate, a wonderful animal. I was in
Weatherby’s lab while he was working with the retriever. In a limited way, I
communicated with it. Honest to God, Walt, when you see that animal in action,
see what Weatherby created, it gives you enormous hope for this sorry species of
ours.”
Walt stared at him, uncomprehending.
Lem searched for the words to convey what he felt. As he found the language to
describe what the dog had meant to him, his chest grew tight with emotion. “Well
. . . I mean, if we can do these amazing things, if we can bring such a wonder
into the world, then there’s something of profound value in us no matter what
the pessimists and doomsayers believe. If we can do this, we have the power and,
potentially, the wisdom of God. We’re not only makers of weapons, but makers of
life. If we could lift members of another species up to our level, create a
companion race to share the world . . . our beliefs and philosophies would be
changed forever. By the very act of altering the retriever, we’ve altered
ourselves. By pulling the dog to a new level of awareness, we are inevitably
raising our own awareness as well.”
“Jesus, Lem, you sound like a preacher.”
“Do I? That’s because I’ve had more time to think about this than you
have. In time, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. You’ll begin to feel
it, too, this incredible sense that humankind is on its way to godhood—and that
we deserve to get there.”
Walt Gaines stared at the steamed glass, as if reading something of great
interest in the patterns of condensation. Then: “Maybe what you say is right.
Maybe we’re on the brink of a new world. But for now we’ve got to live in and
deal with the old one. So if it wasn’t the dog that killed my deputy— what was
it?”
“Something else escaped from Banodyne the same night that the dog got out,” Lem
said. His euphoria was suddenly tempered by the need to admit that there had
been a darker side to the Francis Project. “They called it The Outsider.”
5
Nora held up the magazine ad that compared an automobile to a tiger and that
showed the car in an iron cage. To Einstein, she said, “All right, let’s see
what else you can clarify for us. What about this one? What is it that
interested you in this photograph—the car?”
Einstein barked once: No.
“Was it the tiger?” Travis asked. One bark.
“The cage?” Nora asked.
Einstein wagged his tail: Yes.
“Did you choose this picture because they kept you in a cage?” Nora asked.
Yes.
Travis crawled across the floor until he found the photo of a forlorn man in a
prison cell. Returning with it, showing it to the retriever, he said, “And did
you choose this one because the cell is like a cage?”
Yes.
“And because the prisoner in the picture reminded you of bow you felt when you
were in a cage?”
Yes.
“The violin,” Nora said. “Did someone at the laboratory play the violin for
you?”
Yes.
“Why would they do that, I wonder?” Travis said.
That was one the dog could not answer with a simple yes or no.
“Did you like the violin?” Nora asked. Yes.
“You like music in general?”
Yes.
“Do you like jazz?”
The dog neither barked nor wagged his tail.
Travis said, “He doesn’t know what jazz is. I guess they never let him hear any
of that.”