“The people in the lab?” Travis asked. “Why did they call it The Outsider?”
BECAUSE IT DOES NOT BELONG.
Nora said, “I don’t understand.”
TWO SUCCESSES. ME AND IT. I AM DOG. IT IS NOTHING THAT CAN BE NAMED. OUTSIDER.
Travis said, “It’s intelligent, too?”
YES.
“As intelligent as you?”
MAYBE.
“Jesus,” Travis said, shaken.
Einstein made an unhappy sound and put his head on Nora’s knee, seeking the
reassurance that petting could provide him.
Travis said, “Why would they create a thing like that?”
Einstein returned to the stacks of letters: TO KILL FOR THEM.
A chill trickled down Travis’s spine and seeped deep into him. “Who did they
want it to kill?”
THE ENEMY.
“What enemy?” Nora asked.
IN WAR.
With understanding came revulsion bordering on nausea. Travis sagged back
against the headboard. He remembered telling Nora that even a world
without want and with universal freedom would fall far short of paradise because
of all the problems of the human heart and all the potential sicknesses of the
human mind.
To Einstein, he said. “So you’re telling us that The Outsider is a prototype of
a genetically engineered soldier. Sort of. . . a very intelligent, deadly police
dog designed for the battlefield.”
IT WAS MADE TO KILL. IT WANTS TO KILL.
Reading the words as she laid out the tiles, Nora was appalled. “But this is
crazy. How could such a thing ever be controlled? How could it be counted on not
to turn against its masters?”
Travis leaned forward from the headboard. To Einstein, he said, “Why is The
Outsider looking for you?”
HATES ME.
“Why does it hate you?”
DONT KNOW.
As Nora replaced the letters, Travis said, “Will it continue looking for you?”
YES. FOREVER.
“But how does something like that move unseen?”
AT NIGHT.
“Nevertheless . .
LIKE RATS MOVE UNSEEN.
Looking puzzled, Nora said. “But how does it track you?”
FEELS ME.
“Feels you? What do you mean?” she asked.
The retriever puzzled over that one for a long time, making several false starts
on an answer, and finally said, CANT EXPLAIN.
“Can you feel it, too?” Travis asked.
SOMETIMES.
“Do you feel it now?”
YES. FAR AWAY.
“Very far away,” Travis agreed. “Hundreds of miles. Can it really feel you and
track you from that far away?”
EVEN FARTHER.
“Is it tracking you flow?”
COMING.
The chill in Travis grew icier. “When will it find you?”
DONT KNOW.
The dog looked dejected, and he was shivering again.
“Soon? Will it feel its way to you soon?”
MAYBE NOT SOON.
Travis saw that Nora was pale. He put a hand on her knee and said, “We won’t run
from it the rest of our lives. Damned if we will. We’ll find a place to settle
down and wait, a place where we’ll be able to prepare a defense and where we’ll
have the privacy to deal with The Outsider when it arrives.”
Shivering, Einstein indicated more letters with his nose, and Travis laid out
the tiles: I SHOULD GO.
“What do you mean?” Travis asked, replacing the tiles.
I DANGER YOU.
Nora threw her arms around the retriever and hugged him. “Don’t you even think
such a thing. You’re part of us. You’re family, damn you, we’re all family,
we’re all in this together, and we stick it out together because that’s what
families do.” She stopped hugging the dog and took his head in both hands, met
him nose to nose, peered deep into his eyes. “If I woke up some morning and
found you’d left us, it’d break my heart.” Tears shimmered in her eyes, a tremor
in her voice. “Do you understand me, fur face? It would break my heart if you
went off on your own.”
The dog pulled away from her and began to choose lettered tiles again: I
WOULD DIE.
“You would die if you left us?” Travis asked.
The dog chose more letters, waited for them to study the words, then looked
solemnly at each of them to be sure they understood what he meant:
I WOULD DIE OF LONELY.
PART TWO
Guardian
Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and