Already Among Us Read online

  “Okay.” There was an awkward silence.

  “Hey, um, I know what Wayfarer's been saying about you and Martin on TV. I just want you to know those are her opinions, not mine.”

  “Sure,” said Angela. “The enemy always has to be made out to be monsters to get the fight going. I know.”

  “Well, I know it can't have made things easy for you two.”

  “Herb,” she said. “Maybe you should know Martin and I split up.”

  “Why?” he asked, surprised.

  “Oh, you know, he wasn't the most sensitive guy in the world. House got awfully quiet after. . . .” She trailed off.

  “Yeah.”

  “You wouldn't want to move back?” she asked suddenly.

  “Oh, gosh, Angela, that's really nice of you, but --”

  “I'm sorry. It was a stupid question.”

  “It just wouldn't be right.”

  “Sure,” said Angela. Dog and woman stared at each other. “Look, I'd better get going. We'll get together sometime, all right?”

  “Sure,” said Herb.

  The Loop was crowded with humans. Herb found himself retreating to the alleys. He didn't feel like going back to the empty condo, not even with all the plush cushions scattered through all the rooms and the fabulously stocked kitchen. Not a one of those cushions, he thought, silk or satin or velvet, was as comfortable as the beat-up old armchair Angela kept in the den for him.

  Did I ask to be a symbol? he thought. Maybe he did. You have to be awful careful in this life. He sat down by a dumpster to ponder.

  “Hey, this is my turf,” growled a voice. Herb looked up, and the voice became warmer. “Oh, it's you. Herb, right?”

  “Yes,” he confirmed to the spotted mongrel.

  “Didn't guess I was talking to future celebrities, way back when. Guess you were smarter than I thought.”

  “Maybe not,” Herb said morosely.

  “What's your problem? You got fame and fortune without doing squat. That snotty little cat friend of yours does it all.”

  “I don't think she minds,” Herb said.

  “Going on Carson and eating caviar? No, probably not. Just like a cat.” The mongrel paused, then allowed, “Well, maybe not all of them.”

  “It's like Wayfarer, though, I guess. But it's for a good cause,” Herb said defensively. “It calls attention to social problems. She's living a very fulfilling life.”

  “You're not?” the mongrel asked. “Christ, you've got all the money in the world. You can eat anything you want. You don't need to keep fighting folks out of your sleeping space. Sounds great to me.”

  “I hate it!” Herb cried. “I don't do anything. I was working before, and that was better.”

  “So get a job.”

  “I'm kind of too famous to be a watchdog now. What else can I do?”

  “Get into investments. Real estate – that's always good,” the spotted dog said sagely. He cocked an eye. “You don't look excited.”

  “It's --” Herb paused. “I don't know how to say this. I liked the way I lived before.”

  “Ah,” said the mongrel.

  “I ran into my old mistress today, and she invited me back. But I can't do that. I'll be known as a Fido! I couldn't live with myself either, if I backed down from a moral decision.”

  “Yep.”

  “So what should I do?”

  “How the hell do I know?” said the mongrel. “I've got problems of my own. And unless you got some food to share, I got business.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Herb said to the empty alley.

  “You want a job?” Wayfarer said. “No problem. Why didn't you say something before?”

  “When were you around to talk to?”

  “We can arrange something. Let me see – there've been some threats recently. We can find room for Herb with the bodyguards, can't we, Foster?” she said to the manager, interrupting his phone call.

  “Mmm? Oh, sure.”

  “How's that, Herb? Put Herb on the payroll, Foster.”

  The manager jotted a note.

  “One other thing, Wayfarer.”

  “Could you make it fast? My personal groomer will be here soon.”

  “I'd like to invest some of the money.”

  Foster Roderick looked up. “Ms. Felis's money?”

  “I thought this was a partnership.”

  “Certainly any 'partnership' – of which there is no legal existence – is more than fulfilled by your excellent room and board here.”

  Herb took a deep breath. “I supported Wayfarer—”

  Roderick snorted. “Hardly at this level!”

  “And whether or not there's anything legal, I think—”

  “I have to protect Ms. Felis's interests—”

  The buzzer sounded. “That's my groomer,” said Wayfarer stiffly.

  “Of course,” said Herb. He rose with great dignity.

  “He probably wouldn't cost that much to buy off,” he heard Wayfarer tell Roderick as the door swung shut behind him.

  So he became one of Wayfarer's personal bodyguards. He followed her around and stared at anyone who got too close. Wayfarer didn't like anyone to get too close.

  When she traveled, humans, not Herb, traveled with her. When Wayfarer was on a lecture circuit out of Chicago, he studied how to invest the little parcel of money she had allowed him, shopping rental properties and studying commodities.

  He felt a little better. But still lonely.

  One of Wayfarer's bodyguards broke his leg two hours before a flight, with no time to replace him. “You don't mind, do you, Herb?”

  Not only had Herb never been on an airplane, he had never dreamed of flying first-class. He was nervous about flying, but excited.

  Wayfarer said he was to board to check out the cabin. They were late to the airport, and there was some confusion, until Roderick explained the situation to the boarding attendant.

  The first-class cabin was nearly full, the flight attendance preoccupied with a screaming set of triplets in back, and Herb didn't know how to find his seat. He turned to a matronly woman sitting on the aisle. “Pardon me, ma'am, could you –?”

  The woman shrieked. “My god, a wolf!”

  The man sitting down behind her said, “Calm down. It's only a mangy dog. Stewardess! Stewardess, a dog has wandered onto the plane.”

  “Get that thing out of here,” someone else said. “I'm allergic. I paid good money to have a good seat on this plane. What is this airline coming to? I'm writing a letter!”

  “No, I have a – ouch!” The allergic man had swatted him with the inflight magazine. Herb's ticket fell from his pouch and was trampled.

  Wayfarer strolled onto the plane. “Herb, what is going on here?”

  The matronly woman turned. “Oh, my, you're – you're – you're that famous one, aren't you? I have your book in my purse!”

  “Wayfarer Felis”, supplied the allergic man.

  “This is terrible,” the woman said. “A celebrity on board and this scruffy beast causing trouble! He could eat her! I'll complain to the airline for you, dear. You will autograph my book, won't you?”

  “That dog is my traveling companion,” Wayfarer said.

  “Oh – my --”

  “I can see I have a long way to go in my mission to bring animals to full legal stature.” Everyone looked respectfully chastened.

  A steward hurried up, Herb's ticket was found, and he was seated beside Wayfarer with many apologies. Wayfarer looked coldly at him. “You should have handled it,” she hissed under her breath, then smiled at the matronly woman and autographed her book with a pawprint.

  There was caviar for Wayfarer. The flight attendants were polite, even deferential, to Herb, but it seemed everyone wanted to pretend he didn't exist. Wayfarer didn't say another word to him.

  Herb resigned before she could fire him. He talked to a lawyer, who talked to Roderick; a week later, he put his pawprint on a release from any future demands on Wayfarer and took t
he check she wrote him in return without a word.

  Managing a six-unit apartment building was hard work. On a typical day he might take a shoulder to Mrs. Fox's stuck window, vacuum the front steps with a vacuum hose in his mouth, drain the muck from the hot-water heater, mediate a dispute between across-the-hall neighbors, grant the young dance student a week extension on her rent, take out the trash, and call the plumber about the Prokopiak's toilet. The roach problem would be getting worse again, the neighborhood kids throwing beer bottles on the front lawn, and the gutters developing a leak.

  He was exhausted. He was deeply satisfied.

  And every night at 11:30, he would look both ways, sneak up the stairs and across the hall to apartment 2-B and snuggle under the blankets at the feet of his tenant – Angela Norlander.

  It was a dog's life. He could deal with it.

  River Man

  Michael H. Payne

  Infinite parallel worlds are a classically popular s-f theme, but the alternate Earths are usually all populated by humans. Not Michael H. Payne’s. Starting with his “Rat’s Reputation” in FurVersion #16, May 1989, and such stories as “Crow’s Curse” (L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, vol. VII, July 1991), “Rat’s Reckoning” (Tomorrow Speculative Fiction, June 1997),”Law and Justice” (Black Gate #5, Spring 2003), “Three Ladies” (Claw & Quill, October 2004), "Lady Raven and the Falcon Prince" (New Fables #1, Summer 2007), and especially in his novel The Blood Jaguar (Tor Books, December 1998), Payne has portrayed worlds populated by every species of mammal except man – sometimes bipedal and clothes-wearing, and sometimes four-footed and furry – but all intelligent and joined in a common society, yet acting very humanly. “River Man” differs only in that a human is introduced into that society (and there are brief glimpses of others). How does it differ from ours? Not very much.

  THE platform at Kahnbir Station had seen one flood too many; Clem shifted on the warped bench till he found a hollow and settled back with a sigh. At least with spring on the way, the rains would start slacking off and traffic along the river could get back to normal.

  Today the Talia flowed quiet and gentle enough along the dock below the platform. The jungle on either side of the river shimmered as the wind washed past, the sun dancing through the billows above and crackling warm through Clem's fur, the clouds' shadows brushing over the station and shivering wonderfully down his tail.

  He closed his eyes and thought about the ocean. So many coatis had moved to the cities along the coast that Clem saw more and more of that great, rolling expanse with every trip down river. The salt scent of it, its crashing waves, the sheer size of the thing made the spins and splashes of the Talia seem so small; Clem could understand folks wanting to move down there. With another sigh, he curled up on the bench and set his ears to catch the whistle and chug of Old Ephram's barge, his eventual ride up river.

  But instead of the whistle, voices woke him from his doze: two voices, neither one coati, arguing under the river's rush and the jungle's rustle. Clem rolled to look back down the trail. The high, mewling voice was probably a cat's, but the other...the other had a lilt to it Clem didn't recognize.

  "Oh, sure," this second voice was saying. "Like I wanted to be here in the first place! Like any of this is real!"

  "Whine, whine, whine," the cat replied. "Was it me that demanded we come to this stinking jungle? I don't think so. Y'know, I just might be starting to have second thoughts about leading you around like this."

  "Might be?? You've had it in for me from the beginning, Gherk; admit it!"

  "Yeah, right; I enjoy getting my fur pulled out saving folks I hate from boxhounds. Get a brain, Betty."

  "And don't call me that! My name's Elizabeth!"

  "Then don't call me Gherk!"

  "Well, what kind of name is 'Gherkin?'"

  "Gherkin is an ancient and respectable feline monicker, Betty, and furthermore--"

  At this point, the two rounded the corner of the trail below Kahnbir Station, and Clem sat up and stared. One was a cat, all right, a tabby gliderumbler like the kind who danced the stars between every earth from the Deep Past to the Far Future. But the other, the other had to be a human. Nothing else Clem had ever heard of looked like that: upright like a bear; furless as a lizard but with a terrga's bushy topknot; smooth as a dolphin but colored more like a fish; thin arms and legs wrapped in layers of cloth.

  The argument continued as they stomped up to the station platform, the cat's tail lashing the air as she said, "I am doing this, I'll have you know, out of the goodness of my heart! I leave you alone for even two minutes, and, wham! you're gremlin food, you got that?"

  "Oh, please! Who was it pulled your tail out of that boxhound's claws on our way here, huh?? Who was it—"

  "Hey, who's the professional gliderumbler here?" The cat bent back and licked at her tail. "You humans are a hazard to navigation, pure and simple. You've got no head for reality."

  The human stopped on the top step of the platform and stared down at the cat. "Reality? Reality?? Excuse me, Gherk, but reality has very little to do with talking animals and robots and jumping through space from planet to planet! Reality is an alarm clock buzzing at 6:15 every morning so you can maybe get something to eat before catching the bus to school for an extra hour of physics so you can maybe pass the AP test, maybe get into a decent college and maybe get the classes you need so you can get a job that pays more than minimum wage and maybe make a living for yourself!"

  She swept an arm over the jungle, the river, the station and Clem himself. "This is nothing but some twisted fever dream, and I absolutely refuse to spend the rest of my life wandering around in it!" The human spun and shouted back down the trail: "Do you hear me?? You're nothing but a pack of cards! Nothing!"

  When the human wheeled back, her teeth gritted and her fists clenched, the cat only yawned. "Finished?" she asked.

  The human looked like she was about to kick the cat into the river, but with a shudder, she just seemed to deflate. Back onto a bench she dropped and wiped a naked paw over her forehead. "Just...just leave me alone...."

  "Sure thing." The cat came over to the edge of the platform, looked up and down the river, then turned and nodded to Clem. "Howdy, cousin. Any idea when the next barge up river's coming through?"

  Clem had to laugh at that. "Up river? Cousin, no one but me is stupid enough to ride up river this time of year, and I only do it 'cause it's my job." He stuck out a paw. "I'm Clemyento Paracas, but, please, call me Clem."

  The cat brushed her paw against Clem's. "I'm Gherkin, and that," she jerked her head toward the human, "that's the remains of Betty Kaufitz."

  "Elizabeth," the human groaned, slumped down on the bench, one arm across her eyes. "The name's Elizabeth."

  "Whatever." Gherkin flashed Clem a grin. "Is there a barge coming or isn't there?"

  "Maybe." Clem squinted at the sun hopping through the clouds. "The Ephrams usually get here about midday when they come at all. Another month or so, they'll come through twice a week, but during the rainy season..." He spread his paws.

  Gherkin's grin curled at her whiskers again. "Hey, Betty, you hear that? We might just be here a spell."

  "Wonderful," came the other's cracking voice.

  Clem looked over at her and cleared his throat. "Excuse me, cousin Elizabeth, but are you truly a human?"

  She raised her arm and glared across the benches at him. "Yes, I am truly a human. And if your next comment is going to be: 'Well, it certainly is unusual to see a human out along the gliderumbles,' do me a favor and don't say it. That's all I've heard for the past however many weeks, and it's getting a little old." Her pointed, mostly white eyes blinked at him. "So what are you? A raccoon?"

  "A coatimundi, actually." Clem smiled. "I'm sorry if I offended. It's just that we've only had two human visitors in the recorded history of the Talia valley. I wouldn't know how rare humans are along the gliderumbles, though; I don't get away from the river much in my line of work."r />
  The cat cocked her head. "Why? What do you do?"

  Clem brushed at his whiskers. "I'm the local griot."

  Both the cat and the human gave him blank looks.

  "Forgive me; I forget you're from different earths. I'm, well, a newspaper I guess is the word. I go up and down the Talia from the settlements in the snow country all the way to Ballavwa along the coast and tell folks what's going on." He shrugged. "It keeps me pretty busy."

  Gherkin slapped a paw against the bench. "Hey, hey! Betty, is this luck or what?"

  Elizabeth had sat up suddenly, the bench creaking beneath her. "The River Man," she said, her eyes wide. "Do you know where we can find the River Man?"

  "The River Man?" Clem could only stare for a moment. "How do you know about the River Man?"

  The cat shrugged. "Those robots up in the Far Future have just about everything stored somewhere, and they'll tell you all about it whether you want 'em to or not."

  "But...but..." Clem looked from one to the other. "Why the River Man?"

  "He's got to get me back." Elizabeth moved across the platform to the bench behind Clem's. "The robots said if you find him, he grants you one wish, no matter how impossible. He's my only chance to get home."

  Clem shook his head quickly. "I'm afraid I don't understand. Can't Gherkin take you back to your earth?"

  The cat gave a snort. "I could if I'd brought her up from her earth. But Betty went and did it the hard way."

  "The hard way?"

  Elizabeth pulled at her yellow topknot. "Yeah. I did it myself."