Already Among Us Read online

  Her ears suddenly shot up as a wild rabbit bounded across the road some fifty yards ahead, and without warning she flung herself through the open window and hit the pavement running. She disappeared into the grain in a few bounds on a course calculated to intercept the rabbit ahead.

  “Stop!” Jackson cried, and was out of the car while the tires were still whining, and off after Number Nine.

  He coursed thorough the knee-high grain like a hunting dog, and wished he had one. He found Number Nine's spectacles, discarded, he suspected, for less intellectual pursuits.

  He tried cajolery, “Here, Number Nine! Here, baby! I won't kill you. Come back, please, little rabbit!”

  He returned in dejection to the edge of the field where Cynthia stood. She took it well.

  “After all,” she said, “it's just another rabbit. You can repeat the treatment on a new one.”

  Jackson grunted as she started the car.

  “Maybe,” he said, “but just maybe, she won't pass her characteristics to the next generation. But she knows the treatment.”

  “So what?” Cynthia said lightly. “Where to?”

  “I'm hungry.”

  They had a sandwich and coffee at a drive-in. Jackson gloomed in silence, and Cynthia let him alone.

  “Now where?” she asked, when they were on their way again.

  “Let's stop at my place first. I left the radio on.”

  He left Cynthia at the curb while he ran into the house. He turned off the radio, and noticed the laboratory door was open, the light on. He went to it, not daring to hope.

  His pessimism was justified. Not only was the carbon copy of his notes gone, but so also was every chemical he had used in the treatment of Number Nine.

  And rabbits, he thought with real fear, multiply.

  Socrates

  John Christopher

  Dogs are, famously, “man’s best friend”. John Christopher supposes a loyalty to mankind that transcends sapience. Socrates, a mutant airedale pup, is possibly more intelligent and self-aware at four months than an average human adult, yet he displays an inferiority complex towards humans and is instinctively subservient to the drunken Jennings who beats him. This attitude is rare in anthropomorphic fiction, where intelligent animals are more apt to fight for social equality. Is this more realistic? Or is it just to make more dramatic fiction, which requires some kind of conflict?

  I HAD closed the lab for the afternoon and was walking down toward the front gate, meaning to take a bus into town, when I heard the squeals from the direction of the caretaker's cottage. I'm fond of animals and hate to hear them in pain, so I walked through the gate into the cottage yard. What I saw horrified me.

  Jennings, the caretaker, was holding a young puppy in his hand and beating its head against the stone wall. At his feet were three dead puppies, and as I came through the gate he tossed a fourth among them, and picked up the last squirming remnant of the litter. I called out sharply, “Jennings! What's going on?”

  He turned to face me, still holding the puppy in his hand. He is a surly-looking fellow at best, but now he looked thunderous.

  “What the hell do you think I'm doing?” he demanded. “Killing off a useless litter—that's what I'm doing.”

  He held the pup out for me to observe.

  “Here,” he went on, “have a look at this and you'll see why.”

  I looked closely. It was the queerest pup I had ever seen. It had a dirty, tan coat and abnormally thick legs. But it was the head that drew attention. It must have been fully four times the size of an ordinary pup of its breed; so big that, although its neck was sturdy, the head seemed to dangle on it like an apple on a stalk.

  “It’s a queer one, all right,” I admitted.

  “Queer?” he explained. “It's a monster, that's what it is.” He looked at me angrily. “And I know the cause of it. I'm not a fool. There was a bit in the Sunday papers a couple of weeks back about it. It's them electrical X-ray machines you have up at the house. It said in the paper about X-rays being able to influence what's to be born and make monsters of them. And look at this for a litter of pedigree airedales; not one that would make even a respectable mongrel. Thirty quid the price of this litter at the very least.”

  “It's a pity,” I said, “but I'm pretty sure the company won't accept responsibility. You must have let your bitch run loose beyond the inner gate and there's no excuse for that. It's too bad you didn't see that bit in the Sunday paper a few weeks earlier; you might have kept her chained up more. You know you've been warned about going near the plant.

  “Yes,” he snarled, “I know what chance I've got of getting money out of those crooks. But at least I can get some pleasure out of braining this lot.”

  He prepared to swing the pup against the wall. It had been quiet while were were talking, but now it gave one low howl and opened large eyes in a way that seemed fantastically to suggest that it had been listening to our conversation, and knew its fate was sealed. I grabbed hold of Jennings' arm pretty roughly.

  “Hold on,” I said. “When did you say those pups were born?”

  “This morning,” he growled.

  I said, “But its eyes are open. And look at the color! Have you ever seen an airedale with blue eyes before?”

  He laughed unpleasantly. “Has anybody ever seen an airedale with a head like that before, or a coat like that? It's no more an airedale than I am. It's a cur. And I know how to deal with it.”

  The pup was whining to itself, as through realizing the futility of making louder noises. I pulled my wallet out.

  “I'll give you a quid for it,” I said.

  He whistled. “You must be mad,” he said. “But why should that worry me? It's yours for the money. Taking it now?”

  “I can't,” I said. “My landlady won't let me. But I'll pay you ten bob a week if you will look after it till I can find it a place. Is it a deal?”

  He put his hand out again. “In advance?”

  I paid him.

  “I'll look after it, guv'nor, even though it goes against the grain. At any rate it'll give Glory something to mother.”

  At least once a day, sometimes twice, I used to call in to see how the pup was getting along. It was progressing amazingly. At the end of the second week Jennings asked for an increase of 2/6d. in the charge for keeping it, and I had to agree. It had fed from the mother for less than a week, after which it had begun to eat its own food, and with a tremendous appetite.

  Jennings scratched his unkempt head when he looked at it. “I don't know. I've never seen a dog like it. Glory didn't give it no lessons in eating or drinking. It just watched her from the corner and one day, when I brought fresh stuff down, it set on it like a wolf. It ain't natural.”

  Watching the pup eat, I was amazed myself. It seemed to have more capacity for food than its mother, and you could almost see it putting on weight and size. And its cleverness! It was hardly more than a fortnight old when I surprised it carefully pawing the latch of the kennel door open, to get at some food that Jennings had left outside while going out to open the gates. But even at that stage I don't think it was such superficial tricks that impressed me, so much as the way I would catch it watching Jennings and me as we leaned over the kennel fence discussing it. There was such an air of attentiveness about the way it sat, with one ear cocked, a puzzled frown on that broad-browed, most uncanine face.

  Jennings said one day, “Though of a name for him yet?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I'm going to call him Socrates.”

  “Socrates?” repeated Jennings. “Something to do with football?”

  I smiled. “There was another great thinker with that name several thousand years ago. A Greek.”

  “Oh,” Jennings said scornfully. “A Greek...”

  One Friday evening I brought a friend down to see Socrates—a man who had made a study of dogs. Jennings wasn't in. This didn't surprise me because he habitually got drunk at least one evening a week and Friday was his favor
ite. I took my friend around to the kennels.

  He didn't say anything when he saw the pup, which was now, after three weeks, the size of a large fox terrier. He examined it carefully, as though he were judging a prize winner at Cruft's. Then he put it down and turned to me.

  “How old did you say this dog is?” he asked.

  I told him.

  He shook his head. “If it were anyone but you who told me, I would call him a liar,” he said. “Man, I've never seen anything like it. And that head.... You say the rest of the litter were the same?”

  “The bodies looked identical,” I told him. “That's what impressed me. You are liable to get queer freak mutations around these new labs of ours—double-headed rats and that sort of thing—but five the same in one litter! That looked like a true mutation to me.”

  He said, “Mutations I'm a bit shaky about, but five alike in one litter look like a true breed to me. What a tragedy that fool killed them.”

  “He killed a goose that might have laid him some very golden eggs,” I said. “Quite apart from the scientific importance of it—I should imagine a biologist would go crazy at the thought—a new mutated breed like this would have been worth a packet. Even this one dog might have all sorts of possibilities. Look!”

  Socrates had pushed an old tin against the wall of the kennel and was using it in an attempt to scale the fence barring the way to the outer world. His paw scrabbled in vain a few inches from the top.

  “Good God!” my friend said. “If it can do that after a month . . .”

  We turned and left the kennels. As we came out I collided with Jennings. He reeled drunkenly past us.

  “Come to feed little Shocratesh,” he said thickly.

  I held his shoulder. “That's all right,” I said. “We've seen to them.”

  When I dropped in the following day, I was surprised to see a huge, roughly painted sign hanging over the kennel door. It read:

  “PRIVATE. NO ADMITTANCE.”

  I tried the door, but it was locked. I looked around. Jennings was watching me.

  “Hello, Professor,” he said. “Can't you read?”

  I said, “Jennings, I've come for the pup. My friend is going to look after him at his kennels.”

  Jennings grinned. “Sorry,” he said, “the dog's not for sale.”

  “What do you mean?” I exclaimed. “I bought him four weeks ago. And I've been paying you for his keep.”

  “You got any writing that says that, Professor?” he asked. “You got a bill of sale?”

  “Don't be ridiculous, Jennings,” I said. “Open the door up.”

  “You even got any witnesses?” he asked. He came over to me confidentially.

  “Look,” he said, “you're a fair man. I heard you telling your friend last night that dog's a gold mine. You know I own him by rights. Here, I'm a fair man myself. Here's three pounds five, the money I've had from you in the last four weeks. You know he's my gold mine by rights. You wouldn't try to do a man like me. You know I paid five quid stud fee for that litter.”

  “It was a bargain,” I said. “you were going to throw the pup at the wall—don't forget that. You wouldn't even know the dog was anything out of the ordinary now. Except for listening to a private conversation last night.” I found my wallet. “Here's ten pounds. That will make good the stud fee and a little extra profit for yourself into the bargain.”

  He shook his head. “I'm not selling, Professor. And I know my rights in the law. You've got no proof; I've got possession.”

  I said, “You idiot! What can you do with him? He will have to be examined by scientists, tested, trained. You don't know anything about it.”

  Jennings spat on the ground. “Scientists!” he exclaimed. “No, I'm not taking him to no scientists. I've got a bit of money saved up. I'm off away from here tomorrow. I'll do the training. And you watch the theaters for the big billboards in a few months' time—George Jennings and his Wonder Dog, Socrates! I'll be up at the West End inside a year.

  It was only three months later that I saw the name on the bills outside the Empire Theater in Barcaster. There had been no word from Jennings during that time. As he had said he would, he had gone with the dog, vanishing completely. Now he was back, and a bill read as he told me it would:

  GEORGE JENNINGS

  AND HIS WONDER DOG,

  SOCRATES

  I went in and bought a seat in the front row. There were some knockabout comedians fooling together on the stage; and after them a team of rather tired-looking acrobats. Jennings was the third in appearance. He strode on to a fanfare of trumpets, and behind him loped Socrates.

  He was bigger and his rough, tan coat was shaggier than ever. His head was more in proportion to his body, too, but it was still huge. He looked nearer to a St. Bernard than any breed I could think of, but he was still very little like a St. Bernard. He was just Socrates, with the same blue eyes blazing that had surprised me that afternoon four months before.

  Jennings had taught him tricks, all right. As they reached the center of the stage, Socrates staggered up on to his hind legs, waddled to the footlights and saluted the audience. He swung effortlessly from the trapezes the acrobats had left, spelled out words in reply to Jennings' questions, pulling alphabet blocks forward with his teeth. He went through all the repertoire that trick dogs usually follow, capping them with an assurance that made the audience watch in respectful silence. But when he left, walking stiffly off the stage, the ovation was tremendous. They came back half a dozen times for encores, Socrates saluting gravely each time the mob of hysterical humans before him. When they had left for the last time, I walked out, too.

  I bribed the doorman to let me know the name of Jennings' hotel. He wasn't staying with the rest of the music-hall people, but by himself in the Grand. I walked over there late in the evening, and had my name sent up. The small, grubby page boy came back in a few minutes.

  “Mr. Jennings says you're to go right up,” he told me, and added the floor and room number.

  I knocked and heard Jennings' voice answer, “Come in!”

  He seemed more prosperous than the Jennings I had known, but there was the same shifty look about him. He was sitting in front of the fire wearing an expensive blue-and-gold dressing gown, and as I entered the room he poured himself whiskey from a decanter. I noticed that his hand shook slightly.

  “Why,” he said thickly, “if it isn't the professor! Always a pleasure to see old friends. Have a drink, Professor.

  He helped me to whiskey.

  “Here's to you, Professor,” he said, “and to Socrates, the Wonder Dog!”

  I said, “Can I see him?”

  He grinned, “Any time you like. Socrates!”

  A door pushed open and Socrates walked in, magnificent in his bearing and in the broad, intelligent face from which those blue eyes looked out. He advanced to Jennings' chair and dropped into immobility, head couched between powerful paws.

  “You seen our show?” Jennings asked.

  I nodded.

  “Great isn't it? But it's only the beginning. We're going to show them! Socrates, do the new trick.”

  Socrates jumped up and left the room, returning a moment later pulling a small wooden go-cart, gripping a rope attached to it in his teeth. I noticed that the card had a primitive pedal arrangement near the front, fixed to the front wheels. Socrates suddenly leaped into the card, and, moving the pedals with his paws, propelled himself along the room. As he reached the wall, the cart swerved and I noticed that his tail worked a rudderlike arrangement for steering. He went the reverse length of the room and turned again, but this time failed to allow enough clearance. The cart hit the side wall and Socrates toppled off.

  Jennings rose to his feet in an instant. He snatched a whip from the wall, and, while Socrates cowered, thrashed him viciously, cursing him all the time for his failure.

  I jumped forward and grappled with Jennings. At last I got the whip away from him and he fell back exhausted in the chair and
reached for the whiskey decanter.

  I said angrily, “You madman! Is this how you train the dog?”

  He looked up at me over his whiskey glass. “Yes,” he said, “this is my way of training him! A dog's got to learn respect for his master. He doesn't understand anything but the whip. Socrates!”

  He lifted his whip hand, and the dog cowered down.

  “I've trained him,” he went on. “He's going to be the finest performing dog in the world before I'm through.”

  I said, “Look, Jennings, I'm not a rich man, but I've got friends who will advance me the money. I'll get you a thousand pounds for Socrates.”

  He sneered. “So you want to cash in on the theaters, too?”

  “I promise that if you sell Socrates to me, he will never be used for profit by anyone.”

  He laughed. “A hell of a lot I care what would happen to him if I sold him. But I'm not selling; not for a penny under £20,000. Why, the dog's a gold mine.”

  “You are determined about that?” I asked.

  He got up again. “I'll get you the advance bills for our next engagement,” he said. “Top billing already! Hang on; they're only next door.”

  He walked out unsteadily. I looked down to where Socrates lay, watching everything in the way that had fascinated me when he was a pup. I called to him softly:

  “Socrates.”

  He pricked up his ears. I felt crazy, but I had to do it. I whispered to him, “Socrates, follow me back as soon as you can get away. Here, take the scent from my coat.”

  I held my sleeve out to him, and he sniffed it. He wagged his huge, bushy tail slowly. Then Jennings was back with his bill-heads, and I made my excuses and left.

  I walked back—a matter of two or three miles. The more I thought, the more insane did it seem that the dog could have heeded and understood my message. It had been an irrational impulse.

  I had found new accommodation in the months since Jennings' disappearance; in a cottage with a friendly old couple. I had brought Tess, my own golden retriever, from home, and they both adored her. She was sitting on the inside window ledge as I walked slowly up the garden path, and her barks brought old Mrs. Dobby to the door to let me in. Tess came bouncing to meet me and her silky paws were flung up towards my chest. I patted and stroked her into quietness and, after washing, settled down to a pleasant tea.