“I must be mad,” Hewitt said as Pacer fitted the dog into its carrying case. “I can’t afford to pay eight hundred monits for a supertoy.”
“You can always bring it back.” Pacer closed up the plastic case and slid it across the counter. “If young Billy gets tired of it, or maybe you get another transfer, bring it in and I’ll give you a fifty percent refund.”
“Can you do that?”
“No trouble. We can wipe the brain clean and sell the dog to somebody else. There’s a big demand for this sort of product on Mesonia.”
“I may take you up on that,” Hewitt said. He lifted the case and went out into the bright mid-morning ambience of the street. This part of the colony had been in existence for eighty years and the maturing shrubs and ornamental trees outside the buildings created a sense of homeliness and permanence. Feeling the warmth of the spring air, Hewitt was glad he had decided to walk to the commissary building. He was tall for a colonist and he enjoyed the exercise of striding along the busy street in the direction of the southern residential development where he lived.
His route home took him past the arrivals and induction centre, which was a pyramidal structure whose architecture reinforced the dual-space properties of the pyramid-shaped receiving chamber at its heart. The number of vehicles parked outside it suggested to Hewitt that the null-space transmission conditions were favourable and that new colonists were being brought through. He could imagine them stepping out of the chamber, naked and hungry, stunned with the realization that they – in one instant – had left Earth and all its ways forty light years behind them. The Ferrari Transfer was psychologically brutal, as well as being fantastically expensive, but it was the only practicable form of interstellar travel that mankind had ever devised.
At least, Hewitt thought, inhaling the scented air, the newcomers are getting a good day for it.
As he walked up the long slope his views of the surrounding terrain became more extensive and he could see, stretching away to the west, the manufacturing areas which were supplied from the mineral-rich hills beyond. He was always impressed and stirred by the visible evidence of how the original cadre of pioneers, equipped with only a few basic machines, had managed to create a viable settlement on an alien planet. That was where the real challenge and excitement of colonization lay – in being in the first hundred, stepping out of the chamber on to virgin soil, living rough and working hard to pave the way for others. It was also where the big money lay. Tax-free quadruple pay for the first four years, with nothing much to spend it on, and – at the end of that time – prestige and a plushy engineering consultancy. As an expert on extraterrestrial soil mechanics, Hewitt was doing well on Mesonia – on a raw planet it was vital to know how much or how little in the way of foundations each costly new structure required. But he had arrived seven years behind the trail-blazers, when the bloom was off the cosmic grape, and his only chance of rapid advancement lay in the possibility that he might be selected for a later outward thrust.
Hewitt neared the end of the main road and turned in to the side avenue in which his single-storey house was the last one before the sea of grass began. Billy was sitting on the front step, alone as usual. The Company encouraged settlers with young families, for the simple reason that a child’s body had less mass than an adult’s and therefore could be transmitted far more cheaply. It was an economical way of getting future colonists into space. Few people who underwent the Ferrari Transfer liked bringing children with them, however, and the colony tended to be a lonely place for a boy of eight. Billy, ever watchful, saw Hewitt as he turned the corner and came running to meet him.
“Hi, Dad!” Billy fell into step beside Hewitt and took his hand. “What’s in the case?”
“Guess.” Hewitt had not said anything about going to look at a dog because his common sense might have reasserted itself in time to prevent the purchase.
“Well,” Billy said soberly, taking measured paces, “it can’t be a dog.”
“Can’t it?”
“Dad!” Billy looked up at him, his round face an absurd caricature of delight, and Hewitt experienced a pang of pure happiness. He handed the case to his son and almost laughed aloud with pleasure as Billy darted ahead and disappeared around the corner of the white-painted house. Hewitt followed at an unhurried pace and was met at the kitchen door by Liz, who was wearing a silver spark-suit which emphasized the blackness of her hair. The Saturday-morning aroma of coffee wafted around her through the open door.
“Thanks, Sam,” Liz said, pressing her cheek against his lips. “I know we can’t really afford it, but it’ll be so good for Billy.”
“It’s all right.” He drew her against him. “We’ll just economize on toothpicks and string and things like that for a while.”
“You’re crazy,” she said warmly. “Come in and have some coffee.”
“Okay, but I’ll show Billy how to get the dog going first.” Hewitt paused as he heard his son talking to someone in the living room. “Who’s in there?”
Liz looked apologetic. “Carl’s here.”
“Aw, Christ! This is supposed to be my day off.”
“I know, darling, but I can’t very well send him away when he calls at the door.”
Hewitt closed his eyes for a moment, then went through to the living room, suppressing his resentment over a family occasion having been invaded and spoiled. Carl Mendip was slightly older than Hewitt and was his immediate senior in the constructional engineering section. He boasted a lot about being able to bank most of his salary, and spent much of his off-duty time sitting in Hewitt’s favourite chair extolling the pleasures of bachelorhood. When Hewitt entered the room Mendip already had the dog out of its case and was handing it to Billy.
“Morning, Sammy boy,” Mendip said. These things aren’t worth the money, you know.”
“It was worth it to me.”
Mendip shrugged. “I wouldn’t have paid it.”
“Did anybody ask you to?”
“In a bad mood, are we?” Mendip examined Hewitt with calm amusement.
Hewitt stared back at him, trying to be impassive, wishing he had controlled his tongue. One man in their engineering section was likely to be transferred to Nimrod, a world which had been broached only recently. As the senior and most experienced man, Mendip had the best chance, but Company policy had dictated that he should also nominate a member of his section for consideration, and – with an unsubtle display of magnanimity – he had put Hewitt’s name forward. Ever since then the dominating factor in their relationship was that Mendip’s recommendation could be withdrawn by him at any moment. It was a yoke which Hewitt wore with increasing irritation even though he knew the situation was fairly temporary.
“Sorry, Carl,” he said, and turned his attention to Billy, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor with the rigidlimbed dog in his lap. “What are you going to call it, son?”
“I think I’ll call him Bramble,” Billy replied.
“What a name!” Mendip gave a hoot of derision. “You can’t call it that.”
Billy looked puzzled. “Can’t I, Dad?”
“Bramble suits him very well and that’s what we’ll call him.” Hewitt moved in between the other man and his son and knelt down. He guided Billy’s finger on to the activating button and explained what he had to do. Liz came into the room at that moment and watched as Billy held the dog with its face towards him and depressed the button. There was no sound, but the rodog yawned as though wakening from a sleep, its eyes brightened into life, the short legs stirred slightly as they adjusted to distribute the weight, and the ribcage began to pulsate in a simulation of breathing.