A Growling Shepherd entered, dragging a shaggy man. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with the man, so I assumed he was merely being brought in for his rabies shot.
Then it was my turn. Waldo led me to the other room. There was something vaguely awful about it, and my whole body was shaking with apprehension. There was a high table there, and I had to climb up on it and perch uncomfortably on the clammy surface. Until the Vet arrived.
The Doctor Dog entered—and I almost wet my pants. He was a huge Massive with jowls like those of a senator, and he must have weighed two hundred pounds. But it was his aspect more than his size that terrified me. I wanted to leap off that table and run, but the Massive showed his teeth and I was petrified. My chest hurt worse than ever as I labored to breathe.
The Massive took my shirt in his teeth and ripped it from my quaking body. I huddled there, unable to move. He sniffed me thoroughly, then gave a short, sharp, ominous bark. A little Peek&See trotted in with a huge horse pill in her teeth. She dropped it on the table next to me and fluffed out again. As the door swung open for her I saw through it to a black Lab-Raider making tests in the lab. This place was well staffed!
The Massive nudged the pill toward me. The thing must have been an inch in diameter! "Oh, no!" I cried, my voice coming out in falsetto so that it sounded like a yipe. "I'd choke to death on that monster!"
Waldo tried to calm me, but I was already on edge because of the screams I had heard coming from this room before I entered. I scrambled off the table and broke for the door. Undismayed, the Doctor woofed—and a giant shape loomed before me.
It was a Great Damn—I mean, a Great Dame—the biggest bitch I'd ever seen. She didn't even bother to growl. She just advanced ponderously, smiling with all her teeth, and I retreated, step by step. When I backed into the table I snatched up that horse pill and gulped it right down. The Great Dame woofed approvingly and turned her bulk about, going her matronly way.
They certainly knew how to keep errant humans in line! I was glad Waldo was there to watch out for my interests. I only hoped he wouldn't leave me in the kennel.
At last Waldo took me out. At the entrance we met a beautiful red Settler towing an Irishman. "Sure, an' I've never been here before," the man cried to me. "Is it bad?"
"Nothing to it," I replied, sticking out my chest—and you know, it didn't hurt any more! That pill had somehow fixed it, and I felt just fine.
Then Waldo urged me on, leaving Irish and Settler to their fate. Almost frisking, I trotted toward home, ignoring the mean human animals that guarded their canine master's lots. But Waldo remained strangely nervous. What was he afraid of? This was his world, wasn't it? Where the dogs ran things?
Two Police Dogs came toward us. Waldo whined—and abruptly I understood. This was his world—but he was in some kind of trouble with the canine law! So he had had to flee, going hungry in an alien world, until I had taken him in. To help me, he had ventured once more into this realm, taking me to a qualified vet. But some dirty dog must have checked his registry, and now the police had sniffed him out.
I am not a large man, but I'm a sight bigger than the average dog. My shirt was in tatters and I knew I looked fierce. I took a menacing step toward those Police Dogs, and saw them draw up short, seeing me unleashed. "Get your tails out of here!" I bawled fiercely.
It was too much for them. They were trained to handle unruly canines, but there was a psychological horror to a wild man. They retreated.
We ran down an alley, the Police Dogs following at a fair distance and baying out an all-points bulletin. Soon we would be surrounded and overwhelmed!
Suddenly there was a nondescript cat in front of us. This, too, was strange; my Weimaraner had never before chased cats.
Then I saw that the cat was not fleeing, but leading. She dodged around a Painter mutt working on a house, hissed off a slender Dayhound, and leaped right over a sleeping Balldog. She was showing us an escape route!
Could that have been Waldo's crime, here? Helping a cat? Now she or one of her friends was repaying the favor!
Abruptly we were at my door, and the cat was gone. I stopped to look back—and the neighborhood was familiar. No big dog houses or cat houses in sight, no chained, naked men. Just the conventional human suburban sprawl.
I knew it would do no good to backtrack; I would never find the realm of the canine masters. Waldo would not dare show his muzzle there again, either; they would be on watch for him. But now the favors were all even, and I comprehended at last the scheme from which my dog had come.
I reached down and rubbed his floppy gray ear. "Come on, pal," I said, taking a deep and painless breath. "I'll split a steak with you."
Copyright © 1985 by Piers Anthony
Cover art by Joe Bergeron
ISBN: 0-812-53114-0