Restricted on our limited data-access time, I finally managed to check the database, and, as well as I could figure, Rudy was most likely a miniature, cream, soft-coat wire-haired dachshund; a variety I’d never heard of. While Keryleyn made a few comments about his not being a longhair, especially after all we’d paid, he was so affectionate, so bright, and so damned cute, there was no way we were ever going to let go of him.
But Keryleyn was right. From the moment he raced around our small quarters, chasing after the balls I got the fabrication team to make out of plastex scraps, until he settled down on his little pallet, he brought a definite warmth and brightness to our lives.
The first time I took him out of the dome was in the evening, when the daylight was dimming. We seldom had true sunsets, because of the high haze-clouds, and it was always quiet on Nieuwhuis, almost spooky-quiet. There were rustles and whispers everywhere, but we could barely hear them. The native vegetation seemed to absorb sound, and the quiet, especially when our teams weren’t working and, incidentally, making noise, made the entire planet feel like a well-lit haunted house—not that I’d ever been in one.
But that first time out, I had Rudy on a leash, because he was only four months old, and I didn’t want him dashing off beyond the domes into the jangle, that tangled mass of scrawny gray-green growth that wove itself into intricate and unintelligible patterns in places and left inexplicable pathways to nowhere in other locales. Except on the north continent, where there were lizard-like quadrupeds the size of small alligators, but with much longer legs, most of the wildlife we’d observed tended to be small and much of it burrowing, possibly because of the comparative frequency of solar flux-flares.
Rudy was definitely curious, but cautiously so. The first thing he sniffed was the sealant that linked the outer skin of the dome to the permacrete base. Then we took the walkway toward dome five. We were about halfway there when he turned toward the jangle, more than fifty meters away. I kept him on short leash—also from the fabrication shop—but let him investigate the mossgrass that tended to spread from the jangle, even onto sterilized ground, at least until the Terran crabgrass got well-established.
A molecat peered out of the undergrowth, studying Rudy from a distance.
Rudy studied the molecat back, sniffing as he did. Then he whined once and edged back toward me. Even so, the molecat retreated into the jangle.
I was surprised Rudy didn’t bark. Keryleyn and I had dachshunds back on Old Earth, and every other dachshund barked. Some enjoyed barking. Some only barked to announce or warn of intruders. But they all barked. Rudy had no interest in barking. He could bark—he barked all of three times in his first six months, the first time when Arlena and Pietro came to our quarters.
Arlena practically squealed “He’s so cute!!!”
Pietro laughed and slapped the wall.
Rudy gave one short bark and then planted himself at Keryleyn’s feet. She picked him up and said, as she held him, “They’re friends.” Then she set him down.
After several sniffs, especially of their boots, Rudy agreed.
Rudy just wasn’t interested in barking. He was also extremely sensitive to loud noises. In fact, they frightened him incredibly. In that respect, it might have been good that Nieuwhuis was a quiet planet, although I often wondered why that was so, or if possibly the native fauna just communicated on frequencies we couldn’t hear.
Other than not barking, Rudy was a dachshund—friendly, sweet, and definitely energetic. And definitely fast. He also was much stronger than other dachshunds, at least from what Keryleyn and I recalled, and training him was, shall we say, a challenge, except for being house-broken and understanding the word “No.” So, when he was outside, especially at night, under the double moons, he was always on leash, a short leash, at that.
Even as a puppy, if he didn’t want to go somewhere outside the dome, it was a good possibility that there might be molecat pits or fire-spider webs. And that meant I’d have to go out in kevlex later, with a torch or an adze, and take care of the problem. But he didn’t bark. He just didn’t go there. He’d plant his feet if I tried to get him to move where he didn’t want to go, but only when outside.
Rudy certainly enjoyed sniffing around, especially where the ground had just been cleared for a new dome. With his tail wagging and his nose down, it seemed as though he needed to inspect every square centimeter of bare and sterilized soil, although Keryleyn and I both wondered exactly what smells remained in the ground after the sterilization process.
He was incredibly affectionate and less destructive than most dachshund puppies—but that might have been because there really wasn’t much to destroy, except for stray plastex scraps, of which there were quite a few as we expanded the domes. Still, if given too much time and too little supervision, he would reduce those scraps to tiny shreds, something that the molecats and the ratlings couldn’t, or wouldn’t, manage.
Having an essentially unmodified dachshund on Nieuwhuis possibly wasn’t the best idea, but he was so warm and enthused to see us; a spot of unforced energy and affection amid the cool business of building what we could while we could. His presence at night, on his little pallet next to ours, if he wasn’t on ours as well, was more than welcome. He was warm physically as well as emotionally, and we appreciated it.
I suppose that was natural when you’re all strangers in a strange land—or world.
The other pairs on the team often stopped by, more to see Rudy, I think, than to see us, but he did give us all something to talk about besides building the domes for the next wave of settlers—or re-settlers, since some were coming from the mess of the Centauri fiasco.
We’d sit on cushions on the floor in the main room and just talk and watch Rudy. Arlena was his favorite among those who visited. He’d bring her one of his battered and gnawed plastex balls and whine for her to throw it. She’d throw it, and he’d have the ball and be back at her knees in an instant. When Arlena got tired, Rudy would come to me next.
Rudy was a little more than a standard year old when the big flux-flare hit. We all knew that the flares occurred frequently, and that was likely why so much of the animal life on Nieuwhuis dug tunnels, holes, or had dens in rocky area. It was also theorized that was why intelligent life had never developed, but even the astrophysicists and the biologists admitted that was just an educated guess.
Anyway, most times the geomagnetic storms were moderate. We’d only had to shelter, for real, three or four times since we’d been on Nieuwhuis, and compared to the problems other planetary settlements were having, holing up in the domes for a few days every few years was more of an inconvenience.
When the alarm came, I was on the job, installing ventilation ducts in dome nine, the latest dome under construction.
Geomagnetic event. Estimated strength G-9. Shut down and shelter immediately…
Even I knew a G-9 was bad, really bad.
We shut everything down and sprinted for our respective domes. We would have been shielded from the radiation and the flux in dome nine, but not from induced current flows, which were problematic in an unfinished dome. It also would have been damp and uncomfortable, and we’d have been more than a little miserable before the magnetic storm subsided and it was safe to leave .