Moray snatched from a pocket the little receiving set his people always carried with them. Suddenly, and unmuffled this time, shrilled the attention-demanding musical note. Moray leaped up with haste ...
But he hesitated. He was undecided – incredibly so. 'I don't want to go,' he said slowly to Birch, astonishment at himself in every word.
The horror in Birch's eyes was large now. 'Don't want to! Moray ! It's your Master!'
`But it isn't – well, fair,' he complained. 'He couldn't have found out that I was with you tonight. Maybe he does know it. And if he had the heart to investigate he would know that –that —' Moray swallowed convulsively. 'That you're more important to me than even he is,' he finished rapidly.
`Don't say that!' she cried, agitated. 'It's like a crime! Moray you'd better go.'
`All right,' he said sullenly, catching up his cape. And he had known all along that he would go. 'You stay here and finish the show. I can get to the roof alone.'
Moray stepped from the apartment into a waiting elevator and shot up to the top of the building. 'I need a fast plane,' he said to an attendant. 'Master's call.' A speed-lined ship was immediately trundled out before him; he got in and the vessel leaped into the air.
One hundred thousand years of forced evolution had done strange things to the canine family. Artificial mutations, rigorous selection, all the tricks and skills of the animal breeder had created a super-dog. Moray was about four feet tall, but no dwarf to his surroundings, for all the world was built to that scale. He stood on his hind legs, for the buried thigh-joint had been extruded by electronic surgery, and his five fingers were long and tapering, with beautifully formed claws capable of the finest artisanry.
And Moray's face was no more canine than your face is simian. All taken in all, he would have been a peculiar but not a fantastic figure could he have walked out into a city of the Twentieth Century. He might easily have been taken for nothing stranger than a dwarf.
Indeed, the hundred thousand years had done more to the Masters than to their dogs. As had been anticipated, the brain had grown and the body shrunk, and there had been a strong tendency toward increased myopia and shrinkage of the distance between the eyes. Of the thousands of sports born to the Masters who had volunteered for genetic experimentation, an indicative minority had been born with a single, unfocussable great eye over a sunken nosebridge, showing a probable future line of development.
The Masters labored no longer; that was for the dog people and more often for the automatic machines. Experimental research, even, was carried on by the companion race, the Masters merely collating the tabulated results, and deducing from and theorizing upon them.
Humankind was visibly growing content with less in every way. The first luxury they had relinquished had been gregariousness. For long generations men had not met for the joy of meeting. There was no such thing as an infringement on the rights of others; a sort of telepathy adjusted all disputes.
Moray's plane roared over the Andes, guided by inflexible directives. A warning sounded in his half-attentive ears; with a start he took over the controls of the craft. Below him, high on the peak of an extinct volcano, he saw the square white block which housed his Master. Despite his resentment at being snatched away from Birch he felt a thrill of excitement at the sensed proximity of his guiding intelligence.
He swung the plane down and grooved it neatly in a landing notch which automatically, as he stepped out, swung round on silent pivots and headed the plane ready for departure. Moray entered through a door that rolled aside as he approached. His nostrils flared. Almost at the threshold of scent he could feel the emanations of his Master. Moray entered the long, hot corridor that led to his Master's living quarters, and paused before a chrome-steel door.
In a few seconds the door opened, silently, and Moray entered a dark room, his face twitching with an exciting presence. He peered through the gloom, acutely aware of the hot, moist atmosphere of the chamber. And he saw his Master – tiny, shrivelled, quite naked, his bulging skull supported by the high back of the chair.
Moray advanced slowly and stood before the seated human. Without opening his eyes, the Master spoke in a slow, thin voice.
`Moray, this is your birthday.' There was no emphasis on one word more than another; the tone was that of a deaf man.
`Yes, Master,' said Moray. 'A – friend and I were celebrating it when you called. I came as quickly as possible.'
The voice piped out again, 'I have something for you, Moray. A present.' The eyes opened for the first time, and one of the Master's hands gripped spasmodically a sort of lever in his chair. The eyes did not see Moray, they were staring straight ahead; but there was a shallow crease to the ends of his lips that might have been an atavistic muscle's attempt at a smile. A panel swung open in the wall, and there rolled out a broad, flat dolly bearing an ancient and thoroughly rotted chest. Through the cracks in the wood there was seen a yellowish gleam of ancient paper.
The Master continued speaking, though with evidence of a strain. Direct oral conversation told on the clairvoyant, accustomed to the short cuts of telepathy. 'These are the biographies of the lives of the North American Presidents. When you were very young – perhaps you do not remember – you expressed curiosity about them. I made arrangements then to allow you to research the next important find of source-material on the subject. This is it. It was discovered six months ago, and I have saved it for your birthday.'
There was a long silence, and Moray picked up one of the books. It had been treated with preservatives, he noted, and was quite ready for work. He glanced at a title page unenthusiastically. What had interested him in his childhood was boring in full maturity.
`Are you ready to begin now?' whispered the human.
Moray hesitated. The strange confusion that he had felt was growing in him again, wordlessly, like a protesting howl. 'Excuse me, please,' he stammered, stepping back a pace.
The Master bent a look of mild surprise upon him.
`I am sorry. I – I don't wish to do this work.' Moray forced himself to keep his eyes on the Master. There was a quick grimace on the face of the human, who had closed his eyes and was slumped against the back of the chair. His sunken chin twitched and fell open.
The Master did not answer Moray for a long minute. Then his eyes flicked open, he sat erect again, and he said, 'Leave me.'
And then he stared off into space and took no further notice of Moray.
`Please,' said Moray hastily. 'Don't misunderstand, I want very much to read those books. I have wanted to all my life. But I—' He stopped talking. Very obviously, the Master had eliminated Moray from his mind. Just as Moray himself, having had a cinder in his eyes, would drop from his mind the memory of the brief pain.
Moray turned and walked through the door. 'Please.' he repeated softly to himself, then growled in disgust. As he stepped into the plane once more he blinked rapidly. In the hundred thousand years of evolution dogs had learned to weep.
Moray, looking ill, slumped deeper into the pneumatic couch's depths. Birch looked at him with concern in her warm eyes. `Moray,' She said worriedly, 'when did you sleep last?'
`It doesn't matter,' he said emptily. 'I've been seeing the town.'
`Can I give you something to eat?'
`No,' said Moray. With a trace of guilt he took a little bottle from his pocket and gulped down a couple of white pills. 'I'm not hungry. And this is more fun.'
`It's up to you,' she said. There was a long silence, and Moray picked up sheets of paper that were lying on a table at his elbow. 'Assignments as of Wednesday,' he read, and then put down the sheaf, rubbing his eyes with a tired motion. 'Are you doing any work now?' he asked.