Грег Иган - The Year's Best Science Fiction, Volume 1

I check Modanet. All listed retirement dates for SAR dogs are either concurrent with or prior to the retirement dates of their handlers. There is, of course, no information about EI SAR dogs, because I am the first one.

Corresponding information about military and defense EI dog career dates is not available on Modanet.

I remember what Devin said to the photographer earlier, about all of my finds. How some dogs don’t make that record in a lifetime.

The barometric pressure dips, indicating an increased likelihood of funnel clouds forming. It’s not a dramatic fall. While I consider whether to ping Carol’s DAT with the information, the radio bleats.

A surge of adrenaline twitches my muscles. When the radio goes my heart rate always increases. Unexpected radio calls might mean a search.

Carol shifts first in the bed, breathing pattern changing. The radio squalls again and then both she and Devin are coming quickly awake.

Carol sits up in the dark. She taps the radio screen and says, “Ramos here.”

I have a difficult time understanding voices over radio. I always have. When I was still at ESAC Dacy explained this is a common handicap among dogs and not something to be concerned about. It is, however, frustrating that I can only understand broadcast voices transmitted over DAT and not what’s being said right now.

A voice—masculine, likely Anders’—speaks briefly. Carol and Devin look at each other in the dark. “No, it’s fine. Just… we’ll talk,” Carol says. Devin slides out of bed, gestures on the bedside light, and begins gathering his belongings. “Here? Uh, okay. Two-oh-four. Yeah, five minutes.”

Devin mutters under his breath. Carol shuffles into the bathroom. He waits a few seconds for her to come back out, but I can sense that he is impatient. “Carol?” he says.

“Why are you still here? Anders is coming. To my room for some reason. You’ll probably be on this callout, too, you know.”

“Lord Jesus,” Devin says, and slips his shoes on. He leaves while Carol’s still in the bathroom and pulls the door closed quietly behind him. The shower runs. It stops less than a minute before I hear someone in the hallway. I already know that it’s Anders because I can smell him.

This is a unique occurrence. Devin often visits Carol’s room when the team is out on training or deployment, but Anders never has. I don’t think it will be for the same reason.

Carol exits the bathroom fully dressed, rubbing her wet hair with a towel. She opens the door.

“Sorry to intrude,” Anders says. He looks like he would like to leave again. His posture Is Like a cat’s when it is suspicious of danger, stiff and still.

Carol moves around the room, putting items in her pack. She pulls her hair back with one hand and fastens it behind her head. “You don’t need to come up here to convince me to go out,” she says. “I’ll finish this deployment. But after this—”

“Actually,” Anders says, “I’m here to convince you of something else entirely. Well, both things, really.”

I wish Carol would let me out of my crate. Her movement makes me want to move around, too, to find my work harness and bring it to her and wait by the door.

Instead Carol stops moving. “What?”

Anders takes a few steps into the room. “This call,” he says. He’s quiet for a second. “It’s not a—it’s not part of the storm system. It’s not even a rescue search. It’s…” He is quiet again.

“Wow,” Carol says. “Now I really can’t wait.”

“It’s a security call,” Anders says. “The police or the military should handle it with their own EI units, but”—he looks at me—“Sera’s the closest EI dog. Geographically, I mean. All the defense EI units they could call on are deployed farther south to deal with the storms, the weather has shut down all of the air traffic that could get them back here to do this, and time is… there isn’t a lot of time. A few units are trying to get up here, but they’ve been delayed already. Sera’s the only one in range.”

Carol bends down to pull on her boots. “She’s not defense, she’s SAR.”

“You know she’s capable,” Anders says, and his voice is scolding. He’s right. “She can do whatever work you ask her to.”

“So it’s Sera you need, not me.”

“You’re her handler,” he says. “We need you both.”

Carol mutters, “She doesn’t need a handler, she needs IT support.”

Anders looks at his feet and fills his lungs. “You’re still the most qualified person to—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Carol says. She zips up her pack and slings it onto one shoulder. “I don’t want the job. I don’t like where all this is going. You know what, I wish it had been the robots that took over. It wouldn’t sting as much as getting put out on my ass by my own damn dog.”

Anders watches her, waiting.

“Shut up,” Carol says, even though Anders has said nothing. “Yes, this is partly about losing Mack. And no, it won’t get better after more time has passed, because it’s not just about losing Mack.” She points at me. “All our next dogs are going to be like that. The work has changed but I haven’t.”

“Technology changes things,” Anders says. “I can’t make you evolve with the field. I can’t force you to. But Sera’s still a dog, Carol, and the work is still the work.”

“It’s not,” she says. “You used to build a connection. You and the dog, you’d get inside each other’s brains. Feel each other’s feelings. It was all connection. Connection was the point. This damn thing”—she lifts her wrist where my DAT is integrated—“skips all of that. It takes away the part of the work I loved most.”

“Okay,” Anders says. He puts his hands up and steps back toward the door. “Okay, Carol, I’m not arguing with you. Not now, at least. This search isn’t just a life at stake, it’s national security. Can you and Sera do it and we’ll talk about your future afterward?”

Carol finally unlatches my crate. It’s difficult to wait inside until she releases me. When she does, I scramble across the carpet to my harness as fast as I can. “Let’s just finish this so I can go home and lick my wounds,” she says.

We drive for an hour in Devin’s truck, Carol with her feet on the dash, as light seeps into the sky from the east. It’s a low, stormy morning, and it lacks the normal happy anticipation of driving to a deployment. This silence is tense. Devin tries to ask Carol about retirement again, like he did last night, but she ignores him.

I wish Carol would answer his questions. I want to know, too. And I want Devin to ask, what about your dog? What will Sera do after you retire? I want him to demand an answer, because I have no idea what will happen to me when Carol quits SAR.

I can’t ask her the question myself. Carol doesn’t like talking to me.

At ESAC, before I was sent out to my field assignment, Dacy warned me that I would need to watch out for humans who were uncomfortable with EI. That the new technology made many people nervous and unhappy. That if I suspected I was interacting with a person for whom the uncanny valley was too wide, I should pretend that I was more like a regular dog in order to help them feel comfortable.

I don’t think Dacy suspected that she was talking about my future handler. I certainly did not consider the possibility until it was too late. But Carol is more uncomfortable with me than anyone else I have encountered. She has improved; I no longer smell fear in her discomfort. Still, her discomfort remains.

Dacy told me to be a dog as much as I could. It’s difficult, because although I am a dog in some ways, I am also something else. With Carol, I’m forced to keep that something else to myself. I speak only when I must, usually when we are working. I don’t know if it makes Carol like me any more.