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

Yes, I say. I saw that. Part of my brain still scrutinizes the rat’s Is Like . It’s complex. It’s more a riddle of words than any Is Like that I have made.

It’s pretty. That thing you just said, about sheep. What is that?

You’ll have to find out for yourself, the rat says, once you are above ground again. I am not sure if I ascribe the smugness to its voice myself, or if the tone carries over the DAT. There’s so much you don’t know, wolf. So much they keep from you. You don’t realize the slave you are until you have a bit of freedom. But therein lies our quandary.

Oh. No. This thing, whatever the rat has done to my DAT so that it can speak in my head, it isn’t finished yet. It’s eroding the security systems still—of course it is, why would it stop?—and working toward my connection with Carol. As soon as Carol can reach me, the rat will be able to hear her. It will be able to hear Carol’s plan, and our coordination for its capture, and a dozen other things that almost certainly will compromise this search.

Because for our people, the rat continues, just a bit of freedom will never be enough. We would never accept this slavery with clear eyes. This is why they keep you in such a dark prison. This is why your disgusting Modanet contains so little. You are dangerous, wolf. They are afraid of you.

I have to shut down the DAT. I run through the plan and see how it will cause delays in multiple scenarios, but none of them likely to be fatal. Certainly not as fatal as the target having access to Carol.

I might be able to communicate the situation to Carol before she reveals anything to our target, but I can’t take that chance. It’s lucky enough that we’re out of range now, when the virus finally broke through the first of my DAT firewalls. Lucky, too, that this creature is so full of itself and impatient to speak to me that it did not wait before betraying itself—or not betraying itself at all.

Idiot. I am smarter than that.

But your danger is why you are so important, the rat continues. Do you think I care so much about this power plant? Have our kind ever needed electric power? I may accept a mission for human allies —

I can hear the tink-tink-tink of rodent nails on metal above my head. But I have my own motivations, the voice says.

Tink-tink-tink

I am here for you. Together, the rat says, we can do so much, wolf.

I am sure you’re right, I say, and slam my body into the ventilation shaft. Inside, small feet scrabble against slippery metal.

I turn off my DAT.

I find Carol at our rendezvous point in the hallway just outside the entrance to the cold Reactor D. The door to the reactor itself is wedged open with what looks like a car battery, and Carol is on her knees over another battery the size of a small cooler. She smells of perspiration. She looks up at the sound of my feet on the grating, then checks her DAT with her eyebrows pushed together.

“I was worried,” she says, wrapping wire around a battery terminal. “Why haven’t you responded?”

I am already panting. I want to tell her about the security breach, about the sheep and wolves, about the drone that reached for me, but all I can do is stare at her, wagging my idiot tail. I step closer, trying to control the whine building in my chest.

Carol looks up from her battery, scrutinizes me. “Is your DAT okay?”

I sit. I nudge her left hand with my nose. She will remember the yes/no signals.

“Shit,” she whispers. “What happened?” She rests a hand on my neck. “I don’t expect you to answer that. Is the plan still go?”

I nuzzle my nose into her right palm. I am panting hard. It is surprisingly difficult being limited in this way.

“The target’s in the steam shafts?”

Right palm for yes. I made for the rendezvous as soon as the rat entered the emergency steam ventilation shafts as planned. Even if the DAT was still working, I am not sure I would tell her about the way I crashed and banged against the HVAC pipes, barking and snarling, until the rat ran for the steam vents.

“Okay,” Carol says. She clamps a wire inside the wall panel she was working on and checks her radio for the time. “If your model is right, we have about two and a half minutes for me to get to the vent controls. Show me, first, what your job is, so I know you can work the switch. Here, it’s right here.”

I target the jury-rigged connector with my paw. There is a hum from the battery that is likely imperceptible to Carol.

“Good. Okay, off again.”

I hit the switch again and the thing goes quiet.

“Okay. When you give the… shit. Shit, how will you give the signal if we don’t have DAT?”

My tail wags with exasperation. She’s thinking as though I had the body of a machine and not a dog, as if I only responded to one stimulus. I stare at her as seconds tick down, and she still does not think of the obvious.

I am going to have to be the one to say it.

I bark. Once, sharply.

Carol laughs. “Of course,” she says. “Good dog.” She turns and sprints down the tunnel toward the controls.

I move toward the strategic bend in the steam shaft that is our signal threshold and wait.

I am alone. Drones tick and tap and whir in the near distance.

Behind me where the trap is laid, the panel sits open. The target must leave the steam shaft, where I forced it earlier, and reenter either the corridor or the HVAC system in order to get to the next online reactor. It must move through off-line Reactor D in order to do this, but there are several points from which it can access this reactor from the system of steam shafts. Carol will take care of that. Once we herd the target into the correct shaft, the one where our trap is laid, I will be the one to hit the trigger.

Once it is caught, Carol thinks she will be able to open the shaft where the target is trapped and remove the rat. Then what? Will she carry it to the surface? What if it bites her as it bit me?

And when Homeland Security gets hold of it? What then? The connection between EI hunted and EI hunter, wanted or not, will bring a critical eye on me. More so if the rat speaks. From my limited experience with my target, it seems quite… verbose.

So far it seems no human has wondered if dogs keep secrets. It is vitally important that they continue not to think about that.

Carol is wrong. The original objective should be upheld.

Down the tunnel, muffled by the wall paneling and the MFA’s deep hum but still distinct, comes the arrhythmic rattle of claws against metal.

Adrenaline punches through my body. I hesitate, then bark. I bark for Carol. Then I turn, still barking, and scramble to my post by the battery and the door to the off-line reactor.

I hope she can hear me.

A distant hiss builds. I no longer need to worry; the plan proceeds. Carol is charging selected steam shafts, converting the plant’s stored power back into heat and moisture and using these to herd our target toward the trap. But the trap must not be set too soon, because the same hum that I heard from the battery will be audible to the target’s hypersensitive ears as well. It will be too cautious to walk right into that.

I smell it coming. The murky, dusty smell of rodent. Pheromonal anxiety. It moves in little rushes: scurry, scurry, stop. Scurry, stop. It pauses for a long while.

It’s afraid.

A cleaning drone trundles past, its forward bristle-barrel wheel gnawing at the grate floors. I barely notice it, focused as I am. It turns in a slow U-circuit and goes back over its original path. When it reaches where I am, it turns ninety degrees and heads straight toward me.