6. Kerr finds a quest II
As can be imagined [1], being prodded, poked and having tiny bits of hair and skin sliced off his body by lasers wasn't Ringo's idea of fun. He had quickly identified the Martian as the source of his problems and now snarled and growled at him. He'd pause every once in a while to give vent to howls of outrage at the treatment he'd received and then resume his constant mad barking which seemed to say "You just get within reach of my jaws, you overgrown pillow, I will take the stuffing out of you!"
At the moment, Ringo, looking like a woolly blanket himself due to the fine long white hair that covered all of his body, was leaning against his cage and growling at the Martian as it approached the cage. Ringo was the sort of dog who looked rather unbalanced - his long coat of hair made his body look big, and that in turn made his head look small. It also made him look as if he was always leaning forward. The effect was further accentuated now because Ringo actually was leaning forward, trying to get at the approaching Martian.
It was a rather large room in the ship. The biggest room in a Martian ship was reserved for the food storage, preparation and testing and this was it. On one side of the room, you could see large boxes and bales and stacks of various foodstuffs. The central portion of the room was equally divided between the food testing and food preparation tables. Kerr had been working at one of the testing tables, going through a sample he'd gotten from Ringo. This was the sixth or seventh sample he'd obtained so far.
Kerr was perplexed. He'd run the tests several times over and they still said the same thing - Ringo was not a dog! It looked like a dog, sounded like a dog, and even smelled like a dog. The human who'd sold the creature to him for a large number of credits (and it had been a pretty hefty sum even for a Martian - he'd never had dog before) had appeared quite genuine in his declaration that it was indeed a dog. Kerr had been eager to try out this rare delicacy that so many others of his kind raved about.
It was getting more and more difficult to get a good mutt roast. The humans, in their own topsy-turvy fashion, were now getting rather nasty about the sale of dogs to Martians for food. Never mind the fact that the poor animals were starved and ill fed, never mind that some of the human cities were teeming with dogs who had no owner and were scrounging around for scraps thrown into garbage heaps. Never mind, too, that most humans never even gave one of these mongrels a second look (except perhaps to complain to the city authorities about them), but let a Martian come along and offer to take all that trouble off their hands - in a most humane manner of course - and all of a sudden, they get humanitarian and decide that the poor doggies were better off starving in the streets than being eaten by those wicked, nasty Martians! Kerr suspected that the ones who made trouble were the ones who didn't have any dogs to sell to the Martians - the real reason they made trouble was because they weren't the ones who got their grubby paws on some credits.
Kerr had often wondered how, or even why, humanity let dogs continue to roam their cities in packs when they had made as many advances in technology[2] in such a short time as they had. They hadn't simply climbed the ladder of technology, they'd leapfrogged up it, two rungs at a time.
In fact, he'd never seen a species like the humans for surrounding themselves with gadgets that made life easier. And yet, they still continued to have slums in their cities, dogs roaming the streets, and cockroaches in their houses. Inexplicable! Were they just too lazy to take care of these problems, or were they, at some subconscious level, unable to live without these reminders of how their lives used to be in what they called "the old days"[3]?
He came out of his reverie and began thinking again about the problem he'd been mulling over - the inexplicable test results. Only one conclusion could be drawn - he'd been deceived by the human. He had been duped into buying another animal which resembled a dog down to the tiniest detail. The puzzling thing was that he'd never heard of any such animal. Nor had a search of his race's rather extensive databases provided him with a previous case similar to this. But the test results were infallible, therefore, he must have been the fallible one. He'd let a human trick him! He could imagine the sneering pity of his fellows if they knew a mere human had deceived him with such ease.
He knew how most of his people considered the humans. They thought the humans were amusing creatures who were several rungs below them on the evolutionary ladder. Perhaps quite similar to the way the humans had considered Chimpanzees - Kerr had learnt all about them (and other simians who now no longer roamed the almost non-existent tree tops of this world) in his research into this world's history. To be tricked by such creatures! Oh, the ignominy of it all! They were sure to take him down at least a couple of rungs in his crèche's totemic ranks if the story ever got out.
There was only one possible course of action - he must find the human and get his credits back. At the same time, he must teach the human a lesson so he'd never forget that it never paid to pull a fast one on one of the alien races. Yes, that was it! He must make sure that no other human tried such a trick again!
With the decision made, Kerr sprang into action. He had to find the human and he had to do it fast! He decided that it would be wisest to take the fake dog with him. The logical course of action would have been to dispose of it then and there instead of taking it with him, but Kerr was disposed to be cautious. All the members of his race that lived to reach adulthood had learned the value of being cautious and covering all the bases - in the school of hard knocks, his world tended to start with a ten-ton truck right on the noggin in kindergarten.
Kerr took Ringo with him and set out to search for the human, Normal. He didn't have a clue as to where the human would be, but decided that the best place to start was where they'd first met - at the Electric Drum.
[1] Perhaps only by a dog, though.
[2] The humans had a lot of help from many different alien races of course but still, it was always amazing what they could come up with given the right incentive - such as the chance to idle away time or to kill, maim or hurt somebody else.
[3] Humans also tended to prefix the "old days" with "good", though given that they complained about the "old days" such a lot, Kerr couldn't understand what had been so good about them.
