Instinct

The Unexpected Dachshund By L.E. Modesitt, Junior

ONE FOURDAY NIGHT, AT LEAST I recall it was a fourday, because it was right after the south end of dome four almost collapsed and the teams had worked for two days straight to stabilize the ground—all because the geo team hadn’t caught a tunnel snake’s den below the sterilized area—Keryleyn looked across the plastex table at me, and said, “I’ve been thinking…”

“Yes?” I said warily.

“There has to be more to life than this.”

“I agree,” I replied, and then I said the most dangerous words a man could utter. “What do you have in mind?”

“They have a few puppy zygotes on the mothership. There’s a miniature, cream, longhaired dachshund. His name is Rudolfo…”

“We can’t afford whatever they want. Not just the cost…but the food—”

“He’s a miniature, Dom. They don’t eat much…”

For once, I didn’t answer immediately. I just looked into her eyes. That was enough. We’d come to Nieuwhuis under the standard terms, and, at our ages, that meant no children. Ever. But it had been the only chance to escape. At least the air in the gray skies of Nieuwhuis was clean, unlike Old Earth. But there were times when life felt a little empty, and I knew we weren’t the only ones to feel that way.

Finally, I said, “How do you figure we can do it?”

As I suspected, Keryleyn had it figured out to the last fraction of a credit, which was good because Rudy cost every free credit we could scrape together, as well as part of our food ration, and that didn’t count the sterilized gravel for his box inside the dome.

Almost from the beginning, Rudy wasn’t exactly what we expected him to be. We had to wait almost half a year, between the maturation womb and his growing big enough to make the drop planetside. He arrived as a small brownish puppy and was from a reputable breeder, or rather, his zygote came from a reputable breeder, as did most Terran stock.

Since cream dachshunds all start out brownish, how were we to know he wasn’t what he was supposed to be? Yes, by the time he was six months old, his coat was turning, but not quite the way we expected. His undercoat was more a golden cream, and the tips of each hair were reddish. And his coat wasn’t long and silky soft, like most longhairs. His was medium-length and disheveled, soft but not silky, and just a trace wavy. The other unexpected difference was he had whiskers, sort of a beard—and longhaired dachshunds definitely don’t have beards or whiskers. But wire-haired dachshunds do. The only problem with that was, besides the drooping whiskers, he didn’t look like a wirehair.

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 .

Keryleyn was waiting for me in the three small chambers we called home. So was Rudy, bouncing up and down at the fact that we were there unexpectedly. I took a few moments to pick him up and let him give me an enthusiastic licking, the dachshund equivalent of kisses.

Then I set Rudy down and turned to Keryleyn, since she was the meteorologist. “How long will this flare last?”

“At least a day and a half, but that depends on whether there’s more than one coronal mass ejection. Every once in a while there is, like the historic Carrington Event. This looks to be worse than that.”

I took her word for it, although I had no idea what the Carrington Event was or when it had occurred.

Then, as we knew would happen, almost all the power was cut off and the block-points opened to reduce, if not eliminate, damaging induced current flows. That left the limited, and highly shielded, basic emergency power.

We sat down on the floor cushions and spent an hour playing with Rudy, who was confused, because when he went to the door, one of us said, “No.” Quietly, but firmly.

His whine was inquisitive.

“Because it’s not safe out there, or it won’t be shortly,” Keryleyn told him.

Rudy looked at me questioningly, then whined again, meaning that we always took him out when we came home. He’d use his sand and gravel box, if he had to, but he much preferred the outside, as did we, because it meant much less cleaning.

“As your mistress said,” I told him, “it’s not safe for us…or for dachshunds.” Or in his case, for the only soft-coat wire-haired dachshund on Nieuwhuis, or possibly anywhere off Old Earth.

Later, in early evening, Arlena and Pietro came by, since they had quarters in our dome, if on the other side. He had a deck of old-style pasteboard cards—useful indeed when power was limited. Thankfully, his cards were nearly indestructible, some sort of plastex, kevlex, and synth mix that was also resistant to Rudy’s teeth on the occasions when he could grab a card; not an impossible feat, given we were sitting on the floor, under the dim glow of the single emergency lamp, and using my equipment case for a table.

Rudy would watch for an opportunity to seize a card, after which he’d prance around so proud of himself. So, in a way, we all were playing two games at once—cards and get the card back from Rudy.

We laughed a lot…and tried not to think about how much damage the geomag storm might be causing around the domes, but finally Arlena and Pietro left. It was fairly late, and the three of us went to bed, with Rudy ending up next to Keryleyn. It got cool enough I almost wished Rudy were between the two of us.

Almost two days passed before full power came back…if two hours before dawn. I couldn’t get back to sleep and finally dressed and got ready to go to work. When Rudy saw me put on my work jacket, even though I hadn’t planned to leave for almost an hour, he raced to the door, tail wagging furiously, and offered a series of inquisitive whines that quickly turned to verging on demands.

“Rudy, it’s not even that light out yet.”

The whines and tail-wagging continued unabated.

Keryleyn looked from Rudy to me, grinned, and then said, “Dom…you’ve got more than a little time…and he has been very good. Just stay away from the jangle.”

With her expression and Rudy’s enthusiasm, I didn’t see that I could do much else, nor did I really want to. So, we stepped out into the corridor, and Rudy hurried toward the outer door, his short legs moving swiftly. I checked the monitor beside the door but didn’t notice anything unusual.

When I opened the dome door, and Rudy and I stepped out onto the walkway, I could see that it was far hazier outside than it had looked through the monitor. Not only that, but there were fire-spider webs all along the edge of the jangle, and silvery lines running from the jangle across the mossgrass and the still-struggling crabgrass, and even across the walkways. Except the lines weren’t lines; they were bands, more than five centimeters wide. I’d never seen anything like it, and no one had ever mentioned such a display.

I couldn’t help frowning because the monitor hadn’t picked up any of that. Or maybe the webs were so fine it couldn’t show them. But they didn’t look that fine. Both the webs and the bands looked almost solid, with a greenish-silver light of their own in the dimness before dawn.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of something moving, moving fast. I turned to see the largest molecat I’d ever seen—a giant molecat, the size of a cougar, with fangs that would have been right at home on an ancient sabre-tooth tiger, bounding toward us, somehow avoiding the fire-spider webs and the green-tinged, silver-banded paths that wound everywhere.

Before I could say a word, or even move, Rudy barked! Really barked, the way only a determined dachshund can bark.

That one series of barks echoed through the stillness like shots from an antique rifle and seemed to strike the mole-cougar physically—enough that it lost concentration and focus—and one forefoot landed in the middle of one of the silver-banded lines.

Green aurora-like fire flared from the silver banded lines and enveloped the mole-cougar with the sizzling of an electric current jolting through the beast. Even before the dead body stopped twitching, hundreds, no, thousands, of tiny fire spiders appeared out of the mossgrass and converged on the corpse like a silver tide.

I could have hugged Rudy, but I was too worried. I just wanted to get the two of us safely back inside without touching any of those shimmering lines, or before any of the silvery fire-spiders could get inside the dome. Since Rudy had planted himself firmly at my feet, I just scooped him up and withdrew.

Withdrew? Hell… I fled and closed the dome door.

Once inside, I grabbed the emergency comm by the door and immediately broadcast a warning.

Danger! Danger! Shimmering silver lines and webs carry high-energy charges…

I’m not sure I was even that coherent, but I did get the word out, and no one got jolted or irradiated.

The biologic types are still investigating how the local eco-system stores the mag-flux energy, but early indications are that their communications are more electronic rather than sonic. It seems the fire-spiders lay down those bands and lines after large magnetic events, and the mole-cougars have always been around—but they’re rare because most prey is small.

Although the techs theorize that the sonic energy of Rudy’s bark disoriented the mole-cougar, I still don’t know why Rudy barked, But whatever the reason, I’m still alive because a miniature, cream, soft-coat, wire-haired dachshund didn’t turn out the way he was expected. And, to this day, how he knew or felt what to do, I haven’t the faintest idea.

And I don’t care. I’m just grateful…and so are a lot of other people.

L. E. Modesitt, Jr. is the bestselling author of over seventy novels encompassing two science fiction series and four fantasy series, as well as several other novels in the science fiction genre.

Mr. Modesitt has been a delivery boy; a lifeguard; an unpaid radio disc jockey; a U.S. Navy pilot; a market research analyst; a real estate agent; a director of research for a political campaign; legislative assistant and staff director for a U.S. Congressman; Director of Legislation and Congressional Relations for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; a consultant on environmental, regulatory, and communications issues; and a college lecturer and writer in residence. In addition to his novels, Mr. Modesitt has published technical studies and articles, columns, poetry, and a number of science fiction stories. His first story was published in 1973. He lives in Cedar City, Utah.

Connect with L.E. Modesitt, Jr. at: https://www.lemodesittjr.com/about-the-author/