Dog Aliens 1: Raffle's Name Read online

  "They always try to keep all the jex for themselves!"

  If the Niques would've just shut up, this wouldn't have been stressful at all. The biggest Nique here was a Shih Tzu, and most of them were much smaller: a Pekingese, a Tibetan Terrier, a Lhasa Apso, three Maltese, and a Chihuahua. (This is Southern California; there's always a Chihuahua.) The Niques didn't stand a chance fighting us, but they were smart enough to know it.

  Humans often think a little dog (Nique) is trying to pick a fight with a big dog (Kaxian). In actual fact, the Niques always just try to annoy us Kaxians enough so we will get in trouble with the humans and get sent to the pound. Annoying Kaxians is what the Niques do. It's their purpose in life. Well, that, and stealing our jex.

  Half to annoy us, and half to make trouble for us with the humans, the Niques started shouting out lies in the wolf language that everyone but the humans understood:

  "Humans!"

  "Come help us, humans!"

  "These big dogs are going to hurt us!"

  Three humans were walking down the sidewalk on the edge of civilization. They were all young males: past puberty, but not by much.

  "Great," I thought, "school must be out for the day. It's getting late. My human will be home soon, and I need to be in the yard, or he will find the hole I dug under the fence."

  Our defense leader, Heg, once again kept us focused on the task at hand.

  "Turn around and look like you're hunting something inside the tunnel."

  Oddly, when Heg said that, I thought I saw a picture of all of us looking like wolves and hunting some prey that was digging into the tunnel. It must have been my imagination, but it was pretty vivid, and showed me exactly where to fit into the tunnel mouth between Skil and Crash. The Niques were in the picture, too, only they also looked like wolves, baby wolves who were also hunting the prey that was tunneling. The picture flashed in my mind for only a second, and then it was gone.

  I decided to think about the picture later, to figure out what it meant and why I had seen it. Right now, I was in a big hurry to get to this empty spot I noticed, between Skil and Crash. I thought it would be a good spot for me to add to the blockade and help prevent the Niques from getting into our mine.

  All of us Kaxians turned around so that our faces were inside the hole. We scrambled, dug, and kept talking so that we would resemble wolves hunting. But, we kept the Niques out of our mine.

  The Niques bit our rear ends, in an attempt to get us annoyed enough to make mistakes.

  We kicked the Niques and dug up dirt into their eyes.

  Then, they actually helped us look like a pack of wolves hunting prey in a tunnel by talking a lot, themselves, although if the humans knew what they were saying, they wouldn't think the Niques were so cute anymore.

  "Oh that's right, show us your pretty side."

  "No! Turn around and fight us!"

  "You cowards!"

  Heg's plan worked. The three young male humans just kept on walking by. They must have thought we were all one big pack of dogs, hunting together for prey that was tunneling.

  We were still stuck guarding our jex from the Niques instead of taking it to the shuttle, though.

  I spoke to Heg in Kanx.

  "Want me to lead three more Niques away?"

  "Yeah, good idea. Go!"

  As fast as I could, I took off running toward the nearest Kaxian space shuttle, up in the foothills nearby, about a ten-mile jog. Sure enough, three Niques followed me.

  I was running fast, and it wasn't even difficult, even though I was loaded down with jex. I ran like the wind and jumped from boulder to boulder, leaving my Nique pursuers far behind. I had finished dumping my load by the space shuttle before I even heard the three Niques again.

  The Kaxian in me had always appreciated these long legs I have, this life. I get them from my mom, who's a Queensland Heeler from Australia. Dad's a German Shepherd, mostly, and his legs aren't short, but Mom wins every time they race. The shuttle crew had ingested my load, and I was free to run off before the Niques even caught up to me.

  That's when I saw Lido. He still had a long way to make it up the hill. He was gasping for breath, and his three Niques were nipping at his tail.

  I wasn't sure what I was going to do to help Lido, but he was my pack mate. I knew I had to help him. I went bounding down the side of the hill he was climbing. As I jumped from place to place as fast as I could, I said the quickest prayer to Kax ever:

  "Help!"

  I didn't hear any answer. I did get lucky, though. On one of my jumps, I unexpectedly landed in a pile of stones. They loosened and all started tumbling down the hill toward Lido and the Niques.

  Lido's big belly just barely cleared the stones, but he jumped over them.

  The Niques were too small to jump over the stones. They turned around and ran down the hill! They ran fast enough to not get killed, but slow enough that they wouldn't be coming after us for a few days. I took great satisfaction in seeing them turn their tails and run away.

  My three Niques had just crested the hill. They now stood in the way of Lido reaching the space shuttle and unloading his jex. Thank Kax, we were next to a particularly steep part of the hill, which hid us from their view. It didn't hide us from their noses, but we would just have to gamble they didn't catch on. I had a plan.

  "Give me your jex."

  Lido found a suitably clean place without thorns, spun to mash the tall wild grasses down, and dumped his load of jex.

  I ingested it.

  "We'll run down the hill where they can see us, Lido, and then you go right and I'll go left. So far as they know, you have the jex. Hopefully, they'll think you're taking it to the next shuttle, and they'll all follow you. Then, I can take the jex to this shuttle."

  "OK!"

  We took off running down the hill. Well, I took off. Lido kind of lumbered off, but he was doing the best he could. Don't laugh!

  The Niques followed as soon as they saw us. Sure enough, when we split up, they all three followed Lido. He was just headed home, but they wouldn't know that until he passed by the trail up to the next Kaxian space shuttle.

  I moseyed on up to our nearby space shuttle and dropped my second load of jex for the day, smiling the whole time. Looking out for my friend, I followed Lido's scent until I was sure he had made it safely home, and then I headed home, myself.

  * * *

  Scrabbling under my back-yard fence, I heard my human coming home in his car.

  "Whew!" I thought, "Made it home just in time."

  I was so busy being pleased with myself for outsmarting those Niques that I didn't notice the fresh footprints next to my hole under the fence, or the fresh human scent that should have told me my parents' human had already been home today.

  Chapter 3: The Sides

  As the Kaxians see things:

  When we left Kax, almost 1,000 dog-lives ago, our mission was to come here to Earth, set up jex mining and shipping teams, and then work them in shifts. Each Kaxian was only supposed to remain on Earth for 5 lives and then go back home with the next shipment.

  It hasn't worked out that way.

  We never counted on the Niques following us and trying to steal our jex.

  Now, we are stuck in a constant battle with them to keep even half the jex that gets mined on Earth. We spend more energy and effort defending what should be ours than we spend mining it, all because the greedy little Niques won't honor our prior claim to the mining rights.

  I say 'battle,' but you humans would hardly recognize it as such. Your technology runs toward weaponry. Ours runs toward biology.

  We rebirth into limitless lifespans, with some restrictions. Tweaking that process consumes almost all of our intellectual energy, so that not much at all is left for weaponry. The process makes some of us especially vulnerable to bonding with humans, so even if we had weaponry, we couldn't use it against humans. Not now. Maybe in the beginning we could have, but that was long ago.

&n
bsp; You humans don't even use jex, so you don't miss it. We are not a threat to you.

  This was supposed to be a mining and shipping operation, albeit a covert one. We had neither planned nor provisioned for a knock-down, drag-out fight lasting almost 1,000 dog lives.

  No one has been allowed to go home to Kax.

  Many have died and not been reborn.

  More of us have had to come from Kax to help in the defense efforts.

  We chose Earth because you already had wolves, animals that closely resembled us, and so we were able to easily fit in and assimilate into your Earth society. You had started to domesticate some of your native wolves, so it was only natural that you would also "domesticate" us, animals that resembled wolves.

  Yes, we can breed with wolves, so most "dogs" are not fully aliens. Only a handful remain who came on the original mission from Kax. Perhaps a dozen full Kaxians who came on later ships remain.

  The rest of us were born here on Earth and have never seen our home world. We Earthborn still think of ourselves as Kaxians, but many of us genuinely love humans. It is not that way with those few who came on ships from Kax and who remember our world.

  * * *

  As the Niques See Things:

  There is plenty of jex here for everyone. The Kaxians are just greedy bullies. We were scouting Planet Earth at the same time as the Kaxians, so we contest their claim. So what if they landed first? So what if they discovered the first jex vein, and started mining first?

  We provided the urinary-tract message system technology, which they gladly adopted without so much as a "Thank you." This technology is part of what has allowed us all to operate covertly on Earth for close to 1,000 dog lives now. We feel that sharing this technology with the Kaxians entitles us to an equal share of the jex.

  Besides, they dare not attack us en masse. That would spoil the illusion that we are all "domesticated" animals, subservient to humans. Neither of us has defense technology sufficient to withstand the superior size or strength of the people of Earth. It has always been so.

  Nique and Kaxian technology runs toward bio-regenics. Long before either of us came to Earth, both our societies made it possible to transfer our consciousness from one body to the next. This is such an advantageous line of research that we spend all our resources on it. Weapons are just not something we do, in either of our cultures.

  We prefer it this way: we infiltrate other worlds, pose as pets, and quietly mine and ship our jex behind the scenes. You humans don't use jex, so we are not a threat to you. (The Kaxians aren't, either, but who cares about them?)

  We Niques are smaller than the Kaxians, so we fit into smaller tunnels. We mine where they can't. They just feel superior because they are larger. The Kaxians have no more of a legitimate claim on Earth or on the humans than we Niques have.

  And anyway, the humans love us "little dogs" more. We're cuter.

  Chapter 4: Neya

  My parents' human could never know about things like Kaxian duty. From his point of view, I was completely in the wrong. I had repeatedly dug holes under his fence, against his commands. No wonder he didn't want me. I didn't blame him. That just made me feel worse, not better. Being in the right was no consolation for feeling so alone and so unwanted.

  Out of habit, I sniffed the air.

  I smelled water down in the ravine that paralleled the mountain road. It smelled like it would soothe what ailed me, so I half ran, half slid down the hill to the creek that bubbled by. The water on the sides of the creek smelled off, but in the center it was clean. I waded in and drank my fill. The cool water did soothe my tired muscles, but now I was wet, and it wasn't that warm at night, up here in the woods, even though it was summer.

  I sniffed the air again.

  Kaxians had been here. There was hardly any place on Earth we hadn't been in the thousand dog lives since we first arrived on the planet. None of us had been here in at least a month, though. The scents were that old and faded. The scents were only minimally comforting. Sure, I could follow them and find others of my kind, but I didn't recognize the individuals who had left any of the Kaxian scents here. (I smelled some Nique scents, too, but who cares about them? Besides, they weren't recent enough to matter.)

  My nose told me that this place was pretty isolated. Besides humans traveling on the road in vehicles, and a few wolves passing through on their hunting trips, nothing larger than a raccoon had been here in a week. Oh, there were a few fish in the creek. There were some beavers, squirrels, snakes, birds... OK, yes, there was plenty of food here. My parents' human had been at least considerate enough not to leave me in the stark desert where I might starve. I was still full from all that raw beef that had tricked me into getting abandoned here, though. What bothered me was there was no one for company, no one to talk to who would understand me.

  For the briefest of seconds, I considered following the recent wolf scent. Wolves would understand me when I spoke. They had packs the same way as Kaxians, too. If I could find a wolf pack, I might have a new family. Wolf instinct told me that I could find the female who had passed by here not long ago. But would she accept me as one of her own kind? I was only the tiniest bit wolf. I was also only six months old.

  A strange thing happened then.

  A little movie played in my mind. In one way, it was like the Kaxian memories: it came to me in vivid moving pictures that I could also hear and smell. In another way, it was unlike the memories. That's just it: this was something new, not a memory. I had no idea where it came from.

  In this mental movie, I was following the she-wolf's scent. I followed it for a day, down this mountain, across some wild desert, over some hills, and halfway up a different mountain.

  I saw the she-wolf then, not twenty feet from me. She was alone between two large boulders, licking one of her paws. She was a bit older than me, about nine months old. She stopped mid-lick when she sensed me nearby. Our eyes met. Her scent came to me on the wind: female and sweet, but wild and untamed.

  "Hello. I'm Clem."

  "Hello. I'm Neya."

  She put her paw down and stood up straight. Her eyes remained locked on mine while her nostrils flared a few times. She made a pretty picture, standing there.

  I caught myself staring slack-jawed and stood up as straight as I could, hoping to pass muster.

  She slowly walked toward me, sniffing. Her tail was wagging slowly, and her ears were up, both giving away her intent to play with me.

  I crouched down on my front legs, ready to pounce on her when she got to me, but being obvious about it, giving her plenty of warning that I planned to pounce on her. Playing.

  She matched my pouncing posture.

  We both wagged our tails quickly now, giving away that we were both having fun. Our eyes were still locked together, but that was fun, too.

  She was close enough now that her scent intoxicated me. I imagined our future together: joining her pack and becoming her mate. I saw us running together through spring flowers, summer green grass, fall leaves, and winter snow. We slept side by side, at first alone, and then with a litter of pups born in a small cave near here.

  I pounced on her, and we went rolling over each other, quickly nipping necks and ears but still wagging our tails in happy play. And then we both heard the rest of her pack yelling about an intruder, and our tails and ears went limp.

  "Goodbye, Clem."

  "Goodbye, Neya."

  Neya's wolf pack ran after me, shouting out how I didn't belong with them, and how I had better run...

  I shook off that strange spell that had come over me. Of course I couldn't follow the wolf scent.

  What was I thinking? I wasn't thinking. I was just feeling. Feeling lonely enough to fantasize about a she-wolf!

  I shook myself again.

  I was so lonely that I wouldn't even mind being annoyed by the Niques right now. The Niques were obnoxious, and they did try to get us Kaxians sent to the pound, but unlike the wolves, the Niques wouldn'
t eat me! At least, I was 99% sure they wouldn't. Not in town, anyway.

  I howled in sorrow. My howl echoed off the mountains and came back to me, eerily as if I did have company.

  But wait. Oh yeah! My parents had taught me that I was never alone. They had told me that if I ever felt lonely, all I had to do was pray to Kax and I would have all the company I needed. I was doubtful, but I was also out of options, so I tried it. I prayed to Kax.

  "What will I do? Where will I go? Help! I'm all alone. Can you keep me company? Hello?"

  I didn't hear any answer.

  Coincidentally, right then my logical Kaxian memories took over and quenched the despair my puppy brain was feeling at being cut off from Mom and Dad. They had taught me that deep down inside me, my logical Kaxian-self waited to be remembered, as I grew up. Now, logic told me that my pack could still use my help guarding the jex and mining, and that my Kaxian duty was to get to the mine as quickly as I could. The pack would find me a place to sleep and bring me food to eat.

  Wow. I had a duty. I belonged to a pack! I already had a destination and a purpose. I already had twenty friends for company; I just had to get back to them. What was I doing wallowing around here in the muddy creek?

  On my way back up to the road, I noticed that the logical, old-memory part of my brain was making calculations. I had been in the car with the human for just over two hours, and the car had been going an average of 68 miles per hour, so the valley where I had been abandoned was about 130 miles from my neighborhood, the old-memory part of my brain reckoned.

  But, I had run full tilt back toward the neighborhood for half an hour before stopping here to rest and get some water. I have no idea how, but my Kaxian logic figured I had run at a rate of 24 miles per hour. So, I was about 118 miles from my neighborhood.

  Furthermore, all by itself, without my input, energy, or initiative, my Kaxian memory figured I could reliably travel 15 miles per hour, with stops for rest, so it told me I would be back with the pack in just under 8 hours. My Kaxian memories also told me it wasn't safe to run on the highway, so I ran alongside it, toward home.

  Chapter 5: Randy

  I was down the mountain now, running beside the flat two-lane highway that went out east to the desert that I called home. It was pitch black out. The moon and stars could not shine through the clouds and smog that covered the sky. The only light came when a car passed by, which was every few minutes, even way out here, in the middle of the night.