And then my human's mate surprised me again.
"Oh no, Scott! This is our fault!"
"What do you mean?"
"He tried to tell us he needed to go outside, but we told him to be quiet, and then we told him to lie down!"
Smart humans who love you are hard to find, but I have two of the best on Earth.
Chapter 13: Lido
That night in my new den, when I was almost asleep in my new crate by my new humans' bed, I prayed to Kax.
"Thank you for my new home. I am happy. I know I owe this to you, and that my first duty is to you and to my fellow Kaxians. I don't want to disobey my new humans to leave and go mine jex, though. They have not commanded me to remain at home, but I know they want it. I love them. I don't want them to abandon me. Please don't make me disobey them. Please. I'll do anything else you want, just let me stay here."
I didn't hear any answer, but a few hours later I woke up because Lido was just outside the window, whispering over and over.
"Clem! Clem! Clem! Wake up!"
I went over to the window, nosed the curtain aside, and looked out at him.
"Lido! It's great to see you! How's Skil?"
Lido grinned bigger than I ever saw him grin before. He stood up straighter, too, and sucked in his gut, which looked smaller, come to think of it. His chest even puffed out.
"She's great, Clem. I've already asked her to be my mate, when we're old enough."
Wow! He didn't waste any time! I tried to hide my surprise by telling him my own news.
"Congratulations, Lido, that's great. Wow. That's good to hear. Huh. Hey. Well, you'll never guess what happened to me, so I'll just tell you: I've bonded with my new humans! I go by the name Raffle now."
Lido's eyes got big.
"Wow! You bonded with your humans?"
"Yep!"
"But you're only six months old!"
"I know!"
"What's it like?"
"It's wonderful and weird and kind of scary, Lido. It gives my humans control over me."
"What?"
Lido's eyes almost popped out of their sockets, and he jumped a little.
"Yeah, that's the 'kind of scary' part."
"It sounds more than just 'kind of scary,' Clem! Are you sure you're OK? I can probably get you out of there if..."
"Call me Raffle, Lido, and I know you could get me out, but I don't want to leave. I have to obey my new humans, but I love them, and they love me, so I don't mind at all. I like it. I want to please them, and I know they want what is best for me."
"Well, I guess what Heg said makes more sense now. He said you won't be mining with us anymore. He sent me here to tell you not to worry about coming to the mine, that you'll have shut-in duties from now on."
"That's a relief. My only worry has been how on Earth I would fulfill my Kaxian duty without disobeying my new master."
At that last word, Lido took a big breath like he was going to launch into a speech, and then he seemed to change his mind.
"Heg also said to tell you, 'Sweet dreams.' What does that mean, Cle... I mean Raffle?"
I smiled at what Lido had said. Heh, so Heg would be showing me my new duties while I slept. I couldn't tell Lido that, though. It pained me to keep things from my best friend, but I had the feeling that even if I wanted to tell Lido, Heg's suggestion would prevent me.
"I can't tell you, Lido."
Lido started to say something, but then he just swallowed. His ears drooped, and his mouth slackened. His tail drooped, too.
"I would tell you if I could. You know that."
Lido shrugged.
"Well, I guess I better get back home."
"Say hi to Skil for me!"
I'm sure he heard me, but he just turned around and ran off.
I watched until he was out of sight, and then out of habit, I listened until he was out of earshot.
"Have a safe trip home, Lido."
I was talking to the empty window. At least he had Skil. I hoped they would be happy.
* * *
When I fell asleep that night, I told myself to watch in my dreams for a mental movie from Heg. Sure enough, I woke up with the memory that Heg had shared: me listening for messages tagged with my new name, Raffle, and relaying them on so that someone across town could hear from someone else who was out of earshot.
That was pretty simple.
Why couldn't Heg have just told Lido to tell me that? Why had he told Lido to tell me 'sweet dreams’? Why the mental movie and all the secrecy that entailed? I felt awful for having to keep the mental movies a secret from Lido.
Didn't Heg know that?
* * *
The next few days were wonderful despite my hurt feelings when Lido ran off and my bitterness at Heg for making me keep secrets from Lido. My new humans liked to play, and I was a puppy! Puppies are made for play. My new humans had bought me so many toys that I couldn't go ten feet without encountering one.
There were stuffed animals with little squeaky bulbs inside that were fun to tear out. In hindsight, I made quite a mess with the stuffing while tearing these apart, but my humans took it in stride, Kax bless them.
There were rubber toys that were particularly good for cutting my incoming teeth out of my gums. One in particular my humans would stuff with a treat and then hand to me to get the treat out. They seemed disappointed when I was able to get the treat out in five seconds, flat. I'll bet they wish to this day that they had shown me those teething toys before I made the tooth marks on the leg of the coffee table. I get embarrassed whenever a guest notices that, to this day.
There were balls: tennis balls, ping pong balls, and even a soccer ball. The cat was territorial over the ping pong balls. She chased them all under the dresser and the rocking chair, where only my nose could fit. I liked the tennis balls the best. They were fun to chew up into little tiny pieces. My humans enjoyed playing out in the back yard with me and the soccer ball. They would try to get the soccer ball to one side of the yard, and I understood it was up to me to stop them. They got tired really quickly when we played this, for some reason, so we only played for a few minutes at a time, but it was fun.
My human's mate's favorite of all my toys was a hard canvas cube with geometric holes in it that had plastic pieces which fit inside the cube through holes with corresponding geometric shapes. She was enthralled every time I solved the puzzle, which I found funny because it was super easy. It soon became my favorite toy, too. I would bring it to her whenever I wanted to see that funny look on her face.
My favorite game to play with her, though, was tug of war. She would take me outside and show me a cloth rope. I would grab the knotted end with my teeth and clamp on as hard as I could. She would swing the rope around, trying to unloose me. At first, she only made me run around her, but she got more and more daring until she was swinging me around and around her with my feet off the ground by a good bit, hanging on only by my teeth. I was only half grown then, only 35 pounds. That would never work now that I am 70 pounds (and my teeth are much older).
* * *
I waited for my female human to go off to work so that I could do my Kaxian relay duty without making her worry about what I was up to, but she never did. Instead, she went into a room in the house that she called her office, where she talked on the phone a lot about car crashes and injuries. She also typed a bunch on a laptop computer.
All this time, my male human was sleeping. He slept all day while my female human and I played and she talked on the phone in her office and the cat hissed at me from her cubbyhole in the bookshelf. I found this puzzling. Why did he sleep all day? I found out that night. He left for work after it got dark!
After my male human left for work, my female human had more play time with me, and ate her meal, and talked on the phone about much more pleasant things than car accidents and injuries, and watched the TV, and played games on the computer out in the living room.
Between my two humans, on
e working days and the other working nights, I was never alone in the house. (Well, the cat was always there, too, but what could she do?)
On one level, constant human affection was wonderful, especially after being abandoned by my first human and almost abused by my second human. Here in my third human home, I never felt lonely. I basked in all the love and attention and play time they gave me. I felt real love, and I loved them back.
On another level, my Kaxian level to be precise, constant human company worried me. It limited me, to be more precise. Sure, I could always listen for messages tagged with my name and relay them. Relaying messages bothered whichever of my humans was sleeping, but I was always careful to face a window or a door when I did so, to make them think an intruder was passing by. I was relaying messages and would continue.
Wait.
One time, there actually was an intruder.
It was the middle of the night. My male human was at work, and my female human was sleeping. I was shut up in my sleeping crate by their bed. I heard a human opening the window in the front of the house! I yelled and yelled about the intruder until my female human woke up. She had the sense to let me out of the crate, and I ran to the front window and told the girl who was crawling in the window that she had better not or I was going to eat her for...
Yes! A teenaged human girl was trying to crawl in through the front window of my humans' home. We found out later from the neighbors that the house we rented used to be inhabited by drug dealers and had people crawling into it from windows at all hours of the day and night, and they even had carrier pigeons in a coop on the roof, for the drug business, so craziness was actually commonplace to the neighbors. My humans thanked me profusely for keeping intruders out from then on, so the location actually was prime for being a shut-in who had to pretend to warn off intruders while really relaying messages.
But, relaying messages didn't seem like the kind of thing that would get me promoted. I had all sorts of questions, and no one here to ask.
How did any Kaxian who was bonded to a human (or any Nique who was bonded to a human, for that matter, but who cared about them?) manage to get promoted?
How did they manage to serve Kax?
What had my dad meant when he said he served a higher purpose as a bonded dog than mining for jex?
Wasn't mining our purpose here on Earth?
Didn't jex have to be our priority?
Had Heg given up on me?
All in all, though, I was happy. I had a better home than I ever hoped for, with humans who cared about me and played with me and arranged their schedules so that I wouldn't be lonely. Not many Kaxians ever get that much consideration from humans. I knew that Kax had blessed me, so I tried to just be grateful.
Not every day over the next six months was as uneventful as these first few days, though.
Chapter 14: Cat
Did I mention that my master's mate's cat did not like me, at all? That she hissed whenever I came near her? That practically all I ever saw of her were her glowing eyes under the bed or the couch or the bookcase? That she wished I would drop dead and wouldn't hesitate to speed the act along if she thought she could get away with it? That doesn't even begin to cover how horrible it was for us to live together.
To be fair, I was the new addition to the family, an imposter. From our female human's phone conversations, I knew the cat had been with our mistress for years before our two humans met, let alone married. The cat had a far longer claim on the humans than I had. Still, I did not in any way deserve all the bitterness the cat showed me or the mean ways she never passed up an opportunity to tell me what an awful interloper she thought I was.
All right, the cat had a name.
The humans called her Puritan.
Unusual, huh?
The cat was a black and white domestic short-hair. She looked like the pilgrims that children draw for Thanksgiving, if that helps you picture her. Well, OK, she didn't have buckles on her feet or wear a hat, Silly. She had white feet, a black back, and a white stomach. She reminded my mistress of the puritans at the renaissance fair where she used to work, and where she had adopted the cat, and where she got her name.
Puritan had been the runt of her litter. Her mother's humans had been performers who traveled from fair to fair by car. They would stop at campgrounds along the way, where they would let the cats out to do their business and to hunt. When they pulled out of one such stop, no one in the troop had noticed that the mom cat was not in the car. By the time they were at the next stop and missed the mom cat, it was too late to turn back and get her. The troop would have been late for their next gig.
The mom cat had been left behind when the kittens were only four weeks old. The humans fed them cat food, but they were barely able to digest it yet. This stunted Puritan's growth for life, so she was small for her fifteen years of age. Humans often mistook her for a kitten and were surprised at how grumpy she was.
With anyone but our mistress, Puritan would tolerate petting or playing for exactly ten seconds, and then she would bite. Our master was always fooled by the cat's tail. He thought she was happy with him petting her, because her tail was "wagging." He was always surprised when she turned and bit the hand that was petting her.
Here's a word to the wise:
Cats do not wag their tails when they are happy, the way dogs do. When a cat is happy, her tail will be straight up, with just an inch or so at the top tipped sideways. If a cat's tail is moving, the cat is either angry or hunting. A hunting cat's tail will slither like a snake. An angry cat's tail will thump the floor like a jump-rope. Mistake this for wagging her tail at your peril! When a cat is angry or hunting, she is likely to claw or bite.
Puritan knew I was from out of this world.
This had to be frustrating for her.
She tried and tried to tell her mistress, but humans don't understand cats very well. Kaxians don't understand cats very well, either (and neither do Niques, but who cares about them?). Every time Puritan would try to tell her mistress I was an alien, it would be my duty to chase her off. I felt bad for it, but duty is duty. My memories told me it wasn't always this way between Kaxians and cats, but usually we had to meet when we were both young, if we were going to be friends.
You probably are thinking my power of suggestion should have helped me deal with the cat better. Well, let me tell you, it was of no help at all.
Reaching out to a human's mind is almost as effortless for me as reaching out to a fellow Kaxian's mind. We think alike, you humans and we Kaxians (and Niques, but who cares about them?). We're both civilized. Even though cats are Earth creatures and I am the imposter, it seems like the cats are the ones from another planet.
A cat's mind is alien to me: completely wild. You humans only think you have cats tamed. In reality, they have you tamed. You feed them, give them water, treat them for disease, and keep the rain and snow off their backs. What do cats do for you? OK, some cats are good mousers. Admit it, though: most cats do nothing at all for their keep, and are so independent minded that their humans can't even get them to come when called.
When Puritan was asleep, my power of suggestion was blocked by her mind being full of the excitement brought on by her vivid dreams. She dreamed constantly of hunting and killing things. Cats are little killing machines. It's a wonder humans let them inside their houses at all, but it's especially frightening that cats prowl about human homes while the humans are sleeping!
No, I could not see her dreams. I could tell what she was dreaming by her phantom dream movements. If you don't know what I mean, watch an animal sometime while it is sleeping. Its paws will move as if it is running, or hunting. Really.
Puritan was lazy, too. OK, she was old. I was the one who had to keep the rodents out of the house. All she ever did was eat, sleep, hiss at me, torment me, and sometimes play with our mistress.
When Puritan was awake, her mind was too full of hatred for me to allow any suggestions to get in. When
ever I got near the cat, she made this high-pitched growling sound, deep in her throat. It sounded like someone was revving up a remote-controlled car, but not fun like that. She meant it as a warning that she was about to attack me. I'm sure she would have killed me in my sleep if my humans hadn't given me the safety of a sleeping crate.
* * *
Whenever I ate, I was careful to make sure my humans were nearby. This was mostly out of my fear of being abandoned again, but it was also because the cat loved to attack me while I ate. I had the habit of wagging my tail when I ate. The humans thought this was cute, and really, it was my way of expressing my happiness.
Well, the cat just loved to run up and bite or claw my tail as it wagged. And, the humans thought that was cute, too! I wasn't sure what to make of this.
I tried and tried to hold my tail still while I ate, but sooner or later I would get so wrapped up in how good the food tasted that I would forget. The second my tail started wagging, out popped the cat. She would be hiding nearby, always someplace different. With one pounce, she would be on my tail, either biting it or clawing it. It didn't really harm me, but it sure was a mean way to disturb my meal.
* * *
I thought of a way to fight back.
Our humans tolerated her attacks as just silliness because she wasn't really hurting me, just disturbing me. OK. Turnabout is fair play.
The next time Puritan was settled in our mistress's lap getting petted, I made my move. I sidled up to the front of the couch where I could reach the cat with my mouth, and I proceeded to give her a bath.
You would have thought I was poking her with a fork, the way she growled!
"GGGGggggggggRRRRRRllllllllll!"
Our female human laughed so hard her face turned red.
I got done washing Puritan's back, and proceeded to wash her face.
"MMmmmmmmmRRRRRRRlllllll!"
She growled at a completely new level, letting me know she was not happy at all with the attention and love I was showing her.
I could tell the cat wanted to claw something, but our mistress was all she would hurt if she did, so the cat was stuck.
Puritan had to sit there and be nice while I washed her.
I washed her ears for her, just to show how considerate I was. Next, I washed her paws.
She reflexively extended her claws so that I could clean between her toes, but she did not claw me once. She just kept growling, one note higher and more sustained than the last.