continued his instructions. We listened carefully, even though we had heard them several times before. We were puppies, which meant we could be disciplined for not listening.
"Everyone, while we are mining, be sure to listen for any warnings from Heg's defense team. If you hear a warning, go to the opening of the tunnel where we will all meet to help defend it. Let's go mine!"
Lido, Skil, and I worked out a rotation where we each took a turn getting dirt thrown on us while we picked it up from where the other three miners threw it. Our other turns were spent picking up the dirt from where the one it landed on threw it. That's how it was supposed to work, anyway. It looked to me like Lido was taking all of Skil's turns at the part where he got dirt thrown on him.
There was dirt flying everywhere: paws throwing dirt and coats shaking off more dirt. It was fun!
Koog, Crash, and Trixie were taking turns with one digging the vein of jex and the other two digging away the sides from where the main jex miner dug, so that the main digging channel wouldn't cave in.
The dirt was piling up faster than I could clear it away.
"I need some help here!"
Koog sized up the situation.
"Crash, Trixie, help Clem and them!"
Crash helped me clear, and Trixie helped Skil and Lido move the dirt farther away, outside our tunnel. The two of them were adult Kaxians already, a few years old. The puppy in me felt proud to be working with them, side by side, as equals.
I felt even happier when I took my turn digging into the vein of jex. It was a big vein, enough to keep us busy for another month. If all of us showed up every day, we could beat our quota. That would look good on my record, and might help me get a promotion, once I was no longer a puppy. Being a miner is fun, but being on the defense team and looking out for the Niques seems like it would be even more fun. Even better, leading mining or guarding operations gets you more respect.
As fast as I dug up the jex, I ingested it. I could carry quite a bit this way, and only other "dogs" would notice how loaded down and slow-moving I was. I would excrete it later, ten miles away, so that the crew could load it onto the nearest Kaxian space shuttle and take it to one of our star ships.
I was all loaded up on jex and ready to head for the shuttle and make my delivery when the Niques showed up, of course.
One of our six lookouts, a yellow Great Dane puppy named Lis, spotted them and yelled out the dreaded warning.
"Niques!"
The Niques were the reason we had the mining meetings. They were why we took our procedures so seriously. We didn't want the Niques stealing our jex! As we had pre-arranged, we all met with our faces sticking out of the tunnel, clogging it up with our rear ends to block the Niques from gaining entrance to the jex mine. This was tough because they were all so little they could fit under our bellies.
"Clem, put your legs behind mine!"
"Lis! There's a gap over here!"
As was their style, the Niques taunted us from just outside the tunnel:
"We'll make you move!"
"You can't stay there all day!"
"Give it up, Kaxians."
"There's plenty of jex for all of us."
The Niques employed their usual strategy of making so much noise that sooner or later a human would come over and either chase us away or catch us and take us to the pound.
Heg, our defense leader, kept us moving toward our goal.
"Lido, you go to the space shuttle first."
I thought that made sense. If Lido's, um, girth gave him any trouble it was best he went first. That way, the rest of us would be along soon to help him.
"All right. Hope to see you soon."
Now that the Niques were here, we all spoke in code, of course. Our ordinary speech sounds a lot like the barking of wolves, which is why Kax chose Earth. You already had a species which is very similar to Kaxians, so similar that hardly any of us are full Kaxians anymore. The Niques' ordinary speech was always similar enough that they understood ours. That's why we use a code called Kanx: when we don't want the Niques to understand us. (The Niques have their own code they use when they don't want us to understand, too, but who cares about them?)
Lido took off running as fast as he could, and the rest of us pressed tightly into the opening he left.
Three of the fastest Niques in their pack took off after Lido. They were so little that it would take three of them to carry all the jex he was carrying, if they managed to trap him so that he couldn't make it to the shuttle before his jex came out.
As my parents had taught me, I said a silent prayer to Kax. I prayed that Lido would outrun those three "little dogs." I asked that Kax help the rest of us stay long enough to block the ten "little dogs" that remained, and that something would draw the "little dogs" away so that the rest of us could make it to the shuttle. And, I asked Kax to please find a way to see that I would get my promotion. I know, I know. That last part was selfish of me, but that was what I prayed. At least I was honest and said so!
The Niques were up to their annoying little schemes, as usual.
"Humans, come chase these selfish Kaxians away from this tunnel!"
"Yeah, they are selfish!"
"They always try and 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 th
at'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