“What is it doing?” Paint asked, pressing scaly orange hands over her earholes.
“Whining,” I said tersely.
“Can you make it stop?”
“No luck yet,” I told her as I skimmed over the very short briefing on this animal in our cargo hold. “They didn’t give me much to work with. Hey, buddy, it’s okay, really.” That last was aimed at the vaguely canine creature pacing back and forth in its pen, whining at a pitch liable to work screws loose soon. It had about eight legs, fur the color of dry grass, a long snout, and quite a talent for noises that set my teeth on edge.
“Is it sick?” Paint asked with some desperation.
“Nope. Checked that first. It just doesn’t like being on a strange spaceship alone, which is entirely reasonable.” I shook the bag of treats again, but only got a brief flicker of attention. “And before you ask, I can’t pet it because it doesn’t know me well enough to trust me.” I stepped forward with a hand outstretched, only for the whines to turn into a warning growl.
“At least that’s a different sound,” Paint said, lowering her hands.
I looked back at the briefing screen. “It’s familiar with the people who raised it, and apparently it’s trained to follow a number of commands, but of course they didn’t think to include any of those. Anything familiar would be good right now.”
“Do we know what it was trained to do?” Paint asked. She stepped up to read over my elbow. “Does it hunt pests like Telly?”
“I think it’s a livestock guardian,” I said. “Pests are a bonus, but mostly it’s trained to protect other animals from predators.”
“Oh. I guess it thinks we’re predators, huh?” Paint closed her lizardy mouth with all its sharp teeth.
“Probably,” I said, taking a step back. The growling stopped, but it wasn’t silent for long. The whine started up again. “Poor thing. Even if we leave the room, it’s lonely. Pity the owners didn’t send it with a friend.”
“Or any kind of toy,” Paint agreed.
I put those two thoughts together, and had an idea. It probably wouldn’t be any more of a distraction than the treats were, but it was worth a shot. “Hang on, let me get something,” I said, putting away the info screen and hurrying into the hall. “Be right back!”
My quarters weren’t far. I ducked in, gave Telly a scritch where she was napping on my bed, then dug through the bin of cat toys in the corner of the room. Telly stretched and hopped down to see what I was doing.
I tossed her a catnip mouse. There at the bottom was the bag I was looking for: jingly ball toys that Telly had never really taken a shine to. It was a bag of a dozen, with eleven still sealed inside with no cat germs to worry about. I grabbed it and waggled my fingers at Telly, who was eagerly rabbit-kicking the toy and ignoring me completely.
Back to the cargo bay. I could hear the whining from the hallway.
Paint was shaking the treat bag with even less success than I’d had, one hand pressed to an earhole and her shoulder lifted on the other side. She looked relieved to see me. “What’s that?”
“A long shot,” I told her. “The briefing did say that it’s trained to herd very small creatures.” I took a jingly ball out of the bag, and saw the animal aim all of its attention in my direction. “Hey, buddy. See this? This is for you.” I jingled it and approached, bending to where I could hopefully roll it across the floor of the cage. Assuming the alien guard dog would let me.
It did. No growls, no bared teeth (which was good; I’d seen them before and they would have put an anglerfish to shame). It just watched with intensity as I slipped a hand through the bars just far enough to roll the ball towards it.
These were crush-proof cat toys, designed to be underfoot without risking a shard of broken plastic if someone big stepped on them. I figured that if this beastie decided the toy was something to destroy instead of play with, I wasn’t risking an injury to it. And it was nontoxic, inert, of a size that could be swallowed without choking, if it came to that. Jingly poops were the worst case scenario. Hopefully.
I needn’t have worried. The alien dog took one look at the little thing rolling toward it, and jumped into guard mode. It nosed the ball away from the edge, standing over it in the center of the cage in a clear protective stance. Watching me, waiting to see what I would do.
I gave it three more, rolled one at a time to where it gathered them together with much more pleased whuffing noises. When I stepped back, carefully keeping the bag from jingling, it clearly decided that was all of them. It circled the huddle of cat toys, then lay down with its long body in a protective circle around them, laying its head on its own haunches, watching me where I stood next to Paint.
“Good dog,” I said.
Paint pressed her hands together quietly. “Look how happy it is! Oh, good job!”
“I’m glad that worked,” I said. “If it gets fidgety before the trip is over, I can give it a couple more to guard.”
Paint lifted the treat bag. “Do you think it would want any of these now? It kept looking at them before, like it’s hungry but didn’t trust them.”
“Maybe,” I said. “We can toss one in to see if it’s interested. Wouldn’t want to get close.”
Paint opened the bag and took out a brown disc that certainly looked like a dog treat. She handed it to me for my long human arms to do the honors, then stepped farther back.
When I tossed it through the bars (not bouncing off even a little; hooray for me), the dog-thing took immediate interest. It scooted forward, bringing the jingly balls with it, then very carefully licked the treat into its long-toothed mouth and bit it in half.
It gulped down one half without a thought, but gently deposited the other half in the center of its protective ring, in case its charges got hungry.
“Aww,” I said. “Good dog.”
Paint made a happy squeak beside me. “Do you think the new owners will let it keep those? It would be so sad to leave them behind.”
“I hope so,” I said. “They could be useful if there’s any more travel in its future. Let’s tell Captain Sunlight to mention it when we arrive.”
Paint nodded eagerly, closing the bag of treats. With her carrying that bag and me with the other one, we left the cargo bay quietly. I waved at the livestock guardian that watched us go, all settled in with four very safe and watched-over cat toys.
~~~
Good news! Volume One of the collected series is now available in paperback and ebook form! (Check your local store, or this handy link hub.)
~~~
These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.
Shared early on Patreon! There’s even a free tier to get them on the same day as the rest of the world.
The sequel novel is in progress (and will include characters from these stories. I hadn’t thought all of them up when I wrote the first book, but they’re too much fun to leave out of the second).
Every now and then, I still get hit with that feeling that my art is total shit. I used to deal with it almost weekly and feel completely overcome by it, but I've gotten better at recognizing it for what it is, just my own brain attacking me. It still stings, and it's hard not to let it get to me, but I’m learning not to take those thoughts so personally. Besides, It’s okay to suck sometimes and not take it all too seriously. I know it's an old pattern of mine, tearing myself down before anyone else can, but realizing that I do have some power over these feelings is liberating. I don't have to stay stuck in that mindset, or at least as long as I did before. :)
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