“But now ask the beasts, and let them teach you” – Job 12:7
In the hour following the second sunrise, Kalu stepped out of his hut to investigate the sound and smell of animals that had seeped into and finally snatched him out of sleep. He could move no further than the doorstep; the courtyard teemed with cattle, donkeys, horses, goats, sheep and fowl. Domestic animals, originally from the Homeworld, with slight variations from how they were depicted in historical documents.
Kalu stared at them, and they at him, for a good five minutes, his brain racing. The approaching sound of activity in the middle of the herd snapped him back to the present. A pair of cows parted reluctantly, and Hadraah appeared, a hand over her eyes to shield them from the glare of the suns.
“When they said expect the unexpected,” she said as she turned to face the animals, putting her hand down to her side. “I don’t think they had this in mind. Not on Mbiru IV, anyway.”
“No,” said Kalu. “Where did they come from?”
In the background, against a blue-grey sky, rose the Manda Hills. There, a Standard Year ago, they had found the wreckage of a spaceship and an abandoned human settlement. To all intents and purposes, whoever had built that settlement perished about a hundred Standard Years ago. Human, but not of the Afrikan Foundation. They had found no Homeworld fauna larger than rats on Mbiru IV. It had been Kalu’s idea to name the desolate settlement Manda, the grave. Although it appeared to have been inhabited by nearly a hundred people, only three sets of human remains were found. They had salvaged as much of the equipment as they could for their own settlement, Savuka, which translates to “we have risen.”
“Maybe one of the exploration teams found all these animals and brought them back,” said Hadraah.
“God knows we need them! Just look at all this food, transport, fuel…” She spread her hands to indicate the seemingly endless possibilities.
There were five teams on expeditions to explore the planet and find resources, such as hydrocarbons and rare minerals, vital to maintaining the technological level of the new settlers. Twenty-one humans were out there, leaving Kalu, Hadraah, and five others to hold the fort and look after twelve children.
Kalu came down from the doorstep, and peered closely at a cow, then a goat, a chicken, another cow. He pushed his way into the flock, prising fur here and there, bending to grab at legs before he was satisfied with the first interpretation he had made of his observation. “Hadraah, they are all lame.”
“What?”
“Look, every last one of these poor creatures has either an injury or a disease!”
Hadraah glanced around her. She clapped a hand across her mouth when she saw what Kalu meant. “Well, you are the vet,” she said. “Can you fix them?”
“I can fix some,” said Kalu. “Whether I can fix all of them remains to be seen. I hope they are carrying nothing that we can catch. But where on earth, I mean, where on Mbiri IV, did they come from?”
“From the Homeworld, originally,” said Hadraah, matter-of-factly. “They came here with the people who built Manda.”
“Plausible, but there is one thing glaringly wrong with this picture,” said Kalu. “Manda died out over a Standard Century ago. These animals look like they have been cared for, domesticated even. Unless we can find survivors from the original Manda settlement, this is very peculiar business.”
The cows hobbled this way and that, and Kitso burst through, surveying the scene with wide eyes and laboured breathing. “I guess we won’t be needing that inventory of edible species and beasts of burden after all,” he said, grinning at Hadraah and Kalu. “So, who found them?” Kitso’s grin faded, as realisation hit him. He manned the radio. If any of the exploration teams had come across surviving livestock from Manda Hills, he would be first with the news. “So, they all just herded themselves here?”
“They need a vet,” said Kalu.
“A vet?” Kitso echoed, noting for the first time the various displays of infirmity on the animals. “They came here on their own, looking for a vet?”
“I did not say that, Kitso,” said Kalu, looking to Hadraah for support. “If they are from Manda Hill, then someone survived from that settlement.”
“I will get the drone,” Hadraah said. The animals parted reluctantly to allow her passage to a room on the northern end of the quadrangle.
Kitso said, “Kalu, I think you should get started on treating these animals, while the rest of us figure out who sent them. If the owners are hiding because they are scared of us, they might be less so after we do them this act of kindness.”
It occurred to Kalu that the inventory of material recovered at the Manda Hill settlement had included veterinary supplies. Whoever had brought these animals here would have known that. Unless there was someone else on this planet who did not, someone who knew nothing about humanity or its livestock. Dr Themba Mfengu, the Savuka settlers’ xenoanthropologist, was out with the exploratory teams. Kalu felt his flesh creep, and he found himself casting a sweeping glance at the forest beyond their settlement, yet dreading whatever it was he would see there. A feeling of being watched came over him. However, a goat hobbled up to him, reminding him of the business at hand. So, he set to work. In the afternoon, some of the children came to help.
****
Kitso put the tablet down on the desk and looked up at the author of the report he had just read. “Good work, Kalu,” he said. “However, we are still nowhere closer to knowing how and whence these animals got here.”
“The drone picked up a pack of dogs about half a kilometre from here,” said Hadraah.
“Dogs?” Kalu echoed, looking around at the small group.
“Alsatian-looking,” said Hadraah, nodding towards the main screen at the other end of the meeting room as she touched a keypad on her tablet. Kalu was familiar with aerial shots of the surrounding forest and thought he recognised some features along the river they had named Mutsara. Although he had just been told about them, the sight of six large canine beasts emerging from the foliage was startling. Even before the drone swooped for a closer look, it was clear that it was its appearance in the sky that had prompted the dogs to emerge from concealment. Then, one of them opened its mouth, uttering a bark, inaudible on this recording, and they scattered in different directions. The drone ascended rapidly, in a desperate bid to keep the dogs in frame, until the entire landscape was blurred, and the image shook as the drone contended with high altitude turbulence.
“Those dogs came out of the bushes to investigate, and when one of them felt the drone was a threat, it directed the others to disperse in all directions,” said Kalu.
“I am so glad that our expert on animals concurs,” Rt. Major Homora said. He was Savuka’s engineer, but, with a rank like that, earned by leading a desperate and eventually triumphant platoon against thousands of giant acid-spewing centipedes on Njekese III, Homora was also their Security Officer.
“Trained dogs mean there is a trainer,” said Kitso. He glanced around the group, as if apprehensive that he was the only one who had reached this conclusion.
“Except, we haven’t found a trainer!” said Homora. “We have evidence of training, yet no evidence of a trainer.”
“Manda Hills is the only location with signs of recent human occupation on this planet prior to our arrival,” said Hadraah. “Whoever herded those animals here did not come from there.”
“But DNA comparisons that I have done show they are descended purely from livestock whose remains we found at Manda Hill,” said Kalu.
Silence fell on the meeting as they pondered the enigma posed by the information in their reports. From outside the building came the lowing of cattle and other animal sounds.
“I am recalling all the exploration teams, until we have a clearer picture of what is out there,” said Kitso. “Homora has started to put all our drones in working order, and arm them. This might take a few days, but we can send out one tomorrow, when its batteries are fully charged. After a more thorough reconnaissance of the immediate vicinity, I will send out teams again.”
“If there is anyone out there, they may have made further contact by then,” said Hadraah, “They might want to see how their animals are doing.”
***
As the second sun peeped over the horizon, Kalu dashed from his hut to investigate a sharp human cry that pierced the morning silence and seemed to ricochet off the buildings of the quadrangle before dissipating into that stillness that Kalu realised with a thudding heart should not be there at all. As he scrambled into the pleasant glow of the first sun, he knew exactly which direction to turn to, what he would see there. Or, rather, what he would not see.
The animal pens were empty, the gates swinging freely in the breeze. Kenaan, Haadrah’s teenage son, staggered back slowly from the shocking scene. The contents of an upset bucket of animal feed oozed. When he swung around, Kenaan found himself looking up at Kalu. “They are gone, sir!” he cried.
“I can see that, Kenaan.”
Kalu was aware of other people arriving on the scene. Their expressions of astonishment punctured the silence. He turned around to face them. “It looks like our mysterious neighbours discharged their livestock from our little hospital last night and did not leave an address for us to send the bill.”
“So much for the security system!” said Kitso.
Behind him, Horoma glared indignantly. “Hadraah, let’s get the drone up!” the security officer said. He brushed past Kitso, moving closer to the pens to get a closer look at the ground. He dropped on one knee. “If I didn’t know better, I would say the animals simply walked themselves out on their own. Either that, or their owners flew in without touching the ground.” He seemed to be talking to himself, as if trying to process the meaning of the words, or delaying their impact on his tidy, methodical mind.
“So, what are we saying, ghosts? Beings that exist in a parallel dimension?” said Kitso. “I need someone chasing that herd right now! Where is Hadraah?”
“Getting the drone up,” Kalu said.
“Drone’s out of whack!” said Hadraah, as she appeared from round the corner. “Sabotage. Someone or something ripped the rotors.”
“And you can’t repair them?” Kitso asked, his voice rising.
“I can, but it will take a while,” said Hadraah.
“We haven’t got a while,” said Kitso. “You and Kalu can take the last gyrocraft. The rest of you, conference room in five minutes.”
****
The herd had made considerable progress at a steady pace west, and it would take about 10 minutes before the gyro flew over them. It occurred to Kalu that this direction was diametrically opposite to Manda Hill, and that this was a clue to the mystery of the invisible herdsmen.
Below, forest undulated dreamily past, punctuated by glens and the glimmer of the river Mutsara. It was just as well that the weather was pleasant. Even though Kalu and Hadraah were ensconced in a pod, he would have loathed to be out in a typical winter or the rainy season of Mbiri IV’s southern hemisphere.
“Dogs!” Hadraah exclaimed, bringing the gyro round for another flyover. “Where are the owners?”
Kalu counted at least twelve dogs around the main herd. “Bring her down. There has to be someone with them! Someone who owns all these other animals as well.”
As the gyro swooped over the glade, the dogs scattered, and, when it passed, they returned to regroup the animals.
“Can you believe what you are seeing?!” said Hadraah, her voice a near-scream.
“Can you?” Kalu replied. “Who, or what, is telling those dogs what to do? I need…”
“Look! That’s one of the teams!” Hadraah cried, pointing to another glade, about two hundred meters to the right of the herd’s route.
It looked like one of the exploration teams had crashed on their way back. The gyro lay on one side, with bits of rotor and other appendages strewn around it. Mujaka – Kalu recognised him by his short, near-platinum afro – staggered from the bushes, and began to wave his arms frantically. Hadraah swung back and took the gyro down. Kalu jumped out before the craft touched the ground, crouching to avoid the spinning rotors as he darted towards Mujaka. He stopped, as he saw the condition of the geologist. The sleeves of Mujaka’s flight suit were shredded, his hands and arms covered in lacerations. Someone had done a good job of dressing some of the wounds, but blood seeped off some.
“Ziri is up the tree,” said Mujaka. “Where the dogs cannot reach. But they tried last night. We need to get up there quickly before they return!”
“What about the owners?” asked Hadraah.
A low growl arose from the bushes behind the gyro. As Hadraah turned, a flash of dark fur sprang from the foliage. Hadraah raised her hand and fired the hunting pistol she held. With a plaintive howl, the dog jerked its head to one side, as if it had been kicked by an invisible force, a spurt of blood bursting from behind its right ear, and fell to the ground.
“Come on, there’ll be more of them soon!” said Mujaka, shimmying up the tree. “They will send the larger animals to wreck the gyro.”
“I’ll get help!” said Hadraah. She tossed the gun to Kalu and jumped into the gyro.
Three dogs emerged from the foliage. Their jaws were clamped around what looked like sacks with bulging ends that dragged across the ground. Mujaka jumped back down beside Kalu. “That’s how they got us down, Kalu!” he said.
As the dog closest to the gyro rose on its hind legs, horrified realisation – and the logical part of his brain’s refusal to process what he was seeing – struck Kalu. The dog tossed its head, and the sack swung an arc towards the stationary rotors. It flew over them close enough to disturb the air and landed in the bushes. In the gyro’s cockpit, Hadraah’s hands worked desperately on the controls.
Kalu fired two shots at one dog, then the other. With the first dog, he got its sack, and the dog vanished into the foliage with a yelp. Its remaining companion keeled to land on its right flank, its head against the sack, whimpering piteously. The gyro ascended, leaning forward like a mechanical theatre prop, then veered off towards Savuka.
“Come on, there’ll be more dogs!” said Majuka, grabbing Kalu by the arm. They could both hear a crazed rustling coming through the bushes.
Kalu followed the geologist up the tree, noting how the lower branches had been cut. That would prevent the dogs from climbing the tree, but what about their owners? A soft moan redirected him from this thought to the sight of a woman hanging from one of the upper branches in a makeshift hammock, one of her legs in a sling.
“Ziri!” Kalu exclaimed. “What happened to you?”
The xenozoologist braved a smile. “Nice to see you again, Kalu. The dogs set a trap for us yesterday. They jumped us when we came down and wrecked our gyro.”
“You keep saying the dogs. Where are the owners?” Kalu finally said out loud, sitting on a branch at Ziri’s feet, leaning back against the trunk.
Ziri and Mujaka exchanged glances.
“It’s just the dogs,” said Mujaka.
“What do you mean?” Kalu looked at Ziri, then back at Mujaka. He knew the answer. It had been staring at him ever since the previous morning, when he woke up to the appearance of a herd of domestic animals that should not have been there at all.
“There is no one else on this planet except us and these dogs,” said Mujaka. “They are at the apex of life on Mbiri IV. They have a social organisation. We have seen one of their cities, their monuments, their idols, their writing.”
Kalu stared, refusing to believe what he was hearing.
“We found the records of Nalean anthrocynologist, Dr Mbali Mukoroti, hidden in a cave on an island on a lake about three days from here,” said Ziri. “There is no trace of her, but it appears that was the last place she lived in after she left Manda Hill.”
Mujaka held out a palm-sized viewer. Kalu had taken a module on animal development which had mentioned anthrocynology – the study of the theory that over ten millennia of living side by side on the Homeworld had shaped human and canine social evolution. He had never heard of Dr Mukoroti, which was not surprising, as the discipline of anthrocynology had progressed from when she might have been a leading scholar.
“My greatest wish at the moment is that my observations be transmitted off world so that the rest of humanity can see how the conditions on this planet, and the selective breeding of the most intelligent of the dogs have reversed the roles evolution assigned us on the Homeworld,” Dr Mukoroti was saying, her eyes twinkling with excitement out of a wizened face. “Just as thousands of years ago, on the Homeworld, their lupine ancestors recognised our place on the food chain and built a relationship with us in order to survive, we now must cringe before them if we are to live on this planet. Pliny the Elder wrote of peoples on the African coast called the Ptoeambati and Ptoemphanae, who had a dog for their king…”
“She trained these dogs?” Kalu asked.
“No,” said Ziri. “She studied them and realised what they were doing, what they were becoming. Maybe she warned the others, and they did not heed her.”
“So, what happened to the settlers at Manda?” Kalu asked.
“We don’t know,” said Mujaka. “All we know is that for the past century, the dogs have been building a civilisation on this planet on their own, using what they have learnt from humanity.”
“Throughout the history of interplanetary colonisation, I always thought it would be other primates that could supplant us, or at least compete,” said Kalu. “But, dogs?”
“Dogs have always been the most likely candidates, actually,” said Ziri. “They have lived with us the longest.”
There came a persistent swooshing sound overhead, and the foliage shivered in response. They all looked up, straining to see beyond the leaves. Sunlight stabbed at their eyes through the gaps.
“Kalu?!” a voice called, coming from the ground below. “Are you up there?”
“Is that Horoma?” said Mujaka.
They clambered down and found the security officer surveying the glade.
“Horoma, the dogs….” Kalu began.
Horoma smiled and patted the black device that dangled from his neck. “Ultrasonic repellent,” he said. “Here.” He threw two of the devices at Kalu and Mujaka. Overhead, the gyro that had brought him veered back to their settlement.
Still beaming, as though on a leisurely outing, Horoma cocked his head at the boxes of equipment at his feet. “Let’s get Ziri down.”
****
In his lab, Kalu ran the test on the recovered dog corpses at least ten times before succumbing to the exhilaration that seizes all scientists at a time like this. He hopped and turned in one spot, whooping deliriously, and dashed to the conference room on the other side of the quadrangle.
Some of the other exploratory teams had returned earlier that day in response to Kitso’s urgent recall. There were thirteen people at the round table. They were startled at Kalu’s entrance, but Horoma looked particularly irked. From his posture, Kalu guessed the military man had taken charge of the settlement. Hadraah was not at the table.
“I have discovered what has made the dogs so smart,” said Kalu. “It’s a life form that, like the dog, has been with humanity for millennia. Masiodisria Sapienccilla.”
This announcement was greeted with silence. Then, Nandi, the epidemiologist, said, “Masiodisria, the bacteria?” She sat up as all heads riveted towards her. “The Masiodisria bacteria acts on the central nervous system of mammals such as dogs, boosting their intelligence. The same phenomenon has been observed in rodents….”
“So, what if we know what makes these dogs smart?” said Homora, impatiently. “I want to know if you life science types can come up with something that can exterminate them.”
“The Masiodisria can be exterminated by a competitive strain that has no effect on mammals,” said Kalu. “I propose that we introduce it into this planet’s entire ecosystem immediately.”
“But the attacks…” Horoma began.
“The attacks will be carried out,” said Kitso. “But the introduction of the bacteria must be carried out immediately too.”
Horoma opened his mouth to voice his objections further, but Kitso beat him to it. “Horoma, I can’t believe you are so keen to massacre dogs.”
“They are not just dogs!” said Horoma. “We have all seen what they can do!”
“Yes, and Kalu here has just figured out what makes them do it, and what we can do so that they can’t do it anymore!” said Kitso. “I suggest, Horoma, that you plan and carry out your attacks. Kalu will work out how we can quickly spread the bacteria into the food chain.” He rose to indicate that the meeting was over. “The rest of you get some sleep.”
Nandi caught up with Kalu outside the conference room, and they crossed the quadrangle to the lab. Hadraah was waiting at the entrance, a look of concern on her face. “Ah, Nandi, I am glad you are back. I need you both to look at this with me and tell me what you think. I would get Horoma on board, but you know what he’s like.”
They entered the lab. “I was collating what we know of the dog’s movements and settlements, and this pattern came up.” She punched a few keys on her tablet. The information appeared on a large screen covering one wall of the lab. Kalu and Nandi stared intently at the shifting colours on the map.
“Manda Hill settlement was destroyed a century ago,” said Hadraah. “The dogs became the dominant species on this planet. They have shunned Manda Hill, even though it has much to offer them. Even the route they have taken to come here with their livestock avoids Manda Hill.”
“Why?” said Nandi.
“That is the mystery,” said Hadraah. “We have two options. We could stall Horoma’s plan to annihilate the dogs until we learn more about this other threat or find out for ourselves the same way the people at Manda Hill did.”
They all paused, listening intently. There was the sound of commotion outside. Incredulous voices shouting. Dogs barking.
They burst out of the lab to a scene from a nightmare. In the twilight of two moons, Horoma and Kitso were holding off about ten dogs with their pistols. At one end of the quadrangle, someone lay on their back, kicking frantically at a dog. Another dog joined in the fight, grabbing an arm, and shaking it furiously. At another end, three more men were firing on a pack of dogs.
None of this should be happening, Kalu’s brain screamed. The persistent trace of the ultrasonic repellent whined distantly in his head, and he wondered: why are the Dogs here?
A dark flash came towards him. There was a sharp bang, and it dropped at Kalu’s feet. He looked down at the dead dog. There was enough moonlight to make plain the streaks of dried blood from its ears.
“They have made themselves deaf to the repellent!” said Nandi. “Oh, God, how many of them are there?”
As if in response, another pack of about ten dogs emerged from behind the schoolhouse. They bore down on the humans, growling menacingly. Hadraah positioned herself in front of the unarmed Kalu and waited for the snarling, growling brutes to come into range.
THE END
Masimba Musodza was born in Zimbabwe, but has lived much of his adult life in the United Kingdom. His short fiction has appeared in anthologies and periodicals around the world and online. He has published two novels and a novella in ChiShona, his first language, and a collection of short stories in English.