Infinity One by Robert Hoskins (Ed.) Page A

from his wrists and jugular, quite a lot of it, and the plant-thoughts stilled.

Anne McCaffrey is a career woman; her occupation: housewife. Science fiction readers should band together to keep her happily married, so that she'll still manage to find time to produce such stories as the novel, Dragon-rider, and the following ...

THE GREAT CANINE CHORUS
Anne McCaffrey

    Pete Roberts of the Wilmington, Delaware K-9 Corps has as his partner a German shepherd named Wizard. One night, just after they took the beat, Wizard started acting itchy, nervous, whining. He was snappish, not like himself at all. He kept trying to pull Pete towards 7th Street.
    That wasn’t the beat, as Wiz well knew. But Pete decided there might be a good reason. Wizard was a canny dog; he could pick a culprit out of a crowd by the smell of fear the man exuded. And he’d saved Pete from two muggings already this year. So, protesting, Pete let Wizard lead him to that block of buildings being torn down in the urban renewal program.
    Wizard became more and more impatient with Pete’s apprehensive, measured pace and tried to tug him into a jog. Pete began to feel worried; kind of sickly scared. Suddenly the dog mounted the worn staircase of one of the buildings about to be demolished. He pawed at the door, whining.
    Who’s that? a voice asked, high and quavering like an old lady’s. Pa? It couldn’t be too old a female, then.
    Wizard barked sharply three times in the negative signal he’d been taught.
    Hi, dog. Do you see my Pa?
    Wiz got down from the steps, looked up and down the street, then barked again three times.
    Pa’s so late, and I’m so hungry , the voice said.
    Pete, who had eaten well an hour earlier, was suddenly overwhelmed with hunger—the sullen kind of stomach cramp that he’d experienced in Korea when his unit was cut off for four days. The kind of griping pangs you get when you’re hungry all the time.
    “Lady, I’m going down to the deli on the comer. I’ll he right back with something to tide you over till your Pa gets back.” Pete made the announcement before he realized it. He left Wizard on guard at the door.
    He ordered a sub with no onions (somehow he knew ‘no onions’), two cokes and a banana.
    I’m in the back room, said the voice when he and Wizard entered the hall.
    Pete had had the distinct impression the voice had come from the front of the building. The tone was too thin to have carried far.
    The stench of the filthy hall sickened Pete. No matter how many years he might spend on the force, he’d never get used to the odor of poverty. Maybe it was the stink that brought a growl from Wizard.
    Pete pushed open the back door and entered the pitifully furnished room. On an old armchair by the window was a wasted little figure, like a broken doll thrown down by a careless child, limbs askew. By now he expected a girl, a child, but this was such a little girl!
    Wizard got down on his belly, licking his lips nervously. He crawled carefully across the dirty floor. He sniffed at the tiny hand on the shabby arm of the chair, whined softly. The little hand did not move away, nor toward him, either.
    What kind of a father, Pete fumed to himself, would leave a kid, a mere baby, alone in a place like this?
    I’m no baby, mister. I’m nine years old, she informed him indignantly.
    Pete apologized contritely, blaming his error on the glare from the single window. He wouldn’t have thought her more than five, six at the outside. She was so pitifully underdeveloped. She was clean as were her shred of a dress and the old blanket on which she lay, but the rest of the room was filthy. Her pinched face had a curious, calm beauty to it. When Pete knelt beside her, he saw her eyes were filmed and sightless. And when she spoke, her mouth did not move.
    He found himself breaking off small pieces of the sub and feeding them to her. She sipped the Coke through the straw and a look of intense pleasure crossed her face.
    I knew l