Pioneer

Excerpt

  didn't much like the way Max—that's the guy who trained me—fastened the broad leather straps over my body. There was a smell of nervous excitement in the air and Max's hand trembled as he fumbled with the buckles. Thinking back on it, the whole morning had been like that. Nervous and excited.

Right after breakfast, Max had given me a good bath and loaded me in the car. I always like to ride in the car and this time Max even allowed me to stick my head out the window. He doesn't usually let me do that, but I was too engrossed in the exhilarating rush of air to pay any attention to the change of routine. When we drew up in front of a large brick building a multitude of strange and peculiar odors assailed my nose, tantalizingly anonymous. Max's big hand caught me before I got halfway through the window. That disgusted me, because I wanted to investigate the funny smells, and I pouted all the way into the building. As the events of the next hour progressed I got madder and madder.

First there was the doctor, poking around in my mouth, stabbing my eyes with a blinding beam of light, and prodding and squeezing my body. It reminded me of the day I came to live with Max and I was tempted to take a hunk out of this doctor's hand like I did the other one. But Max was there and that stopped me. I didn't want to see the hurt look that would come to his eyes every time I did something wrong.

After the doctor finished Max led me into a gleaming white room where I was surrounded by a gushing mob of women dressed in white uniforms. Their "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" and "Isn't he beautiful!"—I'm not beautiful and I detest the description—put the finishing touch to what had once been a wonderful day. I flopped to the floor, trying to ignore them. Then, indignities of indignities, one of the "girls" tried to pick up my eighty pounds of blue-gray masculinity. That was the last straw!

I let out a deep-throated growl, and sprang clear of her encircling arms. Fangs bared, ears flat against my head, I must have presented a terrifying appearance to the women, because they fled to all corners of the room, squealing and bleating like a bunch of sheep.

For the fun of it, I made a short dash at the one who had tried to pick me up. With a high-pitched scream she slumped to the floor in a dead faint. I could hardly keep from laughing as I turned to search for a new victim. About this time Max came barging through the door and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, putting an end to my fun. He wasn't mad, although he pretended to be, and I could detect the humor in his voice while he scolded me.

Back in the car again, Max roared with laughter while patting me on the head and saying, "You old devil, you!" in that special way he has when amused at something I've done. When he finally got control of himself, he started the car and drove in the direction of the funny smells. As the smells got stronger, I began to get uneasy. Looking at Max, I sensed that he was uneasy too. "What was going on?" I wondered as the car dipped down a ramp and entered a dimly lit cave where the smells became overpowering.

The cave was jammed with huge tank-trucks and that was where the strange smells were coming from. I don't know what was in the trucks, but Max said something about nitric acid and hydrozine fuel when he noticed my interest in them....