Staring where his son pointed, Sam saw a gray column about four feet
high, with four smooth lateral sides. Rectangular prisms of this size
were rare in nature. This was obviously the work of human hands, and of
a blasting rod as well, to judge by the sides, which showed evidence of
having been fused before weathering had cut into them. At first he had
thought the column was a gravestone. But there was no inscription upon
it. There was nothing but a thin deep groove that ran horizontally
around the four sides, several inches from the top.
"What does it mean, Pop?"
"Let's find out. It's obviously been put here as some sort of memorial.
As for this groove--"
He put his hands on the top of the stone and lifted. As he had half
expected, it separated at the horizontal groove. The top of the stone
was the lid of a box. Inside lay a plastic container.
"Some kind of plastic we don't make any more," muttered Sam.
"Aren't you going to open it?" asked Mark eagerly. "Maybe it tells about
the grave and the dog's name."
The plastic came open at a slight tug. Inside were several strong
sheets of paper. Sam stared at them and said, "It's writing, sure
enough. But in some language I don't understand."
"We can put it in our mechanical translator," said Mark. "That can tell
us what it means."
"That's what we'll do."
"Aren't we going to take the dog with us, Pop?"
"No, we'll leave him here. He'll come to in a little while."
* * * * *
Walking back to their ship, Mark continued to show an excitement that
was unusual for him. "You know what?" he said. "I'll bet we're going to
learn what the dog's name is."
"I doubt if whoever wrote this thing would bother about a trifle like
that."
"But that's important. You'll see, Pop, you'll see!"
At the ship, Sam inserted the sheets into the reader section of his
translator and started the motor. The selector swung into action.
"Before it can translate, it has to decide what language this is," he
explained.
"Will that take long?"
"A few minutes if we're lucky, a couple of hours if we're not. After
that, I think the translation itself shouldn't take more than a few
minutes. While we're waiting, we might as well eat."
"I'm not hungry," said Mark.
"You'd better eat anyway."
"Just a little bit, maybe. You know what I think, Pop? When I call the
dog by his name, he'll know I'm his friend and he'll come to me. Then
he'll really be my pet."
"Don't count too much on it," said Sam. And thought once more how lonely
his son must be, to center so much hope in a half-wild beast.
A light glowed suddenly in the translator. The selector had found the
proper language. Now it began to translate.
Twenty minutes later, its work had been completed. As Sam silently began
to read, Mark bumped against him, knocking the translation from his
hand. Sam's first reaction was anger at the boy's clumsiness. Then he
became aware of the hope and the fear that lay behind Mark's excitement,
and bit back the angry words which had almost reached his lips.
"Easy, Mark, easy," he said. He picked up the translation again and sat
down. "You can read it over my shoulder, if you want to."
"I just want to find out the dog's name."
"The important thing is his master's name. Julian Hagstrom, it says. And
he was on a spaceship with his brother, Raoul."
Mark's eyes had skipped ahead. "Look, Pop, here's the dog's name--Arkem!
I never heard of a dog having a name like that! What does it mean?"
"I wouldn't know," muttered Sam absently, still reading.
But Mark wasn't actually interested in his answer. He ran outside.
"Arkem!" he called. "Arkem!"
There was nothing he could interpret as an answer. After a moment or two
he came into the ship again, his face betraying his disappointment. "I
guess he doesn't hear me. He's too far away."
Sam nodded. He had put the translation down and was staring straight
ahead of him, as if looking through the ship's side.
"Is anything the matter, Pop?"
"What? Oh, no, nothing's the matter. I was just thinking about what I
read here."
"They had an accident, didn't they? How did it happen?"
* * * * *
"It happened because their ship wasn't as good as ours. Julian Hagstrom,
the man who was killed, was buried here by his brother. Raoul put this
record in the stone to mark his grave. I think he also engraved
something on the stone itself. But that's been worn away."
"It must have been a long time ago. Maybe years."
"Yes, it was years ago. After he buried Julian, Raoul tried to make
repairs, and headed in a direction where he hoped he'd find a civilized
planet. He never made it."
"How can you know that? He wrote the paper _before_ he started out."
"If he had made it, we'd have heard of him. We'd certainly have heard of
him." Sam's face was bleak. "And Rhoda--your mother--would still be
alive."
Mark looked puzzled, and stared at the translation once more. "It says
here he tried to re-reverse the aging process. What does that mean? And
what's immortality, Pop?"
"Something he and his brother were looking for. Something to keep people
from ever dying. They had a ship full of dogs and other animals. All
died in their experiments--all but Arkem. They had high hopes of Arkem.
He lived through a number of different treatments and became quite a pet
of Julian's. Then came the crash. Their method wasn't proof against
accidental death, and at any rate they hadn't applied it yet to
themselves.
"After Raoul buried his brother, the dog was miserable, and howled so
much that Raoul decided to leave him behind. He was helped to reach this
decision by the fact that the ship had lost much of its air in the
accident, and he knew that the air-purifying mechanism wasn't working
too well. He figured he'd have a better chance of surviving if he stayed
in the ship alone. But it didn't do him any good. He was lost in space,
or we'd certainly have heard of him."
From outside there came the sound of a low growl. "It's Arkem!" cried
Mark. "Now you'll see. Wait till he hears me call his name."
He ran out, and Sam followed slowly. "Don't expect too much, Mark," he
said, almost with pity.