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C00002 00002	KEEPING HUMANS AS PETS
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KEEPING HUMANS AS PETS


	Even in  these days when  the government's  innermost secrets
are  blabbed by corrupt  officials to the  media and by  the media to
anyone who  cares,  there was  no  problem  about keeping  this  news
unpublished.  The expedition to Tau Ceti had reported by radio that a
large island on the fourth planet of that star had almost the precise
size and  shape of  England with appropriate  fauna and  flora.   The
geographic detail was exact  as far as the expedition could determine
from its  limited  maps,  but  drilling  into  the  chalk  cliffs  of
pseudo-Dover established that whoever did it had not troubled to salt
it with fossils any deeper than the first few feet.

	The  towns  and villages  were imitated  also  but apparently
somewhat eclectically, because  the architectural  styles and  public
works seemed vary  over a period from the late  sixteenth to the late
nineteenth  centuries.  The houses and  farms seemed to be maintained
and worked by non-humanoid robots  who apparently made no use  of the
products of the farms and  mills.  When an astronaut was sent into an
inn, he was waited on by robots, who could take his order in English,
but who understood no questions beyond those about what was on the menu
or what lodgings were available.  No money was requested.

	The five men of the expedition spent the first two weeks in a
frenzy of  activity verifying everything.   At  first they  proceeded
with  extreme caution  keeping three  men in  orbit, one  man in  the
lander,  and one doing ground  exploring with an open  TV link to the
orbiter.  However,  after a while  mere strangeness unaccompanied  by
hardship  or apparent danger  loses its  power to motivate,  and they
calmed down, took turns being the  explorer and even allowed two  men
to explore at once.

	After three weeks the first message came.  It was handwritten
in ink  on paper and was  delivered to the captain and  the cook by a
robot while they were in a pub drinking stout and playing darts.  The
message  welcomed  them  to  pseudo-England -  using  the  term  they
themselves  had invented for the island -  and invited them to London
to meet the  proprietors.  It  was signed William Shakespeare,  Isaac
Newton, and Karl Marx.

	The invitation was addressed  to all five astronauts by name,
and assured them that neither they nor the planet Earth had  anything
to lose  by their all  coming.   To demonstrate this  it gave in  one
paragraph  the location  of Earth  and a  summary of  its population,
economics and technology and stated that in two hours a capability of
capturing  the  spaceship  would  be  demonstrated.    In  fact,  the
spaceship  was brought down in  spite of anything  that could be done
with the controls and landed in the square of Bath  where the pub was
located.  The three from the spaceship came out willingly enough once
it was demonstrated that the spaceship did not constitute any kind of
reserve that could be held out against the "proprietors".

	The crew had long since agreed that  this eventuality was not
covered in any way in their instructions so that they were free to do
whatever seemed best to them.  They had, of course, been broadcasting
coded descriptions of all that occurred  and even a certain amount of
the  TV transmitted from the surface of  the planet.  However, no new
instructions could arrive for 24 years.

	They  decided   to   accept   the  invitation,   and,   after
considerable  argument,  concluded  that  it  be  both  pleasant  and
sensible to accept  it graciously, holding  out only a  small kit  of
"dirty tricks" which  a certain government agency had  provided "just
in case".

	They  set  out  on  the  train  provided, noticing  that  the
appearance of everything seemed authentic nineteenth century,  except
that the ride was smoother  than their library research indicated and
there was  almost none of the smoke that might have been expected.  A
visit to the engine showed  that another source of power  was present
in  addition to  the  steam engine  and that  accordingly,  the robot
stokers put  only  enough coal  in  the  firebox to  produce  a  good
appearance and smell of smoke.  An analysis of the motion of the cars
using accelerometers and portable computers established that actually
each car had its  own motive power probably  in the journal boxes  of
each wheel  and that the whole  contraption was servoed to  avoid the
banging that occurred when "real" trains accelerated and decelerated.
The robots as  usual could only  answer questions about the  services
offered  to passengers.    There were  no other  passengers,  and the
robots made no response to questions about them.

	On arrival at xxx  Station they were met  by two horse-drawn
carriages driven  by the  usual uncommunicative  robots and taken  to
pseudo-Claridges  where  they were  made comfortable  for  the night.
Another note from their hosts wished them a good stay and  proposed a
meeting at breakfast  in the hotel on the following  day.  After some
hesitation  and  discussion,  they  took  the  five  different  rooms
offered, and the  captain and the cook,  adhering to their line  that
there  was no point  in expressing  distrust over  trivialities, even
left their boots outside their doors when they turned in, curious  to
see what  nineteenth century technology  would do to  their imitation
Naugahyde  surfaces.  In  the morning they  found that  the boots had
been resurfaced by  some technique  that was obviously  not from  the
nineteenth century or even from their own twenty-second.

	In preparation  for the  visit, they  had sampled what the ship's
library  had to  say about  their putative  hosts.  Since  there were
hundreds of volumes of biography on each man, the  sample was sparse,
but  they  had  made  the  computer  show them  most  of  the  extant
portraits, and the ship's programmer  had even "consed up" a  program
that  made  "best fit"  busts  of  each  man taking  all  sources  of
information into account.

	They were ushered  down to breakfast at 8:30am by yet another
robot and were greeted  by three men who,  as they signalled to  each
other by quick nods, met  the specifications well enough granted that
you took the famous men in good health in their early forties.

	Pseudo-Isaac  was the  spokesman for the  group, which seemed
reasonable, since he had been the a government official  in his time.
"I can explain our situation in one longish sentence", he said.

	"Our  master xeroxed us  from the  originals on Earth  at the
ages of twenty, forty and sixty  and merged the information sets  and
combined the personality variants in order to  get "best fits" to our
historical  personages.     It  constructed  our  pseudo-England  and
established us here as pets.  It tells us that we will stay  here for
a  few thousand  years  after which  we  will run  out  of things  to
experience and do and will become bores to ourselves and it, at which
time it  will kill  us  (each in  his own  time).   We  are the  only
inhabitants of  pseudo-England at present although a  few others have
been here from time  to time.   No we are not  bored now and  haven't
been since our arrival.

	"Sometimes Master takes one or more of us to its abode, and we
can travel to other universes when a master will transport us.

	"What is  your master like and how can  such men as you stand
to be pets", the first mate, who was not shy, blurted out.

	"The best way to  explin it is  by analogy with the  relation
between men and dogs.  A dog finds value in the company of its master
beyond what it finds in the company of other dogs, but cannot explain
to other dogs why it does.  All I can tell you, is that there is more
happiness in the company of a master than in any human companionship.
Besides that, there is more education, more comfort, better food, and
better conversation.   Our master  hasn't taken any  of us  for fifty
years, but we  hope your arrival will be taken as an interesting event
so that it will send for us."

	"Does your master wish to enslave us too?"

	"I shouldn't think so - any more than you wish to capture the
remaining wolves and  coyotes.  When they want new  human pets, which
is seldom,  they xerox them as they did us and leave the originals in
place.   It  told  us you  would  come by  about  now, gave  us  some
equipment with instruction  manuals, and told us that  we could do as
we pleased about you.  As far as  we can see, we are free to  conquer
Earth if we can or give you this planet and our technological toys or
anything in  between.  We may also accompany you  back to Earth if we
want, but we are unlikely to do it.  We are open to  suggestions, but
frankly, we  are most likely to  welcome you as guests  for about the
year you were supposed to spend in this solar system anyway, and then
send you off with instructions that we are not  to be visited without
our consent  and evidence that  we can make  that stick.   Of course,
we'll go off with Master  if the chance arises,  or we'll do what  it
tells us if it tells us to do something."