The doctors glanced in the doorway to an in-patient room where an old man was quietly sleeping.

“How’s Bruce? Erm, Brutus. Weird name. Anyways, how is he?” asked the first doctor to the other.

“Nothing wrong with him. He’s just old. May die in his sleep,” was the response.

The man was admitted in hospice because he was old and had no one to care for him. The person to find out was a police officer. The staff at the hospital estimated he would die naturally sometime in the near future. His body was slowly giving out.

“Who is he, anyways? Besides being named Brutus,” asked the second one.

The first doctor pulled a clipboard off the wall.

“Says here that this one Brutus Johnson owned a small bookstore in town, saved up enough money, then passed that onto a management company and retired. He’s been living in a small house just within the town limits gardening and landscaping ever since until a conversation with the local mail carrier referred him to the police officer who helped him into our care.”

“So, just a regular old man, huh?”

“Yep. A regular old average man. There’s that thing, though.”

“What, the stuffed animal?”

“Yeah, insisted it was brought with him when he was admitted. I think he’s just lonely and socially awkward and the toy makes him feel safe. This isn’t out of the ordinary for old people.”

“That’s kind of sad.”

“It is. Let’s go check on the other patients.”

With that, the two doctors left the man to his dreams.

Tummy quietly slept in her master’s arms. She had been his little puppy dog for over eighty solar years of this planet and loved every bit of it. She was, of course, a Catalum, an alien creature whose species was native to the Andromeda galaxy. Superficially, her species resembled puppy dogs and were usually mistaken for stuffed animals because of how still they could get, especially when held, like Tummy was being by her owner, Brutus.

Like all Catalum, Tummy went by a shortened name. Her full name was over fifty syllables long. Her Guardian, an artificial intelligence that she was assigned to, pushed her to drop using her full name in the company of others and go by a shortened name. Brutus named her “Tummy” because she liked tummy scritches. Her Guardian remarked this made her somewhat unique regarding other Catalum, as around one-percent of them liked tummy scritches. The other ninety-nine-percent did not care for tummy scritches.

Unlike most Catalum, though, Tummy was stuck in a sitting position. Standing at a full fifteen inches tall, Tummy resembled a toy stuffed animal, a Dalmatian to be precise. This wasn’t atypical for Catalum, though, as the typical Catalum had white fur and black spots, effectively, being a Dalmatian. Helping to sell the unintended stuffed animal toy look was that her eyes were hard unmoving marbles rather than the squishy soft moving eyes of most creatures with eyes, and that one of her eyes, the one on her right, was set lower on her face than the other, which made it look like she would have difficulties seeing if she was a real creature and not a stuffed toy. Tummy wasn’t fazed by her snout partially obscuring the direct line-of-sight from that eye. Tummy utilized a piece of technology invented by the Catalum Empire called a Filter, which was essentially a special contact lens that allowed her to have perfect vision as if she wasn’t handicapped. Technically, the Empire could instantly correct her disability, both the eye and the sitting problem, but Tummy would have none of it.

Tummy was assigned to Brutus as a companion a long time ago in his measurements because the Empire was establishing a small colony in the region and needed diplomats in the area in case any of the local civilizations advanced far enough to recognize the Empire. The Empire sent her, along with her littermates Maxwell, Jello, Jessie, and Oni to a planet in a yellow main-sequence star system to the human civilization on the third planet. Each of them were free to explore the planet on their own but it was Tummy that had the frigate ship so she was required to be the diplomat.

Not, that the Empire would really need a diplomat here of all places. The human civilization of this planet had not even hit the interplanetary stage let alone gone interstellar. The Empire did make note there were three civilizations that originated on this planet and a fourth that included it as part of their interstellar holdings but the people that inhabited the planet on the daily were not privy to any of that. Only the last one was of any note in the present day but their capabilities were far below that of the Empire so imperial officials paid them little heed.

Tummy slowly woke from her slumber. Her master, Brutus was waking up as well. His movements caused her to perk up; Catalum tended to be light sleepers.

She cooed in his arms.

“Good morning, my puppy dog.”

She lifted her head from his arms and pressed her nose into his left cheek, giving him a quick kiss by pressing her tongue against his skin. Brutus held her for a while, enjoying her soft fur on his body.

He took a long time to move, something that she noticed.

“Ouii-uh?” (Why slow?)

“I don’t speak puppy dog, you know that.”

“Ih-ooo. Ih-rahh.” (Oh. Oh, right.)

“She’s asking why you’re moving so slow,” chimed Tummy’s ship, in Brutus’ head, a feminine voice, based on Tummy’s demands for a female ship.

“I’m getting old. I’m probably dying soon. This is hospice, after all.”

Tummy’s ship knew that Brutus’ life was coming to an end. He was not listed as an Agent working for the Empire so it was likely he would die and Tummy would need to be assigned a new caretaker. Or none at all, since diplomats were supposed to be emotionally stronger than the average Catalum.

Tummy, did, however, understand English.

“Riihp!” (Not a word but a general yelp of alarm.)

“I wish I could live forever. I’m too tired, though.”

She held her master tightly, not wanting to him to go away.

A nurse passed by the room and peered in, seeing that the patient was awake. She went in to check on him, change his stuff, get him some food, and other usual check-ups.

The stuffed animal was left on the table beside where the patient was supposed to sleep. It thought long and hard over what to do with its new information.

Nearing noon, the little creature pondered over the revelation.

In the Tummy’s head:

“I can read your thoughts, Tummy. I know what you’re trying to articulate.”

“Master dying.”

“Yes, your master is on his last legs, to use the quote from these humans’ literature.”

“Me no want master die.”

“Agreed, being by your master’s side has done good for you. Losing him would be terrible. Maxwell took more than a hundred years to get over his first caretaker. Oni is immediately stressed at the thought of losing hers. Jello and Jessie don’t have any of their own but would be devastated over the loss of one of their own.”

“I thinking of it.”

“It” being a proposal to bring her master into the Empire as an official agent of the Empire. So far, all Brutus had been to the Empire was just some random person that Tummy lived with for eighty years, not even a blink of an eye in Catalum terms. The proposal was to elevate him to the status that Jake and Elliot stood at. They were the caretakers of Maxwell and Oni, respectively. Tummy thought about this for hours.

“As a diplomat for the Empire, it would be easy enough to instate him as an official caretaker. Would you like to make the order?”

“Does this mean master live?”

“Correct. Official caretakers are given access to the Empire’s resources, which is normally doled out as medical care. All the usual things: Genetic reconstruction, cellular strengthening, and nanite injections to keep the caretaker alive forever. They still need to eat, drink, breathe, and so on, but the medical side will be taken care of.”

The little creature sat there trying to digest and understand the big words her ship said to her.

“It means your master will live and not die.”

“Then, yes! Yes! I make order!”

The ship smiled inside the creature’s head. She was fond of the human. He was a good thing to her charge.

The afternoon came and went and Brutus was wheeled back into his little room for the night. The nurses were sure he had maybe a week left and were trying to keep his stay in hospice enjoyable enough to where he wasn’t sad on his final days. Things were working well enough for the staff.