Chapter 179

"By his own actions Argent has already let me know that whatever I'm doing here is important to him and also to a probably large and certainly powerful group in his society.

"He, and no doubt many others, want me to stay here and keep doing what I'm doing. You, Frank, and Phil want me to do the same thing. The only miniscule doubt I have is whether there is some other civilization who might be more powerful and might want to cause me trouble, but I doubt it seriously."

"You surprise me John," he said.

"Isn't that part of why I'm here in the first place?"

I had been guessing about it, but some things concerning my situation had become familiar to me. Argent had always been especially happy when something unexpected happened.

Unexpected by me anyway, and I'm pretty sure they had always been aware of what others would do ahead of time. I still didn't have any clue about their experiment though and I was beginning to think I never would. What's more, I didn't really care any longer.

I left my office and went back to the bedroom, changing clothes along with my mates. I could see Miekadakta and Sateala were surprised to be putting on chain mail, but they were getting plenty of help. Deimeta had hers on already and was busily pulling up her pants right now. I could tell she was excited.

When we were all dressed we went back to the kitchen to wait on the others. Deimeta ask for her tiny mug of coffee and as always, it made me smile. I'd already had enough coffee for a while so I sat down and tried to wait patiently. I did a better job of it than Deimeta, who couldn't seem to sit still. I could understand and was anxious to get on with it myself.

Finally there was a crowd gathered who was ready to go. We headed for the horse cave and when we got there Danlo and his helpers made sure Deimeta and Darta were ready to go first. Deimeta got aboard her sleigh and had Darta pull it outside where she stopped and invited Geera aboard for the first ride.

While Deimeta and Darta took Geera off up the canyon, Danlo hitched Big Mother to her sleigh and had her pull it outside where he gathered his first load. Merita, Maia, Roweea, Failiela, and Ameliea decided against riding for now and all went to pay their baby mammoths some attention. When Danlo left with his group they all took their babies out for a little interaction.

Later Deimeta had come back to pick up another rider. When she left again, all the others who had a mammoth lined up to follow her. It was funny to see Deimeta and Darta leading their own parade up and down the canyon and it was just too bad we didn't have a marching band to accompany them.

It would be good practice for them and I decided to ask Ralph if he had any objections to furnishing the sleigh/buckboard combinations for all the little ones.

Since I didn't have any desire for a mammoth sleigh ride and wasn't really needed to help I walked back up to my cave and went into my office.

"You have quite a show going on outside John," Ralph said, as I entered.

"Yes, and I came to ask if you, Frank, and Phil would help me add to it."

"In what way?" he asked.

"I seem to be short of the small buckboards for the little mammoths to pull. Can you make some more of them?"

"Of course we can and it is a good idea. Shall we make them with wheels and runners like Deimeta's?" he asked.

"I think it would be best and you might want to make some of them larger, for the older and bigger youngsters."

"I think we will make them specifically for each mammoth. If they grow too big for theirs later we can just replace it," he said.

"I'm sure you know more about it than I do, so I'll just leave it up to you."

"Good, we can make them right now," he said, and it almost seemed as if he was excited about it, but I knew that couldn't be right.

"Maybe you should wait until everyone has left for the day. It might scare them if buckboards start appearing while they are there."

"You're right, I should have thought of it, but I wanted to see them all lined up with their sleighs behind them. It can wait for another day though. You will try to get them to give us a show after we make them won't you?" he asked.

"I'll be glad to and I'm sure they will too," I told him, but I wondered why he seemed anxious to see it and he must have noticed something about the way I was looking.

"You know John -- Frank, Phil, and I have a staggering amount of data and we can access it as if we had gathered it ourselves.

"It isn't like with live species who tell each other what they have seen or experienced. When we transfer the data of one of our observations it is similar to what you know as copying a computer file from one computer to another and in fact data we receive from others of our kind should be no different than data we collect ourselves.

"We do know the difference though and it is always better for us to actually observe something for ourselves," he explained.

"It seems like you're trying to tell me you have emotions and can feel pride of accomplishment or anger and disappointment."

"We do have a rudimentary form of emotions. It wasn't in our original design, but we have been able to make modifications to support such things. They are not as powerful as your emotions and they are also not as distracting. We are able to determine whether we like to do something or not though and we are capable of enjoying ourselves and the things we do," he said.

"I had no idea that was even possible and I'm glad you told me,"

"Don't worry, it's not as if you are going to hurt our feelings or something. You already treat us with more respect than we have ever received and I feel confident Frank and Phil would agree we all like you and enjoy our mission here much more than we thought we would at first," he said.

"I'm glad of it even though I still don't have any idea what your mission here was in the first place."

"Well our mission and Argent's mission are not the same, but they are similar and they don't conflict. I think for now we should leave it at that," he said.

This was getting confusing for me and I decided to leave, hopefully before he noticed my bewilderment. I went back out into the cave and got a cup of coffee. It was deserted now with most everyone who was usually around being gone for the mammoth rides. I did have some company though.

Prince, King, and Rover came over to get their heads scratched when I sat down. All the younger ones were with them also. I didn't even know if the young ones had been named yet. I could tell they were growing.

Prince, King, and Rover were still growing too. I'm sure they were already bigger than any other wolves in this time and no doubt their constant and plentiful food supply was responsible for it. They hadn't missed a meal since I first caught them and it showed.

They were already easily a third larger than any German Sheppard I'd ever seen on my old home planet and they would probably get even bigger. I wondered what it would be like when one of the young females came into heat next spring. I was afraid we would be in for trouble if the mature males began fighting among themselves for a receptive female.

There was nothing to do about it, but wait. If we were lucky the females wouldn't be old enough for another year. I didn't think it would be so long though since their pace to maturity was probably affected by the quality and quantity of their diet. For once I was happy to have nothing more than this to worry about.