Communication was telepathic. Tennant could have yodeled or yelled
or sung _Mississippi Mud_ and Opal would have shown no reaction. Yet
Tennant suspected that the captors could hear somewhere along the
auditory scale, just as perhaps they could smell, although not in any
human sense.
_You will approach without use of your appendages._
The command was as clear as if it had been spoken aloud. Tennant took a
deep breath. He thought of the space beside Opal. It took about three
seconds and he was there, having spanned a distance of some ninety
feet. He was getting good at it.
Dog does trick, he thought.
* * * * *
He went through the entire routine at Opal's bidding. When at last
he was allowed to relax, he wondered, not for the first time, if he
weren't mastering some of the alleged Guru arts. At once he felt
probing investigation. Opal, like the rest of the captors, was as
curious as a cat--or a human being.
Tennant sat against a wall, drenched with sweat. There would be endless
repetition before his workout was done. On Earth, dogs were said to be
intellectually two-dimensional creatures. He wondered if they felt this
helpless futility when their masters taught them to heel, to point, to
retrieve.
Some days later, the training routine was broken. He felt a sudden stir
of near-sick excitement as he received the thought:
_Now you are ready. We are going through at last._
Opal was nervous, so much so that he revealed more than he intended.
Or perhaps that was his intent; Tennant could never be sure. They were
going through to Tennant's own dimension. He wondered briefly just what
his role was to be.
He had little time to speculate before Opal seemed to envelop him.
There was the blurring wrench of forced teleportation and they were in
another room, a room which ended in a huge irregular passage that might
have been the interior of a giant concertina--or an old-fashioned kodak.
He stood before a kidney-shaped object over whose jagged surface
colors played constantly. From Opal's thoughts it appeared to be some
sort of ultradimensional television set, but to Tennant it was as
incomprehensible as an oil painting to an animal.
Opal was annoyed that Tennant could make nothing of it. Then came the
thought:
_What cover must your body have not to be conspicuous?_
Tennant wondered, cynically, what would happen if he were to demand
a costume of mediaeval motley, complete with Pied Piper's flute. He
received quick reproof that made his head ring as from a blow.
He asked Opal where and when they were going, was informed that
he would soon emerge on Earth where he had left it. That told him
everything but the date and season. Opal, like the rest of the captors,
seemed to have no understanding of time in a human sense.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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