Love and Moondogs BY RICHARD MCKENNA "_The true dog, madame, was originally the golden jackal_, Canis aureus.... _He must love and be loved, or he dies._" [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The headline on the newspapers stacked in front of the drugstore read "RUSS DOG REACHES MOON ALIVE." A man in a leather jacket stopped to scan it. Across the street, frost lay crisp on the courthouse lawn, and the white and tan spotted hound put up his forepaws on the kitchen stool as if to warm them. The four women were too busy hauling down the flag to notice. Martha Stonery in the persian lamb coat paid out the halyard. Monica Flint in the reddish muskrat and Paula Hart in the brown fox caught the flag and folded it, careful not to let it touch the wet cement. A postman and the man in the leather jacket stopped on the sidewalk to watch. Martha, plump face grim under pinchnose spectacles, fastened one halyard snap to a metal ring taped and wired to the dog's right hind leg. "Hoist away, girls." Monica, Paula and Abigail Silax in nutria hauled in unison while Martha held the flag. The hound scrabbled with his forepaws and barked frantically. As he went struggle-twisting upward he began to howl in a bell-like voice. The women grunted with effort. People were coming across the lawn and pale faces moved behind the courthouse windows. "Two block," Martha said. "Vast hauling and belay." She pulled the kitchen stool nearer the flagpole and climbed on it to face the small crowd across the shelf of her bosom. Cars were stopping, people streaming in from all sides. Martha patted her piled gray hair and made her thin lips into a parrot beak. "Fellow Americans!" she cried above the howling. "Our leaders are cowards and it is time for the people to act before the Russians come and murder us all in our beds! We, the United Dames of the Dog, hereby protest the Russian crime of putting a trusting, loving dog on the moon to starve and freeze and smother and die of loneliness! This dog above our heads cries out to the world against the Russian breach of faith between dog and man. He will stay there until the Russians bring their dog home safely or make amends for their crime!" "Like hell!" said the man in the leather jacket, moving in. "_Martha!_" Abigail shrieked. "He's taking it down!" Monica pulled at his wrists. Paula slapped and scratched at his face. "You brute! You coward!" they shrilled. Martha jumped off the stool and kicked him. He backed away, bent and holding himself. "Look, ladies," he gasped, "for God's sake--"