Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones Page B

thoughtfully down around him. “Then the rumor that you flung this Zoi at that luminary is out, isn’t it? Do you think you can get on and find it before the wrong kind of person lays hold of it? I’ve no wish to have my sphere go nova.”
    Sirius wondered who Sol had been talking to. He found himself bristling with queer suspicions. “What are you getting at?”
    “I’ve a number of people in mind,” said Sol. “Humans and animals aren’t the only creatures to get born on Earth, you know. Some of the darker ones are pretty strange and rather formidable. I suggest you go back to where you caught that whiff of the Zoi and start from there.”
    “All right,” said Sirius, still rather puzzled.
    He went on his way at a swift trot toward the cleared space, wondering, as he went, what was really in Sol’s mind. He had a feeling Sol knew much more than he had said. But that went out of his head when he caught a tingle from the Zoi again. It came from behind him, and it was gone as soon as he felt it. Nevertheless, he set off toward it. He was almost back at the yard, when he caught it again—a swift, living tingle from quite a new direction. He set off that way, but it was gone. On the outskirts of the town, he caught it again, from a new direction. Thoroughly confused, he turned back.
    “What are you doing?” Sol wanted to know.
    “I’ve felt it three times—from a different place each time,” Sirius explained.
    “Could someone be trying to confuse you?” Sol asked.
    Sirius tried to consider this. It was not easy, because he was tired now, and the dog stupidity was down on his brain like a low cloud. “It could be the Zoi itself,” he said doubtfully. “It—it isn’t made of quite the same stuff as anything else. I can’t explain properly, but I know it can work in several directions at once.”
    “I hope it is only that,” said Sol. “You’d better go at it systematically. Take one small area and search that. Then go on to the next. I’m sorry to bully you like this, but I think it’s urgent.”
    Again Sirius was puzzled. “A month ago you were saying it wouldn’t hurt me to wait,” he protested. “What’s got into you?”
    Sol gave a little flare of laughter. “Call it my fiery and impatient nature. No, seriously, now I’ve heard a little more about Zoi, I can see they’re a good deal more peculiar and powerful than I thought. This one could do a lot of damage, and I want it found.”
    Sirius trotted back to the center of town. He thought he would sweep the town in a spiral, to see if he could pinpoint the Zoi that way first. But, finding himself near the street where he had tried to rob the dustbin, he suddenly felt ravenous. He climbed the steps of the old lady’s house and, in the most natural way, battered at her door with a heavy clawed foot.
    “So it’s you again,” she said, opening it. “I might have known.” She put a gnarled hand under his jaw and looked at him. “Naughty dog. Out again. I don’t know what your name really is, but I’m going to call you Sirius, because of your eyes. I am Miss Smith. Come in, Sirius, and I’ll see what I can find. And I expect you’ll want a drink.”
    It was the start of a long acquaintance. After that, Sirius visitedher nearly every day. It was not only because, poor though she evidently was, Miss Smith always had something for him to eat. He liked and respected her too. Apart from Kathleen, she was the only person who saw he understood English, and she called him by his onetime true name. Just as Kathleen did, she talked to him as if he was nearly her equal. And then he realized that she looked forward to seeing him and saved food for him specially. After that, he would no more have missed his daily visit to Miss Smith than he would have failed to be home in the yard before Kathleen was.
    His search for the Zoi went on week after week. He felt it over and over again, always just for an instant, but he simply could not pin down where