Pets: Bach's Story by Darla Phelps Page B

cooperation.”
    Ralhan smiled.
    “Does it ever make you wonder though?” Bach asked, and both Nil and Etle looked at him. “What kind of thoughts go through their heads? There has to be more there than blind animal instinct and the vague intelligence of a wild, natural mimic. Some of the things she does are more than just clever. Every so often I find myself wondering if humans can actually reason.”
    “They’re animals,” Nil Ralhan said. “I am most infatuated with the species. They are funny, smart, and cute. They seem so much like little children, and I think that’s part of their appeal. And maybe even why, upon occasion, we might be inclined to think them something grander than what they are. But it all comes down to brain size. Little brains equal limited intellectual capacities. They are animals. Intelligent to a point, but no more so than well-trained monkeys from our world. As clever as they are, sadly,” Ralhan gestured to the tea party with one long hand, “this is all they are capable of.”
    “Everybody drink,” Rasha commanded.
    It only took a look from Bach for Pani to pick up her cup with the others, but she didn’t drink. She was saved from that by the distraction Mot made when he accidentally bumped elbows with Minmin and dumped his teacup into his lap.
    “Mot, bad boy!” Rasha scolded as he jumped up from the table with a shout, yanked his soiled dress off his burning legs and sucked a pained breath though gritted teeth. “You got my dress all dirty! I hope Mama spanks your bottom!”
    Etle was significantly more sympathetic as she hurried to look at his legs. “Oh dear, look at that color. Rasha, dear, take your pet home. He needs to see a vet.”
    Rasha looked at the red marks on his thighs, then made a face as she got down off her chair. “Oh, all right!”
    Pani dropped both her cookie and tea cup the instant Rasha led Mot from the table and dragged him out the door. Minmin and Binnie leaned their heads together to quietly gargle back and forth, while Sassa leaned over and helped herself to another biscuit. Swinging her legs and humming happily to herself, she took a big bite and, noticing Pani staring, offered her a bite as well.
    Pani got down from the table. She stalked into the living room to get her leash, clipped one end to her collar, then marched herself to the front door. Folding her arms across her chest, she glared at it and waited.
    It couldn’t have hit Bach any plainer than that. Regardless of Ralhan’s and perhaps even the rest of the world’s opinions, Pani definitely had a thought process. There was more than just a substandard intellect at work behind those cross, grey eyes. There was reasoning and logic. Pani was sentient.
    Pani was people.
    Etle clasped her hands before her. “A session or two with my hairbrush will take care of all that naughty pridefulness.”
    Pani turned on her heel and gave him the most blatantly irritated look. She began to tap her foot.
    She couldn’t possibly be people, Bach thought with a sudden irrational anger all his own.
    She was a mimic. A clever little pretender who had the moves down right, but none of the thought behind them. This was a force of wills. She was being defiant, nothing more.
    “Do it,” he said darkly.
    From the moment that Etle caught hold of her arm, Pani fought, kicked and howled the whole way down that dark hall to the back room. From the sounds of it, she fought, kicked and howled the whole way over Etle’s lap.
    “Why you silly bit of nuisance,” Bach heard Nil’s wife say, a mild expletive stated in her mild, unhurried and unconcerned tone.
    Then the crisp smacking began, hard and quick and Pani’s howls became screams. It was everything Bach could do not to run down to that room and grab Pani out of hairbrush’s reach, especially when she began to scream for him by name.
    “They all sound like that when Etle wields the brush,” Ralhan said. “She’ll be sitting tenderly for a day or two, but