Viktor Hoffman came through the doorway first, holding it open as Seville passed through followed by his research assistant,who was carrying in his arms an emaciated dog's body.

"Right here please, Tom." Hoffman moved to a stainless steel exam table and hovered while the tall young man deposited the limp body onto it. The animal's legs made weak, disjointed
paddling motions, as if it were trying to run, and its head raised a few inches off the table. The brown eyes were glazed and focused on the middle distance.

"Tom," Seville said softly as he approached, pointing with his chin at the animal. His aide promptly pressed the dog's head to the table, holding it so as to avoid touching the neck, most of
which was ulcerated and bleeding. Dr. Joseph Seville stood looking critically at the brindle body of the pit bulldog while he gloved himself. The dog's ears had been trimmed very short, and were inch tall triangular spikes on either side of his broad head. His base color was rich gold, but he resembled a very small tiger, with thin black stripes all through his sleek coat. There were traces of blaze orange spray paint on his side.

"So what is this?" Seville asked as he lifted the dog's lip and checked color and capillary refill time.

"Joe, I appreciate your meeting me here on such short notice," Hoffman said. "This is the dog my undergrads have been observing through radio collar tracking, for our feral dog project. We've
been out there a while but we came in during that wind storm last week and lost track of him for a while. It appears that while we were gone the collar got wedged in some rocks and hung him up. By the looks of him he was stuck up there pretty much the whole time we were away. He was dropping weight fast, but he had quite a bit more flesh when I last saw him."

All three men stared at the feebly moving animal. His emaciation was complete.

"He doesn't weigh twenty-five, thirty pounds now," commented Tom quietly, remembering the feel of the cold, bony body in his arms.

"I assume that if you called me down here to look at this, you want to try and save it. I guess Viktor, my question is - why?"

Hoffman shrugged then grinned in good natured embarrassment. "Well, I suppose it's silly, really." He looked up to meet Seville's dubious glance. "I'm embarrassed to sound so dramatic but, here it is: I can't help feeling I owe this dog a favor. He helped me out one night, up on the mountain before my students arrived, and saved me really, from a rather uncomfortable situation. In point of fact, his actions kept me from quite a nasty experience with hypothermia. Its possible he... well, in any event I'm going to return the favor now." Growing serious he nodded at the pit bull. "Can you pull him through? Will there be permanent damage?"

Seville looked up from under his dark hair, leveling stark gray eyes across the dog's body at his friend and associate. "What I think is that you're a new classification for DSM IV." He shook his head in a dismissive gesture and continued to examine the dog. "I give you less than a twenty percent chance of pulling him through," he announced at last, straightening up. "If you wanted to do it, we'd have to get an IV going, get him stabilized." Seville shook his head slowly with disapproving amusement. "Where do you want to set it up?"

Hoffman glanced at his watch. "Katharine should be here any minute. I haven't the facilities to keep him while he's critical. For now, I'm going to see if she has an open isolation kennel I can use."

The door opened and Katharine Novak stepped into the room. All three men glanced up at her but the petite blonde marked only how Seville's eyes swept her as he noticed what she was wearing.
He always did that, looked her up and down when he first saw her, and it always produced in her the same, sharp, pleasurable chill that swept through like a shudder. She paused to put on the glasses which hung from her neck before looking at the object on the table. That, despite her considerable beauty, gave her a distinctly administrative appearance. "Good Lord, Viktor, what is that?"

"Katharine." He nodded. "I was just explaining to Joe that this is a subject my group's been observing as part of a project, and his tracking collar got stuck in some rocks. He's in a pretty
bad way, but," he said with cheerful evasiveness, "I'd like to try and save him if possible. Joe has agreed to work on him, so I was wondering if we could set him up in receiving? In an iso kennel perhaps?"

As the director of the Laboratory Animal Resources Department came around the table, Tom nodded politely. He knew her well; Dr. Katharine Novak was his boss' lover.

"Certainly Viktor, I'll take care of the paperwork. This is a random source animal?"

"I brought him in from a field study, yes, not from a dealer."

"That'll be tricky. We have to be very careful about bringing in randoms, very careful, but I'll see what I can do. I'll find something for you. Joe," she turned to Seville, "what do you need?"

"If we're really going to do this, I need a place to work right now. I'm going to want to get the fluids started. Send me a naso-gastric tube, something to feed it, and an IV set up. I need the solution warmed."

Novak nodded. "All right. I'm sure there's a spare ICU rollaway, that would be better, I think, for now. Why don't we have Tom come with me, and he can bring it back. I've got a four o'clock," she said looking at her watch. "Oh, and I'll send someone from nutrition up to get whatever you need." Tom glanced at Seville, who nodded slightly, and then his research assistant followed Novak out of the room. Seville stepped back, leaned against the counter and drew a cigarette out of a pack from the inside pocket of his lab coat. The dog on the table was now motionless, and the pathetic, huddled body looked dead. Professor Hoffman stepped up to the table and laid his hand on the dog's skeletal head.

"Don't you worry, Damien my boy, you'll get the best care in the world here. Your troubles are over."

© Copyright 2000 THE DOG WHO SPOKE WITH GODS All Rights Reserved.
No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Reprinted by arrangement with St. Martin's Press, LLC, New York, N.Y.