Moving Pictures

you’ve been daydreaming?”
    “It was like your own life fading away and something else filling up the space.”
    They considered this in silence.
    “Do you think it’s something to do with Holy Wood?” she said.
    Victor nodded. Then he threw himself sideways and landed on Gaspode, who had been watching them intently.
    “Yelp,” said Gaspode.
    “Now listen ,” Victor hissed into his ear, “No more of these hints. What is it that you noticed about us? Otherwise it’s Detritus for you. With mustard.”
    The dog squirmed in his grip.
    “Or we could make you wear a muzzle,” said Ginger.
    “I ain’t dangerous!” wailed Gaspode, scrabbling with his paws in the sand.
    “A talking dog sounds pretty dangerous to me,” said Victor.
    “Dreadfully,” said Ginger. “You never know what it might say.”
    “See? See?” said Gaspode mournfully. “I knew it’d be nothing but trouble, showin’ I can talk. It shouldn’t happen to a dog.”
    “But it’s going to,” said Victor.
    “Oh, all right. All right. For what good it’ll do,” muttered Gaspode.
    Victor relaxed. The dog sat up and shook sand off himself.
    “You won’t understand it, anyway,” he grumbled. “Another dog would understand, but you won’t. It’s down to species experience, see. Like kissing. You know what it’s like, but I don’t. It’s not a canine experience.” He noticed the warning look in Victor’s eyes, and plunged on, “It’s the way you look as if you belong here.” He watched them for a moment. “See? See?” he said. “I tole you you wouldn’t understand. It’s—it’s territory , see? You got all the signs of bein’ right where you should be. Nearly everyone else here is a stranger, but you aren’t. Er. Like, you mus’ have noticed where some dogs bark at you when you’re new to a place? It’s not jus’ smell, we got this amazin’ sense of displacement. Like, some humans get uncomfortable when they see a picture hung crooked? It’s like that, only worse. It’s kind of like the only place you ought to be now is here .” He looked at them again, and then industriously scratched an ear.
    “What the hell,” he said. “The trouble is, I can explain it in Dog but you only listen in Human.”
    “It sounds a bit mystical to me,” said Ginger.
    “You said something about my eyes,” said Victor.
    “Yeah, well. Have you looked at your own eyes?” Gaspode nodded at Ginger. “You too, miss.”
    “Don’t be daft,” said Victor. “How can we look at our own eyes?”
    Gaspode shrugged. “You could look at each other’s,” he suggested.
    They automatically turned to face each other.
    There was a long drawn-out moment. Gaspode employed it to urinate noisily against a tent peg.
    Eventually Victor said, “Wow.”
    Ginger said, “Mine, too?”
    “Yes. Doesn’t it hurt?”
    “You should know.”
    “There you are, then,” said Gaspode. “And you look at Dibbler next time you see him. Really look , I mean.”
    Victor rubbed his eyes, which were beginning to water. “It’s as though Holy Wood has called us here, is doing something to us and has, has—”
    “— branded us,” said Ginger bitterly. “That’s what it’s done.”
    “It, er, it does look quite attractive, actually,” said Victor gallantly. “Gives them a sort of sparkle.”
    A shadow fell across the sand.
    “Ah, there you are,” said Dibbler. He put his arms around their shoulders as they stood up, and gave them a sort of hug. “You young people, always going off alone together,” he said archly. “Great business. Great business. Very romantic. But we’ve got a click to make, and I’ve got lets of people standing around waiting for you, so let’s do it.”
    “See what I mean?” muttered Gaspode, very quietly.
    When you knew what you were looking for, you couldn’t miss it.
    In the center of both of Dibbler’s eyes was a tiny golden star.

    In the heartlands of the great dark continent of Klatch the air was heavy and pregnant with the promise of the coming monsoon.
    Bullfrogs croaked in the rushes 14 by the slow brown river. Crocodiles dozed on the mudflats.
    Nature was holding its breath.
    A cooing broke out in the pigeon loft of Azhural N’choate, stock dealer. He stopped dozing on the veranda, and went over to see what had caused the excitement.
    In the vast pens behind the shack a few threadbare bewilderbeests, marked down for a quick sale, yawning and cudding in the heat, looked up in alarm as N’choate