Like screaming had ever worked on him before. Josh plunged down the rickety wooden steps that led up to the paint-peeling door on what was once a nice-looking house, but by this point was nothing more than a run-down shack. He heard her (he couldn't even bring himself to call that person "mother" at the moment) still yelling at him, but blocked it out of his consciousness. He just had to get away. It didn't even matter where. Just away.

He jumped up into the driver's seat of his pickup and gunned the engine. As he was about to floor the gas pedal, he felt the familiar blomp of Bear jumping into the bed of the truck. Josh barely even waited for the thought to cross his mind that the mutt has survived him pealing out before, than he floored the pedal and went roaring onto the packed mound of dirt that passed for a road out here. He barely heard Bear's ecstatic howling coming from behind him as he sped down the dirt road at a suicidal speed, dead set on getting to the highway, and putting his miseries behind him.

". . . and then mom gets into me for no reason at all! Dammit, it's just not fair!" Josh cried in anguish, burying his face in the woolly neck of the collie. Bear had her front end up on his lap, as usual. Sometimes Josh wondered if the dog had been raised by a cat or something, but he was wallowing in self-pity a little too much at the moment to think of that.

A gentle voice came from around the canine's head. "I know, I know. But there's nothing I can do about it." Josh looked up. Sitting opposite him, on the other side of the mound of hair that he called his best friend, was that person he had been hoping to call more than that.

Theresa had long, wavy, brown hair, freckles, and was almost a foot shorter than Josh himself. That was saying something, as he wasn't that large himself. She had the minutest hint of an overbite, her face was a little round, and she was a little plumper than you usually see in the Miss America pageant, but Josh thought she was the most beautiful person in the world. To hell with everybody else. If they didn't recognize beauty that didn't quite make TV standards, then that's their loss. Josh never could see the appeal of a "cover girl" or "playmate." That was all a little too much for him. But Theresa was perfect. Not too fat, not too thin. Not too elegant, not too casual. And sensitive, honest, and kind. That was what Josh felt her true beauty was.

She reached out a hand to scratch Bear on the nose. "It's not like it was my idea to grow up in a family that gets sent to a new city every six months! If I had known my dad was going to be a Civil Development Cost Engineer, I think I would have chosen another family to get born into! But I wasn't informed, and I got plopped into a family that moves around a lot!"

She looked at him tenderly. "If I had a choice, I'd stay."

Josh sniffed, wiped his eyes with one of Bear's ears, and looked at her again.

"I know it's not your fault, 'Resa. It just doesn't seem right that I just met you three months ago, and I'm losing you already. Somebody," he said, looking skyward, "has a sick sense of humor." Josh wiped his eyes on Bear's ear again, and the dog turned to give him a lick on the nose.

"Eeeeuw!" Theresa squealed, as usual. Josh just laughed at her. "I can't understand how you can take that! It's gross!"

"Oh, yeah?" he replied, taking up the challenge. "Maybe this'll help you understand." He wriggled out from under Bear and walked on his knees over to where Theresa was sitting. She laughed at him, because she knew perfectly well what was coming next -- this was a familiar routine for both of them. He reached up to caress her cheek, then gently pulled her head down to his, and they kissed. Josh slid her out of her seat, and she lowered herself onto her knees, and they continued the kiss. That is, until Bear woofed, and bounded right between them, bowling the both of them over onto the floor.

"Dammit, Bear!" Josh cried, while Theresa simply rolled on the floor, laughing.

"One of these days, I'm gonna remember to put her out first!" Josh told Theresa, as he grabbed hold of the collie's collar, but Theresa still wasn't listening.

He led the dog to the front door and, being as familiar with the routine as her human companions, Bear sat patiently as Josh unlocked it. When he got it opened, she bounded out, and Josh closed it again behind her. He then walked back over to where Theresa was finally regaining her composure, sunk to his knees, and smiled.

"Now, where were we?"

Bear climbed back up the hill to the house of the human Theresa, after having had an exhilarating run through the woods. Why the humans preferred to stay cooped up in the house all night, she couldn't possibly understand. She would never have wanted to stay in an enclosed space with a male dog, especially for that amount of time, except possibly before Josh had taken her in to that "Veterinarian" place a long time ago. But she really couldn't remember much about that time, so she tried not to think about it. That was actually pretty easy, as there were plenty of other things to concentrate her attention on. Like chasing rabbits, which there were plenty of in these woods. That was the primary reason she liked coming over to Theresa's house. She had had a good rabbit chase tonight, and actually almost caught one this time! What she would have done with it if she had caught it didn't even cross her mind. The thrill was simply in the chase.

But now, she was tired, and decided that the next best thing about being at Theresa's was that she got to sleep on the porch, in the couch that was kept there. Bear didn't get to sleep on the couch much at home, because Clara, Josh's mother, would always whack her with a one of those newspaper-things whenever she tried to curl up on one. But Clara wasn't here, so she leapt up onto the old couch, turned around a few times, then settled down facing away from the house, so that she could see anything approaching. After all, guarding was also part of the Domestic Dog's Contract -- a duty that Bear took very seriously -- along with morale support (which she felt she had performed earlier quite well by playing towel to Josh), entertainment, and (last but not least) chasing rabbits.

Bear had just settled her head on her paws to rest a little, when she heard a distant whining noise. Her ears perked up, and started to swivel. It was hard to get a fix on where the noise was coming from. She couldn't smell anything, so it wasn't anywhere nearby. She lifted her head, and looked around, but sight wasn't exactly her best sense, so she didn't put a whole lot of stock in what it told her.

The whine grew louder, and it was nothing that Bear had ever heard before. This confused her, as memory was something that she prided herself on. A long time ago, when Josh had taken her to that "Obedience School" thing, she had managed to pass within days. She still remembered even the dumbest tricks they had taught her there, including play dead, which really annoyed her, because she'd rather be running and jumping -- real playing -- than lying on her back. But this new sound wasn't a car -- it wasn't even Josh's loud, angry-sounding truck. It wasn't an airplane, whatever those things actually were. It sounded a bit like that Tee-Vee thing that Clara kept in the living room in front of the couch that she never let Bear sit on, but she had never heard one of them functioning outdoors.

Bear stood up to take a look around, when a piercing shaft of light appeared, coming down from straight above. If she knew anything, Bear knew that that wasn't supposed to happen. It was night time, and sunbeams only appeared during the day, when the window shades were open.

Bear did not know what to do in a situation like this, so she did what she did in most situations she didn't know what to do in: she barked. And barked, and barked.

The light got brighter, and the Tee-Vee sound got louder, until she couldn't take it anymore, and she bolted underneath Josh's truck, which, luckily, wasn't angry right now. There she sat, whimpering, as the source of the light and sound settled itself on the front lawn, and abruptly died.

Inside, both the humans were sleeping soundly. They were in the back room, curled up in and amongst each other, on the opposite side of the house from the porch. Therefore, the craft's light did not manage to get to them, and the sound of it's engines was muted enough that they managed to sleep through the landing. Josh did stir for a moment, when he thought he heard his dog barking, but Theresa rolled him over, and he fell back asleep.

Bear sat there watching the great, black disc after the light and sound stopped. It looked dead, but even the truck she was hiding under managed to come back to life now and then, and it was almost always angry. So she stayed put, and was glad she did when, almost a minute later, its mouth opened and something came out.

Well, at least, it looked like a mouth. It was probably more like one of those "door" things that Josh was always using to get in and out of houses and cars and things like that, but this one was on the bottom of the disc shaped thing, like Bear's mouth. She decided that it probably was a "door," however, when she noticed that the something that came out was a human.

Or, at least, it resembled a human. It walked upright, only using two of its legs on the ground, and had a big, round head. Actually, it was a little too big and round. Bear couldn't smell it yet, though, because the disc shaped thing had blown up a lot of dirt, so she couldn't tell what it was at all. So she waited.

The mouth closed, and the maybe-human started walking around. It didn't look like it really knew where it was going. It was holding something in its hand, and was waving it around, but it was just wandering around the yard.

Bear could just about smell it now, and it definitely didn't smell human! She didn't remember smelling anything like it before either, and that really confused her! As her little brain fought to get a hold of these new sensations, the small figure started ascending the steps to the front door of Theresa's house. When Bear finally noticed this, she remembered her guard duty, and pulled herself out from under the truck, barking a war cry.

The creature came out of nowhere, and Zeebee barely had time to stun it before it tore him to shreds. He sat down on the padded seating unit that was in the antechamber to the living unit he had been about to enter, and breathed a sigh of relief. Why they had sent him out on a collection mission by himself, he didn't even pretend to understand, but he was just thankful that the Committee had provided him with a stun module.

He sat and panted for at least a local milli-cycle, before he could get his breath back. This darned atmosphere made it so hard to breathe sometimes. Too much nitrogen, he thought.

Well, back to work then, Zeebee told himself, as he struggled back to a standing position. He'll never collect the specimens on time by sitting around for the whole nocturnal period.

He went to the entryway to the living unit, and found that it was securely sealed. Just as he suspected. He reached for his kinetic mobilizer -- and realized that he had left it in the ship.

Well, Flib! he thought to himself. Just the time to start getting forgetful. Hopefully he could get away with a cerebral stimulant when he got home, instead of a full-fledged neuron replacement. Those always left the most annoying headaches for full cycles afterward!

So he marched back to his ship, signaled the computer to open the hatch, and went back inside to find his kinetic mobilizer. How did he think he could manipulate the simple mechanical locking devices these primitive creatures used without a mobilizer?

When Bear woke up, she almost thought that she had dreamt it all. But when she realized that she was lying on the porch itself, and not the couch, she realized that it was real, and wondered what had happened. The last thing she remembered was charging the intruder, and him turning around and pointing the thing in his hand at her. Then she fell asleep, which confused her even more. She didn't usually do that, falling asleep during the chase.

She sat up, and looked around. Yes, the disc-thing was still sitting there, but there was no sign of the intruder. She followed his scent back down the steps, and back over to where the mouth -- or door -- had opened. He must have gone back in.

Bear went back up onto the porch, to keep an eye on the disc-thing and make sure that the intruder didn't return. And this time, she'd have to make sure not to fall asleep.

Zeebee finally found the kinetic mobilizer. It was in the engine room, where he had left it after having made an adjustment to the graviton drive during his descent to the planet, and forgot to put it back on his tool belt. This forgetfulness of his was starting to become a problem. He just hoped that he could complete his mission without forgetting the navigational coordinates for his rendezvous with the mother ship when he was done.

He opened the hatch, and walked out of the ship again, berating himself for his mental lapses. He was about to key the code to close and lock the hatch into his remote control, when the creature that had attacked him before bellowed from the antechamber of the living unit, and started after him again! He tried to scramble back up the ramp, but the creature was much too fast for him, and grabbed his leg in its mouth before he could get very far. It dragged him down the ramp, and onto the cold, hard ground. Luckily, his jumpsuit prevented its teeth from doing much damage, but it thrashed him around violently, and he couldn't bring his stun unit to bear on it.

The creature let go of his leg, and tried to leap on top of him. He used that opportunity to roll out of the way, but he lost his grip on the control unit. The creature landed on it, and must have accidentally depressed one of the keys, because the ramp of the ship began to close! Zeebee panicked, and tried to stand up. The creature, however, alarmed by the motion of the ramp, ran headfirst into him, and bowled him over again. It tried to bite him, but he managed to shove his stun unit in its mouth, and rolled the creature off of him. And just in time too -- the engines on the ship began to ignite! The ship was taking off!

Zeebee scrambled to get away, since being directly under a ship's engines at takeoff was a good way to be charred to atoms, and bolted for the closest available cover, which just happened to be where the creature was headed. Luckily, it simply squeezed underneath the primitive land-bound vehicle, while Zeebee went behind. He watched in terror as his ship rose in response to the accidental command, turned, and sped off due east. Zeebee realized that it must be heading toward its next preprogrammed destination -- the site of his hidden laboratory on this planet. All collection missions had to have a research laboratory on its target planet, since conducting experiments on shipboard was not only wasteful of fuel, but also extremely cramped!

Zeebee gasped in dismay, as he realized that he was stuck here, until he remembered the control device. It should still be on the ground where he dropped it! He ran over to where the ship had just been, and searched the ground for the device. After a while, he found it, and shoved it in his belt. If it was still working, which he doubted, due to the blast from the ship, he could use it to summon the ship to come get him. But first, he'd have to find a safe place to examine it.

Bear had no idea why the disc-thing left like that, and she wasn't sure she wanted to come out again, in case it decided to come back. But since the intruder was still there -- in fact, he was going back out to where the thing used to be -- she screwed up her courage, and pulled herself back out. Unfortunately, her hindquarters had taken a bit of the blast from the disc-thing as it left, so she couldn't move nearly as quickly as normal. She yelped, and ran as fast as she could toward the intruder, who had just picked something up from the ground. He turned as she approached, gasped, and started running away.

So this would be a chase after all. Bear was good at chases, and she usually won, when it was a human she was chasing. But she was injured, so she didn't know if she'd be able to perform as well as usual, but she put her darndest into it.

First, she circled around in front of the intruder, to make sure he couldn't get far. She had learned that playing with Josh's little brother, Alex, to keep him in the yard where Clara liked to have him. The intruder turned, and headed back toward the truck. He had one of those things in his hands again, and seemed to be doing something to it as he ran. She had no idea what that might mean, so she tried to run faster. The intruder approached the truck and ducked behind it. Bear turned to face him, and got hit by some sort of blue light. This made her feel sleepy again, but not enough to actually fall asleep this time. She growled, and started crawling toward the intruder.

Zeebee had never seen anything resist a stun beam before, and he panicked. If he had realized that he had turned the intensity of the beam down, while he was running, instead of up as he had been intending, he might have kept his nerves better. But instead, he raced around the vehicle, and climbed up into what seemed to be a cargo area in the back, in the hopes that the creature couldn't climb on its own. Luckily, the stun beam did seem to have slowed the creature down, so he managed to get in without loosing a foot.

The creature continued to make its grating noise, which reminded Zeebee of some sort of old, rusty mechanism. The creature walked around the vehicle several times, apparently trying to find an easy way to get to him. He kept the stun box pointed at it, but he had serious doubts about whether it would work. He still hadn't noticed that it was on its lowest setting.

Eventually, the creature stopped walking, ducked down low on its hind legs, and sprang into the air at him! Zeebee was so amazed at this maneuver that he forgot about the stun box until the creature had gotten a hold on his arm with its mandibles again. The weight of the creature almost pulled Zeebee out of the cargo vehicle before he fired. The creature yelped, but did release its hold. Unfortunately, this knocked Zeebee off balance, and he crashed into the other side of the cargo hold, knocking himself unconscious. The creature, he failed to notice as he passed out, rolled down the hillside, away from the living unit, into the foliage, and lay still.