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"There is no such naain: LAMYOULL Then again: LIMUUL

"That’s not a name, either," Travis said

A third ti to spell the name phonetically He chose six lettered tiles of his own: LEMUEL

"Lemuel Johnson," Nora said

Einstein leaned forward and nuzzled her neck He iggling with pleasure at having gotten the nas of theNora and spelled DARK LEMUEL

"Dark?" Travis said "By ’dark’ you mean Johnson isevil?"

NO DARK

Nora restacked the letters and said, "Dangerous?"

Einstein snorted at her, then at Travis, as if to say they were sometimes unbearably thickheaded NO DARK

For a , and at last Travis said, "Black! You mean Lemuel Johnson is a black man"

Einstein chuffed softly, shook his head up and doept his tail back and forth on the bedspread He indicated nineteen letters, his longest answer:

THERES HOPE FOR YOU YET

Nora laughed

Travis said, "Wiseass"

But he was exhilarated, filled with a joy that he would have been hard-pressed to describe if he had been required to put it into words They had been co with the retriever for reater dimension to their communication than they had enjoyed previously More than ever, Einstein see feeling of breaking through the barriers of nor of transcendence Einstein was no ordinary ence waselse, a dog-and his intelligence was still qualitatively different fro sense of ue Staring at THERES HOPE FOR YOU YET, Travis thought a broader e, that it could be directed at all humankind

For the next half an hour, they continued questioning Einstein, and Travis recorded the dog’s answers In time they discussed the yellow-eyed beast that had killed Ted Hockney

"What is the da?" Nora asked

THE OUTSIDER

Travis said, " ’The Outsider’? What do you mean?"

THATS WHAT THEY CALLED IT

"The people in the lab?" Travis asked "Why did they call it The Outsider?"

BECAUSE IT DOES NOT BELONG

Nora said, "I don’t understand"

TWO SUCCESSES ME AND IT I AM DOG IT IS NOTHING THAT CAN BE NAMED OUTSIDER

Travis said, "It’s intelligent, too?"

YES

"As intelligent as you?"

MAYBE

"Jesus," Travis said, shaken

Einstein made an unhappy sound and put his head on Nora’s knee, seeking the reassurance that petting could provide hi like that?"

Einstein returned to the stacks of letters: TO KILL FOR THEM

A chill trickled down Travis’s spine and seeped deep into him "Who did they want it to kill?"

THE ENEMY

"What ene caainst the headboard He re Nora that even a world

without want and with universal freedom would fall far short of paradise because of all the problems of the human heart and all the potential sicknesses of the hu us that The Outsider is a prototype of a genetically engineered soldier Sort ofa very intelligent, deadly police dog designed for the battlefield"

IT WAS MADE TO KILL IT WANTS TO KILL

Reading the words as she laid out the tiles, Nora was appalled "But this is crazy How could such a thing ever be controlled? How could it be counted on not to turn against its masters?"

Travis leaned forward from the headboard To Einstein, he said, "Why is The Outsider looking for you?"

HATES ME

"Why does it hate you?"

DONT KNOW

As Nora replaced the letters, Travis said, "Will it continue looking for you?"

YES FOREVER

"But how does so like that move unseen?"

AT NIGHT

"Nevertheless

LIKE RATS MOVE UNSEEN

Looking puzzled, Nora said "But how does it track you?"

FEELS ME

"Feels you? What do you mean?" she asked

The retriever puzzled over that one for a long ti several false starts on an answer, and finally said, CANT EXPLAIN