I don’t know how I could have stood the four months there alone, if I hadn’t her to talk to. Not having to depend on what she could catch, she grew almost twice as fast as usual, and was so sleek and pretty. That was because I caught small animals and brought them to her. She was small when I got her-it would be too dangerous to go near a full grown one-but she grew rapidly. Then, one night, I sneaked into the forest and got her. But I figured that no one would ever find out.įirst I fixed a place for her, and made a brush screen, so that she couldn’t be seen by anyone coming to the gates. I’d always wanted one, but pets were forbidden. That’s how I happened to get her in the first place. Of course, this left me with lots of time on my hands. As the man said, we haven’t had a dishonest person in the State for thousands of years. The only ones who ever used it, anyway, were members of the council.

Of course, no one wanted to bother carrying it around. The gates were kept locked, just as they were in the old days, but the large Key hung beside them. And nothing to do-unless you count watching the Key. But this will give us time to look for something.” I suppose we will have to find something else later on. “It might be a solution,” said the Chief. But we will have solved the problem of his idleness.” There aren’t any dishonest people, so there won’t be anything for him to do. We haven’t had a dishonest person in the State for more than three thousand years.” No one will touch the Treasure without permission. There was a long silence, broken at last by one little, old council member. The only things he can do, are already being done much better by robots.” “He’s utterly incapable of running any of the machines. “We can’t have an idle person in the State. “But we must find something for him to do,” said another.

“As bad as that?” observed one of the council members. “Actually, his intelligence seems to be no greater than that which we believe our ancestors had, back in the twentieth century.” “There doesn’t seem to be a thing he can do,” the Chief went on. People always talk about me as if I can’t understand what they mean. “I’ve tried him on a dozen things,” he reported. I remember the day the Chief of Vocation took me before the council. But, you see, there are so many things I can’t do. It wouldn’t have happened, if they hadn’t sent me way out there to work. Because we aren’t allowed to have pets of any kind. And, if they did, I’d probably be punished for having her. In the first place, they’d never believe me. She was company and one could talk to her. Science Fiction Story: He didn't know how he could have stood the four months there alone.

No Pets Allowed by M.A. Cummings