Landing in the Green World

The Chrono-Rocket came down slowly, slow as a leaf, and landed in the grass with a sound like a pillow falling on a bed.

Then everything was still.

Doby unbuckled his strap with shaking paws. The window was full of green. Green, green, green — outside the glass, up and down and everywhere, green with bumps and holes and little sun-spots in it.

From the seat beside him came a sneeze. It was a small, metal sneeze.

"Robo-Cat! Was that a sneeze?"

"That was a systems check," said Robo-Cat, unwedging himself from his strap. "Someone had to supervise you. Forty minutes of you yelling 'wheee' in zero gravity. I counted every wheee." His scanner eye clicked. "Landing confirmed: Earth, Year 2066. Exactly as typed."

The hatch folded down with a soft whoosh.

And the air came in.

Doby's nose had been a quiet nose his whole life. It had sniffed dome floors and dome walls and dome doors, and every time it had come back with nothing, nothing, nothing.

Not this time.

The air carried things. Lots of things. Something wet and dark and good. Something sweet, sweet like a treat but everywhere. Something soft and green that didn't have a name yet.

Doby sat down hard on the ramp. His nose was working so fast it tickled.

"Robo-Cat. Something is in the air. Lots of somethings."

"That is called air, Doby. I have read about it."

"It's not just air. It's wet. And sweet. And — I don't have the word. I don't have ANY of the words!"

"Dirt," said Robo-Cat. "The wet one is dirt. The sweet one is flowers. I have a database." He paused, and his whisker-lights glowed soft instead of orange. "You have a nose. Apparently it just turned on."

"It was on the whole time," Doby whispered. "There was just nothing to smell. Robo-Cat — what am I smelling right now, this exact second?"

Robo-Cat was quiet for a moment. "I don't know. I have never smelled anything. Not once." Then, quickly, before the quiet got too big: "File it under important, whatever it is."

Doby nodded. He filed it.

Then he put one paw on the grass.

The grass was not a floor. Floors did not squish. This squished — cool and soft and a little bit damp, and it bent under his paw and sprang back when he lifted it.

He put down a second paw. Then two more. Then, because standing was not enough, his whole belly, and he rolled. Twice.

"IT SQUISHES! ROBO-CAT, THE WHOLE PLANET SQUISHES!"

"I will watch from here," said Robo-Cat, hovering at the top of the ramp. "My gears and squish are not friends."

Doby flopped onto his back. Far above him, the trees moved their leaves without any machines at all. Shhh-shhh-shhh, they went, all together, like a hundred dogs whispering.

"The trees are talking," Doby breathed. "Shhh. Listen."

Something called from high up. Tweet-tweet-ta-wheet!

"THAT one! What's THAT one?"

"Bird," said Robo-Cat. "That one is also a bird. That one — still a bird."

"They're all different!"

"Statistically, yes. Complaint number four hundred and fifteen: birds cannot be counted."

Doby held his front paw up to the sky. The ghost-leaf stain, the one that had almost faded away on Mars, was glowing again. Not faintly, either. It was a real, shining leaf-green, lighting up from inside his own paw pad like a tiny green lantern.

"Robo-Cat. The green came back. And it's MORE."

Robo-Cat drifted closer, scanner eye clicking. "Reading confirmed. Your paw is… leaf-colored."

"The planet did it. I stood on it, and it gave me some."

Doby got up to explore, and the planet kept giving. A puddle sat in a low spot of grass, shining. Doby ran through it with a ka-SPLASH, and warm mud spattered his paws and the tip of his nose, and a fan of droplets reached Robo-Cat two feet away.

"Complaint number four hundred and sixteen: MUD. Mud in my gears. Mud near my ears. I do not technically have ears and there is STILL MUD NEAR THEM."

"It's warm!" Doby stomped in the puddle again. "The mud is WARM! Why didn't the Holo-Book say mud is warm?!"

"Because the Holo-Book was made by a civilized dog!"

Then Doby froze, one paw in the air. Something small and orange was floating past his nose. It fluttered. It swooped. It landed on a blade of grass and folded its wings up and down, up and down.

"Don't move," Doby whispered. "There's a tiny flying flower."

"That is a butterfly."

Doby was already running. "IT'S MINE!"

The chase went zig, then zag, then zig again. The butterfly rose, dipped, and landed — softly, perfectly — right on the end of Robo-Cat's nose.

Nobody moved.

"I am a statue," Robo-Cat whispered through clenched teeth. "Do not splash. I am a beautiful statue."

Doby crept closer, one muddy paw at a time. The butterfly lifted off Robo-Cat's nose, looped once through the air, and landed on Doby's muddy nose instead.

"It likes you better," said Robo-Cat. "Filing complaint four hundred and seventeen: favoritism."

The butterfly fluttered away over a big oak tree at the edge of the park, and Doby trotted after it, because a butterfly was a very good tour guide.

At the bottom of the oak, half covered in leaves, lay a stick.

A real wooden stick.

Doby's breath went away. It was brown and rough and crooked at one end, exactly, exactly like the stick in the Holo-Book picture — the one he had looked at a thousand times, the one that had never once smelled like anything.

"Robo-Cat. Robo-Cat, LOOK."

Robo-Cat looked. "…A stick."

"Not A stick. THE stick. From the book." Doby picked it up. It was heavy for its size, and rough, and real, and the bark tasted like tree because it was tree. "It smells like tree. It IS tree."

"Your voice is doing the wobbly thing."

"My voice is fine." His voice was not fine.

And right then, at the exact moment his teeth closed around the stick, his collar gave one soft beep. Not an alarm. One gentle note, like a single raindrop landing.

Doby's ears went up.

"That was your collar," said Robo-Cat, suddenly very businesslike. "One beep means the time window noticed you. It is not a problem yet."

Doby kept hold of the stick. "Wull ih be a pwoblem wayer?"

"Later is later. Beep now, play now. I will count the beeps so you don't have to."

Doby wagged. That was the kindest math he had ever heard. He held his stick high, proud as a prince, and turned toward the rocket—

And stopped.

Under the big oak, not far away, a dog was watching him. A real dog. No collar lights, no hover-house, no dome. Just dog, brown and white, with one ear up and one ear halfway down.

She tilted her head. Doby tilted his the exact same way.

"That's a good stick," she said.

Doby dropped the stick right out of his mouth. "You're REAL! A real dog! No collar lights, no dome, just DOG!"

"Last time I checked." She took one step closer, and her tail started a slow wag. "Where'd you even come from? This park's been empty since forever."

Doby looked back at the silver Chrono-Rocket, sitting in the grass. Then he looked at her. His heart went thump-thump-thump.

"Mars," he said.

The dog went quiet. Her good ear tipped forward.

"…Prove it."