him get your scent, so he knows you." Saul sniffed at Marty's legs and crotch through the 
mesh, much to Marty's discomfort. Then, apparently satisfied, he wandered away.
    "Good enough," said Lillian. "Next time, no wire. And in a while, you'll be handling 
him." She was taking some pleasure in Marty's unease, he was sure of it. But he said 
nothing; just let her lead the way into the largest of the sheds.
    "Now you must meet Bella," she said.
    Inside the kennels the smell of disinfectant, stale urine and dogs was overpowering. 
Lillian's entrance was greeted with another sustained round of barking and wire-pawing. 
The shed had a walkway down the center, with cages off to the right and left. Two of 
these held a single dog, both bitches, one considerably smaller than the other. Lillian 
rolled off the details as they passed each cage-the dogs" names, and their place on the 
incestuous family tree. Marty attended to all she was saying, and immediately forgot it 
again. His mind was otherwise occupied. It wasn't just the intimate presence of the dogs 
that unnerved him, but the suffocating familiarity of this interior. The walkway; the 
cells with their concrete floors, their blankets, their bare bulbs: it was like home from 
home. And now he began to see the dogs in a new light; saw another meaning in Job's 
baleful glance as he looked up from his ablutions; understood, better than Lillian or 
Whitehead ever could, how these prisoners must view him and his species.
    He stopped to look into one of the cages: not out of any particular interest, but to 
focus on something other than the anxiety he felt in this claustrophobic hut.
    "What's this one called?" he asked.
    The, dog in the cage was at the door; another sizable male, though not on the scale 
of Saul.
    "That's Laurousse," Lillian replied.
    The dog looked friendlier than the others, and Marty overcame his nerves and went 
down on his haunches in the narrow corridor, extending a tentative hand toward the cage.
    "He'll be fine with you," she said.
    Marty put his fingers to the mesh. Laurousse sniffed them inquisitively; his nose was 
damp and cold.
    "Good dog," Marty said. "Laurousse." The dog began to wag its tail, happy to be named 
by this sweating stranger.
    "Good dog." Down here, closer to the blankets and the straw, the smell of excrement 
and fur was even stronger. But the dog was delighted that Marty had come down to its 
level, and was attempting to lick his fingers through the wire. Marty felt the fear in 
him dispelled by the dog's enthusiasm: far from meaning him harm, it showed unalloyed 
pleasure.
    Only now did he become aware of Whitehead's scrutiny. The old man was standing a few 
feet off to his left, his bulk entirely blocking the narrow passage between the cages, 
watching intently. Marty stood up self-consciously, leaving the dog to whine and wag 
below him, and followed Lillian further down the line of cages. The dog-keeper was 
singing the praises of another member of the tribe. Marty tuned in to her conversation: 
"-and this is Bella," she announced. Her voice had softened; there was a dreamy quality 
in it that he hadn't caught before. When Marty reached the cage into which she was 
pointing, he saw why.
    Bella half-lay and half-sat in the mesh shadows at the end of her cage, arranged like 
a black-snouted Madonna on a bed of blankets and straw, with blind pups suckling at her 
teats. Setting eyes on her, Marty's reservations about the dogs evaporated.
    "Six pups," Lillian announced as proudly as if they were her own, "all strong and 
healthy." More than strong and healthy, they were beautiful; fat balls of contentment 
nestling against each other in the luxury of their mother's lap. It seemed inconceivable 
that creatures so vulnerable could grow into iron-gray lords like Saul, or suspicious 
rebels like Job.
    Bella, sensing a newcomer among her congregation, pricked up her ears. Her head was 
superbly proportioned, tones of sable and gold mingling in her coat to glamorous effect, 
her brown eyes vigilant but soft in the half-light. She was so finished; so completely 
herself. The only response to her presence-and one that Marty willingly granted-was awe.
    Lillian peered though the wire, introducing Marty to this mother of mothers.
    "This is Mr. Strauss, Bella," she said. "You'll see him now and again; he's a 
friend." There was no baby-talk condescension in Lillian's voice. She spoke to the dog as 
to an equal, and despite Marty's initial uncertainty about the woman, he found himself 
warming to her. Love wasn't an easy thing to come by, he knew that to his cost. Whatever 
shape it came in, it made sense to respect it. Lillian loved this dog-her grace, her 
dignity. It was a love he could approve of, if not entirely understand.
    Bella sniffed the air, and seemed satisfied that she had the measure of Marty. 
Lillian reluctantly turned from the cage to Strauss.
    "She might even take to you, given time. She's a great seductress, you know. A great 
seductress." Behind them, Whitehead grunted at this sentimental nonsense.
    "Shall we look over the grounds?" he suggested impatiently. "I think we're done 
here." "Come back when you've settled in," Lillian said; her manner had defrosted 
noticeably since Marty had shown some appreciation of her charges, "and I'll put them 
through their paces for you." "Thanks. I will." "I wanted you to see the dogs," Whitehead 
said as they left the enclosures behind, and started at a brisk pace across the lawn to 
the perimeter fence. That was only part of the reason for the visit, though; Marty knew 
that damn well. Whitehead had intended the experience as a salutary reminder of what 
Marty had left behind him. There, but for the grace of Joseph Whitehead, he would go 
again. Well, the lesson was learned. He'd jump through hoops of fire for the old man 
rather than go back into the custody of corridors and cells. There wasn't even a Bella 
there; no sublime and secret mother locked away in the heart of Wandsworth. Just lost men 
like himself.
    The day was warming: the sun was up, a pale lemon balloon drifting above the rookery, 
and the frost was melting from the lawns. For the first time Marty began to get some 
sense of the scale of the estate. Distances opened up to either side of them: he could 
see water, a lake, or river perhaps, shining beyond a bank of trees. On the west side of 
the house there were rows of cypresses, suggesting walkways, fountains perhaps; to the 
other side, a banked garden surrounded by a low stone wall. It would take him weeks to 
get the layout of the place.
    They had reached the double fence that ran right around the estate. A good ten feet 
high, both fences were topped by sharpened steel struts that curved out toward the 
would-be intruder. These were in turn crowned with spirals of barbed wire. The whole 
construction hummed, almost imperceptibly, with an electric charge. Whitehead regarded it 
with evident satisfaction.
    "Impressive, eh?" Marty nodded. Again, the sight woke echoes.
    "It offers a measure of security," Whitehead said.
    He turned left at the fence, and began to walk its length, the conversation-if that 
it could be called-coming from him in the form of a series of non sequiturs, as if he 
were too impatient with the elliptical structure of normal exchanges to bear with it. He 
simply threw statements, or clusters of remarks, down, and expected Marty to make 
whatever sense he could of them.
    "It's not a perfect system: fences, dogs, cameras. You saw the screens in the 
kitchen?" "Yes.