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Several days passed and I still did not return to the other tribe of dogs. Pink Nose still returned with the content of his lessons, however, after a single night's peace, the chocolate lab returned bearing more questions from the opposite pack. "They want to know if they offended you somehow." Said Pink Nose. I told them to tell them that they hadn't and that I was busy working with a member of my pack. That answer earned me one more night's silence, but then the following night Pink Nose relayed an inquiry that I might come not for a lesson, but just a few minutes, so they could learn more about us.

"If they want to learn more about us, then why don't you answer their questions?" I tossed back at Pink Nose when he'd told me.

The fattened lab shrank. "I... I could. But I think they feel more comfortable talking to someone of authority in our group."

I rolled my eyes, annoyed that this issue kept popping up when I'd decided I didn't want to deal with it. "Well, tell them you are one. Tell them you're my beta."

Pink Nose seemed shocked and said nothing for a whole minute. But slowly his head lowered and he sidled just a bit closer to me. "Does that mean," he hesitated, "that you're making me a beta? For real?"

I growled softly wondering why he was putting me in this position. I'd chosen for him to continue collecting the secrets of English because I thought he was the smartest one in the pack. So why couldn't he deal with these issues by himself? "You might as well be." I snapped, and that was all I said on the matter. Pink Nose lowered his head humbly and left my presence.

That was the last that I heard about the other tribe for a long while and that was just how I liked it. I almost managed to forget about them in the time I spent among my fellows. Fat Gut offered less and less resistance to me and the others I assigned to race him around and around the perimeter of the yard. With the continuous exercise, I noticed subtle but powerful changes in not only his frame, but his personality as well. He'd gone quiet at first, retreating into himself, but when he started talking to other dogs again, Fatty was the first, he did seem milder and less likely to criticize or lord over others. He began joking about his size again in the way I remembered and complained less about his regular toil, though he still spoke loudly about the subject. However, almost none of these changes were directed towards me. He still blamed me, despite the fact that he was getting so he could move about more regularly now.

Despite the fact that his wideness and the depth of his belly had increased visibly even since the start of this campaign, his mobility increased by leaps and bounds. Getting up for him was still a taxing process and he changed the movements around every time, but walking seemed to have settled into a natural rhythm. His rolling, shifting bulk as he moved drew eyes, his very hugeness creating the illusion of so much disconnected flesh rocking away from his body and then vanishing. I was sure that Fat Gut had noticed because his stride seemed to have developed yet more sway, but never so much that it threw him off balance.

At night, Fat Gut was now walking the length of the avenue from the yard to the lot. He enjoyed the touch of the long grass on his heavy paws. I knew this because the first time I took him out he'd actually spoken to me, not to complain, but to joke about he'd soon trample the grass flat if he kept walking out here. I'd smiled, but he didn't respond to my comment about the short length of the ally compared to the vastness of the lot and he soon settled back into his previous tirade of complaining which silenced me.

There was a growing sadness in my heart for the loss of Fat Gut as my friend and confidant. I felt sure that he was punishing me and a bitterness grew, but I never acted on it. I had to believe that Fat Gut would see reason eventually.

"Eventually" turned out to take a very long time. The days kept passing relentlessly. With Fat Gut walking more and more normally, I took time to pick up a student for language, training first with treats, but now quickly moving beyond the need of them. For it was clear now in the pack that there was a difference now between the half of us that spoke and the half that did not. Terrier-face had predicted that doubling our number three times through learning and teaching would convert the whole pack, but it wasn't that simple in reality. Not every dog who learned to understand the tongue could also learn to teach it. In fact, there were more than a few who could learn to comprehend words to a degree, but could never speak. Pink Nose had mentioned that the dogs might simply be too young to learn properly, but three of the yearlings were like this. By the time that we had gotten around to attempting lessons with every dog in the pack, it was clear that there were honest differences in intelligence and clarity that could not be accounted for by age.

My brother and even Spinner turned out to be about average in the end. The semi-utopia that I had fantasized about was naive and dumb as I should have realized from the start. There were dogs here for whom speech was impossible, even if they could learn to obey commands and convey emotion. It was almost as if they were asleep, or else missing some part of their mind that the rest of us had in various degrees. I mouthed at the mystery in my head, gnawing it from different directions, but finally, I just had to put it out of mind. It was beyond my ken. But though some in the pack would never speak, having the community finally open itself did help in a lot of ways.

As the dogs learned to speak to each other, I found that I was needed less to diffuse tension. Dogs didn't look at me as much as they were looking at each other. It got to the point where I wondered if an Alpha was even needed any longer. But of course I was kidding myself. Some of the dogs would always need an Alpha, no matter what. And yet, those most skilled in the art of abstract thought, those like Pink Nose, Lopside and Fat Gut, I think they saw that the title of Alpha was in its essence meaningless. Oh sure, they paid me respect in speech and acknowledged my leadership, but the doggish groveling, the avoidance of eye contact and nearly all of the belly exposing had vanished. I think some part of me mourned the missing power, after all the months I'd had of getting used to it, but intellectually, I could watch it go. My only concern was for the actions of these new individuals which might affect the fate of the whole pack. So, in a way, my primary job got harder than it had ever been.

We lost several dogs over the course of Autumn. Fortunately our core group remained intact, but Patch disappeared one day suddenly and without explanation. Pink Nose took it hard and after he'd gone, I noticed that he began keeping Spinner with him most of the time. I felt bad for him. Dizzy at least had begun filling out more steadily, he was sporting a really belly now. Spinner, however seemed almost unchanged.

The last of the leaves had long fallen one cold night when Fatty trotted excitedly up to where I sat beside Fat Gut who lay on his back, recovering from the walk from the yard to the lot, his belly thrusting high into the air with each deep breath. I rose to greet him, towering over a head above him now, my freakish growth still not having abated. "What's up?" I asked, noticing his tail high and waving, despite the heavy croup dragging at it.

Fatty panted, head down, clearly having over exerted himself. I waited while his bottom smacked against the sidewalk. I knew that look, he'd really over done it, but I waited patiently. Finally he said, "There's... something..." he swallowed, his huge neck bulging. He looked about to continue, but I put a great paw on his nose.

"Settle down." I said. "Then talk."

Fatty Nodded weakly. Behind me, I heard the uneven rustle of Fat Gut as he struggled to roll his mighty frame over. He'd joined us and prompted spread his flesh over the ground before Fatty spoke again. "By the dumpster, they've left some more boxes. Strong ones this time!" Fatty said emphatically. His eyes glimmered with an excitement that I hadn't seen in many weeks. In fact, his huge frame wobbled at the sides and across the folds of his neck. He couldn't keep still. "I think we can get in this time!"

I grinned openly. "That's excellent news. Has anyone gone in yet?"

"No. I don't want to risk anything. We need Spinner."

I was about to ask where Spinner was, but then I knew. Pink Nose had started taking him to the other tribe. I looked down at Fatty, noted his massive frame, then glanced at Fat Gut and his still more massive frame. In fact, he was so fat now that he could not sit down straight, he had to sit on one thigh with the other leg splayed to allow room for his enormous belly to flow out an an angle from him. They were both looking at me. Sighing a little, I said. "I'll go get him."

Fatty grinned and rubbed his nose against my heavy brisket. "Good, I'll head back."

Before I left, however, I looked down at him. "Take Fat Gut with you." The dog in question looked aghast, but before he could open that mouth of his, I added, "You want to go, Fat Gut. Or do you want to miss out on all that human food?"

Fat Gut opened and closed his mouth several times, but at last said nothing. I snorted in his direction and he began to rise. I saw them both on their way around the building before, sighing, I began to make my way across the lot.

Walking with Fat Gut had kept me in shape, but in the time since I'd started, I'd put on quite a lot of weight. My frame, while still growing, seemed to be growing much more slowly than it had earlier this year. The result was that proportionally, I was approaching Fatty in size. I knew that I was certainly fatter than Lopside. His gift with perspective and dimension let him see it precisely. He'd even drawn me a nice picture of what we'd look like, if our skeletons had matched. I was not particularly heavy in any one area. My body was a generous cylinder now, like most dogs, my belly almost, but not quite even with my chest. My thighs had grown to mash together, and my croup was large, round and higher than my tail. My forelegs, though long, were swamped at the base by a wide set of shoulders which wobbled side to side as I walked. The weight on my paws was larger than any other dog in the yard, I was sure of that, but they were larger and stronger than any other dog's as well. However, I knew that things did not scale up perfectly. I knew it because rather than getting easier with time, this walk across the lot had gotten rather harder. The weight I bore swiftly began to ache in my hips and elbows. Perpetually clumsy, there never seemed to be a perfect rhythm that I could find. At odd times, I'd find myself losing balance because of the weight of my midsection, or I'd lean too far in one direction and over correct. I was never in danger of falling, but it was inconvenient. But the cramps were by far the worst.

I forced myself to make it to the end of the lot. I sat in the grass for a long while, trying to work the pain out of my hip. Every minute I spent there, I thought about Fatty, wondering how long he expected to wait and dreading the return trip back across the lot with a much less encumbered dog along to witness me. But as I walked around the alley leading to the other pack, a different kind of dread crept up my spine, one that I had hope to put out of mind entirely.

I stopped at the last corner. I realized that this was the first time that I'd been here since the night of those disturbing questions, or rather, THE disturbing question. Nervously, I peeked around the stone wall.

I don't know what I'd been expecting to see. The scene was perfectly normal. Pink Nose was sitting before the fence, Spinner at his side. Dizzy was closer to where I was standing, but had his back to me. The dog on the other side of him seemed to be scratching in the dirt, just like Lopside. The two bitches in front of Pink Nose were sitting and conversing. They were speaking loudly enough for me to overhear.

"...been inside of the lab?" asked a collie next to Autumn. I couldn't tell if she were the same one as sat next to her last time.

Pink Nose cocked his head in befuddlement. "Can you define 'lab.'"

Autumn spoke. "It's a clean metal place the humans take you. Smells like disinfectant."

I didn't recognize the last word, but apparently Pink Nose did, because he said, "I've been to a place like that. Most of us have been taken at least once. They poke and prod us in there." The lab's thick tail shuddered, "Last time I was taken, they shoved this thing up my-"

"Alright." interrupted Autumn, raising a paw, "But is that all they do? Don't they show you anything?"

"Like on a television screen, or paper?" added the collie bitch.

Pink Nose shook his head, "No, nothing like that. Usually, they take us only for a little while and nothing like that's ever happened to me. Spinner?"

Spinner had been staring fixedly at the two females with uncharacteristic attention. He gave only minor hesitation before answering. "Um, no. They've fed me stuff before though. Nasty stuff."

Pink Nose grimaced, apparently this was the first time he'd heard this, but he said nothing nor did the females. They both stopped to converse amongst themselves for a minute. They spoke fluently and rapidly so I could barely catch snippets of what they were saying and the snippets didn't make any sense. I tried to take stock of what they were doing. Were they interrogating Pink Nose? Or innocently finding out more about us? Was there a difference?

But if they were merely sharing, where was the information about them? Pink Nose had said virtually nothing about them as a tribe since he'd started going on his own. Didn't he know how to ask questions? But then to answer myself, a voice said that I hadn't exactly been open to the matter. But that left a disconcerting situation. If Pink Nose was smart enough to ask questions himself, and I thought he was, was he keeping that information to himself? The sinking situation in my gut pulled my bottom to the ground and my face away from the wall.

I'd never conceived of such an act of possible treachery and though intellectually, I knew I could not judge Pink Nose with no proof, the mere idea of it was a blow to my psyche. I had to shake myself of the notion, to chase the phantoms away. I couldn't allow myself to question Pink Nose's loyalty to myself and the rest of us. He was a dog, I was a dog, the trust was innate and unbreakable. It was only my devious, too-smart-for-my-own-good self that allowed me to surround myself with such shadows. With effort, I banished the thoughts from my mind and stepped around the corner.

Dizzy heard me first and bounded towards me. He reared up and planted his paws on my brisket, which was as high as he could reach. "Topsy! Fancy seeing you here!" I lowered my face to receive a frenzy of licks.

Pink Nose and Spinner turned. "What brings you back here tonight?" asked Pink Nose, his face empty, but expectant.

I tried to make my voice jovial. "A feast maybe, if Spinner is up to it and Fatty isn't full of shit." The other dogs laughed and that was it. I spared one glance back as we were leaving. I saw Autumn and our eyes met before I passed the wall. She looked like she was sorry to let me go. I took a solid breath and kept on walking.

It was a long walk to the dumpster. I was warmed up from the previous hike so the cramps didn't onset as rapidly, but still, I was hurting before the end of the lot. My saving grace came when Pink Nose begged for a sit down. Considering that Pink Nose was not very far behind Fatty in weight at all, I was surprised he made it as far as he did. The lighter dogs wandered about the courtyard while we sat and panted. I thought about asking Pink Nose something, anything, but nothing seemed right. Before I knew it, we were both up and on our way.

It'd been a while since the last time I'd been to the dumpster, but not a lot had changed. On the far side of the building, a concrete road led from the lot to the building itself. The stone of the building changed here, large squares of it were made of segmented metal and painted with Lopside symbols as I thought of them. But what I was drawn to instead was the large metal bin that stood out in the dimness of the light. By moonlight, I could see the moving shapes of dogs ahead.

Fatty had apparently been keeping watch for us because he was the first to get up and greet us, despite the hindrance of his bulk. The huge dark mass that had been next to him could only be Fat Gut. I saw him work himself upright, but he didn't get up, I could hear him panting.

"Well, let's see what you've found." I said to Fatty and he turned. I realized that if Fatty had been mistaken about the strength of this thing he'd found then I would have gone across the lot for nothing. But then I saw what he intended Spinner to climb on to get into the dumpster and I became more worried about his wellbeing instead. "What are those?" I asked.

Fatty shrugged, "I don't really know." He looked over at what looked to be a stacked heap of smooth sided translucent cubes. The material seemed reminiscent of that of the music toy back in the yard, but with the semi-opaqueness that made me feel uneasy about its solidity. "Does it matter?"

I growled softly and indecisively, "It matters for Spinner."

Fatty snorted in amusement. "Spinner'll be fine. We went and stacked them up so it'd be easy for him to climb inside."

I opened my mouth, but Spinner jumped forward wagging his long bushy tail. "I'm not scared!" He was already on top of the first box before I could say anything. Shrugging helplessly, I watched the collie make his way up the four levels, each more unstable than the last. I winced as he topped the last one, but I oughtn't have worried, he was up and over so fast that the whole assembly rocked only a little before he was up and over.

"What's inside?" barked Fatty, unable to hide his excitement.

Spinner did not answer intelligibly, rather he yipped in excitement. Tension ran down my spine and my lips quivered, mouth already watering from what I could smell on the other side. It was an effort to remain calm. Spinner's response eventually came as a crumpled paper sack was ejected out of the dumpster to land heavily among us. The dogs back from it in initial shock, save the one with the heaviest bottom.

Fat Gut dragged himself a few inches forward, not lifting his weight from the ground. His belly dragged to the side, but he didn't seem to mind, suddenly intensely focused. I could smell the grease plainly, but I stood stock still anyways. I remembered that Fat Gut had not had the opportunity yet to taste even residue from any sort of human delicacy. Fat Gut's claws ripped effortlessly though the paper sack and inside was revealed two thirds of cheeseburger and no small amount of fries scattered about. All of a sudden Fat Gut's eyes were very wide. His self control was sufficient only to allow a glance up at me for permission. Once I'd acknowledged with a nod of my head, he was absent from the world for the span of a minute.

I heard laughter from inside the can as Fat Gut began to gorge. Shortly after that, more missiles began to be flung from inside the can. I was sure that not even Fat Gut as Alpha would have been able to contain the frenzy that erupted then. Dogs dove to claim the packages, no matter what their contents or their scent. The refuse was varied and not all of it was food, but it was obvious that Spinner was using his nose to the best of his ability in making his choices whilst wading inside the bin. I myself managed to snag another paper sack similar to Fat Gut's, though more crumpled. I merely had to stretch out my neck to reach above the horde. Maybe a fight would have broken out, but there was such abundance that one scarcely had to wait a few seconds before another delicacy would fly by. And besides, we were all brothers now, we understood each other. We were not simply beasts any longer.

The barrage went on and on. Sometimes it was broken by the sounds of Spinner trudging around in the bin's contents, or by the sounds of him picking a choice morsel for himself, but there seemed an unlimited quantity of marvelous food that we all knew by now had unimaginably been tossed away by human kind. There was abundance, but also our collective greed knew almost no bound. Dinner had been less than a quarter day past, but it might as well have been last Spring for all appearances. Bellies became rounder, harder and more pronounced as they filled with the finest food we'd ever tasted. The cafeteria remains for over three hundred human beings was a panacea for the woes of the Hunger, or at least it seemed at the time. Who knew there could be such diversity in scent and flavor? My culinary education expanded a hundred fold in the span of an hour.

By the end, I could hear Spinner panting inside, even his energy reserves drained for the effort, yet when asked he still claimed there was yet more food inside. However, most dogs had reached their physical limits. Even Fatty had begun turning his nose to the lettuce and other vegetable matter that was frequently and inscrutably mixed in with the fragrant, holy meat. I myself could have eaten more with my giant's stomach, but I didn't want to tax Spinner to exhaustion. Fat Gut had managed to get his paws on more food stuffs than any other dog. Despite his size, he'd been moving about and even lunging after wrappers and spilled grease, fatigue forgotten in a haze of abject gluttony. He licked his paws and the underside of his brisket which was wont to flow over or even crush his food. I grinned watching him waddle place to place, vacuuming up the crumbs beside other moaning canines on their backs, or sighing contentedly. I put a paw on his nose however when he called up to Spinner for more.

"That's enough Spinner. You can come out now. I think we all ought to go home and sleep off this food.

Spinner agreed and with effort, climbed out and over the trash bin. I was alarmed for several seconds as Spinner tried to get over the metal lip of the dumpster. On his third try he succeeded, however, his landing was rough. The tower of the plastic boxes wobbled violently when he landed on it. Spinner jumped crookedly and half ran, half jumped down the steps to the side. He had just landed on the ground when the top two layers of boxes fell to the ground. The topmost one cracked and burst, shattering into dozens of pieces.

Fat Gut looked ready to reprimand Spinner, but he was silenced with a glare from me. To show the rest, I stepped up to him and said, "Are you alright?"

Spinner carefully lifted himself and shook his head briefly, as if chasing moths. "Yeah, top shape, Topsy." Then he flashed a toothy grin.

I put a paw on his back and stroked him a couple times. "You did great, Spinner. Couldn't have asked for more."

"Did I get enough food?" he asked, looking up at me a bit sheepishly.

I swept the crowd of oversized dogs, most with their tummies in the air, "What do you think?"

There was no question of cleaning up the mess we'd made. It was only with supreme effort that I could convince anyone at all to make the long trek back to our yard. Terrier-face and Fatty obeyed me out of habit, and Pink Nose took only a little convincing. But in trying to move the rest, I realized just how much Alpha power had been lost with the newfound group dynamic. What ever urgency I said there was, most dogs were convinced that getting back could wait at least long enough for a quick nap to shake the edge off. Several dogs thought we ought to sent Spinner back in so that we could drag out snacks for later. In the end, I did force them to move out, forcibly grabbing the most recalcitrant.

Fat Gut though, he was the worst. He was the only one who was incapable of making the whole trek back without rest. His belly hung especially low tonight and seemed to throw him off balance at odd steps. His stamina had decreased almost to his original starting point and he whined and complained for rest and sleep. I personally had to keep him on the march. At one point, I allowed him to stop when I heard his stomach making odd groaning sounds that continued for minutes after he'd rested. I was sure that he would vomit, but Fat Gut showed a strength of character in that regard that I sorely felt he should have applied to his whining. We were the last two back of course and when the gate had clanged shut behind me, Fat Gut collapsed were he was and refused to move, rolling onto his broad back and allowing a belly that was actually higher than his chest to spread out to the sky. I stared for a moment, very sure that his was the only one who was actually that large because while lying on the back, one's abdomen spread out and was held down. Fat Gut's did as well, but his flesh was so abundant that its concavity was unable to be reversed. I made sure to remember to tell him tomorrow, I was sure he'd be glad of the feat and the milestone.

Except that I never did tell him. The following day, older members of the lab came to the yard even before breakfast. They came with leashes and took the four leanest dogs of the pack away. Among them were Spinner and my brother.