‘Like the rat terriers?’ asked Callan.
‘Indeed. Then for some of us, modifications, just as with the humachines, who are, after all, modified humans themselves. So most canini existing today are large, long-lived, intelligent creatures, and most of us have thumbs. The flesh of humans is now poisonous to us. We cannot howl quite so well as we once did; our voices are small for our size, and our brains big.’
‘Why were such modifications made?’
‘In the time before the Conflagration, humans wanted more from us. They had already bred us to certain ideals, but they wanted to make changes more quickly, to keep us in their pre-Conflagration cities, to undertake tasks they did not wish to perform themselves. So they made changes to us. They did it in places called laboratories.’
The other three
