"A dog is a Masan's best friend."

I was a bit surprised to see the above cartoon in my travels on the internet today - in an odd coincidence, I had randomly picked up a book* earlier today and read an optomistic little 1947 Murray Leinster short story called Propagandist, which is basically this cartoon spread over 24 pages.  

Obviously, the story is a bit more complex than the four panel cartoon.  Propagandist is a first contact story which takes place under the worst possibly circumstances: an unknown alien species has raided an Earth colony and slaughtered half a million human settlers, and a grimly determined Terran space fleet searches vengefully for the aliens responsible.  The light cruiser Kennessee finds inhabited planets in the Masa Gamma system, and sends a scout ship to one of the planets in hopes of confirming that these are the aliens responsible for the barbaric attack on the colony.

Meanwhile, the Masans are struggling with the same problem.  They've detected the Kennessee and are concerned that it heralds a new assault by raiders who devastated their civilization hundreds of years in the past.  If it is a raider ship that presages a new attack, there is only one option:  total war.

The unlikely diplomat who resolves the situation and leads to an alliance that defeats the actual raiders?  Buck the dog, who is captured by the Masans when Holden, his owner, is forced to leave him behind after the unsuccessful scouting mission to Masa Four.  As both sides prepare for battle, the Masans scan Buck's mind, and based on the results, decide to contact the Terran ship rather than destroying it outright - it's impossible that the beings in Buck's memories could be the monsters that they fear. The humans realize that the Masans have not killed Buck  - they can't possibly be the brutal species that destroyed the colony. 

After resolution of the war with the raiders, Holden and Buck visit Masan Four and the scientist who probed Buck's mind:

"Then we knew that men will always repay trust with loyalty." Then the Masan added, "That is, most men."

Holden said uncomfortably: 

"Well - that's something that has worried the skipper.  You people act as if all of us were as decent as our dogs think us.  We aren't.  You'll have to be...well...a little cagey, sometimes..."

"So," said the Masan, "we learned from Buck.  But also we learned that there will always be men to trust."

It's a pleasant little morality tale, although it's probably a good thing that Holden went against the tradition of cats on ships and took a dog instead.  Lord knows what would have happened if they'd read a cat's mind!

- Sid

P.S.  The selection of "boof" for the dog's bark is a bit reminiscent of Clarus, the infamous Apple dogcow - who of course goes moof.

* For any bibliophiles in the reading audience, it was the 1969 paperback edition of Great Stories of Space Travel, edited by Groff Conklin.