New Orbit Magazine Issue 08; Feb 2020, The Future of Animals
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Halfway up the rocky slope, Tama was starting to
question his life choices. He grabbed at a clump of
tussock to pull himself up.
“‘Get a PhD’, they said,” he muttered. “‘It’ll
be fun’, they said. Nobody mentioned agricultural
genetics research would mean having to play
sheepdog.”
“Go left, Tama!” shouted Doctor Makereti,
from a more comfortably level position far below
him. Tama obliged, stopping to curse when he
slipped into the embrace of a prickly gorse bush.
“That’s it!” the professor shouted as he
extricated himself. “Now make some noise!”
“Woof,” Tama said, under his breath. He
clapped his hands and let out a whoop. A dozen
sheep burst out of the patch of bush in front of
him and flowed down the rocky slope as easily as
if it were a flat paddock. Down below, Jack Davey
and his dogs set to work, herding them into the
temporary yards on the flat to join the rest of the
flock.
“Hey Tama, you missed one,” Makareti called.
He could swear she was grinning.
A few metres away a young ram stood atop a
rock, glaring at him. Tama leapt to an adjacent
rock.
“I should warn you that I’m an Aries,” he told
the sheep.
The ram seemed entirely unimpressed. Tama
edged closer, readying himself for a flying rugby
tackle. The ram anticipated his move and instead
of heading down the slope after his flock, he dived
straight over the edge of the small cliff. Tama
stepped to the edge and looked down. The ram
appeared to have backed himself into a dead end,
stuck in the scar of an old landslide with a big gap
between the outcrop he was perched on and stable
ground.
Angie came panting up the slope.
“Want me to go get the ropes?”
“Nah,” Tama stuck out his chest. “I can
manage.”