"What kind is he, Pop?"
"He looks like a mongrel to me. A bad-tempered, medium-sized mongrel with an ugly look about him. Maybe I ought to shoot him and get it over with."
"Shoot him? Don't do that! I want him as a pet."
"He looks too wild to make much of a pet."
The dog gave one last bark of defiance, turned, and fled in the same general direction, Sam noticed, as he had run last time.
"Maybe dogs do grow on other planets, Pop."
"Only if men have brought them there."
"Then that means there was a ship here?"
"At some time or other there was a ship. I don't think it was smashed up, or I'd have seen wreckage when I cruised around before landing. That dog was either left here by mistake, or deliberately marooned."
"Maybe—maybe he's with somebody who's still here."