Chapter IXAS Sirius walked home to the Laboratory after his day with Plaxy, brooding on the shortcomings of man, and his own loneliness, and the indifference of the universe, he began to slip into the wolf–mood. Frustration always tended to have this effect on him, and he was feeling desperately frustrated. He longed for self–expression, and could find no means of attaining it. When he was a puppy he had decided that he would be a general, deploying his human troops with superhuman skill, charging with them to superhuman victory. Ludicrous, impossible dream! Later he had determined to be an explorer of the Siberian Tundra or prairies (a country that he thought suited to his powers); but how could a dog take the necessary gear with him without causing excitement among the human inhabitants?
