"the go-between"

[sergebroom]

"We would like to accept your offer and lease the port to you. We are eager to share all the learning you have promised us."
"You - you are? But why?"
"The dogs told us. They said that you could be cruel, yes, but that you were rarely so. They said that they have loved you for years uncountable. That you are good and worthy of our trust."

In spite of the above, Lisa Goldstein's short story The Go-Between, about a human ambassador who has to negotiate an agreement with aliens who have adopted stray dogs, is quite bittersweet. Recommended. It can be found in Hartwell & Cramer's Year's Best SF 7.