would be impossible. But because it had life. And not only life-- intelligent life.
Or at least fairly bright life. Energy output in the sub- and supravisible spectra
exceeded reflection from the star (No, I must try to think of it as the sun) by a
significant degree. Energy clearly came from a breakdown of carbon compounds, just
what current theory (current? ninety-seven-year-old) had assumed would be the
logical energy base of a developing world in this temperature range. The professors
would be most gratified.
And after several months of maneuvering his craft, he was in stationary orbit
around the larger binary. He began monitoring communications on the supravisible
wavelengths. He learned the language quickly, though of course he couldn't have
produced it with his own body, and sighed a little when he realized that, the
aliens, like his own people, called their little star "the sun," their minor binary
"the moon," and their own humble, overhot planet "earth" (terra, mund, etc.). The
array of languages was impressive-- to think that people would go to all the trouble
of thinking out hundreds of completely different ways of communicating for the sheer
love of the logical exercise was amazing-- what minds they must have!
For a moment he fleetingly thought of taking over for his people's use the bipedal
bodies of the dominant intelligent race; but law was law, and his people would
commit mass suicide if they realized-- as they would surely realize-- that they had
gained their bodies at the expense of another intelligent race. One could think of
such bipedals as being ahnost human, right down to the whimsical sense of humor that
so reminded Mklikluln of his wife (Ah, Glundnindn, and you the pilot who volunteered
to plunge into the sun, scooping out the sample that killed you, but saved us!); but
he refused to mourn.
The dominant race was out. Similar bipedals were too small in population, too
feared or misunderstood by the dominant race. Other animals with appropriate
populations didn't have body functions that could easily support intelligence
without major revisions-- and many were too weak to survive unaided, too short of
lifespan to allow civilization.
And so he narrowed down the choices to two quadrupeds, of very different sorts, of
course, but well within the limits of choice: both had full access to the domiciles
of the dominant race; both had adequate body structure to support intellect; both
had potential means of communicating; both had sufficient population to hold all the
encapsulated minds waiting in the space between the stars.
Mkhkluln did the mental equivalent of flipping a coin-- would have flipped a coin,
in fact, except that he had neither hand nor coin nor adequate gravity for flipping.
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The choice made-- for the noisy one of greater intelligence that already had the
love of most members of the master race-- he set about making plans on how to
introduce the transceivers that would call his people. (The dominant race must not
know what is happening; and it can't be done without the cooperation of the dominant
race.)
Mklikluln's six points vibrated just a little as he thought.
***
Abu was underpaid, underfed, underweight, and within about twelve minutes of the
end of his lifespan. He was concentrating on the first problem, however, as the
fourth developed.
"Why am I being paid less than Faisel, who sits on his duff by the gate while I
walk back and forth in front of the cells all day?" he righteously said-- under his
breath, of course, in case his supervisor should overhear him. "Am I not as good a
Muslim? Am I not as smart? Am I not as loyal to the Party?"
And as he was immersed in righteous indignation at man's inhumanity, not so much
to mankind as to Abu ibn Assur, a great roaring sound tore through the desert
prison, followed by a terrible, hot, dry, sand-stabbing wind. Abu screamed and
covered his eyes-- too late, however, and the sand ripped them open, and the hot air
dried them out.
That was why he didn't see the hole in the outside wall of cell 23, which held a
political prisoner condemned to die the next morning for having murdered his wife--
normally not a political crime, except when the wife was also the daughter of
somebody who could make phone calls and get people put in prison.
That was why he didn't see hig supervisor come in, discover cell 23 empty, and
then aim his submachine gun at Abu as the first step to setting up the hapless guard
discharge of the gun, and wondered vaguely what had happened as he died.
***
Mklikluln stretched the new arms and legs (the fourness of the body, the
two-sidedness, the overwhelming sexuality of it all were amazing, all were
delightful) and walked around his little spacecraft. And the fiveness and tenness of
the fingers and toes! (What we could have done with fingers and toes! except that we
might not have developed thoughttalk, then, and would have been tied to the
vibration of air as are these people.) Inside the ship he could see his own body
melting as the hot air of the Kansas farmland raised the temperature above the
melting point of ice.
He had broken the law himself, but could see no way around it. Necessary as his
act had been, and careful as he had been to steal the body of a man doomed anyway to
die, he knew that his own people would try him, convict him, and execute him for
depriving an intelligent being of life.
But in the meantime, it was a new body and a whole range of sensations. He moved
the tongue over the teeth. He made the buzzing in his throat that was used for
communication. He tried to speak.
It was impossible. Or so it seemed, as the tongue and lips and jaw tried to make
the Arabic sounds the reflex pathways were accustomed to, while Mklikluln tried to
speak in the language that had dominated the airwaves.
He kept practicing as he carefully melted down his ship (though it was transparent
to most electromagnetic spectra, it might still cause comment if found) and by the
time he made his way into the nearby city, he was able to communicate fairly well.
Well enough, anyway, to contract with the Kansas City Development Corporation for
the manufacture of the machine he had devised; with Farber, Farber, and Maynard to
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secure patents on every detail of the machinery; and with Sidney's carpentry shop to
manufacture the doghouses.
He sold enough diamonds to pay for the first 2,000 finished models. And then he
hit the road, humming the language he had learned from the radio. "It's the real
thing, Coke is," he sang to himself. "Mr. Transmission will put in commission the
worst transmissions in town."
The sun set as he checked into a motel outside Manhattan, Kansas. "How many?"
asked the clerk.
"One," said Mklikluln.
"Name?"
"Robert," he said, using a name he had randomly chosen from among the many
thousands mentioned on the airwaves. "R
obert Redford."
"Ha-ha," said the clerk. "I bet you get teased about that a lot."
"Yeah. But I get in to see a lot of important people."
The clerk laughed. Mklikluln smiled. Speaking was fun. For one thing, you could
lie. An art his people had never learned to cultivate.
"Profession?"
"Salesman."
"Really, Mr. Redford? What do you sell?"
Mklikluln shrugged, practicing looking mildly embarrassed. "Doghouses," he said.
***
Royce Jacobsen pulled open the front door of his swelteringly hot house and
sighed. A salesman.
"We don't want any," he said.
"Yes you do," said the man, smiling.
Royce was a little startled. Salesmen usually didn't argue with potential
customers-- they usually whined. And those that did argue rarely did it with such
calm self-assurance. The man was an ass, Royce decided. He looked it the sample
case. On the side were the letters spelling out: "Doghouses Unlimited."
"We don't got a dog," Royce said.
"But you do have a very warm house, I believe," the salesman said.
"Yeah. Hotter'n Hades, as the preachers say. Ha." The laugh would have been bigger
than one Ha, but Royce was hot and tired and it was only a salesman.
"But you have an air conditioner."
"Yeah," Royce said. "What I don't have is a permit for more than a hundred bucks
worth of power from the damnpowercompany. So if I run the air conditioner more than
one day a month, I get the refrigerator shut down, or the stove, or some other such
thing."
The salesman looked sympathetic.
"It's guys like me," Royce went on, "who always get the short end of the stick.
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You can bet your boots that the mayor gets all the air conditioning he wants. You
can bet your boots and your overalls, as the farmers say, ha ha, that the president
of the damnpowercompany takes three hot showers a day and three cold showers a night
and leaves his windows open in the winter, too, you can bet on it."
"Right," said the salesman. "The power companies own this whole country. They own
the whole world, you know? Think it's any different in England? In Japan? They got
the gas, and so they get the gold."
"Yeah," Royce agreed. "You're my kind of guy. You come right in.. House is hot as
Hades, as the preachers say, ha ha ha, but it sure beats standing in the sun."
They sat on a beat-up looking couch and Royce explained exactly what was wrong
with the damnpowercompany and what he thought of the damnpowercompany's executives
and in what part of their anatomy they should shove their quotas, bills, rates, and
periods of maximum and minimum use. "I'm sick to death of having to take a shower at
2:00 am!" Royce shouted.
"Then do something about it!" the salesman rejoindered.
"Sure. Like what?"
"Like buy a doghouse from me."
Royce thought that was funny. He laughed for a good long while.
But then the salesman started talking very quietly, showing him pictures and
diagrams and cost analysis papers that proved-- what?
"That the solar energy utilizer built into this doghouse can power your entire
house, all day every day, with four times as much power as you could use if you
turned on all your home appliances all day every day, for exactly zero once you pay
me this simple one-time fee."
Royce shook his head, though he coveted the doghouse. "Can't. Illegal. I think
they passed a law against solar energy thingies back in '85 or '86, to protect the
power companies."
The salesman laughed. "How much protection do the power companies need?"
"Sure," Royce answered, "it's me that needs protection. But the meter reader-- if
I stop using power, he'll report me, they'll investigate--"
"That's why we don't put your whole house on it. We just put the big power users
on it, and gradually take more off the regular current until you're paying what,
maybe fifteen dollars a month. Right? Only instead of fifteen dollars a month and
cooking over a fire and sweating to death in a hot house, you've got the air
conditioner running all day, the heater running all day in the winter, showers
whenever you want them, and you can open the refrigerator as often as you like."
Royce still wasn't sure.
"What've you got to lose?" the salesman asked.
"My sweat," Royce answered. "You hear that? My sweat. Ha ha ha ha."
"That's why we build them into doghouses-- so that nobody'll suspect anything."
"Sure, why not?" Royce asked. "Do it. I'm game. I didn't vote for the
damncongressman who voted in that stupid law anyway."
***
The air conditioner hummed as the guests came in. Royce and his wife, Junie,
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ushered them into the living room. The television was on in the family room and the
osterizer was running in the kitchen. Royce carelessly flipped on a light. One of
the women gasped. A man whispered to his wife. Royce and Junie carelessly began
their conversation-- as Royce left the door open.
A guest noticed it-- Mr. Detweiler from the bowling team. He said, "Hey!" and
leaped from the chair toward the door.
Royce stopped him, saying, "Never mind, never mind, I'll get it in a minute. Here,
have some peanuts." And the guests all watched the door in agony as Royce passed the
peanuts around, then (finally!) went to the door to close it.
"Beautiful day outside," Royce said, holding the door open a few minutes longer.
Somebody in the living room mentioned a name of the deity. Somebody else countered
wiih a one word discussion of defecation. Royce was satisfied that the point had
been made. He shut the door.
"Oh, by the way," he said. "I'd like you to meet a friend of mine. His name is
Robert Redford."
Gasp, gasp, of course you're joking, Robert Redford, what a laugh, sure.
"Actually, his name is Robert Redford, but he isn't, of course, the all time
greatest star of stage, screen, and the Friday Night Movie, as the disc jockeys say,
ha ha. He is, in short, my friends, a doghouse salesman."
Mklikluln came in then, and shook hands all around.
"He looks like an Arab," a woman whispered.
"Or a Jew," her husband whispered back. "Who can tell?"
Royce beamed at Mklikluln and patted him on the back. "Redford here is the best
salesman I ever met."
"Must be, if he sold you a doghouse, and you not even got a dog," said Mr.
Detweiler of the bowling league, who could sound patronizing because he was the only
one in the bowling league who had ever had a perfect game.
"Neverthemore, as the raven said, ha ha ha, I want you all to see my doghouse."
And so Royce led the way past a kitchen where all the lights were on, where the
refrigerator was standing open ("Royce, the fridge is open!" "Oh, I guess one of the
kids left it that way." "I'd kill one of my kids that did something like that!"),
where the stove and microwave and osterizer and hot water were all running at once.
Some of the women looked faint.
And as the guests tried to rush through the back door all at once, to conserve
energ
y, Royce said, "Slow down, slow down, what's the panic, the house on fire? Ha
ha ha." But the guests still hurried through.
On the way out to the doghouse, which was located in the dead center of the
backyard, Detweiler took Royce aside.
"Hey, Royce, old buddy. Who's your touch with the damnpowercompany? How'd you get
your quota upped?"
Royce only smiled, shaking his head. "Quota's the same as ever, Detweiler." And
then, raising his voice just a bit so that everybody in the backyard could hear, he
said, "I only pay fifteen bucks a month for power as it is."
"Woof woof," said a small dog chained to the hook on the doghouse.
"Where'd the dog come from?" Royce whispered to Mklikluln.
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"Neighbor was going to drown 'im," Mklikluln answered. "Besides, if you don't have
a dog the power company's going to get suspicious. It's cover."
Royce nodded wisely. "Good idea, Redford. I just hope this party's a good idea.
What if somebody talks?"
"Nobody will," Mklikluln said confidently.
And then Mklikluln began showing the guests the finer points of the doghouse.
When they finally left, Mklikluln had twenty-three appointments during the next
two weeks, checks made out to Doghouses Unlimited for $221.23, including taxes, and
many new friends. Even Mr. Detweiler left smiling, his check in Mklikluln's hand,
even though the puppy had pooped on his shoe.
"Here's your commission," Mklikluln said as he wrote out a check for three hundred
dollars to Royce Jacobsen. "It's more than we agreed, but, you earned it," he said.
"I feel a little funny about this," Royce said. "Like I'm conspiring to break the
law or something."
"Nonsense," Mklikluln said. "Think of it as a Tupperware party."
"Sure," Royce said after a moment's thought. "It's not as if I actually did any
selling myself, right?"
Within a week, however, Detweiler, Royce, and four other citizens of Manhattan,
Kansas, were on their way to various distant cities of the United States, Doghouses
Unlimited briefcases in their hands.
And within a month, Mklikluln had a staff of three hundred in seven cities,
building doghouses and installing them. And into every doghouse went a frisky little
puppy. Mklikluln did some figuring. In about a year, he decided. One year and I can
call my people.