***
"What's happened to power consumption in Manhattan, Kansas?" asked Bill Wilson,
up-and-coming young executive in the statistical analysis section of Central Kansas
Power, otherwise known as the damnpowercompany.
"It's gotten lower," answered Kay Block, relic of outdated affirmative action
programs in Central Kansas Power, who had reached the level of records examiner
before the ERA was repealed to make our bathrooms safe for mankind.
Bill Wilson sneered, as if to say, "That much I knew, woman." And Kay Block
simpered, as if to say, "Ah, the boy has an IQ after all, eh?"
But they got along well enough, and within an hour they had the alarming statistic
that power consumption in the city of Manhattan, Kansas, was down by forty percent.
"What was consumption in the previous trimester?
"Normal. Everything normal."
"Forty percent is ridiculous," Bill fulminated.
"Don't fulminate at me," Kay said, irritated at her boss for raising his voice.
"Go yell at the people who unplugged their refrigerators!"
"No," Bill said. "You go yell at people who unplugged their refrigerators.
Something's gone wrong there, and if it isn't crooked meter readers, it's people
who've figured out a way to jimmy the billing system. "
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***
After two weeks of investigation, Kay Block sat in the administration building of
Kansas State University (9-2 last football season, coming that close to copping the
Plains Conference pennant for '98) refusing to admit that her investigation had
turned up a big fat zero. A random inspection of thirty-eight meters showed no
tampering at all. A complete audit of the local branch office's books showed no
doctoring at all. And a complete examination of KSU's power consumption figures
showed absolutely nothing. No change in consumption-- no change in billing system--
and yet a sharp drop in electricity use.
"The drop in power use may be localized," Kay suggested to the white-haired woman
from the school who was babysitting her through the process. "The stadium surely
uses as much light as ever-- so the drop must be somewhere else, like in the science
labs."
The white-haired woman shook her head. "That may be so, but the figures you see
are the figures we've got."
Kay sighed and looked out the window. Down from the window was the roof of the new
Plant Science Building. She looked at it as her mind struggled vainly to find
something meaningful in the data she had. Somebody was cheating-- but how?
There was a doghouse on the roof of the Plant Science Building.
"What's a doghouse doing on the roof of that building?" asked Kay.
"I would assume," said the white-haired woman, "for a dog to live in."
"On the roof?"
The white-haired woman smiled. "Fresh air, perhaps," she said.
Kay looked at the doghouse awhile longer, telling herself that the only reason she
was suspicious was because she was hunting for anything unusual that could explain
the anomalies in the Manhattan, Kansas, power usage pattern.
"I want to see that doghouse," she said.
"Why?" asked the white-haired lady. "Surely you don't think a generator could hide
in a doghouse! Or solar-power equipment! Why, those things take whole buildings!"
Kay looked carefully at the white-haired woman and decided that she protested a
bit too much. "I insist on seeing the doghouse," she said again.
The white-haired woman smiled again. "Whatever you want, Miss Block. Lef me call
the custodian so he can unlock the door to the roof."
After the phone call they went down the stairs to the main floor of the
administration building, across the lawns, and then up the stairs to the roof of the
Plant Science Building. "What's the matter, no elevators?" Kay asked sourly as she
panted from the exertion of climbing the stairs.
"Sorry," the white-haired woman said. "We don't build elevators into buildings
anymore. They use too much power. Only the power company can afford elevators these
days."
The custodian was at the door of the roof, looking very apologetic.
"Sorry if old Rover's been causin' trouble ladies. I keep him up on the roof
nowadays, ever since the break-in attempt through the roof door last spring.
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"Arf, " said a frisky, cheerful looking mix between an elephant and a Labrador
retriever (just a quick guess, of course) that bounded up to them.
"Howdy, Rover old boy," said the custodian. "Don't bite nobody."
"Arf," the dog answered, trying to wiggle out of his skin and looking as if he
might succeed. "Gurrarf."
Kay examined the roof door from the outside. "I don't see any signs of anyone
jimmying at the door," she said.
"Course not," said the custodian. "The burglars was seen from the administration
building before they could get to the door."
"Oh," said Kay. "Then why did you need to put a dog up here?"
"Cause what if the burglars hadn't been seen?" the custodian said, his tone
implying that only a moron would have asked such a question.
Kay looked at the doghouse. It looked like every other doghouse in the world. It
looked like cartoons of doghouses, in fact, it was so ordinary. Simple arched door.
Pitched roof with gables and eaves. All it lacked was a water dish and piles of
doggy-do and old bones. No doggy-do?
"What a talented dog," Kay commented. "He doesn't even go to the bathroom."
"Uh," answered the custodian, "he's really housebroken. He just won't go until I
take him down from here to the lawn, will ya Rover?"
Kay surveyed the wall of the roof-access building they had come through. "Odd. He
doesn't even mark the walls."
"I told you. He's really housebroken. He wouldn't think of mucking up the roof
here."
"Arf," said the dog as it urinated on the door and then defecated in a neat pile
at Kay's feet. "Woof woof woof, " he said proudly.
"All that training," Kay said, "and it's all gone to waste."
Whether the custodian's answer was merely describing what the dog had done or had
a more emphatic purpose was irrelevant. Obviously the doghouse was not normally used
for a dog. And if that was true, what was a doghouse doing on the roof of the Plant
Science Building?
***
The damnpowercompany brought civil actions against the city of Manhattan, Kansas,
and a court injunction insisted that all doghouses be disconnected from all electric
wiring systems. The city promptly brought countersuit against the damnpowercompany
(a very popular move) and appealed the court injunction.
The damnpowercompany shut off all the power in Manhattan, Kansas.
Nobody in Manhattan, Kansas, noticed, except the branch office of the
damnpowercompany, which now found itself the only building in the city without
electricity.
The "Doghouse War" got quite a bit of notoriety. Feature articles appeared in
magazines about Doghouses Unlimited and its elusive founder, Robert Redford, who
refused to be interviewed and in fact could not be fo
und. All five networks did
specials on the cheap energy source. Statistics were gathered showing that not only
did seven percent of the American public have doghouses, but also that 99.8 percent
of the American public wanted to have doghouses. The 0.2 percent represented,
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presumably, power company stockholders and executives. Most politicians could add,
or had aides who could, and the prospect of elections coming up in less than a year
made the result clear.
The antisolar power law was repealed.
The power companies' stock plummeted on the stock market.
The world's most unnoticed depression began.
With alarming rapidity an economy based on expensive energy fell apart. The OPEC
monolith immediately broke up, and within five months petroleum had fallen to 38
cents a barrel. Its only value was in plastics and as a lubricant, and the oil
producing nations had been overproducing for those needs.
The reason the depression wasn't much noticed was because Doghouses Unlimited
easily met the demand for their product. Scenting a chance for profit, the
government slapped a huge export tax on the doghouses. Doghouses Unlimited
retaliated by publishing the complete plans for the doghouse and declaring that
foreign companies would not be sued for manufacturing it.
The U.S. government just as quickly removed the huge tax, whereupon Doghouses
Unlimited announced that the plans it had published were not complete, and continued
to corner the market around the world.
As government after government, through subterfuge, bribery, or, in a few cases,
popular revolt, were forced to allow Doghouses Unlimited into their countries,
Robert Redford (the doghouse one) became even more of a household word than Robert
Redford (the old-time actor). Folk legends which had formerly been ascribed to Kuan
Yu, Paul Bunyan, or Gautama Buddha became, gradually, attached to Robert Doghouse
Redford.
And, at last, every family in the world that wanted one had a cheap energy source,
an unlimited energy source, and everybody was happy. So happy that they shared their
newfound plenty with all God's creatures, feeding birds in the winter, leaving bowls
of milk for stray cats, and putting dogs in the doghouses.
***
Mklikluln rested his chin in his hands and reflected on the irony that he had,
quite inadvertently, saved the world for the bipedal dominant race, solely as a
byproduct of his campaign to get a good home for every dog. But good results are
good results, and humanity-- either his own or the bipedals-- couldn't condemn him
completely for his murder of an Arab political prisoner the year before.
"What will happen when you come?" he asked his people, though of course none of
them could hear him. "I've saved the world-- but when these creatures, bright as
they are, come in contact with our infinitely superior intelligence, won't it
destroy them? Won't they suffer in humiliation to realize that we are so much more
powerful than they; that we can span galactic distances at the speed of light,
communicate telepathically, separate our minds and allow our bodies to die while we
float in space unscathed, and then, at the beck of a simple machine, come
instantaneously and inhabit the bodies of animals completely different from our
former bodies?" He worried-- but his responsibility to his own people was clear. If
this bipedal race was so proud they could not cope with inferiority, that was not
Mklikluln's problem.
He opened the top drawer of his desk in the San Diego headquarters of Doghouses
Unlimited, his latest refuge from the interview seekers, and pushed a button on a
small box.
From the box, a powerful burst of electromagnetic energy went out to the eighty
million doghouscs in southern California. Each doghouse relayed the same signal in
an unending chain that gradually spread all over the world-- wherever doghouses
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could be found.
When the last doghouse was linked to the network, all the doghouses simultaneously
transmitted something else entirely. A signal that only sneered at lightspeed and
that crossed light-years almost instantaneously. A signal that called millions of
encapsulated minds that slept in their mindfields until they heard the call, woke,
and followed the signal back to its source, again at speeds far faster than poor
pedestrian light.
They gathered around the larger binary in the third orbit from their new sun, and
listened as Mklikluln gave a full report. They were delighted with his work, and
commended him highly, before convicting him of murder of an Arabian political
prisoner and ordering him to commit suicide. He felt very proud, for the
commendation they, had given him was rarely awarded, and he smiled as he shot
himself.
And then the minds slipped downward toward the doghouses that still called to
them.
"Argworfgyardworfl," said Royce's dog as it bounded excitedly through the
backyard.
"Dog's gone crazy," Royce said, but his two sons laughed and ran around with the
dog as it looped the yard a dozen times, only to fall exhausted in front of the
doghouse.
"Griffwigrofrf," the dog said again, panting happily. It trotted up to Royce and
nuzzled him.
"Cute little bugger," Royce said.
The dog walked over to a pile of newspapers waiting for a paper drive, pulled the
top newspaper off the stack, and began staring at the page.
"I'll be humdingered," said Royce to Junie, who was bringing out the food for
their backyard picnic supper. "Dog looks like he's readin' the paper."
"Here, Robby!" shouted Royce's oldest son, Jim. "Here, Robby! Chase a stick."
The dog, having learned how to read and write from the newspaper, chased the
stick, brought it back, and instead of surrendering it to Jim's outstretched hand,
began to write with it in the dirt.
"Hello, man," wrote the dog. "Perhaps you are surprised to see me writing."
"Well," said Royce, looking at what the dog had written. "Here, Junie, will you
look at that. This is some dog, eh?" And he patted the dog's head and sat down to
eat. "Now I wonder, is there anybody who'd pay to see a dog do that?"
"We mean no harm to your planet," wrote the dog.
"Jim," said Junie, slapping spoonfuls of potato salad onto paper plates, "you make
sure that dog doesn't start scratching around in the petunias."
"C'mere, Robby," said Jim. "Time to tie you up."
"Wrowrf," the dog answered, looking a bit perturbed and backing away from the
chain.
"Daddy," said Jim, "the dog won't come when I call anymore."
Impatiently, Royce got up from his chair, his mouth full of chicken salad
sandwich. "Doggonit, Jim, if you don't control the dog we'll just have to get rid of
it. We only got it for you kids anyway!" And Royce grabbed the dog by the collar and
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dragged it to where Jimmy held the other end of the chain.
Clip.
"Now you learn to obey, dog, cause if y
ou don't I don't care what tricks you can
do, I'll sell ya."
"Owrf."
"Right. Now you remember that."
The dog watched them with sad, almost frightened eyes all through dinner. Royce
began to feel a little guilty, and gave the dog a leftover ham.
That night Royce and Junie seriously discussed whether to show off the dog's
ability to write, and decided against it, since the kids loved the dog and it was
cruel to use animals to perform tricks. They were, after all, very enlightened
people.
And the next morning they discovered that it was a good thing they'd decided that
way-- because all anyone could talk about was their dog's newfound ability to write,
or unscrew garden hoses, or lay and start an entire fire from a cold empty fireplace
to a bonfire. "I got the most talented dog in the world," crowed Detweiler, only to
retire into grim silence as everyone else in the bowling team bragged about his own
dog.
"Mine goes to the bathroom in the toilet now, and flushes it, too!" one boasted.
"And mine can fold an entire laundry, after washing her little paws so nothing
gets dirty."
The newspapers were full of the story, too, and it became clear that the sudden
intelligence of dogs was a nationwide-- a worldwide-- phenomenon. Aside from a few
superstitious New Guineans, who burned their dogs to death as witches, and some
Chinese who didn't let their dogs' strange behavior stop them from their scheduled
appointment with the dinnerpot, most people were pleased and proud of the change in
their pets.
"Worth twice as much to me now," boasted Bill Wilson, formerly an up-and-coming
executive with the damnpowercompany. "Not only fetches the birds, but plucks 'em and
cleans "em and puts 'em in the oven."
And Kay Block smiled and went home to her mastiff, which kept her good company and
which she loved very, very much.
***
"In the five years since the sudden rise in dog intelligence," said Dr.
Wheelwright to his class of graduate students in animal intelligence, "we have
learned a tremendous amount about how intelligence arises in animals. The very
suddenness of it has caused us to take a second look at evolution. Apparently
mutations can be much more complete than we had supposed, at least in the higher
functions. Naturally, we will spend much of this semester studying the research on