Flux Tales Of Human Futures

by Card, Orson Scott

  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

  as the official scapegoat for this fiasco. Abu did, however, hear and feel the

  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.