02465cam a22003853u 4500 77527 UtSlPG 20260610134809.0 m cr n 260607r20251955utu|||||o|||||||||||||| d UtSlPG en iso639-1 PS Del Rey, Lester, 1915-1993 Keepers of the house Salt Lake City, UT : Project Gutenberg, 2025 1 online resource : multiple file formats text txt rdacontent computer c rdamedia online resource cr rdacarrier Produced from Fantastic Universe, January 1956 (Vol. 4, No. 6). Release date is 2025-12-22 Tom Trussel (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Keepers of the house by Lester Del Rey is a science fiction short story written in the mid-20th century. It follows a lone dog in a ruined, post-apocalyptic landscape, focusing on memory, loss, and the aftermath of misused technology. An old, intelligent dog named King is drawn by scent and dream back to a ruined university city, where he finds the Promethean Laboratory and discovers his long-lost master, “Doc,” dead beside a tape machine that still plays his voice. Through King’s memories we glimpse the collapse: a hated tower that broadcast a tingling power, failed experiments that revived rats and altered dogs, a plague of rabbits, and desperate rocket launches that carried infants away as civilization died. Chasing a white lab rat, King shelters from a storm in a crashed rocket and gorges on leftover rations; lightning later ignites the wired lab and consumes Doc’s remains. In the morning King returns, confirms the finality of death, gives a single mourning howl from the bridge, and turns south along the river to survive, leaving the last house he kept behind. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Originally published: New York: King-Size Publications, Inc., 1955 Science fiction Short stories Dogs -- Fiction Apocalyptic fiction Emshwiller, Ed, 1925-1990 Produced from Fantastic Universe, January 1956 (Vol. 4, No. 6). https://archive.org/details/Fantastic_Universe_v04n06_1956-01 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77527 118247 118247