Del Rey, Lester 1915-1993 creator Emshwiller, Ed 1925-1990 text utu 2025 monographic en 1 online resource : multiple file formats 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.) Release date is 2025-12-22 Tom Trussel (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Originally published: New York: King-Size Publications, Inc., 1955 Science fiction Short stories Dogs -- Fiction Apocalyptic fiction PS New York: King-Size Publications, Inc., 1955 https://archive.org/details/Fantastic_Universe_v04n06_1956-01 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77527 https://archive.org/details/Fantastic_Universe_v04n06_1956-01 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77527 UtSlPG 260607 20260610134809.0 77527