Dogs of S.T.E.A.M.

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  Snitch sighed as the dream slipped away from him.

  Still, Mordred was seen, and didn’t even know it, he consoled himself. Maybe Lord Cerberus should know about that.

  Snitch shuddered, feeling equal portions of terror and ecstasy as he thought of Lord Cerberus. Their silent master towered above him, bigger than First Dog, taller even than Anubis. Of course, all dogs dwarfed Snitch, but none like Lord Cerberus. But that described the overall nature of their master—he was like no other dog on Earth.

  Still grinning, eyes glinting oilily, Snitch ran as fast as he could to beat Mordred to the lair.

  Chapter 2: Strange Events in a Quiet Neighborhood

  Present Day

  Chula Vista, Calif.

  Earth 1

  “A flying dog?” Kim asked, gazing archly at the informant as only a cat can. “You’re sure that’s what you want me to tell Levi and the others when they return—a flying dog?”

  “Yes, Miss Kim,” Ajax said. Then the great Mastiff frowned. “I think I do.”

  Kim was a Tortoiseshell Tabby, a Torby, which gave her a startling gray-and-cream pattern in her fur, as well as an M-shaped mark on her forehead. She matched the dog’s frown, then did him one better, the ‘M’ pattern scrunching and warping in disquieting ways. She moved forward slightly, till mere inches separated them. Her ears inclined toward him. Her tail twitched, the pale q-tip at the end whipping about like an agitated serpent.

  “I mean, he was a dog,” Ajax blurted nervously. “And he was flying, but I don’t know that I should say he was a flying dog. He might have been just a dog who was flying rather than a flying dog, if you know what I mean.”

  “No,” Kim said evenly, her iridescent green eyes burning into Ajax’s. “No, I don’t know what you mean.” She paused. “Exactly what do you mean?”

  “Perhaps he’s stark barking mad,” Little Kitty suggested from the top of the couch. The Calico loved saying that to dogs. “Ha! Stark barking mad!”

  “Little Kitty, please,” Kim snapped. “You’re not helping.”

  “I wasn’t barking,” Ajax protested.

  “Stark barking mad!” the Calico repeated.

  “And I’m not angry with no one.”

  Kim hissed, startling both the Mastiff and the Calico. The dog jumped back as if he had been slashed. Little Kitty sniffed the air disdainfully and shifted on the couch.

  “Well, if that’s the way you’re going to be about it.”

  Kim sighed and turned to the Mastiff. He had shown up at the door of their house on Fifth Avenue fifteen minutes earlier wanting to see Levi and the other detectives.

  “All right, Ajax,” Kim said. “Calm down, and let’s go through this again. What exactly did you think you saw?”

  “A flying dog.” He then added: “Or a dog who was flying.”

  “Stark barking mad,” Little Kitty whispered, just loud enough to be heard by all.

  Kim swiveled her head slowly, menacingly toward the Calico. In theory, Little Kitty was supposed to assist Kim in her duties as Office Manager of the Three Dog Detective Agency; in practice, Kim felt she spent most of her time trying to keep Little Kitty out of trouble, an exercise in futility if ever there was one.

  “Aren’t there other things you’re supposed to do?” Kim asked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Little Kitty replied.

  “Isn’t there anything else you can do besides lay there and kibbutz?” Kim demanded. “Something that isn’t annoying?”

  Little Kitty sighed, feeling grievously wronged. Yes, there were other things she could do besides annoy Kim, but none that were nearly as satisfying. She looked at Kim and squinted, trying to gauge the Torby’s true mood, a difficult task since Little Kitty was mostly blind in one eye and did not see well out of the other, not uncommon in her breed. But she saw well enough to recognize a lit stick of dynamite when she saw one.

  As Kim and Ajax watched, Little Kitty stretched out her arms and legs, yawned, and rolled off the couch, landing on the cushions out of sight. Almost immediately, they heard soft snores.

  “All right, Ajax, let’s try this again,” Kim said. “If you want the detectives to follow up on this, you have to be clear about what you actually saw this morning.” She paused. “It was this morning?”

  “Yes, real early, when it was dark and scary,” the big Mastiff affirmed. “Real dark. Real scary. I usually don’t go out when it’s like that, but, well, you know…sometimes…well…”

  “Yes, nature calls,” Kim said, glad she never had to go out at all, except on her own terms. Thank Bast for litter boxes. “All right, you went outside your apartment…then what?”

  “I stood there awhile, looking out in the dark, trying to see if there were any monsters or dognappers around,” Ajax said.

  Kim fought back a sigh as a slight chuckle rose from the other side of the couch. She did not show any emotion as she waited for Ajax to continue, but she had to admit Little Kitty had a point—it was difficult to believe that such a big bruiser as Ajax was such a sissy. She did not know as much about canine history as did some of her house-mates, but she knew that Mastiffs were once the premier war-dog of the Roman Empire.

  No wonder the Roman Empire fell, she thought, but she nodded as Ajax continued his story.

  “Well, once I saw there were no monsters or dognappers, least none that I could see…” He paused, cocking his head, listening.

  Little Kitty’s soft chuckles had become not-so-soft guffaws. Kim did the feline equivalent of gritting her teeth.

  “Concentrate, Ajax, and pay no attention to the peanut gallery,” she urged loudly. “There was no one around…”

  “So I went down by the edge of the driveway, where the lights from the pool area are still pretty bright,” Ajax said. “I took care of my business real quick, because, well, you know, things can look like they’re safe but…”

  “After you took care of business…” Kim interrupted.

  “Then I heard a noise, not from on the ground, moving through the bushes or anything like that, but high up,” Ajax continued. “I looked up on the top of the apartments across the way, thinking that maybe there was a possum there, ‘cause sometimes those little guys take things from balconies, but it wasn’t a possum. No, it was a dog, but not like a dog I’ve ever seen.”

  “You didn’t recognize him?”

  “No, I mean he was not any kind of dog I’ve ever seen, not that I seen that many, me not getting out much ‘cause of dognappers,” Ajax explained. “He was a little fellow, just a runt, and I remember looking at him and smiling and wondering how he got up there. I said to myself, ‘Now there’s a dog that’s not danger…’.”

  “Tell me about the dog,” Kim said. “What was different?”

  “Like I said, he was a runt, nothing to worry about,” the Mastiff continued. “Then I noticed there was something on his back, like a vacuum cleaner, but made out of copper or brass. That was when I began to worry, ‘cause I don’t like vacuum cleaners—who does! But then I saw it wasn’t like any vacuum cleaner I ever saw, ‘cause they don’t have pipes and gauges…nor wings either!”

  Smothered laughter sounded softly from the couch.

  Ajax frowned at the couch, then turned back to Kim. “That was not all—he was wearing goggles!”

  “A dog wearing goggles,” Kim mused, trying to keep disbelief out of her tone. “That is disconcerting.”

  “Disturbing too,” Ajax agreed. “His eyes were also buggy, but those weren’t what made the fur on my back stand on end.”

  “Oh?” Kim said. “No?”

  “No, it was when the dog looked at me and smiled,” Ajax said. “He grinned the biggest grin I ever saw, like his head was splitting in half. Normally, a smile is all friendly like, but this grin almost made me go again. His teeth weren’t like teeth, but needles.”

  “That does sound strange,” Kim admitted. “What happened after this dog looked at you and grinned?”

  “He flew off,” Ajax
replied.

  Kim asked: “You mean, he jumped off the roof?”

  “No, I mean, he was standing on the roof, then just flew off.”

  “Like a bird?”

  “A bird dog!” a small voice cried from the couch, muffled against the cushions and distorted by suppressed hilarity.

  “Like a rocket,” Ajax snapped. “Fire came out the end of the vacuum-cleaner thing, and steam out the sides. It made hissing sounds. Then off that dog went, like a rocket on the Fourth of July, only straight across rather than straight up.”

  “And what did you do?” Kim asked.

  Ajax looked at the Torby as if she had suddenly grown another head. “I ran back to my apartment fast as my legs would carry me. I don’t even remember going up the stairs.” He paused, lowered his gaze and added: “I hid under the bed till I had to come out to eat.”

  “Well, it was very scary, I imagine,” Kim allowed.

  “Yes, yes it was,” Ajax agreed, sighing with relief. “I wondered all morning what to do, then I thought Levi should be told.”

  “You did the right thing,” Kim assured him. “Is there anything else you can think of, anything at all I should let Levi, Sunny and Yoda know when they get back?”

  “Well, I, uh…” he stammered.

  “What is it?” Kim urged. “Anything might be important, even if it seemed inconsequential at the time.”

  “In…incon…”

  “Unimportant,” Kim explained.

  “Well, I don’t know if it had anything to do with the flying dog, or the dog who was flying,” Ajax said, “but there was a sound that was not from the hissing of the vacuum-cleaner thing, sort of like a trilling noise or a whistle that went up and down. It almost sounded like music. Then the dog flew across, there was a flash of light away in his direction, to the southeast, and the trilling stopped.”

  He tilted his head, first one way, then the other, as if thinking deep thoughts, though Kim had her doubts.

  “What is it, Ajax?’ Kim asked.

  “It just occurred to me,” he replied. “I saw the flash of light out the corners of my eyes, in the same direction the dog was flying. At the flash of light, the trilling sound stopped, but so did the hissing of the rocket-vacuum-cleaner thing, like he vanished. Maybe they all could be related somehow?”

  Kim did not know what to tell him. On the surface, it was a ridiculous story, beyond ridiculous even. However, Ajax, like most dogs, did not tell lies, and if it were a lie, what would be the point? Ajax was a simple and uncomplicated canine, though hardly simple-minded. He was inexperienced, true, having recently relocated from Tonganoxie, Kansas, a town with two main streets and no leash laws, but he was as observant as any other dog, perhaps more so since he possessed an unimaginative mind—except when it came to monsters in the night and dognappers—incapable of making up such a yarn as he had spun.

  “Is there anything else?” Kim asked.

  “No, Miss Kim, that’s all of it,” he replied. “You will tell Levi and the others what I saw and heard?”

  “As soon as they get back from patrol,” she promised. “You had better head home before you are missed.”

  “Yes, Miss Kim.” He started for the kitchen door, which led to the driveway, then paused.

  “What is it?” Kim asked. “Did you remember something else?”

  “No, it’s just that I hope I don’t run into any dognappers,” he said. “They drive around in vans, take dogs to gladiatorial schools and make them fight. They look for big boys like me. I’m not much of a fighter, but they wouldn’t know that, would they?” His voice now held a note of panic. “They would beat me, starve me, and put me in the ring with…”

  “Ajax!” Kim snapped, using the same tone she had heard Levi use when the need to intervene overcame his reluctance to dominate.

  Ajax fell suddenly silent, mouth gaping. His eyes automatically focused on the Torby cat.

  “You know that place was raided and closed down,” she said, gently but firmly. “Levi and the others worked with the K-9 dogs to do that. You probably saw it on television?”

  Ajax nodded.

  “And Yoda probably told you about it…over and over?”

  Again, the nervous Mastiff nodded.

  “Then there’s nothing to worry about.”

  Once more, a nod, but this time with a bit of hesitation.

  Kim sighed softly, then said: “Just run home as fast as you can and you should be all right. Be careful crossing the street.”

  “Yes, Miss Kim!”

  The Mastiff bounded out the open door, and it was closed after him. The last sight Kim had of him was out the front security door as he zoomed down the walkway, heading south toward F Street, at a speed a Greyhound would have considered respectable.

  Kim breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Ha! Ha!” Little Kitty chortled from the couch. Her face now unburied from the cushions, she gave full rein to suppressed mirth. “A flying dog! A dog who was flying! Ha! Ha!”

  Kim leaped from the floor to the top of the couch and glared at Little Kitty. The Calico was on her back, laughing helplessly, her trotters pawing the air.

  “I’m glad to see one of us is enjoying herself today,” Kim said caustically. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

  “Stark barking mad!” Little Kitty cried.

  “Really, Little Kitty!” the Torby scolded. “Your complete lack of empathy is appalling.”

  “But it’s such a silly story,” Little Kitty protested. “Have you ever heard a more outlandish tale? Flying with a vacuum cleaner on its back? That Ajax has been watching far too many cartoons. I have no idea what he really saw—if he saw anything at all—but it was certainly no flying dog with bug-eyes and needles for teeth.”

  “That will be for Levi and the others to decide, won’t it?”

  Little Kitty halted in mid-laugh, stopped so quickly she almost swallowed her tongue. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “You’re actually going to tell them that whopper?” Little Kitty demanded. “Once they hear that, they’ll be ready to ship Ole Ajax back to whatever hick town he escaped from.”

  “Tonganoxie,” Kim supplied. “I rather doubt that. Even if Ajax did not see what he thought he saw, he certainly saw something out of the ordinary.”

  “But the dog believes monsters lurk in the bushes!” the Calico cat exclaimed.

  “And you don’t?” Kim smirked.

  Little Kitty glared at the older cat. “That’s beside the point!”

  “The fact that Ajax left his apartment complex, forced himself to cross the street, and braved dognappers…”

  “Imaginary dognappers!” Little Kitty pointed out.

  “…makes it important enough to relay it to Levi, Sunny and Yoda, word for word, as Ajax told it,” Kim continued. “In his mind, he took an awful risk coming here alone.”

  “In his mind is right.”

  “Nevertheless, we owe it to him to recognize his effort, even if it comes to nothing,” Kim said. “A matter of respect.”

  “Whatever,” Little Kitty murmured, collapsing back onto the cushions, weak from laughter. “Stark barking mad.”

  * * *

  “We could talk better if you would come out of that tree,” Levi said. “It’s very awkward.”

  June, a Wire-hair Dachshund, shook her head. “Nope. Can’t. I chased a squirrel up this tree. Got to come down sometime.”

  “That’s not very nice,” Yoda remarked. “How would you like it if something ten times your size treed you?”

  “If something were ten times my size, getting treed would be the least of my worries,” June replied. “Besides, I’m just acting out my hunter’s instinct, my berserker nature, the inner me.”

  “So, you won’t eat the squirrel?” Yoda demanded, appalled as only a dog raised on kibble can be.

  “No, of course not,” June denied. “Well, probably not.”

  “Getting back to the sound you heard in the
night,” Levi said. “Tell us about it.”

  June gazed at the three dogs standing at the gnarled base of the old tree—Levi, the elderly Dachshund-mix; Sunny, the old Golden Retriever-mix; and young Yoda, the hairy Pomeranian, larger than any Pom she had ever seen, evidently some kind of atavistic throwback. She had never before had any dealings with the Three Dog Detective Agency, but had often heard of them since moving into the neighborhood two months earlier. Some of the tales were beyond belief—killer cats, dognappers, flights of rapacious raptors, monster dogs, and terrorist fanatics—but there were other stories as well, about helping lost dogs find homes and stopping cruelty. Still, there was no denying the high regard in which they were held by all the other animals of the neighborhood.

  “It was early in the morning,” June said finally, keeping one eye on her audience, the other peeled for the squirrel. “I was up in this tree keeping watch.”

  “Keeping watch for what?” Yoda asked. The wild-haired Pomeranian could not imagine leaving the ground for any reason. He did not like even being picked up.

  June gave the canine equivalent of a shrug. “Gotta run, gotta watch, gotta hunt, gotta climb—it’s my nature. It’s what I do. It’s how I was raised back in Washington. My nose is always to the ground, ever looking for something to chase.”

  Levi gave a nod of understanding, if not approval. He knew all about the natures of dogs, both good and bad, that some behaviors, also good or bad, were associated with certain breeds. Unlike others, however, he knew no dog was truly a slave to his nature, that no behavior was really mandated by any breed, even though bad dogs were always quick to shift blame from themselves to events beyond their control. He had seen great acts of kindness from ‘bad’ breeds, and terrible evil committed by ‘good’ breeds In truth, all actions were the result of conscious decisions, and with each decision came a responsibility. If a dog were nothing but the sum total of his breed, his nature and his upbringing, then logic dictated Levi should be a stone-cold killer, and nothing was further from the truth.