Smart House by Kate Wilhelm Page A

determines if there’s carbon dioxide in the cage.”
    Charlie nodded and pushed the up button. Nothing happened.
    “It won’t work with the door open.”
    Charlie closed the door and tried again. The mechanism was soundless. In a moment the box had arrived; the door opened.

Chapter 7

    Neither Charlie nor Constance objected when Alexander began to hurry to finish the rest of the tour. He showed them how each doorway had been under observation during the game, and where the sensors in the floor were concealed under the carpeting so that no one could enter any of the rooms without being registered.
    “It’s sure to revolutionize security systems,” the earnest young man said.
    “Big Brother is alive and well,” Charlie said sourly.
    “If you have to have security, you might as well have good systems. Gary’s room was upstairs. You want to see that?” He sounded defensive and a little belligerent.
    “Is it stripped?” Charlie asked.
    “You mean his personal things? Yes, but the furnishings are just like they were, and the computers he used are still there. It’s not locked or anything.”
    “We’ll manage by ourselves, but before you vanish, tell me something about the gadget Bruce was talking about, the control computer. He said as big as a cigarette pack. Is that about right? Exactly what could he do with such a small device?”
    Alexander brightened again. “There were several of them, actually, each a dedicated computer.” He looked from Constance to Charlie, as if testing if they could follow, then looked despairing again. “You know garage door openers? The hand-held signaling device that opens and closes them? That’s a dedicated machine. Made to do one thing only. That’s sort of like the hand-held computers for Smart House. Suppose someone fell down in one of the bedrooms and couldn’t get to the door, or there was a fire, or any number of emergencies arose. One of the hand-held computers worked sort of like a master key, a skeleton key. It could open doors. Any of them. Another one could intercept, alter, or add to some of the basic functions of Smart House, like if the lights were timed to go off at eleven and you wanted them to stay on until later, you could do that. The basic instructions would still be functional, and the program would revert back to them, but temporarily you could control some things.”
    “What besides the lights?” Charlie asked patiently when Alexander’s voice trailed off.
    With a vague gesture Alexander indicated the entire house. “Just basic things like lights and the climate-control system, bathwater temperatures, things like that.”
    “Swimming pool temperature? Jacuzzi temperature?” Charlie asked softly.
    Alexander fidgeted, his glance darting all around them. They were standing at the foot of the stairs, the glass wall behind him, Charlie and Constance facing it. Nervously he glanced over his shoulder. When he spoke again, his voice was nearly a whisper. “Mr. Meiklejohn, I honestly don’t know what all he programmed into them. There were three of them, and I haven’t been able to find a single one. They were always kept in the office downstairs, but after Gary decided to play the game, he kept them in his bedroom, and I haven’t even seen them since last spring sometime. He could have added features, macros, I don’t know anything about, or he could have put them somewhere and forgot about them. I just don’t know. But no one else could have used them, sir. I mean, our program is unique, and each of them was programmed in a language that is brand-new. No one else here could have used them.”
    Charlie studied him with great curiosity. He could not decide yet whether this young man was simply ingenuous or extremely clever. “We’ll talk more later, Alexander,” he said then. “Right now I don’t know enough to ask many questions. I’m sure I’ll think of some.”
    “One question,” Constance said, as the young man turned away in evident