An excerpt from In a Dog’s World. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.
The gang hung out discussing tomorrow’s class schedules for each of them, a while longer. Then they walked all the way over to Delaney to look at Turtle’s aquarium full of turtles again. Most of them had been over to see it already, but Turtle insisted on showing it off to Ivy and Katasha as well.
“I thought it would be full of water,” Ivy said, looking at the waist-high glass tank. The floor of the tank was mostly covered in dirt and rocks. On one end, there was a plastic pan filled with water to give the half dozen turtles a small pool for swimming.
Turtle explained to Ivy that his turtles were tortoises, and she asked about whether he really ran experiments on his own pets. Didn’t he get too attached to them? Katasha was only half listening. She was too busy examining the paw-sized turtle that Turtle had let her pick up out of the tank. It’s blunt little feet had longer toes than she expected on a turtle, and she noticed it opening its mouth and making tiny talky sounds.
“How much progress have you made on these turtles?” she asked. “They don’t seem normal.”
“Oh, they’re not!” Turtle assured her. “I’ve been selectively breeding them and modifying their DNA with retroviruses for years!”
“I mean,” Katasha said, “How smart are they? This one seems like it’s trying to talk.”
“They’re not sentient,” Turtle said. “If that’s what you mean. But they are pretty good with mazes. Very clever. Good memory formation and retention.” He looked thoughtful for a moment and added, “Though they are kind of slow, physically speaking.”
“Do you think they could really evolve full sentience?” Katasha asked, picturing reptilian youths among the new students at Isleywood.
“Now that’s a religious question,” Preston said. “If I ever heard one.”
“Not necessarily,” Jimothy said. “It could be a science question.”
“That’s the way I meant it,” Katasha said. “A science question.” She turned back to Turtle, the resident expert among new students on reptilian biology.
“There are some pretty big gaps in the genome between primitive and sentient canines,” Turtle said. “From what I’ve read, anyway. So, I’m not sure turtles could get there without significant technological involvement.”
“Like the gene therapy you’ve been giving them,” Katasha said.
“Like that, yes,” Turtle said, “But also maybe something more. I’m not sure. I mean, I’m not the biggest First Racer around, but I did grow up going to church. And I’ve read the Testament Humana…”
“Woah,” Katasha said. “When did this turn into a question about humans?”
Turtle’s surprised look seemed to genuinely connote surprise at that moment. “Well, who do you think uplifted canines and felines if not humans?”
Jimothy looked terribly bored with the religious turn the conversation had taken. “And otters. And squirrels. And all the others,” he threw in. “Don’t forget them.”
“Right,” Turtle said. “Them too.”
“Well, who says anyone had to uplift them?” Katasha said, letting herself get dragged into a First Racer debate for once. “And, if humans did uplift all of us, then who uplifted them?”
“Who says anyone had to uplift humans?” Ivy asked, sounding like a classic First Racer.
Jimothy woofed back, “Who says anyone had to uplift us?”
“The timeline,” Ivy said matter-of-factly. She was standing beside Preston, and Katasha noticed how similar their corgi and dachshund builds were: short limbs and long bodies. Only, Ivy was built stockier than Preston, and her coat of fur was thicker and softer looking. Jimothy’s build, despite being canine, was much more similar to Katasha’s.
“Ivy’s right,” Claire said, “Humans had thousands of years to develop sentience. From everything we know, canines and felines were entirely primitives only five hundred years ago.”
Katasha swished her tail impatiently. She wasn’t interested in the past. She was interested in the future. “Then maybe,” she said, extrapolating ridiculously, “it’ll only take fifty years for turtles to develop sentience!”
Turtle woofed a laugh and then said, “Or five! If they let me get my paws on some of the cutting edge lab equipment here!”
When they finally headed to the dining hall to pick up some sack lunch dinners, Kimber had to split off to go meet her father. Jimothy’s eyes looked sad as he watched his girlfriend leave, but he kept a stiff upper lip. At least, figuratively speaking. Literally, his mouth was far too bearded in wiry fur to tell.
The path to the roof of the library proved to involve the fifth floor window on the building next to it, a tall bronze statue of the Greyhound who founded Isleywood College, and some acrobatics on Katasha’s part. She wasn’t completely sure how Ivy’s cousin had managed to get up to the roof without a cat to help him out. Regardless, once they were all settled on the roof, it was a lovely view. At six stories, the library was the tallest building on campus, and they were able to look out over the whole rest of the campus, filled with scurrying new students, while they ate.
“I know it’s a small school,” Jimothy said, “But do you guys ever worry you’ll… you know… kind of get lost in the flow of things?” No one responded right away, so Jimothy continued, “Like, well, it may be a small college, but we don’t know our place in it yet. At home, I had my family and our house…”
“You knew where you belonged,” Claire said.
“Yeah, I feel that way,” Ivy said. “I mean, you all have each other. I haven’t made any friends yet.”
“Don’t be silly,” Jimothy said. “We’re your friends.”
It was a touching sentiment. Though, in reality, Jimothy had only known Ivy for a few hours. Of course, he’d only known the others a few days. Maybe that was enough.
“There’s some cats from the Pathways program in the other arm of Greene dorm from us who’ve set up a suite,” Katasha said.
“A suite?” Claire asked.
“Well, they’ve got two doubles on either side of a bathroom, right?” Katasha said. “So, they’ve moved all their beds into one of the rooms, and they’re sharing the other room as a sort of lounge. They call it Cheshire Suite.”
“Hey, that’s neat,” Turtle woofed. “But, we haven’t met the roommates in the room attached to ours yet.”
“Us either,” Claire said. “But… I mean, I don’t mind if we all hang out in our room anyway.” She looked at Ivy who was smiling nervously. “Do you mind?” she asked.
Ivy’s nervous smile broke into a full-on grin as soon Claire’s question made it clear that she’d be included. “I think it’d be great!” she said. “You all are so lucky to be friends already. I guess I’m lucky too!”
So now Katasha had a group of friends and a place for them to hang out. She felt a purr rumbling in the back of her throat, and she saw that several tails were wagging. “We need a suite name,” she said.
“We don’t really have a suite,” Jimothy said. “Our rooms are all over campus.”
“Sure we have a suite,” Katasha said. “It’s just… like a tesseract. You know how a cube is six squares all folded up? Well, a hypercube — a five-dimensional cube — is made by folding up eight cubes. And when you lay those eight cubes out, they’re called a tesseract.” Everyone looked confused, so Katasha flattened one of the lunch bags, borrowed a pen from Preston, and drew some pictures of unfolded cubes and tesseracts.
Jimothy still looked a little confused. His shuffling had slowed its pace significantly. “So, if we folded up the Isleywood campus, then our seemingly disparate rooms would make a suite in a higher dimension?”
Katasha nodded. Her ears were standing tall, since she was extremely proud of her own cleverness.
“That’s ridiculous,” Jimothy said.
“I like it,” Ivy said. She seemed to have become Katasha’s most reliable ally. She must have credited Katasha with getting her included in this new group of friends.
“Tesseract Suite!” Turtle barked.
“I’m up for it,” Preston said. “From what I’ve seen of my normal three-dimensional suitemates… Well, let’s just say they’re celebrating the start of the new year by giving themselves hangovers. Not by discussing genetically uplifted turtles and tesseracts. This suite is much better.”
Katasha laughed and exclaimed, “Uplifted tesseracts!”
The conversation got sillier from there. By the time the sun went down, turning the campus gold and then edging it in twilight, the conversation had turned to the question of whether pan-dimensional reptiles could build a structurally sound space station inside the crushing atmosphere of a gas giant.
Katasha was giddy. She never wanted their picnic to end, but she noticed that each of her compatriots was starting to glance nervously at the distance to the ground. None of them could climb like she could. Nor could they see as well in the dark. They all decided it would be best if they made it back to solid ground before twilight turned to night.
Before they split off to go to their separate rooms for the night, Tesseract Suite made a pact to meet up in Claire and Ivy’s room after their first day of classes was over tomorrow. They could all bring their books to study and work on homework together.
Continue on to Chapter 24…