"A substitute?"
"I fear that any substitute may not be as good."
"Nonsense, Toralen. Were there a better man than either, we'd have
selected him; if either had not existed, a lesser man would have
sufficed."
"The right kind is so very few," complained Toralen Ki.
"We can find one. We will have to return to their planet to do so, and
it will be harder for us--but it can be done. No good general has only
one plan of battle."
"But so much depends--Ah well, despair is the product of the inferior
intellect. We will, we must carry on."
Hotang Lu opened his large case. "I will contact our superiors
immediately and ask their advice."
"Yes," nodded Toralen Ki. "Also ask them if they have the answer to the
less-sensitive detector, yet."
Hotang turned the communicator on and waited for it to warm up. His
hand dropped into the case and came up with another small instrument of
extreme complexity.
"Once the suppressor is destroyed," he said with a smile of
contemplation, "we can use this on them."
"And that means success!" breathed Toralen Ki. "From that time on, our
plans--"
"Wait, the communicator is operating," said Hotang Lu, waving a hand.
He reached for the communicator's controls and started to talk swiftly,
pressing his head against the plate above the voice-transmitter.
Flight Commander Thompson handed Downing a sheaf of papers. "There's
the wave analysis," he said with pride.
Downing looked them over. "You've got the technical crew. Can we
reproduce all or any of it?"
"Only by tearing down a couple of modine directors. The boys can
convert the spotting, training, and ranging circuits--they'll use the
components--and rebuild the thing to generate barriers. The snatcher
is easy. We'll just juggle the main modulating system of a tractor
generator. That comes out so simple I feel slightly sick at not having
thought of it myself."
"What is its analysis?" asked Downing.
"Couple a force beam with a tractor focus-zone generator. The tractor,
you know, operates on the field-of-focus principle. A rough sphere at
the end of the beam--anything in that field is drawn. The snatcher
merely applies the field-of-focus idea to the side-thrust of a force
beam. You raise the power several times and anchor it with a superdrive
tube coupled so that the thrust is balanced against a spatial thrust
instead of the ship. That tears the guts out of anything."
"I have an idea that you might be able to cut instead of tear if
you include some nuclear-resonant frequencies in the field of focus
generator."
"Is it necessary?"
"Might be interesting," said Downing. "They tear. If we land on them
with something that quickly, precisely, quietly, and almost painlessly
slices a sphere out of one of their ships, they may be impressed."
"You have something there. I'm going to tear into some of the
planet-mounted jobs. We are now sixty-three ships. I can make one
snatcher out of every dymodine that's planet-mounted out here. Shall
I?"
"How long?"
"Ten hours each."
"Six hundred and thirty hours. Twenty-six days and six hours."
"We'll make it in twenty days. By the time the boys get to Number Ten
or Twelve they'll be working shortcut and on production-line basis and
the piece-time will drop."
"Twenty days is long enough, believe me. We'll toss in my gang and
Lane's gang, too. They can go to work on the modine directors and make
barriers out of 'em if you claim they'll work."
"They'll work."
"Then let's get going. The Little Guys are tearing their hair as it is."
Thompson nodded.
"But look," said Downing, "don't rip up any dymodines ahead. Convert
slowly. If the catmen attack, we'll need all we can muster to fight 'em
off."
"Right."
"And as for Cliff Lane--he isn't dead until we prove it, see? So far as
I know, he might be getting an education in cat-culture right now."
Thompson looked at Downing for a long time, saying nothing. Then he
turned and left, still without comment.
* * * * *
Cliff Lane and his ship were herded down to the ground. His ship was
surrounded by the six catmen, their beams pointed at him, waiting. For
an hour they waited, using all the patience of the feline. It got on
the nerves of the humans, and they wanted to do something.
Their trouble was that they didn't quite know what to do.
Cliff, after the full hour had ticked off, said: "I'm thinking of the
cat that got a neuropsychosis over mice because one came out of the
hole and kicked him in the face."
"Think it's wise?"
"Never was very fond of cats," admitted Lane glumly. "I find them even
more obnoxious when I see them employing intelligence. That makes it
worse--"
"But just going out--?"
"D'ye want to sit here for months?"
"Think they would?"
"Probably. At least, long enough to have us tearing out each other's
hair."
"But--"
"But nothing. Have we got the planet-analysis yet?"
The aide pawed through the delivery basket on Lane's desk and came
up with a sheet of paper. He read: "Pressure sixteen point three.
Temperature eight-one, humidity thirty-seven. Air: Oxy twenty-one,
nitrogen all the rest--with a trace, of course, of CO_{2}. Pollen count
not too bad, bacteria count about normal, but the spore count is zero."
"No spores?"
"Nope."
"Gosh," smiled Lane. "Imagine a world where they can't smother a steak
with mushrooms!"
"So what are you going to do?"
"Me? I'm going out there and tell 'em what they're missing. Imagine--no
mushrooms!"
"I'm just thinking of what a nice world this would be to do tropical
research. I've even seen fungus growing on steel."
"No, you haven't. Bakelite I'll buy, but when the stuff grows on steel
it is growing on the dust that has collected. Well, tell the boys in
the back room to cover me as I emerge."
Lane undogged the spacelock and the rams pulled it back out of the
frame. Riding on the front of the automatic runway, Lane stood in an
indolent attitude, the thumb of his right hand hooked over the belt
just one-half inch from the butt of his modine. His other hand held a
cigarette.
As the runway hit the ground, Lane took a last puff of the cigarette,
stepped to the ground and dropped the glowing butt. He crushed it with
his heel, and then took five forward steps, looking about himself with
open curiosity.
The catman ship directly in front of him opened its spacelock and one
of the catmen emerged.
Lane walked forward boldly to inspect this alien creature. He acted
as though he were not a prisoner, but a visitor--and it was probably
that attitude that saved him from further cat-and-mouse, for the catman
seemed unsure of the next move.
The catman was more man than cat, just as the human--in the catman's
nomenclature an apeman--the human was more man than ape. He stood
erect. His legs were long and excellently muscled. His shoulders were
broad and sloping, and his arms were well rounded. The temperature
was high--to Lane's liking, being Venusite--and the scanty uniform of
the catman matched the shorts, high-laced boots, shoulder straps and
cape of the Solarian. The catman's hands were long and spatulate, and
the fingernails were as broad as Cliff's. The retractile claws were
gone--deleted in a hundred thousand years of evolution. Gone were the
fur and the tail and the slitted eyes, and all of the other basic
cat-characteristics. The whiskers were gone also, and the ears were no
longer mobile, but on each side of the head just as the human's. They
were still pointed on top and resembled, or at least reminded Cliff of
a cat's ears modified in human mold.
Catman?
Well, there was something distinctly feline about the creature,
humanoid though he seemed. He was lithe, and instead of walking
forward, he prowled. There was a quick alertness--not visible, but
felt--to the catman's every move.
Yes, this creature was definitely of feline evolution.
And Cliff Lane walked forward boldly. He smiled inwardly, gaining
confidence from the fact that he was still alive and unharmed. Prisoner
he might be, but he was no humble prisoner. He was proud and haughty,
and he was not taking any guff.
He strode forward to hasten the first meeting between Primate and
Feline on the common ground of civilization.