II

The street snarled at Phil. The snarl came chiefly from a charged-up

electric hot rod that swerved close to the curb to remove a triangular

chunk from the rump of a fat man who had been too slow in skittering to

safety. A second look showed he was not a fat man, but a thin man in a

balloon suit. It deflated rapidly, and he sat down in its limp folds

on the curb and began to sob. Balloon suits were of no real protection

to pedestrians, except by increasing the apparent target, but they

continued as a fad. During the last war they had been pumped full of

hydrogen as a shield against neutrons until a couple of small but

unpleasant explosions in crowded shelters had caused the government to

crack down.

After snarling, the street continued to growl deep in its throat--it

had two lower levels. The growl was composed of the hum of electrics,

the subterranean rumble of heavier traffic, the yak-yak of competing

vocal advertisements, and the nervous shuffle of feet that was the same

when Rome and Babylon were young, but that was intensified here because

most of the women's feet were on platforms three to ten inches high.

Neither the growl nor the snarl disturbed Phil. Normally he'd already

have had his ear plugs tucked in, his face fixed straight ahead, his

eyes nervously questing for hot rods, which were known to jump curbs.

But today he simply wanted to drink it all in, to see the things he'd

always been blind to, to note the anxious but apathetic expressions on

the faces of the pedestrians, to sense the invisible lines of force

that, like spider webs or marionette strings, joined them to the

space-overflowing advertisements, which ranged from the crisp, "Learn

to Break Necks!" and the cute "A Strip-Tease Doll All Your Own!" to the

"Why Not Lobotomy?" and the imagination-tantalizing "Glamorize Your

Figure with a Sprayed-on Evening Dress! Plasticfabric cures in a jiffy,

breathes. No heat, no adhesions! Special forms flare the skirt, shape

the bosom! Designed by artists right on your body!"

Lucky seemed no more frightened of the street than Phil. He scampered

along close to the base of Skyway Towers' monumental façade, the

camouflaging green color of which may have explained why none of the

pedestrians took note of him--not that any explanation was needed as to

why those walking nerve-bags didn't see things right under their noses!

A gleaming sales-robot veered toward Phil on its silent wheels, but

Phil deftly interposed another balloon-suited man between himself and

it. The balloon-suited man began to get a slick reducing pill sales

talk; evidently the robot had scanned his profile. Phil hurried around

the corner after Lucky, who had turned down garish Opperly Avenue.

As if he had picked up a scent, Lucky abruptly left the wall, glided

across the sidewalk and padded across Opperly Avenue between the

passing cars. Phil followed, not without a certain heart pounding,

but with no real anxieties. Something allowed him to sense easily the

intentions of all the cars in the block--dodging them was almost fun.

He reached the opposite curb a good five feet ahead of a playful youth

in a jalopy with a tin body like a space jeep scribbled over with such

signs as "Oh, You Venusian!" and "Girls beware--escape speed zero."

Effortlessly recovering his breath, Phil found himself facing an ornate

cave mouth flanked with old-fashioned fluorescent posters, the largest

lettering on which read: "TONIGHT! Juno Jones, the Man-Maiming Amazon

vs. Dwarf Zubek, the Bone-Crushing Misogynist."

But he had no time to read the rest of the bill, for Lucky was dancing

up the broad corridor lined with giant stereographs of menacing,

half-naked men and women, looking in the dim light like genies freshly

materialized from smoke.

Ordinarily Phil would have felt a certain amount of disgust mixed with

fear and uneasy fascination at entering, or even passing, a wrestling

palace specializing in male-female, but today it seemed simply a part

of life. It never occurred to him not to follow Lucky.

Just short of some turnstiles and a robot ticket taker lost in shadows,

a side corridor spilled light. Lucky whisked into it. Phil had barely

rounded the corner after him when a long, handless, boneless gray arm

shot out of the wall and slapped itself firmly against Phil's middle.

"Where you think you're going, Mack?" a voice rasped from the wall. "On

your way." And it gave him a quick shove toward the ticket taker.

Phil could see Lucky mincing inquisitively down the side corridor,

which was lined with doors. He tried to go around the arm, but it

extended itself until it stretched from wall to wall.

"Still here?" the rasping wall inquired. "Look, Mack, I don't know your

voice. If you got business with somebody, name me their name and the

word they gave you."

"I just want to get my cat," Phil answered. Lucky had reached the end

of the corridor and was peering into the last doorway. "Here, Lucky,"

he called, but the cat took no notice.

"Means nothing to me," the wall rasped on. "You still ain't named me no

names that tripped any of my relays."

Lucky disappeared through the doorway. Phil said, "Please let me

through a minute to get my cat," trying to sound as sincere as he

could. "I'll be right back."

"I ain't letting nobody through," the wall asserted. "Give me a name

and word, quick, Mack."

At that instant an appalling spasm of fear went through Phil, as if a

light had been turned out inside his mind and his heart sprayed with

liquid ice. He knew that something had happened to Lucky. He ducked

under the gray arm and darted forward, but before he had taken five

steps he felt himself grabbed. The corridor whirled as he was roughly

spun back. Looking down he saw the elastic arm wrapped around him like

a gray python, while the wall grated in his ear, "No go, Mack. Now I'll

have to hold you till the man comes."

"Let me go. I've got to get in there, do you hear!" Phil yelled. He

struggled futilely to release his arms, yet all the while he kept his

eyes on the doorway through which Lucky had vanished. "Let me go!"

"Hey, what goes on?" A large, tall woman with close cropped blonde

hair, a broken nose, an out-size jaw and big blue eyes had stepped out

of the nearest doorway. "Cool down, son," she boomed out, coming toward

him. "What did you want?"

"My cat ran in here," he explained, trying to speak calmly. "It ran

in that room down there at the end." He nodded his head toward it. "I

tried to go after it and this thing grabbed me."

"Your cat?"

"Yes, a pet."

She thought. He noticed for the first time, perhaps because he was

watching the far doorway so closely, that she wore maroon tights and

was stripped to the waist. Her breasts were small, her shoulders sloped

steeply and were heavily, though not cordily, muscled.

"Okay," she said after a bit. "Let him go," she told the wall.

"Didn't give a name or word," the wall complained. "Tried to duck

through. Got to hold him till the man comes."

"Which'll be at least an hour, if I know Jake. Let him go, you dumb

robot," she said in a majestic bass. "This man is my friend. I am

inviting him in."

"All right, Mrs. Jones," the wall said, sounding almost sulky. The gray

arm unwrapped from Phil and shot back into the wall.

"Now go find your cat and then beat it," the giantess told him.

"Thank you very much," Phil said, half turning to her, but keeping the

far doorway in the corner of his gaze. But she didn't answer, only

stared after him doubtfully, still appearing quite unconscious of her

partial nakedness.

Phil tried not to hurry, although the corridor seemed endless. He kept

telling himself that nothing had happened to Lucky, and wished very

hard he could believe it. He didn't feel big any more, or adventurous.

He passed the woman's door, vaguely noticing heaps of untidy clothes

and a stationary rubber-armed robot for wrestling practice. He came to

the door at the end, having observed that all the others were tightly

shut. He hesitated. He couldn't hear a sound. He stepped inside.

The room was large, low ceilinged, and lined with lockers and benches.

At the far end was a closed door, flanked by two low mechanical massage

tables, their jointed rubber-fisted arms extended crookedly upward and

making them look like two beetles on their backs. There were a few

other pieces of apparatus, none of which Phil recognized, but most of

the floor was empty.

Almost in the center of the floor was a brown box about a foot square.

Staring at it, their backs turned to Phil, were two men. One was

rather small but quick looking, dressed in a black turtleneck sweater

and tight black trousers, and holding some sort of gun. The other

was smaller and slighter, and similarly clad in blue. He held a wire

leading to the box.

Phil cleared his throat. The two men eyed him expressionlessly, then

turned back to the box. Phil edged forward into the room, peering into

the corners for Lucky. Then he jerked back. He had almost stepped on a

dead mouse.

Looking more closely, he saw there were half a dozen dead mice

scattered around the floor.

He cleared his throat again, louder, but this time the men didn't even

look around. He started forward again, stepping gingerly over the dead

mouse.

There was a click. A tiny door opened in the top of the brown box and

a mouse catapulted out. Hitting the floor, it made off in frantic

zig-zags, skidding at each turn. Phil stared, suddenly expecting Lucky

to come darting out of a corner after it. The man in black followed the

zig-zags with his gun. There was no sound or flash from the gun, but

the mouse stopped moving.

"Try to surprise me better next time, Cookie," the man in black told

his companion. "I saw your hand move when you punched the button." They

resumed their alert, motionless stance.

Moving around them in a cautious circle, Phil searched for Lucky. He

soon realized there were few likely places of concealment. The lockers

reached from floor to ceiling and were all closed.

One of the dead mice began to twitch. Cookie put down the wire with the

push-button at the end of it, picked up the mouse and dumped it in the

box through a side door.

Phil was beginning to feel very queer. He felt there must be some

connection between Lucky and the mice, but it was a dream connection

that didn't make sense. The muscles in the calves of his legs had begun

to ache from his silent tip-toeing.

Nerving himself, he approached the motionless pair. "Excuse me," he

said with difficulty, "but did you see a cat come in here?"

The words got no more response than the throat clearing. "I beg your

pardon," he said, "but really I must find out," and he barely touched

the elbow of the man in black.

The response was instantaneous, though from another quarter. Phil was

grabbed by his jacket front and jerked back by Cookie, whose infantile

features were now tensed into a hard mask.

"What you did!" The voice was shrilly scandalized. "Interrupting the

kingman at his recreation! Shoving the kingman around! That brings

punishment, that brings pain!"

Phil felt sick with fear. He knew if only Lucky were there, if only he

could recapture his earlier mood of golden confidence, he wouldn't be

so shamelessly terrified of this little bully who was holding him at

arm's length.

He wet his lips. "I was only trying to find my cat," he quavered, "and

I didn't shove him."

"You did too! I saw you! A great big rude shove! And as for cats, Swish

Jack Jones, the Lady Killer, is the top cat around here, the only cat."

The hand holding him twisted his lapels tighter around his throat. "You

can't weasel out of what's coming to you. Well, Jackie, what are you

going to do to him?"

And now, at long last, the man in black moved. He slowly turned his

head in its ruff of black wool and fixed on Phil the sad, weary smile

of a king who knows it is his boring but inescapable fate to inflict

doom and punishment. He slowly reached out his hand until it grasped

Phil's elbow.

"Please don't," Phil whispered, but just then a thumb dug into a

nerve between his bones and he couldn't keep back a squeal of pain.

The baby-faced man grinned with mincing approval, as if at last the

proprieties were being satisfied.

Swish Jack Jones frowned, as if he felt the squeal hadn't been loud

enough, and lifted his other hand. "This is a stun-gun," he said in a

voice patchily varnished with intellectualism. "Ultrasonic. I might

spray your spine with it to get you ready for being worked over. It's

set for mouse power now, but I'll step it up if necessary."

Phil's guts turned to water. "You don't need to hurt me," he said. "I

tell you I was just looking for a cat."

The other shook his head sadly and said, "Nosey little men up to Bast

knows what shouldn't tell such great big lies." And he reached for

Phil's thigh.

At that moment the tidal wave struck. Cookie was shoved ten feet, the

stun-gun clattered on the floor, Swish Jack Jones had taken a quick

backward spring, and the blonde giantess was planted enragedly in front

of Phil and was thundering, "You know mucking well I can stand anything

except when you start bullying people."

She had slipped on a very dirty short kimono, beautifully embroidered

in the finest Oriental style, except that the figure on the back was

not a dragon, but a fire-breathing spaceship.

"Don't touch me, Juno, I'm telling you," the man in black snarled in a

voice that had lost a lot of its intellectual veneer. He was massaging

a slapped wrist.

"I licked you the first time I was matched with you," the giantess

replied. "I licked you the night I married you. And I can do it again

anytime. You _and_ Cookie here," she added as the latter made a grimace

that was intended to be threatening but merely registered spite. "Why

was you tormenting the little guy?"

"Tormenting?" Jack's voice rose. "I wasn't tormenting him. Just taking

precautions. He came in here like a screwball, not saying anything,

dancing around on his toes, babbling about a cat. As if he was about to

go off his nut. Dangerous."

Cookie's tight-lipped face bobbed up and down in agreement, but Juno

wasn't at all impressed. "He seemed about as dangerous to me as yeast

spread. Why didn't you let him find his cat and get out?"

Jack's face registered astonishment. "Juno, was it you let in this

Ikeless Joe?" (It took Phil a moment to realize Ikeless meant lacking

I.Q.) "I was wondering how he got past Old Rubberarm. Do you mean to

say you fell for that story about a cat?"

"Well, isn't there one?" Juno demanded, scanning the room.

"How could there be, Juno?" Jack protested, the barest note of

intellectual superiority beginning to creep into his voice. "You didn't

see one, did you? No. And if there had been a cat, wouldn't it have

been after these mice like a shot? And where could it hide in here,

anyway? It couldn't have got in there," he went on as Juno's gaze

rested on the inner door. "_He's_ in there." Juno nodded. "So where

could it be, I ask you?" Jack finished. "You don't suppose Cookie and

me ... I kidnapped it, do you?"

Juno rubbed her battered nose thoughtfully. She turned on Phil a face

that was friendly but heavy with doubt. "Let's hear some more about

that cat, son. What color was it?"

"Green," Phil heard himself say, and even as he saw the looks of

incredulity appear on the faces around him, he couldn't keep himself

from going on: "Yes, bright green. And he liked cranberry sauce. He

just came to me an hour ago. I called him Lucky because he made me

feel so good, as if I could understand everything."

There was a long silence. Phil felt his spirits sink past zero. Then

Juno laid on his shoulder a huge hand that made it sag. "Come on, son,"

she said gently. "You better get going."

Jack strode up with a wry eye on Juno. "Look, Mister," he said to Phil

in a solicitous voice in which the mockery was still cautious, "I had

an appointment with an analyst for tonight, but I think you need it

more than I do." And he handed Phil a torn-off bit of phonoscribe tape.

Phil accepted it humbly and put it in his pocket. Cookie tittered. Juno

whirled on him. "Look," she roared, "his being a nut doesn't excuse

laughing at him any more than bullying!"

The inner door opened, but Phil couldn't see inside, because a tall,

fat man with a sooty jowl and thick dark glasses pretty well filled it.

Phil sensed a note of respectfulness in the other three.

"What's the racketting about?" the fat man demanded in a voice which

startled Phil because it was Old Rubberarm's.

"This guy--" Cookie began, but stopped at a quick look from Jack.

The thick glasses flashed at Phil. "Oh, one of your nut admirers,

Jack," the fat man said comprehendingly. "Get him out of here."

"Sure, Mr. Brimstine," Jack said. "Right away."

The inner door closed. Phil let Juno steer him through the other. He

felt way down in the minuses. So much so that he almost didn't notice

the odd couple coming down the corridor toward them. The man looked

saintly, yet sprightly. He was very sun-burned and he wore orange shoes

and an orange beret. The woman looked like a youngish witch, but with

the nose and chin already seeking each other. A little red hat was

attached by twenty long hatpins to her coarse dark hair, and she had

a red skirt stiff and thick as a carpet. Both of them were wearing

black turtlenecked sweaters. Phil noted them numbly, lost in his own

distress, but was vaguely aware that they were pointedly ignoring the

giantess at his side.

"You'll find your little tin hero back there shooting mice," she

snarled at them as they passed. The woman merely snooted her witchy

nose, but then the sun-burned man looked around with elfin eyes and a

benign smile. "Joy, Juno," he admonished lightly. "Nothing but joy."

The giantess looked after them glumly for a moment, then went on.

"Couple of Jack's intelleckchul fans," she confided bitterly. "Poets,

religious nuts, and all that goes with it. Completely turned his head,

the stinkers."

They reached the corner. Old Rubberarm waggled the tip of a fingerless

hand and muttered, "No loitering," but Juno silenced him with a weary,

"Shut up!"

"Now get along home, son," she told Phil. "I don't know as I'd visit

that analyzer of Jack's. Probably some fancy guy he got put onto by the

Akeleys--those two intelleckchul jerks you just saw. But maybe some

kind of psycher would be a good idea." She patted his shoulder and

grinned, showing a scar inside her lip. "I'm sorry about what happened

back there--that lousy husband of mine. Anytime you feel like it, drop

in on me. Old Rubberarm's got your voice pattern. Just ask for Juno

Jones. Only one thing, son--no more green cats."