Cookie said, "I didn't realize it, Sacheverell: you partly mean what
you say. It isn't all faking."
Mary said, "And you actually want Jack to be happy, Cookie. It isn't
simply vanity and envy."
Sacheverell said, "My God, it's happening. And I mostly thought it was
a stunt I was stage managing."
As for Phil, his feelings were in that golden sea they'd swum in this
afternoon. He felt as if his heart were joined by sensitive strands to
those of the five persons around him. It even seemed to him that there
were delicate, gossamer wires connecting him to the figurines so that
he understood Romadka, Barnes, Vanadin, maybe even himself.
Then, simultaneously with the others, he turned toward the velvet
curtains. A few inches above the floor, Lucky's little green head had
poked through. It hung there like a large green jewel, flooding them in
turn with its mellow rays. Then Lucky pushed all the way through the
curtains.
Swiftly, from under tables and chairs, out from the fireplace, and from
behind tiers of books, all the other cats appeared and gathered around
Lucky in a circle.
"It has begun," Sacheverell whispered happily. "The world is changing."
"Saint Francis of Assisi," Mary murmured weakly, "incarnate in a cat."
Then Lucky walked slowly across the room. The other cats made way for
him and then followed him, still keeping a respectful distance. He
passed Mary and Cookie, passed Sacheverell, who looked just a shade
disappointed, and sprang lightly into Phil's arms.
Phil had never held anything that weighed so little, or felt fur so
electric. His chest seemed to him to be rather too small for his heart.
Sacheverell called softly yet ringingly, "You are the chosen one." Phil
looked at him and then, with an unreasoning and almost mystical gust of
apprehension, at the black window behind him.
The glass in the window was vibrating, circular gray waves were
spreading in it from a central spot.
At the same instant he felt his left hand, the one cradling Lucky, go
dead. Lucky leaped convulsively in the air and fell perhaps six feet
away from him and was still.
The glass in the window shattered all at once and tinkled to the floor,
leaving only a few jagged shards around the frame.
Lucky's cat cortege broke up and its members raced into the hall and up
the stairs.
Moe Brimstine stepped in through the window, with a suppleness one
would never have expected of his huge body. He stood just inside
it, gripping a stun-gun in his big mitt. His jowl seemed to Phil to
be smeared with the darkness behind him, and his glasses elliptical
patches of it.
"There's a couple of boys with orthos out there," Moe said, stepping to
one side of the window. "I know you don't want to get yourselves sliced
up."
Apparently nobody did, though Phil at least hadn't any idea of what
orthos might be.
"Listen carefully, everybody," Moe said. "So long as you forget
about all this, so long as you act and think like it never happened,
beginning with finding the cat this afternoon, then I'm going to forget
all about you. That goes for you, Jack, though you're a dumber bunny
than I ever thought and did yourself out of an easy ten--and for you,
Juno, and Cookie, too. But if you don't forget, if I get just the
littlest hint that you've remembered--well, we won't talk about that."
He slowly scanned their faces. "Okay, then," he said, and shifting the
gun to his left hand, stepped forward and scooped up Lucky.
"He ... he ..." Sacheverell mumbled despairingly. Moe looked at him and
Sacheverell was quiet.
"How long did this pussy sleep after you stun-gunned it?" Moe asked
Jack.
Jack wet his lips. "Almost until now," he said. "Until maybe five
minutes ago." Moe backed away toward the window.
Phil felt something moving from inside, something that tortured him
into movement, for he certainly didn't want to stir a muscle.
He advanced toward Moe, a shaky step, then a couple, all the while
feeling the most exquisite pains racking his torso as it was sliced by
imagined orthos.
"Put that cat down," he croaked.
Moe looked at him with utter boredom.
"He's just a nut," he heard Jack assure Moe in an anxious whisper. "He
won't cause trouble."
"I can see he is and won't," Moe said drily, shifting the gun to the
hand from which Lucky dangled.
But Phil kept on toward the towering figure. He tried to stop, but
the torturer inside him wouldn't let him--and now once again the same
torturer pried open his teeth and lips.
"Put him down," he repeated. "You can't have him. Nobody can." He
raised his fists, but the left one wouldn't close.
Moe looked at him disgustedly. The big fist came toward Phil's jaw,
very slowly. Still, there somehow wasn't enough time to get out of the
way.