Phil's first impulse was to jump out of the jeep and hunt around. But
the chill in his heart told him Lucky was farther away than that.
Besides, the place was a regular jungle and one man could hunt through
it forever for anything cat-size.
He did not recognize the square at all, but he guessed from the
schoolgirls that he was in an intellectual residential neighborhood.
At first he thought the school was one for girls, but then he noticed
a few lone boys among the homeward-bound students and decided that
most of the families in this area must be deliberately having as
many girls as possible. When sex-determination had become possible
through centrifuging human sperm to separate the male-producing and
female-producing types, most parents decided to have sons, especially
for their firstborn. They often told themselves they would have
daughters later, but unfortunately small families were the rule.
The resulting over-production of males had led to some ineffectual
state laws forbidding sex-determination, an unsuccessful attempt at
self-regulation by the medical profession, a lot of talk in Congress,
and an almost fanatically determined movement among a class of
thoughtful people to produce only daughters. This last class, besides
seeking to balance the sex ratio, perhaps had in mind the fact or rumor
that human parthenogenesis had been achieved. Phil remembered a Sunday
afternoon video shock talk: _Will Women Born of Virgins Become Our Only
Intellectuals?_
Other aspects of the neighborhood around the square fitted with his
guess. There was an appearance of shabbiness, the skyscrapers were low,
advertisements lifeless, traffic was light, there were no hot rods.
He let his gaze roam over the tiers of tiny flats, wondering where
Lucky might have gone. As he did so, he turned on the jeep's radio.
"... while Mystery Man Billig, mastermind of Fun Incorporated, is
believed to have fled the country. Tonight at 8:30 New Washington
Time, President Barnes will address all us American folks, partly
to silence the small, syndicate-inspired clamor at the outlawing of
male-female wrestling and jukebox burlesque, but more to explain to
an amazed citizenry the full reasons behind the charges brought this
morning by the federal government against sixty-nine high officials.
I predict--and remember this is just my personal libel-free guess,
fellow-folks--that the president will reveal that Fun Incorporated has
been peddling dream pills, temporary sterility tabs, and I'm as shocked
and disgusted as you are, folks, female robots equipped for obscene
functioning.
"Now here's an important flash on the cat story. The cats are not
carrying an infection and are under no circumstances to be destroyed,
whether owned, strayed, or alley. In fact, there's a stiff jail
sentence waiting for any person destroying a cat. But all owned cats
are to be brought to the nearest security station, while any person
sighting a strayed or alley cat is directed to do the same. There's a
stiff penalty for not doing the first, a one hundred dollar reward for
doing the second. Get busy, kids! Why this sudden federal interest in
cats? The National Health Service zips its lips. But your newscaster
backs this highly responsible rumor: it has been discovered that a rare
strain of cat carries a cancer destroying virus. Wouldn't it be nice,
folkses, to know that, once full grown, you would never start to grow
again, in any part or place?
"But remember this, dear audiers, and I'll say it to you in Martian:
Zip-zap-zup! Meaning: Bring in the cats!
"Now as for this report, folks, that handie-supernova Zelda Zornia,
vacationing in Brazil, did a south-of-the-equator handiecast
advertising bathing jewelry; let me assure you clean living people...."
Phil cleared his mind, trying to put himself in Lucky's place, to
feel the direction in which the cat had wandered off. His head swung
doubtfully this way and that, like a compass needle or planchette, but
finally came to rest. He climbed out of the jeep and walked straight
ahead, not turning aside for the dusty, crackling shrubs, but pushing
straight through them.
He parted a final straggly hedge and found himself looking across the
empty street at a house quite as old as the Akeleys, but with free sky
above it.
Built of ancient brick, it was three stories tall and looked as
pompously respectable as a 19th century banker. It reposed sedately
on a terrace that was as weedily overgrown as the square and that was
surrounded by a high iron fence.
The only incongruous note was struck by a saucer-shaped object fully
fifty feet across set on a framework atop the flat roof. Judging from
the dull green of its underside, it might be made of copper. It looked
almost as old as the house and quite as proper, as if the 19th century
banker had decided to wear a green beret and dared anyone to notice it.
Phil crossed the street, mounted some steps and peered through the
iron gate. He made out, beside the house's old-fashioned, knob door, a
tarnished bronze plate which read: "Humberford Foundation."
He looked back uneasily. Where he figured the jeep to be, he could see
the heads and black-clad shoulders of two men. The black reminded him
unpleasantly of the sports togs worn by Billig and his yes men. They
seemed to be arguing. One of them took a step up, as if he were getting
into the jeep, but the other pulled him back and they hurried off--not
in his direction, Phil noted with some relief.
He gave the iron gate a little push. It opened with a rusty "Harrumph"
that made Phil shrink apologetically. But nothing else happened so
after a minute he slipped through and began to peer around at the
undergrowth and then to wander through it, softly calling "Lucky!"
Occasionally he looked back in the direction of the jeep and once he
saw the radio-helmeted heads and blue shoulders of three policemen.
He wondered if the next time he looked he'd see Dr. Romadka, or the
Akeleys, or perhaps Carstairs, Llewellyn and Buck, and he shivered to
think of how close he'd come to being caught--by someone.
But the next shock he got came from something nearer. He had rounded
the house, after having poked through its equally lifeless and
overgrown back yard, when he saw a dark haired man peering at him
through the fence.
The most disturbing thing about the man was that he closely resembled
the girl Phil had watched undress in the room across from his. The girl
with hoofs. This man had the same vital, faun-like expression.
Phil froze. But the man merely yawned, turned away, and shuffled off,
humming or hooting a little melody that gave Phil goosepimples because
it reminded him of something in his dream.
For that matter, the whole experience was becoming very dreamlike to
Phil: the silent house, the neglected garden, the futile searching,
the melancholy memory of Mitzie's leave-taking, the powerful sense of
a dead past. But the feeling that Lucky was near was still strong and
after a bit Phil realized he would have to do something he had been
shrinking from.
He reluctantly mounted the steps to the front portal, reached for the
knob, and then, to put off the evil moment a little longer, called
"Lucky!" a few times along the shallow porch to either side.