Phil nodded. "What's more," he went on rapidly, "I think I met your
brother today, a journalist named Dion da Silva, representing the
newspaper _La Prensa_."
She nodded eagerly at the first proper name. "Thas right," she said. "I
am Dytie da Silva."
"And I am Phil Gish. Did you say Dytie?"
"Sure. Short for Aphrodite, goddess of love. You like? Please, where my
brother and pussycat now?"
"I haven't the faintest idea," Phil said sadly.
She shrugged as if she expected to hear just that. "Is nothing new. We
are crazy people, always get lost each other."
"Then you do come from Argentina?" Phil asked doubtfully. Her accent
didn't sound Spanish, but his acquaintance with Spanish accents was
limited.
"Sure," she confirmed carelessly, her thoughts apparently elsewhere.
"Far, far country."
"Tell me, Miss da Silva," he went on, "does your cat have peculiar
powers over people?"
She frowned at him. "Peculiar powers?" she repeated slowly as if
testing each syllable. "Don understand."
"I mean," Phil explained patiently, "can he make people happy around
him?"
The frown smoothed. "Sure. Nice little pussycat, make people happy. You
like animals, Phil?"
Once again he couldn't keep his gaze from flickering to her legs, but
on the whole he was feeling remarkably bucked up.
"Miss da Silva," he said, "I've got a lot more questions to ask you,
but unfortunately I don't know Spanish and I don't think you understand
English well enough to answer the questions if I put them to you cold.
But maybe if I tell you just what's been happening to me, you'll be
able to; at least, I hope so. Sit down Miss da Silva; it's a long, long
story."
"Is very good idea," she agreed, sinking down on the bed. "But please
call Dytie, Phil."
She makes one feel at ease, Phil thought as he placed himself in the
foam chair opposite. "Well, Dytie, it began ..." and for the next hour
he told her in some detail the story of what had happened to him ever
since he had awakened to see Lucky sitting on the window sill. He
suppressed entirely, however, the incident of watching her last night,
which made it necessary for him also to condense the account of his
session with Dr. Romadka. Dytie frequently interrupted him to ask for
explanations, some of them exceedingly obvious things, such as what
was a hatpin, and what was the Federal Bureau of Loyalty and what was
it that male and female wrestlers tried to do to each other in the
ring? On the other hand, she sometimes passed up things he expected
to puzzle her, though he couldn't always tell whether this was because
she really understood them, or because she didn't want to. Orthos
interested her not at all, stun-guns, mightily. Lucky's exploits did
not seem to startle her much. Her usual comment was along these lines:
"That pussycat. Is so stupid. But Lucky, too. Thas good name you give
him, Phil."
When he came to the Humberford Foundation and Dytie's brother, she
rolled over on her stomach and listened with closer attention. But
when he hesitantly mentioned how Dion had seemed to develop such an
instant yen for Dora Pannes, she whooped knowingly. "That brother," she
chortled. "He chase anything with two legs and milk glands. 'Cept of
course when he pregnant."
"What!"
"Say something? Must got wrong word," Dytie interposed quickly,
brushing the matter aside.
But she was very much interested in Morton Opperly and insisted on Phil
telling her a great deal about the famous scientist.
"He smart man," she said with conviction. "Very much like meet."
"I'll try to manage it sometime," Phil said and told how the green cat
had been captured by Dora Pannes.
Dytie shook her head solemnly. "Some people got very hard hearts," she
said. "Don like pussycat all."
Phil quickly rounded off his story with an account of how the fake
green cat in the alley had scratched him.
Dytie got up and came over and touched his hands tenderly. "Poor Phil,"
she said, then summarized: "So we know who have pussycat, but not
where?"
"That's right," Phil said quickly, "and that where is a tough one,
because Billig's hiding from the FBL." And he got up rapidly, trying
not to make it obvious that he wanted to put a few feet between them.
Dytie's fingers were soft and gentle enough, but there was something
about her touch and her close presence that set him shivering.
Conceivably, it was her odor, which wasn't strong or even unpleasant,
just completely unfamiliar. She looked after him rather wistfully, but
did not try to follow. He faced her across the room.
"Well, that's my story, Dytie," he said a bit breathlessly. "And now I
want to ask my questions. Just what kind of a cat have you got, that
Fun Incorporated could hope to bribe the federal government with it? Is
it a mutant with telepathic powers and able to control emotions? Is it
a throwback, or maybe deliberately bred back to an otherwise extinct
animal? Is it some cockeyed triumph of Soviet genetics, working along
lines our scientists don't accept? Damn it, is it even some sort of
Egyptian god, like Sacheverell thinks? It's your turn to talk, Dytie."
But instead of answering him, she merely smiled and said, "'Scuse me,
Phil, but that long story yours really long. Be right back."
He expected her to walk out the window and wondered what he'd do. But
she merely went into the bathroom and shut the door.
He paced around, unbearably keyed up, lifting small objects and putting
them down again. Nervously he turned on the radio, sight and sound,
though he didn't look at it and didn't understand a word of what the
inane sports gossipist was loudly yapping about the feats, follies and
frivolities of the muscle stars. Then on his next circuit of the room,
he happened to tread hard as he passed the radio, and something went
wrong with it, so that the sound sank to a very low mumble and he was
once more alone in his agitation.
So much so that he jumped when he heard a small noise behind him.
The hall door had opened. Mitzie Romadka was standing just outside,
looking both adolescent and weary in faded blue sweater and slacks. A
lock of her long, dark hair trailed in front of her ear. She fixed on
Phil an unhappy, defiant stare.
"Last night I said 'Goodbye forever' and I meant it," she began
abruptly. "So don't get any ideas. I've come here to warn you about
something." Her voice broke a little. "Oh, it's all such an awful
mess." She bit her lip and recovered herself. "It isn't just that
Carstairs, Llewellyn and Buck hate me, or that you tried to make me
get mushy and humble. When I came home by the service chute early this
morning, I overheard my father talking with two other men. I listened
and found out that he's a Soviet agent and that his job now is to get
the green cat no matter how much killing it takes. And he thinks you
have it."
Phil looked at her and the hours between were gone and he was back in
the little tangled square at dawn and Mitzie was about to leave him,
and all his snapping nervous tension flowed in a new and steadier
channel.
"Darling," he said softly and carefully, as if a sudden noise might
make her vanish, "Mitzie darling, I wasn't trying to humble you."
"Oh?" she said, tucking the lock of hair back of her ear.
He moved toward her very slowly. "Actually I was just being conceited
and I was jealous--both of you and your boy friends."
"Be very careful what you say, Phil," she whispered fearfully. "Be very
honest."
"All right then," he said, "I was trying to humble you; I was doing my
best to. I was full of the sort of vanity and condescension that comes
from understanding too much. I didn't know that your kind of defiance
and glory has a place in the world. Mitzie, I love you."
He put his arms around her and she didn't vanish. The feeling of her
body against his wasn't like anything he'd imagined. It was simply slim
and quite trusting and terribly tired.
Then her chin lifted from his shoulder and he was shoved back about six
feet.
Mitzie was glaring at and beyond him. He was relieved that she didn't
seem to have a gun, or knife, or claws, or anything like that.
He looked around. Dytie da Silva, leaning against the bathroom door,
was watching them quizzically. "'Allo," she greeted them cheerfully,
then asked Phil, "Girl friend?"
Mitzie turned pale. "How many do you try to take on at once?" she spat
at Phil.
"Don worry," Dytie advised relaxedly. "He very timid at first."
"Oh!" Mitzie exclaimed loudly, and stamped on the floor with both feet
at once.
The radio came on loud again. "... long been known that she and her
husband weren't on sleeping terms. But ironically her fans had to wait
until what, with the outlawing of male-female wrestling, was probably
her last professional appearance, before getting a glimpse of her new
boy friend."
In the middle of the bright screen was Phil, with a dazed look and a
silly smile on his face. Juno's arm was clutched around him and she was
shouting "... even I gotta have a love life! And don't you be insulting
it!"
"Oh!" Mitzie shouted, crashed the palm of her hand against Phil's left
cheek, ran out the door and slammed it behind her. Phil stood there a
few seconds. Then he turned off the radio and wiped the tears out of
his left eye.
"Why you no chase?" Dytie inquired pleasantly. "Don worry, Phil, she
come back. She really love you all more. She proud you such virile man,
have many girls."
"Please," Phil groaned, lifting his hand. "That was good-bye forever."
"Forever is never. She come back," Dytie said.
And just then there was a timid knock at the door. Phil opened it,
wondering whether he should slap Mitzie right away or wait. Dr. Anton
Romadka pointed significantly at Phil's neck with a stun-gun and walked
in.
The small psychoanalyst looked nattily professional in the
old-fashioned business suit, white shirt and necktie affected by some
doctors. There was even a vest buttoned over his little paunch. His
left cheek was as smooth as his gleaming bald head; evidently he'd
covered the scratches with skin film. His expression radiated fatherly
good will and reasonableness, though he kept the stun-gun pointed
straight at Phil and every now and then his gaze flickered to Dytie.
"Phil," he began, "I shall not deny the statement my daughter just
made about me, for if you will only consider carefully, it will
make us allies and comrades. Who could know as well as you, Phil,
how hideously psychotic American civilization has become? You've
personally experienced what it can do to the brain, the body, the
sense organs. And who could appreciate as well as you, Phil, the
sanity of the Workers' Republics, where under the first firm rule of
Marxist fact and absolute science, all psychosis is impossible--because
all irrationalisms, all illusion (including the mad vaporings of a
gangrened capitalism and its pseudo-science) are inconceivable."
Phil found himself goggling his eyes and vaguely nodding. He shook
himself. Romadka's cheery voice was remarkably hypnotic.
"Of course, I should have realized all this last night, Phil, and
appealed to your reason," said Romadka as he kept the stun-gun
trained on Phil's neck with geometric precision. "But I was hurried
and emotionally upset--even our agents are not wholly immune to the
American infection when living with it--and I made several mistakes.
Among other things I did not take my unfortunate daughter into account
early enough, though I am certainly glad she came to warn you, since it
enabled me to locate you. Which in turn will enable you, Phil, and your
charming companion, to enjoy the bracing sanity of the Soviets."
The small psychiatrist smiled and carefully propped himself on the
arm of the foam chair. His voice became genially confidential. "And
now, children," he said, for the first time including Dytie in his
nod, "I am going to tell you how you can do a great service to the
illusion-immune state and win an undying welcome when you reach its
realistic shores. Psychotic capitalism, faced by total defeat in the
next war, has loosed against the Workers' Republics a final filthy
weapon: its own collective madnesses and herd delusions, catalyzed by
subtle electronic and chemical bombardments of the collective Soviet
nerve tissue. To date this capitalist poison in the Soviet Pan-Union
has largely taken the form of delusions involving green cats. Don't
mistake me, these green cats are undoubtedly real. It is my firm belief
that they are ordinary cats with tiny electronic senders surgeried
into their bodies, and with hormone spraying capacities comparable in
their vileness to those of skunks. Although the green cats are possibly
not the most important element in the assault on the Soviet psyche,
they are the main stage props in that assault. Unfortunately, we have
not been able to lay our hands on one of these creatures, in order
to confirm our deductions and shape proper counter measures. It is
absolutely essential that we do so."
"But there's only one green cat," Phil objected, genuinely puzzled,
"and it's supposed to be attacking America. It isn't, of course."
"I'll say it isn't. My boy, I am giving you the Marxist facts," Romadka
assured him gravely. "Those stories you have heard are merely blinds
put out by the capitalist government to conceal from its own work
slaves and pseudo scientists the enormity of its actions. What has
happened is that a green cat has escaped from a government laboratory
here. You led me to that cat once, Phil. You can do it again."
"I can't," Phil said mildly.
"Phil, you can," Romadka assured him.
"But you got him once," Phil objected, "and all you did was let him go
again."
For the first time a shadow of impatience darkened Romadka's geniality.
"I told you I made some mistakes last night. I let someone get a
hypo-beam on me, probably a drug spray too. For a time I wasn't
responsible for my actions. It was all I could do to escape the FBL
raid. But it won't happen again." His voice grew brisk. "So come on
along with me, Phil, and bring your friend. There's no more time for
discussion."
"But--" Phil began.
Dytie da Silva stepped into the foreground. "Me no go," she told
Romadka. "Why should I? You sound crazy head. 'Lusion-'mune state?
'Rationalisms impossible? Abs'lute science? All nonsense!"
The psychoanalyst lifted his eyebrows at her accent and sentiments. "I
was just about to take up your case, young lady. Why are you here in
the first place?"
"Just come from room across," Dytie told him, jerking a thumb at the
window.
Romadka studied her through narrowed eyes behind which memory seemed to
be at work. Suddenly he smiled thinly. "The description tallies," he
said. "You're the young woman Mr. Gish watched undressing last night,
and onto whom he grafted a remarkable delusion."
"Phil, you never tell me about that," Dytie said, looking at him
brightly.
"Naturally he wouldn't," Romadka said, a bit primly.
"Why not?" Dytie demanded. "I don care. If he like, okay."
Romadka looked at her contemptuously. "A common exhibitionist, I see.
Nymphomania too."
Dytie planted her hands on her hips. "Look, I no say long words good.
But your diagnose wrong there. Not nym'omania--satyr'asis. I show you."
And then and there she started to peel off a stocking. Phil watched in
fascinated horror.
Romadka stood up angrily. "Of all the--" he began. "If you think that
some crude appeal to my sexual urges--"
But at that moment Dytie pulled off her shoe and foot, and held out
her dainty black hoof, fur-tufted fetlock and slim pastern for his
inspection. "Okay, 'lusion-'mune," she said grimly. "Take good look.
Satyr'asis!"
Dr. Romadka's knees shook. His face was gray. His eyes bulged.
Without warning, Dytie stooped, spun around, and let go with a very
accurate kick. The stun-gun shot out of Romadka's trembling hand and
clattered against the wall beyond. Romadka snatched his hand away as if
the hoof were hell, and stumbled frantically out of the room. The sound
of his rapid, uneven footsteps slowly faded out. Phil knew just how he
felt. It was all he could do not to follow him.
Dytie began to laugh uproariously. While doing so, she hobbled over to
the door, shut it and then picked up Romadka's gun.
"This stun-gun?" she asked Phil.
Phil wet his lips and clutched at the table for support. He knew he
must be quite as pale as Romadka. "Dytie," he finally managed to say,
his teeth chattering, "you come from a country a lot farther away than
Argentina."
She smiled apologetically. "Thas right, Phil. I got longer story yours
tell."
Phil nodded shakily. "But first, if you please ..." he faltered, and
pointed at the shoe, foot and crumpled stocking she'd dropped on the
floor.
"Sure, Phil. I un'erstand." She picked them up and sat down on the edge
of the bed to put them on. Phil followed her movements unwillingly, but
when it came to the point where she was about to thrust her hoof into
the deep well in the false foot and the platform he flinched and looked
away.
Meanwhile she was saying matter-of-factly, "You no tell 'lusion-'mune
man, but you got idea where pussycat is?"
"No," he replied nervously, "but I know where I might be able to find
out."
"Is in this city?"
"Yes."
"You take me there, Phil?"
"I guess so."
"Don you want find pussycat too, Phil?"
"Yes, I think I do."
"Okay, thas fine. You can look now."
He forced himself to steal a glance at her, then let out a sigh of
relief. Her two legs were once more just like any other girl's.
Illusion, he decided, was at times the Bread of Life.
"And now," he said, "you can answer those questions of mine."
But just then there was more rapping at the door.
"This time girl friend," Dytie told him optimistically.
But Phil was taking no more chances. He switched on the one-way
peephole first, and looked straight into the face of Dave Greeley.
When Phil whispered "Federal Bureau of Loyalty," to Dytie, she jumped
up. During his long narrative she had asked him several questions
about that organization, he had answered them in detail, and she had
apparently formed some very definite conclusions. "We got beat it,
Phil. No time question-answer now." And she lightly sprang to the
window sill and walked across the ladder.
It wasn't as long as the beam at the Akeleys', but it was ten times
as high and Phil wasn't drunk. If he hadn't crossed the beam at the
Akeley's and gone down the service chute at the Romadkas', he would
never have dared it. His heart was hammering as he let himself down
into Dytie's room. He turned around with some vague idea of removing
the ladder. He heard a crash in his room. Dytie grabbed him.
"No time now," she said. And she urged him out of her room into the
corridor.
Seconds later they were entering the elevator on her side of the
building. "Hey, that's the up button," he warned as she punched it.
"I know, Phil," she said reassuringly.
Emerging on the roof, Phil felt for a moment a big sense of freedom.
The sodium mirror had not quite set, and everything around was bright
although the lower part of the sky was dark and many stars showed in it.
Then he saw the half dozen copters swinging in low toward them like
june bugs.
Dytie was hustling him along, but only toward an empty corner of the
roof. He resented her pointless display of energy. A mighty voice from
the sky commanded them to stop.
Dytie halted almost at the edge of the roof, felt around in the air,
climbed a couple of feet up into it and felt around again.
There was the sound of a copter scraping, bouncing and grounding behind
them.
Dytie opened in the air a small doorway that was black as ink, and
climbed inside. She turned around, her face a pale mask in an inky
rectangle, urged, "Come on, Phil," and stretched a white arm out of the
rectangle down toward him.
Phil stared at this weird air-framed portrait. Beneath it he could
clearly see the sheer walls of the building opposite and the dizzying
ribbon of street fifty floors below.
Behind him men shouted and there was another shattering command from
the sky.
Phil grabbed Dytie's wrist. His other hand, fumbling blindly, found an
invisible rung in the air. So did his foot. He scrambled up the air and
pitched over the sill of the inky doorway, into an inky sack and found
a curving floor under him. Rolling over, he saw behind him a rectangle
of the sky with three stars in it. The rectangle narrowed and vanished,
and there was no light at all.
Then he started to fall.