* * * * *
Two slitted green eyes loomed up directly in front of him. He plunged
into them immediately.
He had just made the voyage, naked through the dimension stratum, and
he scurried into the first available refuge, to hover there, gasping.
The word "he" does not strictly apply to the creature, for it had no
sex, nor are the words "naked," "scurried," "hover" and "gasping"
accurate at all. But there are no English words to describe properly
what it was and how it moved, except in very general terms. There are
no Asiatic, African or European words, though perhaps there are
mathematical symbols. But, because this is not a technical paper, the
symbols have no place in it.
He was a sort of spy, a sort of fifth-columnist. He had some of the
characteristics of a kamikaze pilot, too, because there was no telling
if he'd get back from his mission.
Hovering in his refuge and gasping for breath, so to speak, he tried
to compose his thoughts after the terrifying journey and adjust
himself to his new environment, so he could get to work. His job, as
first traveler to this new world, the Earth, was to learn if it were
suitable for habitation by his fellow beings back home. Their world
was about ended and they had to move or die.
He was being discomfited, however, in his initial adjustment. His
first stop in the new world--unfortunately, not only for his dignity,
but for his equilibrium--had been in the mind of a cat.
* * * * *
It was his own fault, really. He and the others had decided that his
first in a series of temporary habitations should be in one of the
lower order of animals. It was a matter of precaution--the mind would
be easy to control, if it came to a contest. Also, there would be less
chance of running into a mind-screen and being trapped or destroyed.
The cat had no mind-screen, of course; some might even have argued
that she didn't have a mind, especially the human couple she lived
with. But whatever she did have was actively at work, feeling the
solid tree-branch under her claws and the leaves against which her
tail switched and seeing the half-grown chickens below.
The chickens were scratching in the forbidden vegetable garden. The
cat, the runt of her litter and thus named Midge, often had been
chased out of the garden herself, but it was no sense of justice which
now set her little gray behind to wriggling in preparation for her
leap. It was mischief, pure and simple, which motivated her.
Midge leaped, and the visitor, who had made the journey between
dimensions without losing consciousness, blacked out.
When he revived, he was being rocketed along in an up-and-down and at
the same time side-ward series of motions which got him all giddy.
With an effort he oriented himself so that the cat's vision became
his, and he watched in distaste as the chickens scurried, scrawny
wings lifted and beaks achirp, this way and that to escape the
monstrous cat.
The cat never touched the chickens; she was content to chase them.
When she had divided the flock in half, six in the pea patch and six
under the porch, she lay down in the shade of the front steps and
reflectively licked a paw.
The spy got the impression of reflection, but he was baffledly unable
to figure out what the cat was reflecting on. Midge in turn licked a
paw, rolled in the dust, arched her back against the warm stone of the
steps and snapped cautiously at a low-flying wasp. She was a contented
cat. The impression of contentment came through very well.
The dimension traveler got only one other impression at the
moment--one of languor.
The cat, after a prodigious pink yawn, went to sleep. The traveler,
although he had never known the experience of voluntary
unconsciousness, was tempted to do the same. But he fought against the
influence of his host and, robbed of vision with the closing of the
cat's eyes, he meditated.
He had been on Earth less than ten minutes, but his meditation
consisted of saying to himself in his own way that if he was ever
going to get anything done, he'd better escape from this cat's mind.
He accomplished that a few minutes later, when there was a crunching
of gravel in the driveway and a battered Plymouth stopped and a man
stepped out. Midge opened her eyes, crept up behind a row of stones
bordering the path to the driveway and jumped delicately out at the
man, who tried unsuccessfully to gather her into his arms.
Through the cat's eyes from behind the porch steps, where Midge had
fled, the traveler took stock of the human being it was about to
inhabit:
Five-feet-elevenish, thirtyish, blond-brown-haired,
blue-summer-suited.
And no mind-screen.
The traveler traveled and in an instant he was looking down from his
new height at the gray undersized cat. Then the screen door of the
porch opened and a female human being appeared.
* * * * *
With the male human impressions now his, the traveler experienced some
interesting sensations. There was a body-to-body togetherness
apparently called "gimmea hug" and a face-to-face-touching ceremony,
"kiss."
"Hmm," thought the traveler, in his own way. "Hmm."
The greeting ceremony was followed by one that had this catechism:
"Suppareddi?"
"Onnatable."