"What? No, I don't smoke." His thoughts racing, he faced the lion cage.
The tanned man had turned away, obviously not wanting to contact him,
but why? He knew who Kemper was; there was no doubt of that. Frowning
slightly, Mr. Kemper looked at the chewed hunks of horsemeat and bone
on the cage floor, and the vibrating flies. The only logical answer was
that the man was waiting for reinforcements. Even now he was probably
contacting the Three Councils. Still, that gave Kemper a reasonable
chance; it took a while for even the most powerful minds to move along
the pathways of time. Beside him the big man was talking again. "You
feel okay, pal? You looked kind of far away there all of a sudden.
Maybe you oughta go over in the shade."
"Not at all. I was only thinking of something."
"Yeah?" The man took the cigarette from his mouth and put it in his
shirt pocket. "Say, I heard you telling that broad there lions don't
eat people. You sure about that?"
"Quite sure. Look at them. Do you think they need to depend on anything
as slow as Homo Sapiens for food?" With another part of his brain he
wondered how many men would be sent to take him back. There was one
point in his favor, however. He had nothing to lose.
"I don't know, pal. All I ever see them do is sleep. Always laying on
their fat backs, like now."
"Well, that's not unusual. Lions sleep in the daytime and hunt at
night."
"Yeah? What the hell good is that? The zoo closes at 5:30, don't it?"
Kemper looked at him dispassionately. He thought: "You fool, what would
you say if you knew that you were talking to a man who hunted your ape
ancestors through the forests of a million years ago? Could your pigmy
brain accept that?"
The man jabbed him on the shoulder again. "Look at that big one with
the black streaks in his hair. Ain't he something? Why don't he jump
around in there like the chimps do?"
"Maybe he doesn't know it's expected of him," Kemper answered, hoping
that the arrival of the man in the tweed jacket would not affect his
sport of the moment.
"You know, I'd like to see a couple of those babies mixing it up. Like
the lion against the tiger, maybe. Who do you think would win a hassle
like that, anyway?"
"The lion," Mr. Kemper said. He decided that the game would go on;
an idea was beginning to scratch at the corners of his mind. Looking
around with what he hoped was a conspiratorial air, he jabbed his
elbow into the big man's stomach. "Listen, you'd like to see some
action, would you? Suppose you be here in say--two hours. At three
o'clock."
"Yeah? What kind of action? You ain't trying to kid me, are you, buddy?"
Shrugging, Mr. Kemper looked at the flies swarming in the cage. "It's
just a tip. Take it or leave it, buddy." He turned, brushed by the
scowling man, and left the rail. Although it was getting hotter he
walked down the cement in the sun, avoiding the shade of the tall
hedges opposite the row of cages. He went toward the stairway that
lifted from the lion court to the terrace where the central zoo
building stood. Behind the building was the main enclosure; the zoo
itself was terraced along two hillsides, with more hills in the
distance. It was not a large zoo, nor was it a good place to hide. But
Mr. Kemper did not intend to hide.
In the cages he passed were other cats: cheetahs, leopards, puma and
tigers, lying with heaving flanks, or lolling red-tongued on the stone
floors. They hadn't changed too much, he decided, except in size. Even
the streak-maned lion was puny in comparison with the lions that Kemper
had known. He walked up to the drinking fountain by the stairway, the
sun in his face. He was almost tempted to stare contemptuously up at
it. Bending over the fountain he caught the dusty smell of the cats
among popcorn, rootbeer and ice cream smells and the sweat stink of
people. He straightened, wiping his lips, and remembered the somber
jungles of the Pliocene, black-green in the sun that was a fist against
your head; the plains of javelin-tall, yellow grass swinging to the
horizon; and in the hills the lions with hides like hammered brass,
the deadly, roaring lions. He remembered too, with the smell of those
lions thick as dust in his mouth, the cities of his people, the proud
people who had discovered the secrets of time through the science of
their minds, a science unknown to the world he was in now. He looked up
slowly and saw the man in the tweed jacket standing at the top of the
stairway.
When their eyes met, Kemper probed with an arrow-swift thought but the
other had his mind-shield up. The man turned, and moved behind a group
of women. The man was gone when Kemper got to the top of the steps. "So
that's the way you want it," he said, looking around. Two sidewalks
led from the stair top; one went up the hill to the aviary, the other
around the south wing of the building. He took the one that rounded
the wing. "I doubt," he said, "if we'll play peek-a-boo all afternoon,
however." An old lady twitching along the walk gave him a nasty look as
he passed.
* * * * *
He went by the zebra corral where a small boy was picking up stones
and turned into the side entrance of the wing. He went down the dim
corridor, turned left at the men's room, then right and left again, and
came finally to a small yard partially hidden from the main enclosure
by an extension of the wing. In the yard was only one exhibit, a beaver
pool surrounded by a waist-high stone wall. Two teen-aged boys sprawled
on the wall; otherwise the place was deserted. Mr. Kemper studied the
boys. Here was game to his liking. He went over and sat down on a bench
in the sun.
The boys, twins in levis, saddle-shoes, T-shirts and long hair, leaned
over the pool. There was something odd about the actions of the blond
one who tilted dangerously near the water. He moved, spasmodically, and
Mr. Kemper saw the flicker of sunlight on the long stick held like a
spear in his hand, and heard a splash. Cursing, the boy pushed himself
upright and dropped from the wall, shaking water from the stick. "You
missed," said the other one.
"I'll show that flat-tailed rat," said the blond boy. From a back
pocket he took a clasp-knife and snapped it open, and from a side
pocket a length of twine. With swift, vicious twists he started to tie
the knife-handle to the end of the stick. He made two knots and said,
"Man, look at that. That'll hold it, man."
"What about the cat on the bench over there? What if he sees us?"
"Him? So what if he does? We can handle him. Anyway, he's got his eyes
shut, ain't he?"
The sun tingled on the tops of Mr. Kemper's ears as he listened, his
eyes half-shut. "Okay, give me lots of room on the wall," the blond boy
said. There was a rasping of cloth on stone. Then Mr. Kemper closed his
eyes and made a picture in the darkness of his mind, a small, bright
picture that he blotted out immediately after it was formed. By the
pool, metal clattered on stone.