“Your real purpose—what is it?” he asked.
“To show you that men need the Varn. You want to explore the galaxy, and learn. So do the Varn. You have the ships and we have the telepathic ability that will end the communication problem. Your race and mine can succeed only if we go together.”
He searched for the true, and hidden, purpose behind the Varn proposal and saw what it would have to be.
“The long-range goal—you failed to mention that…your ultimate aim.”
“I know what you are thinking. How can I prove you wrong—now?”
There was no way for the Varn to prove him wrong, nor for him to prove the treachery behind the Varn proposal. The proof would come only with time, when the Terran-Varn co-operation had transformed Terrans into a slave race.
The Varn spoke again. “You refuse to believe I am sincere?”
“I would be a naive fool to believe you.”
“It will be too late to save Throon unless we act very quickly. I have told you why I am here. There is nothing more I can do to convince you but be the first to show trust. When I switch on the lights it will be within your power to kill me.”
* * * *
The Varn was gambling its life in a game in which he would be gambling the Plan and his race. It was a game he would end at the first sound of movement from the astrogator unit across the room.…
“I have been here beside you all the time.”
A furry paw brushed his face, claws flicked gently but grimly reminding along his throat.
He whirled and fired. He was too late—the Varn had already leaped silently away and the beam found only the bare floor. Then the lights came on, glaringly bright after the darkness, and he saw the Varn.
It was standing by the control board, its huge yellow eyes watching him. He brought the blaster into line with it, his finger on the firing stud. It waited, not moving or shrinking from what was coming. The translucent golden eyes looked at him and beyond him, as though they saw something not in the room. He wondered if it was in contact with its own kind on Johnny’s World and was telling them it had made the gamble for high stakes, and had lost.
It was not afraid—not asking for mercy.…
The killing of it was suddenly an act without savor. It was something he would do in the immediate future but first he would let it live long enough to save Throon.
He motioned with the blaster and said, “Lead the way to the airlock.”
“And afterward—you will kill me?”
“Lead the way,” he repeated harshly.
It said no more but went obediently past him and trotted down the corridor like a great, black dog.
* * * *
He stood in the open airlock, the Varn against the farther wall where he had ordered it to stand. Throon was in the radiation chamber and he had held his first intelligible conversation with the natives that day.
The Varn was facing into the red-black gloom outside the lighted airlock, where the departing natives could be heard crossing the glade. “Their thoughts no longer hold fear and suspicion,” it said. “The misunderstanding is ended.”
He raised the muzzle of the blaster in his hand. The black head lifted and the golden eyes looked up at him.
“I made you no promise,” he said.
“I could demand none.”
“I can’t stop to take you back to your own world and I can’t leave you alive on this one—with what you’ve learned from my mind you would have the natives build the Varn a disintegrator-equipped space fleet equal to our own ships.”
“We want only to go with you.”
He told it what he wanted it to know before he killed it, wondering why he should care:
“I would like to believe you are sincere—and you know why I don’t dare to. Trusting a telepathic race would be too dangerous. The Varn would know everything we knew and only the Varn would be able to communicate with each new alien race. We would have to believe what the Varn told us—we would have to trust the Varn to see for us and speak for us and not deceive us as we went across the galaxy. And then, in the end, Terrans would no longer be needed except as a subject race. They would be enslaved.
“We would have laid the groundwork for an empire—the Varn Empire.”
There was a silence, in which his words hung like something cold and invisible between them.
Then the Varn asked, very quietly:
“Why is the Plan failing?”
“You already know,” he said. “Because of the barrier—the communication barrier that causes aliens to misunderstand the intentions of Exploration men and fear them.”
“There is no communication barrier between you and I—yet you fear me and are going to kill me.”
“I have to kill you. You represent a danger to my race.”
“Isn’t that the same reason why aliens kill Exploration men?”
He did not answer and its thought came, quickly, “How does an Exploration man appear to the natives of alien worlds?”
How did he appear…? He landed on their world in a ship that could smash it into oblivion; he stepped out of his ship carrying weapons that could level a city; he represented irresistible power for destruction and he trusted no one and nothing.
And in return he hoped to find welcome and friendship and co-operation.…
“There,” the Varn said, “is your true barrier—your own distrust and suspicion. You, yourselves, create it on each new world. Now you are going to erect it between my race and yours by killing me and advising the Exploration Board to quarantine my world and never let another ship land there.”
Again there was a silence as he thought of what the Varn had said and of what it had said earlier: “We are a very old race.…” There was wisdom in the Varn’s analysis of the cause of the Plan’s failure and with the Varn to vanquish the communication stalemate, the new approach could be tried. They could go a long way together, men and Varn, a long, long way.…
Or they could create the Varn Empire…and how could he know which it would be?
How could anyone know—except the telepathic Varn?
The muzzle of the blaster had dropped and he brought it back up. He forced the dangerous indecision aside, knowing he would have to kill the Varn at once or he might weaken again, and said harshly to it:
“The risk is too great. I want to believe you—but all your talk of trust and good intentions is only talk and my race would be the only one that had to trust.”
He touched the firing stud as the last thought of the Varn came:
“Let me speak once more.”
He waited, the firing stud cold and metallic under his finger.
“You are wrong. We have already set the example of faith in you by asking to go with you. I told you we did not intend to hurt your brother and I told you we saw the stars only as the little wild animals saw them. The years in the dark caves—you do not understand—”
The eyes of the Varn looked into his and beyond him; beautiful, expressionless, like polished gold.
“The Varn are blind.”
CAT THIEF, by Ernest Dudley
First time Fred Ellis saw the white cat, it was only for a few seconds, then it was gone. Like a ghost, you might say, it being so white and all. He saw it through the railings of the garden in the square. Obviously, it had come from one of the houses in the square. But even though it had only been this brief flash, the white cat made him catch his breath—he could feel himself drooling at the thought of grabbing it and shoving it in his sack. He reckoned Bernie ought to cough up twice as much as usual for fur like this one.
He’d been smart enough to check the time by his watch when he’d seen it. Just gone ten o’clock. Next night, he’d be there, same time. He knew from experience people mostly put their cats out about the same time every night.
It was a late summer night, and Fred Ellis had been on his usual prowl. He was a cat thief. He averaged seven to ten cats a week, at up to a hundred pounds a time, cash, no questi
ons asked by a certain Bernie Hollins, who ran a furrier’s behind Paddington Station as a cover for his activities.… His vivisectionist clients looked down their noses at thin, scraggy specimens, and your fur dealers, too, go for a healthy cat with a good amount of well-kept fur. Though it was your regular vivisectionists who were your most regular customer. Needed all the cats you could throw at them, they did. Never-ending, the demand is, with vivisectionists. But take the fur business, well, it had its ups and downs.
Fred made his cat-prowl nearly every night, covering in his travels every part of London—sometimes, if he had a hunch, he’d nip out to the suburbs, like Croydon, Wimbledon, or Streatham, in his little van. This is all the gear you need for this job. A little van, as inconspicuous as you could make it, and a strong sack or two, into which you shoved the mogs. So long as they had enough air to breathe, they were okay. They might yowl and fight sometimes, but that didn’t matter, so long as you brought ’em back alive. Bernie Hollins needed a dead cat like he needed a hole in the head.
But this white mog he’d spotted in this square just off Gloucester Place, it was a real beaut. Your better-class area usually supplied your better-class cat, so he was there all right, next time. He had a specially large sack with him for the white cat. And suddenly, there it was. In the light of one of the street lamps, it looked a gleaming, brilliant white. Made your eyes pop, it was that white, and it even looked bigger than the first time. It was then he had the funny feeling it was expecting him. But, as before, it was there for only a few moments before it vanished into the shadows.
He cursed to himself. He wondered what had made it take off like that. Then it reappeared a few yards further along the railings. It was a misty night, so perhaps because of the mist, it hadn’t seen Fred. He approached it cautiously, his sack gripped tight in his left hand, held partly behind his back. He rounded the corner of the garden, and still it hadn’t moved. Something told Fred his luck was going to be in. Stealthily he went forward, his rubber-soled shoes making no sound.
The cat saw him. But it didn’t make off. It stood there, its thick, furry tail flicking to and fro. Its eyes glowed greenish gold. Fred could almost make himself believe it was purring. He was only a couple of yards away—this was the moment to pounce. But the cat turned and proceeded alongside the railings. Fred muttered a curse and followed. He meant to nab the thing tonight, and no blinkin’ error. He could feel his heart starting to race and his mouth went dry.
Once more, it stopped. It glanced back at him, those wonderful eyes aglow in the beautiful white head. Fred kept going, still cautiously. Once again, he was a couple of yards from it. And again it moved on. Fred began to think it was playing some sort of follow-my-leader game with him. Well, he’d put a stop to that. His eyes slitted angrily, his mouth became a thin line. He wasn’t going to allow some bloody cat to make a bloody fool out of him—But not to panic, relax—take it slow and easy.
“Hello, white cat,” he said softly. “Come on, white moggy, we’re pals, ain’t we?”
Its pinkish-white ears twitched, then it turned and went on. Sometimes it seemed to merge into the mist. Fred kept after it without hurrying, calling to it in a soft, persuasive voice. “Come on, whitey—come on now, let’s be friends.”
So it went for about forty yards, till the gardens came to an end. Now, the white cat paused, then turned down a narrow cul-de-sac, which sloped to a small row of garages. Fred followed. It looked as if it was going to play right into his hands—if he could only get it into a corner, it was his.
His face under his cap was pale, strained with concentration. He was gritting his teeth as he followed the cat.
Halfway down the incline, it paused. It looked over its shoulder at Fred. Its eyes glowed with a greater intensity than ever. Fred drew nearer, talking cajolingly.
He saw that the half-door of the end garage to his left was slightly ajar. Then he realised the white mog was making for it. His heart leapt; he could have laughed out loud with triumph. Couldn’t be better, the cat was running straight into a trap. Once inside the garage, it would be cornered and at Fred’s mercy. He guessed the garage was empty, there wouldn’t be a car in there, or the doors wouldn’t be left open. It was empty, sure enough.
He followed the cat more quickly.
Yes, it was going into the garage—!
He stopped to watch the white cat slip inside the slightly open door then he dashed forward. As he’d expected, the garage was empty, no car the cat could shelter under. He was slamming the door behind him, groping for his torch in his pocket, which he always carried.…
Dozens of pairs of cats’ eyes glowed at him from the darkness. The garage was alive with the white ghostly shapes of cats, their eyes, greenish gold, blazing at him, Fred’s whole body crawled with terror; he gulped with horror and turned away.
But before he could get out, the eyes sprang at him. He let out a frightful scream as the claws ripped and tore him to pieces. Yowling and spitting with venom, dozens of cats slashed claws at his face, tore at his neck.…
At that moment, two cops who’d been on duty at a nearby embassy passed the top of the cul-de-sac. Fred’s agonised shrieks reached them and they dashed to the garage. One pulled the door open, the other following him. Their torches blazed and one of them switched on the light.
In its glare, Fred Ellis lay sprawled on the floor, one hand grasping the sack, the other flung out as if to protect his face, contorted in a grimace of horror. One of the cops bent and felt his pulse, listened to his heart. He looked up, shaking his head. Fred was dead.
“What in hell was all that about?” the other asked.
The cop who’d checked Fred’s heart shrugged and glanced around the empty garage. “Must have had a heart attack—or something—”
He glanced again at the dead man. There wasn’t a mark on him. Not a sign of cats’ claws slashing and tearing Fred’s face to pieces.
Not a mark.
LEGEND OF THE CAT, by Mary Rocker-Gramlich and Charles Allen Gramlich
In a time long ago there lived a cat-creature named Kyth who belonged to the fertility goddess, Temppara. Kyth was beautiful, but she was weak and had to depend on Temppara for shelter and food. She had to be kept indoors because she had no way to protect herself from danger. No one thought of Kyth as much more than a well-loved ornament for her goddess.
Then, while Temppara was absent from the temple one day, her priestess, Ranue, gave birth. The baby had come early and was encased in the birth sac, and Ranue was too weak from delivering the large, male child to free it from the caul that could kill it. Ranue shouted for help but there was no one to offer it, and soon her struggles overwhelmed her and she passed out. The baby began to turn blue.
Someone had heard Ranue’s cries, however. This was Kyth, who, in the curious way of cats, came to investigate. Seeing the baby between Ranue’s legs, Kyth began to lick away the birth sac. And when the baby was clean Kyth sat on its chest and breathed into the small, wrinkled face. With a tremendous bellow, the baby began to cry, thus taking its first breath. Kyth, never having heard anything quite so loud before, ran and hid.
The baby’s cry woke Ranue, who roused herself enough to cut the umbilical cord. Not knowing how the baby had gotten free of its caul, the new mother decided that the higher gods had themselves intervened, and when Temppara returned she at first agreed with Ranue. Later, when Temppara searched out Kyth and saw the dried blood on her pet’s fur, she immediately realized who had truly saved the baby’s life. She cleaned Kyth lovingly, then petitioned her own heart on the cat’s behalf.
Her heart told Temppara what she must do. Kyth must have speed and suppleness for her sleek body. She must have sharp claws to defend herself and to let her climb to safety when she could not run or fight. Temppara granted Kyth a rough tongue to bathe her own furry babies as she had bathed the unfurred human before. She strengthened Kyth’s teeth so that the cat could hunt for herself. Finally, Temppara gave Kyth the gift of independence, even
though she knew that her pet could leave her then. That was exactly what happened.
For years no one saw Kyth, and Temppara wondered what had became of her one-time pet. Then, one day while Temppara was praying in temple she heard scratching at the door. It was Kyth, two beautiful kittens in tow, one male and one female. Kyth stayed only an hour and Temppara wept when her friend left again. But the goddess’s sadness was eased when the kittens stayed behind.
The kittens were the first of the races of domesticated cats we know today. They still have their curiosity, and all the gifts Temppara gave them. Most of all, they have their independence.
CAT BURGLAR, by Robert Reginald
He was methodical, meticulous, almost mechanical in his profession. He measured his “clients” with the yardstick of practicality, carefully balancing risk vs. potential harvest; and never, ever plunged beyond the keenly-felt “black hole horizon.” He’d only been caught twice, once as a juvenile (the record had been expunged), and thence as a young adult (the cops mishandled the evidence, and he got off). There’d be no third occasion, if he had anything to say about it.
So he toted up his points on a mental chart, and when they reached a certain level, he waved the job off, irrespective of the potential gain. He never wanted to be rich; he just didn’t like being told what to do. Modesty in everything was his mantra. Don’t be blatant about being a thief, he thought, and, with luck, you won’t get caught. And retire as early as possible, with enough loot stashed away in non-obvious, offshore bank accounts that can give you a comfortable life for however many years you have left.
Still, some compromises had to be made: everything comes with a price, even thievery. So, Bliss Démurré (for such was his name) maintained a part-time position that suited his nature, the IRS, and his self-chosen profession. He worked as an independent consultant and installer for an Inland Empire health equipment provider. Whenever you needed an oxygen tank, Bliss was there; if you’d just been prescribed a CPAP machine to assist your breathing at night, Bliss was the caring individual who walked you through the installation process, and was present afterwards to answer all your questions. His “day job” was oriented specifically to assist his nighttime forays.
The Second Cat Megapack: Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New Page 48
