Robert Silverberg - Venustrap

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THEY BROUGHT it to me, of course. I'm the head of this outfit, since they have the idea I'm a

diplomat, and so they brought it to me.

It started in my office; I'm the Terran attaché to the Venusian Embassy in New York

— the catch being that the Venusians don't know that a fellow named Mart Robinson is

attached to them.

My job, mostly, is simply to sit around and keep an eye on our blue-skinned brothers

from space, and make sure they're only double-crossing us and not pulling a tripple

cross. Which, knowing them, I consider altogether likely at any time.

The Venusian Embassy is a tall, imposing building in midtown Manhattan. It looks just

like every other office building in the midtown section. The only difference is that you

can get inside any of the other office buildings without much trouble. No Earthman has

entered the Venusian Embassy since the day the Treaty was signed, and the windows are

pleasantly opaque.

No Earthman except one, that is. His name was Hilary Bowie, and he was a short, sad-

looking, washed-out little fellow with an uncommon faculty for getting into places he

wasn't expected to get into. He, and he alone, was my pipeline into the Venusian Embassy.

He walked into my office, carrying a fairly large, ominous-looking wooden box, and

having a hard time of it. He sat it down in front of me, and let me contemplate it

unopened for a couple of minutes. "A present for Daddy," he said. He smiled. Somehow

Hilary Bowie's smile has a way of making me feel even gloomier.

I looked at the box. It was about two feet long, about the same high, and had

airholes punched in it. "You bring me a pet?"

Hilary nodded. "A cute one," he said. "Real cute." He tapped the box, and I heard

an unpleasant scrabbling sound come from within. It sounded like an army of crabs.

"Cut the suspense, I told him. "I'm busy, Hilary. There's a new Treaty revision

coming up next month and I have to —"

"Sure," Hilary said, and he smiled again. He's got a smile that makes a person

feel like crying. "But you're going to have to write a different kind of treaty when you

see what I've got here." He shivered. "Now that I look back, I don't see how I got the

thing out of the building."

But now I was starting to get impatient, but I didn't dare open the box. "Go

ahead," I urged. "Show the damned thing to me, will you?"

"Get me a bird cage," he said blandly.

"What?"

"All right, so don't get me a bird cage." He reached for the lid of the box.

Hold it," I said nervously. I flipped on my intercom, with none too steady fingers.

"Cindy? I want a bird cage, on the double. About two feet high, and I want it here in

five minutes, if not sooner. That's all."

Yes, Mr. Robinson," she said, sounding more than a little puzzled. I could

imagine some vivid cursing going on in the outer office, but I knew she'd get the bird

cage.

And sure enough, she did. That's what I like so much about this job: when I say

something, they hop. She walked into my office about three minutes later, clutching a

great big gleaming bird cage in her lovely milk-white hand.

"Here you are, sir," she said coolly, as if digging up bird cages on a moment's

notice were part of her everyday routine.

"Good girl. Just put it on the desk." She looked queerly at Hilary's canon for a

moment and left. As she went out she shrugged her shoulders, making sure I

caught the gesture. Hilary has never impressed the rest of my staff much, but he's

worth his weight in plutonium to me.

"There's your bird cage," I said. "Now show me." I glanced at my watch. Hilary

had used up fifteen minutes of valuable time, and I had sixty-two different projects on

the line with the brass upstairs breathing on my neck about all of them.

"Here you are, Mart. A little bit of poultry I picked up while visiting the Embassy

this morning. As far as I know, they haven't missed it yet."

He leaned the box up near the open door of the bird cage and gingerly slid the lid

off. There was a flutter of snow-white wings, and then I heard the door of the bird

cage clang shut in a hurry.

I stared at the creature inside. A good ten seconds passed, and I just stared.

"All right, Hilary. You've hit the jackpot. What it it?"

"Can't you tell, Mark? It's plain as day, of course. It's a pigeon."

"Oh, sure," I said. "A pigeon! I should have seen it immediately, beyond any doubt.

But," I asked, "where'd it get that extra head? And what about those talons?"

"That's your problem, my friend," Hilary said. It sure was. I stared glumly at the

weird-looking thing in the bird cage.

Underneath it all, I could see now, there was a pigeon— an ordinary, perfectly

conventional, harmless little fan-tail. But someone or something had redesigned this

pigeon drastically.

Each of its two heads ended in a razor-sharp beak. Its legs were sturdy things tipped

with claws like steel knives. Its four eyes were beady, bright, and, I thought,

unnaturally intelligent. This particular pigeon had been converted into a pretty

deadly sort of fighting machine. I gestured out the window at the gleaming,

opaque-windowed, unapproachable Venusian Embassy.

"I suppose you got this little pet over there?"

"I did," Hilary said. "I found him in a laboratory on —let me see—the forty-second

floor. No, the forty-third. It was the devil's own job getting him out, too, but I

figured you'd like to have a look.

"There were some other cuties in there too. A six-legged cat, a dog with three

heads—an honest-to-God Cerberus—another cat with the damnedest mouthful of

teeth you'd want to see, each one about six inches long and sharp as needles. They

have a whole laboratory, filled with these pretty beasts."

"Each one having the basic form of some common Terran animal," I said.

"Right. They've taken our animals and built them into things like this." He pointed to

the bird cage. Just then the intercom buzzed. "What is it, Cindy?"

"Mr. Garvey to see you, sir."

I frowned. Garvey was a scientist in government service. He also happened to be

my sister's husband, and he felt that gave him some claim on my time. He had

made a habit of dropping in on me every time he had some hair-brained project that

be thought could use my political influence.

'Tell him I'm in conference, Cindy," I said, watching the ex-pigeon making

ferocious attempts to escape its cage and start slicing us up. 'Tell him I can see him

in a while, and he can wait if he's in no hurry."

"Yes, Mr. Robinson."

I turned back to Bowie. "Look, Hilary. You say the Venusians are playing around

with Earth animals?"

"That's my guess, Mart. You know how shrewd they are at genetics. I guess this

represents one of their little experiments."

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摘要：

THEYBROUGHTittome,ofcourse.I'mtheheadofthisoutfit,sincetheyhavetheideaI'madiplomat,andsotheybroughtittome.Itstartedinmyoffice;I'mtheTerranattachétotheVenusianEmbassyinNewYork—thecatchbeingthattheVenusiansdon'tknowthatafellownamedMartRobinsonisattachedtothem.Myjob,mostly,issimplytositaroundandkeepane...

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Robert Silverberg - Venustrap

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