A. E. Van Vogt - The Rat & the Snake & Other Stories

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1. The Rat and the Snake
2. Ersatz Eternal
3. The Cataaaa
4. Resurrection
5. The Barbarian
A.E. Van Vogt
THE RAT AND THE SNAKE
Mark Gray's main pleasure in life was feeding rats to his pet python.
He kept the python in a blocked-off room in the old house in which he
lived alone. Each mealtime, he would put the rat in a narrow tunnel he had
rigged, At the end of the tunel was an opening. The rat, going thiough the
narrow space into the bright room beyond, automatically spring-locked a
gate across the opening.
It would then find itself in the room with the python, with no way of
escape.
Mark liked to listen to its squeaks as it became aware of its danger,
and then he would hear its mad scurring to escape the irresistible enemy.
Sometimes he watched the exciting scene thiough a plate-glass window, but
he actually preferred the sound to the fight, conjuring his own delectable
mental pictues, always from the viewpoint of the python.
During World War Ill, the O.P.A. forgot to put a ceiling price on
rats. The catching of rats got no special priority. Rat catchers were
drafted into the armed forces as readily as the other people. The supply
of rats grew less. Mark was soon reduced to catching his own rats; but he
had to work for a living in the ever-leaner times of war, so that there
were periods of time when the python was fed infrequently.
Then one day Mark, ever searching, glimpsed some white rats through a
window of an old commercial-style building.
He peered in eagerly, and though the room was dimly lighted with
wartime regulation bulbs, he was able to make out that it was a large room
with hnndreds of cages in it and that each of the cages contained rais.
He made it to the front of the building at a dead run. In pausing to
catch his breath, he noticed the words on the doors CARRON LABORATORIES,
Research.
He found himself presently in a dim hallway of a business office.
Because everybody was clearly working twice as hard because of the war, it
took a little while to attract the attention of one of the women
employees; and there were other delays such as just sitting and waiting
while it seemed as if he was the forgotten man. But after all those
minutes he was finally led into the office of a small, tight-faced man,
who was introduced as Erie Plode and who listened to his request and the
reason for it.
When Mark described his poor, starvng python, the small man laughed a
sudden, explosive laughter, But his eyes remained cold. Moments later he
curtly rejected the request.
Whereupon he made a personal thing out of it. "And don't get any
ideas," he snarled. "Stay away from our rats. If we catch you filching
around here, we'll have the law on you."
Until those words were spoken, Mark hadn't really thought about
becoming a rat-stealing criminal. Except for his peculiar love for his
python, he was a law-abiding, tax-paying nobody.
As Mark was leaving, Plode hastily sent a man to follow him. Then,
smiling grimly, he walked into an office that had printed on the door:
HENRY GARRON, Private.
"Well, Hank," he said gaily. "I think we've got our subject."
Carron said, "This had better be good since we can't even get
prisoners of war assigned us for the job."
The remark made Plode frown a little. He had a tendency toward ironic
thoughts, and he had often thought recently, "Good God they're going to
use the process on millions of the unsuspecting enemy after we get it
tested, but they won't give us a G.D. so-and-so to try it out on because
of some kind of prisoner of war convention."
Aloud, he said smugly, "I suppose by a stretch of the imagination you
could call him human.'
"That bad?"
Plode described Mark and his hobby, finished, "I suppose it'a a
matter of point of view, But I won't feel any guilt, particularly if he
sneaks over tonight and with criminal intent tries to steal some of our
rats." He grinned mirthlessly, "Can you think of anything lower than a rat
stealer?"
Henry Carron hesitated but only for moments. Millons of people were
dead and dying, and a test absolutely had to be made on a human being.
Because if something went wrong on the battlefield, the effect of surprise
might be lost with who knew what repercussions.
"One thing sure," he nodded "there'll be no evidence against us. So
go ahead."
It seemed to Mark, as he came stealthily back that night, that these
people with their thousands of rats would never miss the equivalent of one
rat a week or so, He was especially pleased when he discovered that the
window was unlocked and that the menagerie was unguarded. No doubt, he
thought good-humoredly, babysitters for rats were in scarce supply because
of the wartime worker shortage.
The next day he thrilled again to the familiar sound of a rat
squeaking in fear of the python. Toward evening his phone rang. It was
Erie Plode.
"I warned you," said the small man in a vicious tone. "Now you must
pay the penalty."
Plode felt better for having issued the warning. "Be it on his own
soul," he said sanctimoniously, "if he's there."
Mark hung up, contemptuous. Let them try to prove anything.
In his sleep that night he seemed to be suffocating. He woke up, and
he was not lying on his bed but instead was on a hard floor. He groped for
the light switch but could not find it. Them was a bright rectangle of
light about twenty feet away. He headed for it.
Crash! A gate slammed shut behind him as he emerged.
He was in a vast room, larger than anything he had ever seen. Yet it
was vaguely familiar. Except for its size it resembled the room in which
he kept his python.
On the floor in front of him, an object that he had noticed and
regarded as some sort of a leathery rug, thicker than he was tall, stirred
and moved toward him.
Realization came suddenly, horrendously.
He was the size of a rat. This was the python slithering across the
floor with distended jaws.
Mad squealing as Mark Gray experienced the ultimate thrill of the
strange method by which he had enjoyed life for so many years ...
Experienced it this one and only time from the viewpoint of the rat.
A.E. Van Vogt
ERSATZ ETERNAL
Grayson removed the irons from the other's wrists and legs. "Hart!"
he said sharply.
The young man on the cot did not stir. Grayson hesitated and then
deliberately kicked the man. "Damn you, Hart, listen to me! I'm releasing
you - just in case I don't come back "
John Hart neither opened his eyes nor showed any awareness of the
blow he had received. He lay inert; and the only evidence of life in him
was that he was limp, not rigid. There was almost no color in his cheeks.
His black hair was damp and stringy.
Grayson said earnestly, "Hart, I'm going out to look for Malkins.
Remember, he left four days ago, intending only to be gone twenty-four
hours."
When there was no response, the older man started to turn away, but
he hesitated and said, "Hart, if I don't come back, you must realize where
we are, This is a new planet, understand. We've never been here before.
Our ship was wrecked, and the three of us came down in a lifeboat, and
what we need is fuel. That's what Malkins went out to look for, and now
I'm going out to look for Malkins."
The figure on the cot remained blank. And Grayson walked reluctantly
out the door and off toward the hills. He had no particular hope.
Three men were down on a planet God-only-knew-where - and one ofthose
man was violently insane.
As he walked along, he glanced around him in occasional puzzlement.
The scenery was very earthlike: trees, shrubs, grass, and distant
mountains misted by blue haze. It was still a littie odd that when they
had landed Malkins and he had had the distinct impression that they were
coming down onto a barren world without atmosphere and without life.
A soft breeze touched his cheeks. The scent of flowers was in the
air. He saw birds flitting among the trees, and once he heard a song that
was startingly like that of a meadow lark.
He walked all day and saw no sign of Malkins. Nor was there any
habitation to indicate that the planet had intelligent life. Just before
dusk he heard a woman calling his name.
Grayson turned with a start, and it was his mother, looking much
younger than he remembered her in her coffin eight years before. She came
up, and she said severely, "'Billie, don't forget your rubbers."
Grayson stared at her with eyes that kept twisting away in disbelief.
Then, deliberately, he walked over and touched her. She caught his hand,
and her fingers were warm and lifelike.
She said, "I want you to go tell your father that dinner is ready."
Grayson released himself and stepped back and looked tensely around
him. The two of them stood on an empty, grassy plain. Far in the distance
was the gleam of a silvershining river.
He turned away from her and strode on into the twilight. When he
looked back, there was no one in sight. But presently a boy was moving in
step beside him. Grayson paid no attention at first, but presently he
stole a glance at his companion.
It was himself at the age of fifteen.
Just before the gathering night blotted out any chance of
recognition, he saw that a second boy was now striding along beside the
first. Himself, aged about eleven.
Three Bill Graysons, thought Grayson. He began to laugh wildly.
Then he began to run. When he looked back, he was alone. Sobbing
under his breath, he slowed to a walk, and almost immediately heard the
laughter of children in the soft darkness. Familiar sounds, yet the impact
of them was stunning.
Grayson babbled at them, "All me, at different ages. Get away! I know
you're only hallucinations."
When he had worn himself out, when there was nothing left to his
voice but a harsh whisper, he thought, Only hallucinations? Am I sure?
He felt unutterably depressed and exhausted. "Hart and me," he said
aloud wearily, " we belong in the same asylum."
Dawn came, cool; and his hope was that sunrise would bring an end to
the madness of the night. As the slow light lengthened over the land,
Grayson looked around him in bewilderment. He was on a hill, and below him
spread his home town of Calypso, Ohio.
He stared down at it with unbelieving eyes, and then, because it
looked as real as life, he started to run toward it.
It was Calypso, but as it had been when he was a boy. He headed for
his own house. And there he was; he'd know that boy of ten anywhere. He
called out to the youngster, who took one look at him, turned away, and
ran into the house.
Grayson lay down on the lawn, and covered his eyes. "Someone," he
told himself "something is taking pictures out of my mind and making me
see them."
It seemed to him that if he hoped to remain sane - and alive - he'd
have to hold that thought.
It was the sixth day after Grayson's departure. Aboard the lifeboat,
John Hart stirred and opened his eyes. "Hungry," he said aloud to no one
in particular. He waited he knew not for what and than wearily sat up,
slipped off the cot, and made his way to the galley. When he had eaten, he
walked to the lock-door, and stood for a long time staring out over the
earthlike scene that spread before him. It made him feel better, vaguely.
He jumped abruptly down to the ground and began to walk toward the
nearest hilltop. Darkness was falling rapidly but it did not occur to him
to turn back.
Soon the ship was lost in the night behind him.
A girlfriend of his youth was the first to talk to him. She came out
of the blackness. and they had a long conversation. In the end they
decided to marry
The ceremony was immediately completed by a minister who drove up in
a car and found both families assembled in a beautiful home in the suburbs
of Pittsburgh. The clergyman was an old man whom Hart had known in his
childhood.
The young couple went to New York City and to Niagara Falls for their
honeymoon, then headed by aere-taxi for California to make their home.
Suddenly there were three children, and they owned a hundred-thousand-acre
ranch with a million cattle on it, and there were cowboys who dressed like
movie stars,
For Grayson, the civilization that sprang into full-grown existence
around him on what had originally been a barren, airless planet had
nightmarish qualities. The people he met had a life expectancy of less
than seventy years. Children were born in nine months and ten days after
conception.
He buried six generations of one family that he had founded. And
then, one day as he was crossing Broadway - in New York City - the small
sturdiness, the walk, and the manner of a man coming from the opposite
direction made him stop short.
"Henry!" he shouted. "Henry Malkins!"
"Well, I'll be - Bill Grayson."
They shook hands, silent afler the first excited greeting. Malkins
spoke first. "There's a bar around the corner."
During the middle of the second drink John Hart's name came up.
"A life force seeking form used his mind' said Grayson
matter-of-factly. "It apparently has no expression of its own. It tried to
use me -" He glanced at Malkins questioningly.
The other man nodded. "And me!" he said,
"I guess we resisted too hard."
Malkins wiped the perspiration from his forehead. "Bill," he said,
"it's all like a dream. I get married and divorced every forty years. I
marry what seems to be a twenty-year-old girl. In a few decades she looks
five hundred."
"Do you think it's all in our minds?"
"No no-nothing like that. I think all this civilization extsts -
whatever I mean by existence." Malkins groaned. "Let's not get into that.
When I read some of the philosophy explaining life, I feel as if I'm on
the edge of an abyss. If only we could get rid of Hart, somehow."
Grayson was smiling grimly. "So you haven't found out yet?"
"What do you mean?"
"Have you got a weapon on you?"
Silently, Malkius produced a needle-beam projector. Grayson took it,
pointed it at his own right temple, and pressad the curved firing pin - as
Malkins grabbed at him frantically but too late.
The thin, white beam seemed to penetrate Grayson's heed. It burned a
round, black, smoldering hole in the woodwork beyond. Coolly, the unhurt
Grayson pointed the triangular muzzle athis companion.
"Like me to try it on you?" he asked jovially.
The older man shuddered and grabbed at the weapon. "Give me that!" he
said.
He calmed presently and asked, "I've noticed that I'm no older. Bill,
what are we going to do?"
"I think we're being held in reserve," said Grayson.
He stood up and held out his hand. "Well, Henry, it's been good
seeing you. Suppose we meet here every year from now on and compare notes."
"But -"
Grayson smiled a little tautly. "Brace up, my friend. Don't you see?
This is the biggest thing in the universe. We're going to live forever.
We're possible substitutes if anything goes wrong."
"But what is it? What's doing it?"
"Ask me a million years from now. Maybe I'll have an answer."
He turned and walked out of the bar. He did not look back.
THE CATAAAA
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THE CATAAAA
By A. E. Van Vogt
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THE CATAAAA
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THE CATAAAA
by A. E. Van Vogt
A Little Classic By One Of The Most Brilliant Science-Fiction Writers of Our Day.
Several years ago this startling story appeared in a Los Angeles publication, FANTASY BOOK,
and it immediately created o furor among the local stf faithful. With the resumption of
MARVEL, we thought it should be brought to a larger audience, particularly since its author has
meantime won recognition as one of America's most brilliant science-fiction writers. We think
you'll agree that "The Cataaaa" is a masterpiece.
The cat turned and touched Silkey's face gently.
THE USUAL group was gathering in the bar. Cathy was already pretending she was far gone.
Ted was busy putting on his stupid look. Myra giggled three times the way a musician tunes his
instrument for the evening. Jones was talking to Gord in his positive fashion. Gord said "Glub!"
every few seconds, just as if he was listening. And Morton tried to draw attention to himself by
remaining aloof and intellectual looking far down in his chair.
No one noticed the slight, slim man sitting on a stool before the bar. The man kept glancing at
the group; but just when he joined them, or who invited him, no one had any clear idea. Nor did
it occur to anyone to tell him to go away.
The stranger said, "You were talking about the basic characteristics of human nature--"
Myra giggled, "Is that what we were talking about? I wondered."
The laughter that followed did not deter the newcomer.
"It so happens that I have had an experience which illustrates the point. It began one day when I
was glancing through the newspaper, and I ran across a circus advertisement . . . "
At the top of the ad (he went on) was a large question mark followed by some equally large
exclamation marks. Then:
THE CATAAAA
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WHAT IS IT?
IT'S THE CAT
COME AND SEE THE CAT
THE CAT WILL STARTLE YOU
THE CAT WILL AMAZE YOU
SEE THE CAT AT THE CIRCUS
FREAK SHOW
In smaller letters at the bottom of the ad was the information that the cat was being "shown under
the personal direction of Silkey Travis."
Until that point I had been reading with a vague interest and curiosity. The name made me jump.
"Good lord!" I thought. "It's him. It's Silkey Travis on that card."
I hurried to my desk, and took out a card that had come in the mail two days before. At the time
it had made no sense to me at all. The words written on the back in a fine script seemed pure
gibberish, and the photograph on the front, though familiar, unlocked no real memory. It was of a
man with a haunted look on his face, sitting in a small cage. I now recognized it as being a
likeness of Silkey Travis, not as I had known him fifteen or so years before, but plumper, older,
as he would be now.
I returned to my chair, and sat musing about the past.
Even in those days, his name had fitted Silkey Travis. At high school he organized the bathing
beauty contest, and gave the first prize to his cousin and the second prize to the girl who was the
teacher's pet of most of the teachers. The students' science exhibition, a collection of local
lizards, snakes, insects and a few Indian artifacts was an annual affair, which brought a turnout
of admiring parents. Invariably, it was Silkey who organized it. Plays, holiday shows and other
paraphernalia of school pastimes felt the weight of his guiding hand and circus spirit.
After graduating from high school, I went on to State college to major in biology, and I lost sight
of Silkey for seven years. Then I saw an item in one of the papers to the effect that local boy
Silkey Travis was doing well in the big town, having just purchased a "piece" of a vaudeville
show, and that he also owned a "piece" in a beach concession in New Jersey.
Again, there was silence. And now, here he was, no doubt "piece" owner of the circus freak
show.
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Having solved the mystery of the postcard, so it seemed to me, I felt amused and tolerant. I
wondered if Silkey had sent the card to all his former school companions. I decided not to puzzle
any more about the meaning of the words written on the back. The scheme behind them was all
too obvious.
Sitting there, I had absolutely no intention of going to the circus. I went to bed at my usual hour,
and woke up with a start some hours later to realize that I was not alone. The sensations that
came to me as I lay there have been described by Johnson in his book on morbid fears.
I lived in a quiet neighborhood, and the silence was intense. Presently, I could hear the labored
pounding of my heart. Poisons surged into my stomach; gas formed and leaked up to my mouth
bringing a bitter taste. I had to fight to keep my breath steady.
And still I could see nothing. The dark fears ran their courses, and the first thought came that I
must have had a nightmare. I began to feel ashamed of myself. I mumbled:
"Who's there?"
No answer.
I climbed out of bed, and turned on the light. The room was empty. But still I wasn't satisfied. I
went out into the hall, then I examined the clothes closet and bathroom. Finally, dissatisfied, I
tested the window fastenings--and it was there I received my shock. Painted on the outer side of
the pane of one of the windows were the letters:
"The cat requests that you come to the circus."
I went back to bed so furious that I thought of having Silkey arrested. When I woke up in the
morning the sign was gone from the window.
BY THE TIME breakfast was over, my temper of the night had cooled. I was even able to feel a
pitying amusement at the desperate desire of Silkey to let his old acquaintances know what a big
shot he was. Before starting off to my morning classes at State, I looked under my bedroom
window. I found what looked like footprints, but they were not human, so I decided that Silkey
must have taken care to leave no tracks of his own.
At class, just before noon, one of the students asked me whether there was any good explanation
in biological science for freaks. I gave the usual explanation of variabilities, nutritional
deficiences[sic], diseases, frustration of brain development affecting the shape of the body, and
so on. I finished drily that for further information I would direct him to my old friend, Silkey
Travis, director of freaks at the Pagley-Matterson circus.
The offhand remark caused a sensation. I was informed that a freak at this circus had prompted
the original question. "A strange, cat-like creature," the student said in a hushed voice, "that
examines you with the same interest that you examine it."
THE CATAAAA
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The bell rang at that moment, and I was spared the necessity of making a comment. I remember
thinking, however, that people hadn't changed much. They were still primarily interested in
eccentricity whereas, as a scientist, the processes of normalcy seemed to me far more fascinating.
I still had no intention of going to the circus. But on the way home that afternoon I put my hand
in my breast pocket, and drew out the postcard with the photograph of Silkey on the front. I
turned it over absently, and read again the message that was on it:
"The interspatial problem of delivering mail involves enormous energy problems,
which effect time differentials. Accordingly,
it is possible that this card will arrive before I know who you are. As a precaution
I am sending another one to the circus with your name and address on it, and the
two cards will go out together.
"Do not worry too much about the method of delivery. I simply put an instrument
into a mail box. This precipitates the cards into the box on earth, and they will
then be picked up and delivered in the usual fashion. The precipitator then
dissolves.
The photograph speaks for itself."
It didn't. Which is what began to irritate me again. I jammed the card back into my pocket, halfminded
to phone up Silkey and ask him what the silly thing meant, if anything. I refrained, of
course. It wasn't important enough.
When I got out of bed the next morning, the words, "The cat wants to talk to you!" were
scrawled on the outside of the same window pane. They must have been there a long time.
Because, even as I stared at them, they began to fade. By the time I finished breakfast they were
gone.
I was disturbed now rather than angry. Such persistence on Silkey's part indicated neurotic
overtones in his character. It was possible that I ought to go to his show, and so give him the
petty victory that would lay his ghost, which had now haunted me two nights running. However,
it was not till after lunch that a thought occurred to me that suddenly clinched my intention. I
remembered Virginia.
For two years I had been professor of biology at State. It was an early ambition which, now that I
had realized it, left me at a loose end for the first time in my life. Accordingly, for the first time
in my rather drab existence the mating urge was upon me. Virginia was the girl, and,
unfortunately, she regarded me as a cross between a fossil and a precision brain. I felt sure that
the idea of marrying me had not yet occurred to her.
For some time it had seemed to me that if I could only convince her, without loss of dignity, that
I was a romantic fellow she might be fooled into saying yes. What better method than to pretend
that I still got excited over circuses, and, as a grand climax to the evening I would take her in to
THE CATAAAA
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see Silkey Travis, and hope that my acquaintance with such a character would thrill her exotic
soul.
The first hurdle was bridged when I called her up, and she agreed to go to the circus with me. I
put the best possible face on for the preliminaries, riding the ferris wheel and such juvenilia. But
the moment of the evening for me came when I suggested that we go and see the freaks being
shown by my friend, Silkey Travis.
It really went over. Virginia stopped and looked at me almost accusingly.
"Philip," she said, "you're not trying to pretend that you know a person called Silkey? She drew a
deep breath. "That I have to see."
Silkey came through beautifully. He was not in when we entered, but the ticket taker called into
some rear compartment. And a minute later Silkey came charging into the main freak tent. He
was plump with the plumpness of a well fed shark. His eyes were narrowed as if he had spent the
past fifteen years calculating the best methods of using other people for his own advantage. He
had none of the haunted look of the photograph, but there were ghosts in his face. Ghosts of
greed and easy vices, ghosts of sharp dealing and ruthlessness. He was all that I had hoped for,
and, best of all, he was pathetically glad to see me. His joy had the special quality of the lonely
nomad who is at last looking longingly at the settled side of life. We both overdid the greeting a
little but we were about equally pleased at each other's enthusiasm. The hellos and introductions
over, Silkey grew condescending.
"Brick was in a while ago. Said you were teaching at State. Congrats. Always knew you had it in
you.
I passed over that as quickly as possible. "How about showing us around, Silkey, and telling us
about yourself?"
WE HAD already seen the fat woman and the human skeleton, but Silkey took us back and told
us his life history with them. How he had found them, and helped them to their present fame. He
was a little verbose, so on occasion I had to hurry him along. But finally we came to a small tent
within the tent, over the closed canvas entrance of which was painted simply, "THE CAT". I had
noticed it before, and the chatter of the barker who stood in front of it had already roused my
curiosity:
"The cat . . . come in and see the cat. Folks, this is no ordinary event, but the thrill of a lifetime.
Never before has such an animal as this been seen in a circus. A biological phenomenon that has
amazed scientists all over the country... Folks, this is special. Tickets are twenty-five cents, but if
you're not satisfied you can get your money back. That's right. That's what I said. You get your
money back merely by stepping up and asking for it..."
And so on. However, his ballyhoo was not the most enticing angle. What began to titillate my
nerves was the reaction of the people who went inside. They were allowed to enter in groups,
and there must have been a guide inside, because his barely audible voice would mumble on for
THE CATAAAA
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some minutes, and then it would rise to a hearable level, as he said, "And now, folks, I will draw
aside the curtain and show you--the cat!"
The curtain must have been pulled with a single jerk, on a carefully timed basis. For the word,
cat was scarcely out of his mouth, when the audience reaction would sound:
"Aaaaaa!"
Distinct, unmistakable exhalation of the breaths of a dozen startled people. There would follow
an uncomfortable silence. Then, slowly the people would emerge and hurry to the outer exit. Not
one, that I was aware of, asked for his money back.
There was a little embarrassment at the gate. Silkey started to mumble something about only
owning part of the show, so he couldn't give passes. But I ended that by quickly purchasing the
necessary tickets, and we went inside with the next group.
The animal that sat in an armchair on the dais was about five feet long and quite slender. It had a
cat's head and vestiges of fur. It looked like an exaggerated version of the walkey-talkey animals
in comic books.
At that point resemblance to normalcy ended.
It was alien. It was not a cat at all. I recognized that instantly. The structure was all wrong. It
took me a moment to identify the radical variations.
The head! High foreheaded it was, and not low and receding. The face was smooth and almost
hairless. It had character and strength, and intelligence. The body was well balanced on long,
straight legs. The arms were smooth, ending in short but unmistakable fingers, surmounted by
thin, sharp claws.
But it was the eyes that were really different. They looked normal enough, slightly slanted,
properly lidded, about the same size as the eyes of human beings. But they danced. They shifted
twice, even three times as swiftly as human eyes. Their balanced movement at such a high speed
indicated vision that could read photographically reduced print across a room. What sharp, what
incredibly sharp images that brain must see.
All this I saw within the space of a few seconds. Then the creature moved.
It stood up, not hurriedly, but casually, easily, and yawned and stretched. Finally, it took a step
forward. Brief panic ensued among the women in the audience, that ended as the guide said
quietly:
"It's all right, folks. He frequently comes down and looks us over. He's harmless.
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The crowd stood its ground, as the cat came down the steps from the dais and approached me.
The animal paused in front of me, and peered at me curiously. Then it reached gingerly forward,
opened my coat, and examined the inside breast pocket.
It came up holding the postcard with the picture of Silkey on it. I had brought it along, intending
to ask Silkey about it.
For a long moment the cat examined the card, and then it held it out to Silkey. Silkey looked at
me.
"Okay?" he said.
I nodded. I had a feeling that I was witnessing a drama the motivations of which I did not
understand. I realized that I was watching Silkey intently.
He looked at the picture on the card, and then started to hand it to me. Then he stopped. Jerkily,
he pulled the card back, and stared at the photograph.
"For cripes sake," he gasped. "It's a picture of me."
There was no doubt about his surprise. It was so genuine that it startled me. I said:
"Didn't you send that to me? Didn't you write what's on the back there?"
Silkey did not answer immediately. He turned the card over and glared down at the writing. He
began to shake his head.
"Doesn't make sense," he muttered. "Hmmm, it was mailed in Marstown. That's where we were
three days last week."
He handed it back to me. "Never saw it before in my life. Funny."
His denial was convincing. I held the card in my hand, and looked questioningly at the cat. But it
had already lost interest. As we stood there, watching, it turned and climbed back up to the dais,
and slumped into a chair. It yawned. It closed its eyes.
And that's all that happened. We all left the tent, and Virginia and I said goodbye to Silkey.
Later, on our way home, the episode seemed even more meaningless than when it had happened.
I don't know how long I had been asleep before I wakened. I turned over intending to go right
back to sleep. And then I saw that my bedside light was burning. I sat up with a start.
The cat was sitting in a chair beside the bed, not more than three feet away.
Part Two of
THE CATAAAA
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9
THERE WAS silence. I couldn't have spoken at the beginning. Slowly, I sat up. Memory came
of what the guide at the show had said... "Harmless!" But I didn't believe that anymore.
Three times now this beast had come here, twice to leave messages. I let my mind run over those
messages, and I quailed " . . . The cat wants to talk to you!" Was it possible that this thing could
talk.
The very inactivity of the animal finally gave me courage. I licked my lips and said:
"Can you talk?"
The cat stirred. It raised an arm in the unhurried fashion of somebody who does not want to
cause alarm. It pointed at the night table beside my bed. I followed the pointing finger and saw
that an instrument was standing under the lamp. The instrument spoke at me:
"I cannot emit human sounds with my own body, but as you can hear this is an excellent
intermediary."
I have to confess that I jumped, that my mind scurried into a deep corner of my head--and only
slowly came out again as the silence continued, and no attempt was made to harm me. I don't
know why I should have assumed that its ability to speak through a mechanical device was a
threat to me. But I had.
I suppose it was really a mental shrinking, my mind unwilling to accept the reality that was here.
Before I could think clearly, the instrument on the table said:
"The problem of conveying thoughts through an electronic device depends on rhythmic
摘要：

1. TheRatandtheSnake2. ErsatzEternal3. TheCataaaa4. Resurrection5. TheBarbarian                                        A.E.VanVogt                           THERATANDTHESNAKE    MarkGray'smainpleasureinlifewasfeedingratstohispetpython.Hekeptthepythoninablocked-offroominthe old house in which helived...

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