Cat and Mouse Read online

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  CAT AND MOUSE

  BY RALPH WILLIAMS

  Illustrated by van Dongen

  [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding ScienceFiction June 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

  _The Warden needed to have a certain very obnoxious pest eliminated ... and he knew just the pest-eradicator he needed...._

  _The Harn first came to the Warden's attention through its effect on thegame population of an area in World 7 of the Warden's sector. A naturalecology was being maintained on World 7 as a control for experimentalseedings of intelligent life-forms in other similar worlds. How the Harngot there, the Warden never knew. In its free-moving larval state, theHarn was a ticklike creature which might have sifted through a naturalinter-dimensional rift; or it might have come through as a hitchhiker onsome legitimate traveler, possibly even the Warden himself._

  _In any event, it was there now. Free of natural enemies andcompetition, it had expanded enormously. So far, the effect in thecontrol world was localized, but this would not be the case when theHarn seeded. Prompt action was indicated._

  _The Warden's inclination and training was in the direction of avoidingdirect intervention in the ecology of the worlds under hisjurisdiction, even in the field of predator control. He consideredintroduction of natural enemies of the Harn from its own world, anddecided against it. That cure was as bad, if not worse, than the diseaseitself._

  _There was, however, in one adjacent world, a life-form not normallyassociated with the Harn; but which analysis indicated would be inimicalto it, and reasonably amenable to control._

  _It was worth trying, anyway._

  * * * * *

  October 3rd, Ed Brown got up to the base cabin of his trap line with hiswinter's outfit.

  He hung an N. C. Company calendar on the wall and started marking offthe days.

  October 8th, the hole into the other world opened.

  In the meantime, of course, Ed had not been idle. All summer the cabinhad stood empty. He got his bedding, stove, and other cabin gear downfrom the cache and made the place livable. The mice were thick, a goodfur sign, but a nuisance otherwise. Down in the cellar hole, when hewent to clear it out for the new spud crop, he found burrowingseverywhere.

  Well, old Tom would take care of that in short order. Tom was a big,black, bobtailed cat eleven years old who had lived with Ed since he wasa kitten. Not having any feline companionship to distract him, his onlyinterest was hunting mice. Generally he killed a lot more than he couldeat, racking the surplus in neat piles beside the trail, on thedoorstep, or on a slab in the cellar. He was the best mouser in interiorAlaska.

  Ed propped the cellar hatch with a stick so old Tom could come and go ashe pleased, and went on about his chores, working with a methodicalefficiency that matched Tom's and went with his thinning gray hair andforty years in the woods. He dug the spuds he had planted that spring.He made a swing around his beaver lakes, tallying the blankets in eachhouse. He took the canoe and moved supplies to his upper cabin. Heharvested some fat mallards that had moved down on the river with thecoming of skim ice on the lakes. He bucked up firewood and stacked it tomove into camp with the first snow.

  On the fifth morning, as he was going down to the boat landing with apail for water, he found the hole into the other world.

  Ed had never seen a hole into another world, of course, nor even heardof such a thing. He was as surprised as any one would naturally be tofind one not fifty feet from their front door.

  Still, his experience had been all in the direction of believing whathis eyes told him. He had seen a lot of strange things in his life, andone more didn't strain him too much. He stood stockstill where he hadfirst noticed the hole and studied it warily.

  It was two steps off the trail to the left, right beside the old leaningbirch, a rectangular piece of scenery that did not fit. It looked to be,as nearly as he could judge, about man-size, six by three. At thebottom it was easy enough to see where this world left off and that onebegan. On the left side the two worlds matched pretty well, but on theright side there was a niggerhead in this world, the moss-covered relicof a centuries old stump, while that world continued level, so that theniggerhead was neatly sliced in two. Also, the vegetation was different,mossy on this side, grassy on that.

  On up around the hole, though, it was harder to tell. There was noclear-cut line, just the difference in what you could see through it. Inthe other world, the ground seemed to fall away, with low scrubby brushin the foreground. Then, a mile or so away, there were rising hills withhardwood forests of some kind, still green with summer, covering them.

  Ed stepped cautiously to one side. The view through the hole narrowed,as if it faced the trail squarely. He edged around the old birch to getbehind it, and from that side there was no hole, just the same oldAlaskan scenery, birch and rose bushes and spruce. From the front,though, it was still there.

  He cut an alder shoot about eight feet long, trimmed it, and poked itthrough the hole. It went through easily enough. He prodded at the sodin the other world, digging up small tufts. When he pulled the stickback, some of the other world dirt was on the sharp end. It looked andsmelled just about like any dirt.

  Old Tom came stretching out into the morning sun and stalked over toinvestigate. After a careful inspection of the hole he settled down withhis paws tucked under him to watch. Ed took a flat round can from hispocket, lined his lip frugally with snuff, and sat down on the up-endedbucket to watch too. At the moment, that seemed the likeliest thing todo.

  * * * * *

  _It was nearly swarming time, the Harn had many things to preoccupy it,but it spared one unit to watch the hole into the other world. So far,nothing much had happened. A large biped had found the opening from theother side. It had been joined by a smaller quadruped; but neithershowed any indication yet of coming through. The sun was shining throughthe hole, a large young yellow sun, and the air was crisp, with sharpinteresting odors._

  _The biped ejected a thin squirt of brown liquid through the hole--venomof some sort, apparently. The Harn hastily drew back out of range._

  * * * * *

  The hole into the other world stayed there, as unobtrusively fixed as ifit had been there since the beginning of time. Nothing came through, andnothing moved in the other world but leaves stirring now and then with abreeze, clouds drifting across the sky. Ed began to realize it wasgetting late in the morning, and he had not yet had breakfast. He leftold Tom to watch the hole, got stiffly to his feet and went on down thetrail to get the pail of water he had started for. From the cabin door,he could still see the hole into the other world. He kept one eye on itwhile he cooked breakfast.

  As he was finishing his second cup of coffee, he noticed the view intothe other world becoming duller, dimming in a peculiar fashion. He leftthe dirty dishes and went over to look more closely. What was happening,he found, was just that it was getting dark in the other world. Theeffect was strange, much like looking out the door of a brightly lightedroom at dusk. The edges of the hole cast a very clearly marked shadownow, and outside this shaft of sunlight the view faded, until a fewyards away it was impossible to make out any detail.

  Presently the stars came out. Ed was not an astronomer, but he had awoodsman's knowledge of the sky. He could find nothing familiar in anyof the stars he saw. In some way, that was more unsettling than the holeitself had been.

  After he had finished the dishe
s, he cut two gee-pole spruce, trimmedthem, and stuck one on each side of the hole. He got some thin thread heused to tie beaver snares and wove it back and forth between the poles,rigging a tin can alarm. It seemed likely someone or something had putthe hole there, it had not just happened. If anything came through, Edwanted to know about it. Just to make extra sure, he got some numberthree traps and made a few blind sets in front of the hole.

  Then he went back to his chores. Whatever was going to happen with thehole would happen when it happened, and winter was still coming.

  He set some babiche to soak for mending his snowshoes. He ran the net hehad set at the edge of the eddy for late silvers and took out two fish.Old Tom had pretty well cleaned up the mice in the cellar hole, but theywere still burrowing around the sills of the lean-to. Ed took a shoveland opened up a hole so Tom could get under the lean-to floor. He gotout his needles, palm, thread, and wax; and mended his winter moccasins.

  Off and on, he checked the hole into the other world. There was nothingbut the slow progression of alien stars across the sky.