Cat and Mouse Read online

for its own crossing--and did not pick him upagain until just before he crossed back. Now, however, he had beenimmobile for several minutes. This looked like about as good a time asany to make the pickup. The Harn had a stinging unit just aboutpositioned, and it had dispatched a carrier to stand by._

  After a while, sitting there, Ed began to feel uneasy. The timber wasbig here, and open underneath, almost parklike. The nearest cover wasfifty or sixty yards off to his left, a little tangle of brush where atree had fallen and let a shaft of sunlight through.

  It looked possible, but it didn't feel quite right. Still, it was aboutthe only place anything big enough to bother him could hide. The feelingwas getting stronger, the back hairs on Ed's neck were starting to standup now. Without visible movement, or even noticing himself that he wasdoing it, he let awareness run over his body, checking the position andstiffness of his legs--he had been sitting there quite a while--thebalance of the gun across his knees, the nearness of his thumb to thehammer.

  Thoughtfully, still studying the patch of brush, he spat a thin streamover his left shoulder at a pile of leaves a few feet away.

  Thinking about it later, Ed could almost have sworn the tobacco juicesizzled as it hit. Actually, this was probably imaginary. The stingingunit was not that sensitive to tobacco, though it was sensitive enough.As the drops splattered it, the pile of leaves erupted with a snufflinghiss like an overloaded teakettle into a tornado of bucking, twistingactivity.

  Ed's reflexes were not quite as fast as they had been when he was young,but they were better educated. Also, he was already keyed-up. Almost asit started, the flurry in the leaves stopped with the roar of his rifle.Fired like that, the heavy gun just about took his hand off, but he didnot notice it at the moment. He came erect in a quick scramble, jackingin a fresh round as he did so. The scene took on that strange timelessaspect it often does in moments of emergency, with a man's whole beingfocused on the fleeting _now_--you know, in an academic sort of way,that things are moving fast, you are moving fast yourself, but thereseems plenty of time to make decisions, to look things over and decidewhat has to be done, to move precisely, with minimum effort and maximumeffect.

  Whatever the thing at his feet was, it was out of the picture now--ithad not even twitched after the heavy bullet tore through it. There wasa stomping rush in the little thicket he had been watching. Ed took twolong quick steps to one side to clear a couple of trees, threw up thegun and fired as something flashed across a thin spot in the brush. Heheard the whack of the bullet in flesh and fired again. Ordinarily hedid not like to shoot at things he could not see clearly, but this didnot seem the time to be overly finicky. There was no further movement inthe brush.

  He stood there several long moments, listening, and there was no furthermovement anywhere. He eased the hammer down, fed in three rounds toreplace those he had used, and walked slowly back to the first thing hehad shot.

  At that range, the bullet had not opened up, but it had not needed to.It had practically exploded the creature anyway--the .450 has two tonsof striking energy at the muzzle. From what was left, Ed deduced asmallish, rabbit-sized thing, smooth-skinned, muscular, many-legged,flattish, mottled to camouflage perfectly in the leaves. There was ahead at one end, mostly undamaged since it had been at the end of a longmuscular neck, with a pair of glazing beady eyes and a surprisinglysmall mouth. When Ed pressed on the muscles at the base of the skull,the mouth gaped roundly and a two-inch long spine slid smoothly out ofan inconspicuous slot just below it.

  At middling distances or better, Ed could still see as well as ever, butclose up he needed help. He got out his pocket magnifier and studied thespine. It looked hollow, grooved back for a distance from the point. Adrop of milky looking substance trembled on its tip.

  Ed nodded thoughtfully to himself. This was what had made him uneasy, hewas pretty sure. What was the thing in the brush, then? Innocentbystander? He got stiffly to his feet, conscious now of the ache in hiswrist that had taken most of the recoil of the first shot, the torn webbetween his right thumb and forefinger where the hammer spur had bittenin; and walked over to the thicket.

  * * * * *

  The thing in the brush was larger, quite a bit larger, and the bulletshad not torn it up so badly. It lay sprawled with three of its eightlegs doubled under it, a bear-sized animal with a gaping, cavernous,toothless mouth out of all proportion to the slender body which seemeddesigned mainly as a frame for the muscular legs. It was not quite dead.As Ed came up it struggled feebly to get up, but one of the heavy slugshad evidently hit the spine, or whatever carried communications to thehindquarters. It fell back, shuddering convulsively, and suddenlyregurgitated a small, furry animal.

  Ed stepped back quickly to bring his rifle to bear, but the newestarrival was obviously already dead.

  He turned his attention back to the larger animal. It, too, was deadnow. There was an obvious family resemblance to the smaller one he hadshot in the leaves. Both were smooth-skinned, many-legged, and now thathe looked closely he could see this one had two mouths, a small one justunder the nostrils, purse-lipped and tiny in its huge face but quitelike that of the other creature. Neither looked even remotely likeanything he had ever seen before.

  He laid down his rifle and took out his knife.

  Ten minutes later, he knew quite a bit about the thing, but what he knewdid not make much sense. In the first place, its blood _was_ green, ayellowish pussy green. In the second place, the larger mouth, completewith jaws and impressive musculature, opened not into a digestivesystem, but into a large closed pouch which comprised most of theanimal's torso. There was no proper digestive system at all, only arudimentary gut, heavily laced with blood vessels, terminating at oneend in the small second mouth, at the other in an even smaller anus.Otherwise, the thing had no insides except a good pair of lungs and astout heart--none at all. Bone, muscle, lung, heart--plus theridiculously inadequate gut--that was it.

  What about the small, furry, animal then; the one the other had beencarrying in its pouch? There was nothing much out-of-the-way about it--afeline sort of carnivore, something like a marten. The fur lookedinteresting, and he skinned it out, casing the hide. On the left ham,the skin was punctured and there was a swollen, bluish area--about thesort of wound that would be made by the fang of the first thing he hadshot. Ed squatted back on his heels, studying it and putting two and twotogether. What two and two made was pretty hard to believe, but itfitted the evidence.

  He wiped his knife carefully on the grass, put it back in its sheath,and got to his feet. Suddenly, the feeling that he was not alonerecurred. He looked quickly around.

  Back where he had shot the first thing, a man in forest-green whipcordtrousers and jacket was leaning over, hands on knees, looking at theremains. The man looked up and met Ed's eyes. He nodded casually andwalked over to the second thing, prodded it with his toe. After a longmoment he nodded again to Ed, smiled briefly, and winked out.

  Ed stared at the empty air where the other man had been, mouth open. Itwas just a little too much. A lot of things had happened to him in thelast few days, he had been able to take most of them more or less asthey came along, but after all, he wasn't a chicken any more, he waspushing sixty, and there is a limit to what a man should have to put upwith at that age. The thought of his snug cabin, with a good fire going,moosemeat bubbling in the pot, the gas lantern hissing, and the bottleof Hudson's Bay rum he had tucked under the eaves against just such anoccasion as this, was suddenly very appealing.

  Besides, it was getting late, and he didn't think he cared to bestumbling around this world in the dark.

  He elbowed his pack up, hooked the left shoulder strap, and headed forhome, staying off the trail in ordinary caution and watching hisfooting, but moving pretty fast just the same.

  Actually, he need not have been so careful.

  The Harn had been surprised and shocked by the explosive violence of theman's reaction to a routine harvesting maneuver. It was a relativelyyoung
Harn, but it retained memories of its own world, where there werealso nasty, violent things which killed Harn. It was not pleasant tothink that it might have evoked some such monster in this hithertopeaceful place.

  Then, to top that, there had been the sudden appearance of the Warden.The Harn, of course, saw the Warden not as a man, but in its trueaspect, which was not at all friendly.

  All in all, this did not seem the moment to start any new adventures.The Harn pulled in all its mobile units, including the stinger it hadleft at the hole into the other world. It huddled protectively togetherin its nest, considering these new developments.

  * * * * *

  By ten that evening, Ed, in conference with old Tom and the bottle ofHudson's Bay, had done considerable hard thinking, pro and con.

  Of course, he didn't _have_ to go into the other world, just because thehole was there. He could block it off, seal it up with timbers andforget it.

  He sat there and thought about