The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

X

'It is useless for sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while wolves remain of a different opinion."

WILLIAM RALPH INGE, D. D. 1860-1954

"There's one born every minute."

P. T. BARNUM 1810-1891

I added, 'That was a beautiful landing, Gwen. PanAm never set a ship down more gently."

Gwen pushed aside her kimono skirt, looked out. "Not all that good. I simply ran out of fuel."

"Don't be modest. I especially admired that last little gavotte that laid the car down flat. Convenient, since we don't have a landing-field ladder here."

"Richard, what made it do that?"

"I hesitate to guess. It may have had something to do with the processing gyro... which may have tumbled. No data, no opinion. Dear, you look charming in that pose. Tristram Shandy was right; a woman looks her best with her skirts flung over her head."

"I don't think Tristram Shandy ever said that."

'Then he should have. You have lovely legs, dear one."

'Thank you. I think. Now will you kindly get me out of this mess? My kimono is tangled in the belt and I can't unfasten it."

"Do you mind if I get a picture first?"

Gwen sometimes makes unladylike retorts; it is then best to change the subject. I got my own safety belt loose, made a quick, efficient descent to the ceiling by falling on my face, got up and tackled, freeing Gwen. Her belt buckle wasn't really a problem; it was just that she could not see it to clear it. I did so and made sure that she did not fall as I got her loose-set her on her feet and claimed a kiss. I felt euphoric-only minutes ago I would not have bet even money on landing alive.

Gwen delivered payment and good measure. "Now let's get Bill loose."

"Why can't he-"

"He doesn't have his hands free, Richard."

When I let go my bride and looked, I saw what she meant. Bill was hanging upside down with a look of patient suffering on his face. My- Our bonsai maple he held pressed against his belly, the plant unhurt. He looked solemnly at Gwen. "I didn't drop it," he said defensively.

I silently granted him absolution for throwing up during touch down. Anyone who can attend to a duty (even a simple one) during the agony of acute motion sickness can't be all bad. (But he must clean it up; absolution did not mean that I would clean up after him. Nor should Gwen. If she volunteered, I was going to be macho and husbandly and unreasonable.)

Gwen took the maple and set it on the underside of the computer. Bill unbuckled himself while I supported him by his ankles, then I lowered him to the ceiling and let him straighten himself up. "Gwen, give Bill the pot and let him continue to take care of it. I want it out of the way... as I must get at the computer and the instrument board." Should I say out loud what was worrying me? No, it might make Bill sick again... and Gwen will have figured it out for herself.

I lay down on my back and scrunched under the computer and instrument board, switched on the computer.

A brassy voice I recognized said, "-Seventeen, do you read? Volvo Bee Jay Seventeen, come in. This is Hong Kong Luna ground control calling Volvo Bee Jay Seventeen-"

"Bee Jay Seventeen here. Captain Midnight speaking. I read you. Hong Kong."

"Why in hell don't you stay on channel thirteen. Bee Jay? You missed your checkpoint. Wave off. I can't bring you down."

"Nobody can. Captain Hives; I am down. Emergency landing. Computer malfunction. Gyro malfunction. Radio malfunction. Jet malfunction. Loss of visibility. On landing we fell off our jacks. Fuel gone and attitude impossible for lift off anyhow. And now the air scavenger has quit."

There was a fairly long silence. "Tovarishch, have you made your peace with God?"

"I've been too bloody busy!"

"Hmm. Understandable. How are you fixed for cabin pressure?"

"The idiot light reads green. There's no gauge for it."

"Where are you?"

"I don't know. Things went sour at twenty-one forty-seven, just before I was to turn control over to you. I've spent the time since on a seat-of-the-pants descent. While I don't know where we are, we should be somewhere on Golden Rule's orbit track; our bums were all carefully oriented. We passed over what I think was Aristoteles at, uh-"

'Twenty-one, fifty-eight," Gwen supplied.

'Twenty-one, fifty-eight; my copilot logged it. I brought her down in a mare south of there. Lacus Somniorum?"

"Wait one. Did you stay with the terminator?"

"Yes. We still are. Sun is just at horizon."

"Then you can't be that far east. Time of touch down?"

I didn't have the foggiest. Gwen whispered, 'Twenty-two, oh-three, forty-one." I repeated, 'Twenty-two, oh-three, forty-one."

"Hmm. Let me check. In that case you must be south of Eudoxus in the northernmost part of Mare Serenitatis. Mountains west of you?"

"Big ones."

"Caucasus range. You're lucky; you may yet live to be hanged. There are two inhabited pressures fairly close to you;

there may be someone interested in saving you... for the pound of flesh nearest your heart, plus ten percent."

"I'll pay."

"You surely will! And if you're rescued, don't forget to ask for your bill from us, too; you may need us another day. All right, I'll pass the word. Hold it. Could this be some more of your Captain Midnight nonsense? If it is, I'll cut your liver out and toast it."

"Captain Hives, I'm sorry about that, truly I am. I was simply kidding with my copilot and I thought my mike was cold. Should have been; I opened the switch. One of my endless problems with this collection of scrap."

"You shouldn't kid around while maneuvering."

"I know. But- Oh, what the hell. My copilot is my bride;

today is our wedding day-just married. I've felt like laughing and joking all day long; it's that sort of a day."

"If that is true-okay. And congratulations. But I'll expect you to prove it, later. And my name is Marcy, not Hives. Captain Marcy Choy-Mu. I'll pass the data along and we will try to locate you from orbit. Meantime, you had better get on channel eleven-that's emergency-and start singing Mayday. And I've got traffic, so-"

Gwen was on her hands and knees, by me. "Captain Marcy!"

"Huh? Yes?"

"I really am his bride and he really did marry me just today and if he weren't a hot pilot, I wouldn't be alive this minute. Everything did go wrong, just as my husband said. It's been like piloting a barrel over Niagara Falls."

"I've never seen Niagara Falls but I read you. My best wishes, Mrs. Midnight. May you have a long and happy life together, and lots of children."

"Thank you, sir! If someone finds us before our air runs out, we will."

Gwen and I took turns calling "Mayday, Mayday!" on channel eleven. When I was off duty, I checked into the resources and equipment of good old Volvo B. J. 17, the clunker. By the Protocol of Brasilia that skycar should have been equipped with reserve water, air, and food, a class two first-aid kit, minimum sanitary facilities, emergency pressure suits (UN-SN spec 10007A) for maximum capacity (four, including pilot).

Bill spent his time cleaning viewports and elsewhere, using Kleenex salvaged from the glove compartment-Naomi's wig had come through okay. But he almost burst his bladder before he got up his nerve to ask me what to do. Then I had to teach him how to use a balloon... as the skycar's "minimum sanitary facilities" turned out to be a small package of rude expedients and a pamphlet telling how to use them if you just had to.

The other emergency resources were of the same high standards.

There was water in a two-liter drinking tank at the pilot's position-almost full. No reserve. But nothing to worry about as there was no reserve air, and we would suffocate in stale air before we could die of thirst. The air scavenger still was not working but there was a fitting to crank it by hand-all but the crank handle, which was missing. Food? Let's not joke. But Gwen had a Hershey bar in her purse; she broke it in three and shared it. Delicious!

Pressure suits and helmets occupied most of the storage space back of the passenger couches-four of each, correct by the book. They were military surplus rescue suits, still sealed in their original cartons. Each carton was marked with contractor's name (Michelin Tires, S.A.) and date (twenty-nine years ago).

Aside from the fact that the plasticizers would have bled out of all plastomers and elastomers-hoses, gaskets, etc.- in that time, and the fact that some roguish japester had neglected to supply air bottles, these pressure suits were just dandy. For a masquerade ball.

Nevertheless I was prepared to trust my life to one of these clown suits for five minutes, or even ten, if the alternative involved exposing my bare face to vacuum.

But if the alternative was merely rassling a grizzly bear, I'd holler, "Bring on your b'ar!"

Captain Marcy called us, told us that a satellite camera showed us to be at thirty-five degrees seventeen north, fourteen degrees oh seven west. "I've notified Dry Bones Pressure and Broken Nose Pressure; they're nearest. Good luck."

I tried to dig out of the computer a call directory for Luna. But it was still sulking; I could not get it to list its own directory. So I tried some test problems on it. It insisted that 2 + 2 = 3.9999999999999999999999.... When I tried to get it to admit that 4 = 2 + 2, it became angry and claimed that 4 = 3,14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937511 .... So I gave up.

I left channel eleven switched on at full gain and got up off the ceiling. I found Gwen wearing a powder blue siren suit with a flame-colored scarf at her throat. She looked fetching.

I said to her, "Sweetheart, I thought all your clothes were still in Golden Rule?"

"I crowded this into the little case when we decided to abandon baggage. I can't keep up the pretense of being Japanese once I wash my face... which, I trust, you have noticed that I have done."

"Not too well. Especially your ears."

"Picky, picky! I used only a wet hanky of our precious drinking water. Beloved, I could not pack another safari suit- or whatever-for you. But I do have clean jockey shorts and a pair of socks for you.'^

"Gwen, you're not only wholesome; you're efficient."

" 'Wholesome'!"

"But you are, dear. That's why I married you."

"Hummph! When I figure out just how I've been insulted and how much, you are going to pay... and pay and pay and pay and pay!"

This footless discussion was ended by the radio: "Volvo Bee Jay Seventeen, is that your Mayday? Over."

"Yes indeed!"

"This is Jinx Henderson, Happy Chance Salvage Service, Dry Bones Pressure. What do you need?" I described our situation, stated our latitude and longitude.

Henderson answered, "You got this heap from Budget, right? Which means to me you didn't rent it; you bought it outright on a buy-back contract-I know those thieves. So now you own it. Correct?"

I admitted that I was owner of record.

"You plan to lift off and take it to Hong Kong? If so, what'll you need?"

I thought some long thoughts in about three seconds. "I don't think this skycar will ever lift from here. It needs a major overhaul."

"That means hauling it overland to Kong. Yeah, I can do that. Long trip, big job. Meantime personal rescue, two people-right?" "Three."

"Okay, three. Are you ready to record a contract?" A woman's voice cut in. "Just stop right there. Jinx. Bee Jay Seventeen, this is Maggie Snodgrass, Chief Operator and General Manager of the Red Devil Fire, Police, and Rescue Team, Broken Nose Pressure. Do nothing till you hear my terms... 'cause Jinx is fixing to rob you." "Hi, Maggie! How's Joel?" "Fine as silk and meaner than ever. How's Ingrid?" "Purtier man ever and got another one in the oven." "Well, good for you! Congratulations! When's she expecting?"

"Christmas or maybe New Year's, near as we can tell." "I'll plan on coming to see her before then. Now are you going to back off and let me treat this gentleman fairly? Or am I going to purely riddle your shell and let all the air out? Yes, I see you, coming over the rise-I started out same time you did, just as soon as Marcy gave the location. I said to Joel, 'That's our territory... but that lyin' scoundrel Jinx is going to try to steal it right out from under me'-and you didn't let me down, boy; you're here."

"And planning to stay, Maggie-and quite ready to drop a little non-nuclear reminder right under your treads if you don't behave. You know the rules: Nothing on the surface belongs to nobody... unless they sit on it... or establish a pressure on it or under it."

"That's your idea of the rules, not mine. That comes from those lawyer types in Luna City... and they don't speak for me and never did. Now let's shift to channel four-unless you want everybody in Kong to hear you beg for mercy and utter your last dying gasp."

"Channel four it is, Maggie you old windy gut." "Channel four. Who'juh hire to make that baby. Jinx? If you were serious about salvage, you'd be out here with a transporter, same as roe-instead of your rolligon buggy."

I had shifted to channel four when they did; I now kept quiet. Each had broken over the horizon about the same time, Maggie from southwest. Jinx from northwest. Since we had come to rest with the main viewport oriented west, we could see them easily. A rolligon lorry (had to be Henderson, from the talk) was in the northwest and a little closer. It had what seemed to be a bazooka mount just forward of its cabin. The transporter was a very long vehicle, with tractor treads at each end and a heavy-duty crane mounted aft. I did not see a bazooka mounted on it but I did see what could have been a Browning 2.54 cm semi.

"Maggie, I hurried out here in the roily for humanitarian reasons... something you wouldn't understand. But my boy Wolf is fetching my transporter, with his sister Gretchen manning the turret. Should be here soon. Shall I call them and tell them to go home? Or hurry along and avenge their pappy?"

"Jinx, you don't really think I'd shoot holes in your cabin, do you?"

"Yes, Maggie, I most surely do think you would. Which would just barely give me time to put one under your treads, that being where I'm aimed right now. On a dead-man trigger. Which would leave me dead... and you just sitting there, unable to move, and just waiting for what my kids would do to the party who done in their pappy... my turret gun having about three times the reach of your pea shooter. Which is why I got it... after Howie come to his death by mischance."

"Jinx, are you trying to scandalize me with that old tale? Howie was my partner. You should be ashamed."

"Not accusing you of anything, dear. Just cautious. How about it? Wait for my kids and I take all? Or divvy up, nice and polite?"

I simply wished that these enthusiastic entrepreneurs would get on with it. Our air pressure light had blinked red and I was feeling a touch light-headed. I suppose that roll after landing opened a slow leak. I dithered between a need to tell them to hurry and a realization that my bad bargaining position would drop to zero or even minus if I did so.

Mistress Snodgrass said thoughtfully, "Well, Jinx, it doesn't make sense to drag this junk to your pressure-north of mine- when it's about thirty klicks closer to take it to Kong by way of my place-south of yours. Right?"

"Simple arithmetic, Maggie. And I have plenty of room in this buggy for three more... whereas I'm not sure you could take three passengers even if you stacked them like hotcakes."

"I could handle them but I'll concede you have more room. All right, you take the three refugees and skin them all your conscience will let you... and I'll take the abandoned junker and salvage what I can out of it. If any."

"Oh, no, Maggie! You're too generous; I wouldn't want to cheat you. Right down the middle. Written records. Confirmed."

"Why, Jinx, do you think I would cheat you?"

"Let's not debate that, Maggie; it would only cause grief. That skycar is not abandoned; its owner is inside it this very minute. Before you can move it, you must have a release from him... based on a recorded contract. If you don't want to be reasonable, he can wait right here for my transporter, and never abandon his property. No salvage, just cartage at hire... plus complimentary transportation for the owner and his guests."

"Mr. What's-your-name, don't let Jinx fool you. He gets you and your car to his pressure, he'll peel you like an onion, till there's nothing left of you but the smell. I offer you a thousand crowns cash, right now, for that junk metal you're sitting in."

Henderson countered, 'Two thousand, and I take you in to pressure. Don't let her swindle you; there is more salvage than she's offering in your computer alone."

I kept quiet while these two ghouls settled how they were carving us up. When they had agreed, I agreed... with only nominal resistance. I objected that the price had gone up and was much too high. Mistress Snodgrass said, 'Take it or leave it." Jinx Henderson said, "I didn't get out of a warm bed to lose money on a job."

I took it.

So we wore those silly shelf-worn suits, almost as gas tight as a wicker basket. Gwen objected that Tree-San must not be exposed to vacuum. I told her to shut up and not be silly; a few moments' exposure would not kill the little maple-and we had run out of air, no choice. Then she was going to carry it. Then she let Bill carry it; she was busy otherwise-me.

You see, I can't wear a pressure suit that has not been especially made for me... while wearing my artificial foot. So I had to remove it. So I had to hop. That's okay; I'm used to hopping, and at one-sixth gee hopping is no problem. But Gwen had to mother me.

So here we go-Bill leading off with Tree-San, under instructions from Gwen to get inside fast and get some water from Mr. Henderson to spray on it, then Gwen and I followed as Siamese twins. She earned her small case with her left hand and put her right arm around my waist. I had my artificial foot slung over my shoulder, and I used my cane and hopped and steadied myself with my left arm around her shoulders. How could I tell her that I would have been steadier without her help? I kept my big mouth shut and let her help me.

Mr. Henderson let us into the cab, then gasketed it tight and opened an air bottle lavishly-he had been running in vacuum, wearing a suit. I appreciated his lavish expenditure of air mix- oxygen wrested painfully from Lunar rock, nitrogen all the way from Earth-until I saw it next day on my bill at a fat price.

Henderson stayed and helped Maggie wrestle old B. J. 17 onto her transporter, running her crane for her while she handled her tread controls, then he drove us to Dry Bones Pressure. I spent part of the time figuring out what it had cost me. I had had to sign away the skycar totally-net just under twenty-seven thousand. I had paid three thousand each to rescue us, discounted to eight thousand as a courtesy... plus five hundred each for bed and breakfast... plus (I learned later) eighteen hundred tomorrow to drive us to Lucky Dragon Pressure, the nearest place to catch a rolligon bus to Hong Kong Luna.

On Luna it's cheaper to die.

Still, I was happy to be alive at any price. I had Gwen and money is something you can always get more of.

Ingrid Henderson was a most gracious hostess-smiling and pretty and plump (clearly expecting that child). She welcomed us warmly, woke up her daughter, moved her into a shakedown with them, put us in Gretchen's room, put Bill in with Wolf-at which point I realized that Jinx's threats to Maggie were not backed up by force at hand... and realized, too, that it was none of my business.

Our hostess said goodnight to us, told us the light in the 'fresher was left on in the night, in case-and left. I looked at my watch before turning out me light.

Twenty-four hours earlier a stranger night Schultz sat down at my table.