Then it leaped.
At the last instant he sensed its proximity and jumped. Jumped impossibly far, farther than was physically possible for any member of the genus Felis.
Moe did not belong to the genus Felis.
Jumped in fact the length of the alley, landing on the curb of the street it intersected. Furious beyond measure, resolving this time to kill or be killed, he prepared to retrace his path with another, far deadlier jump. Orange fur began to ripple tenebrously, giving way to streaks of gray like shot silver.
His incredible senses detected a distinctive curve in the continuum, one that if athletically accessed should bring him up and around behind his tormentor and put him in position to strike a lethal blow. He smiled to himself. No more hiding, no more stalking. It was time to make an end of it. He would finish the travesty … now!
He jumped.
Simultaneously a fourteen-year-old boy balancing on his shoulder a radio-cassette player the size of a small armored vehicle came tearing around the corner on a skateboard with the face of a crazed bull painted on it and intersected the space continuum curve exactly at the point where the Renegade intended to enter. From this nexus there emanated a peculiarly loud bang involving the boy, the boombox, the skateboard, six small coins in the boy’s pocket, his three gold fillings, something that looked like a cat, and something that looked like a distorted blob of jaundiced mercury.
The boy was thrown clear across the street, where concerned passersby relievedly ascertained that his injuries consisted only of bumps and bruises. The boombox had been reduced to a mass of melted plastic and wiring that coated the smoking skateboard.
The odd little bang intensified as it rippled across the city of Manaus, reaching the proportions of a rattlingly good-sized sonic boom by the time it reached the metropolitan outskirts, where it confused the air traffic controllers at the international airport no end, since their screens showed no aircraft as being in the vicinity. The source of the noise was attributed to a low-flying air force jet whose pilot had decided to take an unauthorized joyride over the jungle. Curses in English and Portuguese filled the airwaves on the appropriate frequencies.
The cat which had leaped from the top of the telephone pole now relaxed in the center of the alley. Sitting back on its haunches it daintily licked clean first one paw and then the other.
A second cat materialized and the two briefly touched noses. Then it leaped; not onto a ledge, not onto a fence, not onto the empty garbage can sitting invitingly nearby, but straight up into the air. As it did so it changed, legs contracting to nothingness, ears flattening, color melting from tan and white to silver, eyes becoming twin pools of fire. It vanished, leaving in its wake a miniature echo of the earlier, much louder sonic boom.
The remaining cat turned and strolled down the alley until it stood beneath an open window. It leaped effortlessly through the opening to land on the hardwood floor inside. The room’s three occupants were laughing and chattering and did not notice the arrival.
How pleasing to see them enjoying themselves, the cat thought. Much better than otherwise. She advanced across the floor to rub up against the right leg of one of the humans.
Carter looked down and a pleased smile spread across his face. “Hi, Macha. I wondered where you’d got to.” Lifting the cat he carefully set her down in his lap, where she curled up contentedly.
“I see that stray is still with you,” Fewick observed. “Most remarkable.”
Carter stroked the animal’s neck. “What can I say? Women find me irresistible. I suppose I’ll have to learn to live with it.”
“Such problems you have.” Fewick glanced toward the open window. “I suppose Moe is still roaming around outside.” He shrugged. “He will return when it suits him. He can vanish into thin air and return at the oddest times.”
Da Rimini nodded understandingly. “Cats are like that, although I never cared much for them myself.”
“I never thought about it,” Carter said. “I’ve always been too busy for pets. Though if Macha’s anything to go by, I’ve been missing something.” As he continued to stroke the cat’s neck she twisted her head around at an impossible angle to eye him approvingly.
For the first time in what seemed like an eon O’lal allowed herself to completely unwind. Once again they had trapped the Renegade and once more he had nearly escaped. After all his writhing and racing through the planes of reality, all his scheming and planning, in the end he had been undone by an accident, a twist of fate. It was true poetic justice that a human and not a Monitor had ultimately been responsible for his demise.
She was glad that the unaware young human had not been seriously injured. Her concern for her charges had always bordered on the maternal. His appearance at the critical time and place had been providential and the transposition had not proven fatal to him, so there was no reason for regrets. Nor did he have the slightest idea what had happened to him beyond vague memories of a collision with a cat.
The other Monitor had gone to rejoin his Boojums, whose development he was charged with supervising. In some ways his task was more difficult than her own, for the forgetfully superintelligent are more awkward to monitor than the merely undeveloped.
Best of all, the termination of the Renegade had been accomplished without the Shihararaneth having been forced to reveal their true nature to either human or Boojum. Things were once more as they should be.
She glanced up at the being called Jason Carter Humans had their problems, and they were going to require a lot more work before they could conceivably be thought of as mature, but in their clumsy, primitive way they were warm and agreeable creatures, and they had definite potential. Jason Carter in particular was a good example of his kind. She lowered her head to her paws.
The work of a Monitor was ever fraught with stress. Having a pet helped her to relax.
It was twelve years later that a Taiwanese fishing boat operating semi-legally in the isolated northwest corner of the Tuamotu Archipelago came across an unvisited island populated entirely by South American Indians.
These simple people raised their families, fished, cultivated wild fruits, and built houses in the style of the ancient Incas out of coral and coconut palms. They spoke Quechua and Spanish and claimed to have once had access to a higher civilization, but when queried they didn’t press the point.
Norwegian scientists insisted that here at last was proof conclusive that the Polynesian islands had been settled by explorers from Peru. The rest of the anthropological community said nothing of the sort, often adding commentary of their own that was less than polite.
As for the islanders, who called themselves Contis, they enthralled the drifting clumps of visiting scientists with a unique Creation tale which described how they had found themselves transported full-grown from their homeland to the islands, whereupon finding their original attire much too cumbersome they promptly discarded it in favor of going about blissfully bare-ass.
As time passed they built boats and, delighting in their new home, proceeded to dump all reminders of their past into a deep ocean trough. Thus cleansed of any lingering guilt or sense of responsibility to their former lives, they felt quite able to settle back and enjoy the delights their little paradise offered them, and would the scientists, reporters, New Age freaks, and numerous other and diverse sensation seekers now kindly please go away and leave them the hell alone.
Author’s Note
MANÚ National Park in the Madre de Dios region of eastern Peru contains what many scientists believe to be the greatest number of species of any comparable region for its size on Earth. While the Peruvian government has set aside this remarkable biota as a park, the same enormous size and lack of modern facilities which enable highly endangered species such as the giant otter, black caiman, and spectacled bear to survive within its borders create comparable problems of management for a society under considerable economic stress. Resources are necessarily spread thin and the danger from poachers and miners is great.
If you wish to contribute to the preservation of one of the world’s great natural wonders, contributions may be made to the nonprofit Friends of the Peruvian Rainforest, 668 Public Ledger Building, Philadelphia, PA 19106.
The Manú is the Grand Canyon of rainforests. Perhaps the greatest wonder of all is that it can still be rescued from destruction and preserved intact for future generations to enjoy. I urge all of you who are concerned to contribute to its survival.
ALAN DEAN FOSTER
Prescott, Arizona
June 1990
About the Author
The New York Times–bestselling author of more than one hundred ten books, Alan Dean Foster is one of the most prominent writers of modern science fiction. Born in New York City in 1946, he studied filmmaking at UCLA, but first found success in 1968 when a horror magazine published one of his short stories. In 1972 he wrote his first novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang, the first in his Pip and Flinx series featuring the Humanx Commonwealth, a universe he has explored in more than twenty-five books. He also created the Spellsinger series, numerous film novelizations, and the story for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. An avid world traveler, he lives with his family in Prescott, Arizona.
