CatFantastic

  "I'm not surprised you had trouble financing it."

  "I'm surprised B&H agreed to do so," he admitted, "but not sorry. The answer could come in decades—or tomorrow. It's a structured trial-and-error system with an almost infinite data base. I tried not to prejudice it with any human expectations, since the human systems have failed. In here," and he patted the central island lovingly, "the practical tests will be run. As soon as it comes up with a situation that makes the right chemical binding possible, the system will initiate a testing program that will reproduce those exact conditions. First mathematically, of course. That part is automatic." His eyes were gleaming, his voice more full of life than Miles ever remembered it. "I dream of coming in here and discovering that the testing sequence has already started. The odds are against it, of course."

  It was just beginning to sink in as Miles looked around the room in amazement. "So one might say—in a mathematical sense—that the process of creating life has already begun."

  "I like to think that."

  He shook his head in amazement, trying to absorb it all. "It's a good thing you're not a religious man, Wes. Or a philosopher."

  "Why? Do you think I would have done things differently, in that case?"

  "If there is such a thing as a soul, and if all living creatures have them …" He came up to the central island, and touched a hand to its surface. Cold. It surprised him, though it shouldn't have. Had he unconsciously equated life with warmth? "Where will your new soul come from, when you create this living thing? Do you create that, too? Or is there some kind of consciousness, not yet alive, that would bond with your creation? Move in and take up housekeeping, as it were? A religious man might worry about that—and about its possible source."

  "You're getting morbid in your old age, Miles. The world is filled with souls, old and new. Or so say our high priests."

  "But once it wasn't. And your machines are reproducing those very conditions." He shrugged. "It's food for thought, anyway."

  "You're free to write a paper on it."

  "Be a long time before I could publish."

  "Will it?" He hesitated, and his voice grew lower. Almost whispering, he said "I can feel it happening, sometimes. I stand in here and I feel like I can sense the process, like something is almost—but not quite—right. Like it will start any minute now, maybe while I'm standing right here … am I crazy, Miles?"

  "Always have been."

  "Can you feel it, I mean. The incipient … the incipience of it. If, as you say, the process has already begun—"

  "All I feel is tired. And a bit of a headache." He touched his forehead with a chilled hand, wondered at the weakness which had suddenly come over him. "I'm afraid you've quite overwhelmed me, Wes. I need some time to absorb it all, before I can glory in wild speculation."

  "You all right?" he asked, concerned.

  "Just tired, I think. It was a long drive. And this really is quite overwhelming." He rubbed his forehead, where the worst of the tiredness seemed to be centered. "The philosophical implications really are staggering. Give me time, Wes. And breakfast."

  His ex-roomate smiled as he led the way out. "Then a short nap, eh? You never were a morning man."

  "Took you thirty years to notice …"

  Hunter-in-Darkness watched from the forest's edge as the two men came back, keeping to the shadows so that they wouldn't see him. The sunlight was blinding, but not so much so that he failed to notice the crablike shape which sat atop the shorter man's head. A dreamerly, dark fog against the morning sunlight; it had tentacles pressed to the man's upper face, and now and then the man swatted at it as though he could sense its presence. But his hand passed right through.

  Chilled despite the morning's warmth, Hunter-in-Darkness crept back to the shadows.

  He needed to think.

  5

  Dear Dad

  Well, I'll be staying longer than I originally planned, but didn't we think that might happen? There's so much to tell you that I hardly know where to start; suffice it to say that we've come up with some interesting hypotheses to explain those little monsters' behavior.

  So far, the most promising theories involve some manner of dream disturbance. Dr. Langsdon pulled a tape for me of cats who had been treated so that while they dreamed their motor activity was not inhibited, as it usually is during sleep. The result was that they acted out their dreams, and—you guessed it—the resulting behavior was very similar to that of our little houseguests. More in that line … but I really should wait until I get home, to tell you in person. It's all so very exciting!

  The upshot of all this is that I won't be leaving until next Sunday at the earliest. Does this mean I miss seeing Miles? Tell him to stop off in Maryland if he drives home earlier than that, I'll take him to lunch. Or dinner.

  Pet the monsters for me, Elsa.

  The shadowlands were unusually dark this sleeptime, which made the glitterlings even more dramatic than usual. And therefore more distracting. Hunter-in-Darkness stopped for a moment in the dreamland forest, watching the tiny firesprites burst into life and dart across the leafless branches, trying to sense their rhythm so that he might anticipate them. Sometimes it was possible. Overhead, the cold, dead trees of the shadowlands wove a spiderweb canopy of jagged black branches, and the brilliant glitterlings played like squirrels between them: darting down the length of one branch, doubling back to sizzle the bark of another, leaping across open space-and then suddenly, inevitably, disappearing into darkness. There were many of them tonight, and as they played across the skyscape their light danced into the shadows, making the darkness shiver. Not a good sleeptime for hunting, he decided. Even the trees seemed blacker than usual, and their branches, like cracks in the sky, made ominous patterns overhead. And there was a smell in the air that was not of the shadowlands, nor of the waking world: a hint of foulness that the wind carried to him, that made his lips draw back from his teeth and brought a hiss of disgust to his throat. He turned around to escape it, to find his prey elsewhere.

  And remembered …

  6

  What?

  He shook his head, confused. The smell urged him to go away, to run away, to be anywhere but where he was at that moment … but something he didn't quite remember urged him to stay, and its call was slightly stronger. Something from the (he struggled to place it) waking world?

  Suddenly he was aware, and memory came to him so suddenly that it nearly knocked him off his feet. True, he had been trying to remember-for how many sleeps now?-but each time he passed into dreaming and walked the shadowlands anew, all memory of his waking intentions had left him. Not so this time. A trickle still remained, and he held onto it with all four paws, trying to grasp what it was barely within his nature to understand.

  Like all cats, he dreamed. Like all cats, he hunted in the perpetual twilight of the shadowlands, perfecting his skills in a world that demanded the utmost in timing and concentration. And like all cats-until this night-he had passed from one world to the other without thought, rising from the shadowlands to awaken and smooth his fur and then passing back into the dreamworld once more, in and out again in a rhythm as ancient and as natural as sleep itself.

  But tonight was different. Tonight he knew-he understood-that while he hunted in this place, beneath these jagged trees, he was also asleep in a leaf-cushioned hollow. For the first time in his life, without words or experience to guide him, he struggled to comprehend the nature of dreaming. And understood at last why this double awareness had come, the reason why he had gone to sleep with a special image fixed in his conscious mind.

  He turned toward the source of the foul wind. No longer was its fear-message dominant in his mind. He took time to savor it, to measure its taste upon his tongue. Images of dreamerlies came to him, clumps of fog that left just such a foulness in one's mouth; it was the stink of danger, and he growled deeply as he recognized it.

  Under normal circumstances he would have fled, but he was more than mere shadowse
lf now and was twice as angry as he was afraid. Prompted by memories of misshapen dreamerlies, he turned toward the source of the odor. Outside of the dreamworld he was powerless to hunt such creatures, but here, in the land of their birth … he hissed his fear as he began to move, and his fur pricked upright, but there was no question of turning back. Those things had fouled his territory, ignored his spray, and despoiled his kill; either his waking self must abandon its terrain, or he must deal with these enemies on their own home ground.

  With the stealth of a hunter who has marked his prey he crept slowly toward the source of the odor, placing each paw as though his life depended on silence. All about him new glitterlings burst to life, danced in fiery zigzags, and were consumed by darkness; by their light he picked his way across the lifeless roots, letting his sense of smell guide him. Gradually the smell grew stronger, and its message more clear. Turn away. Go back. This place is not for you. He had to fight his survival instinct to ignore it, but memory drove him on.

  How long it was before he heard the cry he couldn't say; he was consumed by his greater purpose, and was not wholly cognizant of the world which surrounded him. But it broke through his awareness at last, a plaintive mewing that stopped him dead in his tracks. A kitten-cry, rich with pain and terror.

  He knew the voice. But it belonged to the waking world.

  How was that possible?

  For a moment he stood still, frozen by indecision. Then the cry came again, a terrible yowling of pain and need that made going on impossible. He began to trot-to run-toward the source of its distress. In his mind's eye a tiny black kitten beckoned, its greenfire eyes sparkling like glitterlings in the shadowlands twilight. What was it doing-here, this cat from the waking world? Didn't each hunter come to the shadowlands alone?

  He ran. Over twisted roots, between glitterlings and dreamerlies and floating pods of luminous seeds that settled to earth in his wake. The sound was growing fainter by the minute, he had to reach it before it was extinguished, must hurry if he was to

  He came upon the clearing suddenly, had to use all his claws to brake to a stop.

  It was there. The kitten. The same one he had met in the waking lands, whose fiery gaze had so impressed him.

  So were they. The dreamerlies. The foul ones, with the teeth and the bloated bodies and the unwholesome odor, who had followed him to his kill and then claimed it.

  They had downed it, and were feeding. Suckers and teeth were affixed to its trembling body, and strangely shaped forms glowed brightly as they fed. Their light was bright enough that Hunter-in-Darkness could see the kitten's blood where it had soaked the ground, and the carmine glitter of wounds across its jet black fur.

  Rage consumed him. He abandoned thought, became a creature of blind action. One leap and he was upon the nearest, a fishlike thing with claws for fins and a spiked tail half his length. Here such creatures had substance, and he tore into this one with relish. So quickly did he dispatch it that the others were just beginning to react as he chose his next victim. This was not hunting but killing, plain and simple, and he took no pleasure in it. A snakelike dreamerly with silver spines drew itself up to fight; he clawed at its face before it got a chance to position itself effectively, was rewarded with a gush of hot blood across his paw and chest. Teeth bit into his hind leg, but he kicked out savagely and they were gone. There were more dreamerlies than he could count, but he was a whirlwind of teeth and claws and at last, hissing their displeasure, those that had survived his initial attack withdrew from the scene of battle.

  He took no time to lick his wounds, but looked for the injured kitten; it had crawled off during the battle, leaving a thin trail of blood behind it. So dim was its bodylight that he nearly lost the little creature, but he let his sense of smell guide him and finally found the shivering infant, a tiny wet ball of fur that hissed weakly as he approached it. It was badly injured, and clearly terrified. And no wonder! One of the advantages of hunting dreamerlies was that they didn't fight back; one could stalk them-or the glitterlings or the floating pods-with no fear of injury, practicing one's skills in safety against the day when the waking world would require them. That they would do this was … unthinkable. That they could do it was terrifying.

  Gently he nuzzled the youngster, and began to lick its wounds clean of blood and dirt. At first it didn't respond, and he thought it might be past saving. But then, after a time, a tiny tremor of sound began in its throat, which rose and fell with the rhythm of his cleaning.

  He did what he could for the purring youngster, marveling at its recuperative powers. At last he sat back, content that it would survive, and tended to his own wounds. In the wake of his indignant rage his greater purpose was calling to him again, and he knew he would have to move on. The kitten could take care of itself, he decided. It would have to.

  He turned to leave, took three steps-and stopped. And looked behind him. The kitten was on its feet, standing right behind him. Ready to follow. He growled a warning, but the sound lacked sincerity-and like most kittens, this one ignored adult hostility. Twisting his head back to watch the small cat, Hunter-in-Darkness moved forward again … and watched in amazement as it trotted along behind him, a brief chirp indicating that its legs did hurt but, yes, it was coming along, it would manage to keep up with him somehow.

  With a snort of disbelief he began to trot toward his destination. Wondering why he was pleased that the tiny thing-too young to be prudent, too damaged to be helpful-was still alongside him.

  It was there, in the distance. Faint, almost ghostly, its outline uncertain in the shadowland darkness … but clearly there, despite the fact that it shouldn't be. The white manhouse.

  He crept to the edge of the forest, head low, suspicious. The wall between the worlds must be thin indeed, if such things could cross it. For some reason the thought made him cold inside, and he looked back at the kitten to see if it was still beside him. It was. And strangely, that comforted him.

  All about the building were dreamerlies. Mutant dreamerlies, even more unwholesome than the ones which had attacked the kitten. As before, they seemed to be waiting for something … but what?

  The kitten was the first to move. Too young to be inhibited by fear, he slipped between two heavy roots, out into the open. Against the dark grass his small black body slithered like a shadow, its inner light almost dim enough to pass for reflected glitterglow. Cautiously, Hunter-in-Darkness followed. He was a larger cat and a brighter one, and the lack of cover made him uneasy; nevertheless he followed, and not until they got to the fence did the two cats stop to consider their situation.

  Cautiously, prepared for the worst, Hunter-in-Darkness eased one paw forward, and quickly touched it to the wires. Man's magic had guarded this place before, but that- was in the waking lands; here, where no man existed, the fence might be passable. And indeed, his paw passed through the wires as though through an illusion; the manfence had no solidity m this world, and no power to harm.

  He went through the fence; the kitten followed. A few dreamerlies passed overhead, and perhaps they saw them. If so, they showed no interest. Like any hunting cat they preferred the small and the weak for prey; perhaps they were wary of Hunter-in-Darkness' size, and would avoid the kitten because of it.

  It was when they were halfway to the building that the Change began.

  At first he failed to recognize it. The shimmer in the air, the distortion of all outlines beyond it, the feeling of bodily tension which accompanied its appearance … at first these things were unfamiliar, and he sank down into the grass in wary silence. But then he realized what it was, and what he could accomplish if he got to it in time-and in an instant he was on his feet and running, heedless of the dreamerlies and the kitten and any other shadowland concern, trying to reach the wall between the worlds before it healed itself and became impassable once more.

  Crossing it was like diving into a snowbank. For an instant there was cold, so chilling that he could hardly move his body, so all-perva
ding that he lost all memory of ever having been warm. And darkness. For a moment he feared being trapped within the barrier, sandwiched between the worlds without access to either. Then the fear-and the cold-were left behind him, and he stumbled out onto a man-made floor, skidding to an undignified halt as he slammed into the base of a wall that had become, all too suddenly, solid.

  He was inside the man-structure-inside!-and back in the waking world. He had crossed the same way the dreamerlies crossed, and if his reasoning was correct…. He leaped up and clawed at an overhead dreamerly, and felt his talons tear flesh before he fell back to the floor. Yes! He could hunt them now, in his own world. On his own terms. Hunter-in-Darkness, who had passed through the shadowlands and beyond!

  A thudding sound reminded him of his kitten ally, and he turned to find the small cat bundled tail over head at the base of the same wall. He pushed it back onto its feet, noting that the impact had reopened a gash along its shoulder. A faint carmine smear marked the spot where it had struck the wall, and it left red footprints as it came to Hunter's side. The larger cat shrugged; there was nothing more he could do for it.

  But he was relieved that it had managed the crossing, and licked its flank once to welcome it.

  Then a low humming sound caught his attention, and his skin crawled as he realized just what it was. The sound of dreamerlies.

  The kitten had stiffened, its ears pricked upright; it heard it also, then, and knew it for what it was. No matter that they had never heard a dream-creature make the slightest noise before; the sound was fixed in their instinct, and identification was instant. Something about this place, or the opening between the worlds, had given these creatures a voice. And they hungered. That was clear in the tone of their call, and tear surged through Hunter's heart when he heard it. For a moment instinct got the better of him, and he nearly turned to flee. But then he remembered: he was Hunter-in-Darkness, Crosser-Between-Worlds; the identity gave him courage.