was a child’s particular pet. Cats are plentiful and cheap around a farming community, and they breed so fast that the supply always exceeds the demand.
When he left to go back to M. I. T. to resume his teaching, he’d have to find a home for it before leaving, but that shouldn’t be too difficult if he was willing to subsidize the deal by offering a slight bonus along with the cat. Feeding one more cat wouldn’t matter much to a farmer who already had several, and even the most domesticated cats largely earn their own living in this kind of country by keeping down the field mice.
“Cat,” he said, “speaking seriously, how
“All right, you won’t tell me,” Doc said. “In that case you’re all set with a brand new name, the one I’ve been calling you.
The cat had drunk only about half of the milk, but that was all right; he’d probably given it much too much for a cat its size to drink, and it was back sitting at the door again.
“Miaouw,” it said.
“I understand, Cat,” Doc said. “A call of nature, and that’s not surprising considering how long you’ve been here. But the very fact that you want out so badly proves that you’re housebroken. I’ll take care of things.”
He’d finished eating by then and went across to the door that led to the basement stairs, went down them. Someone who had stayed here, luckily, had done a lot of sawing for something or other; there was a fairish pile of dry sawdust in one corner of the basement. He found a shallow carton of about the proper dimensions and filled it with sawdust, took it up to the kitchen and put it in a corner.
“You’ll have to use that, Cat,” he said. “I’m afraid you’re not going out for a few days.”
The cat looked at the box of sawdust but stayed at the door. “Miaouw,” it said. Very plaintively.
“You’re an outdoor cat, maybe, and never used a sawdust box?” Doc asked it. “Well, you’ll learn, when the pressure gets high enough.”
He took his breakfast dishes to the sink and started washing them.
“Tell you what, Cat,” he said over his shoulder. “Let’s give it a try together, for a few days. For that length of time, I’ll clean up if you don’t figure out how to use the sawdust.
“And if you turn out to like me and I turn out to like you, then I’ll give you your choice—you can go out, and come back if you wish or never darken my doorway again. Fair enough?”
The cat didn’t answer, except possibly by not answering; it stayed by the door.
Doc decided to go about the things he had to do and pay no more attention to it for a while, to see what it did.
The mind thing, helpless in the cat-body of which it could not rid itself without giving away more than it already had, stayed by the door. The bladder- and bowel-pressure were considerable by now. And Staunton obviously wasn’t going to let him out of the house. He didn’t feel, except in the objective sense of being aware of, the pain of the body he was in; but that was not the problem. Staunton expected to keep him shut up for several days. He had to let this body evacuate itself before then or the very fact that it had not would he an additional cause for suspicion. Staunton had more than enough already. The question then was whether to use the floor or the box. If he pretended to be strictly an outdoor cat, unused to using a sawdust box, and dirtied the floor now and as often as he could, would that disgust Staunton and cause his release earlier than if he pretended to be housebroken to the extent of using the box?
He watched Staunton emotionlessly—not hating him, because the emotion of hatred was as alien to him as the feeling of mercy—except, in both cases, toward his own kind.
Suddenly a thought came to him. Staunton, with his suspicions already aroused, might well make an attempt to find out where the cat he was using had come from, who had owned it, how and when it had disappeared. And other facts about it—including the degree of its being housebroken. Any discrepancy would make Staunton still more suspicious. The mind thing knew he should examine the mind of his current host and let his actions as a cat correspond with what that particular cat would do under given circumstances, and guide his actions accordingly.
It took him only a second to locate that particular memory in the cat’s brain. He walked over to the sawdust box.
Staunton, at the sink, glanced down casually. “Attaboy,” he said. “Nice kitty.”
Yes, the mind thing knew that this was what he should have done all along, examined the mind of his particular host and acted as the host would have acted under the same circumstances, any time he was under observation. Had he only done that yesterday when the woman had that seen him in the hallway—walked out into the kitchen and looked at the two of them calmly, instead of hiding…
This chore taken care of, he thought what he should do next to play his part to the hilt. He’d lie down and sleep a while, probably. Find a soft comfortable place to rest in. There was a sofa in the living room. He padded through the doorway, jumped up onto the sofa, and curled himself up comfortably.
Staunton was standing there in the doorway. “Okay, Cat,” he said. “Might as well make yourself at home. What made you hide yesterday and last night?” Then he went back into the kitchen.
The mind thing let his cat-body rest and sleep, but his own mind was thinking what a fool he’d been, letting himself panic, and hiding twice, once when the woman had seen him in the hallway, once when, after he’d walked through the flour, Staunton had come home after midnight.
He let himself explore his host’s mind thoroughly now, at leisure. Losing a few days being shut up here would be an annoyance but still only a minor delay. Apparently Staunton wasn’t going to try him out with specific psychological tests, but just keep him under general observation. It should be easy for the mind thing, now that he knew what he had to do.
It was beginning to get a little warm and Staunton was going around opening all of the downstairs windows —but each only a carefully calculated scant two inches, just enough so a medium-small cat couldn’t get through.
A little later, Staunton was looking down at him. “Cat,” he said, “I’m going downtown a while; you hold the fort. I’ll pick up some cat food or liver or something. While you’re here, I might as well be the perfect host.”
The mind thing almost made his present host jump; then he realized Staunton was using the word “host” in a different sense. He blinked at him sleepily.
When Staunton walked to the front door he jumped off the sofa and ran after him, to stay in character. But Staunton reached down a hand and took him gently by the scruff of the neck—the first time there had been physical contact between them—and held him back until he was able to get the door closed from the outside, with the cat inside.
In Bartlesville Doc made his first stop at the office of the
Hollis looked up from the typewriter he’d been hammering. “Hi,” he said. “What’s new?”
“Nothing startling, Ed. Just wanted to ask you a question. Know anybody looking for a missing cat?”
Hollis laughed. “A cat? Cats are a dime a dozen around here. If one wanders off, it wanders off. Why? You find one?”
“Yes. And thought I might keep it a while if it wants to stay with me. But I wouldn’t if I knew whoever owned it really wanted it. It might be a child’s pet, for instance.”
“There’s that. Well, I can run an ad in the lost and found column for you. Deadline for that is Friday noon; that’s when we start closing the forms.”
Staunton thought a moment. He might as well save stopping in again by giving Hollis the ad now. He said, “Okay, I’ll give you the ad now. ‘Found, small gray cat.’ And give it a box number; I’ll check with you next week to see if there’s been an answer.”
“Sure.” Hollis jotted it down on a pad. “But hey, I know whose cat it might be. I was out at Kramer’s last week and he had a small gray cat, among several others. That’s out your way, so it might be his.”
“Just where out my way?”
