Not only the family, Professor, not only the family …
After discovering the corpse of the pregnant Balinese Solitaire, I noted a striking contradiction in my speculations, because her death seemed to prove that the killer had sought out his victims at random. This was a false assumption, for the exception, so to speak, had only proven the rule. Expectant females were supposed to have given up their lives in the name of a pure-blooded race. Even the males of the old-new race had not always had their lust under control and occasionally had amused themselves with female "regulars." The outcome of such matings, however, had seemed inferior to the killer, or had, at best, not fit into his plan, and so they, too, had had to be eliminated. Consequently, at the time of her murder, Solitaire had been carrying not Kong's children but those of an old-new male. Poor Kong had been deceived!
It could also be assumed that the killer had murdered even those pregnant females who had been completely uninvolved because, on the one hand, he had wanted to prevent another race from reproducing itself, and, on the other, had wanted to make room for the newly developing super race. He had had the same attitude toward cripples. But what really was so special about this super race?
To cast light on the inscrutable motives of the butcher, Pascal had used role-playing methods (good old Pascal was indeed a gifted actor!):
"So let's assume I'm the murderer. I go out regularly on nightly raids to murder others of my kind for motives known only to the Good Lord and myself. I murder and murder, and always cover my tracks by taking hold of the corpses between my teeth, lugging them to the air shafts, and throwing them down into the catacombs. And then, out of the blue, I give up this method, which means that sooner or later someone will find the evidence of my dastardly deeds and hunt me down. Why do I do this? Why do I do something that can only bring me into danger?"
All at once I saw the truth: the murderer had become old. Much too old and much too ill to drag corpses around in the district and to dispose of them in hidden catacombs.
I thought I knew still another reason why the villain had recently left his victims lying where he had killed them. But this was a reason I wanted him to confirm for me in person …
The interpretation of my fourth nightmare had become downright superfluous. I was beside myself with shame, for even someone with half a brain would have understood the dramatic symbolism and messages in that dream vision.
"I am the murderer, I am the Prophet, I am Julius Preterius, I am Gregor Johann Mendel, I am the eternal riddle, I am the man and the beast—and I am Felidae. All of these I am in one person and more, much more!" the killer had said, who had acquired a dazzling white exterior because of the surreal workings of the dream machinery.
In reality, he had been anything but white—both within and without. He had told the truth with his ambiguous confession: he had actually been all those persons in one person …
"Everything that ever was and ever will be no longer has any meaning …"
Yes, a new age had now dawned for my kind, and, in accordance with the glorious plans of the Prophet, we were all supposed to come together like the Bremen City Musicians and commence a long and wonderful journey back to our origins.
"To Africa! To Africa! To Africa!"
"And what will we find there?"
"Everything we lost …"
... on the savannas of Africa, in the deserted skyline canyons of New York, in the icy wastes of Siberia, at the steel feet of the Eiffel Tower, on the Great Wall of China, on the cliffs of the Himalayas, on the steppes of Australia—everywhere they would be on the march, everywhere: caravans, armies, billions, hundreds of billions, myriads of Felidae, the sand-colored representatives of an old-new race with glowing yellow eyes. They would tramp across an earth that would now belong to them alone. They would have shaken off the curse of domestication long ago; they would be wild, free, and dangerous. Anyone who attempted to contest their domination of the world would be eliminated in the crudest manner.
The last human being, hidden behind a boulder, watches the eerie parade. He is in a state of complete neglect, and has tears in his eyes. And when he recognizes the size of this titanic army, he loses his mind. He runs away. All too quickly they catch up with him, circle him, and, screeching, tear him to pieces. The children receive the meat, the older ones drink the blood, and his skeleton is exhibited in a zoo formerly used for predators as a warning to all living creatures in the world that nobody should ever dare again to rise over the imperial family of Felidae. Then they go their way, perhaps in rockets and space vehicles, to populate the galaxies, the universe, and even other universes …
It was the dream of a madman!
It was the dream of Claudandus, the Prophet, who had descended from Heaven to take revenge for the injustices that had been inflicted on his kind. Yet revenge was not his only goal. He wanted more, he wanted everything!
I decided to confront him that very night.
10
The end of a story is always sad. This is, first, because at the end of a story we are
