"You're the one who's really a human being!" I cried. "You think just like they do! You act just like they do! You only want to repeat all the misery they have brought to the world. You're dreaming not of real change but of establishing a new dictatorship paid for with hundreds and thousands of dead from your own ranks. And tell me what kind of a role you've thought up for the other animal species in your oh-so-very-wonderful never-never land? Come on, answer me!"
"No role at all! They're dumb and they submit to their fate. No will and no energy, you understand? They are born victims and will be our servants one day just like the human beings. We could be the new rulers of the world, Francis. Dynasties and kingdoms could arise, and our power could extend over the oceans and into the remotest deserts. Don't be so stupid, Francis! Tear the veil away from your eyes and recognize at last what human beings have made out of us! Cuddly dolls, amusing buffoons for their diversion-craving eyes, substitute love objects for their cold hearts, picturesque finishing touches for their crappy landscaped interiors! That's what's happened to us! Haven't you noticed how small we are? Any doting human being can wring our necks. We are at their mercy till hell freezes over, and the worst thing is that we do not even realize that we are in a perpetual state of bondage, that we have grown used to it, that we, in fact, even like it. Do you want your kind to live on and on in this degrading way? Do you want that, Francis?"
"Judge not that ye not be judged, Pascal."
"Pascal? Ha! The name of a computer language, of a computer language that was created by human beings! That's human, typically human. All these idiotic names that they give us because they can't help but project their own crippled feelings onto us. Because they no longer have anything to say to one another, because they need us as substitutes for disappointed friendships and for affection. My name is neither Pascal nor Claudandus, nor do I bear any other name that human beings may dream up for me. I am Felidae, member of a species that devours human beings!"
"And Ziebold?" I asked. "Didn't he save your life and nurse you back to health?"
"Nonsense! He only had feelings of guilt because he himself had been a murderer for years and because this was an easy way for him to be able to ease his conscience. They are all, every one of them Francis, hypocritical. Their own phony sanctimoniousness is their true God, to whom they sacrifice new victims day after day. And that's exactly the way they want to have us, too. They want to make caricatures of themselves out of us!"
"But there are also good people, Pascal or Claudandus or Felidae or whoever you are. Believe me. And one day, and even if it is one distant day, all living creatures on God's earth will enjoy equal rights, live in harmony or perhaps even in love with one another and understand one another better."
"No! No! No!" he bellowed, his eyes burning with impotent rage and hate. "There are no good people! They're all the same! Don't you understand that? Animals are good human beings and human beings are bad animals!"
I cautiously turned my back on him and leaned over the computer keyboard.
"Everyone wants to rule the world," I said, filled with sorrow. "Really, absolutely everyone. That's what it's all about, isn't it? That's what it's always about in the end. And every species believes that it's number one. Every individual is firmly convinced that it alone has the right to ascend to the throne and issue orders to get rid of others. And in reality everyone is fooling themselves, because up there on the throne it's lonely and cold. We don't have anything more to say to one another, my friend. I understand the reasons why you unleashed this nightmare, and I don't want to conceal from you either that I harbor certain feelings of sympathy for your inexorably cruel plans. But not at this price, no, not at this terrible price! I will fight you and do everything in my power to destroy your life's work. That I swear as sure as I am standing here. And I'm going to begin by deleting this unspeakable program. I'm sorry …"
"You have no idea how really sorry I am, Francis," I heard him whisper with deep sadness from below.
Then, as my paws touched the delete key, I heard the sound I had been waiting for the entire time. A loud hissing, as if the air were being ripped into two, and an insane screeching. I threw myself instinctively to the side, and he hit the monitor with all his weight so that it fell from the processing unit, slid over the edge of the glass desk, and crashed down on the floor. The cathode ray tube imploded with a muffled boom, the monitor burst into a thousand fragments, and a broadside of sparks shot out of its insides and set the white curtains of the front window on fire.
Pascal and I now stood facing each other, both of us as tense as we could get, the fur along our backs standing on end. Our backs were arched in a threatening gesture, and we growled in warning. Suddenly my dark opponent heaved himself up on his back legs and flung himself at me with the extended, razor-tipped claws of his front paws that whirled, hissing, like an Oriental weapon. I replied in kind. We met in the middle of the desk, our claws digging into each other. In this position, we fell onto the glass top
