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                                TYBALT

                            BY STEPHEN BARR

                Adolescence is a perilous time--whether
                    it is the adolescence of a man,
                     or of the whole race of Man!

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
               Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1962.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


The physics teacher, Howard Dax, dismissed the class. He picked up
a felt-covered block and erased the diagrams he had drawn on the
blackboard. He noticed with annoyance that the lines were shaky, and in
one place was an irregular star where the chalk had broken because of
his exasperation at his pupils--or more exactly, one particular pupil.

When the blackboard was clean to the corners--Howard Dax was a very
precise man--he turned around and saw that the particular pupil was
still sitting at his desk. He was a thin boy of fifteen, called
Mallison, whose dark, wavy hair was too long. It rose in a kind of
breaker over his forehead, and he had sideburns cut to a point. His
expression was neither sullen nor impertinent, but Dax had always
had the feeling that Mallison was concealing intense boredom and only
listened to him perforce. He was sure that the narrow, rather handsome
face was on the verge of sneering. But there had never been quite
anything that he could put his finger on. The boy was definitely not
good at physics, yet he wasn't at the bottom of the class. The thing
was that he gave the impression of being above average intelligence. He
obviously could do very much better if he wanted to. Dax was convinced
that he despised physics, and school in general.

"Yes?" Dax said. "What is it?" He tried to make his voice sound natural
and casual.

Mallison stared at him impassively for a moment. Then he said, "You
don't like me, Mr. Dax, do you?"

"My dear boy, I neither like you nor dislike you," Dax said. He could
feel his hands beginning again to tremble slightly. Damn adrenalin! "I
am merely trying to teach you elementary physics. Why do you ask?"

"Why do you give me such low grades?" Mallison said, but with no sense
of urgent curiosity.

Howard Dax thought that the boy's manner was altogether too adult. He
didn't expect deference from a modern teenager, but neither did he like
to be spoken to in such a man-to-man way. No; come to think of it,
man-to-man wasn't quite the phrase. It was off-hand. And yet it was
artificial: Mallison never spoke in this way to his contemporaries. He
usually talked like a ... what was it? Hipster?

"I give students the grades that in my opinion they deserve," Dax said.
"In your case they are low because I don't think you're trying."

"I am trying," Mallison said, then added, "sir."

"You are," Dax said. "Very." He thought the remark was rather neat,
but the boy looked at him without any change of expression. Why was he
here? What did he want to say? "I must confess," Dax went on, "that I
am surprised at your interest in grades. I should have thought that
rock-and-roll was more your style. That and ... er ... racing around
at night in a fast car!" He felt that he was sneering, and made his
face blank.

"I'm too young for a driver's license," Mallison said.

"But old enough to pull yourself together and do some real work. You
could do much better in class. You're not stupid."

       *       *       *       *       *

The boy said nothing and continued to stare at him without expression.

"When I see signs of an improved attitude," Dax said, "and a little
more work, I shall mark you accordingly. One gets the impression
usually that your mind is on other things. Things like jazz records."

"Didn't you listen to jazz when you were young, Mr. Dax?"

Howard Dax at thirty-nine hardly thought of himself as old. The boy was
not being exactly fresh, but he had a sort of polite tactlessness. It
was absurd, but he felt that Mallison had the upper hand, somehow.

Dax had an older brother who had been a lieutenant in World War II,
and he had described to him an occasion on which he had interviewed
an elderly staff sergeant. The staff sergeant in civilian life had
been his brother's boss. Although his manner was scrupulously correct,
there remained an atmosphere of his peacetime ascendancy. Howard Dax
sympathized with his brother. There was nothing actually wrong with
Mallison's manner, but the pupil had the master on the defensive.

He decided to ignore Mallison's question. He had no idea how the young
nowadays felt about the subject of early Benny Goodman or the emergence
of Barrel House. Why was he even bothering?

"The point at issue," he said with asperity, "is not whether I used to
listen to jazz twenty-five years ago, but whether you are going to pay
attention in class _now_. I admit you manage to scrape through in the
tests, but this morning, for example, you acted as if you were half
asleep!"

"I'm sorry. I was very tired." Mallison did look pale.

"I suppose you were up half the night--cutting a rug."

Mallison winced at the outdated jargon but he merely shook his head.
There were firm steps in the corridor, and the school principal marched
in.

Mallison stood up; Dax was still standing. The principal had a small
piece of folded paper in his hand, and did not immediately notice the
boy, whose desk was near the back row and next the open windows. He
went straight to the platform and put the folded paper on Dax's desk.
He nodded curtly and glanced towards the windows, and saw Mallison
sitting there for the first time.

       *       *       *       *       *

"I thought you were alone," he said, turning to Dax.

"You may go," Dax said to the boy. "That will be all. Remember what
I said." He looked at the folded paper and then at the principal
questioningly. "Yes, Mr. Lightstone?"

The principal was a short white-haired man with a dogged expression.
He turned again to make sure the boy had left and said. "I want you to
look at this, Dax." He tapped the folded paper, which had been made
into a sort of envelope, with its ends tucked in. Dax bent to examine
it.

"Pick it up, man! Open it," the principal said, and came around and sat
in the teacher's chair. "Be careful not to spill it!"

Dax picked up the little packet and opened it. Inside was a teaspoonful
of white powder. "What is it?" he asked.

"That," said the principal, "is something for our friends upstairs
in the chemistry department to determine. I found it myself, in the
flowerbed right outside these windows!"

Howard Dax looked puzzled. "I don't think I understand--"

"If I don't miss my bet," said the principal, "that's heroin!" He
jerked his head towards the windows. "And somebody threw it out of
this classroom!"

"Oh, I don't think it's heroin, Mr. Lightstone," Dax said. "Heroin has
a distinct glitter, and this seems--"

"I had the impression you were a physicist, not a chemist," the
principal said. "Besides, the police told us last week that they
believe a gang of narcotics pushers--I think they called them--are
operating in the neighborhood! What else could it be? I've been on the
lookout for something of this sort."

There was a silence. Dax didn't know what to say.

He himself was very tired, he had been working late every evening. He
had three different tasks that occupied every minute of his waking
hours: his job as teacher being the least important although the most
essential. The other two were perhaps visionary, but they might lead to
something more exciting than retiring on a pension.

"Well?" Mr. Lightstone was impatient--his usual condition. "Have you
any ideas? It has been my experience that drug-taking and juvenile
delinquency go together." This was not strictly true as Mr. Lightstone
had never knowingly seen a drug-taker, but he did read the papers.

"I suppose there is a certain amount of delinquency here," Howard Dax
said uncertainly, "but _narcotics_...."

"Wake up, man!" the principal said. "You look half asleep! This is a
serious matter. I found the stuff right outside these windows! You must
have some idea of who might be involved. Which are the unruly ones? Who
sits next the windows?"

Dax glanced at the desk recently left by Mallison. Mallison? One
couldn't exactly call him unruly.... Yet he had the earmarks of a type
he detested and instinctively mistrusted. He even feared him a little,
though not perhaps for reasons of which he was quite aware.

"Who was that boy that just left?" The principal had noticed the
direction of Dax's glance. "Mallison, wasn't it?"

"Yes, but the packet might just as well have been thrown from one of
the paths outside."

"There's no path near here. You know that perfectly well," said the
principal. "There's a wide stretch of grass beyond the flower bed and
no one's allowed to walk on it! I've had my eye on that boy...."

       *       *       *       *       *

Howard Dax thought this over. Come to think of it, he wouldn't put
such a thing past the young smart-alec. Hoodlumism doesn't necessarily
advertise itself in the classroom.

He looked at the principal. The man had a nerve to accuse _him_ of
seeming half asleep! Working in his private lab after dinner and then
at his desk until all hours, struggling to learn Middle English--or
rather, transitional Anglo-Saxon. He had done well at English lit at
college, even though majoring in science, and Chaucer had come fairly
easy to him. But Twelfth Century speech--and that was what he had
to learn--was something else again. Chaucer himself couldn't have
understood it. He wondered what young Mallison and his hipster friends
would think if they knew his secret occupations. He could just imagine
the sneering.

"Well, you _could_ be right, I suppose," he said. "He's not my--shall
I say?--favorite pupil."

"I'm glad you think I could be right," Mr. Lightstone said. "I intend
to hold an investigation. At the first possible opportunity. This very
evening, in fact. At my office, and I shall have young Mallison brought
before us. I shall expect you." He got up and strutted out of the class
room.

After a few moments Howard Dax followed him. Outside, on his way to the
gate, he passed Mallison, who was standing talking to another boy who
had a similar haircut, but was unfamiliar to the physics teacher. He
thought he was not a pupil of this school. They both became silent as
he drew near them, looking at him without any expression. Dax wondered
if narcotics could be responsible for Mallison's pallor.

After dinner Dax went into his little lab, which was actually the
kitchenette he never used. On the table and sink was some chemical
apparatus. The principal's remark had been ill-chosen since Dax at
college had started with chemistry as his major and had only switched
to physics in his senior year. He had also become interested in
genetics, and it was this all-around interest in the sciences that had
perhaps militated against him. Nowadays one ought to specialize.

Well, he was specializing now.

In an evaporating dish in the sink were some dark brown crystals
that his landlady would have taken for Damerara sugar, but which had
a considerably more complex formula. They would have lent a rather
odd flavor to Indian pudding. The logic which had given rise to this
formula was not merely complex but revolutionary. It involved the
concept of reversibility of entropy--the application of which was
itself unprecedented.

There were, Howard Dax was aware, certain aspects of germ chemistry
that defied description in terms of classical and mechanistic theory;
details that seemed to require the inversion of Time's arrow. To say
that a physical process was "non-reversible" usually implied the
presence of the probability factor. But that didn't seem to be the
case here. There was the suggestion of prophecy. Or else that time was
flowing backwards. Or ... was it that something flowed backward through
time?

Then there was the fact that the germ plasm was immortal. Not
indestructible, for the overwhelming majority of zygotes and gametes
died; but if one disregarded the soma, all living germ cells had been
alive since the beginning of life. After terrific work, none of which
would have seemed quite orthodox to his colleagues, Dax had arrived at
the end of theory and the beginning of practical application--at the
taking-off point--the countdown.

       *       *       *       *       *

Lying on the drainboard near the evaporating dish was a hypodermic
syringe.

If he were to dissolve the dark brown crystals and inject the solution
into his veins, Dax believed that whatever it was that impeded this
time-reversal would be neutralized. His consciousness--not his body,
his somatic cells--would travel back along the unbroken line of his
identity as a germinal continuity. Back to the extent that the effect
of the chemical would allow.

He would then be in the body of one of his ancestors. Not spread among
them all, but following the line of greatest genetic valence to one
individual: living in the Twelfth Century A. D. Probably, but not
certainly, somewhere in England, since most of his ancestors came from
there.

Of course the time might be wrong. He had no way of making a precise
determination. He had experimented with a rabbit, but after the soft
little beast's eyes glazed over in unconsciousness it had immediately
come to. The time taken during its visit to the purlieus of its remote
and unknown forebears was of no duration in the present. And it had at
once attacked him and bitten him savagely.

It seemed curious that an ancestral rabbit at a period not so very far
back from a biological point of view should have a spirit so foreign to
the rabbits of today. Perhaps the drug had overshot its mark....

What if that were to happen in his case? Wouldn't it perhaps take him
to some earlier, non-human form and then, as it were, rebound to the
precise moment in history that the strength of the drug indicated? A
man is not a rabbit. But suppose he found himself not in the body of a
Twelfth Century Englishman--a risky enough situation--but hanging by
his tail from a tree in Java? How long before the hypothetical rebound
to the time of the Plantagenets?

Howard Dax was too tired to concentrate on the problem: it was probably
moonshine. The rabbit had been frightened, not atavistic.

The cumulative effect of overwork and irritation at the boy Mallison
and the principal's manner had made him reckless and impatient. He
made a sudden decision to stop worrying about precautions and take the
plunge ... now.

He had plenty of time before the meeting. The trip to the past would
have no duration in the present. He measured out an amount of distilled
water and stirred the brown crystals into it with a glass rod. Then he
filled the hypodermic and went into his bed-sittingroom.

He went to his desk and took a last look at a list of early English
irregular verbs and lay down on his sofa, rolling up his sleeve.

He hardly felt the prick of the needle but he realized that the rather
painful bump on his forehead had distracted his attention from it.

He looked at the thing he had bumped against. It was wooden and round
in section, about as thick as his neck, and rose at a slight deviation
from the vertical to a circular platform that was supported at other
places by two more wooden uprights. Beyond and above was an immensely
lofty roof of dark timbers. Far to the sides were stone walls.

He looked down to discover that the cold floor under him was also of
stone, covered here and there with dry yellowish reeds. Then he saw
that he was on all fours.

Instead of hands he had black, furry paws.


                                  II

Trice, the jester, was getting old. So, he feared, were his jokes.

His joints were stiff and he could no longer do the amusing contortions
that used so to entertain the Earl and his little court. In fact, the
Earl was getting on, too. He looked as though he was falling asleep in
his chair. Next to him the Lady Godwina was mumbling and giggling--not
at poor Trice's feeble quips, but as a result of too much blackberry
wine mixed with mead. She hiccoughed loudly and the Earl opened his
eyes.

He glanced at the Lady Godwina with bored distaste, and then at Trice
the jester. Would that the fellow would cease his tedious clowning and
go to the kitchens! Yet he hesitated to get rid of him altogether.
Having a jester at all in these days was a mark of prestige, and he
didn't know where he'd get a replacement.

Now that King Henry was dead he had fortified his castle like the other
barons. Since feudal pomp had become the fashion he hung onto its
trappings--poor old Trice was one of them. But, ye gods, what stale
jokes! Well, at least they seemed to please the younger serving men,
who must be too young to remember them.

Trice was unhappily aware that his humor was missing the mark. He fell
back on the one thing that never failed to make them laugh. He swung
his bauble and hit himself on the nose. He staggered back with comic
terror. "Hold on!" he cried to an imaginary assailant. "Not so hard!"
He struck himself again, harder. "Stop! Or I shall appeal to my noble
lord for protection!"

The Earl smiled faintly; he didn't want to disappoint the old man.
Besides, his nose was bleeding. It really was rather funny. Curious
about these people: they had almost no sense of pain. Trice, seeing the
smile, hit himself again and again, and feeling the blood, he smeared
it over his face in fantastic curlicues. The Earl closed his eyes
again, and Trice caught the eye of the clerk, a young man who had come
from Normandy. He was sneering. The Lady Godwina was singing a little
tune to herself, and paid no attention.

The old jester shrugged, and turned towards the archway to the kitchens
and offices. Better have supper and go to bed--his head ached and his
nose hurt badly, although the bleeding had stopped. Next to a wooden
stool he caught sight of his cat, Tybalt, staring at him fixedly.
Tybalt. His only friend! he thought to himself. But as he passed him,
the cat, instead of following him out with tail erect to share the
jester's wretched supper, backed cringing under the stool and turned
his head as he went by, keeping his staring eyes on him. Most unusual.
Very un-catlike.

"Here! Tybalt!" Trice said, but the cat backed further away.

       *       *       *       *       *

Just before he realized what had happened to him, Dax recognized that
the big wooden thing that loomed over him was a stool.

Maybe it was this realization--and the sight of his own paws--that gave
him an idea of his size, and on looking back at the rest of himself
he knew that he was a cat. Something had gone wrong. The flashback
and subsequent rebound must have taken him far into the dim mammalian
past, but for what duration he could not tell. The transition had been
unconscious. At least he did not remember it. But to judge by the style
of the round stone arches of the hall he was now in--and the stonework
looked brand new--the ultimate effect had been according to plan, and
this was the early Middle Ages.

A movement caught his eye and he saw it was the cavorting of an
enormous man, dressed in gigantic tattered motley.

No. He wasn't enormous; it was just the unfamiliar scale of things. The
man was saying something in a booming voice, and Dax began to recognize
it as a form of transitional early English--but with an admixture of
Norman French and some pure Anglo-Saxon phrases. And what an accent!
If this man was typical, how wrong modern research and learned
speculation were! He would have some interesting things to tell the
experts--particularly his tutor--when he got back.

When he got back.... That was supposed to be in three days
approximately, when the inhibiting effect of the chemical would wear
off. Then he would, he hoped, be swept back to his own time and his
own body. But he was a cat. This was disastrous! How could he speak to
people? He could understand them fairly well, but a cat's bucal cavity
and vocal apparatus were not designed for the sounds of human speech.

He decided to try his voice, just on the chance, but stopped, horrified
at the muffled yowl that resulted.

Two rangy hounds, six times his size, roused themselves from the
rush-covered floor and glared growling at the sound with raised
hackles. "Down, Colle! Stop it, Bayard!" a gruff voice commanded, and
they reluctantly sank back again, keeping their fierce eyes on him. Was
this a sample of what he must expect from dogs? He hoped it was merely
his abortive attempt at human speech. Any further communication must be
tried silently.

He looked around the hall. There were other humans too. Several
men-at-arms standing by the walls and a few serving men. At the big
trestle-board were seated five people--one of them clearly the lord of
the castle--it must be a castle--and the one woman sitting next to him
in soiled finery would be his lady. The place reeked with the stale
odor of humans and dogs, and less obnoxiously the smell of wood smoke
and cooked meat. Dax realized that he now had a feline nose, and made
allowances. After all, the well-to-do bathed themselves, in the still
existing classic tradition, and would until the Black Death.

The ridiculous giant in motley stopped his capering and came across
the stone flags towards him. As he passed with ponderous footsteps he
looked down and said, "Here, Tybalt!"

Dax backed under the stool, terrified at the deep, hoarse voice. The
man was probably trying to be gentle. He must keep in mind that he had
a cat's hearing now, and all sounds would seem lower and louder.

       *       *       *       *       *

How were cats treated in Medieval England? He did not know, and he was
not prepared for this contingency. But at least cats as a species had
survived. He hoped he was one of the lucky ones. He must at all costs
manage to keep alive for three days, because if he were killed before
the drug wore off he would not return.

What would they think at the school? Nothing, of course. He would never
have been there. That would be changing the future ... but you changed
the future every time you exerted your free will, anyhow.

One of his experimental rats had not come back: it had merely
disappeared with a loud pop. Perhaps an early Colonial terrier had got
it. It might be the best thing to do to take to the woods, and wait out
the time safe from the unknown dangers of men and dogs--but what of the
dangers of the woods? It was winter, to judge by the fire in the hall,
on a raised stone platform in the middle of the floor, from which the
smoke found its way out through a louver in the high roof. And the icy
drafts that came across the floor. Although he was a cat, he had little
confidence of being able to hunt like one, or find refuge from the cold
and snow.

He decided to follow the court jester. At least the man had spoken to
him kindly. And he had a name: Tybalt. He must remember to answer to
it.

He got up and began to walk towards the arched doorway through which
the jester had disappeared.

Walking on all fours felt perfectly natural--rather as if he were
following himself. There was no trouble about keeping in step, or,
rather, just out of it. His mouth was dry and he ran his tongue over
his muzzle ... he could lick his eye! Then he did something that also
felt natural, though pleasantly novel: he waved his tail. Then he stuck
out his claws. They clicked against the flagstones and he sheathed them
again.

He had never in his life felt so supple and physically complete. He
felt like running up the tapestry that hung by the doorway.

At the other end of the vaulted corridor that he found himself in he
could see the jester as he went into another chamber that was lit with
a smoky reddish glow. There was an increased smell of cookery, and he
guessed it was the kitchen.

When he got to the door he could see the jester was being given
something in a bowl that steamed, and a large hunk of dark bread. The
man turned and came out again and saw him.

"Come along, Tybalt," he said. "Supper for you and me. Come along, old
fellow!"

Dax followed him across the corridor to a narrow stone stairway in the
thickness of the wall. The winding steps seemed absurdly high. He would
far rather have done the whole thing in two or three long leaps, but
he took the steps one by one. Feline coordination would come to him in
time.

After an almost totally unlit passage they came to a minute room,
scarcely more than a cell. The jester struck a light with flint and
steel to a tallow candle, and sat down on a low straw-covered bed. The
floor was freezing. Dax jumped up onto a small table, but was instantly
pushed off it. His instinctive jump up and then down happened so
quickly that he only realized in retrospect what a feat it was from a
man's point of view. Yet he had landed clumsily. He was not yet quite a
cat.

       *       *       *       *       *

The jester cut off a piece of dubious-looking meat and threw it onto
the floor. "Wait till it cools, Tybalt," he said, and scratched Dax
behind the ears. Dax was ravenous, which seemed odd considering
he'd had dinner half an hour ago. No, of course not. That was eight
centuries in the future; God knew when Tybalt had last eaten.
Disregarding the admonition he went at once to the meat, which was
pork, and burned his mouth. It smelled glorious. And yet he suspected
that in human form he would have revolted from it.

He looked up at his master. He had a conviction that he belonged to the
jester.

He studied the gaunt, blood-smeared face. It looked as if someone had
hit him on the nose. The cap-and-bells, with its attached wimple-shaped
neck piece, had been laid aside. The gray bobbed hair and bony head
looked anything but merry. There was, however, a shrewd reflective
expression in the eyes, and Dax felt that he might well be in an
advantageous position. Being a jester probably involved a certain
amount of tact and discretion, not to mention ingenuity, so he resolved
to try to communicate with him.

But first he must eat. Would the damned pork never cool?

The jester was already eating his, in great gulps, alternating it with
bits of the evil-looking bread. There was a stoneware pot that smelled
strongly of musty ale from which he drank every now and then. The
stench of alcohol in it was like spoiled garbage to Dax. How had he
ever been able to drink whisky? The thought of it was disgusting. The
meat was cool enough now--in fact stone cold--and he tore it to pieces
with his pointed teeth and bolted it unchewed. It was marvelous.

"Well, Tybalt?" the jester said, putting aside his bowl. "No mice
today? We are not very lucky, we two, are we?" He made a snapping with
his fingers and Dax jumped up onto the pallet beside him. The old man
stroked his back gently, but he had a very strong smell. Dax supposed
he would get used to his new keen senses in time. He hoped it would be
soon. It was very cold in the jester's cell and he intended to creep
close at bed time. In the meanwhile how was he going to make known his
true identity? Obviously speech was impossible; and Morse-code tapping
with his paw was out of the question.

You wouldn't get very far with mere facial expressions, either. Anyway,
to most human eyes a cat has but two: contentment and fear. He looked
around wondering if there were any small movable objects that he could
arrange into the form of the letters of the alphabet--even a piece of
string might do. But he feared that the man couldn't read. Anyway there
was no string to be seen.

Then on the table, which was scarcely more than a high bench, he saw a
rosary with wooden beads.

He got up and stretched--never in his life had he been able to stretch
like this--and jumped delicately over onto the table. The jester
reached out and swept him off it. Not roughly, but it was obvious
he wasn't allowed there. This time his landing was more skillful.
He sat on the cold floor and tried to think how he could get hold of
the beads. If he had them on the floor he could push them into an
arresting shape. A triangle perhaps, or a figure eight, that would
catch the jester's eye. He looked up at a movement and saw that the
man had picked up a small vellum book and was holding it close to his
face. What luck! he could read after all! But how was he going to make
letters? Near the sill of the door were some pieces of straw. He went
over and examined them. He realized that a cat's vision is rather poor
compared to a man's: quick to notice and interpret motion, but in other
respects the over-large pupils, meant for nocturnal hunting, gave an
inferior and uncertain image.

       *       *       *       *       *

The straw was dirty and smelled of horses, but it ought to do. The
trouble was that when his face was close enough to pick it up with his
teeth he could scarcely make it out. He couldn't tell at first whether
he had one or many in his mouth. He felt that his whiskers should
tell him, but he was unaccustomed to their use. He padded over to the
jester's feet and dropped the straws. He backed off and looked at them,
then with his paw he ineptly pushed them into an A.

He looked up. The jester was lost in his reading.

Dax waited patiently, but the reading went on, and he patted the man's
foot with carefully sheathed claws. The jester glanced at him, though
not at the crude, straw A, and smiled.

"What now, Tybalt? More supper? That you will have to catch
for yourself. See--it's all gone! Share-and-share alike, old
friend. I weigh eight stone. You're but a scant four pound, so
correspondingly...." He returned to his reading.

Dax went and picked out some more straw which he brought back and
attempted to arrange in a B, but gave it up and made an E instead. Then
he made two crosses and a triangle.

AEXXΔ.

It looked like a fraternity. Then he mewed.

The man looked down again with a faint frown. He didn't seem to notice
the straw shapes; judging from the way he held the book he was quite
short-sighted. "Out?" he asked. "Out for a rat, poor Tybalt? Or to lie
by the embers in the hall?" He shook his head and got up, and went to
the door to open it. Dax jumped onto the bed and mewed again. The man
paused with his hand on the latch, looking puzzled. Dax jumped down and
dabbed with his paw next each letter successively.

"Why, what is this?" the old man said, smiling again. "Playfulness? The
kitten is back!" He went to the table and picking up the bauble, made a
feint with the stuffed bladder over Dax's head. Dax dodged it irritably
and mewed again; three times in quick succession.

This caught the attention of the jester, who laid down the bauble.
"Ah! A Tritheist! Will it get you a mouse, Tybalt? Will it keep off
evil spirits? It's said the imps love cats--so beware of moonlight and
mistletoe!" He picked Dax up and stroked him.

It was infuriating.

Dax was aware that the Medieval mind was very different from the
modern, but there must be some meeting point. Too bad this wasn't
Friar Roger Bacon--he'd have got his attention in no time. But he was
a hundred years too early. His immediate problem was to seek out some
person who had enough imagination and curiosity to take notice of a cat
who behaved not as a cat. If he had only known this was going to happen!

He tried mewing again, but the jester only smiled, so he mewed once,
then twice and then three times. The jester shook his head admiringly.
Like most of his contemporaries the world for him was filled with
wonders. It was an age of faith, not of speculation.

A pale moon showed through a narrow slit in the wall, which was
unglazed, and he became aware that the light from the tallow dip was
yellow, and the jester's costume red and green.

So it was all nonsense about cats having no color vision--anyway,
hadn't some woman in California disproved that? Against the moon he
could see the black outline of full-grown leaves on the nearby trees
and knew it was not yet winter but autumn. When winter came in earnest,
everyone from scullion to the lord of the manor would bed down in the
Great Hall where the fire was. But the stonework of the castle was
cold, and he felt himself getting drowsy.

The old jester put down his book, crossed himself and blew out the
light. Dax could hear him burrowing into the straw of his bed, and
nestled beside him.


                                  III

When he woke it was not quite dark, and a faint gray dawn came into the
cell.

The jester was snoring. Somewhere Dax thought he heard a rat. His
muscles tensed, and he found himself on his feet by instinct--the idea
of a rat was surprisingly attractive and he was hungry again. The noise
stopped. He remembered that he had been having a dream--a strange
nightmare of chasing after Mallison and catching him, and tearing
him ... with his claws and teeth.

A rusty bell started ringing somewhere in the castle.

The jester snorted, sat up and looked out of the narrow window. Then
he lit the candle and said his prayers, kneeling on his bed. Dax
stretched, and the old man cleaned his teeth with a splinter and took
a draught from the ale pot. It had a sour stench, but Dax found that
he no longer minded--there were so many conflicting smells around, the
most interesting of which had been the rat. A new, more immediately
hopeful one, was of cooking that drifted up from below. It seemed that
these people ate meat for their breakfast. And they liked it early.

"Come along, Tybalt," the jester said, putting on his headdress, and
went to the door. Dax slipped through quickly so as not to get his tail
caught as the jester closed it. They went down the winding stairs again.

At the bottom they came upon another cat--a big red tom--who on
catching sight of Dax fluffed his tail and laid back his ears,
spitting. Dax had a momentary impulse to see if communication was
possible with him, but the big cat yowled and fled down the hallway.

"Ah, Tybalt," the old man said. "Jesters and cats! Even their own kind
spits at them!" As they got to the kitchen Dax saw the two hounds that
had growled at him the night before. He was glad that they were now
leashed and in the charge of a boy in a short woolen surcoat.

But when they saw Dax the boy was unable to hold them back, and they
jerked their leashes from his hand and came running and barking. Dax
was terrified. He bolted ahead of them along the vaulted corridor and
into the Great Hall, but came face to face with another brace of hounds
whose ears pricked up at the sound. Dax without any conscious thought
dodged sideways and ran up the tapestry on the wall.

His sharp claws had good foothold on the tough canvas backing. But at
the top he almost lost his grip, and scarcely managed to get over onto
the musicians' gallery from which the tapestry hung. He crouched there,
trembling, while the din below increased. He could hear men shouting at
the dogs, and the jester's voice calling him. He mewed loudly for help.

       *       *       *       *       *

After a while he heard the old man's footsteps on the wooden ladder.
He was picked up and comforted, but he was so dizzy with fear that he
could hardly see. The jester seemed to think he was calm, and put him
on his shoulder and went down the ladder again. The hounds had been
taken away. But Dax stayed where he was with his eyes shut, holding on
tight.

"Well, Trice!" Dax opened his eyes and saw the lord of the manor
glowering at the jester, and then at him. So Trice was the jester's
name. An odd one. The Earl stood with his hands on his hips and seemed
irritated rather than angry. "What's this I hear? The cat runs at my
hounds and tries to scratch!"

"Oh, no, sir," Trice said. "It was the other way! They ran at him!
Tybalt has never scratched!"

"Scratched or no, I wish you'd give him to one of the villagers," the
Earl said. "I don't want the hounds upset, and Lady Godwina doesn't
like cats. Besides, he'll ruin the tapestry."

"But, my lord, he catches the rats! And he's my ... friend."

"The dogs catch the rats," the Earl said shortly. "Give him away."

"Well, my lord, the mice...."

"The red tom gets them."

The old man put up a hand to Dax protectively. "But, noble lord, what
would I do without my pet?" Dax glanced at the tired face next his and
saw tears in the eyes, but he had a determined look. "If he cannot
stay, I ... I must go, too!"

The Earl opened his eyes at this, but he smiled. "I see you are loyal,
old Trice," he said. "I hope you are as loyal to me!"

The Earl turned away. Trice put Dax on the floor and started back
towards the kitchens.

"Come, Tybalt," he said. "Or there'll be none left for us."

Dax wished he were still on the shoulder, and stayed close to the
jester's feet. Things were not going well at all. It had become as much
a problem of survival as of research and communication, but when they
got to the kitchen and the hounds were nowhere about, he decided that
perhaps the two problems were inter-related. After a meal of scraps he
felt more secure. Not seeing his master he went to look for him in the
Great Hall.

When he got there he saw that the Earl and his wife and retainers were
eating boiled meat. He remembered that his tutor in Middle English had
said the main meal in Medieval times was eaten in the morning. The
four hounds were squabbling over bones that were thrown to them on the
rush-covered flagstones under the trestle-board, and didn't notice him.
Trice was not to be seen. After a while the boy in the woolen surcoat
was told to take them out. He fastened leashes to their collars and led
them through a large doorway in the far wall. Dax looked at the Earl:
he had a fairly intelligent face, and he had shown forbearance towards
Trice, so he thought he would make another try.

The Lady Godwina got up unsteadily from her chair and left the hall--on
the way to the lady's solar, Dax guessed; and he padded across to the
Earl. When he got to the foot of the high-backed chair--it looked like
a detached choir-stall from a gothic church--he patted the Earl's foot.

The Earl looked down at him and frowned.

Dax patted the foot again; three times. Then he mewed three times, and
repeated the patting. The Earl blinked and got up, backing away. Dax
mewed three times again, and the Earl crossed himself.

"Saints preserve my soul! What have we here?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Dax turned around three times, getting his hind legs crossed and
nearly falling down. "Send for Trice at once!" the Earl shouted. "His
cat Tybalt has a fit! Careful!" he said to a serving man who had come
forward with outstretched hands. "Take care you are not bitten! He is
unclean!"

Dax backed away and ran to the open door, and out.

There was a brilliant sun and he could see nothing at first--and when
he did it was blurred, owing to the vertical shape of his contracted
pupils. It was much warmer than the night before, and the leaves
were brown on the trees. There was no courtyard and gateway, with
drawbridge and moat beyond, as he had rather expected. Instead he was
on cobblestones, surrounded at intervals by small houses, with trees
between them. The village was built against the castle, somewhat in
the French manner, but the houses were wretched affairs of mud-daubed
reeds on wooden framing: hardly better than hovels. Only a few had
more than one story. Smoke was coming up from every chimney, and the
men were evidently on their way to work in the fields. They carried
crude-looking farm implements and were dressed in coarse homespun
with their legs padded and cross-gartered. They were a sorry lot:
blank-faced and half starved.

Dax heard footsteps behind him and turned.

A young man with blond short hair and a Norman nose had come out of
the doorway. He looked at Dax with amused curiosity, and squatted
down, putting out a hand. At this proximity his eyes showed bloodshot
and there was a beery smell. He said something that Dax could not
understand--it sounded vaguely like a kind of French, but Dax had not
studied medieval Norman. Still, it had a kindly sound. Dax rubbed
against the hand. This man, at least, did not share the Earl's
diagnosis. What was his position in the Earl's household? Not his
son--he looked too unlike him. Would he be his clerk? He had a clerkly
look--what is it in a face that makes it seem scholarly? And his hands
were more fit for holding a pen than a mattock or a sword.

Well, give it another try.

Dax wished he could make an ingratiating sound, and found he was
purring. He looked around for something he could use as a signal;
mewing and tapping seemed to be misunderstood. A few yards away the
cobblestones gave place to dirt, and he started towards it. It might do
for a blackboard. He looked back, but the clerk had not moved.

Dax wondered how a cat might beckon, lacking a forefinger. He waited
until he caught the young man's eye, and tried to beckon with his
head but it had no results. He continued on to the patch of dirt and
scratched a triangle, and to his relief the clerk got up and came to
him. When he was standing over him, Dax scratched two words in Latin:
_homo sum_, and looked up.

The clerk was staring with his mouth open.

       *       *       *       *       *

Good, thought Dax: Latin was the _lingua Franca_ of medieval Europe,
and went on with his scratching. _Humani nihil a me alienum_--

There was a gasp and he looked up again. The young man had closed his
eyes and had the back of his hand against his forehead. He turned and
walked to the castle door, holding his head. Dax sat down in disgust.
A Twelfth Century hangover, indeed! A shadow fell across him and he
turned.

Three villagers: two men, and a woman in a hood were behind him.
They had an expectant air, and, realizing that they were doubtless
illiterate, he drew a large five-pointed star.

The effect on them was volcanic.

The woman screeched and threw her skirt over her head. The men crossed
themselves and one of them turned and ran. The other slashed at Dax
with a bill-hook and then, shouting, "Bewitched! Bewitched!" he, too,
ran. The bill-hook missed Dax, thanks to his instinctive leap to one
side, but the woman continued her noise and more people came out of
the cottages, armed with farming implements and sticks. Everyone was
shouting and offering advice. The main thread of their discourse was:
Possessed! Possessed! Kill it! The Devil Incarnate!

Dax was hemmed in on three sides. He started back for the castle, but
the big doorway was filled with onlookers, one of whom stepped forward,
aiming a crossbow. There was a clank followed by a hissing in the air,
and the bolt thumped into the ground next to him. The bowman cursed
and began to wind up his bow with a crannikin. Dax's fur stood out
all over him and he made a mad dash towards a group of women who had
nothing in their hands but besoms of birch twigs. It was a fortunate
choice.

Two or three women made abortive swats at him and the others backed
away, leaving a clear path. In front of him was an open space and a
tall tree.

Almost before he knew it he was near its top and the whole village was
milling around near its base, looking up with red angry faces.

"Fire the tree!" someone shouted.

"T'won't burn. It's an elm!"

"Well, _I_ shan't climb it!"

"I won't have my tree burn!" an indignant voice yelled, but was drowned
out. Small children were jumping up and down in excitement, and some
teen-age boys threw stones but none of them reached him. Dax spat
furiously. Teen-agers were the same through the ages!

"Cut it down, then!"

"T'will fall on my house!" (A woman's voice.)

The shouting died down, and Dax hung on till his claws ached. There
seemed to be a conference going on. The castle appeared to have lost
interest, which relieved him; if there was to be any more crossbow
shooting he stood little chance. After a short while the subject of
the conference became apparent as men began arriving with bundles of
dry sticks and faggots. To Dax's horror these were piled about the
trunk and set alight. Then, as the flames began to rise, green boughs
were added and a thick cloud of suffocating smoke came up.

       *       *       *       *       *

Desperately he tried to find escape. One of the elm's long branches
reached out almost over the roof of one of the houses, but it meant
climbing down into the heart of the choking cloud. Beyond the house
he suddenly caught sight of his master, Trice, who waved to him
beseechingly. It gave him courage. Holding his breath, he began to back
down the trunk until he felt the branch under him. Then he twisted
round and ran along it with his heart pounding. A cat has small lungs
for its size and holding his breath was a torment--but at last he was
free of the smoke, and he took a breath of clean air.

The roof seemed to be within reach, and the crowd had temporarily lost
sight of him in the smoke.

He could hear the jester's voice, but for some reason he couldn't
understand him--it sounded like gibberish. He crept out until the
thinning branch began to bend and, just as shouts went up from the more
observant villagers, he leapt.

He landed on the thatch--and almost lost his hold, but he was just
able to scramble to the rooftree, and ran along the ridge. There was
more shouting. Either these ones spoke a dialect or the excitement had
put Middle English out of his head: he could barely understand them.
Something about Widow Aelthreda's cottage--something about a witch....

He slithered down the far side of the thatching and landed on a window
box of late purple daisies. The parchment-covered window next him was
open and he slipped inside just as the crowd turned the corner.

He found himself in a small, bare upstairs room, insufficiently lit
by the single window, but he could easily see into the most profound
shadows. Under a chest in the corner was a mouse, frozen with terror.
Dax was still out of breath, but he crept toward it, and as it ran out
along the baseboard he intercepted it. He ate it--all.

As he washed his face he wondered with diminishing nervousness what all
the shouting and noise outside meant.

In a little while he heard footsteps and a woman came into the room.
When she saw him she made some noises with her mouth, and Dax ran to
her. She picked him up and began to stroke him very pleasantly. Then
there were more noises from below and presently there were a lot of
people in the room. The woman dropped him for some reason.

He ran under a big, low wooden thing, but a big iron thing was pushed
at him. It had a sharp point, and he had to come out. This time the
man with the bill-hook did not miss, but the pain lasted only for an
instant.

And ... and ... he was more conscious of the sound made by the
hypodermic as it fell on the floor and broke.

He looked at it with annoyance, and felt the slight prick on his arm.
He got up and went to his bathroom, where he dabbed it with antiseptic.
He saw that he'd better shave before going to the meeting. Well, the
drug hadn't worked. What a waste of time. What a pity.

Perhaps a larger dose? He must experiment some more.

He started shaving.


                                  IV

When he got to the principal's office--a little late, which was
not entirely by accident--he found that Mallison and a few of his
fellow-students were sitting opposite the desk in hard chairs.

The principal behind it gave Dax a reprimanding look, and then one at
his watch. On one side of him were a group of teachers and a member
of the school board who Dax remembered was Mr. Lightstone's especial
crony. On the other were Mrs. Lightstone--a dour but subservient
partner to her husband--and an empty chair.

The principal pointed to the chair and said, "We have been waiting
for your arrival to begin, Mr. Dax." He turned to Mallison as Dax sat
down, and said, "You are, I believe, what is known as a 'hep-cat'?" He
waited but Mallison said nothing. His face was very white and he looked
sullen. "Well, answer me, sir!" the principal said loudly.

"You didn't ask me anything," the boy said in a low voice. "You told
me."

The principal pushed his lips out and breathed deeply. He took
something from his pocket and held it up. Dax saw it was the packet of
alleged heroin.

"Did you throw this out of the window of Mr. Dax's class room?"

The boy looked at it incomprehendingly and shook his head.

"Do you know what it is? Have you seen this packet before?"

"No, Mr. Lightstone...."

"You sound uncertain. Think carefully, Mallison." The principal put the
packet on his desk and unfolded it. Everyone bent forward and looked at
it--including Mallison, who shook his head again.

Dax leaned across Mrs. Lightstone and whispered to her husband, "Did
you have it analyzed?"

The principal shook his head impatiently. "Not yet! There was no one in
the Chemistry Department!" He cleared his throat importantly. "Well?
What have you to say?"

Mallison apparently had nothing to say. He swallowed and looked at
one of the boys next him. Mr. Lightstone leaned back in his chair and
turned to address the group on his right--the school board man in
particular. "This," he said, tapping the packet, "was thrown out of a
window of the physics class room today. These are the boys that sit
next those windows. I have every reason to suspect Mallison."

The group nodded. Dax realized that they had been briefed in advance.
The boy Mallison had certainly a sulky and uncooperative air. He seemed
the epitome of juvenile delinquency on the defensive, and yet....

       *       *       *       *       *

"You," the principal said to the boys, "are a little band of
trouble-makers. You cut classes, you stay up late and go to what I
believe you call juke-joints. I have heard reports of your riding in
hot-rods!" He paused significantly.

"None of us here's got a car," Mallison said in a flat voice. He was
definitely sneering now. "I've never even _seen_ a real drag-race!"

Mr. Lightstone blinked. The word was unfamiliar to him, but it had a
disreputable ring to it. "And I suppose you've never taken narcotics?"

There was a dead silence. Mallison clamped his mouth shut, and his face
became wooden.

Mr. Lightstone addressed the boy next him. "Have _you_ ever seen any of
the boys use this?" He tapped the packet again. "Did you see Mallison
throw it out of the window? You sit behind him!"

The boy looked blank and glanced at Mallison. "No, sir," he said.

"But you couldn't have missed seeing him!"

"Excuse me a minute," Dax said. "These boys aren't a _band_ exactly.
They just happen to sit next the windows."

Mr. Lightstone looked offended but resourceful. "They picked those
seats themselves. That's what a clique does. It--"

"I assign all the pupils to their desks," Dax said, and felt he was
turning pink.

The principal took this in his stride by ignoring it. "And _you_," he
said to the boy on Mallison's other side. "What have you to say?"

The boy frowned and stuttered.

Dax was beginning to feel annoyed although he didn't know exactly why.
For one thing, he had let himself seem to be defending Mallison. It
was his craze for accuracy, of course. "I don't understand why the
parents of these boys aren't here," he was surprised to hear himself
say. "It seems to me they ought to have some kind of defense counsel if
there is going to be a trial."

The principal looked at him steadily. "Would _you_ care to act in that
capacity?"

Dax felt that he was getting redder than ever. "Have you had a doctor
examine Mallison for ... for the effects of narcotics?" he said.
"Where are these policemen you said you spoke to? Shouldn't they be
informed of your suspicions, instead of holding a kind of star chamber
inquisition? It's ... it's _medieval_!"

Mr. Lightstone glared at him in astonishment.

Dax had a sudden thought. "The chemistry lab is right over my class
room," he said. "Why couldn't the packet have fallen from there?"

"What would _they_ be doing with heroin?"

"But we don't know yet that--"

The principal interrupted him and swept his arm in a gesture of
all-inclusive condemnation. "We will in good time! But if you have
never seen guilt before, you see it now!" He looked at the startled
young faces with abhorrence. "Look at them!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Dax had a curious and violent revulsion, although he hadn't followed
the line of reasoning in Lightstone's last remark. In fact, he
realized that he hadn't really heard the words. But the principal's
angry face made his hackles rise.

The principal had a menacing look. He was the most dangerous looking
thing he had ever seen. A convulsive shudder went through all of Dax's
muscles, and he leapt--straight across Mrs. Lightstone's lap, who fell
over backwards, screaming. Everyone was making loud, garbled noises,
and he was on top of Lightstone, scratching and biting.

He heard himself give a loud, warlike and triumphant yowl.