by A. E. Van Vogt

A Little Classic By One Of The Most Brilliant Science-Fiction Writers of OurDay.

Several years ago this startling story appeared in a Los Angeles publication,FANTASY BOOK, and it immediately created o furor among the local stf faithful.With the resumption of MARVEL, we thought it should be brought to a largeraudience, particularly since its author has meantime won recognition as one ofAmerica's most brilliant science-fiction writers. We think you'll agree that"The Cataaaa" is a masterpiece.

THE USUAL group was gathering in the bar. Cathy was alreadypretending shewas far gone. Ted was busy putting on his stupid look. Myra giggled threetimes the way a musician tunes his instrument for the evening. Jones wastalking to Gord in his positive fashion. Gord said "Glub!" every few seconds,just as if he was listening. And Morton tried to draw attention to himself byremaining aloof and intellectual looking far down in his chair.

No one noticed the slight, slim man sitting on a stool before the bar. Theman kept glancing at the group; but just when he joined them, or who invitedhim, no one had any clear idea. Nor did it occur to anyone to tell him to goaway.

The stranger said, "You were talking about the basic characteristics of humannature--"

Myra giggled, "Is that what we were talking about? I wondered."

The laughter that followed did not deter the newcomer.

"It so happens that I have had an experience which illustrates the point. Itbegan one day when I was glancing through the newspaper, and I ran across acircus advertisement . . . "

At the top of the ad (he went on) was a large question mark followed by someequally large exclamation marks. Then:

Until that point I had been reading with a vague interest and curiosity. Thename made me jump.

"Good lord!" I thought. "It's him. It's Silkey Travis on that card."

I hurried to my desk, and took out a card that had come in the mail two daysbefore. At the time it had made no sense to me at all. The words written onthe back in a fine script seemed pure gibberish, and the photograph on thefront, though familiar, unlocked no real memory. It was of a man with ahaunted look on his face, sitting in a small cage. I now recognized it asbeing a likeness of Silkey Travis, not as I had known him fifteen or so yearsbefore, but plumper, older, as he would be now.

I returned to my chair, and sat musing about the past.

Even in those days, his name had fitted Silkey Travis. At high school heorganized the bathing beauty contest, and gave the first prize to his cousinand the second prize to the girl who was the teacher's pet of most of theteachers. The students' science exhibition, a collection of local lizards,snakes, insects and a few Indian artifacts was an annual affair, which broughta turnout of admiring parents. Invariably, it was Silkey who organized it.Plays, holiday shows and other paraphernalia of school pastimes felt the weightof his guiding hand and circus spirit.

After graduating from high school, I went on to State college to major inbiology, and I lost sight of Silkey for seven years. Then I saw an item in oneof the papers to the effect that local boy Silkey Travis was doing well in thebig town, having just purchased a "piece" of a vaudeville show, and that healso owned a "piece" in a beach concession in New Jersey.

Again, there was silence. And now, here he was, no doubt "piece" owner of thecircus freak show.

Having solved the mystery of the postcard, so it seemed to me, I felt amusedand tolerant. I wondered if Silkey had sent the card to all his former schoolcompanions. I decided not to puzzle any more about the meaning of the wordswritten on the back. The scheme behind them was all too obvious.

Sitting there, I had absolutely no intention of going to the circus. I went tobed at my usual hour, and woke up with a start some hours later to realize thatI was not alone. The sensations that came to me as I lay there have beendescribed by Johnson in his book on morbid fears.

I lived in a quiet neighborhood, and the silence was intense. Presently, Icould hear the labored pounding of my heart. Poisons surged into my stomach;gas formed and leaked up to my mouth bringing a bitter taste. I had to fight tokeep my breath steady.

And still I could see nothing. The dark fears ran their courses, and the firstthought came that I must have had a nightmare. I began to feel ashamed ofmyself. I mumbled:

"Who's there?"

No answer.

I climbed out of bed, and turned on the light. The room was empty. But still Iwasn't satisfied. I went out into the hall, then I examined the clothes closetand bathroom. Finally, dissatisfied, I tested the window fastenings--and it wasthere I received my shock. Painted on the outer side of the pane of one of thewindows were the letters:

"The cat requests that you come to the circus."

I went back to bed so furious that I thought of having Silkey arrested. When Iwoke up in the morning the sign was gone from the window.

BY THE TIME breakfast was over, my temper of the night had cooled. I was evenable to feel a pitying amusement at the desperate desire of Silkey to let hisold acquaintances know what a big shot he was. Before starting off to mymorning classes at State, I looked under my bedroom window. I found what lookedlike footprints, but they were not human, so I decided that Silkey must havetaken care to leave no tracks of his own.

At class, just before noon, one of the students asked me whether there was anygood explanation in biological science for freaks. I gave the usual explanationof variabilities, nutritional deficiences[sic], diseases, frustration of braindevelopment affecting the shape of the body, and so on. I finished drily thatfor further information I would direct him to my old friend, Silkey Travis,director of freaks at the Pagley-Matterson circus.

The offhand remark caused a sensation. I was informed that a freak at thiscircus had prompted the original question. "A strange, cat-like creature," thestudent said in a hushed voice, "that examines you with the same interest thatyou examine it."

The bell rang at that moment, and I was spared the necessity of making a comment. I remember thinking, however, that people hadn't changedmuch. They were still primarily interested in eccentricity whereas, as ascientist, the processes of normalcy seemed to me far more fascinating.

I still had no intention of going to the circus. But on the way home thatafternoon I put my hand in my breast pocket, and drew out the postcard with thephotograph of Silkey on the front. I turned it over absently, and read againthe message that was on it:

"The interspatial problem of delivering mail involves enormous energy problems,which effect time differentials. Accordingly,

it is possible that this card will arrive before I know who you are. As aprecaution I am sending another one to the circus with your name and address onit, and the two cards will go out together.

"Do not worry too much about the method of delivery. I simply put an instrumentinto a mail box. This precipitates the cards into the box on earth, and theywill then be picked up and delivered in the usual fashion. The precipitatorthen dissolves.

The photograph speaks for itself."

It didn't. Which is what began to irritate me again. I jammed the card backinto my pocket, half-minded to phone up Silkey and ask him what the silly thingmeant, if anything. I refrained, of course. It wasn't important enough.

When I got out of bed the next morning, the words, "The cat wants to talk toyou!" were scrawled on the outside of the same window pane. They must have beenthere a long time. Because, even as I stared at them, they began to fade. Bythe time I finished breakfast they were gone.

I was disturbed now rather than angry. Such persistence on Silkey's part indicated neurotic overtones in his character. It was possible that Iought to go to his show, and so give him the petty victory that would lay hisghost, which had now haunted me two nights running. However, it was not tillafter lunch that a thought occurred to me that suddenly clinched my intention.I remembered Virginia.

For two years I had been professor of biology at State. It was an earlyambition which, now that I had realized it, left me at a loose end for thefirst time in my life. Accordingly, for the first time in my rather drabexistence the mating urge was upon me. Virginia was the girl, and,unfortunately, she regarded me as a cross between a fossil and a precisionbrain. I felt sure that the idea of marrying me had not yet occurred to her.

For some time it had seemed to me that if I could only convince her, withoutloss of dignity, that I was a romantic fellow she might be fooled into sayingyes. What better method than to pretend that I still got excited over circuses,and, as a grand climax to the evening I would take her in to see Silkey Travis,and hope that my acquaintance with such a character would thrill her exoticsoul.

The first hurdle was bridged when I called her up, and she agreed to go to thecircus with me. I put the best possible face on for the preliminaries, ridingthe ferris wheel and such juvenilia. But the moment of the evening for me camewhen I suggested that we go and see the freaks being shown by my friend, SilkeyTravis.

It really went over. Virginia stopped and looked at me almost accusingly.

"Philip," she said, "you're not trying to pretend that you know a person calledSilkey? She drew a deep breath. "That I have to see."

Silkey came through beautifully. He was not in when we entered, but the tickettaker called into some rear compartment. And a minute later Silkey camecharging into the main freak tent. He was plump with the plumpness of a wellfed shark. His eyes were narrowed as if he had spent the past fifteen yearscalculating the best methods of using other people for his own advantage. Hehad none of the haunted look of the photograph, but there were ghosts in hisface. Ghosts of greed and easy vices, ghosts of sharp dealing and ruthlessness.He was all that I had hoped for, and, best of all, he was pathetically glad tosee me. His joy had the special quality of the lonely nomad who is at lastlooking longingly at the settled side of life. We both overdid the greeting alittle but we were about equally pleased at each other's enthusiasm. The hellosand introductions over, Silkey grew condescending.

"Brick was in a while ago. Said you were teaching at State. Congrats. Alwaysknew you had it in you.

I passed over that as quickly as possible. "How about showing us around,Silkey, and telling us about yourself?"

WE HAD already seen the fat woman and the human skeleton, but Silkey took usback and told us his life history with them. How he had found them, and helpedthem to their present fame. He was a little verbose, so on occasion I had tohurry him along. But finally we came to a small tent within the tent, over theclosed canvas entrance of which was painted simply, "THE CAT". I had noticed itbefore, and the chatter of the barker who stood in front of it had alreadyroused my curiosity:

"The cat . . . come in and see the cat. Folks, this is no ordinary event, butthe thrill of a lifetime. Never before has such an animal as this been seen ina circus. A biological phenomenon that has amazed scientists all over thecountry... Folks, this is special. Tickets are twenty-five cents, but if you'renot satisfied you can get your money back. That's right. That's what I said.You get your money back merely by stepping up and asking for it..."

And so on. However, his ballyhoo was not the most enticing angle. What began totitillate my nerves was the reaction of the people who went inside. They wereallowed to enter in groups, and there must have been a guide inside, becausehis barely audible voice would mumble on for some minutes, and then it wouldrise to a hearable level, as he said, "And now, folks, I will draw aside thecurtain and show you--the cat!"

The curtain must have been pulled with a single jerk, on a carefully timedbasis. For the word, cat was scarcely out of his mouth, when the audiencereaction would sound:

"Aaaaaa!"

Distinct, unmistakable exhalation of the breaths of a dozen startled people.There would follow an uncomfortable silence. Then, slowly the people wouldemerge and hurry to the outer exit. Not one, that I was aware of, asked for hismoney back.

There was a little embarrassment at the gate. Silkey started to mumblesomething about only owning part of the show, so he couldn't give passes. But Iended that by quickly purchasing the necessary tickets, and we went inside withthe next group.

The animal that sat in an armchair on the dais was about five feet long andquite slender. It had a cat's head and vestiges of fur. It looked like anexaggerated version of the walkey-talkey animals in comic books.

At that point resemblance to normalcy ended.

It was alien. It was not a cat at all. I recognized that instantly. Thestructure was all wrong. It took me a moment to identify the radicalvariations.

The head! High foreheaded it was, and not low and receding. The face was smoothand almost hairless. It had character and strength, and intelligence. The bodywas well balanced on long, straight legs. The arms were smooth, ending in shortbut unmistakable fingers, surmounted by thin, sharp claws.

But it was the eyes that were really different. They looked normal enough,slightly slanted, properly lidded, about the same size as the eyes of humanbeings. But they danced. They shifted twice, even three times as swiftly ashuman eyes. Their balanced movement at such a high speed indicated vision thatcould read photographically reduced print across a room. What sharp, whatincredibly sharp images that brain must see.

All this I saw within the space of a few seconds. Then the creature moved.

It stood up, not hurriedly, but casually, easily, and yawned and stretched.Finally, it took a step forward. Brief panic ensued among the women in theaudience, that ended as the guide said quietly:

"It's all right, folks. He frequently comes down and looks us over. He'sharmless.

The crowd stood its ground, as the cat came down the steps from the dais andapproached me. The animal paused in front of me, and peered at me curiously.Then it reached gingerly forward, opened my coat, and examined the insidebreast pocket.

It came up holding the postcard with the picture of Silkey on it. I had broughtit along, intending to ask Silkey about it.

For a long moment the cat examined the card, and then it held it out to Silkey.Silkey looked at me.

"Okay?" he said.

I nodded. I had a feeling that I was witnessing a drama the motivations ofwhich I did not understand. I realized that I was watching Silkey intently.

He looked at the picture on the card, and then started to hand it to me. Thenhe stopped. Jerkily, he pulled the card back, and stared at the photograph.

"For cripes sake," he gasped. "It's a picture of me."

There was no doubt about his surprise. It was so genuine that it startled me. Isaid:

"Didn't you send that to me? Didn't you write what's on the back there?"

Silkey did not answer immediately. He turned the card over and glared down atthe writing. He began to shake his head.

"Doesn't make sense," he muttered. "Hmmm, it was mailed in Marstown. That'swhere we were three days last week."

He handed it back to me. "Never saw it before in my life. Funny."

His denial was convincing. I held the card in my hand, and looked questioninglyat the cat. But it had already lost interest. As we stood there, watching, itturned and climbed back up to the dais, and slumped into a chair. It yawned. Itclosed its eyes.

And that's all that happened. We all left the tent, and Virginia and I saidgoodbye to Silkey. Later, on our way home, the episode seemed even moremeaningless than when it had happened.

I don't know how long I had been asleep before I wakened. I turned overintending to go right back to sleep. And then I saw that my bedside light wasburning. I sat up with a start.

The cat was sitting in a chair beside the bed, not more than three feetaway.

Forward to the Second Part of TheCataaaa