Tiger got up and faced the flowing water. "I wouldn't drink that if I were you," Sale cautioned. Then he saw it: the long angry snout of an alligator. It came close in the luminescence, gentle ripples hinting at its length: eight, nine feet of it. If the thing attacked—
The alligator heaved itself onto the narrow platform, heading directly for the tiger. Its jaws were huge. Sale moved over, put one boot against the exposed reptilian hide, and shoved; with a splash, it slid helplessly into the water. Acting on inspiration, Sale next kicked the sodden remnant of the pig into the sewer after it; the alligator flashed in the water, taking the morsel in its teeth, and disappeared.
Sale found himself standing beside the big cat. He retreated to his own side hurriedly. Why had he done it? A fight between Tiger and the alligator could only have been to his advantage; why should he interfere?
"It was only after food, just like the rest of us," he explained. "Some of the blood must have dripped into the water..." Tiger lay down again, seemingly unperturbed.
"And what am I doing here, fighting with rats, when I have a soft apartment at home, you'll be wanting to know," he said, resuming his previous train of thought. Tiger managed to look singularly uncurious. "It was because it was soft that I had to leave my apartment. Man isn't fitted for paradise; he grows flabby, loses self-respect. A man with any guts at all has to fight; he has to overcome. And so I chose adventure; I pried open the ground level door, and saw the savage world before me. I prepared myself; I set out to find the western end of Omega.
"Now I've found it—and I'm not satisfied. I want to know what's on the other side of that wall."
Finally Sale slept. He woke, half surprised to find himself unharmed, to a dim light spreading from the hole above. It was morning. He gripped the ladder and hoisted himself up. Cautiously he poked his head from the manhole. Dead dogs and pigs were everywhere; but that was all. Near the wall the rats were out in strength, gnawing on the remains.
"All clear!" Sale called down to Tiger, wondering whether the animal could get up the ladder. But the tawny body emerged easily.
Now that the mutual danger was over, he eyed the cat warily, not certain whether the truce still held.
He had recovered his staff and wiped it off, now holding it ready; but Tiger ignored it. A snarl to scatter the rats; then the cat was off, loping south along the wall.
South? Yet it had been going north to flee the pigs. Sale followed.
Two miles down, the cat disappeared. Sale followed warily, to discover a rent in the wall. A stone had fallen from it, and there was a hole leading to the other side. Peering through, he could see Tiger waiting.
He climbed through himself and stopped, amazed. The city ended with the wall; here there was only a forest wasteland; trees and brush and tall grass growing profusely. There was animal life here too, he knew; droppings littered the ground. Somewhere he could hear the sound of a river, and the air was sweet and cool.
How had this come to be? The last natural forests had died long ago, taken while the government was still debating protective legislation.
There was no Wilderness any more; not in all of North America. Yet here—
"The zoo!" Now it came to him. There was no wilderness; but there were parks, and artificial gardens for captive specimens. The tiger; the wild pigs: creatures of a zoo, now free and roaming in its neglect. And the shrubs, from all parts of the world, grown and spread. What had been an imitation of nature now was real.
Tiger brushed by him and scrambled back through the gap, into the city.
He stared after the great cat, confused.
"Surely this, for you, is paradise," he said after it. "Why do you want to leave?"
But as he said the words, he understood. Tigers were not made for paradise. Only in the gaunt streets, among inimical dogs and rats, was there real challenge for the creature of independent spirit.
He wondered whether Tiger also had a problem, foraging alone, finding places to sleep safely. No-man's-land could also be no-tiger's-land, at least at times. Individualism was a fine thing; but it could not deny the need for companionship.
Did Tiger also crave company in spirit?
Sale climbed out of the zoo and stood once more on the street. The cat was there, waiting.
"Come," he said, heading north. The tiger came.
PHOG
Critics have also objected to my style of writing, calling it pedestrian or clumsy. I tend to talk back to critics of my work, and in consequence I have been blacklisted in several places. Hell has no fury like that of an ignorant critic scorned! The fact is, I use whatever style I deem suitable for the piece. Usually I prefer to have an inconspicuous style, one that does not interfere with clarity, so that the reader can absorb the story painlessly. If that means I'm no stylist, then so be it. But I think a person who places style before substance is a dunce. The following story, "Phog," is an example of a style intended to help convey a mood. Later in the volume there will be another example, for a different mood, in "On the Uses of Torture." Let the critics sink their fangs into that one! Meanwhile, a note on the spelling here: the notion for this story came to me while I was grading high school spelling papers. Naturally both spelling and definition of this fog are strange. I was never a good speller myself, and grading those papers was a hellish chore.
A great boiling mass of grey-brown matter, closing in on tiger's feet: Phog.
Mat's eyes widened in shock. He was young; he lacked a foot of the height of manhood; but his mind assessed the situation immediately. A moment only did the spell of the monstrous mists hold him in thrall; then he gave the alarm in the most natural and effective manner: He screamed in terror.
His sister Sal, next born, jumped up, clutching the bright stone she had been playing with. It was a strange flat fragment, diverting them both until this instant, for it showed a hand inside when she picked it up—a hand that went away when she set it down again. And sometimes it flashed blindingly, rivaling Phoebus himself. But it was forgotten now as Sal too saw the horror that was upon them both. Her scream joined his.
Nearby, a gray-whiskered man came joltingly awake, kicking up dark sand as he scrambled to his ancient feet. He was the children's grandfather, their only surviving relative. He was too old, now, to be a worthy guardian; never before had he been lulled to sleep this far within the shadow zone. Somehow the hot safe sun had pacified his fears, putting him off guard—while Phoebus quietly withdrew, shielded by closing mists above, and left the three of them prey to their own carelessness.
His rheumy eyes took in the crying children and the encroaching horror behind them. Already Phog surrounded their position on three sides, sparing only a dwindling harbor of land—an opening they could not hope to pass in time.
"The fjords," the old man cried. "There is no other way!" Grasping each child by the wrist, he lumbered toward the nearest rift.
Sal came willingly—an openminded innocent who would one day be a lovely woman. Mat held back, frightened by vague tribal taboos. "The fjords are forbidden," he whimpered.