“Why are we going through the market then?”
“It’s the only way to the Catmaster’s store. We’ll be tagged. Come along.”
Where the ramp reached the surface, four bright-eyed robots, their blue enamel bodies shining and their milky eyes glowing, stood at the ready. Their weapons had an ugly buzz to them and were obviously already off the “safety” mark. C’mell talked to them quietly and submissively. When the robot-sergeant led her to a desk, she stared into an instrument like binoculars and blinked when she took her eyes away. She put her palm on a desk. The identification was completed. The robot sergeant handed her three bright disks, like saucers, each with a chain attached. Wordlessly she hung them around her own neck, Rod’s neck, and A’gentur’s. The robots let them pass. They walked in demure single file through the place of beautiful sights and smells. Rod felt that his eyes were wet with tears of rage. “I’ll buy this place,” he thought to himself, “if it’s the only thing I’ll ever buy.”
C’mell had stopped walking.
Rod looked up, very carefully.
There was the sign: THE DEPARTMENT STORE OF HEARTS’ DESIRE. A door opened. A wise old cat-person face looked out, stared at them, snapped, “No underpeople!” and slammed the door. C’mell rang the doorbell a second time. The face reappeared, more puzzled than angry.
“Business,” she whispered, “of the Aitch Eye.” The face nodded and said, “In, then. Quick!”
THE DEPARTMENT STORE OF HEARTS’ DESIRES
Once inside, Rod realized that the store was as rich as the market. There were no other customers. After the outside sounds of music, laughter, frying, boiling, things falling, dishes clattering, people arguing, and the low undertone of the ever ready robot weapons buzzing, the quietness of the room was itself a luxury like old heavy velvet. The smells were no less variegated than those on the outside but, they were different, more complicated, and many more of them were completely unidentifiable.
One smell he was sure of: fear, human fear. It had been in this room not long before.
“Quick,” said the old cat-man. “I’m in trouble if you don’t get out soon. What is your business?”
“I’m C’mell.”
He nodded pleasantly, but showed no sign of recognition. “I forget people,” he said.
“This is A’gentur.” She indicated the monkey.
The old cat-man did not even look at the animal.
C’mell persisted, a note of triumph coming into her voice: “You may have heard of him under his real name, E’ikasus.”
The old man, stood there, blinking, as though he were taking it in. “Yeekasoose? With the letter E?”
“Transformed,” said C’mell inexorably, “for a trip all the way to Old North Australia and back.”
“Is this true?” said the old man to the monkey.
E’ikasus said calmly, “I am the son of Him, of whom you think.”
The c’man dropped to his knees, but did so with dignity:
“I salute you, E’ikasus. When you next think-with your father, give him my greetings and ask from him his blessing. I am C’william, the Catmaster.”
“You are famous,” said E’ikasus tranquilly.
“But you are still in danger, merely being here. I have no license for underpeople!”
C’mell produced her trump. “Catmaster, your next guest. This is no c’man. He is a true man, an offworlder, and he has just bought most of the planet Earth.”
C’william looked at Rod with more than ordinary shrewdness. There was a touch of kindness in his attitude. He was tall for a cat-man; few animal features were left to him, because of old age, which reduces racial and sexual contrasts to mere memories, had wrinkled him into a uniform beige. His hair was not white, but beige too; his few cat-whiskers looked old and worn. He was garbed in a fantastic costume which — Rod later learned — consisted of the court robes of one of the Original Emperors, a dynasty which had prevailed more many centuries among the further stars. Age was upon him, but wisdom was too; the habits of life, in his case, had been cleverness and kindness, themselves unusual in combination. Now very old, he was reaping the harvest of his years. He had done well with the thousands upon thousands of days behind him, with the result that age had brought a curious joy into his manner, as though each experience meant one more treat before the long bleak dark closed in. Rod felt himself attracted to this strange creature, who looked at him with such penetrating and very personal curiosity, and who managed to do so without giving offense.
The Catmaster spoke in very passable Norstrilian:
“I know what you are thinking, Mister and Owner McBan.”
“You can hier me?” cried Rod.
“Not your thoughts. Your face. It reads easily. I am sure that I can help you.”
“What makes you think I need help?”
“All things need help,” said the old c’man briskly, “but we must get rid of our other guests first. Where do you want to go, excellent one? And you, cat-madame?”
“Home,” said E’ikasus. He was tired and cross again. After speaking brusquely, he felt the need to make his tone more civil, “This body suits me badly, Catmaster.”
“Are you good at falling?” said the Catmaster. “Free fall?”
The monkey grinned. “With this body? Of course. Excellent. I’m tired of it.”
“Fine,” said the Catmaster, “you can drop down my waste chute. It falls next to the forgotten palace where the great wings beat against time.”
The Catmaster stepped to one side of the room. With only a nod at C’mell and Rod, followed by a brief “See you later,” the monkey watched as the Cat-master opened a manhole cover. The monkey then leaped trustingly into the complete black depth which appeared, and was gone. The Catmaster replaced the cover carefully.
He turned to C’mell.
She faced him truculently, the defiance of her posture oddly at variance with the innocent voluptuousness of her young female body. “I’m going nowhere.”
“You’ll die,” said the Catmaster. “Can’t you hear their weapons buzzing just outside the door? You know what they do to us underpeople. Especially to us cats. They use us, but do they trust us?”
“I know one who does…” she said. “The Lord Jestocost could protect me, even here, just as he protects you, far beyond your limit of years.”
“Don’t argue it. You will make trouble for him with the other real people. Here, girl, I will give you a tray to carry with a dummy package on it. Go back to the underground and rest in the commissary of the bear-man. I will send Rod to you when we are through.”
“Yes,” she said hotly, “but will you send him alive or dead?”
The Catmaster rolled his yellow eyes over Rod. “Alive,” he said. “This one — alive. I have predicted. Did you ever know me to be wrong? Come on, girl, out the door with you.”
C’mell let herself be handed a tray and a package, taken seemingly at random. As she left Rod thought of her with quick desperate affection. She was his closest link with Earth. He thought of her excitement and of how she had bared her young breasts to him, but now the memory, instead of exciting him, filled him with tender fondness instead. He blurted out, “C’mell, will you be all right?”
She turned around at the door itself, looking all woman and all cat. Her red wild hair gleamed like a hearth-fire against the open light from the doorway. She stood erect, as though she were a citizen of Earth and not a mere underperson or girlygirl. She held out her right hand clearly and commandingly while balancing the tray on her left hand. When he shook hands with her, Rod realized that her hand felt utterly human but very strong. With scarcely a break in her voice she said,
“Rod, goodbye. I’m taking a chance with you, but it’s the best chance I’ve ever taken. You can trust the Catmaster, here in the Department Store of Hearts’ Desires. He does strange things, Rod, but they’re good strange things.”