At some point in the time she spends in here, Herr Erwin Schrödinger believes there is a fifty percent chance (in his mind, at least) that one of the nuclei in the case will decay and trigger the Geiger counter, causing the hammer to descend on the bottle containing the cyanide. Herr Erwin lives for a brief moment’s delusion of immortality and omnipotence. He hypothesizes that as long as he does not open the box that Mieze is neither dead nor alive. Or she is both. During that indeterminate moment he believes himself to be her deity—that it is his paltry act of lifting the lid that determines her survival.
Yet Mieze has noticed that he has at times left her in the box far longer than necessary to make this determination. At first she thought he might have lost track of the time in his addictive immersion into godhood. Later she accepted the possibility that his hatred of cats might be stronger than his egomania. If he “forgot” and left her in the box long enough, she would suffocate. Then he would say, “I am a Swiss physicist. What would I know of feline lung capacity and oxygen requirements?”
So the moment he places her in the enclosure, Mieze shallows her breathing, shuns the desire to sleep.
Poor Herr Erwin, Mieze thinks. He congratulates himself on his scientific prowess, yet he lacks the most rudimentary observational skills. Take, as an example, how he initiates this experiment. Anyone who observes cats for the briefest length of time knows that to entice a cat into a box, one has only to leave it invitingly open. The cat’s own scientific fervor (mislabeled by humans as mere curiosity) will lead it unerringly to investigate.
Yet time and time again, Herr Erwin—ignorant, sadistic, and completely untalented—has picked her up and jammed her into this container. Always with the same results. It is her only satisfaction, she thinks as she licks his blood from between her claws.
No, Herr Professor Erwin Schrödinger sees and understands nothing. Even the mice and the canary know more than he. Even they would be capable of scrutinizing the subatomic particles studying them and be able to control the atomic assassins with their own watching. Creatures, being more intelligent than men, know that all the games of life and death, existence and non-existence, are determined by one-upmanship in observation. The cat sits and waits at the mousehole. The mouse sits and waits on the other side. Each by its watching determines the other’s reality.
Sad, pathetic Herr Erwin does not understand how much his own existence is determined by the watchful vigilance of cats, of small birds and rodents, even of atomic particles—all watching him. Herr Erwin, who neither sees nor tastes/smells/observes the imprisoning box of his own reality.
Mieze yawns. She wishes the canary or one of the mice were here instead. Stalemating nuclei is too easy. She’s had plenty of time, too much time, to think of all the ramifications of her situation.
Oh yes, yes, she knows that by imposing her will to live that in a parallel reality another Mieze (she assumes a sub-intelligent version of herself) is dying. But Mieze is pragmatic. She is only concerned with her consciousness continuing along this particular lifeline.
She’s imagined so many other possibilities, all of which she knows must be happening at this very moment in an “else-when.” In another universe Herr Erwin’s daughter is not called Felicie and does not like cats. There Mieze chose to be mistress to a dairyman’s family. She lives on cream by a warm hearth.
In other continuums, Herr Erwin:
Has only sons, no daughters, and kidnaps his feline victims from alleys.
Is married, but has no children.
Is not married and has no children.
Only proposes the experiment as an idea, leaving others to follow through with it, if they will. But he doesn’t fool the cats in that reality for an instant. After all, if he truly meant no malice, why didn’t he suggest another animal for the experiment? Say, for example, a dog?
Mieze conjectures other, earlier realities she knows must exist. A continuum where before he receives his doctorate in 1910, Herr Erwin Schrödinger is drummed out of the university for a sexual scandal involving a middle-aged whore, a baron’s wife and daughter, and copious amounts of cherry strudel.
Whole universes where at the age of eight young master Erwin trips over a black cat while on his way to school and is run over by a passing carriage, his skull crushed!
But still, Mieze considers, later would not be too late. She meditates on a universe where Herr Professor Erwin Schrödinger—woefully ignorant of the extent to which his very existence depends on the adroit observation of certain four-legged adepts—mysteriously disappears after a hard day of experimenting in his lab. His dear little daughter Felicie comes by to see him after her lessons, discovers him gone and in the nick of time rescues her beloved, golden-eyed silver tabby from a diabolical box.
Mieze lingers over the potential of this universe. She likes it. A great deal. Yes, it will do nicely.
After all, she has held back from meddling up until now. She has endured session after session in this box, thinking with a softened heart of Felicie, who slips her morsels of chicken livers; who knows how to sleep in just the right alignment of curves for ideal cat nestling. Mieze does know the anguish Felicie would suffer if anything should happen to her father, Herr Erwin, who the child believes to be perfect.
Yet Herr Erwin cares not a whit for the grief that Mieze’s death would cause Felicie. How heartbroken Felicie would be to discover what a monster her father truly was. Far better to save the child that trauma.
Mieze stretches in the confines of the box. It is decided. She cannot be like the mice and the canary, even if she wished it. She is an observer extraordinaire—a hunter far superior to Herr Erwin. Which means she has been patient. But a cat can be patient too long.
A deep voluptuous purr fills Mieze’s throat. The moment has come. It is time to open the box on Herr Professor Erwin Schrödinger.
GUARDIANS
George R. R. Martin
George R.R. Martin is best known today for his epic fantasy series “A Song of Ice and Fire,” which began with A Game of Thrones in 1996. Before that, he was already a multi-award-winning science fiction and horror writer, having won Hugo Awards, Nebula Awards, Locus Awards, the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy award for his work. His earlier novels range from science fiction, with Dying of the Light and science fantasy Windhaven (with Lisa Tuttle), to the historical vampire novel Fevre Dream, and the rock n roll apocalyptic novel Armageddon Rag, all written between 1977 and 1983.
Martin became story editor for The New Twilight Zone in 1986 and later was Executive Story Consultant for the television series Beauty and the Beast, on which he worked for several years. He also helped create and edit the “Wild Cards” shared world series of anthologies in 1987, which continue to be published today.
“Guardians” is one of a series of darkly comic science fiction space adventures about a cat-loving trader who sells his services as he travels the galaxy. Martin likes cats, and has said that Dax, Tuf’s companion in most of the stories, was actually a cat he owned back in the 70s, around the time he started writing the Tuf stories. A picture of the cat appears on Martin’s website.
Haviland Tuf thought the Six Worlds Bio-Agricultural Exhibition a great disappointment.