There was quiet in the cage and out of it as the female backed away from the hunched male. Unmolested, she climbed the bars slowly and swung to the trapeze, where she sat with one hand held to her bleeding shoulder. On the floor of the cage the male lifted both arms to her.
The spectators breathed again. “Did you get it?” said Al. “Did you? What a shot! Terrific, but terrific!”
“I got it, Al, I got it!” his wife said, eyes shining.
Mr. Kemper grinned at Al and shook his head admiringly. “Say, that was quite a performance.” Still breathing hard, Al shoved his hair out of his eyes and returned the grin.
“Oh, Al’s great,” his wife said. “You ought to see him sometime at a party.”
Mr. Kemper said, “He certainly does have talent.”
“Ah, it’s nothing,” Al said. “Nothing to it, fella. You sure you got those shots, Baby?”
Moving closer, Mr. Kemper lowered his voice. “Listen, would you like to get some really terrific shots? Ones you’d remember all your life?”
Al looked at him. “Yeah. Shots of what?”
“Be at the lion cage at three o’clock. You’ll never have a chance like this again, believe me.”
“Sure, sure, but shots of what, friend?”
So Mr. Kemper bent his head and whispered to him, and as he did he saw the gleam start deep in Al’s eyes and swell to the pale surfaces. But Al’s eyes didn’t gleam the way his wife’s did. And after a while Mr. Kemper left them, and the cage that was silent except for the slow creaking of the trapeze.
After looking at his watch, Mr. Kemper walked faster. The sun dropped in the sticky sky and there was only a faint wind. And for the next hour or so Mr. Kemper was here, there and everywhere. If there was a bunch of little boys shouting at the rhinoceros, then Mr. Kemper was there, smiling and nodding. When a party of college students stood making dirty jokes about the baboons, there too was Mr. Kemper, eventually saying something that made everyone stare at him.
He was ubiquitous. He was with the people who craned their necks at the giraffes, and the ones who laughed at the sleek sea lions darting in their narrow troughs. He was with a family watching the anacondas drooping in green cubicles; he was at the bison corral; he saw the crocodile, the yak and the blesbok. And always, wherever he was, he had a few words to say about the lions. And time passed.
It was exactly three o’clock when he stood again at the top of the stairway above the lion court. A lot of people were milling and shoving in front of the cages, a noisy crowd that made the lions nervous. They were awake now, pacing their cells, and the leopards were awake, and the jaguars. In the center cage the streak-maned lion put his head to the floor and coughed. Behind him the lioness waited, tense. The lion curved a paw around one of the bars and some of the people clapped their hands. Others whistled; several looked at their watches. Kemper, who was starting to smile again, watched the crowd. There was Al, his camera, and his wife, close to the center cage. The two teen-aged boys were near them. The little boy and his father were there, and many others that Mr. Kemper was glad to see. Hands clasped behind him, he stood looking down on them. Suddenly he felt powerful bonds clamp onto his mind.
Turning slowly around, he saw Ulbasar walking down the hill toward him, a tall man at his side. They stopped in front of him, their faces dark in the sun. “Here he is,” said Ulbasar. The tall man at his left made the greeting sign of one Noble to another. “Lord Kjem,” he said. Returning the sign, Mr. Kemper said, “Lord Gteris.”
Gteris said, “I hate to do this; you know that. We were friends once. I hope you won’t try to resist.”
“I told Ulbasar I wouldn’t. Together you’re considerably stronger than I am. I’d be a fool to try anything.”
“That’s smart of you,” said Gteris. “Now let’s get to business. Ulbasar says you wouldn’t tell him the location of your time rift. Is this true?”
“Certainly. Does a Noble answer to a Scientist? But of course I’ll tell you, Gteris. The time rift is down there, behind the hedge opposite the lion cage.”
All signs of friendliness left Gteris’s face. He spun and gave orders. “Ulbasar, you heard him. Go down there and see if he’s telling the truth. I’ll stand guard over him. And keep the mind-block tight.”
Ulbasar nodded and went down the steps. Mr. Kemper tested the vise that pressed against his mind; it held much too well. Gteris was looking at him reproachfully. “Really, Kjem, yours is conduct unbecoming a Noble. If you had to murder somebody, why did it have to be a Scientist? And then all this forcing your own rift into the time-pattern. The Nobles are unhappy with you, Kjem.”
“You know, I don’t regret any of it,” said Mr. Kemper, watching Ulbasar moving close to the crowd by the cages. “Tell me, how’s the hunting back home?”
“Not too bad; I got some fine hawks a while back. I still wish I could handle cats the way you do, instead of— What’s wrong with that crowd in front of the cage down there?”
Mr. Kemper said, “It’s past three o’clock.”
Below them a big man pushed through the crowd toward Ulbasar, shouting, “There’s the guy told me to be here! There’s the faker!” Ulbasar hesitated, looked around, and stopped. The big man caught Ulbasar’s shoulder, and jabbed a finger against his chest. The crowd moved toward them.
Gteris said, “He’s in trouble.”
“He’s as good as dead right now,” Kemper said.
Gteris stared down at the crowd, then at Kemper. Swiftly he shot a warning thought to Ulbasar, who caught it. As he did the pressure eased slightly from Kemper’s mind. It was enough. Kemper lashed out against Gteris’s block. They stood there, minds twisting in combat. Then as Ulbasar was hemmed in by the crowd his support weakened, and Gteris fought alone. Slowly but inexorably he was forced back and out, and Kemper’s mind was free. Gteris’s face was haggard. “Good gods, Kjem!” he said. “Look at Ulbasar!”
“You can still help him. I’m not holding you.”
Gteris looked wildly at him, then ran, bounding down the steps two at a time. He ran toward the crowd and began shouting at Ulbasar. Kemper saw the concentration on his face and knew he was trying to control the crowd. It was then that Mr. Kemper closed his eyes.
First he shut out the world around him: The dim sun on his ears, the smells of dusty summer and popcorn, the sounds of the small wind and the people. In the blackness of his mind he saw the lion court; each bar of the cage and the yellow lions inside it; the crowd and the two dark men. Then he made a picture of the bars loosening at the top of the cage and the bottom, and the entire section of the cage front sliding ponderously sideways.
There was no sound anywhere. Then below him rang a gonging of steel on cement and after that the screaming, and over all of it, dwarfing the yells and the echoing clangs, came a roar that ripped the wind and shook the trees with thunder.
His eyes still closed, Kemper loosened the fronts of all the cages, one by one. After that he put all his mind to directing the lions. To Ulbasar he gave a quick death. Gteris he singled out for a special favor; he sent the streak-maned lion at him. As the lion crouched, Gteris stood unmoving, covering his face with his hands. “Stand and fight!” Kemper shouted. “At least die like a Noble!” But Gteris did not move, and the lion sprang. Kemper laughed, the old excitement of the hunt surging in him as he sent the cats leaping and clawing. He made sure that a special few of the ape-people died very slowly. In the distance a siren wailed.