When they walked away from the edge, Rod realized that the little monkey was still with them. “What are you doing here with us?” asked Rod, not unkindly.

The monkey’s preposterous little face wrinkled into a knowing smile. The face was the same as it had been before, but the expression was different — more assured, more clear, more purposive than ever before. There was even humor and cordiality in the monkey’s voice.

“We animals are waiting for the people to finish their entrance.”

We animals? thought Rod. He remembered his furry head, his pointed ears, his cat-whiskers. No wonder he felt at ease with this girl and she with him.

The ten Rod McBans were walking down a ramp, so that the floor seemed to be swallowing them slowly from the feet up. They were walking in single file, so that the head of the leading one seemed to sit bodiless on the floor, while the last one in line had lost nothing more than his feet. It was odd indeed.

Rod looked at C’mell and A’gentur and asked them frankly, “When people have such a wide, wet, beautiful world, all full of life, why should they kill me?”

A’gentur shook his monkey head sadly, as though he knew full well, but found the telling of it inexpressibly wearisome and sad.

C’mell answered, “You are who you are. You hold immense power. Do you know that this tower is yours?”

“Mine!” he cried.

“You’ve bought it, or somebody bought it for you. Most of that water is yours, too. When you have things that big, people ask you for things. Or they take them from you. Earth is a beautiful place but I think it is a dangerous place, too, for offworlders like you who are used to just one way of life. You have not caused all the crime and meanness in the world, but it’s been sleeping and now wakes up for you.”

“Why for me?”

“Because,” said A’gentur, “you’re the richest person who has ever touched this planet. You own most of it already. Millions of human lives depend on your thoughts and your decisions.”

They had reached the opposite side of the top platform. Here, on the land side, the rivers were all leaking badly. Most of the land was covered with steam-clouds, such as they saw on Norstrilia when a covered canal burst out of its covering. These clouds represented incalculable treasures of rain. He saw that they parted at the foot of the tower.

“Weather machines,” said C’mell. “The cities are all covered with weather machines. Don’t you have weather machines in Old North Australia?”

“Of course we do,” said Rod, “but we don’t waste water by letting it float around in the open air like that. It’s pretty, though. I guess the extravagance of it makes me feel critical. Don’t you Earth people have anything better to do with your water than to leave it lying on the ground or having it float over open land?”

“We’re not Earth people,” said C’mell. “We’re underpeople. I’m a cat-person and he’s made from apes. Don’t call us people. It’s not decent.”

“Fudgel” said Rod. “I was just asking a question about Earth, not pestering your feelings when—”

He stopped short.

They all three spun around.

Out of the ramp there came something like a mowing machine. A human voice, a man’s voice screamed from within it, expressing rage and fear.

Rod started to move forward.

C’mell started to move forward.

C’mell held his arm, dragging back with all her weight.

“No! Rod, no! No!”

A’gentur slowed him down better by jumping into his face, so that Rod suddenly saw nothing but a universe of brown belly-fur and felt tiny hands gripping his hair and pulling it. He stopped and reached for the monkey. A’gentur anticipated him and dropped to the ground before Rod could hit him.

The machine was racing up the outside of the steeple and almost disappearing into the sky above. The voice had become thin.

Rod looked at C’mell, “All right. What was it? What’s happening?”

“That’s a spider, a giant spider. It’s kidnapping or killing Rod McBan.”

“Me?” keened Rod. “It’d better not touch me. I’ll tear it apart.”

“Sh-h-hl” said C’mell.

“Quiet!” said the monkey.

“Don’t ‘sh-sh-sh’ me and don’t ‘quiet’ me,” said Rod. “I’m not going to let that poor blighter suffer on my account. Tell that thing to come down. What is it, anyhow, this spider? A robot?”

“No,” said C’mell, “an insect.”

Rod was narrowing his eyes, watching the mowing machine which hung on the outside of the tower. He could barely see the man within its grip. When C’mell said “insect,” it triggered something in his mind. Hate. Revulsion. Resistance to dirt. Insects on Old North Australia were small, serially numbered and licensed. Even at that, he felt them to be his hereditary enemies. (Somebody had told him that Earth insects had done terrible things to the Norstrilians when they lived on Paradise VII.) Rod yelled at the spider, making his voice as loud as possible,

“You — come — down!”

The filthy thing on the tower quivered with sheer smugness and seemed to bring its machine-like legs closer together, settling down to be comfortable.

Rod forgot he was supposed to be a cat.

He gasped for air. Earth air was wet but thin. He closed his eyes for a moment or two. He thought hate, hate, hate for the insect. Then he shrieked telepathically, louder than he had ever shrieked at home:

hate-spit-spit-vomit!

dirt, dirt, dirt,

explode!

crush:

ruin:

stink, collapse, putrefy, disappear!

hate-hate-hate!

The fierce red roar of his inarticulate spieking hurt even him. He saw the little monkey fall to the ground in a dead faint. C’mell was pale and looked as though she might throw up her food.

He looked away from them and up at the “spider.” Had he reached it?

He had.

Slowly, slowly, the long legs moved out in spasms, releasing the man, whose body flashed downward. Rod’s eyes followed the movement of “Rod McBan” and he cringed when a wet crunch let him know that the duplicate of his own body had been splashed all over the hard deck of the tower, a hundred meters away. He glanced back up at the “spider.” It scrabbled for purchase of the tower and then cartwheeled downward. It too hit the deck hard and lay there dying, its legs twitching as its personality slipped into its private, everlasting night.

Rod gasped. “Eleanor. Oh, maybe that’s Eleanor!” His voice wailed. He started to run to the facsimile of his human body, forgetting that he was a cat-man.

C’mell’s voice was as sharp as a howl, though low in tone. “Shut up! Shut up! Stand still! Close your mind! Shut up! We’re dead if you don’t shut up!”

He stopped, stared at her stupidly. Then he saw she was in mortal earnest. He complied. He stopped moving. He did not try to talk. He capped his mind, closing himself against telepathy until his brainbox began to ache. The little monkey, A’gentur, was crawling up off the floor, looking shaken and sick. C’mell was still pale.

Men came running up the ramp, saw them and headed toward them.

There was the beat of wings in the air.

An enormous bird — no, it was an ornithopter — landed with its claws scratching the deck. A uniformed man jumped out and cried,

“Where is he?”

“He jumped over!” C’mell shouted.

The man started to follow the direction of her gesture and then cut sharply back to her.

“Fool!” he said. “People can’t jump off here. The barrier would hold ships in place. What did you see?”

C’mell was a good actress. She pretended to be getting over shock and gasping for words. The uniformed man looked at her haughtily,

“Cats,” he said, “and a monkey. What are you doing here? Who are you?”

“Name C’mell, profession, girlygirl, Earthport staff, commanded by Commissioner Teadrinker. This — boyfriend, no status, name C’roderick, cashier in night bank down below. Him?” She nodded at A’gentur. “I don’t know much about him.”