There was a slight sound.

Rod turned around to face the Catmaster.

The old man was unchanged. He still wore the lunatic robes of grandeur, but his dignity survived even this outré effect.

“You like my poems? You like my things? I like them myself. Many men come in here to take things from me, but they find that title is vested in the Lord Jestocost, and they must do strange things to obtain my trifles.”

“Are all these things genuine?” asked Rod, thinking that even Old North Australia could not buy out this shop if they were.

“Certainly not,” said the old man. “Most of them are forgeries — wonderful forgeries. The Instrumentality lets me go to the robot-pits where insane or worn-out robots are destroyed. I can have my pick of them if they are not dangerous. I put them to work making copies of anything which I find in the museums.”

“Those Cape triangles?” said Rod. “Are they real?”

“Cape triangles? You mean the letter stickers. They are genuine, all right, but they are not mine. Those are on loan from the Earth Museum until I can get them copied.”

“I will buy them,” said Rod.

“You will not,” said the Catmaster. “They are not for sale.”

“Then I will buy Earth and you and them too,” said Rod.

“Roderick Frederick Ronald Arnold William MacArthur McBan to the one hundred and fifty-first, you willnot.”

“Who are you to tell me?”

“I have looked at one person and I have talked to two others.”

“All right,” said Rod. “Who?”

“I looked at the other Rod McBan, your workwoman Eleanor. She is a little mixed up about having” a young man’s body, because she is very drunk in the home of the Lord William Not-from-here and a beautiful young woman named Ruth Not-from-here is trying to make Eleanor marry her. She has no idea that she is dealing with another woman, and Eleanor, in her copy of your proper body, is finding the experience exciting but terribly confusing. No harm will come of it, and your Eleanor is perfectly safe. Half the rascals of Earth have converged on the Lord William’s house, but he has a whole battalion from the Defense Fleet on loan around the place, so nothing is going to happen, except that Eleanor will have a headache and Ruth will have a disappointment.”

Rod smiled, “You couldn’t have told me anything better. Who else did you talk to?”

“The Lord Jestocost and John Fisher to the hundredth.”

“Mister and Owner Fisher? He’s here.”

“He’s at his home. Station of the Good Fresh Joey. I asked him if you could have your heart’s desire. After a little while, he and somebody named Doctor Wentworth said that the Commonwealth of Old North Australia would approve it.” .

“How did you ever pay for such a call?” cried Rod. “Those things are frightfully expensive.”

“I didn’t pay for it, Mister and Owner. You did. I charged it to your account, by the authority of your trustee, the Lord Jestocost. He and his forefathers have been my patrons for four hundred and twenty-six years.”

“You’ve got your nerve!” said Rod. “Spending my money when I was right here and not even asking me!”

“You are an adult for some purposes and a minor for other purposes. I am offering you the skills which keep me alive. Do you think any ordinary cat-man would be allowed to live as long as this?”

“No,” said Rod. “Give me those stamps and let me go.”

The Catmaster looked at him levelly. Once again there was the personal look on his face, which in Norstrilia would have been taken as an unpardonable affront; but along with the nosiness, there was an air of confidence and kindness which put Rod a little in awe of the man, underperson though he was. “Do you think that you could love these stamps when you get back home? Could they talk to you? Could they make you like yourself? Those pieces of paper are not your heart’s desire. Something else is.”

“What?” said Rod truculently.

“In a bit, I’ll explain. First, you cannot kill me. Second, you cannot hurt me. Third, if I kill you, it will be all for your own good. Fourth, if you get out of here, you will be a very happy man.”

“Are you barmy, Mister?” cried Rod. “I can knock you flat and walk out that door. I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Try it,” said the Catmaster levelly.

Rod looked at the tall withered old man with the bright eyes. He looked at the door, a mere seven or eight meters away. He did not want to try it.

“All right,” he conceded, “play your pitch.”

“I am a clinical psychologist. The only one on Earth and probably the only one on any planet. I got my knowledge from some ancient books when I was a kitten, being changed into a young man. I change people just a little, little bit. You know that the Instrumentality has surgeons and brains experts and all sorts of doctors. They can do almost anything with personality — anything but the light stuff… That, I do.”

“I don’t get it,” said Rod.

“Would you go to a brain surgeon to get a haircut? Would you need a dermatologist to give you a bath? Of course not. I don’t do heavy work. I just change people a little bit It makes them happy. If I can’t do anything with them, I give them souvenirs from this junkpile out here. The real work is in there. That’s where you’re going, pretty soon.” He nodded his head at the door marked HATE HALL.

Rod cried out, “I’ve been taking orders from one stranger after another, all these long weeks since my computers and I made that money! Can’t I ever do anything myself?”

The Catmaster looked at him with sympathy. “None of us can. We may think that we are free. Our lives are made for us by the people we happen to know, the places we happen to be, the jobs or hobbies which we happen to run across. Will I be dead a year from now? I don’t know. Will you be back in Old North Australia a year from now, still only seventeen, but rich and wise and on your way to happiness? I don’t know. You’ve had a run of good luck. Look at it that way. It’s luck. And I’m part of the luck. If you get killed here, it will not be my doing but just the over-strain of your body against the devices which the Lady Goroke approved a long time ago — devices which the Lord Jestocost reports to the Instrumentality. He keeps them legal that way. I’m the only underman in the universe who is entitled to process real people in any way whatever without having direct human supervision. All I do is to develop people, like an Ancient Man developing a photograph from a piece of paper exposed to different grades of light. I’m not a hidden jungle, like your men in the Garden of Death. It’s going to be you against you, with me just helping, and when you come out you’re going to be a different you — the same you, but a little better there, a little more flexible here. As a matter of fact, that cat-type body you’re wearing is going to make your contest with yourself a little harder for me to manage. We’ll do it, Rod. Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?”

“For the tests and changes there.” The Catmaster nodded at the door marked HATE HALL.

“I suppose so,” said Rod. “I don’t have much choice.”

“No,” said the Catmaster, sympathetically and almost sadly, “not at this point, you don’t. If you walk out that door, youre an illegal cat-man, in immediate danger of being buzzed down by the robot police.”

“Please,” said Rod, “win or fail, can I have one of these Cape triangles?”

The Catmaster smiled. “I promise you — if you want one, you shall have it.” He waved at the door: “Go on in.”