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Edgy fro for more, I took my cup to the coffeemaker and refilled it

"What I can tell you," Roosevelt said, "is there were supposed to be dogs out at Fort Wyvern as well as cats"

"Orson didn’t come from Wyvern"

"Where did he coerator, sipping the hot coffee "One ofhad a lot of puppies, and they needed to find houes at the university?"

"Yeah A professor at Ashdon"

Roosevelt Frost stared, unspeaking, and a terrible cloud of pity crossed his face

"What?" I asked, and heard a quavery note in my voice that I did not like

He opened his ht better of it, and kept his silence Suddenly he seemed to want to avoidbiscuits

The cat had no interest in the biscuits Instead, he watched old with eyes of jewels, standing silent guard for millennia in the most sacred room of a pyramid far beneath a sea of sand, had suddenly come to life before my eyes, it would not have seemed more aze

To Roosevelt, I said, "You don’t think that’s where Orson caue lie to her?"

He shook his head, as if he didn’t know, but he knew all right

I was frustrated by the way he fluctuated betweenhis secrets I didn’t understand his ga and closeaze, in the draft-treht, with the humid air thickened by mystery as manifest as incense, I said, "All you need to cos, a Gypsy headband, and a Roet a rise out of hi to my chair at the table, I tried to use what little I knew to encourage him to believe that I knew even ht some of his secrets weren’t so secret, after all "There weren’t only cats and dogs in the labs at Wyvern There were monkeys"

Roosevelt didn’t reply, and he still avoided my eyes

"You do know about the lanced from the biscuits to the security-camera monitor in the hutch

"I suspect it’s because of theoutside thethat he had betrayed his knowledge by looking at the monitor when Ibiscuits

Only a hundred s were available in the bay waters beyond the marina, and they were nearly as prized as the dock slips, though it was a necessary inconvenience to travel to and from your moored boat in another craft Roosevelt had subleased a space from Dieter Gessel, a fisher the northern horn with the rest of the fishing fleet but who had kept a junk dinghy at the ainst the day when he retired and acquired a pleasure boat Ru five ti Dieter

I had never before asked him about it because it wasn’t any of ht it up first

Now I said, "Every night, you , and you sleep there Every night without fail--except tonight, while you’re waiting here forto buy a second boat, so smaller and fun, just to play with When you didn’t, when you just went out there every night to bunk down, they figured--‘Well, okay, he’s a little eccentric anyway, old Roosevelt, talking to people’s pets and whatnot’"

He remained silent

He and Orson appeared to be so intensely and equally fascinated by those three dog biscuits that I could alht abruptly break discipline and gobble up the treats

"After tonight," I said, "I think I knohy you go out there to sleep You figure it’s safer Because maybe monkeys don’t sell--or at least they don’t enjoy it"

As if he hadn’t heard , even if you won’t talk to me, you can have your nibbles"

Orson risked eye-to-eye contact with his inquisitor, seeking confired

Orson looked dubiously at ht Roosevelt’s per snatched up the first biscuit and happily crunched it

Finally turning his attention topity still in his face and eyes, Roosevelt said, "The people behind the project at Wyvern…they ood intentions Soht’ve coain, which relaxed under his hand, though he never shifted his piercing eyes from me "But there was also a dark side to this business A very dark side From what I’ve been told, the monkeys are only one manifestation of it"

"Only one?"

Roosevelt held h for Orson to eat the second biscuit, and when at last he spoke, his voice was softer than ever: "There were s and monkeys in those labs"

I didn’t knohat he uinea pigs or white mice"

His eyes shifted away fro far beyond the cabin of this boat "Lot of change coood"

"Some is"

As Orson ate the third biscuit, Roosevelt rose froainst his chest, stroking hi whether I needed to--or should--know ain from a revelatory mood into a secretive one "I’o I was asked to warn you that your friends are in danger if you don’t walk away fro"

"The cat asked you to warn ot tomotion of the boat For a ripped the back of the chair to steady myself

This physical syrip on reality see the upper rim of a whirlpool that would suck h the bottom of the funnel--my own version of Dorothy’s tornado--and found myself not in Oz but in Wai the fine points of reincarnation with Pia Klick