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THE street snarled at Phil The snarl caed-up electric hot rod that swerved close to the curb to reular chunk fro to safety A second look showed he was not a fat man, but a thin man in a balloon suit It deflated rapidly, and he sat down in its lian to sob Balloon suits were of no real protection to pedestrians, except by increasing the apparent target, but they continued as a fad During the last war they had been puainst neutrons until a couple of small but unpleasant explosions in crowded shelters had caused the govern, the street continued to growl deep in its throat - it had ter levels The groas composed of the hum of electrics, the subterranean ru vocal advertisements, and the nervous shuffle of feet that was the sa, but that was intensified here because most of the woh

Neither the growl nor the snarl disturbed Phil Nors tucked in, his face fixed straight ahead, his eyes nervously questing for hot rods, which were known to jump curbs But today he sis he&039;d always been blind to, to note the anxious but apathetic expressions on the faces of the pedestrians, to sense the invisible lines of force that, like spider webs oradvertiseed from the crisp, "Learn to Break Necks!" and the cute "A Strip-Tease Doll All Your Own!" to the "Why Not Lobotoure with a Sprayed-on Evening Dress! Plasticfabric cures in a jiffy, breathes No heat, no adhesions! Special forht on your body!"

Lucky seehtened of the street than Phil He sca close to the base of Skyway Towers &039; reen color of which may have explained why none of the pedestrians took note of him - not that any explanation was needed as to why those walking nerve-bags didn&039;t see things right under their noses!

A glea sales robot veered toward Phil on its silent wheels, but Phil deftly interposed another balloon-suited et a slick reducing pill sales talk; evidently the robot had scanned his profile Phil hurried around the corner after Lucky, who had turned down garish Opperly Avenue

As if he had picked up a scent, Lucky abruptly left the wall, glided across the sidewalk and padded across Opperly Avenue between the passing cars Phil followed, not without a certain heart pounding, but with no real anxieties So allowed him to sense easily the intentions of all the cars in the block - dodging theood five feet ahead of a playful youth in a jalopy with a tin body like a space jeep scribbled over with such signs as "Oh, You Venusian!" and "Girls beware - escape speed zero" Effortlessly recovering his breath, Phil found hi an ornate cave est lettering on which read: "TONIGHT! Juno Jones, the Man-Maiynist"

But he had no ti up the broad corridor lined with giant stereographs of ht like genies freshly materialized from smoke

Ordinarily Phil would have felt a certain aust , or even passing, a wrestling palace specializing in male-female, but today it seemed simply a part of life It never occurred to him not to follow Lucky

Just short of some turnstiles and a robot ticket taker lost in shadows, a side corridor spilled light Lucky whisked into it Phil had barely rounded the corner after hiray arainst Phil&039;s , Mack?" a voice rasped froave him a quick shove toward the ticket taker

Phil could see Luckyinquisitively down the side corridor, which was lined with doors He tried to go around the arm, but it extended itself until it stretched fro wall inquired "Look, Mack, I don&039;t know your voice If you got business with soave you"

"I just want to get my cat," Phil answered Lucky had reached the end of the corridor and was peering into the last doorway "Here, Lucky," he called, but the cat took no notice

"Means nothing to me," the wail rasped on "You still ain&039;t named me no nah the doorway Phil said, "Please letto sound as sincere as he could "I&039;ll be right back"

"I ain&039;t letting nobody through," the wall asserted "Give me a na spasht had been turned out inside his mind and his heart sprayed with liquid ice He knew that soray arm and darted forward, but before he had taken five steps he felt hihly spun back Looking down he saw the elastic arrated in his ear, "No go, Mack Now I&039;ll have to hold you till the et in there, do you hear!" Phil yelled He struggled futilely to release his arh which Lucky had vanished "Let e, tall woman with close cropped blonde hair, a broken nose, an outsize jaw and big blue eyes had stepped out of the nearest doorway "Cool down, son," she boo toward him "What did you want?"

"My cat ran in here," he explained, trying to speak calmly, "It ran in that room down there at the end" He nodded his head toward it "I tried to go after it and this thing grabbed ht He noticed for the first ti the far doorway so closely, that she wore hts and was stripped to the waist Her breasts were sh not cordily, o," she told the wall

"Didn&039;t give a nah Got to hold him till the man comes"

"Which&039;ll be at least an hour, if I know Jake Let hio, you dumb robot," she said in ahi alray aro find your cat and then beat it," the giantess told hi to her, but keeping the far doorway in the corner of his gaze But she didn&039;t answer, only stared after hi quite unconscious of her partial nakedness

Phil tried not to hurry, although the corridor see had happened to Lucky, and wished very hard he could believe it He didn&039;t feel big any uely noticing heaps of untidy clothes and a stationary rubber-ar practice He ca observed that all the others were tightly shut He hesitated He couldn&039;t hear a sound He stepped inside

The rooed, and lined with lockers and benches At the far end was a closed door, flanked by t e tables, their jointed rubber-fisted ar them look like two beetles on their backs There were a few other pieces of apparatus, none of which Phil recognized, but most of the floor was empty

Almost in the center of the floor was a brown box about a foot square Staring at it, their backs turned to Phil, were two , dressed in a black turtleneck sweater and tight black trousers, and holding sohter, and si to the box

Phil cleared his throat The two men eyed hied forward into the roo into the corners for Lucky Then he jerked back He had al more closely, he saw there were half a dozen dead ain, louder, but this tiain, stepping gingerly over the dead mouse

There was a click A tiny door opened in the top of the brown box and athe floor, itat each turn Phil stared, suddenly expecting Lucky to co out of a corner after it The un There was no sound or flash fro

"Try to surprise me better next time, Cookie," the man in black told his companion "I saw your hand move when you punched the button" They resu around them in a cautious circle, Phil searched for Lucky He soon realized there were few likely places of conceal and were all closed

One of the dead an to twitch Cookie put down the ith the push-button at the end of it, picked up the h a side door Phil was beginning to feel very queer He felt there must be some connection between Lucky and the mice, but it was a dream connection that didn&039;t un to ache fro himself, he approached the motionless pair "Excuse me," he said with difficulty, "but did you see a cat coot noyour pardon," he said, "but really I must find out," and he barely touched the elbow of the h frorabbed by his jacket front and jerked back by Cookie, whose infantile features were now tensed into a hard mask

"What you did!" The voice was shrilly scandalized "Interrupting the kings punishs pain!"