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A HALF hour after the big rubber hands of the telemanipulator yanked Phil out of his cubicle in the black maria, he had been exposed to so uessed there were only two places in Aon or White House, Junior, in New Washington

Moved along by telemanipulators which did not seem to care which side up they carried people, he had been prodded, thunities His footprints, retinal blood vessel layout and other physical patterns and diainst his FBL dossier; likewise his voice pattern and hand writing He had been X-rayed and eried inside hierhts had been flashed in his eyes, questions had droned in his ears Once or twice he thought he&039;d been put to sleep All throughout the process he&039;d felt a nation

But now, as a final rubber hand sliding in a slot in the wall hurried hie room, he suddenly realized that he didn&039;t care anyconducted to a seat by a human usher at last He looked around Almost everyone he&039;d been mixed up with in the past few days was here: Jack and Juno Jones, looking quite awestruck, along with Cookie; Moe Briruous red hair; Mitzie Romadka and her father, pale and woozy; Sacheverell and Mary Akeley; Dr Garnett and Chancellor Frobisher from the Humberford Foundation; Dion and Dytie da Silva, the latter with a cloak huddled around her; even Carstairs, Llewellyn and Buck Along with them were quantities of unfamiliar faces - FBL people, Phil supposed Others, presuuards, lined the walls

Most of these individuals atching three e desk across the room: Dr Morton Opperly, President Robert T Barnes, and a stony faced nized as John Emmet, head of the FBL

Eher Like Opperly&039;s his face showed an intense and ceaseless curiosity, but a curiosity that never became carefree, as if each new fact was for hi to Dave Greeley, as supervising thite-smocked technicians as they telemanipulated Lucky, as limp as a dish cloth, into a loalled box set between banks of electronic tubes and transistors Apparently Greeley had voiced a doubt as to the safety of the set up, for Euaranteed that the low intensity stunfield in which Lucky had now been placed would keep the green cat harmless

But Phil heard only the tail end of the conversation as he was being seated between Dr Garnett and Sacheverell The next ot very quiet Emmet looked them all over

Finally Emmet said, "I think you all knohy you&039;re here I want the fullest cooperation fro us, complete frankness is possible I, myself, shall be as frank as I expect you to be"

Ein with, the creature known as the green cat is real Its powers of influencing thought and emotion are also real It truly intends the conquest of America and of the entire world Finally, it is neither mutant nor mechanism, but an invader from the planetary system of another star Dr Opperty, will you kindly outline the infor as Miss Aphrodite da Silva?"

Dr Opperly&039;s voice was faint but very clear

"The eighth planet of the Star Vega - that is, if Miss da Silva and I have got our identifications straight - is earth-type though of soreater mass Its landscape, Miss da Silva tells me, can be pictured as endless, hard baked plains dotted with sroves of tall trees On this planet, intelligence evolved in a swift hoofed biped leaf eater, whose forelegs beca branches and for brief food seeking climbs This specialization occurred when the creature was a pri very horselike hoofs, its forelegs were beco rey Miss da Silva, would you care to give these people an idea?"

Dytie stood up, whipped off her cloak, and stood facing them in hirsute nudity For a moment there was no reaction, then she staure became real She wrapped the cloak around her and sat down

"Miss da Silva tells ht," Opperly observed "They have also advanced farther than we in technology, possessing force fields that divert gravity, also direct atoht But perhaps the most remarkable fact about this satyr race is that they are symbiotes, and that their symbiotic partners are a sort of creature that never evolved on Earth and that has a way of life hich we are quite unfa about these syy, did not originate on Vega Eight, and that they are not very intelligent, but are responsible for the Vegan invasion of Earth"

Opperly ignored the ing of their symbiotic partners, the satyrs - if I may use that terather that the 26 light years were covered in soh of course the ti Earth, they put their ship into an orbit and rendered it invisible For about two more years they stayed in the ship, except for careful exploratory trips in a gravity-diverting space dinghy, Theyof our languages and custouise theerly did so, since they kneould be highly desirable for them to keep in close contact with their rather scatter-brained syan

"And now," Opperly said slowly, "I come to the point where I must describe the symbiotic partners and I&039;m not too sure that I can Don&039;t you think, Miss da Silva -?" But Dytie shook her head emphatically Opperly shut his eyes for a moment, then he said, "You kno the presence of a pet can occasionally bring harine an anie in the evolutionary helter-skelter, began to specialize for this purpose, and to evolve into a harer Think how the cat has established itself in our culture, largely on the basis of its charine howus not only beauty but har the power to create and spray horer and create amity in other creatures, somewhat like the flohich evolved scents and odors to attract the bees And think of it developing, for self-defensive purposes, hor extrasensory perception and a sensitivity to thought waves, and discovering in this way a whole new real peace Iht be called an espcatalyst, either by acting as an esp relay station a, copying and projecting clouds of punchedbecause it is paid for the peace and es, as the cat is paid for its beauty, in the coin of food, fondling and protection

"Such a creature wouldn&039;t develop general intelligence, because it would always depend for its survival on the care of others Yet it would have a high intelligence in understanding and s in other animals It would"

He hesitated and Dytie da Silva called to him, " play by ear?"

"Thank you," Opperly told her "It would always be transence, it would always seek out beings with the highest possible general intelligence, since they could bring it the greatest security It would be cunning in all deceptions enabling it to penetrate a new culture, such as the ie purposes Like any other species, it would strive to multiply and colonize, to fulfill its destiny in the cosmos By ence in distant places, even distant planets, and persuade its symbiotic partners to take it to those places and planets"

He paused "And now I ask all of you," he said, "to try to iine what it would be like to be the sy creature, to have a telepathy of feelings and perhaps of thoughts with those around you, to have a constant guard against those e and icy selfishness that lead to murder and to war, to be always reasonably in tune - and yet not deprived of any of your basic faculties and insights and powers?"

Again he paused, then said softly, "But I don&039;t have to ask you, for you&039;re in that state of being right now You&039;re syreen cat - or rather, I should say, one of the green cats"

As he said that, a head rather olden yellow than Lucky&039;s poked itself up from Emmet&039;s lap and looked at the that had possessed him ever since he had come into this room was the radiance of one of Lucky&039;s cousins And then he felt Lucky&039;s radiance added to it, and looking around toward the electronic contraption, he saw Lucky lifting his head over the edge

Meanwhile, John Ereen cat - or rather, cats - intended the conquest of Around before adding that, as far as the Federal Bureau of Loyalty and the Office of the President are concerned, the conquest has been co froes we&039;ve just received fro with some extraordinary tokens of faith, the Kreood?" Dytie shouted, ju up "You know just four satyrs, ten pussycats come in ship We send seven pussycats, two satyrs behind ferrous veil - mean iron curtain We think they need pussycats just a little bitflood of questions and answers, shouted insights, babbling conversation Catching a bit here and there, Phil learned how the second and yellower green cat, out of touch with Dion and Dytie for a week, had unexpectedly returned to its Vegan e number of led that cat in to Barnes and so to Ening unconsciousness after recovering fro in private on Earth - they were i ive them away He heard Dion try to picture to Dr Garnett how the cats on Vega Eight had taken to pointing theirat it at night, and Dr Garnett proudly suggested that theythe brain waves beamed out by the Hua Eight had once been a war-toent space traveling worreen cats