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"These aihtened ht The govern blue by every sun, a cop pounding a beat around each planet, squad cars roa the interstellar dark - fuzz everywhere, blurring the diaovernan to nibble at our freedoms - we Wild Ones, we Recalcitrants, we Untae and powers, kept up our screens, lived our own lives, seeround - only to find we&039;d et for the police

"A century ago we all were put on trial Soon it was clear the case would go against us: no privacy, no secret research, no hyperspatial traveling, no chance to solve the universe&039;s problems on our own

"Surrender then - or die? We cut and ran

"Since then it&039;s been a never-ending chase The Hounds of Heaven always on our track: planet pursued by planets untiring No spot in all the cosalaxies, except the hyperspatial storm we have not mastered - reality&039;s hurricane

"Think of the sea as being hyperspace, its surface as the universe we know, its ships as planets, we, a submarine

"We surface near some solitary sun not yet built up with artificial orbs Then they appear, and we ht a battle before we vanish in the void&039;s cruel dark We&039;ve blown up three suns just for diversions! Those novas are in distant galaxies We may have killed a planet; can&039;t be sure

"Sometimes our cold pursuers make a truce and plead with us a while, andbo we&039;ll see the arc light of their reason that glares always above the cosmic prison yard

"Te risked all to find another cosmos - cut loose in hyperspace and sailed off blind But by soht back to this same universe - enchanted thorn-forest around a castle, or tunnel ending by so fro our knight&039;s tour &039;round the universe - but always co the crooked curves of hyperspace

"We try to keep our standards, but we slacken We didn&039;t need to hurt your planet, Paul! - or so I think, I really can&039;t be sure - I&039;h I can&039;t be sure, I&039;ll say this now: I hope before we hare forever into the dark storm They say the third time you drown - May that be so!"

Her voice changed and she cried out sharply: "Oh, Paul, we&039;re charging around with all these beautiful dreams and yet all we can do is hurt people Should you wonder that we&039;re falling in love with death?"

Tigerishka broke off After a bit, her voice neutral yet tight, as if she had drawn into herself, she said: "There, I&039;ve told thenow The monkey may feel superior to the cat, if he wishes"

Very quietly, Paul drew and let out a deep breath His heart was thudding At another tierishka&039;s story and his understanding of it, but now it simply stood there as she had told it, as if the stars beneath hi of it - a dia only what she had said

This fantastic eyrie was so like the viewpoint of dreahtly called "the mind&039;s eye," that Paul could hardly say whether he were living only in his fancy or in the whole great starry cosination and reality were seareatwith less effort than a sigh, he looked sideways and down at the fantastic figure beside hi in silhouette more than ever like a slis were sprawled out, her forepaws folded together-to cushion her chin, so that her head was up and he saw in black outline the snub nose, the height of her forehead and the spearpoints of her ears Her tail arched off beyond her, where its tip twitched in a slow rhythainst the stars She looked like a slierishka," he said softly, "there was once a long-hairedHis nas - pongo ballads and ape laottenstrikes me now as if it had been written for you and your people At least, it&039;s named for your planet - Der WandererThe Wanderer I&039;ll sing it for you"

He began, "Ich ko off, "let e soing any of the key lines or the feeling"

The words and phrases he wanted ca wail, all exactly pitched, in erisbka was lifting the piano acco it with a lonelier beat than even the piano gets

After the sixth bar, he came in:

I come here from the stars alone, The way is twisted, the deeps , "What&039;s the way?" All space is dark, the suns are cold, The flowers are pale and life is old Talk that&039;s not noise is getting rare - I aer everywhere Where are you, world that&039;s all ht, but never known; The cosreen as hope, One fiercely flowered, starward slope; The world where all my friends can walk, My dead stand up, nor white as chalk, The universe that talks my talk - Where are you? I wander on, ahostly answer comes from space: "There where you are not - there&039;s your place"

When the last line was sung, and Tigerishka had huhed and said softly: "That&039;s us, all right He must have had a little cat in him, that Schubert monkey - and that Schot a little cat in you, Paul"

He looked for a ure beside hied, too, and laid it on her shoulder He sensed no tightening, no anger, under the faintly warh it was nothing he&039;d consciously planned - perhaps the fur was giving cues to his fingers - he began to scratch gently the curving ht have done to Miaow

For a while she did notunder the fur Then there was the faint murmur of a barely-breathed purr - just a flutter of sound - and she leaned her head against his hand so that her ear brushed his wrist He shifted his kneading toward the back of her neck and she raised her head, rolling it fro purr Then she rolled her body away froht it was to tell him to stop, but quickly discovered it was only that she wanted to be scratched under the chin And then he felt a silky finger press against the back of his neck and draw smoothly down his body and he realized it was the tip of her tail caressing hierishka?" he murging of elbow and knee against the warainst her, and his arms met around her slim, brushy back and, while the tail-tip continued to caress, he felt her velvet pads resting lightly against his spine with only the ghosts of claws at their tips He heard Miaoing plaintively "She jealous" Tigerishka breathed with the faintest chuckle as her cheek brushed against his, and he felt her harsh narrow tongue lightly touch his ear and begin to scrub against the back of his neck

Up to this esture were part of a ritual that he ht and never be excited, but now safely welded to this fantastic feline Venus in Furs the excitean to flood up into his ely without losing control For the ies came with a queer orderliness, as when his erishka, but now they cah and through They were pictures of men, women, and beasts They were pictures of erotic love, rape, torture, and death - but he realized that even the deaths and the tortures were only to underline the intensity of the contacts, the exquisite violation of all bodily taboos, the coetherness; they were the inward decor for the actions of two bodies These pictures alternated regularly withsys, or ht kaleidoscope After a long while the syan to throb like great drureat cy out toward it in all directions, of outspreading to totality in one great series of building and dih the stars to velvet darkness

After a space he ca up out of the infinite softness of that bottoerishka lifted up a little above hiht, he saw the violet of her petaled irises and the bronzy green of her cheeks and her linting fangs, and she recited:

Poor little ape, you&039;re sick again tonight Has the shrill, fretful chatter fevered you? Was it a drealide frorate

What are those words you e, crime, murder, hate? I&039;ll stroke your brow, poor little ape - you&039;re cross Far wiser beasts under far older stars Have had your sickness, seen their hopes denied, Sought God, fought Fate, pounded against the bars, And like you, little ape, they soht is deep Look at the stars, poor little ape, and sleep

Tigerishka," Paul wondered with a sleepy puzzleet only three lines Did you - "

"No," she said softly, "you finished it by yourself I found it, lying there in the dark behind your eyes, tossed in a corner Rest now, Paul Rest"