The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

  I now had all the files necessary to my business: contracts, business letters, file copies of my copyrighted works, general correspondence, address files, notes for stories to be written, tax records, et cetera, and so forth, ad nauseam. Before the days of electronic filing these records would have been a tonne and a half of paper in half a tonne of steel, all occupying several cubic meters. Now they massed only a few grams and occupied space no larger than my middle finger—twenty million words of file storage.

  The wafers were totally encased in that “bone” and thereby safe from theft, loss, and damage. Who steals another man’s prosthesis? How can a cripple forget his artificial foot? He may take it off at night but it is the first thing he reaches for in getting out of bed.

  Even a holdup man pays no attention to a prosthesis. In my case most people never know that I am wearing one. Just once have I been separated from it: An associate (not a friend) took mine away from me in locking me up overnight—we had had a difference of opinion over a business matter. But I managed to escape, hopping on one foot. Then I parted his hair with his fireplace poker and took my other foot, some papers, and my departure. The writing business, basically sedentary, does have its brisk moments.

  The time on the terminal read 1254 and we were almost through. I had only a handful of books—bound books, with words printed on paper—as I did my research, such as it was, through the terminal. These few Gwen stuffed into the bundle she had made from my robe. “What else?” she demanded.

  “I think that’s all. I’ll make a fast inspection and we’ll shove anything we’ve missed out into the corridor, then figure out what to do with it after they turn out the lights.”

  “How about that bonsai tree?” Gwen was eyeing my rock maple, some eighty years old and only thirty-nine centimeters high.

  “No way to pack it, dear. And, besides, it requires watering several times a day. The sensible thing is to will it to the next tenant.”

  “In a pig’s eye, chief. You’ll carry it by hand to my compartment while I drag the baggage along behind.”

  (I had been about to add that “the sensible thing” has never appealed to me.) “We’re going to your compartment?”

  “How else, dear? Certainly we need a bigger place but our urgent need is any sort of roof over our heads. As it looks like snow by sundown.”

  “Why, so it does! Gwen, remind me to tell you that I’m glad I thought of marrying you.”

  “You didn’t think of it; men never do.”

  “Really?”

  “Truly. But I’ll remind you, anyhow.”

  “Do that. I’m glad you thought of marrying me. I’m glad you did marry me. Will you promise to keep me from doing the sensible thing from here on?”

  She did not commit herself as the lights blinked twice and we were suddenly very busy, Gwen in putting everything out into the corridor while I made a frantic last go-around. The lights blinked again, I grabbed my cane, and got out the door just as it contracted behind me. “Whew!”

  “Steady there, boss. Breathe slowly. Count ten before you exhale, then let it out slowly.” Gwen patted my back.

  “We should have gone to Niagara Falls. I told you so. I told you.”

  “Yes, Richard. Pick up the little tree. At this gee I can handle both the bag and the bundle, one in each hand. Straight up to zero gee?”

  “Yes but I carry the duffel bag and the tree. I’ll strap my cane to the bag.”

  “Please don’t be macho, Richard. Not when we’re so busy.”

  “‘Macho’ is a put-down word, Gwen. Using it again calls for a spanking; use it a third time and I beat you with this here cane. I’ll damn well be macho anytime I feel like it.”

  “Yes, sir. Me Jane, you Tarzan. Pick up the little tree. Please.”

  We compromised. I carried the duffel bag and used my cane to steady myself; Gwen carried the bundle with one hand, the bonsai maple with the other. She was unbalanced and kept shifting sides with the bundle. Gwen’s proposed arrangement was, I must admit, more sensible, as the weight would not have been too much for her at that acceleration and it fell off steadily as we climbed up to zero gee. I felt sheepish, a touch ashamed…but it is a temptation to a cripple to prove, especially to women, that he can so do everything he used to do. Silly, because anyone can see that he can’t. I don’t often give in to the temptation.

  Once we were floating free at the axis we moved right along, with our burdens tethered to us, while Gwen guarded the little tree with both hands. When we reached her ring, Gwen took both pieces of luggage and I did not argue. The trip took less than a half hour. I could have ordered a freight cage—but we might still be waiting for it. A “labor-saving device” often isn’t.

  Gwen put down her burdens and spoke to her door.

  It did not open.

  Instead the door answered, “Mistress Novak, please call the Manager’s housing office at once. The nearest public terminal is at ring one-hundred-five, radius one-thirty-five degrees, acceleration six-tenths gravity, next to the personnel transport facility. That terminal will accept your call free of charge, courtesy of Golden Rule.”

  I cannot say that I was much surprised. But I admit that I was dreadfully disappointed. Being homeless is somewhat like being hungry. Maybe worse.

  Gwen behaved as if she had not heard that dismal announcement. She said to me, “Sit down on the duffel bag, Richard, and take it easy. I don’t think I’ll be long.”

  She opened her purse, dug into it, came up with a nail file and a bit of wire, a paper clip, I believe. Humming a monotonous little tune she started to work on the compartment’s door.

  I helped by not offering advice. Not a word. It was difficult but I managed it.

  Gwen stopped humming and straightened up. “There!” she announced. The door opened wide.

  She picked up my bonsai maple—our bonsai maple. “Come in, dear. Better leave the duffel bag across the threshold for now, so that the door won’t pucker up. It’s dark inside.”

  I followed her in. The only light inside was from the screen on her terminal:

  ALL SERVICES SUSPENDED

  She ignored it and dug into her purse, brought out a finger torch, then used its light to get into a drawer in her buttery, took out a long, slender screwdriver, a pair of Autoloc tweezers, a nameless tool that may have been homemade, and a pair of high-pot gloves in her slender size. “Richard, will you hold the light for me, pretty please?”

  The access plate she wished to reach was high up over her microwaver and was locked and decorated with the usual signs warning tenants against even looking cross-eyed at it, much less touching it, with incantations of “Danger! Do Not Tamper—Call Maintenance,” etc. Gwen climbed up, sat on the oven top, and opened the access plate with just a touch; the lock apparently had been disabled earlier.

  Then she worked very quietly save for that monotonous little hum, plus an occasional request for me to move the torch light. Once she produced a really spectacular fireworks display which caused her to cluck reprovingly and murmur, “Naughty, naughty. Mustn’t do that to Gwen.” She then worked most slowly for a few more moments. The compartment’s lights came on, accompanied by that gentle purr of a live room—air, micromotors, etc.

  She closed the access plate. “Will you help me down, dear?”

  I lifted her down with both hands, held on to her, claimed a kiss for payment. She smiled up at me. “Thank you, sir! My, my, I had forgotten how nice it is to be married. We should get married more often.”

  “Now?”

  “No. Lunchtime now. Breakfast was hearty but it is now past fourteen. Feel like eating?”

  “It’s good exercise,” I assented. “How about the Sloppy Joe on Appian Way near ring one-oh-five? Or do you want haute cuisine?”

  “A Sloppy Joe is okay; I’m not a fussy eater, dear. But I don’t think we should go outside for lunch; we might not be able to get back in.”

  “Why not? You do a slick job of bypassing a change in a door com
bo.”

  “Richard, it might not be that easy again. They simply haven’t noticed, as yet, that locking me out didn’t work. But when they do—They can weld a steel plate across the doorway if that is what it takes. Not that it will, as I shan’t fight being moved any more than you did. Let’s eat lunch; then I’ll pack. What would you like?”

  It turned out that Gwen had salvaged from my buttery gourmet items I had in freeze or in sterile pack. I do stock unusual viands. How can you know ahead of time, when working on a story in the middle of the night, that you are going to suffer a craving for a clam sundae? It is merely prudent to have materials on hand. Otherwise you could be tempted to stop work and leave your monastic seclusion in order to find an item you must have—and that way lies bankruptcy.

  Gwen laid out a buffet of her supplies and mine—ours, I should say—and we ate while discussing our next move…for move we must. I told her that I intended to call dear Mr. Middlegaff as soon as we finished lunch.

  She looked thoughtful. “I had better pack first.”

  “If you wish. But why?”

  “Richard, we have leprosy; that’s evident. I think it must be connected with the killing of Schultz. But we don’t know. Whatever the cause, when we stick our heads outside, I had better have my things ready just as yours are; we may not get back in.” She nodded at her terminal, still shining with the message: ALL SERVICES SUSPENDED. “Putting that terminal back into service would be more than a matter of wheedling a few solenoids, since the computer itself is elsewhere. So we can’t beard Mr. Middlegaff from this compartment. Therefore we must do everything we need to do here before we go out that door.”

  “While you pack, I can duck out to call him.”

  “Over my dead body!”

  “Huh? Gwen, be reasonable.”

  “Reasonable I emphatically am. Richard Colin, you are my brand-new bridegroom; I intend to get years and years of wear out of you. While this trouble is going on, I am not letting you out of my sight. You might disappear like Mr. Schultz. Beloved, if they shoot you, they are going to have to shoot me first.”

  I attempted to reason with her; she put her hands over her ears. “I won’t argue it, I can’t hear you, I’m not listening!” She uncovered her ears. “Come help me pack. Please.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  Gwen packed in less time than I had taken, yet my help consisted mostly of keeping out of her way. I’m not too used to living with females; military service is not conducive to home life and I had tended to avoid marriage, aside from short-term contracts with Amazon comrades—contracts automatically canceled by orders for change of duty. After I reached field grade I had had female orderlies a couple or six times—but I don’t suppose that relationship is much like civilian marriage, either.

  What I’m trying to say is that, despite having written many thousands of words of love-confession stories under a hundred-odd female pen names, I don’t know much about women. When I was learning the writing scam, I pointed this out to the editor who bought from me these sin, suffer, and repent stories. The editor was Evelyn Fingerhut, a glum middle-aged man with a bald spot, a tic, and a permanent cigar.

  He grunted. “Don’t try to learn anything about women; it would handicap you.”

  “But these are supposed to be true stories,” I objected.

  “They are true stories; every one of them is accompanied by a sworn statement: ‘This story is based on fact.’” He jerked a thumb at the manuscript I had just brought in. “You’ve got a ‘Fact’ slip clipped to that one. Are you trying to tell me it ain’t so? Don’t you want to get paid?”

  Yes, I wanted to be paid. To me the acme of prose style is exemplified by that simple, graceful clause: “Pay to the order of—” I answered hastily, “Well, as a matter of fact that story is no problem. I didn’t actually know the woman but my mother told me all about her—it was a girl she had gone to school with. This girl did indeed marry her mother’s younger brother. She was already pregnant when the truth was discovered…and then she was faced with that horrible dilemma just as I’ve told it: the sin of abortion, or the tragedy of an incest baby with a possibility of two heads and no chin. All fact, Evelyn, but I trimmed it a bit in telling it. It turned out that Beth Lou was no blood relation to her uncle—and that’s the way I wrote it—but also her baby was no relation to her husband. That part I left out.”

  “So write it again and leave that part in and the other part out. Just be sure to change the names and places; I don’t want any complaints.”

  At a later time I did so and sold that version to him also, but never did get around to telling Fingerhut that it hadn’t happened to a schoolmate of my mother, but was something I had cribbed from a book belonging to my Aunt Abby: the librettos of The Ring Cycle by Richard Wagner, who should have stuck to composing music and found himself a W. S. Gilbert to write his librettos; Wagner was a terrible writer.

  But his preposterous plots were just right for the true confessions trade…toned down a little, not quite so hard core—and, of course, different names and locales. I didn’t steal them. Or not quite. They are all in the public domain today, copyrights expired, and besides, Wagner stole those plots in the first place.

  I could have made a soft living on nothing but Wagnerian plots. But I got bored with it. When Fingerhut retired and bought a turkey ranch, I quit the confession business and started writing war stories. This was more difficult—for a time I almost starved—because military matters I do know something about, and that (as Fingerhut had pointed out) is a handicap.

  After a while I learned to suppress what I knew, not let it get in the way of the story. But I never had that trouble with confession stories as neither Fingerhut, nor I, nor Wagner, knew anything at all about women.

  Especially about Gwen. Somewhere I had acquired the conviction that women need at least seven pack mules to travel. Or their equivalent in big suitcases. And of course women are by nature disorganized. So I believed.

  Gwen moved out of her compartment with just one large case of clothes, smaller than my duffel bag, with every garment neatly folded, and one smaller case of—well, non-clothes. Things.

  She lined up our chattels—duffel bag, bundle, large case, small case, her purse, my cane, bonsai tree—and looked at them. “I think I can work out a way,” she said, “for us to handle all of them at once.”

  “I don’t see how,” I objected, “with only two hands apiece. I had better order a freight cage.”

  “If you wish, Richard.”

  “I will.” I turned toward her terminal…and stopped. “Uh—”

  Gwen gave full attention to our little maple tree.

  “Uh—” I repeated. “Gwen, you’re going to have to loosen up. I’ll slide out and find that nearest terminal booth, then come back—”

  “No, Richard.”

  “Huh? Just long enough to—”

  “No, Richard.”

  I heaved a sigh. “What’s your solution?”

  “Richard, I will agree to any course of action that does not involve us being separated. Leave everything inside this compartment and hope that we can get back in—that’s one way. Place everything just outside the door and leave it, while we go to order a freight cage—and call Mr. Middlegaff—that’s another way.”

  “And have it all disappear while we are gone. Or are there no two-legged rats in this neighborhood?” I was being sarcastic. Every habitat in space has its nightwalkers, invisible habitants who cannot afford to remain in space but who evade being returned to Earth. In Golden Rule I suspect that the management spaced them when they caught them…although there were darker rumors, ones that caused me to avoid all sorts of ground pork.

  “There is still a third way, sir, adequate for moving us as far as that terminal booth. That being as far as we can go until the housing office gives us a new assignment. Once we know our new address we can call for a cage and wait for it.

  “The booth is only a short distance. Sir, earlier you said you
could carry both your bag and your bundle, with your cane strapped to your bag. For this short distance I agree to that. I can carry both my cases, one in each hand, with the strap of my purse let out so that I can sling it over my shoulder.

  “The only problem then is the little tree. Richard, you’ve seen pictures in National Geographic of native girls carrying bundles on their heads?” She didn’t wait for me to agree; she picked up the little potted tree, placed it atop her head, took her hands away, smiled at me, and sank down, bending only her knees, spine straight and bearing erect—picked up her two cases.

  She walked the length of her compartment, turned and faced me. I applauded.

  “Thank you, sir. Just one thing more. The walkways are sometimes crowded. If someone jostles me, I’ll do this.” She simulated staggering from being bumped, dropped both cases, caught the bonsai as it fell, put it back on top her head, again picked up her luggage. “Like that.”

  “And I’ll drop my bags and grab my cane and beat him with it. The jerk who jostled you. Not to death. Just a reprimand.” I added, “Assuming that the miscreant is male and of mature years. If not, I’ll make the punishment fit the criminal.”

  “I’m sure you will, dear. But, truly, I don’t think anyone will jostle me, as you will be walking in front of me, breaking trail. All right?”

  “All right. Except that you should strip to the waist.”

  “Really?”

  “All pictures of that sort in National Geographic always show the women stripped to the waist. That’s why they print them.”

  “All right if you say to. Although I’m not really endowed for that.”

  “Quit fishing for compliments, monkey face; you do all right. But you’re much too good for the common people, so keep your shirt on.”

  “I don’t mind. If you really think I should.”

  “You’re too willing. Do as you please but I am not, repeat not, urging you to. Are all women exhibitionists?”

  “Yes.”

  The discussion ended because her door signal sounded. She looked surprised. I said, “Let me,” and stepped to the door, touched the voice button. “Yes?”