"Andre Norton - Cat Fantastic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

The man smiled. "I need a mouser-and a ratter." "Rats don't come full-grown," Anja responded. The man
nodded.
"You couldn't want a better," Anja said. She padded a carrying cage with another blanket. "Just don't
make her an outdoor cat the foxes'll get her. A safe way indoors, her rug by the fireside in winter, a cool
place in summer, water, and care if she needs it."
"Well, I'll take her if she'll come."
Time I had a home of my own, Feathers thought. But she was far too small to become a cat who lived
alone. She'd refused other homes where they wanted a baby-sitter, lap cat, and dependent animal. But
this man wanted a working cat, and Feathers accepted.
"Think to me every morning," Silk advised her daughter. "Or I shall worry." Feathers knew her small size
concerned her mother. She agreed.
Feathers set about eliminating the small rodent population of the long-untenanted holding her humans
were putting back into some sort of order. The man who had come for her saw that she was well cared
for-although she understood clearly that she was not his cat. All in and on the property belonged (human
term) to a man called the Master. Feathers was not entirely sure he knew of her existence. She would
have taught him the Proper Order of Things with her teeth and claws-had he not been one who made her
ears lie back when he entered a room. Cats know about Power, its creatures and its uses. Even young
and inexperienced cats are instinctively aware of Good and Evil. Feathers knew that what went on in the
part of the establishment set aside for his exclusive use was Bad, Wrong, Evil. She felt things that made
her long fur stand on end and her mouth open in a silent hiss. Her solution was to avoid all contact with
him.
When her first breeding season occurred, she should have been closed indoors, to take no chances that
she would conceive so young. But no one thought another cat was within miles, and few paid sufficent
attention even to know of her condition.
Stranger and stranger were the behaviors of the Master. Lights of distorted colors accompanied even
more disgusting odors and quite indescribably hideous sounds. The servants became silent, frightened of
their own shadows, and drank more than too much. They went on long journeys carrying peculiar
bundles. People of dubious aspect and, Feathers suspected, even more doubtful character came to the
holding in the darkest hours and left well before dawn. The Master would be gone for days, even weeks,
then return, usually furious, and cause upset and perturbation. Awaiting kittens, Feathers welcomed his
presence even less than usual.
She knew him and his behaviors to be Evil, but she could not contain her raging curiosity. When she
thought to Silk, her mother was horrified. Disturbed both by this reaction and her own uncharacteristic
mania, Feathers agreed that she would seek to discover what the Master did only if she could locate a
way to see without being seen, to find out without being found out. Conscientious searching located no
way into his private workroom. Every mousehole and ratway was blocked with material that made her ill
when she smelled it. Still, she watched.
While she observed the only door one night, her dark fur with its shadow stripes and spots making her
utterly unnoticeable, a man who came and went (always at night, always surreptitiously, always on a
horse with muffled hooves) brought three other men with him to the steading. He led them to the door of
the workroom. When they entered, so did Feathers., They did not notice.
"You have no doubts that you have located the Gate," the tallest man said.
The Master nodded. "And established the requirements to bring to it that we seek. It has but to be
tested."
The three men stared at one another.
"Tested? How can you test that-something-will come through it?"
"By sending something the other way."
The men moved uneasily. The tall one rested his hand on his sword hilt.
"When?" the fattest one asked:
"Tomorrow is the night of the Cat," the master replied.