LITMIR.BIZ

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into the bathroom in her stocking feet, Kitty-Come-Here saw Gummitch apparently trying to drown himself in the toilet. His hindquarters were on the seat but the rest of his body went down into the bowl. Coming closer, she saw that his forelegs were braced against the opposite side of the bowl, just above the water surface, while his head thrust down sharply between his shoulders. She could distinctly hear rhythmic lapping.

      To tell the truth, Kitty-Come-Here was rather shocked. She had certain rather fixed ideas about the delicacy of cats. It speaks well for her progressive grounding that she did not shout at Gummitch but softly summoned her husband.

      By the time Old Horsemeat arrived the young cat had refreshed himself and was coming out of his “well” with a sudden backward undulation. He passed them in the doorway with a single mew and upward look and then made off for the kitchen.

      The blue and white room was bright with sunlight. Outside the sky was blue and the leaves were rustling in a stiff breeze. Gummitch looked back once, as if to make sure his human congeners had followed, mewed again, and then advanced briskly toward his little bowl with the air of one who proposes to reveal all mysteries at once.

      Kitty-Come-Here had almost outdone herself. She had for the first time poured him the bottled water, and she had floated a few rose petals on the surface.

      Gummitch regarded them carefully, sniffed at them, and then proceeded to fish them out one by one and shake them off his paw. Old Horsemeat repressed the urge to say, “I told you so.”

      When the water surface was completely free and winking in the sunlight, Gummitch curved one paw under the side of the bowl and jerked.

      Half the water spilled out, gathered itself, and then began to flow across the floor in little rushes, a silver ribbon sparkling with sunlight that divided and subdivided and reunited as it followed the slope. Gummitch crouched to one side, watching it intensely, following its progress inch by inch and foot by foot, almost pouncing on the little temporary pools that formed, but not quite touching them. Twice he mewed faintly in excitement.

      *

      “He’s playing with it,” Old Horsemeat said incredulously.

      “No,” Kitty-Come-Here countered wide-eyed, “he’s creating something. Silver mice. Water-snakes. Twinkling vines.”

      “Good Lord, you’re right,” Old Horsemeat agreed. “It’s a new art form. Would you call it water painting? Or water sculpture? Somehow I think that’s best. As if a sculptor made mobiles out of molten tin.”

      “It’s gone so quickly, though,” Kitty-Come-Here objected, a little sadly. “Art ought to last. Look, it’s almost all flowed over to the wall now.”

      “Some of the best art forms are completely fugitive,” Old Horsemeat argued. “What about improvisation in music and dancing? What about jam sessions and shadow figures on the wall? Gummitch can always do it again—in fact, he must have been doing it again and again this last month. It’s never exactly the same, like waves or fires. But it’s beautiful.”

      “I suppose so,” Kitty-Come-Here said. Then coming to herself, she continued, “But I don’t think it can be healthy for him to go on drinking water out of the toilet. Really.”

      Old Horsemeat shrugged. He had an insight about the artistic temperament and the need to dig for inspiration into the smelly fundamentals of life, but it was difficult to express delicately.

      Kitty-Come-Here sighed, as if bidding farewell to all her efforts with rose petals and crystalline bottled purity and vanilla extract and the soda water which had amazed Gummitch by faintly spitting and purring at him.

      “Oh, well,” she said, “I can scrub it out more often, I suppose.”

      Meanwhile, Gummitch had gone back to his bowl and, using both paws, overset it completely. Now, nose a-twitch, he once more pursued the silver streams alive with suns, refreshing his spirit with the sight of them. He was fretted by no problems about what he was doing. He had solved them all with one of his characteristically sharp distinctions: there was the sacred water, the sparklingly clear water to create with, and there was the water with character, the water to drink.

      Perfect Answer

      By L. J. Stecher, Jr.

       Getting there may be half the fun ... but it is also all of a society’s chance of survival!

      *

      “As one god to another—let’s go home,” Jack Bates said.

      Bill Farnum raised a space-gloved hand in negligent acknowledgment to a hastily kneeling native, and shook his head at Bates. “Let’s try Deneb—it’s almost in line on the way back—and then we can call it quits.”

      “But I want to get back and start making some profit out of this. The Galaxy is full of Homo sapiens. We’ve hit the jackpot first trip out. Let’s hurry on home and cash in.”

      “We need more information. This is too much of a good thing—it doesn’t make sense. I know there isn’t much chance of finding anything out by stopping at one more solar system. But it won’t delay us more than a few weeks, and it won’t hurt to try.”

      “Yeah,” said Bates. “But what’s in it for us? And what if we find an inhabited planet? You know the chances are about two to one that we will. That’ll make thirteen we’ve found on this trip. Why risk bad luck?”

      “You’re no more superstitious than I am,” said Farnum. “You just want to get back Earthside. I’ll tell you what. We’ll toss a coin for it.”

      Bates gestured futilely toward his coverall pocket, and then remembered he was wearing a spacesuit as a precaution against possible contamination from the natives.

      “And we’ll use one of my coins this time,” said Farnum, noticing the automatic motion. “I want to have a chance.”

      The coin dropped in Farnum’s favor, and their two-man scout ship hurled itself into space.

      *

      Farnum operated the compact computer, aligning the ship’s velocity vector precisely while the stars could still be seen. Bates controlled the engines, metering their ravenous demand for power just this side of destructive detonation, while the ship sucked energy from space—from the adjacent universe on the other side of Limbo. Finally the computer chimed, relays snicked, and the ship slid into the emptiness of Limbo as the stars winked out.

      With two trained men working as a team with the computer and the elaborate engine room controls, and with a certain amount of luck, the ship would drop back into normal space a couple of weeks later, close beside their target.

      “Well, that’s that,” said Farnum, relaxing and wiping the perspiration off his forehead. “We’re back once again in the nothingness of nowhere. As I recall, it’s your week for K.P. Where’s the coffee?”

      “Coming right up,” said Bates. “But you won’t like it. It’s the last of the ‘God-food’ the Korite priests made for us.”

      Farnum shuddered. “Pour it out and make some fresh. With a skillet, you stink, but you’re a thousand times better than Korites.”

      “Thanks,” Bates said, getting busy. “It was the third place we stopped that they were such good cooks, wasn’t it?”

      “Nope. Our third stop was the Porandians. They tried to kill us—called us ‘Devil spawn from the stars.’ You’re thinking of the fourth stop; the Balanites.”

      Bates shrugged. “It’s kind of hard to keep them all straight. Either they fall on their knees and worship us, or they try to kill us without even asking questions. Maybe it’s lucky they’re all so primitive.”

      “It may be lucky, but it doesn’t add up. More than half the stars we visit have planets that can support human life. And every

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