"Oh, sure," said the man. "Any time before breakfast. Are you coming, pal, or do I shut this door again?" I don't know how it would have turned out. Probably I'd have wound up inside the cats. But one of 'em let out a shrill, nasty wail, the kind they give the trainer when they're challenging him to a finish fight, and somebody came shouldering out past the man in the doorway. The door swung wide, so that there was plenty of light. The six-inch fangs on the Martian kitties were a beautiful, shining white. The newcomer said something to the cats in a level undertone and came to me. It was Jarin, the Titan who works the cats. He's about half my height, metallic green in color, and faster on his feet than a rummy grabbing the first drink. He looks like a walking barrel when he's folded up, and like nothing on earth when he isn't. He was unfolded then. He went up to the cats, light and dainty in the mud. They were crouching uneasily, coughing and snarling, wanting to rush him and not quite daring to. The male sprang. IV All I could see was a green blur in the rain. I heard the crisp, wicked smacks of Jarin's tentacles on the tiger. It flopped over in mid-air, buried its face in the mud and came up yowling, like your Aunt Minnie's cat when you stepped on its tail. It went away from there, fast, with its mate right behind it. Jarin chuckled softly. "About the _cansins_," he hissed. "You had an idea?" Somewhere, quite close to us, there was the familiar sound of a plastic shack going to pieces. I remembered hearing blasters rip occasionally. But only Melak's hoods were armed with anything heavy enough to do any good, and I guessed most of them had beat it to Beamish's yacht. A _cansin_ has a hell of a tough hide, and their vitality is something you wouldn't believe if you hadn't seen it. The familiar whistling screech went up, and the babel of human screams and the brute chorus from the rainy alleys. I think, right then, I began to get scared. The fear began to seep through my dopey calm, like pain in a new wound. I shuddered and said, "No. No ideas." There was a soft step in the mud behind me. I spun around, sweating. Ahra the Nahali woman stood there, red-eyed and laughing. "You are frightened," she whispered. I didn't deny it. "I can help you stop the _cansins_." Her eyes glittered like wet rubies, and her teeth were white and sharp. "It may not work, and you may die. Will you try it?" She was daring me. She was hardly more human than the brutes themselves, and she belonged with the rain and the hot indigo night. I said, "You don't want to help, Ahra. You want us to die." I could see the pale skin throbbing under her bony jaw. She laughed, soft alien laughter that made my back hair stir and prickle. "You humans," she whispered. "Trampling and spoiling. The middle swamps have suffered you, greedy after oil and plumes and _ti_. But you we can fight."