"Now here's an important flash on the cat story. The cats are not carrying an infection and are under no circumstances to be destroyed, whether owned, strayed, or alley. In fact, there's a stiff jail sentence waiting for any person destroying a cat. But all owned cats are to be brought to the nearest security station, while any person sighting a strayed or alley cat is directed to do the same. There's a stiff penalty for not doing the first, a one hundred dollar reward for doing the second. Get busy, kids! Why this sudden federal interest in cats? The National Health Service zips its lips. But your newscaster backs this highly responsible rumor: it has been discovered that a rare strain of cat carries a cancer destroying virus. Wouldn't it be nice, folkses, to know that, once full grown, you would never start to grow again, in any part or place? "But remember this, dear audiers, and I'll say it to you in Martian: Zip-zap-zup! Meaning: Bring in the cats! "Now as for this report, folks, that handie-supernova Zelda Zornia, vacationing in Brazil, did a south-of-the-equator handiecast advertising bathing jewelry; let me assure you clean living people...." Phil cleared his mind, trying to put himself in Lucky's place, to feel the direction in which the cat had wandered off. His head swung doubtfully this way and that, like a compass needle or planchette, but finally came to rest. He climbed out of the jeep and walked straight ahead, not turning aside for the dusty, crackling shrubs, but pushing straight through them. He parted a final straggly hedge and found himself looking across the empty street at a house quite as old as the Akeleys, but with free sky above it. Built of ancient brick, it was three stories tall and looked as pompously respectable as a 19th century banker. It reposed sedately on a terrace that was as weedily overgrown as the square and that was surrounded by a high iron fence. The only incongruous note was struck by a saucer-shaped object fully fifty feet across set on a framework atop the flat roof. Judging from the dull green of its underside, it might be made of copper. It looked almost as old as the house and quite as proper, as if the 19th century banker had decided to wear a green beret and dared anyone to notice it. Phil crossed the street, mounted some steps and peered through the iron gate. He made out, beside the house's old-fashioned, knob door, a tarnished bronze plate which read: "Humberford Foundation." He looked back uneasily. Where he figured the jeep to be, he could see the heads and black-clad shoulders of two men. The black reminded him unpleasantly of the sports togs worn by Billig and his yes men. They seemed to be arguing. One of them took a step up, as if he were getting into the jeep, but the other pulled him back and they hurried off--not in his direction, Phil noted with some relief.