* * * * * The big man said, "Hey, buddy, I asked do you have a match?" "What? No, I don't smoke." His thoughts racing, he faced the lion cage. The tanned man had turned away, obviously not wanting to contact him, but why? He knew who Kemper was; there was no doubt of that. Frowning slightly, Mr. Kemper looked at the chewed hunks of horsemeat and bone on the cage floor, and the vibrating flies. The only logical answer was that the man was waiting for reinforcements. Even now he was probably contacting the Three Councils. Still, that gave Kemper a reasonable chance; it took a while for even the most powerful minds to move along the pathways of time. Beside him the big man was talking again. "You feel okay, pal? You looked kind of far away there all of a sudden. Maybe you oughta go over in the shade." "Not at all. I was only thinking of something." "Yeah?" The man took the cigarette from his mouth and put it in his shirt pocket. "Say, I heard you telling that broad there lions don't eat people. You sure about that?" "Quite sure. Look at them. Do you think they need to depend on anything as slow as Homo Sapiens for food?" With another part of his brain he wondered how many men would be sent to take him back. There was one point in his favor, however. He had nothing to lose. "I don't know, pal. All I ever see them do is sleep. Always laying on their fat backs, like now." "Well, that's not unusual. Lions sleep in the daytime and hunt at night." "Yeah? What the hell good is that? The zoo closes at 5:30, don't it?" Kemper looked at him dispassionately. He thought: "You fool, what would you say if you knew that you were talking to a man who hunted your ape ancestors through the forests of a million years ago? Could your pigmy brain accept that?" The man jabbed him on the shoulder again. "Look at that big one with the black streaks in his hair. Ain't he something? Why don't he jump around in there like the chimps do?" "Maybe he doesn't know it's expected of him," Kemper answered, hoping that the arrival of the man in the tweed jacket would not affect his sport of the moment. "You know, I'd like to see a couple of those babies mixing it up. Like the lion against the tiger, maybe. Who do you think would win a hassle like that, anyway?" "The lion," Mr. Kemper said. He decided that the game would go on; an idea was beginning to scratch at the corners of his mind. Looking around with what he hoped was a conspiratorial air, he jabbed his elbow into the big man's stomach. "Listen, you'd like to see some action, would you? Suppose you be here in say--two hours. At three o'clock." "Yeah? What kind of action? You ain't trying to kid me, are you, buddy?"