CAT AND MOUSE
BY RALPH WILLIAMS
Illustrated by van Dongen
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding ScienceFiction June 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The Warden needed to have a certain very obnoxious pesteliminated ... and he knew just the pest-eradicator he needed....
The Harn first came to the Warden's attention through its effect on thegame population of an area in World 7 of the Warden's sector. A naturalecology was being maintained on World 7 as a control for experimentalseedings of intelligent life-forms in other similar worlds. How the Harngot there, the Warden never knew. In its free-moving larval state, theHarn was a ticklike creature which might have sifted through a naturalinter-dimensional rift; or it might have come through as a hitchhiker onsome legitimate traveler, possibly even the Warden himself.
In any event, it was there now. Free of natural enemies andcompetition, it had expanded enormously. So far, the effect in thecontrol world was localized, but this would not be the case when theHarn seeded. Prompt action was indicated.
The Warden's inclination and training was in the direction of avoidingdirect intervention in the ecology of the worlds under hisjurisdiction, even in the field of predator control. He consideredintroduction of natural enemies of the Harn from its own world, anddecided against it. That cure was as bad, if not worse, than the diseaseitself.
There was, however, in one adjacent world, a life-form not normallyassociated with the Harn; but which analysis indicated would be inimicalto it, and reasonably amenable to control.
It was worth trying, anyway.
October 3rd, Ed Brown got up to the base cabin of his trap line with hiswinter's outfit.
He hung an N. C. Company calendar on the wall and started marking offthe days.
October 8th, the hole into the other world opened.
In the meantime, of course, Ed had not been idle. All summer the cabinhad stood empty. He got his bedding, stove, and other cabin gear downfrom the cache and made the place livable. The mice were thick, a goodfur sign, but a nuisance otherwise. Down in the cellar hole, when hewent to clear it out for the new spud crop, he found burrowingseverywhere.
Well, old Tom would take care of that in short order. Tom was a big,black, bobtailed cat eleven years old who had lived with Ed since he wasa kitten. Not having any feline companionship to distract him, his onlyinterest was hunting mice. Generally he killed a lot more than he couldeat, racking the surplus in neat piles beside the trail, on thedoorstep, or on a slab in the cellar. He was the best mouser in interiorAlaska.
Ed propped the cellar hatch with a stick so old Tom could come and go ashe pleased, and went on about his chores, working with a methodicalefficiency that matched Tom's and went with his thinning gray hair andforty years in the woods. He dug the spuds he had planted that spring.He made a swing around his beaver lakes, tallying the blankets in eachhouse. He took the canoe and moved supplies to his upper cabin. Heharves