Cat Country Read Online Free PDF Page A

find a scrap of you left! All of the sweet and beautiful reminiscences of an entire lifetime will never be able to make up for the bitter shame of this one memory. Whenever I think of it in the future, I shall always consider myself the most worthless of all human beings.
    It was something like having a nightmare: although I was suffering great physical pain, I was still able to think of other things. All of my thoughts were centred on my late friend. When I closed my eyes I could still see those birds pecking at his dead flesh, and feel them pecking at my own living heart. Where were we going? In my present situation, even if I had been able to force my eyes open, I really wouldn’t have been able to look at anything, much less remember the landmarks clearly enough to make my escape later. Was I walking, or jumping, or rolling? Only the Cat People could have answered that one. My mind was not on any of this; it was as though my body no longer belonged to me. I was only conscious of sweat pouring off my head. There was only a little bit of consciousness left in me; I was like a man who has been wounded but has not yet passed out. Everything had gone hazy and I couldn’t tell where my body began or ended – I was only conscious of sweat leaving it at various points. It seemed that my life was no longer in my own hands, and yet I did not feel that I was suffering.
    Everything went blank. Then, after a while, the darkness passed, and I forced my eyes open the way a man does when waking up from a drunken sleep. I became conscious of an excruciating pain in my ankles. Instinctively I started to feel for them, but discovered that my wrists were still handcuffed. It was only at this point that things began to come slowly into focus before my eyes, although they had already been open for some time. I was on a small boat, but had no idea as to when or how I got there. I must have been on the boat for a long time, for my ankles had regained their feeling and I was acutely conscious of the pain occasioned in them by the leg irons. I tried turning my head. Those clammy hands weren’t on my neck any longer! I turned around and looked, but there was nothing behind me. Above was the silver-grey sky and below, a warm, sticky river of deep leaden hues. It made no sound but seemed to be flowing very rapidly, and I was out in the middle of it going downstream.

HOW DO YOU GET OUT OF HERE?
    I DIDN ’ T have time to worry about the danger that I was in; at a time like that, the idea of danger doesn’t even occur in a man’s mind. Heat, hunger, thirst and pain – none of these matched in intensity the feeling that I had of utter exhaustion (I had just finished a journey through space that lasted over half a month). I couldn’t sleep on my back because the handcuffs prevented me from laying my spine flat, but somehow or other I managed to work my way into a lying position on one side and went to sleep. I entrusted my life to the mercies of this steamy, oily river, and simply concentrated on getting to sleep, for in my situation, there was little point in hoping for sweet dreams or any other embellishments.
    When I woke up again, I found myself propped into a sitting position in the corner of a small room. No, it really wasn’t a small room; it was more like a little cave. There were no windows and no doors. Four wall-like pieces of something or other surrounded a bit of ground from which the grass hadn’t even been weeded. The roof was a small bit of gunmetal sky. My hands were free, but now there was a thick rope around my waist. I couldn’t see the other end of it. Maybe it was tied to something on the other side of the wall. Perhaps since I’d descended from the sky, they thought that it would be a good idea to anchor me to the ground. How odd – the pistol was still in my shirt!
    What did they have in mind? Kidnapping? Demanding a ransom of Earth? No, they’d never go to all that trouble. Maybe they thought they had captured a