Cat People by Gary Brandner Page A

through the bars. "Hello, my beautiful friends."
    The tigers stood motionless a few feet away, watching, waiting.
    It seemed to Irena that her senses were more keenly alert than at any time in her life. A powerful feeling of belonging overcame her. It was a feeling she had never known.
    Finally she turned away from the tigers and continued along the path. She had not gone far when she spied a small gap in the brush along one side. She investigated and found a narrow trail, faint and partially overgrown, that led away at right angles from the main path. A new scent reached her nostrils, and Irena knew that this was the way she must go.
    A short way down the new trail her way was barred by a chain stretched across between two metal posts. A sign hanging from the chain read:
    No Admittance
Animal In Quarantine
    Without pausing, Irena raised the chain and ducked under it. She followed the narrow trail through a patch of trees. Up ahead she could hear voices. A man was cursing violently. A woman seemed to be trying to calm him. An undertone to the argument was the soft growling of a big cat.
    Irena pushed back a last clump of brush and saw the cage about thirty feet away. Beyond it the path led into a small wooded area, then up a grassy slope on the far side to an old brick building. As Irena watched, the man, who was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, headed into the trees. He walked with a stiff and unnatural gait. The woman remained behind, hosing down the floor of the cage. She was careful to direct the stream of water away from the animal inside.
    Finally the woman picked up something she had in a plastic bag and followed the man. Irena waited until she saw first the man, then the woman, climb the grassy bank and enter the building. Then she left the concealment of the brush and approached the cage.

Chapter 9
    On the far side of the quarantine cage, beyond a dense patch of trees and atop a grassy bank, sat the aged administration building of the New Orleans Zoo. Inside, in a ground-floor laboratory, Oliver Yates was using surgical forceps to assist a poisonous snake in shedding its skin. Oliver plucked gently at the drying husk, taking care not to injure the shiny new skin beneath it.
    "Amazing process, isn't it?" he said to the other man in the room. "When they outgrow an old skin they just slough it off, and there's a brand-new one underneath. Sort of like being reborn. It's too bad we humans can't do something like that when our skins outlive their usefulness."
    Bronte Judson perched on a stool and carefully kept his eyes averted from what Oliver was doing with the snake. Despite the heat, he wore a three-piece suit, with a necktie severely knotted at the collar of his white shirt. To Judson's way of thinking, the title of Chief Administrator required him to maintain a certain formality.
    "Never mind the snake," Judson said. "We've got to make a decision soon about what to do with the black leopard."
    "What's to decide?" Oliver said, without looking up from the shedding snake. "Once he's out of quarantine, providing nobody claims him, we free up one of our other exhibits, give him some space to move around, and we've got ourselves a new attraction that didn't cost us a dime."
    "Isn't it possible that he's dangerous?"
    Oliver put down the forceps and turned to face the administrator. "Dangerous? Hell, yes, he's dangerous. They're all dangerous. What do you think we're running here, a puppy farm?"
    "I know, I know," Judson said, "but this one seems ... different. I had a look at him this morning, and I tell you that animal scared me, even with the steel bars between us. He doesn't act like the other cats."
    "There is something about him," Oliver admitted. "His behavior doesn't fit the normal patterns. That's one reason I wired Dr. Fritch in San Francisco to come down and have a look at him."
    "San Francisco?" Judson's voice cracked.
    "That's right. Fritch is the best big-cat man in the country."
    "But San Francisco! What's that