The Wonder Effect by Frederik Pohl Page A

heavily about the principals.
    Moray started and snapped off the radio. Try as he would, he never could get used to the Masters' music, and he had never known one of his people who could. He stared out of the window and stroked his whiskers again, forcing his thoughts into less upsetting channels.
    A staccato buzz sounded from the dashboard. Moray looked at the road-signs and swung into a lower speed-lane, and then into another. He looped around a ramp intersection and drove into a side-street, pulling up before a huge apartment dwelling.
    Moray climbed out into the strip of fuzzy pavement that extended to the lobby of the building. He had to wait a few moments for one of the elevators to discharge its burden; then he got in and pressed the button that would take him to Floor L, where lived Birch, whom he greatly wanted to marry.
    The elevator door curled back and he stepped out into the foyer. He quickly glanced at himself in a long pier glass in the hall, flicked some dust from his jacket. He advanced to the door of Birch's apartment and grinned into the photo-eye until her voice invited him in.
    Moray cast a glance about the room as he entered. Birch was nowhere to be seen, so he sat down patiently on a low couch and picked up a magazine. It was lying opened to a story called, 'The Feline Foe.'
    `Fantastic,' he muttered. All about an invading planetoid from interstellar space inhabited by cat-people. He felt his skin crawl at the thought, and actually growled deep in his throat. The illustrations were terrifying real – in natural color, printed in three-ply engravings. Each line was a tiny ridge, so that when you moved your head from side to side the figures moved and quivered, simulating life. One was of a female much like Birch, threatened by one of the felines. The caption said, ' "Now," snarled the creature, "we shall see who will be Master !" '
    Moray closed the magazine and put it aside. 'Birch !' he called protestingly.
    In answer she came through a sliding door and smiled 'at him. 'Sorry I kept you waiting,' she said.
    `That's all right,' said Moray. 'I was looking at this thing.' He held up the magazine.
    Birch smiled again. 'Well, happy birthday !' she cried. 'I didn't forget. How does it feel to be thirteen years old?'
    `Awful. Joints cracking, hair coming out in patches, and all.' Moray was joking; he had never felt better, and thirteen was the prime of life to his race. 'Birch,' he said suddenly. 'Since I am of age, and you and I have been friends for a long time --'
    `Not just now, Moray,' she said swiftly. 'We'll miss your show. Look at the time!'
    `All right,' he said, leaning back and allowing her to flip on the telescreen. 'But remember, Birch – I have something to say to you later.' She smiled at him and sat back into the circle of his arm as the screen commenced to flash with color.
    The view was of a stage, upon which was an elaborately robed juggler. He bowed and rapidly, to a muttering accompaniment of drums, began to toss discs into the air. Then, when he had a dozen spinning and flashing in the scarlet light, two artists stepped forward and juggled spheres of a contrasting color, and then two more with conventional Indian clubs, and yet two more with open-necked bottles of fluid.
    The drums rolled. 'Hup!' shouted the master-juggler, and pandemonium broke loose upon the stage, the artists changing and interchanging, hurling a wild confusion of projectiles at each others' heads, always recovering and keeping the flashing baubles in the air. 'Hup!' shouted the chief again, and as if by magic the projectiles returned to the hands of the jugglers. Balancing them on elbows and heads they bowed precariously, responding to the radioed yelps of applause from the invisible audience.
    `They're wonderful!' exclaimed Birch, her soft eyes sparkling.
    `Passably good,' agreed Moray, secretly delighted that his suggested entertainment was a success from the start.
    Next on the bill was a young male singer, who