So I used something the cat would respond to. I conjured up the memory of the big tom's smell. That triggered the cat's submissiveness. I felt my part of the collective mind grow larger.

"You're almost there," Tobias said. "This is the right yard."

"Yes, I know. My scent is everywhere,-This whole area smells of me. This is home. This is all mine."

"Rachel, this is all Chapman's. And Chapman belongs to Visser Three. Don't forget that." I trotted to the cat door. Chapman. Visser Three. Big deal. I was a combination of Rachel and Fluffer. What did I care about Chapman and Visser Three?

The light inside the house was bright. My eyes adjusted instantly. My nose picked up the smell of cat food, too dry and old to interest me. I also smelled the humans: Melissa, Mr.

Chapman, and Ms. Chapman. Don't ask me how I knew that what I smelled were those three people. I just knew.

I spotted a cockroach in the dust balls in the dark beneath the refrigerator. No interest to me.

Roaches made interesting scritchy noises sometimes, and they were fun to watch run. But they smelled wrong. They were not prey.

Swift movements!

Feet. Human feet. I didn't bother looking up. It was Ms. Chapman.

High-pitched sounds coming from the motor of the refrigerator. They were annoying. There were also the sounds of birds outside. They had a nest up under the eaves.

Then the sound of Melissa's voice.

Where was she? I didn't see her anywhere. The sound was muffled.

I tried to focus. My ears moved to point to ward the sound. It came from above me. Above and far away.

She was in her bedroom, that's where. I couldn't hear the words clearly, but I knew that she was muttering to herself.

I trotted across the kitchen floor. I knew - as Rachel- I knew I should be afraid. But I couldn't be afraid. Everything here smelled like me. My scent glands had left their marks all over -- on that door, on that cupboard, on that chair. It re assured me.

50 The big dominant tomcat's smell was not in here. No, there were no other cats in here at all.

Only human smells, and those were not very important.

I left the kitchen and paused at the corner between the hallway and the family room.

Chapman was there, in the living room. I could smell him. He was just sitting on the couch. I glanced at him and walked on.

But then I stopped. My human brain sensed something wrong with the picture. Chapman was just sitting on the couch. No TV. No music. He wasn't reading a book or a newspaper. Just sitting.

I turned back to the kitchen. I looked up at Ms. Chapman. She was doing something at the sink. Maybe washing dishes. No, she was cutting vegetables. But again, no TV. No music.

She wasn't humming to herself. She wasn't talking to herself the way my mom does when she's working in the kitchen.

Not right. Something was not right with either of the Chapmans. I went back to the hallway.

There were stairs leading up to the bedrooms. From the hallway I could hear Melissa more clearly. I concentrated, trying to ignore the fascinating sounds of the birds under the eaves. I focused on the human sounds of Melissa's voice.

"Di . . divided by the square root ... no, wait. No, square root times ... Is that right?"

She was doing her homework. Her math home work, obviously.

Like I should be doing, I thought. I had a pang of guilt. Instead of doing my homework, I was creeping around my friend's house spying on her and her parents.

I tried to find a clock. I had to watch the time. At nine forty-five my two hours would be up. I wanted to be out of morph and back in my normal body long before then. Hopefully, I could still get home and do my math homework and at least do some of the reading for social studies class.

I spotted a clock. It was over the mantel, between pictures of the Chapmans and Melissa.

The clock said three minutes until eight. I had plenty of time.

Sudden movement!

Oh, just Chapman standing up.

The cat part of me wasn't interested in Chapman one way or the other. But I forced myself to pay attention. It was important to watch him. That was why I was here.

Is he prey?The cat brain seemed to be asking.

Yes. Yes,I told the cat brain. Chapman is our prey.

I followed Chapman as he headed down the hallway. Either he didn't notice me, or else he didn't care. He opened a door that let loose a flood of smells. Dampness. Mildew. Bugs.

"Rachel? How are you doing in there?"

51 I jerked in surprise. A very un-catlike movement.

It was Tobias. He had to be fairly close for me to be able to hear his thought-speech. He must be on the roof or perched on a nearby tree branch. I strained my sensitive cat hearing. The birds under the eaves were silent. They were afraid of the big hawk.

"I'm fine," I said. "But you scared me half to death!"

"Sorry. I was just worried."

"Well, don't worry. I'm following Chapman down to the basement. "

"Why?"

"Because that's where he's going. Duh," I said. Somehow, Tobias's human words were annoying me. He wanted me to pay attention to him and it was hard to do. The cat didn't care about his words. The cat just wanted to go down and look around the basement. Fortunately, that's what I wanted to do, too.

I trotted down the rough wooden stairs after Chapman. Very weird, by the way. Going downstairs as a cat gave me a feeling of vertigo. I mean, I was going down head first. It's strange.

"Look, Tobias, I appreciate you looking out for me. But I'm kind of busy right now."

"I understand. I can't hear you very well, anyway. You're getting farther away. "

"Yeah, I'm going down." I waited. He said nothing. "Tobias?" I called. But there was no answer. We're still learning about thought-speech. We know there are limits on how far it can be "heard." But we aren't sure what the limits are.

The basement had paneling all around. The ceiling was bare wood and full of spiders and other interesting things. No mice, though. Nothing that could be considered actual prey. But many things that might be fun to chase.

Chapman is the prey, I reminded myself. We are hunting Chapman.

There was a sort of TV room with a pool table and some old chairs and a couch. But it was obvious that no one had used them for a long time. There were no human scents on them.

There was dust everywhere and I could hear that there were spiders inside the TV set.

The only part of the basement that appeared to have been used was a path right across the floor. I smelled the scents that Chapman had tracked there with his shoes.

He walked in a straight line across the basement to a door. It was a simple white-painted door. Chapman pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. He unlocked the white door.

He opened it and stepped through. Five feet beyond the white door was a second door. This one was made of gleaming steel. It looked like the door to a bank vault.

52 Beside the steel door, there was a small, square white panel of light. Chapman pressed his hand against it.

The steel door opened. It slid into the wall like the doors on Star Trek.

I knew I had to go after him. But my human mind was afraid. And my cat mind didn't see any reason why I should walk into that dark place.

To both of us, it felt like a trap. Like a place we couldn't get out of.

But I had to. I had to go in there . That was the whole point of this spying trip.

And Chapman was my prey.

At the last second, just as the door swooshed shut, I bounded into the room.