And just then there was a timid knock at the door. Phil opened it, wondering whether he should slap Mitzie right away or wait. Dr. Anton Romadka pointed significantly at Phil’s neck with a stun-gun and walked in.
The small psychoanalyst looked nattily professional in the old-fashioned business suit, white shirt and necktie affected by some doctors. There was even a vest buttoned over his little paunch. His left cheek was as smooth as his gleaming bald head; evidently he’d covered the scratches with skin film. His expression radiated fatherly good will and reasonableness, though he kept the stun-gun pointed straight at Phil and every now and then his gaze flickered to Dytie.
“Phil,” he began, “I shall not deny the statement my daughter just made about me, for if you will only consider carefully, it will make us allies and comrades. Who could know as well as you, Phil, how hideously psychotic American civilization has become? You’ve personally experienced what it can do to the brain, the body, the sense organs. And who could appreciate as well as you, Phil, the sanity of the Workers’ Republics, where under the first firm rule of Marxist fact and absolute science, all psychosis is impossible – because all irrationalisms, all illusion (including the mad vaporings of a gangrened capitalism and its pseudo-science) are inconceivable.”
Phil found himself goggling his eyes and vaguely nodding. He shook himself. Romadka’s cheery voice was remarkably hypnotic.
“Of course, I should have realized all this last night, Phil, and appealed to your reason,” said Romadka as he kept the stun-gun trained on Phil’s neck with geometric precision. “But I was hurried and emotionally upset – even our agents are not wholly immune to the American infection when living with it – and I made several mistakes. Among other things I did not take my unfortunate daughter into account early enough, though I am certainly glad she came to warn you, since it enabled me to locate you. Which in turn will enable you, Phil, and your charming companion, to enjoy the bracing sanity of the Soviets.”
The small psychiatrist smiled and carefully propped himself on the arm of the foam chair. His voice became genially confidential. “And now, children,” he said, for the first time including Dytie in his nod, “I am going to tell you how you can do a great service to the illusion-immune state and win an undying welcome when you reach its realistic shores. Psychotic capitalism, faced by total defeat in the next war, has loosed against the Workers’ Republics a final filthy weapon: its own collective madnesses and herd delusions, catalyzed by subtle and electronic and chemical bombardments of the collective Soviet nerve tissue. To date this capitalist poison in the Soviet Pan-Union has largely taken the form of delusions involving green cats. Don’t mistake me, these green cats are undoubtedly real. It is my firm belief that they are ordinary cats with tiny electronic senders surgeried into their bodies, and with hormone spraying capacities comparable in their vileness to those of skunks. Although the green cats are possibly not the most important element in the assault on the Soviet psyche, they are the main stage props in that assault. Unfortunately, we have not been able to lay our hands on one of these creatures, in order to confirm our deductions and shape proper counter measures. It is absolutely essential that we do so.”
“But there’s only one green cat,” Phil objected, genuinely puzzled, “and it’s supposed to be attacking America. It isn’t, of course.”
“I’ll say it isn’t. My boy, I am giving you the Marxist facts,” Romadka assured him gravely. “Those stories you have heard are merely blinds put out by the capitalist government to conceal from its own work slaves and pseudo scientists the enormity of its actions. What has happened is that a green cat has escaped from a government laboratory here. You led me to that cat once, Phil. You can do it again.”
“I can’t,” Phil said mildly.
“Phil, you can,” Romadka assured him.
“But you got him once,” Phil objected, “and all you did was let him go again.”
For the first time a shadow of impatience darkened Romadka’s geniality. “I told you I made some mistakes last night. I let someone get a hypo-beam on me, probably a drug spray too. For a time I wasn’t responsible for my actions. It was all I could do to escape the FBL raid. But it won’t happen again.” His voice grew brisk. “So come on along with me, Phil, and bring your friend. There’s no more time for discussion.”
“But -” Phil began.
Dytie da Silva stepped into the foreground. “Me no go,” she told Romadka. “Why should I? You sound crazy head. ‘Lusion-‘mune state? ‘Rationalisms impossible? Abs’lute science? All nonsense!”
The psychoanalyst lifted his eyebrows at her accent and sentiments. “I was just about to take up your case, young lady. Why are you here in the first place?”
“Just come from room across,” Dytie told him, jerking a thumb at the window.
Romadka studied her through narrowed eyes behind which memory seemed to be at work. Suddenly he smiled thinly. “The description tallies,” he said. “You’re the young woman Mr. Gish watched undressing last night, and onto whom he grafted a remarkable delusion.”
“Phil, you never tell me about that,” Dytie said, looking at him brightly.
“Naturally he wouldn’t,” Romadka said, a bit primly.
“Why not?” Dytie demanded. “I don care. If he like, okay.”
Romadka looked at her contemptuously. “A common exhibitionist, I see. Nymphomania too.”
Dytie planted her hands on her hips. “Look, I no say long words good. But your diagnose wrong there. Not nym’omania – satyr’asis. I show you.” And then and there she started to peel off a stocking. Phil watched in fascinated horror.
Romadka stood up angrily. “Of all the -” he began. “If you think that some crude appeal to my sexual urges -”
But at that moment Dytie pulled off her shoe and foot, and held out her dainty black hoof, fur-tufted fetlock and slim pastern for his inspection. “Okay, ‘lusion-‘mune,” she said grimly. “Take good look. Satyr’asis!”
Dr. Romadka’s knees shook. His face was gray. His eyes bulged.
Without warning, Dytie stooped, spun around, and let go with a very accurate kick. The stun-gun shot out of Romadka’s trembling hand and clattered against the wall beyond. Romadka snatched his hand away as if the hoof were hell, and stumbled frantically out of the room. The sound of his rapid, uneven footsteps slowly faded out. Phil knew just how he felt. It was all he could do not to follow him.
Dytie began to laugh uproariously. While doing so, she hobbled over to the door, shut it and then picked up Romadka’s gun.
“This stun-gun?” she asked Phil.
Phil wet his lips and clutched at the table for support. He knew he must be quite as pale as Romadka. “Dytie,” he finally managed to say, his teeth chattering, “you come from a country a lot farther away than Argentina.”
She smiled apologetically. “Thas right, Phil. I got longer story yours tell.”
Phil nodded shakily. “But first, if you please…” he faltered, and pointed at the shoe, foot and crumpled stocking she’d dropped on the floor.
“Sure, Phil. I un’erstand.” She picked them up and sat down on the edge of the bed to put them on. Phil followed her movements unwillingly, but when it came to the point where she was about to thrust her hoof into the deep well in the false foot and the platform he flinched and looked away.
Meanwhile she was saying matter-of-factly, “You no tell ‘lusion-‘mune man, but you got idea where pussycat is?”
“No,” he replied nervously, “but I know where I might be able to find out.”
“Is in this city?”
“Yes.”
“You take me there, Phil?”
“I guess so.”
“Don you want find pussycat too, Phil?”
“Yes, I think I do.”
“Okay, thas fine. You can look now.”