The shopkeeper straightened up and remarked with professional cheer, ‘Good morning, gentlemen. Welcome to Mars.’
‘How did you know?’ asked Castor.
‘Know what?’
‘That we had just gotten here.’
‘Eh? That’s hard to say. You’ve still got some free fall in your walk and — oh, I don’t know. Little things that add up automatically. You get to know.’
Pollux shot Castor a glance of warning; Castor nodded. This man’s ancestors, he realised subconsciously, had plied the Mediterranean, sizing up customers, buying cheap and selling dear. ‘You’re Mr Angelo?’
‘I’m Tony Angelo. Which one did you want?’
‘Uh, no one in particular, Mr Angelo. We were just looking around.’
‘Help yourselves. Looking for souvenirs?’
‘Well, maybe.’
‘How about this?’ Mr Angelo reached into a box behind him and pulled out a battered face mask. ‘A sandstorm mask with the lenses pitted by the sands of Mars. You can hang it up in your parlor and tell a real thriller about how it got that way and how lucky you are to be alive. It won’t add much to your baggage weight allowance and I can let you have it cheap — I’d have to replace the lenses before I could sell it to the trade.’
Pollux was beginning to prowl the stock, edging towards the bicycles; Castor decided that he should keep Mr Angelo engaged while his brother picked up a few facts, ‘Well, I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I wouldn’t want to tell a string of lies about it’
‘Not Lies, just creative storytelling. After all, it could have happened — it did happen to the chap that wore it; I know him. But never mind.’ He put the mask back. ‘I’ve got some honest-to-goodness Martian gems, only K’Raath HimseIf knows how old — but they are very expensive. And I’ve got some others that can’t be told from the real ones except in a laboratory under polarised light; they come from New Jersey and aren’t expensive at all. What’s your pleasure?’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ Castor repeated, ‘Say Mr Angelo, what is this? At first I thought it was a fur cap; now I see its alive.’
Castor pointed to the furry heap on the counter. It was slowly slithering toward the edge.
The shopkeeper reached out and headed it back to the middle. ‘That? That’s a “flat cat”.’
‘ “Flat cat?” ‘
‘It has a Latin name but I never bothered to learn it.’ Angelo tickled it with a forefinger; it began to purr like a high-pitched buzzer. It had no discernible features, being merely a pie-shaped mass of sleek red fur a little darker than Castor’s own hair. ‘They’re affectionate little things and many of the sand rats keep them for pets — a man has to have someone to talk to when he’s out prospecting and a flat cat is better than a wife because it can’t talk back. It just purrs and snuggles up to you. Pick it up.’
Castor did so, trying not seem gingerly about it The flat cat promptly plastered itself to Castor’s shirt, fattened its shape a little to fit better the crook of the boy’s arm, and changed its purr to a low throbbing which Castor could feel vibrate in his chest. He looked down and three beady little eyes stared trustfully back up at him, then closed and disappeared completely. A little sigh interrupted the purrs and the creature snuggled closer.
Castor chuckled ‘It is like a cat, isn’t it?
‘Except that it doesn’t scratch. Want to buy it?’
Castor hesitated. He found himself thinking of Lowell’s anxiety to see a ‘real Martian’. Well, this was a ‘Martian,’ wasn’t it? A sort of a Martian. ‘I wouldn’t know how to take care of it’
‘No trouble at all. In the first place they’re cleanly little heasties — no problem that way. And they’ll eat anything; they love garbage. Feed it every week or so and let it have all the water it will take every month or six weeks — it doesn’t matter really; if it isn’t fed or watered it just slows down until it is. Doesn’t hurt a bit. And you don’t even have see that it keeps warm. Let me show you.’ He reached out and took the flat cat back, jiggled it in his hand. It promptly curled up into a ball.