Goblin Reservation

He gri

Far ahead, sitting on its hill at the west end of the campus, Maxwell could make out the great hulk of the administration section, etched darkly against the last faint brushing of red in the western sky.

The belt moved on, past Time College and its squatting museum with the sign fluttering in the wind. The clock ended its telling of the time, the last notes of the chimes fading far into the distance.

Six o'clock. In another few minutes he would be getting off the belt and heading for the Winston Arms, which had been his home for the last four-no, the last five years. He put his hand into the right-hand pocket of his jacket and his fingers traced the hard outlines of the small ring of keys tucked into the small key pocket inside the jacket pocket. Now, for the first time since he'd left Wisconsin Station, the story of that other Peter Maxwell forged to the fore-front of his thoughts. It could be true, of course- although it didn't seem too likely. It would be very much the kind of trick Security might play to crack a man wide open. But if it were not true, why had there been no report from Coonskin of his failure to arrive? Although, he realized, that piece of information also had come from Inspector Drayton, as well as the further information that the same thing had happened twice before. If Drayton could be suspect on one story, he also was suspect on the other two. If there had been other beings picked up by the crystal planet, he had certainly not been told of them when he had been there. But that also, Maxwell reminded himself, was no trustworthy evidence. Undoubtedly the creatures on the crystal planet had told him only those things they wanted him to know.

The thing that bothered him the most, come to think of it, was not what Drayton had said, but what Mr. O'Toole had told him: We sent the wreath of mistletoe and holly to express our deepest grief. If events had turned out differently, he would have talked with his goblin friend about it, but the way things went, there had been no chance to talk of anything at all.

It all could wait, he told himself. In just a little while, once he had gotten home, he'd pick up a phone and make a call-to any one of many people-and then he'd know the truth. Who should he call? he wondered. There was Harlow Sharp, at Time, or Dallas Gregg, chairman of his own department, or maybe Xigmu Maon Tyre, the old Eridanean with the snow-white fur and the brooding violet eyes who had spent a long lifetime in his tiny cubbyhole of an office working out an analysis of the structuring of myths. Or maybe Allen Preston, friend and attorney. Preston, probably, he told himself, for if what Drayton had told him should happen to be true, there might be some nasty legal questions stemming out of it.

Impatiently, he snarled at himself. He was believing it, he was begi

The Winston Arms was just down the street and he got up from his seat, picked up his bag, and stepped to the barely moving outer belt. Standing there, he waited, and in front of the Winston Arms got off.

No one was in sight as he climbed the broad stone stairs and went into the foyer. Fumbling in his pocket, he took out the key ring and found the key that unlocked the outer door. An elevator stood waiting and he got into it and pressed the button for the seventh floor.

The key slid smoothly into the lock of his apartment and when he twisted it the door came open. He stepped into the darkened room. Behind him the door swung shut automatically, with a snicking of the lock, and he reached out his hand toward the panel to snap on the light. But with his hand poised to press, he stopped. For there was something wrong. A feeling, a sense of something, a certain smell, perhaps. That was it-a smell. The faint, delicate odor of a strange perfume.

He smashed his hand against the panel and the lights came up.

The room was not the same. The furniture was different and the screaming paintings on the wall-he had never had, he would never have paintings such as that!

Behind him the lock snicked again and he spun around. The door swung open and a saber-tooth stalked in.

At the sight of Maxwell, the big cat dropped into a crouch and snarled, exposing six-inch stabbing fangs.

Gingerly, Maxwell backed away. The cat crept closer by a foot, still snarling. Maxwell took another backward step, felt the sudden blow above the ankle, tried to twist away, but was unable to, and knew that he was falling. He had seen the hassock he should have remembered it was there-but he hadn't. He'd backed into it and tripped himself and now he was going over flat upon his back. He tried to force his body to relax against striking on the floor-but he didn't hit the floor. His back smashed down into a yielding softness and he knew he'd landed on the couch that stood behind the hassock.

The cat was sailing through the air in a graceful leap its ears laid back, its mouth half open, its massive paws outstretched to form a battering ram. Maxwell raised his arms in a swift defensive gesture, but they were brushed aside as if they'd not been there and the paws smashed down into his chest, pi

The cat began to purr.

"Sylvester!" cried a voice from the doorway. "Sylvester, cut that out!"

The cat raked Maxwell's face once again with its moist and rasping tongue, then sat back upon its haunches, with a half-grin on its face and its ears tipped forward, regarding Maxwell with a friendly and enthusiastic interest.

Maxwell struggled to a half-sitting posture, with the small of his back resting on the seat cushions and his shoulders propped against the couch's back.

"And who might you be?" asked the girl standing in the doorway.

"Why, I..."

"You've got your nerve," she said.

Sylvester purred loudly.

"I'm sorry; miss," said Maxwell. "But I live here. Or at least, I did. Isn't this Seven-twenty-one?"

"It is, - indeed," she said. "I rented it just a week ago."

Maxwell shook his head. "I should have known," he said. "The furniture was wrong.

"I had the landlord throw out the stuff," she said. "It was simply atrocious."

"Let me guess," said Maxwell. "An old green lounger, somewhat the worse for wear-"

"And a walnut liquor cabinet," said the girl, "and a monstrous seascape and-"

Maxwell lifted his head wearily. "That's enough," he said. "That was my stuff that you had thrown out."

"I don't understand," said the girl. "The landlord said the former occupant was dead. An accident, I think."

Maxwell got slowly to his feet. The big cat stood up, moved closer, rubbed affectionately against his legs.

"Stop that, Sylvester," said the girl.

Sylvester went on rubbing.

"You mustn't mind him," she said. "He's just a great big baby."

"A bio-mech?"

She nodded. "The cutest thing alive. He goes everywhere with me. He seldom is a bother. I don't know what's got into him. It seems that he must like you."

She had been looking at the cat, but now she glanced up sharply.

"Is there something wrong with you?" she asked.

Maxwell shook his head.

"You're sort of frosty around the gills."

"A bit of shock," he told her. "I suppose that's it. What I told you was the truth. I did, at one time, live here. Up until a few weeks ago. There was a mix-up somehow."