The man who liked lions

"What? No, I don't smoke." His thoughts racing, he faced the lion cage. The tanned man had turned away, obviously not wanting to contact him, but why? He knew who Kemper was; there was no doubt of that. Frowning slightly, Mr. Kemper looked at the chewed hunks of horsemeat and bone on the cage floor, and the vibrating flies. The only logical answer was that the man was waiting for reinforcements. Even now he was probably contacting the Three Councils. Still, that gave Kemper a reasonable chance; it took a while for even the most powerful minds to move along the pathways of time. Beside him the big man was talking again. "You feel okay, pal? You looked kind of far away there all of a sudden. Maybe you oughta go over in the shade."

"Not at all. I was only thinking of something."

"Yeah?" The man took the cigarette from his mouth and put it in his shirt pocket. "Say, I heard you telling that broad there lions don't eat people. You sure about that?"

"Quite sure. Look at them. Do you think they need to depend on anything as slow as Homo Sapiens for food?" With another part of his brain he wondered how many men would be sent to take him back. There was one point in his favor, however. He had nothing to lose.

"I don't know, pal. All I ever see them do is sleep. Always laying on their fat backs, like now."

"Well, that's not unusual. Lions sleep in the daytime and hunt at night."

"Yeah? What the hell good is that? The zoo closes at 5:30, don't it?"

Kemper looked at him dispassionately. He thought: "You fool, what would you say if you knew that you were talking to a man who hunted your ape ancestors through the forests of a million years ago? Could your pigmy brain accept that?"

The man jabbed him on the shoulder again. "Look at that big one with the black streaks in his hair. Ain't he something? Why don't he jump around in there like the chimps do?"

"Maybe he doesn't know it's expected of him," Kemper answered, hoping that the arrival of the man in the tweed jacket would not affect his sport of the moment.

"You know, I'd like to see a couple of those babies mixing it up. Like the lion against the tiger, maybe. Who do you think would win a hassle like that, anyway?"

"The lion," Mr. Kemper said. He decided that the game would go on; an idea was beginning to scratch at the corners of his mind. Looking around with what he hoped was a conspiratorial air, he jabbed his elbow into the big man's stomach. "Listen, you'd like to see some action, would you? Suppose you be here in say--two hours. At three o'clock."

"Yeah? What kind of action? You ain't trying to kid me, are you, buddy?"

Shrugging, Mr. Kemper looked at the flies swarming in the cage. "It's just a tip. Take it or leave it, buddy." He turned, brushed by the scowling man, and left the rail. Although it was getting hotter he walked down the cement in the sun, avoiding the shade of the tall hedges opposite the row of cages. He went toward the stairway that lifted from the lion court to the terrace where the central zoo building stood. Behind the building was the main enclosure; the zoo itself was terraced along two hillsides, with more hills in the distance. It was not a large zoo, nor was it a good place to hide. But Mr. Kemper did not intend to hide.

In the cages he passed were other cats: cheetahs, leopards, puma and tigers, lying with heaving flanks, or lolling red-tongued on the stone floors. They hadn't changed too much, he decided, except in size. Even the streak-maned lion was puny in comparison with the lions that Kemper had known. He walked up to the drinking fountain by the stairway, the sun in his face. He was almost tempted to stare contemptuously up at it. Bending over the fountain he caught the dusty smell of the cats among popcorn, rootbeer and ice cream smells and the sweat stink of people. He straightened, wiping his lips, and remembered the somber jungles of the Pliocene, black-green in the sun that was a fist against your head; the plains of javelin-tall, yellow grass swinging to the horizon; and in the hills the lions with hides like hammered brass, the deadly, roaring lions. He remembered too, with the smell of those lions thick as dust in his mouth, the cities of his people, the proud people who had discovered the secrets of time through the science of their minds, a science unknown to the world he was in now. He looked up slowly and saw the man in the tweed jacket standing at the top of the stairway.

When their eyes met, Kemper probed with an arrow-swift thought but the other had his mind-shield up. The man turned, and moved behind a group of women. The man was gone when Kemper got to the top of the steps. "So that's the way you want it," he said, looking around. Two sidewalks led from the stair top; one went up the hill to the aviary, the other around the south wing of the building. He took the one that rounded the wing. "I doubt," he said, "if we'll play peek-a-boo all afternoon, however." An old lady twitching along the walk gave him a nasty look as he passed.

He went by the zebra corral where a small boy was picking up stones and turned into the side entrance of the wing. He went down the dim corridor, turned left at the men's room, then right and left again, and came finally to a small yard partially hidden from the main enclosure by an extension of the wing. In the yard was only one exhibit, a beaver pool surrounded by a waist-high stone wall. Two teen-aged boys sprawled on the wall; otherwise the place was deserted. Mr. Kemper studied the boys. Here was game to his liking. He went over and sat down on a bench in the sun.

The boys, twins in levis, saddle-shoes, T-shirts and long hair, leaned over the pool. There was something odd about the actions of the blond one who tilted dangerously near the water. He moved, spasmodically, and Mr. Kemper saw the flicker of sunlight on the long stick held like a spear in his hand, and heard a splash. Cursing, the boy pushed himself upright and dropped from the wall, shaking water from the stick. "You missed," said the other one.

"I'll show that flat-tailed rat," said the blond boy. From a back pocket he took a clasp-knife and snapped it open, and from a side pocket a length of twine. With swift, vicious twists he started to tie the knife-handle to the end of the stick. He made two knots and said, "Man, look at that. That'll hold it, man."

"What about the cat on the bench over there? What if he sees us?"

"Him? So what if he does? We can handle him. Anyway, he's got his eyes shut, ain't he?"

The sun tingled on the tops of Mr. Kemper's ears as he listened, his eyes half-shut. "Okay, give me lots of room on the wall," the blond boy said. There was a rasping of cloth on stone. Then Mr. Kemper closed his eyes and made a picture in the darkness of his mind, a small, bright picture that he blotted out immediately after it was formed. By the pool, metal clattered on stone.

The blond boy yelled, "Hey, what'd you shove me for? Look what you did!"

"Me? I never touched you, you jerk!"

"The hell you didn't. Look at that damn knife!"

Opening his eyes, Mr. Kemper looked at the pieces of knife blade scattered at the boy's feet and, a little to one side, the broken stick. He smiled and settled back on the bench, listening to the argument. The boys shouted and waved their arms, but that was all. As for their invective, he felt it lacked originality; he tired of it quickly. He got up from the bench and walked toward them. The argument stopped.

They looked at him with cold arrogant eyes. "Hello," he said.

They looked away. "You hear something, man?" said the blond boy.

"Not a thing, Jack, not a thing," the other answered.

The smile on Mr. Kemper's face was his best, his friendliest; it had taken him hours of practice in front of mirrors. "_Apes, your fathers were not arrogant when they died screaming on our spears. They were not bold when our hunting cats ripped their bellies._" Aloud he said, "You know, I'm a stranger around here and I thought you might be able to help me. Just what is it that's going on at the lion cage at three o'clock today?"

"We ain't heard nothing about no lion's cage, dad. We got our own troubles."

"Yeah, our own troubles. Get lost, dad."

"It sounded very interesting, something about a big hassle in the cages."

The boys lifted their eyebrows and looked sidelong at each other. The blond one said, "I told you to get lost, dad. Take five. You know, depart away from here."