Norton, Andre - Anthology by Catfantastic IV (v1.0) Page B

yours, fella." Oberon gave the
collection of exotics an uninterested stare, and settled down to his usual: a
nap. But Boris continued to watch, as fascinated as his daughter. It was his
turn to take Loi on a field trip, wasn't it?
     
                   Harry Harper had been a lion tamer for a long
time. His father was a lion tamer, his grandfather, his greatgrandfather. When
backers had organized the Greatest Show in the Universe some ten years ago, he
had jumped at the chance to have an act of his own, instead of being an
assistant. In ten years, he had acquired a wife, three children, and a fine
reputation of his own.
                   "It's Harry the lion tamer!" someone
on the circus parade's physical route squealed. The sound was coming from
above, so he looked upward toward it and smiled and waved at the young happy
face leaning precariously out a fourth-story window over the street the circus
parade was traveling down.
                   "Get back in here this second, son!"
"But, guardie, it's the lion tamer! Harry!" Harry smiled again, as a
second face joined the first. Behind him, there was a lion's warning cough.
"Harry!" the child screamed. "He's after you." It was an
old routine. Harry turned. The single lion sharing his platform had slyly
slipped off his crimson and black drum. Harry snapped the whip, nowhere near
the animal, and it gave a mighty roar. "Harry!" the child screamed.
                   Harry posed, cracked the whip in front of the
animal several times. With another growl, the lion jumped back on its pedestal.
Harry bowed grandly, then, as the tiny red light that said the camera was on
him went off, he grinned and winked at the child's face in the window, already
receding ... and threw a kiss at the older face, as pretty a woman as he'd seen
in at least ten minutes.
                   But it was all as automatic as breathing.
Inside, he was still in a total panic.
     
                   Once the circus wagons arrived at the first
appointed site, the next steps were automatic. Sometimes they were in an
already prepared auditorium. But this time, they were on a rocky flat outside
of a major city, and would have to supply everything themselves. First the
wagons were arranged in the back of the flat. All the animal acts were in one
sector, and Harry, as the lion tamer, had a primo site in the corner nearest
where the big top would be. The autodrive in his wagon parked him neatly, and
within a minute, the wagons with the other animals had formed a neat U shape,
with his personal wagon at one end.
                   His oldest child, Linda, spilled out of the
quarters under the tiger wagon as soon as it stopped. ''Can I help, Daddy?"
                   Harry, who had slung himself down the
unobtrusive "ladder" of neat bars (there was also a trapdoor into the
living quarters, but he needed to be outside, not in), frowned. "Where's
your mother?"
                   "Petey's still fussy," Linda
informed him.
                   "Has she rung up Doc?"
                   "Yes." A shrug. "He says, just
a bug. Petey'll be better soon."
                   Harry smiled with an effort. "Sure he
will. Well, cat-meat, do you know which wagon the fence is in, and how to set
it up?"
                   Her lower lip came out. " 'Course I do."
                   "Think you can do it for me. I want to
take another look at Diavolo's paw."
                   "Yeah!" Her face glowed. Then,
horrified, "You don't think any thing's wrong with Diavolo. do you,
Dad?"
                   "No." He forced a smile. "But
you can't be too careful, and I thought his timing was a- little off at the
last practice."
                   "Oh, Daddy." A smile, and a falsetto
imitation he knew well. "Picky, picky."
                   He ruffled her short brown hair. "In the
first place,