Chapter 12

I spent a good part of the rest of the day playing nursemaid to the cat. OK, well, he wasn't a cat of course, but I had to think of him as something, and sticking with "cat" seemed easiest. But whatever he was, I felt sort of a responsibility for him right now. It had been I who'd performed the operation to fix his broken rib or whatever and the internal damage it had done while untreated, and I couldn't just let him die now for want of a little attention.

Besides, I still felt a lot of the same affection I'd given him back when I thought he really was a cat. For a while I wondered whether it was genuine or just something he'd instilled in me with his evident mind-bending abilities, and I searched through my head mightily for any indications. Finally, though, I decided it didn't matter. He'd shown himself able to manipulate me a good bit, but he hadn't wrought any basic changes; I was still the same Nick Volker I'd been before. So while he might have played with my feelings some and tweaked them here and there, they were still my own, and it was appropriate that I act on them without regard to my suspicions about their origin.

And the mere fact that I could have such suspicions—as well as other (and considerably deeper) suspicions about not only his own motives and intentions but those of his presumptive fellows on whom he seemed to be counting for rescue—allayed my concern further. He hadn't taken me over, apparently that was beyond his powers, or I wouldn't be able to think that way. It was no different from another person talking me into or out of some idea. Well, OK, yes, it was different, of course it was, but more in the means by which he did it than the ultimate effect. It was persuasion, not dominance.

For the rest of the afternoon "nursing" consisted mainly of giving him a couple teaspoons of alcohol every two or three hours. It didn't, I knew from the residual knowledge he'd put in my head so effortfully the previous night, have the same effect on him that it did on humans; it was mainly a prophylactic and a mild stimulant. The greatest risk of surgery, I knew, was post-operative infection, and the second-greatest a systemic lethargy that would slow recovery; this guarded him against both.

He accepted the "medicine" without demur but made no further attempt to communicate with me. The tail-like tendril of his mane remained flaccid each time I approached. I left him alone otherwise, he seemed comfortable where he was and I didn't want to take the risk of moving him, and his chest wound was looking appreciably better by the end of the day.

By late afternoon I'd accepted the situation well enough to at last turn my attention to the Tosca score. Scarpia enters about halfway into Act I and after that is on continuously until Tosca stabs him to death at the end of Act II. I found I could play the piano and sing, albeit half-voice to keep the noise down, without disturbing the cat, and took advantage to get the early sections under my belt. The oddity of the situation occasionally leaped back to the forefront of my mind, but for long periods I could simply set it aside and concentrate on working. It was, as I'd long realized, one of the truly great roles in all of opera.

So focused had I become that it took me a while to notice that the daylight was fading. And that I was really hungry. I'd skipped breakfast in my shock at finding the cat and its even more shocking aftermath, I'd missed lunch as well, and it was definitely time for dinner. The table being currently otherwise occupied, I'd have to eat in my lap, but that was no problem and I got up to get something on the stove.

Before that, though, it was time for another dose for kitty, and this time he stirred more when I gave it to him and the tail thing curled back around my wrist. I stood still and waited.