For months after, on any given night, as the cara- van of trailers moved down the road, some sleepy juggler or flyer or acrobat would turn from the tedium of the unending road to say to his partner, \" If Starback would only have left that cat alone, I bet it would have circled the arena and jumped back up on its stand.\" And another sleepy juggler or flyer or acrobat would say, \"Nobody U ever know.\" Starback himself knew only that he had to have complete control or he had nothing but luck, and ~ ~obody s luck lasts forever. He headed the cat oK and tried to back him down. The chair was eaten out of his hand. The pieces of it broke like snap- ping bones and flew up in front of his face. He dropped the whip. Then he did that other thing. He jumped up on the bars of the arena and tried to crawl to the top. Old Dan jumped too, and took the right buttock in his yellow mouth and held Starback fast while he raked his back with one set of claws. Starback held tight to the bars. It hurt beyond all imaginable pain. The scream twisted shut his throat. He was Captain Rex Starback then. Ten years ago. Beads of perspiration still dotted his head when he thought about it, and an ache surrounded the ten inches of numbness that ran from his buttock 11
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