“Lame, lame,” mutters the younger Dr. Groast.

“What’s it matter?” cries Aaron Throwster. “If the old man gets moody at the wrong time this whole show can prang.”

“Brigadier Pudding will not go back on any of his commitments,” Pointsman very steady, calm, “we have made arrangements with him. The details aren’t important.”

They never are, in these meetings of his. Treacle has been comfortably sidetracked onto the Mossmoon Issue, Rollo Groast’s carping asides never get as far as serious opposition, and are useful in presenting the appearance of open discussion, as are Throwster’s episodes of hysteria for distracting the others… . So the gathering breaks up, the conspirators head off for coffee, wives, whisky, sleep, indifference. Webley Silvernail stays behind to secure his audiovisual gear and loot the ashtrays. Dog Vanya, back for the moment in an ordinary state of mind if not of kidneys (which are vulnerable after a while to bromide therapy), has been allowed a short break from the test stand, and he goes sniffing now over to the cage of Rat Ilya. Ilya puts his muzzle against the galvanized wire, and the two pause this way, nose to nose, life and life… . Silvernail, puffing on a hook-shaped stub, lugging a 16 mm projector, leaves ARF by way of a long row of cages, exercise wheels strobing under the fluorescent lights. Careful youse guys, here comes da screw. Aw he’s O.K. Looie, he’s a regular guy. The others laugh. Den what’s he doin’ in here, huh? The long white lights buzz overhead. Gray-smocked assistants chat, smoke, linger at various routines. Look out, Lefty, dey’re comin’ fer you dis time. Watch dis, chuckles Mouse Alexei, when he picks me up I’m gonna shit, right’n his hand! Better not hey, ya know what happened ta Slug, don’tcha? Dey fried him when he did dat, man, da foist time he fucked up runnin’ dat maze. A hundrit volts. Dey said it wuz a “accident.” Yeah… sure it wuz!

From overhead, from a German camera-angle, it occurs to Webley Silvernail, this lab here is also a maze, i’n’t it now… behaviorists run these aisles of tables and consoles just like rats ’n’ mice. Reinforcement for them is not a pellet of food, but a successful experiment. But who watches from above, who notes their responses? Who hears the small animals in the cages as they mate, or nurse, or communicate through the gray quadrilles, or, as now, begin to sing… come out of their enclosures, in fact, grown to Webley Silvernail-size (though none of the lab people seem to be noticing) to dance him down the long aisles and metal apparatus, with conga drums and a peppy tropical orchestra taking up the very popular beat and melody of:

PAVLOVIA (BEGUINE)

It was spring in Pavlovia-a-a,

I was lost, in a maze…

Lysol breezes perfumed the air,

I’d been searching for days.

I found you, in a cul-de-sac,

As bewildered as I—

We touched noses, and suddenly

My heart learned how to fly!