Phil's first impulse was to jump out of the jeep and hunt around. But the chill in his heart told him Lucky was farther away than that. Besides, the place was a regular jungle and one man could hunt through it forever for anything cat-size.
He did not recognize the square at all, but he guessed from the schoolgirls that he was in an intellectual residential neighborhood. At first he thought the school was one for girls, but then he noticed a few lone boys among the homeward-bound students and decided that most of the families in this area must be deliberately having as many girls as possible. When sex-determination had become possible through centrifuging human sperm to separate the male-producing and female-producing types, most parents decided to have sons, especially for their firstborn. They often told themselves they would have daughters later, but unfortunately small families were the rule. The resulting over-production of males had led to some ineffectual state laws forbidding sex-determination, an unsuccessful attempt at self-regulation by the medical profession, a lot of talk in Congress, and an almost fanatically determined movement among a class of thoughtful people to produce only daughters. This last class, besides seeking to balance the sex ratio, perhaps had in mind the fact or rumor that human parthenogenesis had been achieved. Phil remembered a Sunday afternoon video shock talk: Will Women Born of Virgins Become Our Only Intellectuals?
Other aspects of the neighborhood around the square fitted with his guess. There was an appearance of shabbiness, the skyscrapers were low, advertisements lifeless, traffic was light, there were no hot rods.
He let his gaze roam over the tiers of tiny flats, wondering where Lucky might have gone. As he did so, he turned on the jeep's radio.
"... while Mystery Man Billig, mastermind of Fun Incorporated, is believed to have fled the country. Tonight at 8:30 New Washington Time, President Barnes will address all us American folks, partly to silence the small, syndicate-inspired clamor at the outlawing of male-female wrestling and jukebox burlesque, but more to explain to an amazed citizenry the full reasons behind the charges brought this morning by the federal government against sixty-nine high officials. I predict—and remember this is just my personal libel-free guess, fellow-folks—that the president will reveal that Fun Incorporated has been peddling dream pills, temporary sterility tabs, and I'm as shocked and disgusted as you are, folks, female robots equipped for obscene functioning.
"Now here's an important flash on the cat story. The cats are not carrying an infection and are under no circumstances to be destroyed, whether owned, strayed, or alley. In fact, there's a stiff jail sentence waiting for any person destroying a cat. But all owned cats are to be brought to the nearest security station, while any person sighting a strayed or alley cat is directed to do the same. There's a stiff penalty for not doing the first, a one hundred dollar reward for doing the second. Get busy, kids! Why this sudden federal interest in cats? The National Health Service zips its lips. But your newscaster backs this highly responsible rumor: it has been discovered that a rare strain of cat carries a cancer destroying virus. Wouldn't it be nice, folkses, to know that, once full grown, you would never start to grow again, in any part or place?
"But remember this, dear audiers, and I'll say it to you in Martian: Zip-zap-zup! Meaning: Bring in the cats!
"Now as for this report, folks, that handie-supernova Zelda Zornia, vacationing in Brazil, did a south-of-the-equator handiecast advertising bathing jewelry; let me assure you clean living people...."
Phil cleared his mind, trying to put himself in Lucky's place, to feel the direction in which the cat had wandered off. His head swung doubtfully this way and that, like a compass needle or planchette, but finally came to rest. He climbed out of the jeep and walked straight ahead, not turning aside for the dusty, crackling shrubs, but pushing straight through them.
He parted a final straggly hedge and found himself looking across the empty street at a house quite as old as the Akeleys, but with free sky above it.