He heard Sacheverell Akeley explaining to Chancellor Frobisher that the green cats were probably all offspring of Bast anyway and that the ancient Egyptians—or perhaps Atlanteans—probably had had spaceships and had taken the green cats to Vega in the first place.
He heard Cookie gently twitting Mary Akeley about falling for a satyr and she happily assuring him that she went for men with hoofs, and in any case was going to make a doll of him.
He heard Jack pointing out to Dr. Romadka that now that they had the green cats, there wasn't going to be too much use for psychoanalysts or for thought police and commissars, and Romadka was reminding him that most of the commodities peddled by Fun Incorporated, including male-female wrestling, wouldn't have much of a market either.
He heard Carstairs, Llewellyn and Buck talking about organizing a chivalric order that was to be called the Knights of the Green Cat.
He heard Juno Jones telling Moe Brimstine how ever since her farm childhood she'd always liked animals better than humans and was very glad that an animal was going to help her change her mind—and where was that little rat Jack? Moe Brimstine explained to her in reply that he'd spent so much time getting the jump on people that he'd never learned to understand them—while poor old Hans Billig had jumped around so fast he'd never noticed people at all.
He heard John Emmet and Dave Greeley talking green cat logistics—how would they ever manage to blanket the whole world with the creatures?
He heard Morton Opperly and Dr. Garnett talking something way over his head about esp-nexuses and thought lines and which galaxy did the cats come from in the first place?
He took Mitzie Romadka's slim tired hand and assured her that he loved her and that he thought that violence and jealousy and even revengefulness were admirable up to a point.
But he never lost sight of his chief purpose. As he approached the low walled box from which Lucky was still peering calmly, President Barnes left off assuring Mary Akeley that the directive for the destruction of all cats had already been cancelled, and came over to Phil and threw his arm around his shoulders in a fatherly way and said, "Hi, young fellow, I hear how you were pretty close to this cat for a couple of days. Sorry I'm going to have to be taking him off your hands."
Phil straightened up. "You're not," he said, "Lucky is my cat."