The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cat and Mouse, by Ralph Williams

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Title: Cat and Mouse

Author: Ralph Williams

Release Date: January 21, 2008 [EBook #24392]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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CAT AND MOUSE

BY RALPH WILLIAMS

Illustrated by van Dongen

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science
Fiction June 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

_The Warden needed to have a certain very obnoxious pest
eliminated ... and he knew just the pest-eradicator he needed...._

_The Harn first came to the Warden's attention through its effect on the
game population of an area in World 7 of the Warden's sector. A natural
ecology was being maintained on World 7 as a control for experimental
seedings of intelligent life-forms in other similar worlds. How the Harn
got there, the Warden never knew. In its free-moving larval state, the
Harn was a ticklike creature which might have sifted through a natural
inter-dimensional rift; or it might have come through as a hitchhiker on
some legitimate traveler, possibly even the Warden himself._

_In any event, it was there now. Free of natural enemies and
competition, it had expanded enormously. So far, the effect in the
control world was localized, but this would not be the case when the
Harn seeded. Prompt action was indicated._

_The Warden's inclination and training was in the direction of avoiding
direct intervention in the ecology of the worlds under his
jurisdiction, even in the field of predator control. He considered
introduction of natural enemies of the Harn from its own world, and
decided against it. That cure was as bad, if not worse, than the disease
itself._

_There was, however, in one adjacent world, a life-form not normally
associated with the Harn; but which analysis indicated would be inimical
to