Dane looked
to the steward for enlightenment.
"What's he so interested in, Frank?"
"Catnip."
"Catnip?" Dane repeated. The word meant nothing to him, but Mura had a
habit of picking up strange plants and cultivating them for study. "What
is it?"
"One of the Terran mints--an herb," Mura gave a short explanation as he
moved down the aisle toward the alien. He broke off a leaf and crushed it
between his fingers.
Dane, his sense of smell largely deadened by the pungency with which he
had been surrounded by most of that day, could distinguish no new odor.
But the young Salarik swung around to face the steward his eyes wide, his
nose questing. And Sinbad gave a whining yowl and made a spring to push
his head against the steward's now aromatic hand.
So--now they had it--an opening wedge. Dane came up to the three.
"All right to take a leaf or two?" he asked Mura.
"Why not? I grow it for Sinbad. To a cat it is like heemel smoke or a
tankard of lackibod."
And by Sinbad's actions Dane guessed that the plant did hold for the cat
the same attraction those stimulants produced in human beings.
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