Grampa's Garden Shop, right in the middle of downtown, had had plate glass windows ever since the shooting three years ago. His wife had nagged him back then about moving, but Grampy was stubborn. He liked the dirty city, cats and junkies and all. She'd died a year and a half ago now, leaving him to it.

"Morning, Chester," he called to the calico cat pacing the rafters overhead. Another feline face poked out from within a huge rhododendron bush. "Jinx, come on. Time to eat!"

He wasn't sure anymore how many cats he had. All had once been strays, picked up by his late wife who'd had a soft spot. They reminded him of her.

The bell rang, early. "We're not open yet!"

"I came for a different sort of business, Mr. Bigtree."

He looked out. Guy in a suit, looking like money. The guy tried to peer inside the shop, but Arthur Bigtree was a big man and blocked his way easily. "What business?"

The man sighed, shifting his stance. Arthur stood motionless, waiting. You didn't often see one of the wealthy come to this side of town. The man probably thought someone was going to jump any minute out of the shadows with a knife.

"My hours are posted," Arthur pointed out.

The man took a deep breath. "I have special business. Please?"

Arthur knew what his wife would have done: let the man in, offer him cookies and soda, and then chase him out with a two-by-four once she learned he was a salesman.

Tara had had style.

He wondered if he still had that two-by-four around somewhere, as he opened the door. "Better be good."

The man stood for a minute staring around, watching Comet, Cupid and Starlight wander the front office, catching glimpses of the other cats. "So many of them!"

"I run a garden shop, not a pet store."

The man looked back at Arthur. "What if I did want to buy one of your cats?"

Arthur crossed his arms over his chest. "They're not for sale."

"Well, I'm looking for one in particular, Mr. Bigtree. You're rather famous in town for your collection of strays."

"My wife believed you don't leave an animal to the cold. She was partial to cats."

"My apologies about your wife."

"Thank you, I'll let her know next time I contact the spirit world. I'm sure she'd love to know that some rich, white ass is after her cats."

The man paled but held his stance. "Actually, as I said, I'm only looking for one, a very special cat. You've heard of clone breeding? Making exotic pets?"

"Mm. Always thought it a bit unnatural."

"And yet people have made specialty plants for years."

Arthur's eyes narrowed. If there was one thing he hated it was someone getting smug with him. Comet rubbed against him just then, and he scratched the cat's torn-up ears. "It's almost opening time, Mister. Make this quick."

"All right. There's a place uptown that does just what I'm talking about. Anyway, part of a group of kitten clones escaped six months ago."

Bigtree remembered. It had been in all the papers, all over the news.

"I'm looking for them."

"You think I have them?"

"No, just one." The man squinted and looked over into the greenhouse. "A little silver longhair, with blue eyes and double toes without any claws."

Starlight. He'd just described Star. Bigtree still remembered picking up the poor little thing in an alley four blocks from here, by the beat-up diner. He'd been amazed that it had survived; when he found Star, it had been nothing but skin and bone, with several injuries that had healed more rapidly than normal under his care. Comet had taken almost instantly to the ragged kitten and by now, the two were rarely found far apart from one another.

"Sorry. Not interested," Arthur said. "You guys were irresponsible enough to let them get loose. At least this one found a safe home." Pointedly, he walked to the door and held it open.

The rest of the day was busy. The ladies of the poor knew they could get a good deal at Grampy's on Saturdays, and besides, they liked his cats, which were very friendly even with the rougher kids. Every so often he'd spot Starlight peeking out through the plants or being cuddled by some little girl, and he'd grimace, thinking of the rich snob who'd made her and then been so careless.

Finally, at noon when business had slowed a bit, he called the ASPCA. He knew they had a track on these new cloning businesses. It was nothing he'd ever done before, but he had a feeling it was something Tara would have.

"No, we know of no place in that section of the city," said the woman who answered his call. She'd been a friend of Tara's. "When the news broke, we sent people up there to check for our own reasons - we have certain laws about such businesses."

Laws about making sure the animals never escaped, he thought, never got to the real world with all its dangers and joys. Like my great grandfather was caged in a reservation.

Arthur went up to the construction site by the docks that evening, to ponder. He swung his long legs over a girder and stared out, high above the city. It was beautiful by night, he'd always thought. Arthur had climbed the girders of the neighborhood since he was a kid, had worked on them for years—until the accident.

Mohawks were very popular with construction contractors: they had no fear.

"Never have fear," his grandfather used to tell him as they sat together up in treetops and on roofs of tall buildings. "If you feel afraid, smoke and let it blow away. White man's magic, though they don't know it."

Arthur's father had died, trapped by a downtown gang, so his grandfather had raised him. The old man himself had died in another cage: this one called Alzheimer's. It had been painful to watch the old man's eyes, so alert, watching his own body refuse to do the right things. Arthur had refused to put him in a nursing home, kept the man instead with him and Tara until the end. He'd sung the old man's death song before they carted him away to the cheap funeral home where the poor were buried.

On the way home, he ran into the man again. "You're not who you said you were."

"Maybe not. But I want one of those kittens. They're gorgeous."

"They're defenseless."

"You couldn't possibly understand it."

"No, I don't. But you don't understand what a true, honest life is, either."

"What if I could offer you something that might make you understand?"

Arthur folded his arms. "There's nothing you could offer."

"What if you could have your wife back again? A copy, of course, but it would be an exact copy. What if I offered you that?"

The man turned and walked away, and Arthur returned to his shop, his home. He cuddled with his cats, hugging little Starlight, but when he went to bed, all he could think about was his wife: beautiful Tara O'Grady, laughing on Main Street, Brooklyn, when he was just a high-steel worker doing his job.

Tara, who'd hung out with O'Malley's daughter and sons, who took to visiting Arthur at the site even when her friends teased her about it. "Tall, dark and—well, he's tall and dark, at least," they used to giggle. She'd walk by, and smile just for him.

Tara, who'd been his. A tough girl, for a tough neighborhood. They'd understood one another, he and she, even when he said nothing. Grandfather had adored her.

Tara, who'd yelled Arthur out of bed and into functioning again after the accident, who'd cajoled him into starting the shop.

Tara, with the heart of gold.

What would he do if he could get her back? Arthur started picturing what a copy of her might be like. An exact copy, the man had said.

He knew what his grandfather would have said about this cloning. He'd have disapproved loudly, probably beaten Arthur over the head for even thinking such a thing. But this was the twenty-first century, not 1869.

The next day he rose at dawn as usual, having gotten little sleep, and banged his way to the greenhouse where Starlight was first to greet him. For a moment, he thought of squeezing the kitten to death so that he'd be free. But he knew he couldn't do that. He didn't know what to do.

The man returned later that day. "So?"

"Let me ask you, could you bring back her particular smile? The look in her eyes when she saw something she thought was beautiful?" Arthur asked. "Could you bring back the things she did in bed?"

"Oh, well, you know, you'll be able to…program those things into the clone. It takes a little while, but they're pretty good about it—quick little learners, they are."

The man smiled broadly. "In fact, a friend of mine did it with his daughter, who was killed in a car accident. It was a real challenge, he said, but the clone now acts just like Katy used to. You just need to be firm."

Arthur suddenly had a bad taste in his mouth. He was reminded of the Native American kids who'd been dragged off to school to become "civilized," and were then discarded. Just like this kitten, over which he and this man were haggling like it was some kind of bounty.

"This may be the way you choose to live your life," he said slowly. "But I do not."

The man laughed. "World's changing, man. This is the twenty-first century. Clones are becoming a way of life."

"Clones are creatures in their own right, not anyone else's," said Arthur Bigtree. "I don't need a poor copy-thing being forced to be my wife, when we both know it's a creature in its own right. You make your clones. We'll be here to take them when you toss them out."

He closed the door in the man's face.

That night, he took Starlight up into the girders with him. The small kitten shivered at the unusual surroundings, the sense of space. It sniffed the beam curiously as he took it out if his pocket. He held it close to him, pointing out towards the twinkling lights of the city, and beyond.

"This, Starlight, is our world," he said. "It belongs to all free creatures."