Catacombs (24 page)

Most of them had deserted the ship back on Mau.

“Who could resist the little darlings?” Beulah went on, beaming at the kittens. “Look at them! They are so cute, hunkering on the
console or sitting on shoulders, watching our hands when we manipulate the controls. They think it’s some sort of a game. That little ginger-stripe puss looks like he’s about to pounce on Felicia’s hand when she moves it.”

Of course, Misu was doing no such thing. He wasn’t going to pounce on the mate’s hand, but he might nudge it gently, to correct her course, perhaps. He was carefully studying her every move and what prompted her to perform certain actions at certain times. Jubal knew that was what Misu and the rest of the kittens were doing when they watched the crew at work or followed them around as they performed their duties. He didn’t tell the crew what he knew, though. It would freak them out.

Pshaw-Ra disregarded the crew most of the time and swept around the ship as if he were the captain. For Jubal, another advantage to shipping with this particular crew was that he didn’t have to explain to any of them what Pshaw-Ra was. While Pinot bluffly declared that he was “a nice old cat,” many of them were a little afraid of him, or at least respectfully gave him a wide berth.

Pshaw-Ra let Sosi pet him and ignored Hadley when he hissed at him, as Hadley felt bound to do since he was back on his own turf, even though he was sharing the
Ranzo
with a great many interlopers.

But Jubal knew Pshaw-Ra was constantly urging the kittens to try new things, especially things that involved using their paws in ways cats didn’t usually use their paws.

Cabinet doors were left standing open. Lockers inexplicably spilled their contents onto the decks. More small objects went missing. Cat treat packets were scattered all over the galley deck until Jubal started locking them up and keeping the key with him.

The day a few kittens took the shuttle for a joy ride, under the direction of Pshaw-Ra, he decided he couldn’t keep their new prowess a secret any longer. He went looking for Balthazar first.

“Look, this is out of control,” he said. “Those kittens could hurt
themselves or damage the shuttle or the ship. The crew is trying to find them homes, and if they are up to tricks like that all the time, no ship or space station is going to want them.”

“His Excellency only tries to prepare the kits,” Balthazar said stiffly.

“I know, I know, they’re supposed to dominate the universe.”

“Is that what he said? I thought rather that they would be its salvation.”

“At the rate they’re going? No way!” Jubal said. He hadn’t meant to be harsh, and regretted it later, after his sleep shift, when he saw that while the shuttle was where it belonged, the pyramid ship was gone, along with Balthazar and Pshaw-Ra.

Jubal was still puzzling over that when Chester leaped onto his shoulder, put his cheek against his and rubbed.
Renpet went with them
, he said.
Pshaw-Ra told her it was time for her to lead her people, before they fell into error, whatever that meant. I think they were planning on visiting the planet where most of the Mau moved all those years ago. I hope she’ll be okay
.

Me too, Chester. Me too
, Jubal told him, stroking the nearest paw with his fingertip. To his surprise, he missed Pshaw-Ra already and knew that Chester did too.

I wonder what he’s really up to
, Chester said, yawning before falling asleep on the back of Jubal’s chair.

Pshaw-Ra had not known exactly where the serpent Apep would manifest himself in his latest aspect, for the serpent was almost as wily and unpredictable as Pshaw-Ra himself. Such serpents occurred elsewhere in the universe, he knew, but no race but the Mau had ever learned what they truly were. Some conventional astronomers even considered their destructive transformation orgies as the crucibles of the galaxies. And so they were, once they had destroyed all other worlds anywhere near them.

The trick, as he knew, was to find them in their early stages, and so he had made his little forays away from the ships with the kittens to track the progress of the worm cloud.

The pirate ship had been utterly gone when he last returned to the site of the abortive hijackings by the unfortunate Mavis. He did not see the worm cloud at all and kept returning to look for it. It would not do to let something like that roam around loose. There was no telling what harm it might do, or to whom, so he kept returning until at last he had a sighting.

He could not tell if the hazy bit he saw in the distance was the worm cloud or some other substance until he was close enough to see it in the view port. It was not as if Apep had dreams he could enter.

He thought the cloud drifted toward him, and he withdrew the pyramid ship a bit. It drew closer, until he could see it tumbling its wormy bits inside its cloud. He pulled back a little more.

Suddenly, as if it had an engine of its own, the worm cloud came after him. He opened the mouse hole before it could catch him, or so he thought.

He hightailed it through the mouse hole and back out again, closing it behind him, his fangs bared in a fierce expression of triumph. Now he knew where it was, he thought, and how to get it.

That was until he entered the mouse hole again, this time with Balthazar and Renpet as passengers. Balthazar fortunately was studying charts, and Renpet was sleeping, as she did a lot these days.

He thought seeing Mau-Maat, the planet for which her ancestors had deserted the inhabitants of Mau, leaving them with little more than a shadow of their former greatness, might rouse Renpet from her lethargy.

How could he know that the worm cloud had entered the mouse hole with him on the previous occasion, and now, as he opened the hole into the Ra-Harahkty system, would follow?

With swift maneuvering, he evaded the cloud, but his small
ship no longer attracted it. The serpent chose as its new power source the star orbited by Mau-Maat.

Pshaw-Ra had not intended for that to happen, but he was not entirely displeased that those who had deserted his world were about to have theirs seriously disrupted if not destroyed. Since the people and cats on this new world had abandoned the ancient teachings of the sacred feline ancestors in favor of a place with less desert and more modern conveniences, he found it fitting that they were to be given a dramatic demonstration of the error of their ways.

Of course, this caused some friction with Balthazar.

You played with Apep as you would a mouse, seeking him out and tempting him to follow you through the mouse holes you opened
, Balthazar scolded.

Pshaw-Ra regarded his old servant with a sideways and slitted glance.
I knew it was a possible risk. But I had to know where Apep was. Once the transformation has begun, old man, it will complete its destructive metamorphosis unless stopped. I had to monitor it, did I not?

Balthazar snorted.
You have been drifting in space for how long, with no desire to visit Mau-Maat until now? But suddenly, when the worm cloud happens to have followed you into the mouse hole, you cannot wait to visit our estranged descendants to see how the immigrants are faring?

Do not fuss, old friend
, Pshaw-Ra told him.
If you wish to teach kittens to hunt, you must bring them live prey to catch. The ability to battle Apep is what separates our kittens from the house cats
.

Balthazar had looked pained and unconvinced.
After all the trouble you took to ensure that the kittens were born, you will now send them to be slaughtered
.

“Pfft!” Pshaw-Ra said aloud.
Naturally, there are preparations to be made beforehand. The young need training to succeed
.

And proper human companions to work with
, Balthazar added.
Even though the sacred texts tend to belittle their role
.

You are too sensitive, old man. Now then, instead of visiting Mau-Maat, we—and by we I mean you, since they are no respecters of feline-kind, must alert the Galactic Government to this impending catastrophe
.

They just happened to have brought with them from the catacombs the plans for the necessary weapons to fight Apep’s current aspect. Now, Pshaw-Ra knew that all it would take was for Balthazar to use his considerable powers of persuasion to convince the military to build the small devices and employ cats to fight a battle that would daunt the bravest human warrior.

Once the battle was joined, either the catlings’ deeds would command respect—and even reverence—from the two-leggeds of this galaxy, or they would perish in the attempt. He hoped that wouldn’t happen, naturally. As Balthazar had pointed out, it would be extremely tiresome for him to start his campaign to improve the lot of his race again from scratch, as it were.

Finding homes for the kittens was a big job. Beulah was supposed to contact ships, space stations, the Galactic Academy, anyplace not among the ships already recatted. Jubal and Ponty took holos of each of the kittens being adorable and attached the kitten’s pedigree papers to each holo. This made a sort of kitten catalog Beulah could send out to potential homes and employers. The response wasn’t quite as wholeheartedly enthusiastic as they had hoped. Some people did not regard them as real Barque Cats and wanted to quibble about the price—or, worse, somehow had not gotten the news that the cats weren’t infected with anything, and didn’t want some “pest-ridden animal” in their ship, station, or compound. Ponty began looking shifty again, since his plan wasn’t working out.

Meanwhile, Jubal was glad his mom was on the
Molly Daise
, in thrall to Chester’s daughter Buttercup. She hadn’t liked cats before, but now called Buttercup “Dori’s darling girl” and cooed at
and fussed over her as she never had with him. Even with Janina, a trained Cat Person, still onboard, his mom insisted on comming him as often as she was allowed, to ask him stuff about cat care and to hold Buttercup up to the screen to “wave to her daddy.” He was glad to be away from the
Molly Daise
for that reason if no other. His mother had always been a hard-nosed and rather mercenary farm woman, a dedicated cat disliker. Was she being won over by having the same kind of close relationship with Buttercup that he had with Chester, or were the half-Mau kittens actually able to dominate the will of humans, as Pshaw-Ra had suggested?

“We have to find homes for these little buggers soon,” Captain Loloma said after tripping over a box that had found its way into the middle of the bridge deck. “One ship’s cat is a nice, soothing, useful, helpful sort of thing. Old Hadley never gave a moment’s trouble. But all of these kittens are going to destroy us if we don’t offload them soon!”

In spite of Jubal’s and Sosi’s best efforts, the ship was beginning to smell distinctly catty. The kittens had accidents sometimes, or “forgot,” according to Chester.

They’re unhappy
, Chester told him.

Why?
Jubal asked.
They have a place to live and food and the crew plays with them, and they have each other
.

Not like we have each other
, Chester said.

Then there was the matter of the cat fur clogging up the ventilation system. That required Chester and Doc going in to herd out the kittens who had nested back there and then carrying in a vacuum tube attached to their collars to suck up the cat hair, which was seriously endangering the ship. That almost caused the milk brothers to mutiny.
Why can’t Hadley do it?
Chester protested indignantly, mewing loudly and repeatedly.
I hate hate hate the way that monster sounds, and it is right next to my delicate ears, and the ducts make it louder
.

You know why, boy. ’Cause we can’t make Hadley understand, whereas you and Doc do get it that if the hair stays in there, the ship stops working and that is not good
.

They didn’t think the kittens would stand for the noise either, but as soon as the motor started and Chester and Doc began walking through the tubes, Junior and three other kittens crowded in behind Chester, and Doc was joined in his ventilation tube by several more kittens, which made it hard to maneuver the hose and hard for the encumbered cats to back out.

“They’re amazing,” Guillame Pinot said, scratching his head. “It’s like the little devils know somehow what will make things the most awkward and that’s what they decide to do.”

Jubal figured that was probably exactly what the kittens did, but he was supposed to be on their side so he said, “Naw, they’re just curious. How are they going to learn if they don’t see what the older cats do?”

But after that, all kittens had to be thoroughly brushed before they went anywhere near the ship’s innards. And the crew started grumbling.

Pinot’s remark was funny, but others now scowled when they tripped over a kitten, as someone did at least two or three times a day. “Little buggers were supposed to be my early retirement,” growled the assistant engineer. “Instead they’re going to give us all an early death.”

When he wasn’t actively herding cats, Jubal spent a lot of time at Beulah’s com station. She had free time to chat when they weren’t near a space station or within close com range of other ships. They still exchanged relayed messages with the
Molly Daise
. That ship’s strategy was to spend an extended amount of time on each landfall, taking the kittens for outings. Of course, they had Chessie to keep the kittens in line, but Jubal bet she was exhausted. When the ship returned to Hood Station and Dr. Vlast went down to Sherwood,
he found good homes happy to pay the price of the kittens, with two desperate farmers eager to have them. Mom and Buttercup had gone ashore to work for Mr. Varley, who was running for the Galactic Council.

At first, Jubal relieved Beulah on short breaks to go to the head or eat, and then one day Captain Loloma said to him, “How would you like a promotion?”

“I’m not assistant Cat Person anymore?” he asked.

“Well, in addition to being assistant Cat Person, how about being relief com officer?”

“Cool!” Jubal said. And after that, he and Beulah slept at different times so he could relieve her during her sleep shift. Her station was partitioned off from the others, and as soon as he took over, he had a circle of small furry observers, at first sitting attentively around his chair and then, as Chester allowed it, one at a time up on the com board.