Catacombs (25 page)

There was always low-level chatter from ship to ship as well as government announcements and news. It was interesting and, he realized, a little scary. There was a lot of stuff Beulah hadn’t mentioned to him before, though he was sure it was the kind of thing she must have reported to the captain. Ships had been disappearing—first in a certain sector and then in an ever-broadening area. He listened carefully for the names but none were ships he recognized. Elsewhere, a planetary system identified only as one containing some of the more recently settled planets was having strange weather problems—its sun seemed to be occluded by something causing climactic changes so disastrous to the orbiting planets that the GG had sent thousands of troops and humanitarian aid to facilitate massive evacuations. One thing about galactic news events, though: most of them happened far far far away.

Chester purred and spoke to him of home and generally chattered, which was unusual for him, but Jubal became aware of an undercurrent as he stroked fur and watched the screen.

Do it. Send. Now
.

He knew Chester was saying it, but not to him. The kitten on the com’s big mittened paw went out and brought up the cat holos on the little screen he didn’t think Jubal was watching, tapped his own holo, and tapped the send button.

He kept quiet. The kittens loved putting something over on people, but if Chester was helping them, he wanted to know why.

“Watch the board, will you, boy?” he asked Chester aloud, as if the cat was
his
relief officer. “I gotta go.” He pretended to head for the head, but when all feline attention was directed back to the board, he watched from across the cabin. None of the other crew on the bridge seemed aware of anything peculiar, but one by one each kitten jumped onto the board, brought up its holo and attached lineage paper, and sent it out. It was almost cartoonish, watching the kittens use the computer, but then, he had seen Chester and Pshaw-Ra operate the pyramid ship. Pshaw-Ra must have taught them to do this, and specifically to send their pictures out, though there was no need. He and Beulah had already sent the holos to every potential cat customer they could think of.

Where were the kittens sending them? he wondered.

He tried to look it up without being too obvious—he was still playing cat and mouse games with them—but found only a very odd assortment of destinations, most of them to individuals instead of ships or space stations. The kittens had pen pals?

He asked Chester. To his surprise his friend said,
Just help us, boy. They’re turning on us
.

Who?
he asked.

The other people. Kittens are a lot of trouble. With Pshaw-Ra gone and Mother on another ship, I can’t keep all of them in line. The kittens need friends, like you are my friend, or they’ll just go feral. They’re very smart and can open anything. I smell fear on some of the crew
.

Fear? Of kittens? Really?

Yes. Fear. We smell it and see it in their eyes
.

I think maybe some people still want to think humans are the only sentient species
, Jubal said.
They think really intelligent animals are unnatural or something. Idiots! Okay, then. When these ones finish sending off their holos, I think we have time for another group or two before it’s Beulah’s shift
.

But these kittens want to watch the com and see if replies come
.

I’m sure they do, but fair is fair and you’ve convinced me. The situation is getting critical
. He
had
heard crewmen calling the kittens little monkeys or demons, and he didn’t like the sound of that. Time for them to go, for sure.

At Tao Station they got their first real break. A class of touring cadets from the regional space academy passed through just as Ponty and Jubal “happened” to be taking some of the kittens out for checkups with the station vet.

All of a sudden, a gray and white spotted male called Ciko began crying and scrabbling to get out of his cage. The class moved on, but one of the cadets lagged behind, looking back at the cage.

“Cadet Shinta, why did you break formation?” her superior demanded. Shinta looked a little younger than Sosi. She pointed at Ciko’s cage.

Jubal smiled and waved at the commander and hoisted the cage. Ciko cried louder.

“It’s him, Squadron Leader,” the little girl squealed. Her shrill childish voice carried across the docking bay. She started jumping up and down. “It is my kitty. He’s found me.”

“Disobeying rules is no way to get what you want, Cadet Shinta,” Jubal heard the squadron leader admonish her as he walked toward the woman, trying to hold onto Ciko’s wildly jiggling carrier.

“But how can I be a Cat Person without a cat?” the young girl asked. “He says he is mine and, oooooh, look at him, Squadron Leader Kyuti, just look!”

For a two-pound kitten, Jubal thought the bouncing, mewing Ciko seemed to weigh a ton. Afraid that he might drop the carrier before he reached the girl—and make a bad impression on her superior—he set down the carrier and started to take the latch off. But before he could, a paw flashed out of the wire mesh, the door jangled open, and the gray and white kitten streaked to the little girl so fast his spots blurred.

Ciko jumped into her arms, purring madly while she giggled and stroked him. The squadron leader made a face and started to say something when the kitten looked up at her, making his eyes as large and bright as possible, as if to beam a command from them into her brain. The squardon leader reached out slowly and touched Ciko’s head, and he arched into her palm.

“Well,” she told Shinta. “For want of the right cat, we were going to have to change your specialty, but now that he’s arrived, it looks as if he is ready for you to start learning the practical application of your lessons.”

Jubal was relieved that Ciko had found a person, and was ready to hand him over on the spot when his father appeared behind him and said, “There’s the matter of his price, Squadron Leader … Kyuti, is it? Our ship had to rescue him and his fellow cats at great personal danger and cost to ourselves, and understandably, the crew cannot give these valuable creatures away.”

Jubal wanted to stomp on the old man’s foot. Ciko dipped his head a little and looked up at them through sad, reproachful eyes, as if he knew exactly what was going on. Well, if Ciko and Shinta had the same connection he had with Chester, Jubal thought, then he probably did know, through her.

“The Crane Academy is an exclusive private educational and training facility for the children of distinguished families,” the
squadron leader said proudly. “Shinta’s family knew of her wish and provided in their legacy the funds for the purchase of a Barque Cat.” She turned to the other students. “Senior Cadet Mallory, you remember where the snack bar is? Please lead the other cadets there in an orderly fashion, and Cadet Shinta and I, and …”

“Ciko,” Cadet Lin Shinta told her. “Silver Ciko Nugris is his name.”

“Cadet Shinta, Silver Ciko Nugris, and I shall rejoin you as soon as our business is concluded.”

But Cadet Mallory said, “There are other kitties on that ship, Squadron Leader Kyuti. May we not see them? It’s been months and months since the others were taken away.”

“Oh, ma’am, the kittens would love to meet your students—uh—cadets,” Jubal said. “They haven’t had much chance to be around young people. It would be a big favor to our ship—”

“Possibly worth a price reduction,” the old man put in.

“—if you would all come aboard. The cadets could play with the kittens while you finalize the arrangement for transferring the credits for Cik—I mean, Silver Ciko Nugris.”

The cadets bounced up and down in a very unmilitary fashion, and Jubal was sure that back aboard the
Ranzo
, the kittens were bouncing up and down too. Somehow he thought it was all part of their great feline plot—the one begun by Pshaw-Ra. But it would be so great if a home for Ciko was only the first, and the other kittens would soon find people as in love with them as little Cadet Shinta was with the spotted guy.

It turned out that Cadet Mallory had an ulterior motive for backing up Cadet Shinta. Some of the kittens ran and hid, but about ten peeped their little fur-fringed heads out from around doors or from under chairs and bunks. One saw Cadet Shan Mallory and let out a “Meh?”

“There you are!” the cadet cried. “Ice Cream, it’s me, Shan!” That was the last she spoke aloud for some time, as another gray
and white kitten, this one with a spot on his nose, snuggled into her arms and they communed—he purring, she stroking, but exchanging vital impressions and information, Jubal felt sure.

Meanwhile other ships that had been transiting near the station started docking, and visitors requested permission to come aboard.

“Why all the company all of a sudden?” Captain Loloma asked.

“It’s the kittens’ pen pals, sir.”

“Their what?”

“These kittens are much like Chester—they can call to someone they connect with, as long as that person is within a certain range. They’ve been sending their holos out to the people they like on the nearby ships.”

“They have? You mean you have?”

“Whatever you say, sir.”

“Good work, boy. Good work.”

In the days that followed, a dozen more kittens were collected by their own close personal friends from the ships docking at the station.

“Clever of the little devils to form their bonds with people who can afford the ransom,” the old man said, rubbing forefingers and thumb together in a mercenary gesture. He leaned forward and said quietly into Jubal’s ear, “Though I think if any of the customers had backed off, the crew would have made them an offer they couldn’t resist.”

“I wonder how long it will take those people to realize the little beasts are more trouble than they’re worth?” the second assistant engineer growled when the new cat owners and their small partners had departed and their credits were deposited.

Jubal responded hotly. “You wait and see. These are going to be the best Barque Cats ever. They just need a job they can do and someone to love them.”

The job was coming much sooner and was much more vital than anyone could have predicted.

The crew and even Jubal had been blaming the kittens for the smell of cat pee that no amount of ventilation or vinegar spritzing dispelled. Although half of the little dears had by now found true love with their human partners, the pee smell just got stronger. By then I knew it wasn’t all the kittens. It was Hadley.

Rather than rat him out to Jubal, I decided to take it up with the old boy myself. He was sleeping on Sosi’s bed. “Hadley,” I asked, when he opened one eye, “why are you peeing on everything? Are you jealous because Sosi is spending so much time with the kittens?”

“Uh—no,” Hadley said, jumping down to go to his water bowl and refuel. He was coming back to sit down when he let fly all over the deck. “No, not jealous. Sosi is mine. She only loves me. I’d help her play with those pesky kittens myself but the truth is, Chester, I don’t feel good. I’m tired all the time and—’scuse me, I’m a little dry. I need another drink.” So he took another drink and then immediately had to pee again. Something was very wrong.

I contacted Jubal and told him Hadley was sick. He came right away, as I knew he would. He knelt and stroked Hadley, who cried a little.

Guillame Pinot, the ship’s medical guy, came to Sosi’s cabin. Sosi, for once not carrying a kitten, was right behind him.

“Sosi, when did Hadley start urinating in your bed?” Pinot asked her.

She shrugged and cast her eyes down. She sat on the wet bunk beside Hadley, stroking his fur. “I used to pee the bed too. He’ll outgrow it,” she said. “I did.”

Pinot shook his head and petted Hadley too. I jumped up onto Jubal’s shoulder so I could see better. “He’s a grown-up cat, Sosi. He’s older than you—a grandpa, in cat years. And when a well-trained ship-broken cat like Hadley starts peeing on things like this, it means he’s probably sick.”

She shook her head so that her shiny dark hair flipped back and forth. “No, he’s not. He’s just too tired to make it to the litter box all the time. I think the kittens wear him out,” she confided.

“He’s tired because he’s sick too. I think we better get him to a vet soon.”

“Dr. Jared,” she said. “If Hadley is sick, he’ll cure him.”

The
Molly Daise
had docked at Hood Station a few days before, delivering Dr. Vlast and Janina. They were going to get married and run the clinic together. My mother was going to retire and live with them. We knew all that stuff already because Beulah had kept in touch with them. So the
Ranzo
changed course and sped to Hood Station.

I went with Jubal, Sosi, Hadley, and Captain Loloma to the clinic so I could tell Jubal to tell the doctor what Hadley felt like.

They set the poor guy on a metal table and he peed. They stuck something in his ear to take his temperature and he peed. The doctor stuck him with a needle and took out some of his blood and he peed. Dr. Vlast checked his boyish bits and got peed all over, but he just wiped his hands and continued the examination, taking a sample of the pee while he was at it. “Diabetes,” he said.

“Is that serious?” Sosi asked.

Dr. Vlast nodded. “Adult cats are very prone to it and it can
often be fatal.” He said it gently but I saw Hadley’s friend begin to tremble.

“You mean he’ll die?”

I was okay with interpreting what Hadley said to the humans, which so far wasn’t anything beyond “meow,” but I was certainly not going to interpret what the humans were saying to Hadley. Not yet anyway.

Dr. Vlast handed him to Janina, who took him away, telling Sosi she was just going to clean up his fur. Then he wiped down the table and washed his hands. “He could. At one time it was a death sentence. But we have a good treatment now. Just make sure he gets these pills twice a day—but don’t go too far. He needs to be stabilized on the meds before he travels.”

That’s how we all came to be there in the place where my journey began, when the Galactic Guard arrived with orders to requisition cats.