Catacombs (6 page)

With a nudge of his nose, he opened a hole in the ceiling and slipped through it. He stood with his front paws on the roof, his back paws still on the ledge. His tail flicked back and forth as he looked.
There’s one of those ship things on the side. Looks like all of these houses have a personal pyramid ship, like a smaller version of Pshaw-Ra’s, in the yard. And there’s the temple over there
.

He drew himself back inside and began washing his white paws, which were now a dusty tan. His chest, only a little whiter, was next.

Jubal yawned. The excitement had worn off.
You go ahead and take a bath. You’ve had a few dozen naps today but I’m getting tired. We had an early morning. I’m turning in
.

Chester looked down.
You’re right. I’m not tired. I’m going to check out the places Pshaw-Ra sent our friends and make sure everyone is comfy
. And he disappeared through the ceiling flap.

Jubal turned on his side, away from the door.

A few minutes later he was awakened by a yowl and a cat’s scream. He sat up.
Chester?

J
anina Mauer, former Cat Person to Thomas’s Duchess aboard the
Molly Daise
, had felt like cheering when the ships carrying the fugitive Barque Cats, including her Chessie, blinked out of sight and out of reach of the pursuing Galactic Government attracker vessels. She’d felt like cheering again when the council ruled that the epidemic had in fact been caused by premature panic among the overly cautious and that all of the animals that survived their quarantine in good health would be allowed to return home.

Then the loneliness set in. Chessie would not return home—maybe not ever. Would the
Ranzo
, the ship of her rescuers, stop running long enough to discover that it was safe to bring back the cats? Would they fear prosecution for the illegal nature of their rescue mission and just stay hidden? That would be terrible. Without Chessie she felt incomplete. To her surprise, the new closeness she shared with the young veterinarian, Dr. Jared Vlast, was no substitute. In fact, it was difficult to enjoy at all when she always felt there was something missing—the part of her that Chessie had filled for most of her life.

Jared was kind and caring about the animals, but he didn’t quite understand what the loss of a cat meant to a Cat Person. And it wasn’t
only
Chessie—she missed the
Molly Daise
, her home for so many years, and the crew who had been her family. Hers and
Chessie’s. She had lived with them since the age of ten when she first came aboard to care for her special kitten.

It didn’t help Jared or her either that they were right when they exposed—or caused the authorities to expose—the recent epidemic as a hoax. Quite the opposite, in fact. While the council admitted to each other and even to their accusers that mistakes had been made and wrong had been done, they did not quite come clean publicly. To do so, Jared told her, would have cost the government far too much money in reparations to farmers whose livelihoods had been destroyed, not to mention everyone else whose valuable and loved animals had not survived the council’s little “oops” moment.

Jared was allowed to return to Sherwood Station, but at first there was little work for him there, since many of the animals he would normally have screened or treated had been destroyed.

Janina, shipless and catless, found work at the same station with a maintenance crew. Since she was needed only part-time, she was sometimes free to accompany Jared when he flew down to the planet’s surface. This had been the case when he was called to leave the space station for George Varley’s ranch. The trouble had actually started there, through no fault of the rancher or his animals.

Nevertheless, they had suffered for the greed and foolishness of others.

Mr. Varley’s extensive herds were no more. The relief vets who replaced Jared when he was sent to Galipolis had disposed of all but a few of the beautiful horses, condemning them for the glitter in their secretions, which was nothing more than a by-product of the shiny beetles they’d ingested.

Now, Varley came out to meet them when they arrived. His step was as vigorous as ever but there was a hardness in his face Janina hadn’t noticed before.

“Glad you’re back, Doc,” he said, and nodded to Janina. She
wasn’t sure he actually knew her name, but he did not seem to mind her presence. “Those butchers who replaced you ruined my spread.”

Jared just shook his head. “Are the horses you want me to check in the barn?”

“Yeah, and believe it or not, they’re more of the ones that started this whole mess. They must have hid themselves someplace until the search and destroy parties were gone. Doc, they have the fairy-dust slobber and manure but they’re healthy as—well, horses.”

Jared nodded, carefully not saying anything to agree or disagree with Varley. What could he say, after all?

“So were the others, of course,” Varley said bitterly. “But they’re gone now—my breeding stock, my daughter’s pony, the caretaker’s dog Rollie, my Roary and Rowan …”

Janina felt tears stinging her eyes and looked away. Jared had told her before that in vet work a soft heart sometimes could be a liability. Hers felt like it was breaking all over again. Those horses and dogs had been so beautiful, so full of life. But they were just
things
to the government. People had the glittery secretions too, she knew, but nobody had suggested murdering humans. Come to think of it, nobody had suggested hospitalizing even a single two-legged person for so much as observation.

“How will you survive?” she asked Varley, although she hadn’t intended to speak.

“Oh. I’ll get by, young lady. I can sell off some acreage if push comes to shove. But I have other resources and I intend to use them to bring down the criminal idiots who allowed this to happen. I never wanted to use my family’s money, never wanted to go into politics. But I am going to now, and all I’ll say is there are some bozos in Galipolis who will be real sorry they drove me to it.”

The grounds and buildings were as neat as they had been before all the trouble started, but they looked bare without the dogs in the yard. No horses were pastured beside the pad where the trackers,
flitters, and shuttles landed. The pasture grasses were tall, waving in the breeze.

As they entered the barn and her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light, Janina saw a pair of glittering eyes, low to the ground on the far side of the barn. A rat. A large one, watching them from beside one of the stalls. It seemed unafraid. Well, why not? None of the fat sleek barn cats that once prowled the premises were to be seen. The Galactic Government’s efforts had succeeded in controlling only the domesticated animals—apparently not the wild rats and other vermin, left free to roam without predators to check them. The darn rat could thumb its nose at them if it had a thumb.

The broken-colored horses that now occupied the stalls in place of the beautiful thoroughbreds that had lived there before looked as if they felt out of place. They shook their manes, stamped and snorted, obviously restless, wanting to be elsewhere. Jared spoke to each one, checked its mouth, and moved on. Janina thought that all of the strange horses had been tagged when she and Jared last came to Varley’s ranch, but apparently some of the beasts had hidden from them then. These horses were not tagged.

The blaze-faced black and white Jared had just finished checking suddenly screamed, reared, and shot out of the barn at a gallop.

“What got into him?” Varley asked. He had been in the entrance when the horse bolted, and was lucky he wasn’t trampled.

Janina pointed to some red dots on bits of straw. “He’s bleeding!”

“I just checked—” Jared began. A rustling noise came from the back of the stall.

“I’ll bet that rat bit him,” Janina said.

“That’s not very likely,” Varley told her. “There’s plenty of grain and that sort of thing for the rats to feed on. They’ve never gone after the stock before.”

But even as he spoke, three large rodent forms darted across the open door at the other end of the stable.

“Of course not. They were afraid of the cats, I’m sure.”

“We’re short on those since the government stepped in,” Varley said. “I’ll have to put out traps or poison, I guess.”

That was only the first instance they saw of the growing problem with the vermin. Soon, Jared was being called upon to treat bites and infections on what seemed like every remaining farm, ranch, and town on the planet.

Back on Sherwood Station, a familiar figure made an informal visit to the clinic. “Captain Vesey!” Janina said, delighted to see her former boss. His eyes warmed when he saw her but he didn’t look happy. “What brings you here?”

“I was hoping you might be willing to help me find another cat. You could have your job back.”

“Captain, the Barque Cats—”

“It doesn’t have to be a Barque Cat. I just need a cat to catch mice and bugs. We’re overrun with them. They’re somehow getting into sealed cargo containers and have even bitten crew members. Dr. Vlast, I don’t suppose you could recommend a good poison that kills rats without getting into the ventilation system and doing in the entire crew?”

“I am in the business of healing animals, not killing them, not unless absolutely necessary,” Jared said stiffly.

“Of course, of course. I just thought you might know … how about it, though, Kibble? Any barn cats had litters lately that you know about?”

“Sir, the barn cats were also caught in the epidemic scare.”

“Yes,” Jared told him. “And because nobody set a high monetary value on them, they were disposed of much more casually.”

“We should unload all the rats into the council chambers on Galipolis,” Captain Vesey said bitterly. “Dammit, I miss Chessie. I even miss that rotten kitten of hers.”

Oh this was fun! Over the rooftops and through the town, looking down on the streets below and peeping into the houses through the little cat flaps they all had in the tops.

I left my boy sleeping, but it began to look like ours was the only quiet house in the whole city.

The night was much cooler than the day had been, and a breeze carried the fishy smell from the river. It blew right up my tail and seemed to penetrate my whole body, enlivening me to the tips of my whiskers. They vibrated with the excitement of exploration. No ship, no cage, not even my boy to restrain me. I was a free wild cat stalking his new domain. I tried roaring but it came out as a yowl.

Another yowl answered, I thought, but then realized the remark hadn’t been addressed to me.

Chester?
Jubal’s sleepy inquiry sounded alarmed.

No fight, just high spirits. Sleep!

Poor boy, he worried about me. But what he didn’t realize was that though he remained a human child, while we had been separated, I almost became a full-grown cat. I could look after myself now.

And interesting things were happening in the streets below. I saw the rather ugly black cat Pshaw-Ra had called Bes, the feline physician, scratching on a door two down from the one behind which Jubal slept. I backtracked to sit on the roof of that house. The human inside opened the door and murmured something respectful to Bes. Behind the cat was his human assistant, carrying a little basket full of tiny wrapped packages. I sniffed the air to see if I could pick up the scent. Catnip? No. Something much different. Muskier. What was it?

I trotted back to the upper cat flap, similar to the one I’d used to exit our lodgings, and pushed it in enough to see into the room below. Bes rubbed noses with a cloud-gray female who had arrived
on the
Ranzo
and sniffed her tail. She reciprocated. They were establishing rapport in the way of our species.

“Pshaw-Ra told us the tale of the awful treatment you endured at the hands of those you trusted,” he said soothingly. “I have brought a little treat for you that will undo any exposure you may have had to disease or illness there, and also calm you so you can sleep well and begin adjusting to this, your new home.”

The human assistant folded the contents of the packet into a gobbet of fish and offered it to her by setting it before her. “Please partake,” Bes invited, and with a little trill, she did.

Bes and his assistant departed and the physician scratched on the next door. If they were going to visit each of us, they had a long night ahead of them. Boring!

Jumping from one roof to the next and the next and the next, I was sure I’d left them behind, and had paused to survey the situation below me when I heard, quite nearby, another scratching. This time, though, in addition to the physician’s greeting, I heard a familiar voice—my mother’s.

Once more I peered down through the roof flap. The old chap Bahiti, his boy, Edfu, and my mother were entering. A gray and white Barque Cat sat up from his nap. “Hello, Skitz,” Mother said, as Bahiti and Edfu consulted with the resident humans. “We just came to check on you. I am staying with this cat Bahiti. Isn’t it amazing? They don’t have vets here! They have cats who take care of other cats when they’re sick or might get sick. Bahiti brought you a treat that will counteract any bad things you might have picked up in that awful lab. It’s delicious too.” She ran her tongue around her teeth for emphasis.

Trust Mother to have a job an hour and a half after she arrived! She was a great one for making herself useful.

I thought about popping in to surprise her, then decided against it. I wasn’t ready yet to give up being the Night Stalker Who Pads on Invisible Paws Through the Darkness.

As I leaped from roof to roof, toward the outskirts of town, I saw
the two other cat physicians, first Heket, then Hathor, doing the same thing as Bes and Bahiti.

Much as I enjoyed exploring, I didn’t want to miss out on a treat, so I turned around and roof-hopped back to the house where my boy slept.

It was noisier on the way back. From the inside of the houses came the strangest cries: moaning yowling, singing. Peeking through one roof flap, I made sure that no cats were being hurt. On the contrary, the resident cat, a spotted fellow, and Ti-Min from the
Ontario
, before he was incarcerated in the lab in Galipolis with the others, were becoming very friendly indeed. Assured that all was well, I popped back into our new house and hopped onto the bed where Jubal lay.