Catalyst (17 page)

Hah! I’d show both of them. Besides, my other plan hadn’t worked and I needed to think of something else, some other way to escape my captivity and return to my boy. Although I did not understand exactly what the captain meant when he threatened to
have me “fixed,” I assumed it involved breaking me in some way first, and that it would not help me return to Sherwood.

So I trotted meekly beside Kibble and behind Mother. Sometimes I made it a point to grab for the tall fluffy plume of Mother’s magnificent tail, making her trot more quickly ahead so that I ran to catch up and leaped toward the target just before she whisked it out of the way. When was my tail going to be that pretty? I wondered. How fast did tails change? When I turned to see if it was growing properly yet, I couldn’t quite see it. It kept getting away from me when I tried to grab it to examine it more closely. For some reason, Kibble and the crew found this amusing and laughed at my efforts. Finally I sat down to wash it and saw that although it was a little longer and perhaps a bit fluffier than the last time I’d looked, it was only a third as long as Mother’s. Maybe they got longer every time you washed them? I began an extensive licking campaign, but was interrupted when Mother and Kibble insisted on continuing the patrol and Kibble unhitched my tether from Mother and picked me up to carry me to the next station.

I very cleverly did not struggle or yowl, scratch or bite, but purred into her ear.

A few days of this and crew members were remarking on what a changed kitten I was. I began hearing words like “adorable,” “cunning,” and “cute.” I was being cunning, all right, but not in the way they thought. Soon they would forget my transgressions and that I had a very definite mind and will of my own. Then, when I made good my escape, they would be unprepared. Only my mother remained suspicious, though she had forgiven me and started grooming me again and allowing me to sleep with her. My kind are stealthy stalkers and patience is part of our equipment. It had just taken me a few false starts to learn that the quickest way to catch the prey may be apparent immobility. The boy read me a book in which some ancient Asian general said the same thing. He no doubt learned it from his cat.

Jubal made a game out of doing everything quicker and better than he was asked. Some days he won the game, and some days he lost, but the crew was mostly patient with him. It was a lot more interesting keeping busy anyway. He missed the horses and cows, and the cats of course, and he would sometimes pet Hadley and talk to him. But compared to Chester, he was just an ordinary furball, not especially smart or especially dumb, pretty and soft but not much of a conversationalist.

So it helped that a lot of the crew members took to him and after a while were willing to show him stuff about running the ship.

As he’d intended, he won over the com officer first. Her name was Beulah Bradley and she was originally from Sherwood. She had been brought up on a horse farm and liked gardening, so when Jubal was off watch, he dug up a patch for her in the hydroponics garden in one corner of a cargo bay. It wasn’t as hard to till as regular earth had been, compacted by rain and snow, baked by the sun, and scoured by wind. He could turn it over with a rake and hoe. When she was off watch, she planted her rows. Weeds weren’t really a problem, though some of the other more aggressive plants in the garden tried to invade their patch and had to be set straight.

He watered for her a couple of times when she had meetings or was too tired, and once found her some seed packets that had been dropped when a shipment was unloaded.

And she answered a couple of his innocent questions by showing him the com system, which was more complicated than any he’d encountered before, telling him about its range, which varied depending on the nearest relays and proximity to major stations, moon bases, or dirtside docks.

She accessed the roster of registration codes for him and looked up from the screen, the instruments reflecting in her intelligent blue eyes, their pale red brows almost disappearing into her spacerpale
skin. “Come closer and I’ll show you how to read this. I know what you’re after, Jubal.”

“You do?” he asked. He hadn’t told anybody here about Chester. He didn’t think they’d care anyway, but maybe Beulah had heard something. Maybe Mom was looking for him, or the Guard.

“You’re trying to find your father, aren’t you? I called back to Hood Station but no one had seen him since your arrival and he wasn’t on the roster of any of the other ships. He must have returned to Sherwood.”

“I don’t think so, ma’am. He might run into my mom, and they weren’t exactly on friendly terms when we left.”

“It was that way, was it? Hard to understand. Your father is such a—pleasant man.”

Which told him right there that Beulah might be a smart lady but was no great judge of character.

“I was wondering maybe if my cousin had heard from him. She’s aboard the
Molly Daise,”
Jubal said, adopting the cat girl temporarily.

“What’s her name?”

“I don’t rightly know her whole name, ma’am. Pop had a lot of brothers and sisters. But if you’d let me know if we’re going to meet up with the
Molly Daise
at any of the stations anytime soon, I’d be obliged.”

“No problem. Let me see if I can get her position and course from Traffic Control.”

She pulled her headset up from where it was coiled around the back of her neck and adjusted the mouth-and earpieces. Her station was within a sound-insulated booth that kept the noise to and from the bridge at a minimum. Her com voice was lower, crisper, and more musical sounding than the way she usually talked. It was a voice that wouldn’t be hard to listen to all day, maybe that was the key.

She spoke briefly with Control, nodded, then paused. With one side of her mouth and an eyebrow raised, she asked, Oh?” and resumed the normal protocol before pulling the headset down again and adjusting her screen. A starmap appeared. She tapped a key, and the picture zoomed. Jubal had seen it when he visited Beulah before, and it usually indicated the
Ranzo’s
position with a large red light, but now there was a green light as well and a yellow one.

“Looks like our courses may intersect again at Galport, in Galipolis. The
Molly
deviated from course for a few minutes but seems to have adjusted.”

“How can you tell?”

“Signals from other ships and nearby relay stations, mathematical projections from those signals when a ship is out of range. And the
Molly
reported her momentary deviation. But don’t worry. She corrected it almost at once.”

“What caused the deviation, do you think?” he asked.

She shrugged.

But he had the oddest feeling that it had something to do with Chester.

Mavis wagged a finger at Ponty. “You been evil again, sweetie. How many times I tell you to leave evil to Mavis? You’re not as smart as you think you are.”

“If you could have waited a little longer to see me, gorgeous, I’d have paid your loan back to you with big interest.”

She waved her hand impatiently. “Sure you would, Ponty. I not worried about that. You got plenty good collateral. But why’d you pass off a counterfeit cat for the real thing? Cost me plenty of money!” She snapped her fingers. “Bring it.”

Ponty didn’t have to think twice about the kitten deals he’d made. He would never have approached Mavis with any of the little furballs, who were, if not of “counterfeit” lineage, hot. Mavis would know about Chessie’s theft and pay him only a fence’s price,
so he’d approached less knowledgeable clients. Less dangerous ones.

A rough-looking customer of a crewman arrived carrying the kitten on his shoulder next to his ear. Sure enough, it was one of Git’s gray and black tabby jobs. The one with the slash of white under its nose, like a mustache.
Doc?

“I never saw that cat in my life,” he said automatically, opening negotiation, as it were. It was sort of true. The little twerp had grown bigger, the tail longer, the fur fuzzier. He’d been a totally different kitten when they left the barn together in search of a wealthy ship in need of a cat.

Doc ratted on him—or maybe it was catted on him—by leaping from the crewman’s shoulder to his, nuzzling into his hair and kneading his claws into Ponty’s sensitive skin. “Affectionate little critter, isn’t he?” Ponty asked with what he thought was a cool suavity, reaching up with a couple of fingers to tickle the kitten’s belly. It was purring louder than the ship’s engine, which—uh-oh—seemed to be propelling them away from the station. It was going to take a really good present to get back in Jubal’s good graces. Something mechanical, maybe, that the kid wouldn’t get attached to like he had Chester.

Mavis said, “Wipe the grin off your face, Ponty. I’d smack it off but I don’t want to scare the kitten. He’s a sweet little fellow, even if he is a phony.”

The kneading and purring stopped, the claws retracted, and weight lifted from Ponty’s shoulder as Doc launched himself onto Mavis’s scrawny bosom. She boosted the kitten to her own shoulder, took a swing, and knocked Ponty to the deck.

He thought he might be safer if he just stayed there, but then they’d probably kick him.

Rubbing his jaw, Ponty sat up and said, “Looks like a real cat to me.”

Then Mavis did kick him. “Don’t be a wise guy. You know it’s the ID chip I’m talking about. His credentials. The DNA code on
it matches the high-class queen’s and tom’s but not the kitten’s. The only part of Thomas’s Duchess in this little fellow is on that chip in his ear. The rest of him is as bastardized as you.”

“Now that’s just plain mean, Mavis,” Ponty said. “I can see right now that little kitty is getting real attached to you. If he could understand what you said, you’d break his little heart.”

“I wouldn’t want to do that. So I’m gonna break your neck instead.”

“Why? What did you want from one little cat? He looks like a ship’s cat to me, meows like a ship’s cat, has a chip that says he’s a ship’s cat, and he has a job on your ship, making him a ship’s cat. And that’s what you bought, so what’s the difference?”

“Several thousand credits is the difference. You’re going to have to scoop a lot of cat poop to make it up to me.”

“I got something better,” he said. “I got the DNA and the codes for Thomas’s Duchess and her last litter. The thing is, this little guy is a foster kitten of the Duchess’s, suckled along with her own babies when his mama tragically died. The Duchess adopted him and his brothers all by herself. So you see, he isn’t a phony after all. He was good enough for her, and he ought to do for you until I can clone you a cat with the right code.”

“Is that what you were planning to do with that stuff you were buying back at Hood Station?”

He nodded.

“Sounds to me like you’ve given this considerable thought already, Carlton. Maybe I misjudged you. Maybe you’ve been wracking your brains all this time thinking, ‘How can I ever repay Mavis for all she’s done for me? I know! I’ll make her a purebred kittycat just like she’s always wanted. And then I’ll make a lot more for her to sell and pay back my debt.’ That’s what you had in mind, wasn’t it, Ponty?”

He allowed himself to draw a breath, smiled and shook his head—not in denial but in apparent admiration. “Mavis, I always
knew you and I had a special understanding—like you could read my mind.”

“Cut the crap, Ponty. You gonna make the cats for me?” “Just give me a little space to set up my lab and we’ll have kittens.”

This was good. Very good. It was what he had planned to do anyway, just in a different place. Later, when she was in a better mood and he’d produced several cats for her to sell, he’d produce the Chester clone he’d promised Jubal. The kid would just have to wait a bit longer. It was for his own good.

I fell asleep and for a time dreamed the regular sort of dream. Of the barn and fields, of chasing tasty beetles through the hidden spaces of the ship. It was a good enough dream, as regular ones went, but I longed for the dreams the boy and I had shared, after I was taken from him. Then all I had to do was nap and he was with me. The dreams I had dreamed since were lonely and boring by comparison, and although I liked sleeping, hardly made it worthwhile.