Catalyst (19 page)

“Sir, by the time the Guard reached it, a cat survivor might have died slowly from lack of oxygen. I’ve not done it but I have been
trained
to do it. Being a Cat Person isn’t all food dishes and litter boxes, you know.”

“I know. Do you want to take backup?”

“Hmmm—well, they say in training to take your own ship’s cat
to help locate the survivor or—well, what would have been the survivor. I was issued a cat-sized adjustable pressure suit and helmet with olfactory amplifiers so the cat could still smell. But only one. They gave me a life-support carrier for the stranded cat. Chester is inexperienced and Chessie is—”

I climbed her trouser leg. “Me! Me!” I cried. “Let me go! I know what’s there! I dreamed it.” I knew no one would understand me, but since I was only about ten inches long, exclusive of my tail, I felt I needed to make a great deal of noise to get noticed and I might as well give them a real piece of my mind.

“No, Chester, you’re too young,” Mother said, since of course she
did
understand. I could tell however that she didn’t really want to go. Once she’d returned to her ship after her ordeal dirtside on Sherwood, she never wanted to leave it again. Still she protested, “
I
am the
Molly Daise’s
official cat. I am the one who must go.”

I ignored her and continued to climb Kibble.

“I think you have a volunteer,” Captain Vesey told her, laughing.

“I don’t know. He’s just a baby, sir.”

“Yes, but he’s learning and is nimble and fast on his feet, whereas our Chessie is getting on in years. He’s smaller too, and you never know when that might come in handy in this sort of situation.”

He’s also been dreaming with the cat on the ship, you aggravating people
, I thought at them.
Now let’s get out there and see what that cat has to say for himself
.

I knew I had won when Kibble picked me up and carried me with her to the shuttle bay. On the way she picked up a packet of my favorite fishie treats, a large bag of cat food, an old-fashioned rattling can opener, and a bizarre-shaped object that turned out, to my disgust, to be a suit and helmet meant for me.

She put it on me, leaving off only the helmet, saying, “You have to, Chester. I have to, too. We can’t live in space or in a ship with depleted oxygen without our survival suits.” While she readied the
shuttle, I tried to get used to the suit. Under normal circumstances I would have expressed my displeasure in graphic and disruptive ways that she would find convincing, to say the least, but I desperately wanted—for reasons I did not understand—to accompany her on this mission. The mission included the stupid suit, so instead of spending my time protesting, I practiced moving in it. It was surprisingly flexible, though I couldn’t manage much of a tail lash in it.

And there was always that packet of fishie treats Kibble carried with us. Perhaps they were to be my reward for a mission accomplished? I could hope.

Kibble picked me up and tried to stick me in her pouch but I slipped out of her grasp. This was the first time I’d ridden in a small craft in open space and I wanted to see.

“No, Chester, don’t stand on the instruments,” she scolded when I jumped onto the control panel to look through the viewport at the stars and the derelict ship. I jumped back onto her lap but the slip-periness of our suits dumped me off onto the deck. I tried to wash my paw to show that I didn’t care, that the fall was only part of my master plan, but I got only a tongueful of odorless, tasteless shipsuit.

Once more she lifted me, and this time I allowed her to put me in the pouch on the front of her suit, but kept my front paws on the opening and stuck my head out to watch.

Having fixed the ship and stars in my mind, I turned my attention to Kibble’s hands, which moved over the controls with a bit of hesitation but seemed to be doing the right thing. I hadn’t known she could fly, but then lots of humans on Sherwood seemed to be able to, and as I watched her, I realized suddenly why everyone got in such a lather over me romping across the control panels. Graphs shifted and changed colors and made the shuttle move and make noises with the merest touch on her part, more sensitive than a baby mouse under Mother’s paws.
That
was good to know.

The derelict ship was very close to ours, held in place by the
Molly Daise’s
tractor beam.

“Initiate docking procedure,” Indu’s voice told her. “Breaking and Entering Docking Protocol engaged.”

Resuming my pouch-perch topside, I saw the side of the derelict slide open, leaving a great gaping dark square hole, like an open mouth waiting to eat us. And for just a moment I saw, as if beneath a ship-shaped veil, the pyramid vessel I had dreamed during my last nap. Then the veil fell back and our shuttle—quite stupidly, I thought—sailed into the open maw.

I must have given an involuntary hiss because Kibble put a hand on my neck and said, “Shhh, Chester, it’s okay. We can’t very well rescue the other cat if we don’t board his ship, can we?”

It seemed to me that with all of their clever little tricks and technologies, the humans might have come up with some strategy less risky to limb and tail, and I gave her a withering look to convey this attitude, but she was staring ahead and missed the whole thing.

I began to wonder why I had been so keen to come on this mission. That package of fishie treats looked increasingly appealing, and all this excitement had worn me out. I was ready for another nap, just as she seemed about ready to go. Maybe I would just curl up inside the pouch and—

“Time to work, Chester,” Kibble said. “Let’s hook you up and put on your helmet and go see if we can save the other cat. I’m counting on you to help me find him, so try to behave yourself for a change.”

For a change? Why, I had bored myself to snores trying to “behave” according to what these people wanted until I could find my boy! I hadn’t demanded adoration for my concessions, but a little credit would have been nice.

I soon realized I had underestimated Kibble’s cunning and cruelty. She had made sure my paws and claws were encased in the padded shipsuit before forcing the horrible helmet over my head. I knew what it was—she had already put one on her own head, just like it, except that mine had two pointy triangles at the top. Once the helmet was over my head, my flattened ears popped up into
the triangular places. A soothing hiss of oxygen filled my nostrils from the hose attaching our suits even before she locked the helmet in place, but I couldn’t help trying to paw the thing off, for fear I’d smother.

“Chester, settle down. Trust me, little one, you don’t want to be cut off from my hose. Now then, we’re going to leave the shuttle and go hunt for the other cat. I’ve my gravity boots to keep me grounded, but you will be floating in zero g once we get outside.
Please
don’t try to run away, baby cat. If this hose comes apart, you may not have enough oxygen in your suit to last until I can hook us back up.”

I heard her quite well in spite of the helmet, and I could still smell the inside of the shuttle as well, though her scent was cut off by her shipsuit. The noise of the
Molly Daise’s
bridge on an open channel buzzed in the background. The shuttle’s hatch opened and Kibble picked me up and carried me out. Once she let go of me, I was airborne!

This time it did not frighten me. After my recent dance across the buttons that controlled the gravity on the
Molly Daise
, once Kibble and Mother got over being angry, we had flying lessons in the training chamber. Mother said that no kit of hers was going to be afraid of weightlessness.

I meowed loudly and tumbled over three times in midair as my voice filled my own quite sensitive ears trapped in their pointy helmeted casings. “Other cat? Where are you?”

You seek my wisdom and protection, my son?
a deep voice inquired in my head.

We seek your furry tail so we can save you and get us all out of this rat warren!
I replied, not bothering to use words of feline language at this point. Our actual spoken vocabulary is diminished if we can’t use the eloquence of our bodies for punctuation, extended explication, and emphasis.

“Have you got the scent, Chester? Have you?” Kibble asked. From the pouch, she pulled the can opener and the bag of fishie treats.

That
was easy, I thought, using my front paws for propulsion and my tail as a rudder as I dived toward the treats in her hand. I knocked them out of her hand and into free-fall, but I couldn’t retrieve them because I had nothing with which to grab them, as I discovered when my faceplate hit the package and sent it soaring upward out of my reach. I’d forgotten about the wretched helmet. I wailed at the injustice of it, the awful cruelty of her taunting me with treats. But she, oblivious, snatched the treats out of the air and rattled a can opener in her other hand. Now I understood: the sound was a lure for the stranded cat.

“Kitty kitty?” she called.
Rattle rattle
.

Hark! Do mine ears detect the sound of the sacred sistrum of sustenance?
the other cat asked. At the same time, my amplified ears heard a
miau
, faint, as if far away.

No, it’s just a can opener
, I told the cat.

Yes, that. And is there—perchance—a can or container of some sort for it to work its magic upon? I have had no food for weeks, months, years even!

Should I tell him about the fishie treats? I wondered, as their significance to Kibble became clear to me. Alas, they were not for me but a bribe for him. I was sure of it. Otherwise, why would she have withheld them from me aboard the shuttle when she
knew
I loved them? They should by rights be
my
fishie treats. The strange cat claimed to be starving, and he might fool Kibble with his piteous complaints, but I am a cat. I know what starving means when we speak of it to someone with food. It means we want that food and will say whatever it takes to get it. His lies would not work on another cat. On the other hand, there were lots more fishie treats back on the
Molly Daise
, and if we collected this old feline and returned to a crew grateful to be on its way and proud of Kibble and me for completing our mission, I could probably cadge so many treats I wouldn’t be able to follow Mother into the tighter service passages for a while.

I’ll share if you’ll guide me to you
, I told him.

The passage will lead you to no one else
, he replied.

So I led us forward.

However, a short distance beyond the docking bay, we met a blank bulkhead with no way a human could go but back the way she came.

What passage?

Then I saw a ramp running along one side of the large corridor from the deck to what was debatably the overhead. Swimming toward it, I saw a hole in the bulkhead, just big enough for a cat.

You’ll have to come out
, I told the other cat.
My human can’t get in to bring you the food
.

You can bring it
.

No, I can’t. I can’t carry it
.

Find a way. And be certain, young one, that there is enough left to assuage the hunger of a famished elder when you reach me
.

I then engaged in one of the charades I found it necessary to play with most humans in order to convey the simplest instructions. I dived for the treat packet again, bumping Kibble’s hand, but she had been watching me, and this time she held onto the prize.

Shaking her head inside the helmet, which moved very little, she said, “No, Chester. The treats are for the other cat.”

To emphasize his hunger and helplessness, the wily elder mewed pathetically from within the cat-sized passage, which magnified his voice and sent it echoing through the chamber where we stood wasting time.

I pawed at the food again, then started up, swam toward the hole, pushed off the bulkhead with my back paws, and repeated my assault on the fishie treats.

“That isn’t going to work, Chester. The poor lost cat doubtlessly has found an air pocket to hide in—some ships even have an onboard lifepod for the cat. This one is very odd, I must say. Once you located him, I was hoping to get close enough to use the treats to lure him into the life pouch. It will allow him to survive the airless
conditions inside the rest of the ship. If he is too far for me to reach, by the time he comes out, he’ll have suffocated, and if you go farther than the hose will reach, little one, you too will die.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. It was good that although she had no telepathic link with either Mother or me, Kibble always treated us with courtesy and explained everything aloud as she would to another human.

It was also fortunate that the other cat was telepathic with me and understood what she said.

Humans! I don’t suppose she checked the oxygen levels before she left her craft? Neither of you have need of that clumsy attire. If you lose your tether it is of no consequence. Bring me the fishie treats. Bring me the fishie treats. You will bring me the fishie treats
nyow
…

I was willing to do this, but I couldn’t think how, with my teeth behind glass and my claws in gloves. Of course, according to the COB, I could take my helmet off.
He
would not be the one gasping for air if it were less wholesome than he claimed. So I said, with what I liked to think was considerable cunning,
If there is oxygen enough for us to remove our helmets, then there is oxygen enough for you to come out of your hole and fetch the treats yourself
.

I am weak from hunger and injured
.

Then crawl out of your hole and fetch the treats and Kibble will tuck you into her pouch
.

I knew this old cat was trying to trick me. I wasn’t sure how or why, but he did not sound injured any more than he sounded hungry and he certainly didn’t sound frightened. He was a sham all the way, I was sure of it.

He said nothing, and for long moments I thought perhaps I had been wrong and he had perished of hunger while I argued. However, after a bit, a slim triangular tawny face with very large pointed ears and very large amber eyes appeared. The eyes glittered in the glow of Kibble’s helmet lamp. The face was followed by a short-furred, gold-bronze body with a whip of a tail. The lean and quite alien-looking cat looked like an animated statue of an ancient feline
hero. I noticed that there were silver hairs among the gold at his muzzle and next to his ears.