Catalyst (20 page)

“Molly Daise
, our new passenger just came out of his hole,” Kibble said into her com. “He looks healthy and seems to be having no problem breathing.”

“Have you checked your O
₂
levels, Janina?” the captain asked.

“Uh—no. We’re suited up, though.”

“If you click the second button on your suit’s wrist monitor three times and hold,” Indu told her, “a menu will appear in the window. One of the submenus will be marked ENV for Environmental Control. One of
its
submenus will be atmospheric conditions—three more clicks, same button. One more click on its submenu under ‘cab’ for cabin. Three more will take you to O
₂
, and if you click that once the level will show up on the screen. If that’s okay, click on the other gases and make sure there’s nothing toxic.”

“O
₂
level is in the middle of the gauge,” Kibble told her after following the lengthy instructions, “and the COB seems to be healthy.”

“Check the temperature. Though if the cat on board can tolerate it, it’s probably fine for you and Chester as well.”

What a ponderous and primitive procedure
, the skinny-faced ship’s cat said.
Did I not say the atmosphere is wholesome?

You did not, not exactly
, I said.
And I am very valuable, and Kibble is sworn to look after me so she can’t take any chances, can she? Besides, she can’t take your word for it. She can’t hear your words
.

You could convey them unto her
.

No, I can’t
.

Have you no link with her?

Nothing but this hose I was telling you about
, I said, wagging it as a dog would his tail.

Kibble said, “Thanks, Indu. That will make this much easier. They’ve changed the way you read these since I trained for this sort of mission. Come here, Chester.”

She pulled off her helmet and gloves and plucked me from the air, then removed my helmet and peeled off the stupid suit—and the hose that attached us. Now I was truly free.

Once she’d done that, Kibble opened the packet of fishie treats and shook it, sending their aroma throughout and making me salivate. The other cat was not unaffected. Quick as a wink he shot out of his hole, grabbed the packet in—well, I thought it was his teeth—and darted back into the hole.

“No, kitty, come back!” Kibble cried.

Halt, you treat thief!
I commanded him, growling ferociously. He had miscalculated, I thought.
Now
I was free to track him into his lair and reclaim the fishie treats. They rightfully belonged to the feline crew members of the
Molly Daise
. He couldn’t just take my—our—treats and run.

Pshaw-Ra extracts his tribute and retires to his chamber where he will deal doom to all who dare intrude
.

Wrong!
I cried, cat-paddling through the twisting cat-sized corridor. Even then I was beginning to wonder about the ship’s derelict status. Low light of undetermined origin illuminated the catwalk beneath—well, usually beneath—my paws, and I could see the tunnels spiraling out in widening triangulations behind me.
Those fishie treats are not tribute. They’re mine! Kibble only gave you some to get you to come out so we could rescue you. So either come out and get rescued or, preferably, give me back the fishie treats
.

Foolish kitten, Pshaw-Ra the Mariner never relinquishes the prizes that fall into his paws
.

They didn’t fall into your paws. You filched them! Under false pretenses too. You sent that pathetic dream pretending you were scared of running out of air, but this ship isn’t in trouble, is it? And neither are you
.

I was beginning to feel peckish
, he argued, and I heard crunching noises and smelled the seductive fragrance of tender juicy
fishie treats as they surrendered to his teeth and dissolved into deliciousness in his mouth.
If you’ll cease your complaints, I will grant you a morsel or two
.

I hesitated. I wanted to address again the question of who should be granting whom morsels, but he had the upper paw and the treats smelled very enticing, so I swam onward—more cautiously.

Once I slowed my pace—or rather, my float—I noticed my surroundings. The picture-writing featuring seated cats was scrawled all over the walls. Pshaw-Ra was evidently a doodler, I decided, and one who liked depicting himself in his graffiti.

He was also well stocked with live food, I soon realized. Shiny keka beetles dropped onto the pathway behind me and trooped toward the hole into the larger chamber.

Meanwhile Kibble was rattling the can opener and calling sweetly for Pshaw-Ra to come back. I could feel him laughing at her entreaties. She encouraged me to let him know it was okay, he was safe with us, since I suppose she felt he’d trust another cat to guarantee his safety. Kibble was a good Cat Person, but she didn’t know much about feline diplomatic relations. Unfortunately, neither did I at that time.

Then I heard her voice again, but this time she was not calling to me or to the old imposter nibbling my treats in his fortress. I recognized the murmur she used when speaking into a headpiece to the ship. At first her tone seemed oddly joyous, but it quickly erupted into surprise, consternation, and anger. She said, “No,” then, “I can’t do that,” then, “But Captain, he’s all alone and Chester is just a baby.” Finally, resigned, she said. “Very well, I obey, but under protest.”

She called me then. “Chester, come out. We need to leave now.”

You are summoned, child. Depart
.

No
, I said. It wasn’t only about treats now. The way he said it, he made it sound like I was Kibble’s servant and obeyed her orders
like a—I had not been around many but the expression is part of my racial memory—like a dog. It was an insult difficult for any cat to ignore, especially coming from another cat who held the treat bag while an empty-handed human tried to compete.

Very well, then, stay and I will tell you a story
.

A story? I like stories. The boy and I used to read stories under his covers with a flashlight. I would lie between his neck and shoulder and he would whisper the words to me, but I saw them in his mind
.

So can you do with me
.

“Chester! Chester come, hurry. We have to abort the mission and return to the ship.”

She sounded tearful, which was strange. Part of me wanted to go to her and see why she was so sad, but another part was still angry with her for parting me from Jubal. Let her wait. Let the
Molly Daise
wait. What was their hurry? Pshaw-Ra’s ship was locked in our tractor beam and going nowhere.

It all began in ancient times on old Earth …
Pshaw-Ra began. Good. A long story. I drifted closer and saw him just ahead, snuggled into the nose cone of his peculiar cabin, curled up and relaxed. The fishie treats were scattered in front of him, mine for the taking. I snatched up one and ate it, then composed myself, paws and tail tucked as I floated near the ceiling, settling in to listen and enjoy myself.

Janina was delighted to hear that Jared had a message for her but puzzled that the captain had felt it couldn’t wait until she returned to relay it. When she heard the content of the recording, though, her heart sank as fast as it had risen. “Chester!” she called. “Chester, come back.”

But though she called and rattled the can opener, and called again, he didn’t come. She tried to keep her voice cheerful and enticing as she continued to call. He would of course be busy assisting the other ship’s cat in devouring the treats. If only the captain’s
com had come before the stranded cat snatched them away and Chester had galloped off in pursuit.

She used the pocket torch in her utility kit to find the hole where the cats had disappeared, and leaned forward, calling directly into it. She could hear the sound of cat treats being daintily crunched between rows of sharp white teeth, but no answering mew from either cat or the sound of paws coming toward her. She reached up into the hole, putting her arm in up to the shoulder, thinking she might feel a furry hide she could yank out, a measure she would never take under ordinary circumstances, partially from fear she might injure the cat, but more realistically that even the gentlest cat, cornered and grabbed like that, would lash out at her hand.

But her fingers touched no fur, just a bend in the corridor. Then something prickly crawled over them, and another thing and another. Hard nubby little things. She withdrew her arm as if she’d been burned and found the suit sleeve coated with the iridescent shiny beetles like the one Chester had caught in Jared’s office.

She shook her arm, but as she did so, she heard something snap and looked back at the hole. She didn’t see it. The wall looked completely solid again. Only the beetles scrambling up and around her testified that there had been a door, or a cat.

She had a small laser saw in her kit but her classes had not covered this sort of situation.
“Molly Daise
, Chester and the victim have disappeared inside the cat hole and somehow it has closed solid. Chester did not respond to my calls and I cannot reach him where he is. Request a team to demolish the bulkhead and retrieve him.”

“Request denied, CP. Return to base at once.” Indu’s voice was one of impersonal command that Janina had seldom heard before, and never directed at her.

“But Chester—”

“Abandon feline per-personnel,” Indu continued, her voice faltering.

“Janina,” Captain Vesey’s voice answered. “Leave him.”

“Then I’m staying too!” she said. Abandoning her charge was unthinkable to her.

“Consider this, Jannie,” the captain said, using the name Janina had sometimes been called when much, much smaller, and before she had gone to CP school. “You say there is plenty of oxygen, the stranded cat is in no distress that you can see. Leave them the food and water on board the shuttle and come away. We have the derelict’s identity code and position. Until the government’s order is lifted, both cats may be better off there than here. Now do as you’re told. Every second you are breathing the oxygen in that ship may deprive the cats of it later on.”

That finally convinced her. Janina replaced her helmet and used the suit’s oxygen, her tears steaming up the faceplate of her helmet as she returned to the shuttle, leaving the hatch open while she unloaded the emergency bags of cat food, which floated like lumpy clouds, rising to the ceiling. The packaging, though airtight, could be easily ruptured by a cat’s standard equipment. The water situation was a bit trickier, but long ago someone had devised a large bottle with a nipple that cats could use in free-fall to quench their thirst.

There were also the beetles, which she saw everywhere now, it seemed. There were even some inside the shuttle. The cats seemed to like those, so they would be additional food for Chester and the other ship’s cat. She looked back one last time to where she thought the hole had been, then reboarded the shuttle and returned to the
Molly Daise
, leaving the cats, at least temporarily, to their fate.

Chessie ran to Janina, looking for Chester. When she realized he was gone, she cried and cried for him, making Janina cry again too.

But the import of Jared’s message was even worse than she’d thought.

Jared had not been specific in the brief transmission she’d received on board the seeming derelict, but Captain Vesey had since received further orders from the GG and the GHA elaborating on the state of the perceived emergency.

The glittering matter in the mucosal secretions of the wild pintos shipped off planet had been deemed to be a harbinger of a possible galaxywide epidemic that threatened all livestock and pets aboard ships. All animals exhibiting the symptoms and any they had come in contact with were to be impounded for quarantine and possibly destroyed, depending on further findings.

“But the glittery spit is just a by-product of them eating those shiny beetles!” Janina protested after reading the full edict.

Captain Vesey shrugged. “They apparently think the beetles carry some disease.”