Once beyond the remains of the station, the rail turned drastically to the north for a short while, but according to the map Michael called up it would soon find its way back. They were heading through an area that had once had houses on both sides. Many of these houses now existed as no more than ruins. Others had been boarded up, and some actually looked as if they might still be habited. Most of the people here had left to get away from being so close to Sou’nd, but in the same way that some people in Sou’nd had refused to leave their homes, so many here had decided to stay and wait out the storm.
Chalkwell was the next station, and it wasn’t too far along the track from Leigh. By Chalkwell the rail line had found its way back to the river, and the station again overlooked a beach. This one had a sandy covering and at one time had probably been a great local attraction, but like so many things in this part of the country, it was long deserted.
It was here at Chalkwell, just beyond what remained of the rail station, that they found a patrol of soldiers manning a roadblock. They seemed overjoyed at the arrival of the convoy because it meant they would soon get word to go home. From the look of them, they hadn’t seen much action in the previous thirty hours, though a few splatters of blood on the cats’ side of the line showed that they hadn’t been without a little bit.
Actually, they weren’t at Sou’nd yet. The next station on the map was called Westcliff, but Westcliff and Sou’nd had virtually become interchangeable, and the cats’ possession of the area definitely included large parts of Westcliff now. Technically it was another town in its own right, but it was now as much the cats’ as Sou’nd ever was. It was part of Charles’ edict to destroy it.
They didn’t stop to exchange pleasantries with the soldiers; Charles had a job to do. The convoy continued calmly in through the barricade. The soldiers moved out of the way and lined up to salute as the would-be heroes entered the lion’s den.
When Charles spoke, it was with the morose voice of a man who had already been defeated, even if he’d won the battle. His reputation with the media would be shattered after the loss of nearly all the civilians. Reports coming in from the Med Units had reported a few survivors, but not many. He could almost see the headlines now: cat killer causes hundreds of civilian deaths. Or is Slim Dorris a bigger menace than the cats? ‘Inform all the tanks that they are to make a battle line as we originally intended. Get the soldiers in support, and then we will begin to destroy the town building by building.’ Then with energy he added, ‘Let’s get to it, people!’
Sou’nd had stood for over a thousand years. True, none of the original buildings had survived from the early days, unless you counted the pier, and even that had been rebuilt and refurbished several times due to countless fires and even an occasion when a ship had hit it. The pier, built in the nineteenth century when Sou’nd was just known as the south end of Prittlewell, had been famous for holding the title of the longest pleasure pier in the world for nearly three hundred years before another pier had beaten it.
The town had gone through name changes in the last millennium or so too, from being the south end of Prittlewell to just being known as Southend, and then, when the cats moved in and the name of the town became such an ugly word, it became Sou’nd.
Yes, Sou’nd had quite a history, but if everything went according to plan from here on, it would have no future.
The twenty-nine remaining tanks, supported by over a thousand armored support infantry, opened fire on the first few buildings in Sou’nd.
21
And February Makes Five
February hadn’t had a lot of success in trying to sleep. For a start the couch was wet where Kitty had been sitting on it after having been out in the pouring rain. Also her own clothing had gotten wet where her coat hadn’t been able to protect her fully. But there was a lot more to it than that. Today her brother was going to go up against Slim Dorris, the Great Cat Killer, and there could only really be one possible result from that sort of matching. Then there was the house itself. It stank of herd. She would like to trust them and knew that Kitty trusted them fully, but they were still herd, and she had trouble with the concept of closing her eyes when they were so close. She wouldn’t want to admit it, but she was scared.
She had turned the newspaper back on at around four that morning and had kept the sound down to the barest minimum at which she could still hear it. Actually, the volume was so low that at first she couldn’t hear much herself. But she knew that given a few minutes her ears would adjust, especially as there were no other sounds in the house and only the gentle patter of easing rain outside.
She lay back down on the couch, watching the scene at the green. It was still dark there, and not a lot seemed to be happening. The civilian line seemed to be the only real activity that the broadcasters were interested in. Occasionally she caught a glimpse of an artificial light coming out from either the refreshment tents or from one of the tanks that were already there waiting. But the camera didn’t dwell on either, and even the reporter whose job it was to keep the subscriber interested sounded bored or tired or both. Slowly his voice became hypnotic to February as she lay there. She found it hard to keep her eyes open, and as soon as she closed them, she was asleep.
Actually, she didn’t remember closing her eyes. She didn’t remember any of her dreams, nor indeed did she have any recollection at all of having fallen asleep. Yet somehow the clock had moved to six fifteen.
She raised her head to look more closely at the newspaper. It was very blurred after so little sleep, but slowly it came into focus. The convoy hadn’t left yet. It was supposed to have left the starting point at six, and it was still there. She decided that that was good. It would give her people a little more time to prepare for them. She laid her head back on the cushion and listened as best she could to the almost silent voice.
‘Yes, as remarkable as it might seem, someone has taken a shot at Slim. Soldiers are already searching the outlying buildings for the sniper’s nest, but many here must be wondering…’
February closed her eyes, thinking about it. A sniper had taken a shot at Slim Dorris and she had missed it. Perhaps it was the shot that had woken her. What they hadn’t said was whether or not the sniper had hit the target. Would today’s assault be called off because Slim wouldn’t be able to lead it? Oh, she hoped so.
She was asleep again, but it was a very light sleep where comments being made on the newspaper still registered in a sort of disjointed way. As she slept she heard that Slim hadn’t been hurt and that the convoy would be leaving thirty minutes later than originally advertised. At least she thought she heard these things. It was always possible that it was just a dream.
At half past nine she was woken by the unmistakable scent of a herd entering the room. The scent was mingled with that of bacon, eggs, and sausage, but it was definitely the scent of herd that had pulled her out of her slumber. It made her both hungry and weary. She sat up, ready to fight if necessary, despite feeling a little disorientated as to where she was and having no idea who the herd was.
Her first instinct was to be wary of him. She had had to deal with herd regularly during her life whilst pretending to be one of them. She had gotten used to talking to them, trading with them, and even working for them. Even so, when she met someone for the first time she would become nervous until she got to know him or her better.
‘Hi,’ he said to her as he entered the room. He must’ve been in the kitchen preparing breakfast before entering this room. He was carrying a tray in front of him that bore all the items she had smelt. His own scent became dominated by surprise as he found her there. His voice became very interrogative as he said, ‘I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to disturb you. You look quite comfortable on that couch, but can I ask who you are? Why are you here in my brother’s house?’
‘Your brother?’ she commented. She was still feeling tired, and she could hear the weariness in her own voice as she continued, ‘You must be Stanley. My friend and I arrived las
t night after you and your wife had gone to bed. My name is February. You could say I’m a friend of George’s friend. He offered to put us up for the night. Of course, one of us had to sleep here.’ She yawned, trying not to take her eyes off of him.
‘And who’s your friend?’ Stanley asked; his voice had softened from the questioning tone to one that sounded as if he was just trying to make conversation with her.
‘She slept in Kitty’s room,’ February replied before she yawned. ‘I wanted to sleep down here; I wanted access to the newspaper.’
‘Ah yes, Slim and the attack on Sou’nd. Can’t say I really care too much one way or the other. There are no moggies on the moon,’ Stanley commented. He sat down at the bar with his breakfast. Perhaps he would have joined February on the couch had she shunted herself over to the one side or the other, but she was still sort of half sprawled and looked as if she might put her head down again at any moment.
The scent coming from him did seem a lot more neutral than when he had first entered the room. Maybe the fact that she had known the name of his brother and of Kitty proved to some degree what she was claiming. She knew she was going to have to reveal what she actually was to him sooner or later if she was going to get help from him. She was a little worried about what sort of reaction such a revelation might provoke, though. Oh, well, no time like the present. ‘My brother is involved.’ She was feeling unsure about diving straight in and revealing what she was to him. She could hint at it this way and let him draw his own conclusions. If he had time to think about it, perhaps his reaction wouldn’t be as negative as it could otherwise be.
‘Oh?’ To Stanley there only seemed to be two possible options, though. ‘Is he a soldier? Or is he one of those civilians that have decided to tag along?’
February hesitated before answering, but then decided that she couldn’t hide what she was from him. When George came down he would tell Stanley himself, and it would be better if she told him first. If he should find out from someone else, he might decide she was too untrustworthy. ‘He’s defending,’ February explained through teeth she had gritted with the anguish of how he might react. Somehow her head found the cushion again, and she lay there looking at the patterns in the fabric.
Stanley didn’t react anything like as badly as she had suspected. True, his scent suggested that he was a little unsure about being in the same room, but all he said was, ‘Oh! But wouldn’t that make you a cat?’
‘No!’ she all but shouted. She lifted her head regretfully from the cushion for a moment to look at him and calmly added, ‘No, I am not a cat.’
‘And you’re my brother’s friend?’ He hadn’t moved from the bar, and yet she felt as if he was keeping his distance now. ‘My brother has some unusual friends.’
‘I’m a friend of George’s friend,’ she replied tiredly. ‘He’s offered to help us if he can. Actually I think he offered us your help.’
‘My help?’ he asked, surprised, ‘but what help do you need?’
‘Nothing, really,’ February told him, ‘just that we really don’t want to be here when the fighting breaks out on the streets and we were heading for the relative safety of the north of the country. George said you had another option, something about Mars.’
‘A cat that wants to get out of London before the other cats arrive…now that’s a new one to me,’ Stanley remarked. ‘And this friend of yours and George’s, is he or she also a cat, or is she human like me?’
‘She is Herbaht,’ February insisted, emphasizing the word. ‘Don’t call us cats. Just because we might have a superficial similarity to another creature doesn’t mean that we’re related. Keep referring to us as cats, and chances are we aren’t going to get along too well. And before you start, don’t refer to me as a cat either!’
‘Would you elaborate on that?’ Stanley asked her. His body language and his scent seemed to be calming down now that it was clear that she wasn’t about to turn him into breakfast. ‘I mean, I’ve always assumed that you did belong to the cat family in some form or another, but as I said earlier, I’m from the moon and we don’t tend to have any of your race up there. Any subtleties of your race have therefore been missed, by me, anyway.’
February sighed. This was moving her away from the subject of Mars, but she needed Stanley’s cooperation if she and Kitty were going to get there, which admittedly appealed to her more than going to the north of the country did. At least he seemed willing to talk, whereas most herd would’ve been on the link to the police as soon as they realized what she was. ‘Okay, what do you know about my race? We appeared on this planet somewhere around eight hundred to a thousand years ago.’
‘Sounds about right,’ Stanley replied.
‘The religion of my people says that the Goddess sent her two daughters to earth, where they met a couple of humans and converted them to a form that could reproduce with them, and thus did the entire race grow from those original four people. The problem with that as I see it, is you have to believe in this Goddess. You have to believe she would be willing to send her children to Earth and that she is capable of altering the genetic structure of another race. But she doesn’t seem to be able to create those required males from scratch.’
‘I take it you don’t believe in the religion, then,’ Stanley said. His scent had lost all taint of worry and fear now; she could have been a long-lost relative or a next-door neighbor from how he now smelled.
She continued, ‘I don’t believe a word of it; I’d sooner believe that my entire race came here from a far and distant planet and had to make a life for ourselves here. Rather than four progenitors, I think there might have been twenty or thirty, or perhaps they had access to something akin to a sperm bank. That would make more sense to me.’
February was actually getting a little worried herself at how calm Stanley seemed to be. He had lost that scent of worry so quickly. Other herd she had told in the past had usually kept that scent about them for as long as she had been with them. Admittedly, in most cases she had intended to eat them, but nevertheless, since she was used to people reacting in a certain way it became quite disconcerting when they didn’t.
‘So what do you think happened?’ he asked. He had even turned his back to her as he ate his breakfast at the bar. Perhaps he had realized that she needed him.
‘About a thousand years ago the remains of a spacecraft was found. In those days people seemed to think that this sort of thing made a great joke, probably because there was a certain type of person who would actually believe it to be real, regardless of how weak the evidence might actually be. The craft was burnt out and unusable; nothing was left that might’ve exonerated those that believed it was real. Only the shell remained, as if some sort of destruct sequence had been triggered. And those who didn’t believe pointed out the absence of the aliens; where were the pilots? It was dismissed as just another hoax.’
‘But you believe it was real?’ Stanley offered between mouthfuls. He would turn his head to face her whenever he spoke.
‘It seems that sort of prank was quite common back in those days,’ February continued, ignoring him. ‘There were photographs of all sorts of things that weren’t real. A mockup of a flying saucer was merely the next step, and since there was nothing of any actual value, the thing was discarded. In fact, I came across it more by chance than intent when I found an old book on the subject of hoaxes.’
‘So you think your people did come to earth in that craft?’ Stanley asked again, trying a slightly different tact.
‘Well, no,’ February replied. ‘To be honest I don’t think that was the one at all; it only had room for maybe two pilots, and I feel we would have needed at least four. The Herbaht religion claims two males and two females, and I think that much of it is probably true. Although to be honest, I think it more likely that it was two females and two males in charge of a small colony of maybe twenty or thirty, for a decent-sized gene pool. It doesn’t really matter. The point is, it got me to thinking about the
true origins of my people a long time ago. You see, I had already rejected the religion of the Goddess. It just didn’t ring true, but if we didn’t come to earth that way, how did we get here?’
‘But you do think that your race came here from another planet.’ Stanley had finished his breakfast now and was on a glass of juice he had poured himself from the bar.
‘Exactly,’ February told him, still not moving. ‘And what are the chances of felines evolving independently on two totally different worlds? We cannot be cats; it just doesn’t make sense. If we resemble any other creature on this planet then I’m afraid I’d have to claim it was man.’
‘Yet your stripes, your eyes, your tail, your teeth, your…’
‘Four or five things that make us look a little catlike.’ She was beginning to really hate having to use that word. ‘Let’s see what we haven’t got. For a start, our claws don’t retract, well, not all the way. Secondly, I have no whiskers; even our males don’t grow them. I have one set of eyelids, not the three that cats on your planet have, and I cannot purr. I don’t even know how to try. Have a look at my mouth; is my top lip split? No. How many breasts do I have? Two, not six. What about my ears, are they pointed? Do they poke out the top of my head? We are not just some anthropomorphic cat. We are an entirely different race that just happens to share a few features with both herd and cats.’
‘But surely you are a mammal,’ Stanley said. ‘I mean, you mentioned your breasts; could mammals evolve on a totally alien world? And then there’s that rather disturbing requirement your race seems to have for the flesh of humans. How did your race survive before they found our planet?’
February sat up and replied, ‘You make some good points, but I’m not about to fall back on religion just because I don’t have the answers for you.’
‘I’m not asking you to,’ Stanley told her. ‘I’m just thinking that if mammals can evolve independently on a distant alien world, perhaps moggies and humans can too! Maybe a hybrid might develop.’
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