by Paul Corey
TWENTY-THREE
As dusk came down I watched the cat moving around the yard. It gave me something to do. Watching him, I could determine from his actions in and out and around among the shrubs, just where the actual house-yard wall was. I could even make out the angles and corners of the house itself. When he completed his prowling he went over and down near where I assumed the kitchen entrance to be.
I was right. The cook split through the wall at that point and whistled shrilly. The cat didn’t move, but out of the barns spilled the boss-caretaker and his crew. A glance explained whistle and action—supper was on the table.
The farm hands were a noisy lot, laughing, buzzing and horsing around as they split into the house-yard. They were also dirty, sweaty and unkempt. I watched them washing up by the back entrance. I saw one try to spill water on the cat, but the cat wasn’t where the water spilled.
After wash-up, the crew gathered around the dining-table and ate. Their conversation became a din of buzzing. I could tell when the talk came to me. They all turned in my direction, a ring of blank faces with vestigial low brows.
The cat had come in with the crew. Probably that was routine. He was conspicuous because he stayed on the side of the dining-room nearest me. Occasionally he would just stand and stare through the walls at me.
I began to wonder when they would get around to giving me something to eat. I was hungry. And Ello had said they would take care of me.
Finally the boss-caretaker got up and left the dining room. He seemed to be going to another part of the house. The cat watched his movement as well as I. Then I realised that he was following the hallway to my room.
He filled the wall split when he came through. He grinned at me. His buzz was guttural but affable enough.
I didn’t want to upset the chap, so I used Earth talk. “I’m hungry, chum. What’s the chance for chow?” I figured these low-score farm hands would come closer to understanding common talk than cultured language.
His beefy hand stroked his chin. Then a sausage-shaped finger scratched his vestigial brows. He buzzed again but made no move to leave.
I told myself that he must have been briefed about my feeding. I considered going over and touching his mouth and putting his finger on mine. But he was such a lout. Then I remembered my first night on this planet and Ello telling me how a cow said it was hungry. So I mooed in the same way I had mooed at her.
That got results. The boss-caretaker’s grin broadened. He buzzed and left.
I watched him return to the dining-room. At last, I was going to be fed. I saw him buzz at his crew. Then Old Groper, the little clod who had felt me over when I arrived, got up and hurried out of the house.
With sudden growing uneasiness, I watched him cross to one of the barns. In a moment he came out with his arms full of what looked like hay.
Great Galaxy! They think I’m some kind of cow. All the time I watched him come to the house and directly down to my room I was stoking up a fury that would blow the roof off.
The cat met him in the hallway when he came into the house. As he split the wall and struggled through into my room with his armload of hay, the cat slipped in like a shadow. I ignored that. I was too furious.
What did they mean, taking me for a cow? I threw past experience to the wind and buzzed like a whole hive of bees, hitting every octave in an aroused apiary.
Old Groper dropped the hay, let out a squeal and busted out of there like an old-fashioned rocket ship taking off. He dashed around into the dining-room. The sibilation that had been going on there rose suddenly to jet strength.
I expected the boss-caretaker to come down to my room, but he didn’t. He just threw back his rock of a head and roared out a laugh that shook the place. The others joined in. I guess he figured that he had got even with me for turning him out of his room.
I turned my back on the lot of them.
It was then that I took note of the cat in my room. He approached me cautiously. He sniffed my hand. I didn’t move. My vertebrae, at that moment, were made of well-formed ice cubes.
Although he seemed domesticated among the Grendans, I didn’t know how he considered me. He bared his teeth in a grin. Slowly, but hard, he rubbed his pink gums along my frozen hand. Out of his wide, deep chest, rising in his throat came a rumbling. A purr.
I could have hugged him. I patted his head. I scratched around his almost black ears. I wooled the thick fur of his neck, feeling the powerful but relaxed muscles.
The purring grew to a roar. He arched against me, his back coming up to my thigh. The sudden push of it set me down on the couch. Then he butted his head against my knee twice. After that, he looked up at me. His great blue eyes seemed to express pleasure at the chance to look into another pair of eyes. We merged our invasions of privacy with a deep feeling, at least on my part, of joy.
Out in the dining-room, the commotion had quietened. Apparently the Grendans had decided to leave me alone with my fodder. From all I could tell, they had not missed the cat. If they knew he was with me, they must have considered him safe enough, or that I was safe enough in his presence.
For the first time, I realised there were no female Grendans in this set-up. Why? Maybe their real concern was with animal invasion of the privacy of Grendan womanhood.
By this time the sun was well down and it was growing dark. The cat continued to purr and rub. Once he went to the outside wall and stared out, tail twitching.
I got out my sun-torch and turned it on. The cat examined it. He put out an exploring paw and poked it. He came back to me and rubbed. I fondled him hard and pulled his long tail the way I know an Earth cat likes.
Suddenly he grabbed my legs and wrestled them, kicking with his hind feet. His dagger sharp claws were sheathed or I would have been ripped bone bare. He took my foot in his mouth but his jaws closed on it gently. He was playing. We were pals.
As abruptly as he had attacked in play he sprang up and raced around the room. He stood up on the outside wall and looked back over his shoulder at me. Then he leaped away, bounded clear over me, whipped back under my bed and dashed around the table.
In one of his jubilant convolutions, he lashed out at my sun-torch and sent it flying across the room. The light went out and we were in darkness.
I tried to find it but kept bumping into the furniture. Finally, I concluded that it would have to wait until morning. I hoped I could repair it. But I could do nothing about it in the darkness, that was certain.
At last I stretched out on the cot to sleep. I didn’t know where the cat was, but he was quiet.
My eyes gradually got used to the night and I looked up through the roof at the stars. For a long time I lay watching that spattering of light, wondering which one of those dim points was Earth’s sun.
For the first time since childhood I felt homesick. I thought of Karen, my little girl, my daughter. Would I ever see her again? I thought of the wrong I had done Jones. It didn’t look, at that low moment, as if I would ever be able to get back and undo that wrong.
I hadn’t felt this depressed back in Lonwolt. Perhaps the nearness of Ello helped. Here she seemed planets away. In this darkness and loneliness and the tiny lights of distant stars I felt abandoned.
Back into my mind came the thought of Ello’s attitude towards me. Her pet that she was determined to keep. She was not going to let me escape this planet. Somewhere along the line, my feeling of despair became clouded over with sleep.
Then I was suddenly awake—sharply, acutely, wide awake. There was no knowing how long I had slept. I lay absolutely rigid. Something moved in the room. It was the cat prowling, I told myself.
I became conscious of something near my feet, a slight pressure, but mostly a sense of light brushing. I thought of the cat sniffing me. Then I became aware of a smell. The smell of manure. That was not the cat. A Grendan farmer was in the room.
As the touching and brushing approached my knees the contact increased. I could feel fingers caressing, pressi
ng gently on flesh and muscles.
I wondered if this was the boss-caretaker or Old Groper. The caressing increased even more when the fingers reached my thighs. I heard a quickening of breath above me. I smelled a sour odour. Then fingers began working at my shorts.
I brought up my knees with all my strength. They hit a solid body. I swung my right fist at a dark shadow and hit soft flesh. There was a grunt and the sound of staggering. Silence followed. I waited. My body tensed, expecting another move, not knowing what. This time the beam maybe.
Then came a snarling cry that tore open the night like terror itself. I heard one body striking another. I heard cloth ripping. A scream stopped my breath and brought sweat out on me like the feel of dead hands. There were grunts and growls and another scream. Then a scrambling. Silence followed, broken a little after by a sound from a distant part of the house.
I lay still, terrified.
The commotion grew in the other rooms, buzzing, squealing. The fight had apparently awakened the whole crew. It was a long time before the place grew quiet again.
I didn’t dare move. My ears were acute to every sound, my nose to every smell. But my senses could pick up nothing to interpret.
Then came pressure on the edge of the cot. I felt sniffing near my face. I reached up and felt the stiff whiskers and solid jaw of the cat.
He licked me once, tongue rasping, and mewed softly. Then he got up on the bed. It sagged with his weight. Without any hesitation he stretched out beside me, his head on my shoulder.
A while later, we were both asleep and soundly.
TWENTY-FOUR
Morning came country bright. The cat, awakening first, aroused me by getting off the bed. Turning on my side, I watched him prowl. He paused a moment to stare through the outside wall. I could see mist rising from the fields, and animals and birds in those fields. I don’t know what the cat saw.
He circled the room to the wall-split area and scratched. Around he went again. Once he stopped and sniffed the pile of hay. Again he stared into the yard, his head high, back straight, tail down. He circled, sniffed the hay, scratched the wall, stared into the yard.
Lifting his chin just slightly, he yowled. It was a horrendous sound, starting as a sort of gargle and rising to a wail of anger or fear or appeal, whichever you might wish to interpret it, but not to be ignored.
I looked towards the other part of the house. In the dormitory, I saw the crew stirring. Some were up dressing. In the kitchen the cook was busy preparing breakfast.
The cat, as if he’d had enough waiting, went to the pile of hay, dug a hole in it and squatted. He stared into space, finished his job, covered it carefully and backed off, shaking one foot to dust off some straw.
Hay is no substitute for dirt. The place reeked. The cat gave me a look which I chose to interpret as embarrassment. Perhaps it was shame. Anyhow, he obviously didn’t like to do what he had been forced to do. Then he walked to the outside wall and stared into the yard as if to say “the hell with it”.
Although Grendans looked humanoid in every respect except eyes, I felt more drawn to this feline than to any of them. Any, of course, except Ello. And remembering that she seemed to want to make a household pet of me, I wasn’t so sure about her now.
“Cat,” I said. “It might be considered that we have only one thing in common, but that is greater than all our dissimilarity.”
He turned his head and looked at me. His blue eyes diminished slowly by ellipsing pupils. What he saw I know not. He turned his head back and stared into the yard.
Let Grendans maintain that all beings with eyes are animals and the unsighted in a class by themselves—superior. I refused to accept their basic premise. I was a Terran with sight on a strange planet, determined to stand against all its unsighted people.
Then I wondered, why had the cat attacked Old Groper? Had he adopted me? Was I his pet?
My glance shifted to the other part of the house. The activity had increased. The farm hands were gathered around the breakfast table. Old Groper was among them, plastered and bandaged conspicuously. The other buzzed at him and laughed and faced in my direction.
The boss was there but he never once faced towards me.
Hunger hurt my guts. I watched the Grendans finish their meal and go out to their chores. No one seemed about to bring me anything to eat. Even the cook had disappeared.
Wait until Ello hears how they’ve treated me, I thought. But there was little consolation in that. Maybe she had dumped me here the way Earth people put their pets in a pet hostel when they can’t be bothered with them.
I recalled that she had promised to be back today. A promise. What is a Grendan promise to an animal?
The cat’s actions caught my attention. He was tense, ears flat, tail twitching. Immediately I hunted out what interested him. A Grendan—the cook, I realised—was poking around in the shrubbery. He was searching for something, but what? Then it dawned on me. He was looking for the cat.
Didn’t they know the cat was with me? Did they think it was I alone who drove Old Groper away last night? Surely, they should know the difference between the way a cat fights, and the way a—a what fights? Obviously, they had no way of knowing how an Earth person fought
Of course, maybe they did know, and assumed that the cat got out when Old Groper split the wall to escape. There was no way to tell now.
So cat and I watched the cook. Occasionally he made a high twittering sound which I assumed was a call. Cat—in my thoughts he was called “Cat” only—didn’t move.
Finally Cook came into the house and continued his search. I couldn’t see every place he hunted because of opaque objects. But he began in the kitchen and moved through the dining-room and the dormitory, and two other rooms whose function I hadn’t yet figured out. At last, he came down to my room.
He didn’t seem too sure of himself. He stood outside the spot where the wall split, apparently trying to make up his mind to enter. He was slighter than the other farm hands, and much leaner too.
Inside, Cat and I waited. Cat crouched on the floor. I crouched on the bed.
I longed for my stunner, but knew that was a foolish thought. Just the same I tried desperately to think of something to use for a weapon—survival kit, lenseless cameras. A camera on its sling strap could bash in a skull. Very carefully I slipped one of them from my pack and dangled it from the end of its sling in my hand.
Still the cook hesitated. He must have been reasoning that Cat had to be with me because he had searched everywhere else. When he made up his mind, he acted fast. The wall split and instantly I felt the beam through my chest. I tried to move and it increased sharply. The cook buzzed.
I buzzed back with fury but didn’t shake him. The pain and strangling pressure had me gasping.
He twittered his call for Cat. But Cat remained crouching, tail lashing. Then Cat began to writhe and yowl and I realised that he too was feeling the beam.
But he didn’t take it. He sprang towards the outer wall and the cook turned to follow his movements. The cord in my chest vanished. I swung the camera over and down on the Grendan’s head. He crumpled to the floor.
Cat straightened, released from the hold over him. His eyes burned hatred at the cook but he didn’t approach him.
I realised then that this controlling force the Grendans used could only be effective in the direction they faced. They could not protect themselves from behind. I had learned something. I was making a little progress in understanding the ways of this planet.
With the camera sling straps I bound the cook’s hands and feet and left him face down on the floor.
Cat came over and inspected. He licked the cook’s exposed cheek. The Grendan groaned and snuffled. He buzzed. I buzzed back at him.
He tried to roll over but I pushed him face down again. This made him buzz louder. Then he tried to whistle. He might raise help, I thought, so I ripped off his shirt and gagged him.
This round was mine. I sat down on the bed
to figure the next move. Cat joined me, curled up and went to sleep.
I took a quick look through the walls, sweeping the yard. The farm hands were storing hay in one of the barns. Suppose one of them came up to the house for something. No cook. Maybe they’d start a search. They might not think of searching my room. And what good was all this doing me? I wasn’t out. I wasn’t fed.
My glance returned to the bound cook at my feet. Then I got an idea.
Grabbing him by the scuff of his scrawny neck and the baggy seat of his pyjama pants, I held him upright and pushed him at the wall, at the spot where he had split to enter. Nothing happened. I rammed him into the wall several times. He grunted and wiggled.
In his struggles I noticed him trying to get his bound hands around to his side as far as he could. Then I remembered the slight gesture they always made before the wall split. I turned slightly to the side his arms favoured and rammed him at the wall again. This time it split and the two of us fell half into the hallway.
In my struggle to get back on my feet, I permitted the cook to roll slightly. Instantly I felt his control beam cutting through me. I pushed him roughly face down again. The coercive force vanished. He lay in the split in the wall and it did not close.
Cat was off the bed and through the split before I had completely righted myself. I assumed that he was headed for the kitchen and followed him. Food was the most important thing to me right then. There was plenty in the kitchen.
A large cold roast lay uncovered on the table. Maybe that was what started Cook looking for Cat. To give him scraps. Well, I gave him more than scraps, and I ate my fill too.
All the time I kept careful watch on the yard. The Grendans had finished unloading the hay they had brought in. For a moment, I thought that one of them, maybe the boss, would come up to the house. But they set off for the fields again. All of them but one. I could see that one still in the barn moving back the last load of hay.
