Catacombs

by Anne McCaffrey

  You’ll let us go free? You won’t chase us to kill us? There’s something to eat there?

  Sure. Lots.

  We’ll think about it and get back to you, he said, and he and the others started chewing again.

  I trotted off and Doc followed. But behind us the chewing noise stopped.

  The truce took. The rats kept the noise down and got out of the wiring, and we, after making token rounds, enjoyed the rest of the trip in the company of our humans, although listening to my boy’s parents “not speaking” to each other made the atmosphere tense.

  When we landed on Mau, as soon as the hatch opened, rats, unseen by the humans, streamed out into the desert. We didn’t have the heart to tell them that this planet was ruled by cats.

  CHAPTER 17

  The Molly Daise landed unchallenged on Mau, docking beside the Reuben Ranzo in order to refuel the stranded ship.

  No sooner had they landed than cats began boiling out of the desert floor, or at least it looked that way. By now Jubal knew they were using one of the doorways concealed beneath the sand, the same one he had used to bring the fuel to Pshaw-Ra.

  The human crew, although sweating profusely and complaining of the heat, disembarked from their ship to welcome their new passengers. One of the first cats to greet them was Chessie, with Chester and Renpet’s kittens behind her. Chester ran out to meet them, then kept looking and sniffing, searching for Renpet. As he ran forward, the other Barque Cats and kittens and a few of the Mau cats as well swarmed out of the hole in the desert.

  But though Chester searched every new surge of cats, Renpet wasn’t with them. I’m going in after her, Chester told Jubal, wriggling his way through cats pushing in the opposite direction until he disappeared down the hole.

  Jubal suddenly understood that he and Chester had abandoned poor Renpet during a terrible time for her, when she’d just lost Chione. He could imagine how she must feel. When he’d been separated from Chester for the first time, they both suffered something awful from the loss, but at least they had the hope of seeing each other again. There was no such hope for Renpet.

  Janina scooped Chessie up, kissing and petting her while Chessie purred and purred. Then the girl had to pass Chessie around to the other crew members, who petted her, called her a pretty girl, and told her how much they’d missed her.

  Jubal was about to go down the hole after Chester when he reappeared, followed by Beulah, holding Renpet. Chester’s mate didn’t look as if she’d been doing much leading of her subjects. She was thin and listless, her fur greasy looking and spiky, like that of a very old cat. Her eyes were half filmed over with the nictating membrane—a cat’s third eyelid that extended from the inside corner of the eye toward the center and showed itself when a cat was unwell. Jubal had a bad feeling about Renpet.

  The kittens, oblivious, climbed Beulah’s legs and chased Chester’s tail until Jubal picked them up and showed them to Janina.

  “Very cute. They’re both polydactyls!” As if to confirm her observation, Junior grabbed her finger with his toes and held on.

  “Take a closer look at all of these kittens,” Jubal suggested. “Just about every Barque queen had a litter and every Barque tom sired one. Cute, huh?”

  “Their fur isn’t as long as Chester’s or Chessie’s,” Janina observed.

  “That’s the Mau part of them. Heavy coats are too hot for this climate,” Jubal said, waving Beulah over. “Janina, this is Princess Renpet, Chester’s mate and the mom of his kittens.”

  Janina smiled but looked a little dubious at Renpet’s condition. “I hope the kittens will be good ships’ cats too. We really need them now. The rats have been ruling the galaxy since the cats left.”

  Unlike the Ranzo, whose rescue of the cats had been sudden and unplanned, the Molly Daise had an opportunity to prepare for their new cargo. Crew members were delighted to share their quarters with the cats. Since so many of the passengers were little kittens who required monitoring, some crew members made new berths for themselves in the cargo hold, so the kittens could be closer to the humans who knew how to care for them. Janina had her old berth, with Jared’s one door down. Chessie, Sol, and Bat and their kittens occupied Janina’s quarters. Renpet, although she had grown attached to Beulah, was placed in Jared’s quarters, along with the two families of the newest kittens, those born to the mothers who had lost their Barque Cat babies earlier. The new kittens seemed healthy but were still quite young.

  Chester wanted to be near Renpet too, though Jubal was nervous about having him remain on the Molly Daise. “They could still claim that Chester belonged to them,” he said.

  Beulah told him, “Renpet needs to be near the vet, but I think she should be near Chester too. She just seemed lost and confused after Chione died. She had no interest in feeding or grooming her kittens. It was a good thing some of the other mother cats came down when they did. She sleeps, won’t eat, and cries all the time. I hope having Chester nearby will perk her up.”

  The purser, Mr. Yawman, overheard them. “You and Chester and the kittens can share my quarters, young man. Looks like Chester has done a lot of growing since he was last aboard.”

  Beulah cast a guilty glance at Renpet. “I’ll feel better with you and Chester near her, Jubal. I have to get back to work on the Ranzo. I’ve taken care of Flekica ever since her first litter disappeared and was there when her second litter was born. I can hardly abandon her now, but poor Renpet … every time she cries I want to cry with her.”

  She and Flekica and the two litters of kittens did return to her duty station after Captain Vesey and Captain Loloma informed her that since the ships would be traveling together, she and the com officer on the Molly Daise should set up their systems so there was a tight link between the bridges of the two ships. They reconfigured each ship’s view port and security screens into an array, with a central display surrounded by feeds from the crew stations and officers’ quarters. Each ship could show the instrument readings or the view of surrounding space from either bridge.

  While refueling the Ranzo, the crew of the Molly Daise also helped the Ranzo crew outfit their ship properly for the remaining cats, with bedding, food, water containers, and feline waste disposal units.

  It wasn’t easy for either crew, with the heat of the desert sun beating down on them as they slogged back and forth from ship to ship, sometimes carrying several warm, fluffy, wiggly cats and kittens, as well as the provisions for them. But even Sosi pitched in, carrying cats and bags of food from the Molly Daise to her own ship. “At least this time Hadley won’t have to worry about sharing his food,” she told Jubal. “And they brought more for him.”

  Once the Ranzo was com-linked, fueled, and had the cooling system back online, and the cats, kittens, and quarters sorted out, they were ready to go.

  Before either ship could begin countdown, however, the closest doorway to the underworld reopened and Pshaw-Ra popped out. The Molly Daise hadn’t unloaded the pyramid ship, and in fact Jubal’s pop, keeping a low profile, was there now, in the shuttle bay, studying the parts of the ship he could reach.

  Pshaw-Ra looked panicked when he saw his ship was not where he expected it to be, then ran to the Molly Daise.

  He was immediately followed by a hastily hobbling Balthazar, who wore a shipsuit and a large backpack that almost bent him double.

  Before the old man reached the ship, pursuers were hot on his heels. Jubal reckoned they must have been trailing the others through the tunnels.

  What seemed like hundreds of cats and humans from the city—including the queen’s golden guards, one of them the female who had brought the Barque Cats and their kittens to hide in the underworld—sprang from the hole in the desert.

  Right behind them was Nefure herself, and she was not happy. She bristled to twice her normal size, her ears flat against her skull, fangs as fierce-looking as the great snake’s. Her painted crown and collar vanished into the fluffed uproar of her fur.

  She yowled a battle
cry, challenging him.

  Pshaw-Ra, who was surrounded, assumed his best “Who me?” expression.

  Jubal, Chester, and Chester’s kittens watched from the bridge of the Molly Daise. Jubal’s old man, who evidently had shown up to see what the fuss was about, put his hand on his son’s shoulder and squeezed reassuringly.

  Captain Vesey pointed in the direction of the weapons locker and someone rushed to obey. The humans with the cat posse were brandishing guns, but of a much earlier technology than the ones standard on contemporary ships. The spears and arrows and such, which were the only weapons Jubal had seen, were evidently as ceremonial as the kilts, because these humans wore lightweight white pants and loose shirts, somewhat grubby from the underground. None of them seemed happy as they watched their queen.

  Pshaw-Ra didn’t bother to bristle. He put himself between the queen and Balthazar. Nefure yowled again, and the guard advanced. Captain Vesey had positioned newly armed crew members there, and the hatch abruptly opened to admit Chione’s father. Pshaw-Ra flicked his tail twice and turned to sprint for the hatch himself, but the queen sprang at him and fell upon him. The two of them rolled over and over in the sand, creating their own dust devil as they snarled and yowled their fury.

  It happened so quickly no one could intervene, and then, to make matters worse, the three closest guard cats jumped into the fray.

  The queen yowled louder, and when Pshaw-Ra’s bloody form detached itself from the dust devil and streaked into the open hatch, they understood why.

  The guard cats had flattened their queen into the sand. One had his teeth in her neck, another lay across her, and a third pinned her paws with his own. Then two humans stepped forward bearing a cage, and the queen—former queen, from the look of it—was bitten and clawed and shoved toward it.

  But suddenly she exploded in a whirl of claws and tail, straight up, away from restraining hands and paws, and flew across the desert, away from her subjects, toward the river.

  I wish Renpet could enjoy this! Chester said.

  I wonder why they didn’t do that sooner, Jubal said as the cats and people backed away from the ship, looking up at it wistfully. The mothers and sires of the kittens had big sad eyes, and their humans stroked them reassuringly.

  Pshaw-Ra popped back out of the ship, now that the lay of the land had a different topography, so to speak, and addressed the Mauans. My friends—and I see by your actions that you are still my friends, and believe in me—I know you are loath to part with your kittens and new mates among the Barque Cats, but their destiny lies among the stars. Their dual lineage will enable them to do great deeds that will elevate us all to our proper place as rulers of the universe. Meanwhile, each kitten must seek his own human to do his bidding and assist him in his path to greatness, to the glory of Mau. Fear not, your mates may return soon to beget other young and your kittens return to you with their own litters. For now, though, we must part. Your families are safely aboard, bedded down and being cared for. The universe will be theirs for the taking!

  Viti-amun pawed the air in the direction of the ship. Keep them safe, Grandsire. And when they are ready to learn of their heritage, lead them back to us.

  He pawed the air back at her and returned to the ship, tail waving, muttering to himself, But don’t hold your breath.

  CHAPTER 18

  PIRATES: CHESTER

  From the bridge, we watched the Mau cats and their humans trudge overland back to the city, a more direct route than the underground labyrinth.

  The captains continued their countdowns. Darkness crept over us before they got down to double digits.

  Jubal and I returned to our quarters. I had forgotten about his mother. Originally a passenger on the Molly Daise, she had now signed on as an assistant steward in order to stay near Jubal. She glared at me when Jubal wasn’t looking, though she didn’t kick me or anything. I couldn’t imagine someone actually disliking cats, but I was not about to try to win her over. Jubal was mine now more than ever, and she was just going to have to get used to it.

  While the two of them talked, I sat on what I had decided was my perch, though the purser thought it was his desk, where I could look out the porthole. The night was dark but the moons were up, casting shadows across the dunes. At first I thought there was wind too, but as I hunkered down and watched more carefully, the sand that had seemed to blow up out of the ground off toward the river appeared to gather itself together and settle back down into the long curves and humps of gray and black landscape. It seemed to me that its lines traced those of the underground passages—and I had never noticed sand behaving that way before.

  The movement traveled through the desert until it disappeared under the ship. I relaxed, yawned and stretched, shaking off a vague, uneasy feeling that was much less interesting than what was in my food dish. I said nothing to Jubal, who was arguing with his mother. It probably wouldn’t have changed anything; who could have known what it meant even if it was clearly visible then?

  The trip from Mau was a happy one. The cats were chowing down on familiar food, Pshaw-Ra slept when he wasn’t trotting around seeming to inspect everything, and the crews were busy planning how to make some kind of profit out of their good deed of rescuing the cats, or at least pay for the trip.

  “After all, we ditched cargo to load cats,” Captain Vesey said, speaking to Captain Loloma and Beulah via com screen during the conference between the ships in flight. “It was the right thing to do, but meanwhile we spent fuel and time and maybe alienated clients. Now the ships are going to expect us to return the cats and kittens to them for free, since the cats belonged to them to begin with.”

  “Yes, and we’ll be lucky if we don’t get charged with catnapping,” Captain Loloma agreed. “Never mind that we saved the cats they surrendered to the government from being destroyed.”

  Ponty was delighted to speak up, offering them his expert opinions and advice. “The thing to do, sirs, is return the Barque Cats to their original owners okay, but charge a finder’s fee for bringing them back. And clearly, Cap’n Loloma, your ship was hijacked by that alien cat who brought you all here, right? He incited the Barque Cats to riot, scared as they were, and they just plain overran you.”

  “They’re not going to believe that! They chased us.”

  “Yes, sir, but you were under duress—besides, if you tell the truth, it brings up stuff they don’t want to talk about. This story lets you off the hook, and lets them save face because they were dumb enough to try to kill off highly valuable and perfectly healthy animals on bogus evidence. They know it, you know it, but if you don’t say so out loud, they will probably appreciate it enough to pretend to believe you.”

  “Why should we listen to you? You’re crooked as a dog’s hind leg,” Captain Vesey said disgustedly. Ponty glanced over at him uneasily. The Molly Daise skipper had no actual evidence that he’d stolen Chessie, but Vesey was very suspicious of him and made it clear he didn’t like him even a little bit.

  “No, wait, he might be right,” Captain Loloma said from the screen. “It makes sense to me. That might get us out of trouble, and we could say we contacted you as soon as we were able so we could get unhijacked, which could earn us some of that finder’s fee for the cats too.”

  Ponty beamed into the screen at Loloma and, more cautiously, at Vesey as if they were really bright students. “Okay, so that’s our stay-out-of-jail card and reimbursement for some of our losses. That’s good but the really good thing is the kittens. Those little buggers are going to be worth their weight in gold now.”

  “Maybe so, if they were purebred Barque Cats with papers, like our kittens would have been,” the Molly Daise first mate said. “But these kittens, cute as they are with their big floppy paws, are clearly not purebred Barque Cats.”

  “Good point, friend,” Ponty said, pointing to the mate. “But—”

  “But any cat is better than no cat at all, with the vermin problem being so bad now,” argued the pretty brown-haired s
econd mate, Soine, according to her name tag.

  “No kidding,” the Molly Daise purser, Yawman, agreed. “There are not only more of them since the cats have been gone, but they seem to have become a lot smarter.”

  “Supply and demand, my friends, supply and demand,” Ponty said, rocking on his heels a little. “And we have the supply to fill the demand.”

  Jubal and Chester had been quiet up till now, and Ponty thought Jubal seemed amazed at how everybody listened to him as if he wasn’t just full of bull pucky. Now the kid spoke.

  “These kittens may not have papers on both sides of the family, but Chester can find out who their Mau parent was, most of the time, and some of the babies—like his—have royal blood on the Mau side. The reason they’re all crossbred is because their—uh—chief scientist believes they will be even better space cats because of it. So if they’re properly cared for and allowed to train with their Barque Cat parent, they may be the best space cats ever.”

  “See there?” Ponty asked proudly. “We’re going to come out on top of this, ladies and gentlemen, reuniting most of the original cats with their crews and having all of these extraordinary—did you hear the boy say ‘royal’?—kittens to sell as well. It’s going to be smooth sailing for us from now on.”

  But before they finished planning how much to charge per kitten or how they were going to spend all their money, they were intercepted by the Grania. The Grania’s captain, in full battle array including lighted incense twined in the red dreadlocks that went so incongruously with her Asian features, appeared on the linked com screens.

  “Prepare to be boarded,” Mavis O’Malley said.

  Captain Loloma was the first to reply to her challenge. “Mavis, haven’t you got anything better to do than attack a couple of poor trading ships?” he asked her. “We don’t even have any cargo this run.”