Catacombs

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Maybe you do and maybe you don’t,” Mavis said, “but I got friends in low places tell me that thief and cat rustler Ponty was seen boarding the Molly Daise. He took off with my shuttle and my cat, and I want them back and his guts for my garters.”

  She hoisted a leg into view of the com screen. It still bore some semblance of shapeliness above its black and dirty white striped sock, but where it wasn’t tattooed, it showed varicose veins from a lifetime of variable gravity. She pursed her lips in a parody of a kiss as she snapped an imaginary garter on her skinny thigh.

  “Yuck,” Jubal said. He lay beside his bunk, concealing Chester and the kittens, as fascinated by the image on Purser Yawman’s cabin com screen as if it were the great snake getting ready to strike.

  “We have your shuttle on the Molly Daise, Captain O’Malley,” Captain Vesey said politely. “And will be glad to leave it for you at the next regulation space station.”

  “Screw that,” Mavis snapped, her mouth thin and pointy like a turtle’s. “I want my cat back and I want Ponty in irons. We drink slop and eat bugs while he runs around in our shuttle with my cat!”

  “Mr. Poindexter had a family emergency …” Captain Vesey began.

  Jubal could hear his mother’s voice scolding, “… got us into this, so get your scabby behind out there and pretend to be a man!” That was good. His parents were talking again.

  His father’s face appeared on the screen from one of the crew quarter’s feeds, which was quickly switched to the main screen. “Why, Mavis, to what do we owe the honor?”

  “You know damn good and well—” she began.

  “Look, I hated to run off like that without saying anything,” he began, oozing apology and sincerity, “and I knew you’d worry about Doc, but you were otherwise engaged, so I took him with me. See, I was busy trying to clone cats when lo and behold who should float by, marooned and all, but my boy and his cat. Jubal’s cat and Doc were raised together, so I thought having the little guy along would calm Chester down.”

  “Shut it, Ponty. Nobody steals from me and lives to set a bad example.”

  “Of course not, Mavis. I was just borrowing.”

  “I said shut it. To my way of thinking, the Ranzo and the Molly Daise are harboring a thief—namely you. They must pay interest on what you owe me.”

  “You’re a tad outnumbered, don’t you think?” he asked.

  “Small job like this, I still got friends,” she said.

  “So you do,” Captain Loloma’s voice replied. The feed that had displayed his bridge zoomed out to include a view of the Grania and the two ships that suddenly appeared right behind her. Like her, they had a less than legal look about them.

  The last words they heard Mavis say before they felt the jolt were “Tractor beams.”

  Aboard the Molly Daise, the kitten her father, Space Jockey, called Spike—but who privately thought of herself as the Fury—watched the com screen more intently than she had ever watched prey. The exciting-looking female on the screen awakened something warm and gleefully wild in her that she had never felt before. Not when meeting her stupid royal mother, nor from the patient teachings of Viti-amun, nor from her sire’s casual neglect. Helping to claw the great snake to death had come close, but while the experience was satisfying, it was not as sweet as the mere vision of the woman.

  According to the conversation that passed between her and the man, the woman already belonged to a cat named Doc—which was unfortunate for Doc, the Fury thought to herself. She would kill him if she had to in order to claim that woman for her own.

  They can’t come here, Chester cried to Jubal. They’ll take the kittens.

  Yes, they will, and you too probably, and all of the other cats. Pop said that woman likes cats, but I don’t think she wants to keep you all to play with.

  Will the crews fight for us? Chester asked. Like they were going to fight Nefure?

  Small arms against cannons? Probably not. I figure with the kind of business those ships are in, they must have some big guns. The Ranzo doesn’t, and I’m pretty sure the Molly Daise doesn’t.

  Out in the corridor, footsteps thundered by and orders were barked. When Jubal heard the last order, he pulled down the protective cover on the kittens’ bed and strapped himself in with Chester, ready for a bumpy ride.

  The purser’s com screen showed the pirate vessels extruding their boarding tubes, reminding him of Apep again. Chester shivered against him, and Jubal felt the kittens crowding as close as they could to the back of his legs. He dangled his fingers down to the mesh and made vague petting motions through it to try to soothe them. One of them sank tiny needle teeth into his index finger.

  “Ouch!”

  But he forgot his pain, letting the blood drip down his hand as he watched the screen. When Pop had spoken of this Mavis before, she sounded comical, maybe not as bad as she tried to seem. But now he saw the businesslike tube coming toward them and the first boarder at its front, weapons of all descriptions strapped all over him. The ships shouldn’t have sat there and let her talk at them until she had them in her tractor beams, he realized. They should have flown out of range. Maybe Pshaw-Ra, who had been awfully quiet lately, should have made a mouse hole and flown them all through it.

  It was an idea. Chester, can Pshaw-Ra load all the Molly Daise cats into the pyramid ship and break out of here?

  How does that save us?

  It doesn’t, I guess—but maybe if they decide to chase the pyramid ship and he mouse-holes it like he did when we escaped the Government Guard ships, the big ships could get loose and escape?

  “Pshaw-Ra?” Chester asked, and told him Jubal’s idea.

  “Better if the other felines remain here, Chester. If I am going to risk my tail to save everyone, I should not carry the kittens with me. Your help, however, would be welcome.”

  “Jubal too?”

  “Your boy should instruct the bridge in mouse-hole protocol. It will be enough simply to instruct Captain Loloma’s ship what is required. That flamboyant floozie who is attacking us will have no idea what the mouse hole is.”

  Jubal, hearing the whole thing through Chester, didn’t like it. What if Pshaw-Ra simply decided to take off and leave the ship to the pirates? What if Chester and Pshaw-Ra were killed? On the other hand, if they just sat around and waited for the pirates to board, he and Chester would be separated for sure.

  “Okay,” he said, and while Chester hightailed it for the shuttle bay, he made his way to the bridge.

  He had a hard time getting Captain Vesey’s attention, and when he did, the captain glowered at him. He made his face as innocent and helpful and childlike as he hadn’t felt in a long time, and drew the captain away from com screen range to explain the plan to him.

  “You say the cats thought this one up?” Captain Vesey demanded, lowering his voice slightly as Jubal gave him an urgent palms-down signal to lower his voice.

  “It worked before, sir, when Pshaw-Ra led the Ranzo through the mouse hole, away from pursuers.”

  “As I recall reports of the incident, the Ranzo was not at that time attached to the pursuers by tractor beam.”

  “No, sir, but the pyramid ship is highly maneuverable. We’re thinking Pshaw-Ra can make them release the tractor beam, lead them away from you, then flip back, open the mouse hole, and lead our ships through while the pirates are still turning to try to overtake it.”

  “Why should they chase the pyramid ship anyway?” he asked.

  Jubal hadn’t actually thought of that. “Uh—they’ll want the alien technology?”

  “Not as bad as they want your old man. How about he chases the pyramid ship in the pirate shuttle. If the Grania thinks he’s getting away, they’ll be sure to pursue.”

  The captain turned to gesture to Jubal’s pop to join them so he could explain the plan.

  But then Jubal heard Chester say, Whaaaat?

  Looking up, he saw the feed from the shuttle bay that showed the outer hatch opening. The
pyramid ship whirled through it and knifed out into space. Since the pirate’s shuttle the old man had hijacked wasn’t in the bay, it must have still been inside the pyramid ship.

  “So here’s how the mouse hole works, sir …” Jubal began, following the captain’s gaze first to the screen with the disappearing pyramid ship, and then to the other screen, where a boarding tube was attaching to their hull.

  CHAPTER 19

  CHESTER: REVENGE OF THE SERPENT

  “Sometimes I get so tired of being the only hero to save the day,” Pshaw-Ra complained, or pretended to, as we sped away from the Molly Daise. His paws were flying all over the picture symbols, but now I understood what he was doing—except that I didn’t know how to activate the mouse hole.

  “We have to get the pirates to let go of our ships first,” I reminded him. “Get them to chase us.”

  “A game of cat and mouse hole, maybe?” he asked.

  He dived our pointy nose right into the nose of the pirate ship, so close we could see incense smoking in the old pirate woman’s dreadlocks. Then he zipped away again. The pirates did not react as we’d hoped.

  “Hmmm, they might mistake us for a drone,” Pshaw-Ra said.

  The tractor beam apparently stayed in place. The boarding tube began wiggling with the movements of the people inside it. I felt an almost irresistible impulse to pounce on the bouncing thing and bite and claw it.

  We tried the same maneuver with the ship that had the Ranzo trapped in its tractor beam, darting in closely. There was a flash and a concussion, and we ricocheted off the picture symbols from one wall to the other before the pyramid ship righted itself.

  “They fired on us!” Pshaw-Ra cried triumphantly, giving a couple of stiff-legged hops from side to side as a victory dance.

  “That’s a good thing?” I asked.

  “You watch.”

  We zoomed back in more closely, but this time when we veered off, the pirate ship followed course while the Ranzo slipped away.

  “Mouse-hole time!” Pshaw-Ra exclaimed.

  The symbols I had seen once before appeared—the great snake, whom I now recognized, opening its mouth to swallow our tiny ship. The pirate ship followed close on our tail. Before the hole could close, Pshaw-Ra steered our craft back toward the opening, skimming the belly of the pursuing craft now headed the wrong way, and we flew back into the sector where the pirate woman still held our friends in thrall. The hole closed behind us—and the second pirate ship was somewhere else. I didn’t know where that was, but they wouldn’t know either. They would be lost, lost, lost, and it served them right!

  Now we were free to help the Molly Daise, and so was the Ranzo—if we were not too late.

  Jubal hoped Chester’s plan would work, because he didn’t think this was something Pop was going to talk his way out of.

  The Molly Daise was a peaceful trading ship and had even fewer arms than the Ranzo. Captain Vesey ordered the passengers and crew, including Jubal, to lock themselves in their cabins.

  Pop handed a protesting Doc to him as he left the bridge. “Take care of him, son, and yourself,” Pop said with a seriousness that was scary. “Mavis doesn’t exactly take rejection well. I’m afraid she might hurt Doc if she finds him. And she might not draw the line at hurting you, even though you’re a kid, since you’re my kid.”

  “I’ll take care of him, Pop,” Jubal promised.

  As Jubal locked the door to the purser’s cabin behind him, he heard Mr. Yawman say, “I’m ex-Guard, Cap’n. If we organize, we can take ’em.”

  He sounded excited, not at all like the careful records keeper who figured every credit the ship and her personnel earned or spent.

  Over the cabin’s screen now displaying the bridge, he saw Pop saying to the captain and purser, “No need for anyone to get hurt. Mavis is a businesswoman. She’ll rob you blind, true, but as far as killing anybody goes, she might kill me, but probably not …”

  To his surprise, Jubal saw his mom enter the bridge with a laser rifle she held as comfortably as she did the shotgun she’d used to run Pop off the farm. “Killing Carlton is still my privilege,” she said, “and that old harpy will have to go through me to get him.”

  “Now, Mrs. Poindexter—” Yawman began, but she froze him with a look. She was good at that.

  “May I remind you that in addition to this sorry excuse for a husband, I have a boy on this vessel, and I do not intend that he be harmed or sold into slavery or any such piratical nonsense.”

  Then the screen switched to the feed from the security camera positioned near the maintenance hatch, the one the pirates’ boarding tube had clamped onto. The hatch blew and the boarding party crowded in.

  Huddled on the floor in front of Chester’s kittens, Jubal heard the ring of booted footsteps on metal as the armed crewmen ran down the corridor, toward the hatch in the aft section of the ship.

  Looking up at the screen again, he saw the pyramid ship pop back into view. Chester? he asked.

  Here, mission accomplished!

  The pirates have boarded. They’re in the maintenance air lock.

  But Chester didn’t respond this time and moments later Jubal heard the patter of paws running down the hall. He knew it couldn’t possibly be Chester so soon, but it might be some other cat following the running crewmen.

  Jubal opened the door and slithered out, closing it behind him, then slunk along the wall calling, “Kitty kitty,” softly.

  There was an excited cat noise from farther astern, and he hurried after it. All the fighting would be at the docking bay lock, so if he could just intercept the cat first, at least he could keep him safe.

  It didn’t help that the lights had been dimmed throughout the ship, which made it difficult for him to see where he was going, but then it would have the same effect on the pirates. And by now he at least had some idea of the layout of the decks.

  “Kitty?” he called, and for a moment the kitten ahead of him stopped and turned to fix its big eyes on him. They were glowing through the gloom, and he got a distinct impression of annoyance and impatience.

  He didn’t recognize the kitten at first, but whoever it was, it shouldn’t be in the midst of a pitched battle.

  He had a few loose pieces of Chester’s favorite treat in his pocket and he pulled one out to lure the cat, hunkering down to proffer it gently. “Here, kitty. This is no place for you now.”

  The cat ignored him and ran on. Three doors down the darkened corridor the noise from the direction of the lock was growing increasingly distinct—reverberating blasts at the door, shouts, cursing, his mother’s distinctive snarl, his father trying to BS his way through the barriers and out of trouble. The kitten turned suddenly and trotted back to him.

  He knew who she was now. One of Nefure’s daughters, the funny looking one with the spiky red lion’s mane and the black-and-white-striped legs and tail. Chester said Space Jockey had named her Spike. It fit. “Hey, Spike, hi there girl, want a fishy treat? You remember me? Come on now, a people fight is no place for a kitten.”

  She bit his finger as she snatched the treat, then dashed down the corridor toward the fray.

  Jubal started after her, sparing one backward look for Chester’s kittens, still hidden in the purser’s quarters.

  We are here. Chester’s thought-voice broke through his concentration on the kitten. We took the second pirate ship into the mouse hole and left her. The Ranzo now has the pirate ship in her spaceship-pulling thing.

  That’s good, Jubal said.

  There is something funny happening out here, Chester told him. There’s a kind of long skinny dust trail winding all around the pirate’s tube, like a great serpent trying to mate with it. I’m not sure whether I should enjoy watching it or hide from it.

  Let me see, Jubal said, and he saw through Chester’s eyes, looking out into space, where there was indeed a dark twisting column wound around the boarding tube he had seen on the Molly Daise com screen. It looked like dust. The gleam of distan
t stars was visible through its particles, but it was oblivious to the tractor beam, neither dispersed nor controlled by it, and it was squeezing the boarding tube, which had to be made of pretty strong stuff, and pulling it away from both ships. If there were any pirates still inside it, they were about to go for a swim in deep space. The boarding tube collapsed, detached, and floated away from the ship.

  But the thing was already attached to the pirate vessel. Now it fanned out across the ship’s hull, making it look like it had just been for a drive down a dirt road.

  Huh. Unfortunately this meant the pirates who boarded the Molly Daise had no mother ship to return to.

  He drew back from Chester and shook his head hard to regain his bearings. He was still standing in the middle of the corridor, and the sounds of fighting were louder. The kitten had skedaddled while he conferred with Chester. Should he follow orders and go back and lock himself in with Chester’s family?

  He heard a kitten scream, and that settled it. He could no more help running toward the sound than he could help loving Chester.

  The fighting had spilled into the aft corridor, where the crew had taken cover behind barricades of heavy cargo crates, and the pirates, having breached the air lock, slashed at the barricade with big whopping knives. Nobody was actually shooting at that time. Laser rifles were known to damage hulls.

  In the midst of all of this, the spike-maned kitten screamed and screamed, though nobody was hurting it. In fact, Jubal’s old man had caught it and tucked it into the pocket where Doc used to ride when he was a baby.

  Mavis, the pirate captain, held up her hand, ordering her crew to stop hacking while she listened to the bawling kitten. “Let her go, Ponty,” she told him, pointing to his pocket.

  “You got no claim on this cat, Mavis,” Pop responded, but Jubal thought he could hear the beginnings of the-old-man-starting-to-negotiate in his tone.

  “That not what she say,” she told him.

  “This here is a royal kitten, Mavis,” Pop told her. He had, of course, made a point of learning as much as he could about the genealogy and possible value of each of the feline passengers. It was the sort of thing he did. “Why, she’s probably worth more than all three ships put together.”