Catacombs

by Anne McCaffrey

  “We’ve tried everything we’ve got, of course,” said the instructor, who was in fact a commander as well. “Every time we fire on the damn thing it grows larger.”

  “Of course it does,” Balthazar said. “These remnants of Apep, when dismembered, turn into more snakes. In this aspect, Apep reproduces by a very virulent form of mitosis. The resulting spawn feed on the energy of the sun, and your weapons feed them with similar energy.”

  “So you want them to feed on our cats instead?” Captain Vesey said. “I thought you people liked cats.”

  “We not only like them, we revere them. Precisely because they are known to be able to thwart such a threat.”

  Captain Vesey started to stalk off when Captain Loloma put a restraining hand on his arm and spoke to him. Then Vesey sat back down. He had not been on Mau, and Captain Loloma had picked up a little of the culture surrounding the cats during the time the crew was stranded there.

  The wraparound view port closed and the lights went up. The view they had been engulfed in was now much reduced and shown on a screen off to the side of Balthazar and the instructor.

  “These are the barques custom-constructed for the cats, equipped with weapons that may be operated by the merest flick of a toe.”

  The holo projected before them was shaped like a shallow bowl, with two extensions and what looked like suckers on the ends folded over the transparent covering like arms trying to meet across a full belly.

  “Each cat will operate his or her own barque,” Balthazar continued. And at that point, on either side of the crews, machines bearing large pallets covered with little objects similar to those in the picture of the barque drove in and deposited the flats on the deck.

  As soon as the noisy machines had withdrawn, Chester jumped down from Jubal’s shoulders and strolled over to investigate the barques. Before he had taken the first sniff, he was surrounded by the younger generation of felines, at first trying to sniff what he’d sniffed and then sniffing adjacent barques. He gave the barque a tap with his paw and it spun into two others, making Mugger jump out of the way. Whereupon Mugger smacked another of the barques and it went spinning into five more and made several other cats jump out of the way. The other cats joined in and soon there were barques and cats all over the deck.

  The commander gave a phony chuckle. “At least we know they’re durable.”

  “He’ll never get the cats to stay inside them,” Beulah whispered.

  As if he heard her, Pshaw-Ra strolled up to the nearest barque, which at that point was standing on edge, flipped it over and patted the top with his paw. It lifted and he jumped inside and curled up in it as if it were a basket.

  “And comfortable!” the commander continued in his new cheery tone.

  Jubal stood up. “But are they safe? If they open that easily, how do we know the cats will be secure? And what about life support? Those things can’t hold much oxygen or food and water. I don’t see any weaponry either. I’m not letting you send Chester on a suicide mission.”

  “What I’d like to know is how you manufactured all of these things so darn fast,” Captain Loloma said. “Research and development alone—”

  “As I mentioned before,” the commander said in a tone that implied if you’d been listening, “Ambassador Balthazar sent us the schematics and specifications by secure transmission shortly after the invasion began. We can move very fast when doing so means preserving trillions of dollars worth of terraforming on the inhabited worlds.” Then he added, “Not to mention the lives of the settlers, of course. That goes without saying.”

  “And tell us, how are the cats supposed to survive in these crafts?”

  “Each barque will be individually keyed to the ID chip on each cat so only that cat’s paw can open it from the outside. There is an oxygen recirculating system built into the hulls that keeps the cat supplied with air as long as it is breathing. Water and liquid nourishment are fitted into a special compartment prior to each short journey. The barques also have homing devices so the barque will always return to its base, regardless of the state of the cat inside. That ought to be pretty good, since the material from which these are constructed was used in the lenses of the solar monitors operating continuously at a distance twenty times closer than the nearest planet to the central stars of each of our systems. They are heat, cold, pressure, and impact impervious.”

  Jubal said. “Maybe the ambassador’s cat, Pshaw-Ra, could show us how one works and what our cats are supposed to do?”

  “Such is our intention,” Balthazar said. “But first each unit must be fitted to each of the noble felines. Pshaw-Ra’s paws are not as dextrous as those of the new breed, but he will do his best to demonstrate.”

  The class was dismissed, though the cats continued playing shuffleboard with the tiny spacecrafts until someone noticed it was time for food.

  Cuddled with Chester in their bunk, Jubal was still troubled. Toy spaceships or not, I don’t see what you and the kittens can do about all those acres of snakes.

  I don’t either. Let’s sleep.

  No, I mean really. There’s something fishy about all of this.

  Where? Chester asked, yawning and curling his pink tongue back inside his mouth. And is it in the form of a treat?

  Jubal smiled and scrunched Chester’s thick soft black fur with his fingers. You sound like your old self again.

  It was worrisome being a family cat, he said. I’m glad the kittens have people of their own now and Renpet is going back to her people—if Pshaw-Ra doesn’t get her killed first.

  I wonder about the kittens who don’t have people yet, Jubal said. I almost think they came for us because if we disappear, nobody will really know the difference, especially about the kittens. They don’t have anyone.

  The soldiers are trying to make friends, Chester replied. It doesn’t really work that way, but they don’t realize that.

  Or don’t care. Jubal said. He lay his hand across the warm back of Chester’s neck. Don’t worry, boy. I won’t let them put you in any little flying saucer and send you into the sun to fight snakes. No way. He’d steal a shuttle if he had to and go hide out somewhere where the GGoons would never find either of them. He didn’t know how he could possibly save the other kittens, but he would save Chester.

  CHAPTER 25

  CHESTER: STRATEGY

  Scritch scritch scritch. Someone was scratching at my door. Jubal was still sleeping. I jumped down and went to the door. Thanks to copying the exercises Pshaw-Ra had taught the kittens, I could now use my own paws in a much “handier” way, and I easily stretched up high enough to flip the latch.

  Pshaw-Ra and Renpet stood on the other side of the door. I slipped out into the corridor. Renpet rubbed against me in a friendly way and Pshaw-Ra actually purred at me.

  “What?” I asked, puzzled by the visit and especially by the purr.

  “Catling—I must not call you catling any longer, for you have become the leader of our hope for the future—we are here to brief you.”

  “Oh really?” I sat down for a good clean under my tail. “Brief me on what?”

  “On how you must conduct the mission to save the star from the serpent horde,” he said.

  “Jubal says we’re not going,” I told him. “And that suits me fine. Buttercup is back at the farm with Jubal’s mother. My mother is with her Kibble. I might like to go hunt mice in the fields for a while and be with my boy.”

  Renpet looked at me with big sad golden eyes. “I would wish to be with my Chione too, Chester, but the serpent slew her. Please, for me, slay his new form in return.”

  My ears went back in annoyance. “Oh sure. Anything for you, fish breath,” that being a private endearment between me and her. “How do you propose I do that? It’s impossible. Jubal’s right. The soldiers just want to kill us, and you two are encouraging them.”

  “No, no, you should know, catling—I mean, Chester—that I would never put our very special young in the path of danger for naught
. There is a way, as Balthazar told the humans, based on the story of the first time the serpent sought to swallow the sun.”

  “Jubal says that was something called a myth, which is like a lie only really old.”

  “Just because Jubal does not understand it does not make it a lie,” Renpet said softly. “Our kind had knowledge of space and its hazards long before we came to Earth, remember.”

  “I can’t remember any such thing,” I told her. “I’m not one of you, not really.”

  “But you are, mate. All cats are. The humans think we came from the forests, but before we were in the forests we traveled among the stars and brought to the humans of Mau the wonders of which you have heard, many now faded. But all cats spring from our divine heritage, including you. Adaptations occurred over the centuries, and the thousands of centuries: some traveled far, some grew furry, some grew large, some grew small, some grew the wonderfully spreading papyrus paws you share with the young. But all sprang from our kind originally. Think, remember, and you will know the truth of what I say.”

  I did feel something, some kinship, some hint of a memory, but it was very fleeting.

  “If you know all about this mythic historic mission to kill sun snakes, Pshaw-Ra, why don’t you lead this one?”

  “Alas, neither of us have the paws to operate the new barques. The humans are nonconversant with our language, as are many of the new kittens, so the technology suitable for our paws in ships like mine would be too difficult for them to grasp on such short notice. But the individual barques can be easily operated by the papyrus-pawed, such as yourself, with the assistance of a human in one of their small crafts. You and the other human-affiliated cats must lead the way in the binding of the serpents.”

  “Binding?” I asked. “I thought we were going to kill it. Them.”

  “Apep is immortal but its fangs can be pulled—figuratively at least,” Pshaw-Ra said.

  Renpet gave a little shudder, her fur rippling all the way down her back, thinking, I knew, of the fang sunk into her Chione.

  “I have with me the spell of binding,” Pshaw-Ra continued. “With it, you and the other cats will weave over, under, and through the assembly of serpents.”

  “What? We just think the spell to ourselves and do a lot of flying until it catches us? I don’t think so. You want it done, Pshaw-Ra, you do it yourself.”

  “No, of course, you do it with the sword of Bast,” the old cat said.

  “I thought if you cut that thing up it turned into more snakes.”

  “It does, but the sword you will use does not cut it asunder, it cuts it together,” he said.

  Having done under my tail, I had only the top of my tail to wash to show what I thought of this logic.

  “Like all magic, there is sound science behind it,” Pshaw-Ra said. “The Sword of Bast is not, as has been translated, a short sword, it is a light sword—a sword of fusion not fission. It will bind the snakes one to the other as you weave them into this pattern …”

  He showed me a complicated wrapping that looked like a mummy wrapping.

  “Me and all of these wild kittens?” I asked. “I don’t see that happening.”

  “You don’t understand how serious this is, Chester,” Renpet said.

  “What’s one solar system more or less to me, right?” I asked in a voice that would have scratched her if it had been a claw. “Of course I understand it’s serious, but …”

  “Should any of the serpents remain free, they can repeat this sun-eating throughout space, and the universe will truly go dark,” Pshaw-Ra finished.

  I tried to imagine that, and could not. “Meh,” I said softly. “Okay, what are we supposed to do again?”

  When next the wraparound view port opened, it looked onto a different sector of space, with no snake-infested sun.

  “We are now at Nome Station, the Galactic outpost closest to the Ra-Harahkty system,” the commander-instructor said. “The cats have been fitted with their individual barques and codes, and today there will be a test flight for them, and for you, their controllers.”

  “Controllers? This guy knows nothing about cats,” Pinot whispered to Jubal.

  “I heard that, crewman,” the instructor said. “The little crafts containing the cats are not equipped to fly beyond a certain range. Some of you, however, have psychic connections with your cats. It is these pairs we are most interested in at this time. Jubal Poindexter, Carlton Poindexter, Lieutenant John Green, Chief Petty Officer Anne Sutton, Guillame Pinot, Felicia Daily …” He continued with a roster of all the partners the kittens had found for themselves, including, to Jubal’s surprise, Captain Mavis Romero O’Malley, Cadets Shan Mallory, Shinta Lin, Daffodil Airey, and others with whom they had recently placed cats. At the last moment the names were joined by the recent arrivals of Dorice Poindexter, Jared Vlast, and Janina Mauer. Buttercup was with Mom, of course, but to his surprise it wasn’t Chessie with Janina, but her brother Sol. Dr. Vlast carried one of the youngsters.

  “Dr. Vlast will be on the mission not as the veterinarian but as the control for his feline friend Herriot,” the commander said, apparently just in case anyone got the notion to approach the vet for worm pills or some other nonmission-related need.

  Jubal realized that if this went wrong, not only would the cats be wiped out, but so could his whole family and all of his friends. He truly would have nowhere to go. But Chester had his mind made up that they were going through with this, no matter how nuts it sounded.

  Mom and the old man had apparently been coming to the same conclusion. After the break, they were sitting in the chairs on either side of him, while Doc and Buttercup bumped noses with Chester and the three of them smelled each others’ butts.

  Mom took a hand off Buttercup to hold onto his tightly, and Pop rested his arm along the back of Jubal’s chair. They were in this together, if separately.

  Flying the specially outfitted shuttle was not too difficult for him—he’d seen it done often enough. It might have been, loosely speaking, rocket science, but it was easy rocket science.

  The shuttle contained a custom-built bay to hold the kitty-sized barque, as well as extra scanners to give him a full view of the serpent band and help him eject Chester’s barque at the right point for his friend to guide it into the target, and special controls to resupply Chester if he came back to the shuttle for a break.

  The cat ships were rigged with rays of light to simulate the weapons that would be installed at the last minute, after Pshaw-Ra briefed the cats, he supposed. The commander said information on how the weapons were supposed to defeat the snakes was classified, and that the controllers did not need to know.

  The weapons would be mounted in the extensions on the barques and manipulated by the cats’ paws. The inner lid was sensitive to the touch of the large paws, and the barque extensions acted like the cats’ own paws, striking, smacking, batting, and pouncing with both rays on a single target.

  Jubal guided their shuttle out of the big ship’s shuttle bay and into the sector bordered by larger ships pretending to be the snake band. Other shuttles popped out of the ship too, kind of like kittens being born. A couple of the little barques shot out early, their feeble light rays strobing in all directions while the cats got the hang of controlling the pretend weapons.

  But Jubal waited until his scanner light blinked, then said Ready? to Chester, who answered with a yawn.

  Then Chester said, Go!

  This is serious, buddy. You could get killed. Me too. No sleeping on the job.

  But it is very comfortable in here, Chester replied before saying, not to Jubal, Hey, not me, small fry. The target! The target!

  But the kittens didn’t see a target. There was no fun to be had in attacking humongous ships that didn’t notice they were being killed. So the kittens attacked each other with their light rays and had a very good time making the entire area look like a traffic accident until the commander’s voice on the com ordered the shuttles to collect their p
assengers. There was a button for that too, a homing device that pulled each barque back to its shuttle. With another button, you could rescue some other shuttle’s cat if necessary, but since each shuttle only had room for one barque, doing that would endanger the shuttle’s own cat, giving it no place to go unless—It was overcomplicated and to be avoided except in dire emergency.

  Once the cats and humans had reassembled in the classroom, the instructor thundered at them. “What part of deadly menace don’t you understand? These little cat boats are expensive, not playthings. Their fuel costs too much to waste turning them into carnival rides.”

  Lieutenant Green stood and said, “Permission to speak, sir.”

  The commander looked like he wanted to say he wasn’t done bawling them out yet, but nodded and gritted his teeth instead.

  “Ishmael was ready to attack a deadly menace, sir, but not a huge ship. He and the other cats who—uh—speak Standard were prepared for the mission, looking forward to it. But they needed a target, not a zone. They are cats, sir. They attack snakes, fish, birds, mice, rats, and bugs, not whales.”

  Jubal had to snicker, and saw the old man and his mom doing the same. He was not surprised when Chester said, Way to go, Junior! Green had obviously been transmitting his message from the kitten now calling himself Ishmael.

  For the next training session, the larger ships were surrounded by small pieces of debris, making them look like they were under attack by a swarm of insects. This time the kittens eagerly attacked the balls of paper, packet wrappers, and bits of uneaten food with their rays of light, though when the light had no effect on the garbage except to scatter it, the kittens began to see how far they could scatter it instead.

  Chester, that ain’t gonna work, Jubal said, exasperated, but his friend was way ahead of him.