Revenge of the Catspaw

by Helena Puumala

  The woman had left her place at the stove, and walked over to a large sliding door. It was a door big enough to admit hover-transports the size of this one, the largest in domestic use. She had pressed the plate which controlled entry.

  “The cold storage,” she had said.

  Elite Mogron had felt another pang of envy as he had directed the workers to deposit their loads into the large room. His house was not nearly as opulent as this one, even though he and Geof belonged to the same Tier of Elites. The difference in the men's apparent circumstances had to do with their wives. Evella had expensive tastes, and expected to be able to indulge them. She had used every trick she had up her sleeve to have obtained for her and Geof the best—and largest—of everything available, claiming that all of it was only their due because Geof was an important official, and worked hard for the benefit of his class, his society, and planet. Mogron's wife was the daughter of a gold-circled Elite, which meant that he had married up, but her parents had brought her up to be old-fashioned, and to avoid too-obvious ostentation. Fact was, and Mogron was not unaware of it, that he commanded more respect among the highest tier of the Elites than Geof Copoz did, precisely because his wife clung to the old ways, which the Gold-Circles termed “noblesse-oblige”. The term was an old one, derived from the early times before the Terrans had discovered space travel, and before they had split into two ideological groups. What exactly it meant, or had once meant, he did not know, except that it forced him to forgo some of the pleasures of belonging to the Elite caste in which many of his compatriots revelled.

  However, he was planning to enjoy himself this evening. He had reason to celebrate; they all did, but he was the one who had been responsible for the achievement which was about to advance the ambitions of his people by a giant step. The Gold-Circled Elite who was sponsoring the efforts to recreate, and make again workable, the amarto-reflecting-refracting machine was impressed enough with what Mogron and his hand-picked helpers had done, that he would be coming to join the festivities. He had made his requests about the refreshments, and his preferences had been included in the loads which Elite Mogron had been shepherding. And he had given his instructions about what kind of women he liked; Geof Copoz had taken it upon himself to look after those details.

  It was going to be a good party, Elite Mogran had mused to himself, as he had led the delivery guys with their now empty, and carefully compacted transporters, out of the cold storage room, and the kitchen. He still had had details to attend to at his office, however, before the fun began, and, therefore, had to return there.

  The cook made a disgusted noise when she looked around from her work after the men had left. With a shake of her head she had gone to press the panel by the cold room door, to close it. And had crossed the kitchen to shut the outer door, too; it had been left wide open by the retreating men.

  “The higher the Elite Tier, the more irresponsible the dolt,” she had muttered savagely, as she had returned to her work. “And the delivery boys aren't any better, though they're mere teens, so they've an excuse.”

  That was the one good thing about working for a private Elite couple like the Copozes. There were no spy-eyes or -ears anywhere—Evella would not tolerate them around her house—so a person could vent her feelings without worrying about the words returning to haunt her.

  **

  Keeper Ariane had walked the halls of the Elite Women's Pleasure House, ensuring that the doors of the client rooms in use were securely locked. Of course they were; no Elite woman wanted to be disturbed during her time with her chosen courtesan. She had peeked into the dormitories where the fellows who were free for the night, slept. They seemed to be unusually quiet this evening; everyone was already in bed, almost two hours before midnight. Usually, at this time of the night, there were conversations going on, as the men who had been enslaved the longest made efforts to befriend and advise the newest recruits, who often were, especially if they were very young, unhappy and homesick.

  Ariane never interfered in these talks, not even if the snippets that she overheard (and the surveillance acoustics were not nearly as good as they should have been, and as everyone pretended that they were, in the dorms), sounded like bitching sessions. Exchanges of information were good for the inmates, was the way she, somewhat cynically, thought of the matter. There was no reason for censorship; what could the men do to help themselves, even if the new ones drank in the knowledge of the ones who had been there longer? There was no escape for the sex-slaves, and no place for them to go even if they did succeed in getting away.

  It was sad, really.

  She continued her walk to the side of the building where there was a grassy expanse between the edifice and the fenced-in wood. A bench stood on a small knoll, near the building; it was a favourite place for Dyron and Coryn to sit, possibly because they could have a little bit of privacy there. Security had found it impossible to keep any spy-ears operational within the range of the bench; they had never been able to explain why.

  Maybe she ought to while the last hour or so away by, once again, questioning the single guard on duty why that was so. The guard, in his small, landing area office, was probably bored and sleepy. Presuming that he wasn't drinking beer, or consuming some other mind-altering substance. If that was so, Ariane did not want to know about it: knowing would require her to take some disciplinary action. She hated to punish, or to rat on, the employees; the consequences, especially of the the ratting, could be horrendous. The Elites could not be trusted to be fair or humane.

  But, what?

  She pressed her nose against the window, to stare at the fence and the wood beyond the grassed area. The gate was open, and large, skinny cats were loping towards the building!

  How was that possible?

  She pulled out her com and called the Security guard! Then she turned to run back to her office!

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Does each of you have your plan of the premises?” Lindy asked her troop, waving a piece of paper, before signalling Lew to open the gate. “And you know who's with who during the collection phase?”

  “Yup,” Shellion replied. “Lew and Dini are together, and they empty out the dorm rooms. You go with Kami, and the two of you find Coryn who's stuck in one of the guest rooms with a major bitch of a so-called client. Sandy and Sunny start with the other client rooms, and Leon and Seer Jon do the same, but on the other side of the hall. The Greencat and I will be the roving ambassadors of trouble, helping you others wherever the Greencat senses help to be needed.”

  “And we bring the gathered people to the bench on the grassy knoll,” Lindy added. “That's where Sarah will do her transporting thing, eventually. The cats will keep it clear of unpleasant locals for us.

  “And, Sarah, stay away from Coryn for now, even in your mind.” She fixed Sunny with a stern eye. “We need you with a clear head, and your energy flows intact. We're all, including Coryn and the other captive slaves, depending on your talent. Cam and I are perfectly qualified to deal with whatever awaits us in that room.”

  Sunny nodded. With the Guru, they had gone over this several times. She had to keep herself in check; there was nothing she could do for Coryn that the others couldn't as well, as long as they were on Volgoid. And getting them off Volgoid was her part of the enterprise; she had to be ready to act, the moment they had everyone gathered together. She did not know how much time they had for the collecting, and what resistance they could expect. The Greencat had reported through the Guru that rumours of a big Elite bash were floating among the inhabitants of the Pleasure House, but whether or not that would give them more time—assuming the rumours were true—she did not know.

  All she knew was that the scheme had to work; everything depended on it.

  Lindy motioned for Lew to push open the gate.

  The feral cats which had been surrounding Lew while they waited, sprang into action. They were abused creatures, not capable of running very fast. Nonetheless, they quickly reached t
he building door, and came to a halt there. A siren began to wail from a speaker above that door, and floodlights sprang into being to bathe the area.

  “Damn it!” Lindy shouted as she ran towards the door. “They already know we're here! We'll have to move fast!”

  “It may not be as bad as you think!” Shellion called to her. “They may only have registered the presence of the animals!”

  Then they were all at the door, now, without doubt, visible to whoever was manning security. And the lock on this door was not about to yield to a set of lock-picks, that much was clear!

  “Guru Johannes!” Lindy called. “And the Greencat!”

  The Greencat was already there, among the other felines. The Guru was not much behind Lindy, Kami, and Shellion. He appeared more vigorous than he had seemed earlier; either the need to act had brought out in him some hidden reservoirs of energy, or else he had been pretending to be older and more decrepit during the trip than he truly was. Lindy suspected that the latter hypothesis came closer to the truth.

  The feral animals made room for the Greencat and the Guru at the door. Lindy watched them stare at the lock; it took only seconds for the thing to emit a puff of smoke. The siren above the door faded into a whine, then died all together.

  The door was pulled open from inside, and before the cats could enter, what looked like a horde of dark-skinned, curly-haired young men poured out, the first one of them pulling Guru Johannes into a hug, the next one leaning down to hug the Greencat, and several others petting the feral animals, displaying no fear whatsoever.

  One of them hopped over to Sarah-Sunny.

  “Hey, I know who you are!” he said. “Only you don't look anything like what you should look like!”

  “I'm travelling incognito,” the girl replied with a smile. “It would have been too dangerous to come to this world as myself.”

  “She's my simple sister, Sunny,” Lindy threw in. “Remember that for a while yet! We need to go in and do our job. Do you know how much Security there is in the building?”

  “Just the Keeper Ariane, in her Office, and one bodyguard in the Security Office by the landing pad. Ariane was doing a walkabout earlier, but she returned to her office to contact the Security man, and to call in the City Law-Enforcers. Don't hurt her, she's okay really, just does her job, and tries to be as humane about it as she can, under the circumstances. Now some of the Elite women clients....”

  His eyes travelled to the feral cats as he spoke.

  “Okay, troops, you have your instructions,” Lindy said. “Let's go to it before we're interrupted.”

  “Can we help?” asked the fellow who had been greeting the Guru.

  “If some of you can go with Dini and Lew to empty out the dormitories, maybe you can help wake the sleepers,” Lindy replied, pointing out the Yukoidian couple. “And two or three, maybe, can help the ones who are going into the client rooms, to bring out the slaves. The rest of you, just settle here, outside, near the bench. Once all of ours are here, we'll get little sister to perform her magic disappearing act.”

  She hurried off to catch up with Cameron who was already going through the door. The others were right behind them; inside they were greeted by more blaring of sirens.

  “Hey, Greencat, you can handle the siren shit, right?” Shellion asked the animal. “Maybe the first thing we should do is get rid of the noise!”

  “If there's a master lock control, how about killing that, too,” Cam shouted. “If not, Lindy and I will get the Guru to handle the door we're heading for, and I'm pretty sure Sarah can bust a few electronic locks even without the help of her Stone!”

  “You heard him, friend,” Shellion said to the Greencat, and the animal began to lope down the hall, with an air of knowing exactly where it was going.

  One of the feral cats broke from the pack and padded to follow Shellion and the Greencat. Shellion glanced at it, and grinned. He was certain that the Greencat had asked it to join them.

  **

  They found Ariane sitting in her Office, behind her desk. To Shellion's surprise, the office door was not locked; he had expected it to not respond to the pressure he exerted on the control panel. He had assumed that the Greencat would have to use its talents to get them in there.

  She looked scared, of course she did; she must have been able to follow the progress of the threesome towards her office. There was a stunner on the desk in front of her, and nothing else. The screen that she was glancing at when she was not staring at the two cats, was embedded into the desktop; she was clutching a small controller in her hands.

  Shellion wasted no time grabbing the stunner.

  “That gadget you're holding, can it turn the sirens off?” he asked. “And unlock all the doors on the premises?”

  The woman nodded.

  “Ye-e-es,” she said. Her voice was hoarse.

  “Do both those things,” Shellion ordered. “Immediately. Otherwise, lady, you are cat food.”

  She did something with the remote, while pointing it at the screen. The sirens gave a last whine, and died. She performed another act with the controller and the screen, then set the gadget on the desk.

  “Done,” she said in a low, flat voice. “It won't help you, though, I've alerted the Security Officer on duty, and he has called the Law-Enforcers, and informed the Elites who have wives or daughters here. There will be lots of armed men here very soon.”

  Shellion had the craziest feeling that she thought this was too bad. He took another look at the woman, Ariane, her name was supposed to be. A regular citizen by the looks of things, about thirty, not unattractive. Probably didn't have much of a life, living, as she did, in Volgoid Prime City.

  “That's only what we expected,” he responded to her comment. “You'll be surprised by what we can do to thwart their ambitions.”

  “I suppose that if you meant to kill me you would already have done so,” she said, her voice soft.

  “We're not killers,” Shellion snapped. “Though the cats from the wood are hungry, and furious with the people who are responsible for their plight.”

  Ariane blanched.

  “Nothing I could do about that,” she whispered. “Or any of the other things.”

  “Right now that attitude—it does sound genuine—is to your advantage. Is there some way I can send you home safely, before all hell breaks loose?”

  She shook her head.

  “The flit is supposed to come at midnight.”

  Then she brightened.

  “If the gates are open and the beasts won't touch me, I could try walking home—maybe catching the train; that'd be safer, and faster. If you'll let me go.”

  “I'll do that.”

  He took her place behind the desk when she relinquished it, and used the remote to flip among the scenes from the security cameras.

  “Greencat, can you ask your friend there to escort the lady back where the slaves are gathering? From there she will be on her own; we can't protect her from her own people.

  “Damn. A flyer just landed on the pad. Four men coming out of it. Law-Enforcers, no doubt. Greencat, we'll need reinforcements.”

  “They'll shoot to kill,” Ariane said from the door as she hurried after the feral cat.

  “I know.”

  Shellion felt a bit sick. He was going to be witnessing carnage; hopefully that of the feral cats making a meal out of the newcomers, and not of anyone, human or beast, on his side, dying ignominiously.

  **

  Sandy and Sarah had rushed into the first of the client service rooms the moment the doors unlocked. Sarah had been mentally studying the electronics of the lock when it snapped open, so she had her hand on the control mechanism a split-second later.

  Inside, she immediately began to reel, and to hyperventilate. Sandy leaned a sturdy arm to steady her, though she looked to be half in shock herself.

  On a small pallet on the floor lay what looked like a naked teenage boy, uncovered, curled into a fetal position. He had a meta
l collar around his neck, a chain leading from it to a handle which was on the bed, within an arm's reach of a sleeping, middle-aged woman, whose form was well-blanketed.

  The boy was blinking at the light which had come on as the door opened; that was the only sign of life in him which Sarah could see.

  “How could she sleep through the sirens?” Sandy asked. “Regardless how drugged-up she is?”

  “These client rooms are, I'm sure, insulated for sound,” Sarah said.

  She collected her wits with an effort. She shook off Sandy's arm and stepped over to the bed to grasp the handle on its chain. A quick examination told her that it functioned as a remote to the collar: there was an on-off switch, a lever, and a dial display. She turned the switch from “on” to “off”, and the collar locking mechanism undid itself.

  Sandy leaned down to remove the thing from the boy's neck, crooning soothingly as he cowered in the face of her bulk.

  Something about what they had done had alerted the sleeping woman.

  “What the...?” She rubbed sleep out of her eyes, then stared at the women in the room. “Who are you? What are you up to?”

  Now Sandy was helping the boy onto his feet.

  “Got any clothes?” she asked him, and obediently he grabbed a unitard suit off the floor; it was exactly like the ones the slaves who had met the rescuers at the door had been wearing.

  “Where's my gun?” the woman on the bed asked, and Sarah laid eyes on the object on the bedside table at the same time that she did.

  It was on the other side of the bed from Sarah.

  “Fuck,” she said.

  It was a big bed, and even granting that she was the more agile of the two of them, her chances of getting to it first were not good. Sandy had a much longer reach than she did, but she was even farther away, and her attention was with the boy. Sarah realized that she would have to fight for the gun, and she was not ready to let her amarto out of the browhorn testicle sac!