“Male sprites are so icky! I want Philly to stay here.”
“That’s obvious,” said Amy. “Staying is Nick’s vote. Phil wants to go back to 1889, so that’s his vote.”
Betsy scrambled back into the room and knocked over a box of empty water bottles.
“Take Amy home!” he barked. “I like her the best!”
“There’s Betsy’s vote,” said Amy. “How about you, Sunflower?”
The cat brushed by Amy’s leg and lay on an old sweater. “Humans are stupid cheese-eating monkeys who are bad at football,” said the cat morosely. “But Amy is the best one I’ve met, and we can’t do any of this without her help. I would vote for taking her home, but we have a better chance of surviving if we steal the Lady’s personal ship, the White Star.”
Philip bowed from the waist. “Good show, and I suppose that’s the end of it. Amy will certainly vote for herself, so we’re going to 1995.”
“Wait!” Amy held up a hand. “It’s my turn, and I say we take Philip home.”
The teenage boy clapped his hands and jumped up and down. “Hurrah! What a first-rate girl!”
Betsy jumped in the air. “I change my vote to whatever Amy just said!”
Sunflower gaped at Amy. “What in Saint Fluffy are you talking about?”
“Phil’s been stranded here for two years, and really misses his family. I’ve always wanted to see England, and with everything I know about history I can be a millionaire in no time at all.”
Sunflower shook his furry head. “You still think this is a dream, don’t you? You’ll never see your family again.”
Amy nodded. “You’re right; I do think it’s a dream. Kind of a weird one, but still a dream.”
Nick sobbed on Philip’s shoulder as the tall teenager shook Amy’s hand.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’d give you a proper hug if you were a chap. As it is …”
“Good idea, Phil. Keep your hands to yourself.”
Sunflower sighed. “This day has turned into such a burning furball of joy.”
Oblivious to the unfolding drama, Betsy chased his tail.
Amy and Philip shoved expired snack foods and bottles of purified water into a pair of rucksacks, along with silver and copper coins that Philip said they could use for money in England.
Betsy dropped Amy and Sunflower off at a plain section of wall and sped away, the wheels of his cart squealing.
“Where’s he going?” hissed Amy.
“To transport Philip to Demat 3,” whispered Sunflower. “Didn’t you listen to the plan?”
Amy held her stomach. “I was too busy throwing up Hostess Sno Balls.”
“It’s your own fault for eating that garbage. Why can’t you eat ReCarb like a normal cat or dog?”
“Because I’m not a cat or dog!”
“It was a rhetorical question.”
“This is the first time I’ve been asked a rhetorical question by a cat, and I don’t know if I should be happy or sad about that fact.”
Amy held her palm on the wall. Lines of glittering blue fire spread from her fingers and the surface turned warm. The hatch hissed up and out of sight.
Sunflower shook his head and trotted inside. “How do you do that?”
Amy followed the cat on her hands and knees through a narrow tunnel, her shoulders brushing the dull gray walls as she crawled forward. A blue light glowed ahead. Amy squirmed out of the tunnel and stood up in a cramped space that was packed floor to ceiling with towering racks of vertically-arranged, thin obsidian blocks. Pinpoints of blue light throbbed on the face of each inch-high slab. Yellow cables sprouted from the back of each slab and covered the floor like a tangled mess of string.
Sunflower poked his head from behind a towering rack. “Over here!”
Amy stepped carefully over the wiring to a green iridescent screen and keyboard, hidden inside an overflowing thicket of cables.
“A computer! Do you want me to type something?”
Sunflower’s tail twitched. “Of course not. That’s just for decoration or whatever. Push your arm inside and try to find a pressure sensor.”
Amy wrinkled her nose at the rubbery, plastic stench, but shoved her hand into the bird’s nest of wires. Her fingers touched a flat, cool surface.
“Got it!”
“Press your entire hand on it.”
“Okay.”
The computer beeped, and lines of green code scrolled down the display.
“Transmat access granted,” said a smooth female voice.
Amy gasped. “Lucia! What’s she doing here?”
“Transmat Operation Control, build version 1.41005. My parameters include oversight and technical––”
“Stop,” said Sunflower to the display. “Amy, that’s not a real person. It’s a ‘Tic-Toc.’ ”
“A what?”
“Terminal Interface Computer, Transmat Operation Control.”
“Do you have a query?” asked Lucia’s voice.
“Why does it sound like my foster mom?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” said Sunflower. “Tic-Tocs are used in other places around the ship. It’s a voice control system.”
“It’s just weird!”
“I understand what you’re saying,” murmured the orange cat. “But time is running out and we need to focus. Now, repeat after me: Transmat operations, root access request.”
“Transmat operations, root access request.”
“Working,” said the computerized voice of Lucia. “Root access granted.”
“Wow,” said Sunflower. “I didn’t think that would work. Okay, repeat exactly what I say.”
The cat read off a lengthy series of orders, all inscrutable and full of strange terms to Amy, who spoke them to the iridescent screen of the Tic-Toc. She finished with the last phrase and the flashing blue lights on all the obsidian slabs changed to lavender.
“That’s it!” said Sunflower. “Run! We’ve got only two minutes!”
The cat dashed out of the control room and through the narrow tunnel. Amy dove after him and crawled as fast as she could to the exit. She held her palm to the door’s surface and squeezed outside.
The shambles of Junktown rose beyond the terrace, but Betsy was nowhere to be seen.
“Never trust a dog,” growled Sunflower. “Come on!”
He bolted along the terrace like a furry cannonball, tail flying and with Amy right behind. Seconds later the cat plowed straight into a terrier who’d just turned the corner with his cart.
“Sorry I’m late,” panted Betsy.
“Shut up! No time,” hissed Sunflower, and untangled himself from Betsy’s harness.
Amy jumped into the cart and it started to roll at a high rate of speed, one that Amy would have thought impossible for such a little dog. She held tight to the blanket to keep it from being torn away by the hurricane of air.
The cart jolted and slid to a stop, the rubberized wheels squealing black skid marks across the surface of the terrace.
“We’re here,” panted Betsy. “But there’s an inspector up ahead!”
Something pulled the blanket off Amy.
“Get inside Demat 3,” said Sunflower. “I’ll take care of the inspector.”
Betsy giggled. “Another date with a cat you don’t like?”
“Shut up, dog.”
Amy scrambled out of the cart and pressed her hand to the pale wall. A large section slid up; much larger than the tunnel she’d crawled through when she first came to the spacecraft and big enough for a human to walk upright. Amy sprinted down a hallway and opened another door to the brilliantly white dematerialization chamber.
A red circle fifteen feet in diameter was painted on the floor. Philip sat across the chamber with his back to a wall and his arms around his knees. He looked up as Amy stepped into the room.
“Finally!”
Amy walked to the red circle. “You’ve waited two years. What’s a few more minutes?”
“Sorry. It’s
just … I’m so close to finally escaping this place. To going back home.”
Amy sat in the center of the red circle and crossed her legs.
“I guess I can understand that,” she said. “Come over here, Phil. Red is usually bad news, but in this case I think it’s where we have to sit.”
“You’re probably right.”
Philip plopped down on the red circle a respectable distance from Amy. He watched her carefully.
“What’s happened to England?” he asked. “Since 1889, I mean.”
“A couple of horrible wars. England has lost pretty much all of her colonies. You don’t even have Canada.”
“Is that a joke? Who rules the world now? Germany? France? Please don’t tell me it’s France.”
“Nobody does, and it’s complicated,” said Amy. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. The history of my Earth is not really the history of your Earth. Things could turn out differently, especially with me around. Maybe I can stop the war from happening in 1914. Who knows?”
Philip snorted. “If you think a pair of teenagers can change the course of nations, then you’re either the bravest or maddest girl I’ve ever met. A cat has more chance of becoming king!”
“A pair of teenagers? I didn’t say anything about a partnership. I’ve got my thing, and you’ve got your ‘Dukeship’ or whatever.”
“I understand,” said Philip. “In any case, I’ll make sure you’re given proper compensation for taking me home. I just wish I knew how they were.”
“Your family? Me, too.”
Philip sneered. “No, not them. That’s the best part of this whole affair: not seeing any relatives for two years. A shower of greedy bastards, all of them.”
“Okay …”
“I miss Ellie. Ellie and the dogs.”
“Is she your mother? Your … girlfriend?”
Philip stared at Amy so hard she thought his eyes crossed.
“Crickey, no! Ellie’s my horse. Oh, the magnificent times we used to have back in the day. The dogs baying ahead, Ellie and me crashing through the forest, suddenly vaulting over a stream. There was never a finer steed, nor another place I’d rather be. You certainly wouldn’t understand if you don’t hunt.”
Amy shook her head. “Your whole sob story was about a horse? I would have voted for the spaceship!”
“She’s a fantastic animal. Maybe someday you can meet her.” Philip glanced down at Amy’s outfit. “Not socially, of course.”
Amy made a gagging sound. “Fine, whatever. Not to change the subject or anything because you’re boring me to death, but how did you end up here?”
“I was hiding inside my father’s French wardrobe. Thunder and lightning suddenly filled the air and I was transported to this ghastly place. The tiny flying girl saved me, but I don’t know how I feel about that. She provided me with food and a place to stay, even though it wasn’t to my liking. On the other hand, she considered me a pet. Me! The son of a Duke!”
“Why were you inside the wardrobe?”
Philip looked puzzled. “I was hiding from father, of course.”
“You haven’t seen any other humans for two years?”
“We’re not in the proper quadrant of the galaxy to meet humans, and even if we were, the Lady only allows ‘Class E’ beings on her spaceship.”
“Class E?”
“The ‘E’ stands for ‘Enlightened.’ It’s a long story. Believe me, I’ve had time to study how the ship works and the beastly state of the galaxy. Nick brought me magazines she’d find here and there, or would trade for them. She even forced me to watch the Galactic Cup last year. Great gumdrops, what I’d give to see a proper cricket match.”
“Tell me more about these weirdo cats and dogs.”
“Haven’t they told you anything? I would have thought Sunflower had talked your ear off about Tau Ceti already. It’s his homeworld, and all the cats from there never shut up about it.”
“Tau Ceti? That’s a planet, right?”
Philip nodded. “At some point in our history––Old Earth’s history, as everyone here likes to say––the capability for traveling through the stars was made possible through a remarkable engine. I came across a book in Cat French about the subject. Even ‘normal’ French isn’t my best subject, but I was able to read most of it.”
“A light speed engine?”
“Even faster. However, the engineers at the time were in the midst of an ethical quandary––the engines gave off dangerous, invisible energies that would have sickened and killed any human crew long before they reached their destination.”
“You mean radiation? Gamma rays?”
Philip spread his hands. “You obviously know more of the natural sciences than I do, and it could have been that. Because of the danger, a mixture of automatons and animals were sent in place of men. These weren’t just any old mongrels and Toms scooped from the back alleys of Shoreditch; only the healthiest animals with good breeding and high intelligence were chosen. The scientific boffins did something to the brains and bodies of the animals to increase their odds for survival. They even taught them to talk in a rude manner.”
“A spaceship full of cats? I don’t buy it.”
Philip shrugged. “You’re sitting in a spaceship full of cats right now, but I’m just repeating the claims from the book. That first ship was a test to see if humans could survive the journey. Automatons and machinery would do all of the work.”
“Okay, fine. Continue, please.”
“Four massive ships were launched, each with thousands of animals of different breeds. Cats were sent to Tau Ceti and Gliese 667, and dogs to Kapteyn and Herodotus––originally named HD 85512. All of the ships completed the long journeys and the animals thrived.”
“What about humans? Did they fill another starship with a bunch of pedigreed, well-bred people?”
“That’s a perfectly wizard idea, but no,” said Philip. “Another great vessel was completed, but before it could launch a terrible war consumed all the nations on Earth. Fire rained from the skies and destroyed all living things, including mankind. Ten thousand survivors packed into the last star vessel and left for Alpha Centauri.”
“That’s horrible!”
Philip shook his head. “It’s even worse than you think. None of the survivors were any good at football, or even had the gene for being good at football. Mankind hasn’t won the Galactic Cup for two hundred years, since the competition began.”
Amy squinted at the teenager. “Are you seriously talking about soccer? The human race was almost destroyed and that’s all you care about?”
“Try to get anything done around this ship when a match is on. I’ll tell you the answer––it doesn’t get done. Dogs are especially mad about it.”
“How does a dog play soccer, anyway?”
“With his head, of course! They’re obviously better than humans, for reasons I just explained.”
Amy sighed. “Okay … tell me what happened to the cats and dogs, the ones shot off to Tau Ceti.”
“Only cats were sent to Tau Ceti.”
“Whatever!”
“From what I read, something happened during the journey between the stars. Maybe it was the energy from the powerful engines, maybe it was something else on the new worlds. The intelligence of the animals tripled and kept going. They taught themselves how to read from the great libraries on the starship and to create tools like that artificial hand, the ‘manos.’ The colonies thrived and expanded in population. Colleges sprang up. Cat and dog scientists researched how to tame the new planets and their resources. With Earth gone and the humans on Alpha Centauri struggling to survive, the animals saw themselves as the new masters of the universe. They changed their bodies using science I don’t understand, to the point where the internal biology of a cat or dog in 3317 is unrecognizable from one born on Earth.”
“Basically, supercats who talk and eat glowing stuff,” said Amy.
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“
They still speak English. Why not use a cat language or speak in meows? Didn’t you say that book was in Cat French?”
Philip nodded. “French-speaking communities of animals did develop on the new worlds, but seemed to be limited to academic circles. The majority of the dog and cat population on all four planets chose English because an Earth billionaire paid extravagant bribes to put a set of grammar books called ‘GlobalEnglish’ on the colony ships. The animals liked the drawings and bright colors, and chose to study English.”
“What’s taking Sunflower so long …” murmured Amy. “Oh! I just remembered––what about aliens? Had to be some nasty aliens on those new planets.”
“There’s no such thing as an alien.”
“What about the sauros?”
“It’s boring.”
“You say that like we’ve got something else to do.”
Philip sighed. “They’re carnival horrors.”
“Really?”
“The sauropods are biological automatons made for entertainment by the owner of a cat carnival on Gliese six hundred years ago. He was a shockingly brilliant former scientist, but unfortunately for the galaxy, too smart for his own good. With no samples of Earth reptiles available, he made a decimal point error and gave the Sauros brains that were ten times larger than normal. A pair of the godless creatures stole a star craft and the recipe to make more lizard men. Thousands were suddenly appearing like frogs after a rain. There was a war on Gliese, cats versus sauros. Eventually the lizards retreated to Kepler Prime, an Earth-like planet that orbits the star Kepler 22.”
“But we’re orbiting Kepler Prime right now! These lizards sound dangerous.”
“Sauros aren’t that bad,” said Philip. “They love beating other creatures into a pulp, but even more than that, they love to trade and making piles of money. They’d make perfectly good Englishmen if they weren’t so cold-blooded. And reptiles. And biological automatons. Actually, that’s very English.”
“Did you just make a joke?”
Philip nodded. “I think so.”
“Are the little flying sprites the same thing? Circus freaks?”
Philip grinned. “No, the sprites started as a joke, and came along later than the lizards. The advanced dog civilizations on Kapteyn and Herodotus became very nostalgic about the old days on Earth and their close relationship with mankind. Dogs had advanced so much in the period after the great war that humans on Alpha Centauri actually found them annoying to have around. Instead of chasing cars or chewing up the furniture, dogs were stealing the family hovercraft and flying to IKEA.”
The Girl Who Stole A Planet (Amy Armstrong Book 1) Page 9
