Catalyst

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Could you tell him now?” she asked, her voice trembling a little. “I haven’t seen him in weeks and my ship is scheduled for departure. Tell him Janina is here, please.”

  “You’ll have to wait outside,” the guard said. “Sorry, those are the rules.”

  “I—I’ll be there. By the door,” she replied, and retreated to the not entirely fresh air outside, trembling with her own boldness, with anticipation at perhaps seeing Jared again, and with anguish at the thought of her beautiful, gentle Chessie trapped at the source of the stench.

  But she stood staring at the reflective tint of the doors, wishing she could see more of the inside. Jubal had drawn their little group a rough sketch of the building’s layout. The lab was on the fourth floor, he said.

  Imagining the lab’s location made her picture what might be happening to the cats within it, and she shook her head to dislodge all of her pitiful fancies of what those poor animals might be enduring.

  The doors retracted, and there, looking weary and red around the eyes, was Jared. She wished she had had the time or the spirit to dress up a bit before this, but Jared looked as if he hadn’t slept well in days and was in no mood to notice.

  She stepped up to meet him and could not resist the urge to put her arms around him and hug him, since he looked as miserable as she felt. To her surprise, he held her even closer and brought his hand up to the back of her head to keep it against his shoulder.

  “I’ve seen Chessie,” he told her. “She’s fine. I’ll not let anyone hurt her if I can help it, Jannie. I promise.”

  “But if there’s an epidemic …” she said.

  “There is no epidemic—no more than the glitter effect you and I have already observed in the secretions of animals who eat the beetles, as your little Chester so clearly demonstrated to us back at the clinic. This is all about ranching rivalry and politics. Varley told me all about it before I ever received any directives from the GHS.”

  He went on to tell her how the import of the wild pintos had upset the balance of power between Varley’s friend and the relative of a GHS official, causing the relative to claim, falsely, that the glittery secretions were the early sign of an epidemic so the horses would be impounded.

  “But that’s madness!” she protested. “What about the colonists who will be ruined, the innocent animals who will be destroyed? Surely our government does not condone such corruption and cruelty!”

  “Not openly, of course,” he said sadly. He had released her but retained a hard grip on both of her hands. He was clearly angry. “Sorry to disillusion you, but the welfare of animals and those who raise them is a very low priority with most officials.”

  “Dr. Vlast,” the guard said from the doorway. “You’re needed back in the laboratory, sir.”

  “Coming,” Jared said over his shoulder. “I’ll try to see you again,” he told her. “I’ll leave a message with the Molly Daise when I’ll be free again. I’ll do my best to save Chessie, no matter what.”

  But that was very cold comfort to Janina. She loved Chessie very much, but the thought of all of the other innocent creatures being destroyed over political game-playing sickened her.

  Jared was back inside the building before she remembered she had wanted to tell him about the derelict ship and its strange feline inhabitant and the seeming abduction of Chester.

  CHESTER ABOARD THE PYRAMID SHIP

  Pshaw-Ra launched into his story and I was hooked. I sat with my tail curled around my paws and my eyes half shut, ears tilted forward, as he spoke.

  “Long ago, when there was One Sun and One Sky, our feline kind was worshipped by a clever and industrious race of two-leggeds. We all lived in a hot country along a flowing river, the only such place for hundreds of miles. The rest of the country was desert and pretty much useless, but where we lived it was lush and fertile and teeming with prey for us and game for our followers. For our purposes, it was the world, the only world, and we were content.

  “Then the two-leggeds got distracted from paying us homage and waged war on one another instead. Persians, Hittites, Greeks, Romans, yada yada yada, they all came and took over our poor country. The last race to descend upon us were the Diggers, who disinterred our ancestors, both feline and human, and carried them from the tombs where they were supposed to find eternal rest into foreign places where their mummies could be defiled and turned into litter.

  “After many years, the descendants of the original two-leggeds recognized that the error of their ways, the adulation of less worthy beings and goals, had led to their downfall. They begged our forgiveness and once more paid us homage. This did not make them any more popular with their less enlightened enemies. At last our two-leggeds and our illustrious selves were banished from the sight of the One Sun in a vessel that took us to a new world. Or so those who inherited our old land believed. The truth was, our race—yours and mine—had long ago dwelt beyond the One Sun. It was our ancient wisdom that made the Two Lands great.

  “To the surprise and delight of our followers, the new world was far from being a punishment. It was wondrous, an entire planet we might call our own, with a climate lush and fertile as our riverine lands had been. The game in our new home was, for the most part, imported along with our worthy selves, but there were also a few indigenous life-forms, just small ones, that neither our two-leggeds nor their skyborne overlords noticed. One among these species was able to breed with the dung beetles sacred to our people, the ones we brought with us, and from the mating evolved the even more sacred and revered—and delicious, of course—kefer-ka, commonly called the Bug of Becoming among my people.”

  “Becoming what?” I asked. Pshaw-Ra laid his big pointy ears back a bit and showed his fangs. He didn’t like being interrupted and let me know in no uncertain terms that he thought mine a stupid question.

  “Becoming One!”

  “One what?” I asked. But now I was playing with him. I had a good idea what eating the shiny bugs did, at least for me. It made me one—sort of—with the boy.

  He did not answer for some time but started washing his chest and shoulders as if I were not there. Long loving licks from the base of his throat, as high as he could reach, down to his belly, his rough tongue easily smoothing his sleek fur. Hah! I’d like to have seen him do that with a soft fine coat of slightly curly fur such as mine was becoming.

  I moved my front paws a fraction forward in the direction of the fishie treats. He didn’t notice. Another fraction. From beneath his top whiskers he sent me a baleful glare. “Do not start with me, un-sanctified son of a ship’s cat. I am Pshaw-Ra, ancient mariner of the stars, light-bringer to the universe, and I will smack you so hard you’ll spin around and swallow your own tail.”

  I was young but I was already as large as he was. He might be old but he was small and slim, whereas my entire race tended toward substantial size. Fighting with Git’s get throughout my land-bound days had made me tough, I believed, and my youth made me quick. Not nearly quick enough, as it turned out. I put my right front paw one claw length forward and found myself knocked two cat lengths back against the bulkhead of Pshaw-Ra’s small cabin. My cheek smarted, my whiskers ached, and I was sure my poor little tufted ear was shredded.

  I ran for the exit, for the comfort of Kibble, who would take me back to Mother to wash it all better. But the long twisting cat tunnel was dark and full of crawling things. I clawed at the closed opening, crying to be released from my imprisonment with this strange vicious beast who picked on poor little helpless kittens, but no one answered. My sharp ears heard no movement. My sensitive nose detected no smell but the mustiness of the corridor, the odor of Pshaw-Ra, and an intoxicating aroma that reminded me of both salmon and catnip.

  If only my boy were out there instead of Kibble, he would have heeded my cries. I scratched until my claws shredded and my paws ached. I cried myself hoarse but no response came until I felt teeth close on the tip of my beautiful tail.

  “Monster!” I cried, whirling
as fast as I could in the narrow darkness of the corridor. “Fiend! Wild canine in a cat coat! You tricked me! Let me out of here now so I can return to my ship.”

  “Your ship is far away, son. Did you not hear the cries of your provider? Did you not feel my vessel free itself of the bondage beam? What are you complaining about? You were dissatisfied with the female, the ship, and even the company of your own mother. I took that from your thoughts.”

  “You did?” I sat back on my haunches and licked my sore paws, my sore face, my poor little ear that had a tiny torn place just above the fluffy tuft adorning its center.

  “I can do such things, can read your wishes, intentions, disappointments, and dreads as well as the thoughts you send me,” Pshaw-Ra said proudly, blinking his shining gold-coin eyes shut, so that for a nanosecond the darkness was unrelieved. I could tell he expected me to be impressed, but what I had actually meant—as he would have known if he were as good as he claimed—was that I didn’t realize he could do it too. I’d been reading thoughts—and the thoughts under thoughts—my entire life. “What is the use of my ancient and all-encompassing wisdom without a suitable pupil to receive my teachings? You will do.”

  Some wise teacher! He had missed the obvious. I didn’t want to be there. So I made it easy for him to understand, punctuating each thought with a yowl. “I want out! I want my boy. I want my mother. I want my ship, and I even want Kibble.”

  “You want a nap. You are getting sleepy. Very sleepy,” he said, and his mind-voice became as soft as my fur, his purr so persuasive and soothing that I fell into a deep sleep.

  Jubal, Sosi, Janina, and the Molly Daise crew, even the captain, made signs, and with Beulah’s help, wrote press releases and flyers demanding that the results of the tests on the impounded animals be made public, along with the supporting data. They drew up a petition and put Sosi in charge of it.

  Other crews joined them, and a few disgruntled pet owners, but Galipolis was not agricultural country. The city people who had animals didn’t depend on them for a livelihood as folks on Sherwood did, Jubal realized. And of the crews, the ones on GG ships didn’t dare protest or they’d lose their jobs. Some crews, like Pop’s old friends—even some aboard the Ranzo—were disinclined to draw official scrutiny to their existence, much less their opinions.

  Even Beulah stayed away. Jubal had been amazed, after all she’d done to help, and when he knew she loved Hadley too, but his redheaded friend shook her head. “Sorry, kid. I’ve got shopping to do. Give ’em hell for me too,” she said.

  A cold rain drizzled down on the protesters as they gathered in front of the lab building. Those still clad in shipsuits were protected, but the rain soaked through caps and hair and chilled them from the top down. It made the lettering on their signs run and softened the cardboard so it flopped from the sticks they were stapled to.

  People hurried past them, hoods raised to protect their heads from the rain, ignoring the protestors when they tried to press flyers into their hands. Sosi’s well-rehearsed tears moved no one—who could tell the tears from the rain?

  A Guard transport buzzed them, a few feet over their heads, then returned, and hovered for several minutes, during which time no one walked by, no flyers were handed out, no petitions signed. Just like the rest of the time they’d been there.

  The passing transport blew more rain down upon their heads. Moments later coms began beeping, buzzing, and dinging.

  Sosi fumbled for hers and said, “Yes, Dad. Okay. Yes. It’s not doing any good anyway.”

  Indu listened to hers then said to the others, “Sorry, folks, but we’ve been ordered to depart.”

  “I can’t leave yet,” Janina told her crewmates.

  “Have to,” Indu told her. “We’ve been ordered to vacate our docking berth to make way for the other ships waiting to dock. Shore leaves have been cancelled.”

  “Then you all go on without me,” she said. “As you said on Sherwood, if there’s no cat, there’s no need for a Cat Person. My place is as near to Chessie as I can get.”

  White-haired Mick touched her arm. “You can’t help her, Kibble. You can’t get near her. The government isn’t going to risk—”

  “They’re not risking anything!” she replied hotly. “It’s all a sham. Jared told me.”

  “Jared Vlast, the vet?” Indu asked.

  Jubal moved closer to hear them over the traffic and the raindrops.

  “Yes, he talked to Mr. Varley just before the orders came down to impound the animals. It’s all to appease a member of the board whose nephew didn’t want Mr. Varley’s friend to have the wild horses we found on Sherwood.”

  “They can’t do that, can they?” Jubal asked.

  “Apparently they can,” Indu said.

  “Even if we could interest someone in launching an investigation, it would take weeks, maybe months, or longer,” Mick said. “Chessie could die of old age in that cage before the GG changes its mind.”

  “What we want doesn’t matter,” Bennie said bitterly. “Our affection for Chessie, our investment in her, all small potatoes where the GG is concerned.”

  Jubal threw his sign down in disgust and stalked away from the group.

  Sosi ran after him, the clipboard with the soggy petition clutched against her.

  “Jubal, where are you going? You have to come back to the ship now.”

  He ran away from her, not wanting her to see him cry. He couldn’t believe how awful everything was. His mom had always led him to believe his old man was a terrible person, and he had pretty much believed her. But Pop was an amateur compared to the GG.

  “Psst, kid,” a voice said from a market alleyway as Jubal stumbled past. “Wanna buy a hot cat?”

  There was the old man in his desert trader disguise, lifting the inner edge of his robe so Doc’s whiskered face popped out.

  Jubal stepped up to him, covering the opening in the robe with his body, and reached out to give Doc a scritch. The little guy was trembling.

  “The part where he understands what’s going on by getting into my head is hard on him,” Pop said, closing the robe over the kitten again. “Your average cat would be clueless and not give a damn, but he knows what’s up and it scares the hell out of him. How did your big protest go?”

  “Not so hot. The only attention we got was from the Guard, who told their bosses, who ordered the ships to scram and take us with them.”

  Pop shrugged. “They’re inclined to overreact about stuff like this.”

  “Yeah,” Jubal said, “Especially when it’s all a load of cow crap.” He told him about Janina’s conversation with the vet regarding the origins of the so-called epidemic.

  “He got this from Varley, did he? About the broken-color mustangs?” the old man asked, wearing what Jubal’s mom called his shifty expression. It was as close as he came to looking guilty.

  “Yes, sir.”

  All his father said was, “Hmmm. Well, you’d best get back to the Ranzo.”

  “Can’t I stay with you?”

  “No, but can you take Doc to your girlfriend for me? The goons got her cat already so they won’t be looking for cats on the Ranzo. I have to do a lot of moving around now and it would be all too easy, and inconvenient, for me to get caught with him on me, not to mention unhealthy for him.”

  But Doc clung to Pop with all four sets of claws and meowed and yowled while presenting his arguments about why he should be allowed to stay. Finally Pop tucked him back into his robe and said with a shrug, “He’s prepared to take his chances, and he’s still a cat, after all. Can’t argue with the damn things.” He patted the lump under his robe affectionately and Jubal heard a satisfied purr. “Now you take off before someone wonders where the meows were coming from.”

  “What will you do?”

  His dad grinned through his grizzled whiskers. “Why, what I do best, boy. Stir up trouble.”

  CHAPTER 18

  CHESTER ABOARD THE PYRAMID SHIP

  “So what do you
do out here in space, other than convince ships you’re in trouble and then kidnap cats who come to save your sorry tail?”

  “Have you not guessed? I have a great mission.”

  “Do tell. And what would that be?”

  “Nothing less than universal domination, of course. It’s always been the primary mission of our species. I’m surprised you tame cats have allowed yourselves to forget that.”

  “Watch who you’re calling tame, you short-haired nut job,” I snarled. “I’ll have you know my mother is from an illustrious line of highly respected specialized security personnel for space vessels. Our kind dominate everything it’s useful to dominate already. What point is there in controlling more than your own people, your own place, and your own life?”

  Pshaw-Ra made a sound like he was starting to spit up a hairball and turned his back, flipping his tail at me as he strolled back up the cat corridor to his cabin. “You truly know nothing of life, catling. Until we achieve universal domination, someone else will always control all other aspects of our lives.”

  Oh, no. This cat truly was one sun short of a solar system. He had been in space too long and lost it. And I was stuck with him. Lucky me. Ow! He was the only companion I had and I was the only one he had. I had to keep him talking, not so much to learn his nefarious scheme as to keep from getting bored between naps and snacks. What could it hurt? Either I would acquire the necessary insight to outwit him and escape to another ship, or I would become as crazed as he was, in which case I wouldn’t mind how weird his ideas were.

  I followed him back to the cabin, grabbed a couple of the remaining fishie treats, and settled down with my front paws tucked under my chest and my tail curled around me. I couldn’t help noticing that it really was a wonderful tail. I raised and lowered its tip and addressed Pshaw-Ra. “Okay, so you’re going to dominate the universe. How?”

  “Why, by introducing the kefer-ka to the unenlightened. Once a cat has partaken of the flesh of the kefer-ka, the mystical properties of the sacred insect enter the eater’s bloodline. The offspring of those who ingest the kefer-ka thereby obtain the power to understand the thoughts of other species. They will also, in many cases, be able to begin universal domination by enthralling at least one susceptible member of the currently dominant species, those who have also partaken of the kefer-ka, either directly or through their food chain.”