“So,” she said in a purr that seemed ominous to Chessie. “You’re a fine fluffy lady, aren’t you, my dear? I understand you are a favorite of Dr. Vlast. We’re not quite sure what happened to your friend, or why he didn’t come to work today. Perhaps he couldn’t bear the idea of having to examine you to the degree necessary to determine the nature of your illness. So we’ll spare him the pain by doing you before he changes his mind and returns. They’ve just got to tidy up the last of that other specimen and we’ll be right with you.”
Chessie puffed to four times her size, her soft fur stiff and straight as quills. She hissed and told the woman off in no uncertain terms. Had the basest crewmen on the Molly Daise been able to understand her spitting and growling, they would have found their gentle Duchess could outcurse them. The woman unfortunately was out of her claw reach, but she leapt back anyway, uttering a high-pitched nervous giggle.
“Nice try, you nasty little beast.”
When the woman had gone, Chessie slowly deflated, her calm all gone as she huddled shaking in one back corner, pushing into the wire as hard as she could for safety. She felt a lick on her left ear. The young mother in the next cage purred comfortingly, the purr fluttering occasionally with her own fear. “Tell me again that story,” the younger cat said. “The one about the place where anyone who killed a cat was put to death.”
CHESTER ABOARD THE PYRAMID SHIP
I don’t see how we can do the other animals any good by landing and getting you and Pshaw-Ra captured too, Jubal said, stroking me. I could not seem to get close enough or be petted quickly or thoroughly enough to suit me. I flipped my tail, impatient with Jubal’s distraction from his main job of keeping my fluff patted smoothly to my form.
I hadn’t the slightest desire to talk about Pshaw-Ra while I was getting caught up on the long weeks without my boy, but clearly the matter of the captive cats was causing agitation among the humans.
To Jubal’s own memories of Hadley’s capture and the cold forbidding fortress now holding my mother and most of our spacefaring kind, I added my memory of Space Jockey, my notoriously cocky sire, trembling in his fur coat as his ship cruised into port toward the fate that he sensed awaited him. I jumped down from Jubal’s lap and padded up the ramp and into the cat corridor in search of the ship’s captain. I supposed I’d have to cope with this before Jubal—for whom I had waited all these weeks—would give me the undivided attention I deserved for as long as I desired. It wasn’t fair, but there it was.
Pshaw-Ra was as enigmatic as ever when I queried him. “I need not land to command,” he said loftily. “But I do require images of the place where the unfortunate felines are being held and under what conditions.”
I showed him the building my boy showed me, the building Jubal and the others had stood in front of yowling at the tops of their voices and scratching to go in while groups of people in white coveralls and masks carried cats inside. I showed him what the boy remembered of the building plans the guard had shared with him, but Pshaw-Ra was not satisfied and was hardly paying attention.
“Stupid of those cats to get caugbt in the first place,” he remarked. He had stopped fiddling with controls and sat cleaning his claws. “But then, they’ve been captives all their lives, I suppose, cozying up to humans, afraid to meet their greater destiny. I’m not sure such devolved cats, with such a slavelike mentality, will be of any use to my grand plan.”
“What are you on about?” I growled. “The humans didn’t want to surrender the cats, and the cats didn’t want to go.”
“Nevertheless, they were surrendered and they did go,” Pshaw-Ra said, smirking through his whiskers. His ears were angled back and his eyes narrowed. “Thus delaying my plan.” His tail smacked the deck in annoyance.
“They were carried in cages,” I pointed out, reminding him of that part of the boy’s image. But though I thought I was being patient with him, my voice came out in a growl and my fur stood up in a huff. That way, even though I was still young enough to be smaller than he under normal circumstances, I was at least as big, probably bigger. I felt enormous. “So, do you really have some idea how to help them or do I have to—” I jumped on top of him, biting and clawing as I’d been wanting to do ever since I met the smug creature.
The fight ended before it began. My claws unhooked, my mouth opened so my teeth let go of the chunk of fur they were ready to yank off him, and I floated up as if back in zero g, then abruptly dropped onto the very spot from which I’d launched my attack. I hunched there glaring at him. What kind of a trick had he played on me? He cheated. Otherwise I could have walloped him at least a little.
“Foolish catling, how do you think you can stand against me? You can achieve nothing without my gracious acquiescence. Do you know how to control my vessel? I think not. Do you know how to release the shuttle? Even if you did, with the mother ship so distant and the target planet still out of range, you and your human companions would perish before you arrived. Confront your fate, catling. You are at my mercy. You and your plodding, inelegant human companions as well.”
“Stop waggling your rear and hunt if you’re going to, Pshaw-Ra. Jubal says they’re probably murdering cats while you sit here grooming your bung hole.”
“The information he provided me was inadequate. I need more details if I am to deploy my resources to the best advantage.”
I checked with my boy but he had already told me everything he could about the building. We couldn’t get past the lobby, Chester. They weren’t about to let us up there so we could tell people what they were doing.
When this was conveyed to Pshaw-Ra, he said, “Well then, if the human captors will not allow humans inside, no doubt they would be well pleased to acquire another of our noble race to humiliate and degrade. This presents an opportunity for you to prove your worthiness, catling.”
“You mean I should go in there on purpose?” I asked.
Before I could continue my own protests, Jubal sent such a forcible one it made my poor little head ache. No! Chester, no way are you going in there. They’ve got your mother and Hadley already. I just got you back and I’m not going to let them make a science experiment out of you. You’re not going. Period. Just forget it.
I relayed his sentiments to Pshaw-Ra.
“I thought you said you were not a slave. Yet if this human boy forbids you to do a thing that will free our kind from what he at least considers a dreadful fate, you just curl up and purr and say, Yes, master? You are a disgrace.”
“Jubal is scared I’ll be hurt because he loves me. If you cared about anyone but yourself, you’d understand that. In fact, if you have this great plan to free everybody, why am I the one who’s supposed to crawl tamely into the cage? Put the cat where the chatter is, Pshaw-Ra.”
“Foolish spawn of a tame pussycat, you think I fear to go among those puny humans?”
“You bet your slinky tail I do,” I said, lashing my own fluffy appendage.
“I simply thought you would want to be on the scene to rescue your mother and be praised by your human. That sort of thing seems to matter to you.”
I glared, tired of his catty remarks about my relationships. He was just jealous.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, catching that last thought. “I am not jealous of your extended childhood attachment to your mother, and certainly not of your unnatural bond with that oafish child.”
“Take that back,” I said.
“You are so easily distracted,” he said lazily. “I suppose I had better come along and supervise or you will botch everything. Now then, this is the plan …”
No! Jubal said, when Pshaw-Ra had spoken. No way, Chester. I am not turning you over to those goons. Or the skinny cat either.
Wait till you get to know him like I do, I suggested. You’ll change your mind and beg them to take him. You think he’s so smart. This is the kind of scheme he devises—ones that involve getting my tail stepped on.
Why would a cat even think up something
like that?
He says because of his plan for universal domination, I replied, licking my paw and inspecting the result. So far it isn’t really working out for him. But he says we are approaching Galipolis now and I’m supposed to tell you to tell the others to put us in cages as if we’re your captives.
Only one problem with that, Jubal said. We don’t happen to have any cages with us. I bet every cage in the cosmos is already in that lab.
I told Pshaw-Ra the bad news. He was still in the cabin, apparently preparing for landing. “Useless!” he complained. “These people are utterly useless. Very well, then. I will be landing on the roof of the building in question. Once we are there, one of your humans must go to the evildoers and request the loan of a cage so that they may surrender two more cats for degradation and persecution.”
“If not death,” I said, liking this plan less all the time.
“If there is death, it will not be ours.”
“How are we going to prevent it if they want to kill us?” I asked. “Once we get out of the cages, will you get yourself wet and grow into a lion like some sort of dehydrated food packet?”
He then said those words truly aggravating to the young of any species: “That, my son, is for me to know and you—and them—to find out.”
Maybe I wouldn’t wait for the humans to kill Pshaw-Ra. Maybe I’d rip his ears off myself.
CHAPTER 22
Chessie screamed and snarled when the hazmat-suited lab assistant, protected by his gauntlets and helmet, scooped her out of her cage and deposited her in another one.
The cage smelled like terror. The urine and fur had been cleaned from its surfaces, but not the fear of the cats who had preceded her into the cage.
The man who carried her cage bore it swiftly toward the door, eager to get rid of the maddened animal inside.
The other cats, alert and in full voice, protested at the tops of their lungs. The cry of her foster kitten Bat was among them, “Mama, no!”
She knew when the door opened that she would never see them again, and then it swung wide and in an instant she was on the other side, in That Place. It smelled bad, worse than inside the cage room. It felt bad. The light was too bright, the walls swallowed her protests. The man deposited her cage on a metal table and turned away. She thought he was leaving her there alone. Then something came at her through the wires of her cage and stabbed her sharply, like a very long claw. When she whirled to slap it away, she saw the man withdrawing a syringe, the kind Jared used to give her vaccines and antibiotics.
“That should calm you down, old girl,” he said, not unkindly.
She shuddered, and her legs collapsed under her.
She didn’t close her eyes, however, didn’t sleep, just lost the ability to control her own movements.
Vaguely she was aware of the whispering of the shiny bugs from the edges of the room. She caught a whiff of the old cat who had preceded her. When the man opened the cage door and pulled her out, she couldn’t so much as bite him. Her head was too heavy for her to raise it. When he lifted her, it drooped and she could see her tail dangling like a length of old rope. She had soiled it, though she had not felt her bowels and bladder releasing.
The man left her lying there helpless while he ducked out the door and called, “She’s quiet, Doc.”
The white-haired woman, wearing a suit and a mask, but not a helmet, entered. “You can leave, Weeks. I’ll take it from here,” she said.
Chessie didn’t see the man go. She was staring up at the woman, though her vision kept blurring. One moment the woman was just standing there. The next she was holding some horrible metal thing with teeth. The woman grabbed her front paws with her free hand and flipped her onto her back. The toothed thing sprang to life, buzzing like a swarm of angry insects, as the woman lowered it toward her belly.
It touched her, cold, hard, and pinched and pulled, followed by a sensation of openness, bareness. Fluffs of fur drifted up from the toothy buzzer.
“Maybe I’ll shave you all over, cat. No one will recognize you without all that fuzz.”
Chessie could not even cry.
CHESTER TO THE RESCUE
“I control the kefer-ka, instructing them in their destiny, guiding them to their tasks,” Pshaw-Ra bragged as he settled his vessel onto the roof of the laboratory building. Even though it could look like an ordinary ship, the pyramid craft was actually so small that it slipped easily through the tangled traffic over Galipolis. The biggest part of it was the shuttle bay, which seemed to be much larger than its actual capacity, just big enough to dock one ordinary shuttle and its own little cat-sized one. I wasn’t sure how he managed it, but Pshaw-Ra had expanded on the natural feline ability to appear larger than usual when necessary, extending it to his vessel. Was he as brilliant as he thought or merely crazy? Brilliant would be best, under the circumstances.
My boy and his companions were gone long enough for me to enjoy a refreshing nap. When they returned, bearing one cage among them, they appeared both concerned and oddly smug.
Jubal was shaking and his mind roiled with fear and frustration. He had the most to lose, namely me. To amend that, he had the most to lose other than me, and of course Pshaw-Ra.
This is not a good idea, Chester, he said, scooping me up and cuddling me to his chest. I felt his heart beating hard. It seemed to be raining warm drops, even though we were still inside the ship. I turned in his arms, put my paws on his collarbones and licked the salty drops from his chin and cheeks. Dr. Vlast isn’t there anymore. I asked for Dr. Mbele but he wasn’t there either. It’s some lady vet instead. She acted like she was too busy to loan us the cage, but her assistant wouldn’t do it. He said he wasn’t authorized to accept animals from anyone other than the designated GHA agents. They had a really silly argument about it, and in the end she had to come down and bring us the cage herself. The guard couldn’t let us in or leave his post. She looked kinda mean. I think maybe she’s a dog doctor they assigned to cats. You’d better stay here.
As Pshaw-Ra received this intelligence, his eyes slitted with calculation and he marched straight into the open cage, where he sat down, waiting.
But then, he was crazy. Definitely crazy. And I didn’t want to leave Jubal. I’d just got him back. It wasn’t fair. Pshaw-Ra didn’t care about anyone else so he had nothing to lose, but I had to think of my boy, didn’t I, if not my own tail? “Since it’s your grand scheme, Pshaw-Ra, just go by yourself.”
He yawned and gave me a withering glance. “I could, of course, but at some point I’ll need two-legged minions for the heavy lifting parts of my plan. Your connection with the boy would be useful in summoning them. But if you don’t wish to keep all felinekind as we know it from doom and destruction, please don’t let me interrupt your touching reunion. I’m sure your mother will forgive you with her dying breath. And without my protection, of course, you’re left with these useless humans who will be forced by their evil overlords to submit you to meet your own death. Unless, of course, we end their evil dominion here and now.”
In favor of his own evil dominion, no doubt.
But I knew I could not stay behind. With the cage into which Pshaw-Ra had so blithely settled himself, Jubal and the others had brought the stink of fear—and it smelled like my mother’s. She had been imprisoned in this cage.
Stick me in there, Jubal, I told the boy. I’m sure to everyone else it sounded as if I said “mew,” but Jubal had heard me, and through me, most of my discussion with Pshaw-Ra.
Jubal sniffed and wiped his nose on the arm of his suit. I knew cats were good at guilt trips but I didn’t know it worked on other cats, he complained, the tears still falling so hard he petted them into my fur as he deposited me next to Pshaw-Ra. The poor boy could hardly breathe, he was so choked up with worry for my sake and grief at the prospect of losing me—again—but he said bravely, I’ll be with you as far as the lobby. If you change your mind, let me know and I’ll let you out. Then run like crazy.
; Pshaw-Ra yawned again. It was meant to show his disdain, but watching his tail switch I realized he was actually using it to disguise his own nerves. “Oh, really. Such histrionics. Spare me.”
“Just shut up,” I told him. “Or l really will let you go alone!”
His eyes widened earnestly as he looked at me. “You must trust me, catling. I have a plan. I really do. It is in motion even now.”
“Oh, goody. I can’t wait to see what happens,” I said, lifting my leg and cleaning under my tail. At that inopportune moment Jubal lifted the cage, toppling me into Pshaw-Ra and rolling both of us to the back of the cage. I thought it was fear making my skin crawl, then I saw Pshaw-Ra’s bronze coat ripple like wind blowing across the sand dunes in one of Jubal’s books. We were sharing our fur with guests. The kefer-ka were using us as transport and concealment.
Jubal carried us out of the vessel and onto the roof.
The woman Beulah led us, her back straight and her red curls bouncing as she walked down the steps, Jubal carrying our cages in the middle, the girl Sosi bringing up the rear. All of the humans were afraid. I knew that if they were caught they would be in a lot of trouble with the authorities, probably whether or not our mission succeeded. They didn’t care about that too much—at least, Jubal didn’t—but they were worried about the captive cats.
We emerged from the stairwell into a broad, bland corridor of white walls and, to the right of us, a bank of double metal doors. Beulah pushed a button and a lift came to pick us up.
“Let’s not go to the lobby,” Jubal said. “We should stop at the fourth floor instead. That’s where the cats are.”
“We don’t have the pass codes, Jubal,” Beulah told him. “We won’t be able to get in to see them without the pass codes.”
Catalyst Page 21
