CHAPTER 20

“Can’t you just release them when nobody’s looking?” Janina pleaded with Jared. He looked tired and as ill as the healthy animals in his charge were supposed to be. She knew he was under tremendous stress from the conflict between his duty and his inclinations. He and a vet tech were on duty that night in the central laboratory, where the Barque Cats as well as the dogs of some of the more prominent citizens were kept. The farm animals had gone to a separate facility, the house pets who were not valuable working animals to another. Jared broke security by meeting her outside the building again while the guard slept at his station.

Jared shook his head. “It would do no good. They’d only round them up again and maybe kill them on sight as health hazards to the general populace.” He ran a hand through his hair, which was in need of washing and cutting. “By the government’s definition, all of the animals in custody are contaminated by this terrible threat they’ve invented. They just haven’t decided how much of a threat it’s supposed to be. Every minute, I’m afraid some overly cautious pencil pusher will decide to destroy the animals just to be on the ‘safe’ side. I’m arguing against it and so are many others, because after all, so far no one has found anything to indicate the fairy dust effect is harmful to anyone.

“Of course, the more aggressively scientific among us want to sacrifice a few animals for further analysis, but I’ve been able to keep them from doing it since I’ve been here, so far, at least, and some of my colleagues have done the same thing at their new duty stations. I have a few allies here, but there are also some who are very eager to please the officials who started this mess. I can only hope that there are other officials who depend on their animals for a living or just love them and don’t want them threatened. Someone has to come to their senses and expose the rotten root of this madness and end it.”

Janina was silent, clinging to his arm, conveying her support through her touch.

After a long moment Jared added, “Chessie is fine. I think she exerts a calming influence on the other cats, in fact—at least when I’m around—because she knows me and trusts me. I talk to her and she rubs against the wire of her cage.”

“Cage?” Janina asked, her voice breaking to think of her beautiful, intelligent, resourceful friend caged.

“Banks and banks of them, I’m afraid,” Jared said. “I’m sorry, Jannie.”

They parted, and Janina walked away. The sidewalks had little traffic at this hour, since Galipolis theoretically had a proper night and day, though you could hardly tell with the sky so full of traffic all the time. The buildings were all connected by sky bridges, and had docking bays for flitters on their upper levels, so mostly only heavier, more industrial traffic used the roads, especially at night. The swooping, circling, orbiting lights from ships and shuttles waiting to dock was so heavy that it obscured the real stars and cast writhing shadows, black against darkened surfaces of streets, buildings, and alleyways. This time of night, before the street sweeping sucker-trucks began their morning rounds, the gutters were full of debris. Hard to understand how it got there since notices against littering were posted everywhere and the penalties were heavy. On previous trips she had sometimes encountered people walking a dog, or an entire pack of dogs, and in residential districts cats had often watched at the windows or from the tops of fences, or darted across roads. Now there were no animals in evidence, of course. They would all be in cages somewhere.

She continued her walk, though her feet were sore from the un-carpeted sidewalks and streets, which were much harder to walk on than the plusher amenities of the Molly Daise. Indu’s cousin Chandra had agreed to put Janina up in her tiny fourth-floor flat. It was a walk-up because the lift was broken. The arrangement was only intended to be temporary. Jared had suggested that he speak to his superiors about hiring her to help in the lab. But her position as a ship’s CP, and the fact that she had been spotted during the protests, was against her.

There was no work for an “animal handler” elsewhere at the moment either. Should worse come to worst, she’d need to start over, find some other low-paying job here in the city or be out on the streets. Galipolis was not Sherwood. For that matter, by now Sherwood wouldn’t be much like Sherwood either, with no animals and all of the farms and ranches closed down.

Formerly prosperous or at least surviving landowners and agricultural workers would be packing their own bags, looking for unaccustomed work elsewhere.

She did not think she could bear it, that Chessie and the other glorious, useful, beautiful ships’ cats, and all of the gentle, trusting animals who had been reared in love and friendship, should be destroyed, murdered. The way things looked, the GHA might as well put her down too, along with a lot of other people.

Suddenly, as she passed a darkened alleyway, someone grabbed her arm, yanked hard and pulled her off balance. She tried to resist but was taken too much by surprise to remember any of the self-defense moves she’d been taught by the Molly’s senior crew members. Her assailant twirled her around, and she ended up with her back against the tall front of the man whose arm held her slight form firmly in place.

“Psst, look sharp, Kibble,” he whispered into her ear. “If I were as bad as some of the company I keep, I’d say you would make a good victim about now, what with that hangdog expression and slumping posture.”

She twisted, kicked, and tried to fight, expecting at any time he would pull a knife or a gun and beat, rob, or rape her—probably all three—when her flailing hands sent her elbow back to his chest.

“Meyeh!” came a protest from the vicinity of his chest.

“Hey, careful there, lady,” the man said, releasing her. She started to run, but two things stopped her. One, she recognized him as the man who had accosted her at Hood Station just before Chessie was kidnapped. And two, he had stopped paying any attention to her at all. He’d opened his robe, and a pair of golden eyes peered up at him.

“You okay, little buddy?” the man asked in a soft husky voice as his big finger stroked between the shining eyes.

“Meep,” the kitten replied, and began rumbling loudly enough to be heard above the traffic circling the city.

“You’re the catnapper!” she accused him. “How come everyone else had to give up their cats and you were able to keep this poor kitten?”

He shrugged. “Other people play by the rules or aren’t as good at breaking them as I am. And you gotta agree this little guy is better off with me than he would be in that lab with your boyfriend.”

“What?”

“Jubal is my kid. He told me what your sweetie told you about this whole fiasco.”

“But the kitten?”

“Never mind him. He and I are pals and none of your concern. But what I want to know, lady, is what are you and that vet going to do now to end this before this little guy’s mother and—”

“His what?”

“Oops,” the man said, tucking the kitten back inside his robe. “What I meant to say was, with all the cats in the blinkin’ universe locked up there, this guy’s mother must be among them.”

“She is!” Janina accused. “That’s one of Chessie’s kittens, isn’t it?”

The man hesitated only slightly before saying, “You caught me. If I help you help Chessie and the others, you won’t try to take him back, will you?”

Suddenly finding a worthy target for her pent-up frustration, fear, and anger, Janina said, “I’m not promising you anything! You started this whole thing by burning down Jared’s clinic and stealing Chessie. You nearly killed her, and now she can’t have any more kittens. I think you stole the entire litter, including the one you have now. If you can help Chessie, and me and Jared, you will anyway because otherwise you and the little one will be caught and he’ll be killed with the others. So stop wasting time and tell me what’s on your mind.”

“You’re not as dumb as you look, Kibble, though you don’t know the half of it,” he said. “Glad to know you’re on the ball. I need you to be smart and look lively. I also need you to help me talk to your boyfriend.”

Jubal stood his ground, watching truculently as Beulah herded Sosi back to the shuttle.

But suddenly Chester’s full weight settled onto his shoulder, just before they both fell to the deck as the ship accelerated. So much for the Ranzo’s tractor beam, he thought. They were on their own.

Chester bounded up the carpeted ramp to the cat hole. Jubal felt elated when he realized he could see, through Chester’s eyes, into the dark corridor, all the way up the twisted passage to the tiny cabin where the skinny, short-haired, tawny-colored cat—Pshaw-Ra, Chester supplied the name—pawed at the controls. They looked like raised carvings of ancient hieroglyphics. The skinny cat dabbed them with his paws and bumped them with his nose in a methodical manner.

Chester asked, “What are you doing, Pshaw-Ra?”

“Leaving, of course,” the other cat replied without looking at him.

“But why?”

“The humans are attempting to foil my plot for universal domination,” Pshaw-Ra replied. “I must intervene before all is lost to their ignorance and superstition.”

Jubal asked Chester, What plot? Who’s he calling ignorant and superstitious?

Chester didn’t answer, but instead asked Pshaw-Ra, “How do you plan to do that, exactly?”

“By stopping the foolish two-leggeds from destroying our kind and the kefer-ka. Tell our guests to make themselves comfortable. They’ll be with us until I have need of them.”

“I don’t think they’re going to like that,” Chester told him, but Jubal, who had despaired that anything could be done to help the impound situation, gathered that Pshaw-Ra intended to do something about it. Furthermore, both Pshaw-Ra and Chester seemed to believe he actually could.

It’s about time someone tried to do something to stop this horse manure, Jubal told Chester. I think I’ve got it figured out, Chester. Pshaw-Ra is a superior alien being in cat form, isn’t he? But he’s a cat too and he doesn’t like what’s happening to the other cats?

He thinks he’s superior, Chester agreed. But he’s not exactly an alien. He’s got a ship he can fly himself and does some cool telepathic tricks. But he says all cats could be like him—as if that would be a good thing.

You think he can pull it off? Can he save Chessie and the other cats?

I have no idea. He thinks so. But then, he thinks a lot of himself. Did you bring any fishie treats with you, perchance?

Chester left Pshaw-Ra still working the controls of the ship with all four paws, his nose, and certain impossible maneuvers with his tail. The ship’s cat-tain made no attempt to stop him from rejoining his boy.

Leaping from the cat hatch to land heavily on Jubal’s shoulder, Chester licked the fingers that scratched his fur and took a couple of long swipes at his chest fur for good measure.

Jubal dug into his pocket for the treats. They weren’t Chester’s favorites, but he accepted them after a preliminary sniff, eating them from Jubal’s hand.

Once the treats restored his strength, he gave greater consideration to Jubal’s question. Could Pshaw-Ra do what all of those cat-less ships full of people had been unable to do?

Finally he came to the conclusion, which he shared with Jubal, that probably Pshaw-Ra did know something that would help. It would only be fair if he did, in Chester’s opinion, because the skinny cat and something called the kefer-ka—Jubal picked up the image of one of the shiny beetles—had created the basis for the panic to begin with.

If he flies his own ship and tricks people into bringing him supplies, he must be a pretty smart kitty, Jubal replied. He thought he was being encouraging but realized his mistake when Chester bristled, jealous that the boy he considered his offered praise of the other cat. Not as handsome as you, of course, and nowhere near as nice, definitely less fluffy, and he doesn’t look nearly as soft, but still, really smart. I don’t suppose he ever mentioned what his plan might be?

Before Chester could respond, footsteps came running down the corridor from the shuttle bay. “Jubal, Beulah says to tell you we’re stuck,” Sosi said. “The docking bay hatch won’t open and the Ranzo has disappeared from the sensors.”

“It’s okay, Sosi,” Jubal said, not knowing for sure if it was but thinking it was a good idea to help his crewmates see their predicament in a positive light—as he, despite Chester’s reservations, was beginning to do. “Chester’s buddy, the short-haired cat, is a superior sort of alien being named Pshaw-Ra. He, uh—watches over cats, and he’s going to do something to try to help the impounded cats now. I think he may need us and the shuttle to do it.”

“You are so full of it, Jubal,” Sosi began, then seeing his serious expression, asked, “Really? You’re not kidding?”

“I’d never kid about something like that and neither would Chester.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he and I talk,” Jubal said. He’d never told Sosi the nature of his bond with Chester, but now seemed like a good time.

“Hadley talks. He says ‘meow,’ ‘yow,’ ‘rrrowl,’ ‘prrrt,’ and a lot of other stuff.”

“No, I mean, Chester and I can understand each other’s words and hear and see what’s happening in each other’s lives. We’ve been able to since he was a baby kitten.”

“No, you haven’t!” she scoffed. “That’s just silly. Sure you can tell what a kitty means by his expression and how he holds his tail and ears and stuff, but even the smartest, best bred ships’ cats don’t talk Standard.”

“I didn’t say they did. Chester doesn’t actually speak in human words—his vocal cords wouldn’t handle it. But you don’t need language to read thoughts. It’s experience, you know? You can think something in one language or another, but what you mean is always in there in the thought, regardless.”

“Well, Beulah doesn’t need words right now to say what she means either, but she’s saying a lot of them and they aren’t fit for my delicate childlike ears. So you and the cats had better fill her in before she tries to blast our way out of here.”

The GHA inspection team took Klinger’s farm by surprise. As the nephew and namesake of GHA head councilman P. B. Klinger, Secretary of Agriculture, Phillip B. Klinger considered himself immune from harassment by what he considered his uncle’s agency.

And yet, when Phil and his latest bride dismounted following their morning ride, there was the team of white-suited, clipboard-wielding technobureaucrats, claiming they’d come to inspect his stock. They actually called his expensive, beautifully bred horses “stock.”

“Mr. Klinger,” said the older of the two men, a rugged-looking and, judging from the latest Mrs. Klinger’s reaction to him, handsome fellow. He possessed a deep authoritative voice. “It’s come to our attention that there’s been an oversight in my predecessor’s coverage of this area. While your neighbors have all had their stock and homes inspected for the target pathogen, your property does not seem to have undergone similar scrutiny.”

“I had my own vet look at my horses and other beasts,” Klinger told him. “He found no irregularities. Evidently my precautions—”

The younger white-suited man cleared his throat. “Sorry, sir, but that is precisely why the GHA has temporarily cross-posted its veterinary practitioners. The fear is that doctors might not deal conservatively enough with their usual clients to adequately address a threat of this magnitude.”

“We think it highly unlikely, with the pathogen so pervasive in the surrounding properties,” the older man said, “that your animals would have been spared, Mr. Klinger. We’ll need to test all of them—”

“I just told you, they’ve been tested—”

“—again,” the older man finished.

“This is an outrage,” Klinger said. “I’ll have you know my uncle is the head of the GHA council. He’ll have your jobs for this.”

“On the contrary, sir,” the younger man replied. “Animals with these symptoms have been impounded throughout the galaxy. Your uncle surely would be the last to want favoritism to a relative’s stock that could possibly lead to further contamination. The impound transport will be along momentarily, so if you’ll have your employees stable your horses and round up any other animals living on the farm …”

“I don’t believe this,” Klinger said. “I’m putting in a call to my uncle now. He’ll straighten you out.”

“As you say, sir. But in the meantime, we need to begin inspecting the stock,” the older fellow said.

“I don’t think so, Mister—” Klinger looked at name tags. “—Pointer.”

The older man looked at the other two in dismay. He gave Klinger a wounded look. “Frankly, Mr. Klinger, I am surprised at your attitude.”

He didn’t elaborate, but Klinger knew what he meant. Even though his uncle had impounded his neighbor’s horses at his own suggestion that there was something wrong with them, he had not expected that he would be identified as the origin of the information. The matter was supposed to be between his uncle and himself. Actually, it was essential to the credibility of the report and to his uncle’s image as an impartial defender of public health that a family member’s involvement not be revealed. No, his uncle wouldn’t have told even his closest associates about the connection, though all they needed to do was look at the names and do the math.

“What do you mean by that?” he challenged Pointer finally.

“Simply that a man with such close ties to the GHA surely must be aware of the vital nature of our mission in protecting the health and welfare of the universe at large, and this farming community in particular. All of your neighbors have submitted to impounds, despite protests that we were ruining them. Economic concerns cannot be allowed to overrule the need to protect the public. Of course, it’s upsetting to lose land that’s been in your family for generations, or have to see valuable beasts taken for possible slaughter, but we need to protect the people.”

Klinger thought about the offers he’d made his adjacent neighbors for their land at a fraction of its value. They had been resentful, but hadn’t turned him down yet. Had they reported him?

The younger man spoke again. “We can bring in the Guard to assist us if necessary, Mr. Klinger, but I don’t think you’d want that.”

Klinger’s lips tightened. His uncle would kill him if he got into trouble with the law over this.

His new bride clung to his arm but said with a smile, “Of course not. We know you’re just doing your job, but all of our animals are as healthy as can be.”

“All of the other animals appear to be on the surface too, ma’am, but on further investigation, we’ve found an alien substance in their bodily fluids. The GHA says that we must impound all animals pending our investigation of the long-term effects of the suspected pathogen.”

She looked back at the beautiful bay mare Klinger had given her as a wedding present. She was a horsewoman first and foremost. Her husband was not as bad as everyone said he was, or so she wanted to believe, but the horses were absolutely splendid, and she couldn’t bear that anything would happen to them. She squeezed Klinger’s arm warningly. She was very beautiful, from a family of powerful lawmakers herself, and furthermore she had—on the advice of and with the support of her relatives—not signed the prenuptial agreement. “Why don’t I show you around the stables while Philly takes care of a little family business?”