CHAPTER 27

In the months that followed, the galaxy almost returned to preimpound status. The Klingers were fined most of their holdings to help defray the costs of reparations to other farmers and ranchers. Varley’s friend Trudeau ended up with a good part of the Klingers’ land. The most recent Mrs. Klinger got what was left and began divorce proceedings against Philly. His councilor uncle was not incarcerated, but the nephew, who took most of the official blame, spent time being reeducated by the Galactic government in one of their holding camps. For a camp, it was extremely expensive, and the expenses came out of the pockets or the sweat of the campers.

Punishing those responsible for the damage didn’t diminish what was irreversible. As Jared feared, in some facilities animals sick with ordinarily treatable communicable diseases had been penned side by side with healthy ones, infecting them. Inferior food and water—or in some places, by some officials, profound neglect—had damaged other herds.

Janina, with no cat to tend aboardship, left the Molly Daise for full-time employment with Jared, who had all the work he could handle helping rebuild herds and restoring health to sickened or frightened animals. Weeks, the lab tech from the Klinger building, joined them as a full-time vet tech. The man wore a permanently wistful look, as if part of him was always elsewhere. Janina desperately missed Chessie.

But the Barque Cats seemed to be a thing of the past. The beautiful, highly bred ships’ cats had vanished into space on that last fateful day and could not be readily replaced in the ships or hearts of their crews. Since many of the pet cats, barn cats, and feral cats dirtside and in space stations had also been impounded, the felines were mostly wary of people. Those who were not had no more experienced cats to train them in their duties. Not all cats liked shipboard life either.

Ponty and Doc rejoined the Grania. Ponty found he always needed someone threatening him with death and dismemberment to do his best work, and Mavis fit the bill admirably. Besides, even though Doc had bonded with Ponty, he was still technically Mavis’s cat. They kept quiet about their link on shipboard, feeling it was best all the way around if Mavis knew nothing of it.

Older ships from smaller, less prosperous lines started being decommissioned after experiencing accidents that could have been prevented by a resident guardian cat. Even the newer, more expensive vessels that had better technology for detecting air leaks and hull holes weren’t worth a damn when it came to catching mice and other vermin.

Meanwhile, Ponty researched, repeatedly comming Janina to ask more about the short-haired cat in the triangular ship and anything she could remember about it.

“There were picture symbols,” she told him. “Like the one on the hull with the cat outline over the COB sign. The registration was in picture symbols too—a feather-shaped thing, or maybe it was a carving knife, another cat, a bird. Not Standard.” She tried to draw some of them. They looked like hieroglyphics, so he began researching places where those might still be used.

The thing was, they weren’t, except by people translating them from museum pieces of great antiquity. Very few of those had survived the disintegration of Earth.

There was one early settlement of Egyptian Revivalists, but it had been disbanded after less than a century and the inhabitants scattered among newer colonies on planets made habitable by upgraded terraforming techniques. He was trying to figure out where it might be when Mavis had a little disagreement with the Galactic Guard over a cargo consignment and decided to retire to Alexandra Station until the law got interested in someone else.

Alexandra Station was a dump, one of the earliest and still most primitive outposts of the GG, manned by surly corrupt staffers who were rejects on punishment duty from elsewhere. The place was dirty, dangerous, and so fraught with safety hazards it was a wonder it remained aloft. But it was far off the frequent flier space-ways and ignored by the Guard, who had noticed an alarming tendency for people in authority to go missing or be taken suddenly dead if they ventured onto Alexandra.

It was just the place for the Grania in disgrace.

It also gave Ponty an excuse to stay in his cabin with Doc while the rest of the crew caroused. He was fresh out of charm and amiability. His wife had left him (well, technically he’d done the leaving, but she made it clear he wasn’t welcome back), his son was missing, and he was stuck on yet another outlaw ship trying to pull off a trick he was increasingly unsure would work. His searching and researching had been a distraction to keep him from facing the truth. Dung heaps like Alexandra Station were going to be his lot for the rest of his life. It was him and Doc, and in a few years—since cats didn’t live long—Doc would be gone too. Actually, as a matter of fact, he didn’t feel too great himself. His back ached and he felt a throbbing in his left temple that maybe was the beginning of a stroke?

He lay down, hoping it would go away, and Doc curled up on his chest.

He was too depressed to sleep, which was a good thing because he was awake—or so he thought—when Chester walked into the room, jumped up on the bunk, and with a flip of his black fluffy tail beckoned Ponty and Doc to follow him. The ship was much more deserted than Ponty had ever seen it before. He thought at least a skeleton crew was aboard, but everyone seemed to be off partying or wheeling and dealing at the station.

Chester walked unconcernedly through the ship. Ponty tried to talk to him. “Did you know it was okay to come back now, boy?” he asked aloud, his own voice resonating strangely in his ears, and then asked Doc. Did he know?

But Doc seemed preoccupied and didn’t reply, just trotted along behind Chester.

Yeah, everything is fine and everybody really misses all you cats and wish you’d come back. Jubal’s mother and I miss him too. Is he okay? Doc, dammit, can’t you talk to him?

Doc looked over his shoulder then forward again, his tail beckoning like a finger curling in and out—come here.

One minute Ponty was staring at their tails and the next he was on the bridge.

The com screen filled with words, glowing green on a black screen. It had never done that before. Why now?

Chester jumped up to the keyboard, and as the words kept forming, it seemed to Ponty almost as if the cat was writing the message, but cats couldn’t do that. Could they?

He looked to Doc again, but Doc just hopped up beside the keyboard and looked over it while Chester’s big fluffy paws patted the keys and green letters flowed across the screen.

How is Jubal? Ponty tried asking mentally, as he usually did with Doc, but Chester didn’t turn around.

Some like it here very much, but some are ready to negotiate. Kibble should come, and Weeks. And the doctor.

Come where? Are you and Jubal ready to come back, Chester boy?

The cat had disappeared, though, and on the screen the last of the flowing letters lingered for a moment: Some are willing to negotiate. Then they too disappeared.

Doc jumped down, and Ponty caught a glimpse of another fluffy tail whisking past, then Chester was sitting beside the navigation screen. On it was Alexandra Station, and the nearby moons and planets. One of the planets blinked. As if moving his hand through molasses, Ponty reached forward and clicked the SAVE SCREEN key.

Chester touched noses with Doc, then with a soft breath of fur, rubbed against Ponty’s arm. He shouldn’t have been able to feel it because he had long sleeves on, but somehow he did. Chester leaped through the viewport and out across space until his form was swallowed by a familiar triangular craft in the distance.

Ponty opened his eyes and found himself in his bunk. Doc sat up on his chest, did a hazardous stretch that threatened Ponty’s chin with extended claws, yawned with a curl of bright pink tongue, and started washing. Ponty dropped him to the deck and sat up.

Did I dream that or what? he asked the cat, but Doc yawned again, hopped back up on the bunk and snuggled up in the warm spot.

With his feet firmly on the deck, Ponty headed for the bridge. He walked down the corridor, past shipmates in other cabins playing cards or eating. Mavis was gone and the navigator was asleep at the helm, but Ponty could see something blinking on the screen that should have been blank while they were docked. The com officer was not at his station, but across the screen, in glowing green letters across the black blankness, were the words: Bring Fishie Treats.