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  Jubal half expected Chester to decline in favor of his original course, but his tuxedo-furred friend had decided that while something had clearly gone wrong with Pshaw-Ra’s plans, the tawny short-hair wasn’t about to discuss it with them for the time being.

  Without a further word to Chester, Pshaw-Ra took off across the burning sands in the general direction of the river.

  By the time Jubal and Chester boarded the Ranzo, the place was a cacophony of yowls, howls, hissings, spittings, and snarls. Sosi was screaming, “Hadley! Stop! Other kitty, let Hadley alone!”

  Mild-mannered Hadley, in full-furred battle dress, straddled his food dish as three other Barque Cats, including Chester’s sire Space Jockey, challenged him for the right to eat from it.

  “Mine!” Hadley snarled. “My food. My bed. My ship. My crew. My girl. Mine!”

  The others lashed their tails and closed in.

  Space Jockey leapt into the air and Sosi screamed, “No, kitty, no! Hadley!” Hadley seemed to levitate to the top of Sosi’s head, where he clung while she screamed, now in pain.

  Hadley’s remaining food was the only cat food on the Ranzo. The river wasn’t far; maybe it contained fish. Jubal saw himself with a line and a pole catching endless fish to keep the cats fed. That could work out. He liked to fish, though he’d never had much time to do it.

  Fish would probably be about all they could get for the cats, though. He didn’t think a mouse could survive here.

  “Does Hadley have any extra food?” Jubal asked Sosi.

  She shook her head.

  “There’s not much,” Captain Loloma said, correcting his daughter and giving her a stern look. “We were going to restock at the next station and then we were diverted to Galipolis for the catty call.”

  If Pshaw-Ra had it wrong and they weren’t welcome on Mau, the Barque Cats could be in for a bad time. Gentle as they were with their human crews, they were used to situations in which one cat inhabited one ship. Right now there were probably more than 150 of them stuffed into every available cat-sized spot aboard the Ranzo. Somehow, Jubal just couldn’t see this working out long-term. But now that they’d lost the attrackers, maybe Captain Loloma could find some not-so-law-abiding place to take them until the plague scare blew over. Meanwhile, some of these cats at least were going to need other accommodations.

  He looked up into the ventilation duct and saw two cat shadows arched and bristling at each other. “Hey, you two, cut it out,” he told them. “This is only temporary, you know.” But the cats either didn’t hear him or didn’t care.

  A larger, older cat dabbed a clawed paw at Chester, who sat calmly except for the switching of his tail. Jubal understood him to say, Come off it, old man. You can’t fight your way out of everything. I’m younger, stronger, and I take after you so go scare someone else, or better yet … Chester gave Jubal a significant look. Jubal, still in his shipsuit, grabbed the larger cat, Chester’s sire, Space Jockey, known as Jock. It wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done. Jock clawed and bit and squirmed. I’m starving! Jock snarled. At least in the lab we got fed.

  “We’ll take care of it,” Chester said. “My boy will bring food, right, Jubal?”

  “There’s an extra bag back on the pyramid ship,” Jubal said alone. “We can go get that. But let’s split up the rest of Hadley’s chow to calm everyone down first. We can put the ginger momcat and her kittens in a separate cabin so they’ll be safe.”

  By the time Jubal and Chester set out for the pyramid ship to retrieve the food, the battle cries and yowls had been replaced by the happier sound of kibble being crunched as whiskered faces dove into dishes of it.

  While Jubal dragged the large bag of cat food toward the outer hatch, Chester sprang up to the cat ramp and darted inside, his paws retreating into the cabin in the nose cone. He reemerged with a bag of fishy treats clenched in his teeth.

  The sun was setting, painting the sky in gaudy pinks and oranges. The light faded, then darkened to navy blue as Jubal and Chester returned to the Ranzo. Jubal had been hoping Pshaw-Ra might reappear but wasn’t terribly surprised when he didn’t.

  He hauled the bag of food to the bridge, where the officers were all in conference.

  “Unless help comes, we should all remain inside for the night,” Captain Loloma was saying. “The cooling system is overtaxed as it is.”

  “Even so, we won’t be able to maintain a comfortable—or even habitable—temperature much longer.” The engineer, Denny Gregg, spoke in a clipped, no-nonsense voice. “We were running low on fuel when we got to Galipolis. Since we didn’t refuel there, we’re dangerously low now. By my calculations, we haven’t enough power to break atmo. I assumed we could refuel here but have seen no signs of a proper station.”

  Beulah, with sweat rolling down her heat-reddened face, said, “If we don’t maintain the climate control, we’ll die from the heat, and the cats will go first.” She wiped her face miserably.

  “How does anybody live here, Dad?” Sosi asked.

  “I’m not sure, honey. I hope we’ll have a chance to find out soon.”

  Jubal felt frustrated and guilty. He had trusted Pshaw-Ra, and the wily old cat, maybe intending to save them, stranded them in this predicament. Didn’t he realize it would be too hot for the Barque Cats? Or that the Ranzo would need refueling sooner or later? He was the pilot of his own ship, after all. He ought to be aware of these things.

  Chester sat down, dropping the fishy treats at his front paws long enough to yawn. He’s not what you’d call a thoughtful cat. I doubt it occurred to him to think anything about anyone but himself. He’s probably telling all his mates about his adventures and has completely forgotten about us.

  Realizing at last that his summons for a welcoming party was going unheeded, Pshaw-Ra set off for the city to see what catastrophe could have possibly led his race to neglect to greet his return with the appropriate display of joy and gratitude. Had he reflected a bit more on what had actually occurred and a little less on his reception as he imagined it, he would have realized that no one had actually answered his transmission.

  Which surely meant that something dire had happened.

  Presiding over the lesser structures, the ziggurat temple/palace loomed as serrated and sharp-fanged as he fondly remembered. And yes, there were the guards, looking like stone cats sitting on the steps at each level. He padded down the dune and leapt the city wall that in olden days, before the force fields were perfected, protected the streets from the worst of the sandstorms.

  As he strolled through the streets, passing and being passed by cats coming and going to their duties, it occurred to him that he’d been in space longer than he realized. When he left he had known almost everyone, their list of mates, whose offspring were whose, and who had secrets they’d rather not have made public. He’d also known which cats he could thoroughly trounce in a fight, and that had been most of them.

  Now he noticed some younger, stronger-looking toms and queens he thought might give him a spot of bother. But there were also a few likely looking clueless specimens who could prove useful later.

  He was sure the failure to answer his summons was the fault of some newcomer to the Office of Communications. Queen Tefnut would hear of this!

  But when he entered the temple, as all citizens of Mau could do at any time, he recognized the cats resting in the sleeping platforms along the temple walls and also, to his shock, the cat sprawled across the head of the sacred statue of the Mighty Mau.

  He hadn’t counted on a total regime change!

  “So,” the queen on the head of Mau—none other than one of his own offspring, the troublesome Nefure—trilled down at him. “I heard a rumor that you had returned, Pshaw-Ra. If you’re looking for my mother the former queen, she doesn’t live here anymore. The queen is dead. Long live—me!”

  Diplomacy was not Pshaw-Ra’s greatest skill, but he knew enough not to say what he was thinking, which was something to the effect of “easy come, easy go.�
� He was disappointed that Tefnut was gone, however. She had been unusually reasonable and cooperative for a highborn female, and he was rather fond of her. However, he was a very old cat, older than almost anyone realized, and had been the consort of previous queens. They did not tend to last very long. Tefnut was a good ruler, more throne than kitten oriented. And she’d had the intelligence to understand the brilliance of most of his schemes. He hoped this chit of a kit would as well.

  Bowing over one extended front paw, he said, “Indeed! Long live you and glorious your reign. Speaking of which, my mission was successful beyond even my expectations. I have returned with a great number of exceptional felines from the outer galaxy, each of them having devoured quantities of the kefer-ka and ready for our accelerated breeding program.”

  “Why should I want an accelerated breeding program?” the queen asked. “My own kittenhood would have been idyllic had it not been for the presence of the one other kitten born on Mau during the late queen’s reign—Renpet. Bringing more kittens into our world would only clutter it up. We have plenty of grown cats here now.”

  “Grown cats, Your Majesty, who live quite extended lives thanks to my longevity and rejuvenation treatments, but cats who have not been able to procreate with each other for some time. Our gene pool, it seems, has become too shallow and we are now too interrelated. Bast, in her wisdom, has therefore decreed that we can no longer produce kittens within our community. Thus our females are fallow and our males uninterested in the gentler forms of combat. However, with the arrival of these newcomers, and the help of a bit of chemical stimulation, our numbers will once more increase.”

  Nefure considered this as she toyed with a golden mouse that lay beside her. “Hmmm, more kittens would eventually mean more subjects under my rule, hence more power. Tell me more about these newcomers.”

  “Your Majesty, they tend to be very large, intelligent, and I have noticed that many possess the coveted papyrus paws with extra toes.”

  “How nice for you. But other than increasing our numbers with half-breed kittens, what have their characteristics to do with the greater glory of my reign?”

  “Majesty, when these cats have served their purpose, and our offspring—your loyal subjects—have spread throughout the galaxy, they will conquer other peoples and other places in your name, expanding your realm so that in a very short time it will be not merely this sparsely catted planet, but the known universe!”

  CHAPTER 3

  CHESTER: FISHY

  Humans sleep for long periods at a time. It’s a wonder they ever get anything done. Cats sleep, hunt, eat, groom, sleep, patrol, eat, groom, and sleep again—interspersing other activities between sleep sequences as required. The point is that with nice naps punctuating every other thing we do, we are always able to give our full alert attention to each waking task.

  Cultural differences. I’m not judging. Jubal was very tired and so I lay on the pillow beside his head for my first nap, woke to visit with the family and do a bit of mutual grooming, ate some of the crunchies before the others gobbled them up, and took another nap.

  There was no porthole in Jubal’s cabin, but somehow, even on this alien planet, I knew that the sun was rising and time was wasting. Jubal’s dreams and my dreams were the same and they both involved rivers and fish.

  Of course, Jubal had been alive for ten years and I had been alive only about six months, so he had the opportunity to read a lot more books and watch a great many more informative programs than I did.

  His dreams were of the two of us on the bank of a placid body of water, him in overalls and a straw hat, with a cane pole dangling an intriguing string into the water. Mine were less complicated and featured me and a big fish. When I finished my dream fish, I woke, stretched, and just happened to stick a paw in his face, incidentally waking him too. Funny how that happened.

  He did his usual waking up stuff, washing his face, slicking his hair back with water, brushing his teeth, but then he departed from his routine and, still in his pajamas, went on a scavenger hunt among the storage lockers. He stuffed his away bag with a strange collection of items, including a fist full of salt packets from the galley and the sheets he’d stripped from his bunk. Instead of replacing his pajamas with his shipsuit, he reached for a bag that contained the kind of coverings he’d worn back on Sherwood, where I was born, only these were a little nicer than his overalls. Pants, a shirt, socks, and low shoes instead of the slick boots he often wore in the barn. Leaving off the socks, he put on the clothes and added a collapsible cloth hat. Then he left a message on the console that connected each crew member to the bridge. Gone fishin’, it said.

  Unusually, the entire crew except for the watchman was sleeping at the same time, so the ship was dark. Together we padded down the darkened corridor. Three other cats passed us and one peered out of the ventilation duct, watching curiously as we made for the forward hatch, but I pretended not to see. If I let them know where we were going, they’d all want to come, and while most were trained ship’s cats, they might get lost or otherwise be a bother. This mission was for me and my boy alone, and if I happened to get the first fresh fish, well, someone had to test and make sure they were safe for off world cats, right?

  The sun hadn’t made much of an impact on the sand yet, and the air was much cooler than I expected, quite comfortable enough for me to ride on top of Jubal’s pack and watch his back. There was no sign that Pshaw-Ra had returned to the pyramid ship.

  The lovely quiet cool period didn’t last, however. The river was farther than it looked, and the closer we got, the brighter it got, until before we knew it the sun had zipped up into the sky and made the sand shimmer and the water dazzle.

  Jubal stopped and I hopped down while he pulled off his pack. The sand was not yet as hot as it had been the day before, and the extra fur between my toes protects my pads. My extra toes make my feet broad too, so I could mostly walk on top of the sand instead of sinking down into it the way the boy did with every step.

  He smeared some stuff over his exposed skin and pulled out the sheet and put it over his head. I saw then that he had cut a hole in the middle, so it draped over him. Humans! If he was hotter, why was he putting on an outer coat?

  He tried to put some of the cream on my nose, but I jerked out of the way. Chester, your nose will burn out here.

  I’ll take my chances, I told him. That stuff smells so strong I wouldn’t be able to smell danger before it pounced on us.

  You think there’s danger? Did Pshaw-Ra say there were dangerous things here?

  No, but he did say there’d be a welcoming committee of friendly cats bearing food and drink for everyone, and that didn’t happen, and if there’s no danger, what happened to him?

  Good point.

  We were walking again then, Jubal’s sheet flapping around him as he moved, creating a slight breeze that tickled my fur in a pleasing fashion.

  I tried to run ahead but quickly stopped, waiting for my boy to catch up. The heat made me want to pant like a dog, but my mouth was so dry! Jubal picked me up and I crawled under the sheet and back on top of his pack.

  A couple of winks later the air cooled and a welcome scent of greenery awakened me. I peered out of the hole in the sheet, to the side of Jubal’s sweaty neck. We stood in the shade of a tall tree looking out over the river. Around us grew tall reeds and trees.

  The reeds were strong enough for Jubal to attach a line with a shiny thing weighing down the end so with a flick of the cane it carried the line far out into the water.

  I hope these fish are dumb enough they don’t know a lure from live bait, he said. And he sat. And sat. And the nice shade we had been under when he first sat down moved as the sun scaled the sky, and still we sat.

  My belly on the grass, I scooted forward under paw power until I peered down into the brownish flow before us. There were fish in there, but they must not have been stupid enough because all of them were swimming right past us and nobody was stopping to see wh
at was at the end of Jubal’s line. Through the wet wild scent of the water, bearing tidings from every creature that had taken a drink from it, and every place it had been before this one, I smelled the deliciousness of fishes. At least one of them needed to get caught.

  No, don’t go, I commanded them, not that I speak fish. Lookit the shiny thing! Yummy yummy shiny thing.

  I stuck my paw into the water and waved it toward the lure. The nearest fish didn’t swim to the lure, though, it swam right up to my paw, taking it for the live bait Jubal didn’t have. I let it get within biting distance but I wasn’t about to lose my paw. I didn’t have to think about it. As if the paw remembered something the rest of me hadn’t learned yet, it swiped from the fish’s head to its belly, claws came out, paw scooped up the fish and flipped it wriggling onto the bank.

  Jubal grinned. “Good work, Chester!”

  I was occupied with watching the fish trying to flop its way back into the river. At the last moment I would pounce it and foil its attempt to avoid becoming my breakfast.

  So intent was I on the fish that I didn’t smell trouble until it bounded down from above and snatched my fish from between my front feet, then streaked away with it in a tawny blur.

  Two could play at that game. I shot after the streak before Jubal could open his mouth to call me back, his thought hanging between us.

  The tawny blur was another cat—one of Pshaw-Ra’s kind but not him, as I clearly smelled. Hey, you, come back with my fish! I snarled so ferociously I almost frightened myself. That was my very first fish ever, and I wanted it back. The cats who lived here probably caught their own all the time. Why take mine?

  Mine! The other cat’s thought seemed to echo the end of my own, mocking my anger and fish-hunger.

  She—I could clearly smell that she was a she—darted into a thick stand of reeds and I dove in after her. Dimly, as if he was very far away, I heard Jubal’s feet swishing through the grass and clattering through the reeds behind me, not calling, but listening for my thoughts, watching through my eyes, smelling through my nose.