The second incident happened in the last five minutes of the first hour. From the attitude of the dog handler, this time a soldier, Charles was sure that he had been recognized before the man even approached and certain that the soldier was using his dog as an excuse to chat with him.
‘Sorry to disturb you, sir,’ he said. He sounded a little more nervous than a soldier in his position should, the sort of nerves that people sometimes get when they are face to face with an icon. ‘Oh, hey, aren’t you that Slim Dorris, the famous cat killer? It is an honor to meet you!’
Charles didn’t reply to the soldier; in fact, he aggressively ignored the man at first, but he did lean forward in his chair to stroke the dog. The dog nuzzled into his hands and sat down by his feet to make things easier for him.
‘Are you headed to Mars, sir?’ the soldier asked timidly.
‘No, the moon,’ Charles replied coldly. He didn’t look up at the soldier as he spoke, but instead concentrated on petting the animal at his feet.
‘Oh,’ the soldier commented doubtfully, and perhaps he thought he was being helpful when he added, ‘There are no flights to the moon, sir. I’m afraid the area is out of bounds to civilians and any other unnecessary personnel until further notice.’
‘Don’t let it worry you,’ Charles replied as coldly as before, still not looking up. Instead he looked at his watch. He had been here about an hour, and it was now about the time he had been supposed to arrive. There was still an hour before his flight was due, an hour to kill, and it would only be a matter of time before the newspaper networks got to hear of his whereabouts. It wouldn’t be long after that before reporters started to appear to cover this historic event.
Fortunately Charles didn’t need to wait much longer. Just a few minutes after the dog handler had left, someone else approached him. At first Charles watched him only out of the corner of his eye, cursing his luck because it seemed that yet someone else intended to pester him. At least no one had asked for his autograph yet or decided to take him to task over the Sou’nd fiasco.
‘Captain Dorris?’ said the newcomer.
Charles looked up at the man and then quickly around the area, checking that no one had overheard this man use his rank. ‘Just Charles, please, or Slim if you must.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said the man as he offered his hand. ‘I am Captain John Mulroy, and I believe I am your pilot for your moon trip today.’
Charles took the man’s hand happily and shook it vigorously. ‘I am very pleased to meet you; I’m starting to feel like I’m in a goldfish bowl here. Can we go?’
‘Any time you’re ready,’ Captain Mulroy replied, and he took a step back to give Charles room to get up.
After picking up his suitcases, Charles followed alongside the pilot, and they continued to chat as they walked, mainly small talk to pass the time and to get to know each other a little better. The conversation consisted mostly of things like ‘How long do you think it will be before people start returning to London?’ and ‘What do you think the cats are up to?’ and ‘What do you think is happening on the moon?’ and other similar comments.
Eventually they reached the gate in question. There were large glass doors that led through to a walkway across to the awaiting shuttle, and on this side of those doors were a large number of chairs similar in design to the ones in the waiting lounge for the use of the people who had been called to the gate.
Charles felt a little saddened when he saw the shuttle waiting for him. At the very least he had expected the shuttle to look like it was made for interplanetary work, a spaceliner or even a military shuttle of some description. As it was, the shuttle appeared to be a small fifteen-person, short hop vehicle that had been converted for interplanetary work.
‘That’s it?’ Charles commented, unsure. ‘I guess I was expecting something a little bigger.’
‘You’re the only reason for this flight today, so I guess someone must think it’s pretty important for you to be there,’ John explained to him. ‘There didn’t seem to be any reason in taking a bigger shuttle for just one person. Don’t worry; it’ll get us there and back if necessary.’
‘Just me and you, then?’ Charles asked; he was more than a little surprised. He had thought that they might at least be taking some supplies with them.
‘Just you,’ John reiterated. ‘Once we land, you will be the only one allowed to disembark. I won’t even be allowed out of the cockpit until long after I’ve taken off again. Such is their security. I even have to follow a strict flight plan to and from the colony. They have threatened to shoot me down if I do deviate, and I’m not sure that they were kidding. There must be something pretty important going on up there that they don’t want anyone to even risk seeing.’
‘Top security,’ Charles commented under his breath, and then to the pilot he continued, ‘though I’d have thought one of their own shuttle pilots would be given a little bit of leeway.’
The pilot shook his head. ‘None. They have even told me I could be shot on sight just if I set one foot on the moon’s surface.’
‘And no crew?’ Charles pondered aloud, looking about at how empty the gate was.
‘Just me. I am the crew,’ John replied. ‘For the same security reason that I’m not allowed on the surface of the moon, I have to do everything myself. I guess I’m considered a necessary evil, but a crew isn’t.’
‘I hope you’re getting well paid,’ Charles commented dryly.
‘Anyway,’ the pilot replied, ignoring the comment, ‘there’s plenty of room in the cockpit if you’d like to join me up front. We can keep each other company for the flight.’
‘I’ve never flown in a cockpit before,’ Charles replied. ‘I think it might be an interesting experience. How long before we leave?’
‘Any time you like,’ the pilot replied. ‘I have a window preset with the tower. It’s for just under an hour’s time, so that would be the best time for us to go, but if you’re in a hurry I can always contact the tower and get them to bring us forward. This flight will get top priority.’
‘Your window will be fine,’ Charles replied calmly; ‘it’ll give you time to check the shuttle’s systems and for me to get comfortable.’
‘That it will,’ agreed the pilot. ‘What sort of music do you like? I might have some I can put on while we’re waiting!’
Although it was pretty much as he expected it to be, the emptiness of the moon’s spaceport terminal was still quite a surprise. There were no other shuttles in sight as they came in to land, and other than two people in space suits who hooked up the airlock tunnel between the shuttle and the gate they had arrived at, there were no visible ground crew.
Captain John Mulroy offered his hand to his passenger. ‘Well, I guess this is your stop. It was nice to have met you.’
Charles took the hand and shook it, saying, ‘Nice to have met you.’ Then, releasing the hand, he opened the cockpit door and stepped through into the passenger cabin. The whole time the pilot just sat in his seat and watched him with a reassuring smile on his face, prompting Charles to comment, ‘Are you not coming to the shuttle’s exit at least? Show me how to open the hatch?’
‘No,’ Captain Mulroy replied calmly, ‘my instructions are quite explicit. I have to stay in the cockpit until I get the all-clear to take off, and then I have to return to Earth. I’m sure you’ll manage to get the hatch open with little trouble.’
‘Have a good flight back, then,’ was all Charles could think to say before he closed the door again. He was sure they wouldn’t really shoot him for just entering the passenger cabin of his own shuttle, but Charles wasn’t going to argue the point. Obviously the authorities on the moon had already taken many drastic steps by closing the moon down, and if whatever was happening on the moon was considered by some important enough to do that, who could guess at what else they might not be above doing?
Stepping into the terminal of the spaceport, Charles felt he was on a derelict spacecraft. The main
lights had been turned out, leaving only a few low power lights to illuminate the area. As a result the terminal felt dark, gloomy, and empty, and even a little spooky. The sounds of his footsteps as he walked along the corridor to the waiting lounge seemed to echo noisily in the emptiness. The place was unbelievably tidy. It was as if before they had deserted it, the Moon’s residents had put everything carefully away. It was as if the cleaners were the last ones to have been evacuated from the moon, and despite that evacuation being a week ago now, a new layer of dust had not yet formed.
Everything was silent: no people chatting, no machines running small errands or printing out destination labels or tickets or anything. The newspaper screens in the waiting lounge were all dead. Everything was dead; there was no movement, no sound, and very little light.
For a moment Charles wondered if he had walked into some sort of trap. Having failed in Sou’nd, they would get rid of him by sending him to Moonbase, which was now a deserted ghost town. The thought didn’t stay with him long. He knew that somewhere on the Moon were the Prime Minister and certain other world leaders, and for some reason this summit was being held on the Moon.
As he passed into the waiting lounge, he requisitioned a luggage trolley and put his bags on it to make it easier to carry them. He had no idea where he was supposed to go, only that someone was supposed to be somewhere in the terminal waiting to tell him his duties. He had half expected them to be standing right outside the glass doors of the gate as he had gotten off of the shuttle, but there had been no one there.
The luggage trolley bounced and clunked over the uneven floor as Charles pushed it in front of him, and this seemed to provoke a head to appear over the back of a chair towards the far end of the waiting lounge.
The man got up. He looked bleary-eyed, as if he had been taking the opportunity to grab an hour or more of sleep. He was soon standing up straight, though, his back firm and erect, throwing Charles a salute.
Charles had dressed casually because he had had to pass through a civilian spaceport to make this journey, and because he wasn’t in uniform he felt a little uncomfortable receiving the salute and replying in kind. However, never let it be said that he couldn’t be a good soldier if it was required of him, and he threw a salute back.
‘I am Major Williams, your commanding officer while you’re on the Moon. You may call me Terry, but only when others aren’t in earshot. It’s an honor to meet you, Slim, isn’t it?’
‘I prefer Charles, sir,’ he replied cautiously.
‘Of course, of course, Charles it is then,’ the Major commented happily. ‘Well, I should warn you, the woman you’re replacing was very good at her job. I hope you know how to be a bodyguard as well as how to kill cats.’
‘I’ve never been a bodyguard before, but up here on the Moon, who is there to guard against, sir?’ Charles asked as he rested on the luggage trolley absently. It threatened to move under the pressure until he applied the brakes, and even then the trolley still tried to move.
‘Allow me to explain the setup,’ Major Williams replied. ‘There are three world leaders up here for summit talks: the American President, the French President, and our own Prime Minister. Do you notice any pattern with those three countries?’
‘Not really,’ replied Charles. He hated commanding officers who insisted on asking questions instead of getting to the point. ‘Other than the fact that all three have had some contact with cats.’
‘Exactly,’ the Major replied, ‘it’s because our three countries have an interest in dealing with the cats that they were included in the talks in the first place.’
‘You make it sound as if a fourth power is calling the shots,’ Charles commented dryly. ‘Just what is going on?’
‘Life,’ the Major replied as simply and calmly as if he had just explained that two and two equaled four. ‘About a hundred and twenty-five, maybe a hundred and thirty years ago, a group of starships were sent off into the inky black void to discover what they could about their assigned planets. About a week ago the ship crewed by Samuel Goldberg and his team returned. They docked here on the moon, and they brought some guests with them.’
‘Aliens?’ Charles replied, startled. It had been one of the hopes of the mission to find life on a distant planet. Had they just brought back samples of life, it would have been all over the newspapers and a large number of skilled scientists—xenobiologists—would be working on them by now. The sort of security blanket that had been thrown about the Moon would not only suggest that the Goldberg mission had found life on a distant planet, but that it had to be intelligent life.
The Major confirmed Charles’ deductions with his next comment: ‘These aliens have promised us technological advances in return for a certain favor. As a show of faith, they have already given us a more economical type of light speed engine. They are willing to increase our overall technology maybe ten-fold. I understand they have even discussed things like teleport systems, but only if they get what they want first.’
‘I understood teleport systems were proven to be scientifically impossible,’ Charles replied, more than a little surprised. ‘So what’s this favor?’
‘First allow me to explain their power. When they first arrived here, they wanted to show us what they are capable of and so, from a parking orbit about the moon, they destroyed Pluto. You may have seen the news reports a week or so ago. My own opinion is that it was a two-fold demonstration, to show what they could do to the Earth if they don’t get what they want. But if they do get what they want, they have promised us the plans of this weapon. They put on another show of their power, the power over the weather, for example. It’s not unheard of for it to rain for several days non-stop, but that was just a demonstration that they can control our weather patterns from all the way up here. Who knows what they might do if they don’t get what they want?’
‘But what do they want?’ asked Charles. ‘And where do the cats fit in?’ He slowed as he spoke the last two words as he worked something out in his mind. ‘They want the cats?’
The Major nodded his head. ‘It seems that they and our cats are old friends, and they want them destroyed totally before they’ll give us any of the really juicy stuff. All we’ve had so far is a tidbit in comparison to what they are offering once this is done.’
‘All of them?’ asked Charles rhetorically. ‘That would explain many things, such as the destruction of so many domestic cats and the rash assault on Sou’nd.’
‘They have warned us that they are only willing to tolerate a certain amount of waiting before they decide to go and do it themselves, and they have also warned us that if they do get directly involved and humans get in the way then there may be many unfortunate human casualties. They must really hate the cats. To give you another example of their power over the weather and their method of hinting that they are getting tired of the delay, Lorelei is a grade five hurricane heading straight for the homes of the cats in Florida. It’s not even hurricane season anymore. The Americans have naturally taken this to be a warning and are acting to wipe out the Florida colony sometime in the…’ Here he paused to glance at his watch, and his voice dropped an octave as he realized the time. He finished with, ‘…last couple of hours.’
‘I have no love for the wild cats,’ Charles replied, feeling that this was too much to take in at one go, ‘but it does seem a bit rough on the domesticated ones. Do we know why they hate the cats so much?’
‘They won’t say,’ the Major replied, ‘though it’s obviously not simply a hate on sight thing. I have a feeling this hatred has festered for over a thousand years or more, longer than the Herbaht have been on Earth, anyway. Tomorrow the aliens have invited the three leaders to have a look around their starship, so the next meeting will probably be two days from now. Personally I think they’re trying to show off their strength. The Eschiff, as they are calling themselves, are getting anxious about the destruction of the cats, though hopefully what’s happened or is happening in America and Fr
ance should help our position a little. But it’s getting awfully near the stated deadline.’
‘And deadline might be literal,’ Charles commented. ‘What they offer sounds exciting, but the rest of it sounds quite frightening. Are you sure we can trust them to keep their word?’
‘I am sure that we don’t have a lot of choice,’ the Major replied, a lot of emotion in his voice. ‘And I have to admit I’m scared of what might happen if they don’t get their way.’ Then, becoming the trained officer once again, he added, ‘Anyway, you’ll see some of them soon, at the next meeting, and maybe that’ll help you understand a little bit more about them. It might even go some way to explaining their hatred for the cats. Whatever you hear at the meeting, keep your mouth shut. Remember that you’re a bodyguard and not an ambassador. In the meantime, I should show you to your room. You should unpack, and as it’s nearly lunchtime, you should get something to eat at the refectory. I’ll point out the way to that as we go.’
32
Back In The Cattery
Two days had passed since Khosi had made her escape, but of those two days she remembered very little. The first twenty-four hours or so she had spent asleep, recovering from the Alpha serum that she had used to escape.
She remembered that she had failed in her mission to secure the daughter of the Matriarch. And without Lara, she was worried that she might be out of leads. However, there was one hope. A Herbaht had come to visit them in the cell just before he had been caught by the guards. Myajes, the guards had called him. She had recognized him at the time. He was one of four she had been warned that she might have to deal with in order to get to the Matriarch.
After Myajes’ capture it was only too likely that Matriarch and Patriarch would have moved their home for security reasons. But even if the information she got from him was out of date, she might still be able to follow the trail from there. The only other alternative she could think of would be to visit Benfleet, the last known location of the Lesser Patriarch.
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