‘A group of musicians knocked over three of your guards?’ Khosi interjected. She sounded surprised, and obviously she didn’t mention her own part in the event.
‘We know that one of the attackers was an ex-member of the Elite,’ the Commander commented simply.
It was clear that he was hiding something in what he was telling her. She was sure he knew much more about what had actually happened than he was saying. She wouldn’t push him, though; if he wanted to keep things from the ministry then that was his affair. She couldn’t really correct him without revealing things she shouldn’t know. Besides, this stuff about the musicians was new to her. They must have arrived after she had fallen asleep and yet before the shuttle had come to pick her up.
‘I see,’ she commented carefully. ‘And just two escaped with these musicians?’
‘Two are all I know about,’ the Colonel replied.
‘Thank you, Colonel, you have been most helpful. My next question is about a cat you had visiting here a few days ago. His name is Myajes Conjah. If possible I’d like to see him for myself. I have some questions to ask him.’
‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ the Colonel replied simply.
Khosi shook her head and said, ‘Colonel, I appreciate the help you’ve given me so far; please don’t give me any grief over this. Unless this Myajes has already been put down, you will make it possible for me to see him.’
‘But he’s not here,’ the Colonel replied tersely.
Khosi replied angrily, ‘Then where is he? Surely you haven’t just let him go!’
The Colonel paused suddenly and looked at her strangely. ‘You know, if you were really with the Bureau of Feline Affairs you should know what has happened to him because we checked with your people before sending him. I think I’ll just call the bureau and check that they sent someone today.’ He leaned over the computer and told it to put through the call.
Khosi sighed; she had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. She stood up and waved what looked like a pen at him threateningly, asking sternly, ‘Okay, I’m through mucking around with you. Where is Myajes?’
He seemed mildly amused for a moment until she moved the pen so it was pointing at the computer’s monitor. Suddenly the monitor vanished, leaving only an ashen residue where it had once stood. Then his demeanor changed drastically. ‘That’s a weapon; how did you get that past our sensors?’
‘Don’t let that little detail worry you,’ Khosi commented simply; ‘just tell me where I can find Myajes, and I’m out of here.’
The Colonel seemed quite shaken at the current turn of events. Nevertheless, he responded with, ‘If I press this button, several guards will come through that door.’
‘Where will they come from?’ she replied coldly. ‘There is no one waiting just outside your door. Do you really think they’d get here in time to stop me killing you? So I ask again, where is Myajes?’
‘I’m not about to tell you.’ The Colonel remained resolute.
‘You know, Colonel, I was recently an inmate of your little establishment,’ Khosi started.
‘You’re a cat; I might have known,’ the Colonel interjected. ‘My god, your disguise is virtually perfect. I must congratulate you on…’
‘Shut up,’ Khosi interrupted, ‘all I want to hear from you in Myajes’ current location.’
‘If you’re planning to release all the cats in the….’ the Colonel continued.
‘I said shut up,’ Khosi spat at him. ‘I don’t care if you annihilate every cat in the place. In fact, I’d prefer it if you did. Consider me an agent for a foreign power and that I was disguised as a cat during my previous stay here. The point is that I was subjected to a little thing called a truth serum while I was in your power. It was a weak drug. I don’t think it worked on me the way it was supposed to. But what do you say we try it out on you?’
‘How would you get me over there? What about the guards, the soldiers in the room itself? You’d need a doctor to inject the right type of vein.’
‘Scared, are we?’ Khosi commented. ‘Just tell me where Myajes is and I’ll get out of your life!’
‘Perhaps you can convince me,’ the Colonel commented. It was obvious the threat of the truth drug had at least partially worked. ‘Why do you want his location?’
‘My mission is to assassinate the Lesser Matriarch and Lesser Patriarch. Now if you can tell me where they are, then I won’t need to question Myajes.’
‘Then we seem to be working towards a similar goal. That’s exactly what we’re doing with him at the moment, questioning him to get the address of those two. Chances are we have it by now, but if so it hasn’t been revealed to me yet.’
‘So can you at least tell me where to find Myajes?’ Khosi asked amicably.
‘He’s on Mars, in a laboratory in the English section, Laboratory Seven. If you pose as a member of the Bureau of Feline Affairs again, you should be able to get in and see him without any problem.’
Mars, she was thinking to herself. It was the name the humans had given to the fourth planet in this solar system. There was no way she could use one of her people’s shuttles to reach the place without someone noticing. She would have to take a human civilian shuttle instead.
‘Thank you for your help, Colonel,’ she commented as she stood. She had all she needed here.
‘Well, maybe your organization and mine could work together,’ the Colonel commented. ‘We seem to have the same goal.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. You see, my organization doesn’t want our existence to be known yet. In fact, our agreement with your government means I’m not even supposed to be on this planet yet, and I can’t risk you telling anybody about me. Hopefully you won’t be found until I’m long gone. I’m very sorry,’ she replied, pointing the pen at him.
‘Wait…’ started the Colonel, but then he vanished into little more than a light sprinkling of ash.
She replaced the pen in her bag and walked calmly out of the office door as she might if the meeting had gone exactly according to plan. There she beckoned one of the nearby soldiers over. According to the nametag he wore, he was called Wilson.
‘Yes, ma’am?’ the soldier asked.
‘The Colonel has a lot of paperwork to do, and he doesn’t want to be disturbed for a few hours. He wants you to guard the door and let no one interrupt him again until it’s done. He will come and notify you himself once he’s done.’
‘Yes, sir,’ replied the guardsman. ‘I’ll just go and check these orders with him.’
Why did she always get the awkward ones? ‘Soldier,’ she barked sharply, ‘what part of doesn’t want to be disturbed did you not understand? Now you stand outside the office here and wait for him to tell you he’s finished.’
Wilson seemed unsure for a minute. ‘I should check with my immediate superior!’
Khosi sighed. This was going to be harder than she’d thought. ‘Very well, soldier, do what you must, but if the Colonel is disturbed while you are away from your post, then it’ll be on your head. I’ll tell you what, you stay here and I’ll find an officer to send to you. You can report to him and let him know what’s happening. How does that sound?’
‘Yes, ma’am, I suppose I have little choice,’ he replied unhappily.
The universe over, Khosi didn’t think anyone liked doing guard duty. She turned away from the soldier and headed towards the main gates. She had no intention of finding an officer who might insist on checking with the Colonel first; instead she intended to get to her car and hopefully be miles away before Guardsman Wilson began to smell a rat.
Next she had to find a spaceport, preferably one somewhere to the north of London. The city seemed to be so deserted it was unlikely that she would be able to get a shuttle at any of the London spaceports.
33
For His Love
Due to the money that they still had after the aborted attempt to buy Amba from the Guards of the Cattery, the erstwhile members of the gr
oup ‘The New Cradle’ had been able to purchase quite a comfortable little suite of rooms at a fairly decent hotel. It was a nice setup with a large central room called a casual room that had a couch big enough for four people as well as two reclining armchairs deep enough to sink into. In front of the couch was a newspaper capable of accessing many different networks and currently set up for three. On top of the newspaper screen, actually seeming to grow out of it, was the unmistakable apparatus of a holoviewa. It was the sort of setup that would allow at least four people to be entertained at the same time, although so far only Judith had really had the chance to try it out. Behind the couch was a small card table with four chairs around it. This table was also intended to double as a dinette, and they had access to more chairs if they needed them. Above the card table on the wall furthest from the newspaper was a small antique looking digital wall clock with red luminous numbers. To the rightmost side of the room when facing the newspaper was an open plan kitchen and a small combined lavatory and bathroom. Also on that side of the room was the main door that led out into the rest of the hotel. Around the back of the card table there were two large double rooms with the door to a third room on the leftmost wall. The two outermost rooms were copies of each other in every way except where the door was positioned. The room in the middle, however, was a little bit larger and had its own en suite shower and toilet.
Sult and Jhosatl had been sharing one of the outermost bedrooms while Judith and Starlight shared the other. The bedroom in the center was being used solely by Jhosatl’s wife Amba, and she had been lying there, pretty much unmoving and apparently on the edge of death, since they had brought her into the hotel.
Judith sat on one end of the couch. She was flicking through the newspaper stories one by one and comparing the slants that the different networks gave to each event. It was probably more surprising how often the networks seemed to borrow or even steal from each other than how often their opinions differed. Jhosatl was sitting at the other side of the couch. He had one foot resting across the couch and the other on the floor so that he was at an angle. He spent most of his time worrying about his wife, and though the newspaper was right in front of him he paid very little attention to it. Occasionally something might catch his eye or Judith would attract his attention, but other than that all he could think about was how helpless he felt.
Sult and Starlight were both in the center bedroom with Amba, doing what they could for her and trying to keep her comfortable. Recently there had been a number of arguments emanating from that room, and it was usually Sult’s voice that could be heard the most, if Starlight was heard at all. It seemed that Starlight wasn’t the wonder nurse that she had at first claimed to be. This made the whole thing even worse for Jhosatl, who more than anything wanted to be in there with them, watching over his wife, but he knew he would just be in the way. Besides, the sight of her lying there so broken and motionless upset him greatly.
‘It’s been a disastrous day for the cats,’ the newspaper piped happily. The screen showed a picture of the remains of a building that could have been anything, anywhere, except perhaps that the streets did seem more empty than normal. ‘All tribal headquarters that existed in and around the city of London were attacked and wiped out earlier today, causing the cats some very heavy casualties. The buildings in question are currently being sealed off so they can be investigated further. Maybe we can get some insight into the lifestyles of these cannibalistic creatures. It seems the only real casualties suffered by the strike force that had been hand chosen to make these raids was the loss of seven members of the main command team, unfortunately including the strike force’s leader, Michael McCain. Officials tell us that they have already pulled more than thirty cat bodies from the rubble of this particular exchange, and the number keeps growing every hour. One of the survivors recently rescued from the remains of the building is Guardsman McDonald, and we are fortunate enough to have him in the studio with us today.’
The speaker droned on, asking some fairly asinine question of Guardsman McDonald, who, it seemed, had been lucky enough to escape with no more than a few cuts and bruises. Jhosatl closed his eyes and tried to tune the sound out. Judith also seemed to have no interest in this subject, and halfway through McDonald’s answer to the speaker’s first question, she stopped the story and quickly selected the next.
‘This day is currently becoming known as one of the worst days in history for feline kind.’ This voice was a lot calmer than the previous one, reporting what had happened in a matter-of-fact way. The image on the screen was of a series of buildings that had now been turned to rubble. ‘Florida, located on the southeast side of the United States. Until a few hours ago, this area was home to more than one thousand cats, including the Greater Matriarch and her husband, who just a few days ago had an attempt made on their lives. They might all be dead now. The U.S. armed forces moved into the area earlier today with intent to question and maybe arrest certain members of their community. It is reported that the cats, resisting human intervention into their affairs, fought back with vicious determination, making it necessary to use lethal force. We have in our overseas studio Major David Simmons, who was in charge of the original mission.’
The picture changed to a uniformed man who sat behind a simple table and in front of a colorful political map of the world.
‘Can we ask what prompted the attack on the cats?’ asked the voice of the original speaker.
‘Certainly,’ the Major replied, the sound of authority clear in his voice. ‘Ever since the cats originally moved into the area, the place had suffered an unusually high rate of missing persons. It wasn’t a lot at first, just one or two a month, but that number has been steadily rising. On top of this, we had received startling evidence that although it is the law that all cats are registered with us, that not every cat actually was.’ The camera moved back to the streets, showing building after building that had either been demolished or that showed signs of stress from the recent combat. Over these images the Major’s voice could still be heard. ‘It was a shame that the cats refused to cooperate with us or even that we had to go in at all, but we weren’t expecting to come under fire. Indeed, we were only a small group of ten and soon had to call for backup to deal with the situation. Had the cats cooperated from the start, this could all have been avoided.’
The interviewer’s voice cut in, ‘And so all the cats were dealt with?’
‘That we can’t confirm,’ the Major replied as more images of buildings hit the screen and then changed to a line of body bags that lined the road at the edge of the combat zone. Although no one actually said so, there was no real doubt that all the bags contained the corpses of cats. ‘It is believed that a small group of cats were able to sneak out during the battle. Since it is obvious that these few were not actively fighting against us, we are willing to listen if they want to come forward and talk to us. After what has just happened, chances are that they might not be quite so willing to communicate, and we understand this. But let me assure them, if they are listening, that we are not currently hunting for you. You know, I’ve even heard that there were rumors circulating among the cats that we had apparently come to wipe them all out. That’s a staggering idea, and I’d like to state categorically that these rumors were totally unfounded. It is probably because of irresponsible rumors like this that things got so out of hand in the first place. I hereby promise that, so long as we have no more missing persons, it will be totally safe for any cat who wishes to come forward to do so. Also let me say this: that until they do come forward and let us know exactly where they are staying, they will be considered outlaws. But due to what has just happened, we are willing to be lenient towards them, and any that surrender themselves to us will receive a full amnesty.’
‘The Greater Matriarch and her husband known as the Greater Patriarch were known to have been in this area. Do you have any news concerning them?’ the interviewer asked.
‘Nothing definite,’ the Major respon
ded. ‘The problem with the weapons we have had to use is that we haven’t yet retrieved everybody from the rubble in the city. Although the building we know they lived in actually still stands, there were no bodies there and it is believed they may have moved to other areas to lend moral support to those that were fighting us. It’s even possible that they are among the small group that got away, and although we feel this is less likely, it would fit in with their previous history of wanting to avoid confrontation.’
‘Which was why they were in Florida in the first place,’ the interviewer commented.
‘Indeed,’ replied the Major simply.
‘One more thing, Major,’ the interviewer asked. ‘You said that you have already checked the residence where the Greater Matriarch and her husband had been living. We have heard that you found some large collections of antique books, many of which haven’t been in print for centuries. We have also heard that you found something rather ironic there.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ the Major replied. The image on the screen changed to that of two small kittens, an almost totally black cat and a tabby. ‘It seems that the leaders of the Herbaht in Florida had feeling for others of their own kind, including the four-legged variety, and they were even keeping a couple as pets. We found a large number of cat toys, litter boxes, and unopened tins of cat food in the pantry of their residence. The kitties had already been put up for adoption, and the response so far has been very good.’
‘I guess everyone would like a cat that had been owned by the notorious Greater Matriarch,’ commented the interviewer. The screen’s image went back inside the studio again.
‘I guess so,’ agreed the Major.
‘Major David Simmons,’ the interviewer added, ‘my thanks to you for agreeing to sit with us tonight.’
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