Catacombs

by Anne McCaffrey

I found these things in the ventilation ducts and hull linings and shoved them out where they could be found by the crew. None of them were large or bulky, nothing that couldn’t have been whapped from a surface with a swipe of a paw and rolled or batted into the places where I found them. They could have been picked up and carried in the mouths of cats too. Yes, it could have happened that way.

  Then came the day when my sire was to be returned to his ship. Nefure’s remaining kittens, the ones who weren’t pirates, cried and cried as our feisty father was put into the carrier because they knew by now, from the experiences of the other kittens, what that meant. He would not be coming back to his offspring.

  But an hour later I heard Janina calling and calling him, and found him deep inside one of the ventilation ducts, curled up in his own fluffy tail, napping.

  Jubal had been so busy with the other cats and kittens, I hadn’t seen much of him, but when he saw me sitting outside of the duct he sat down beside me. Have you seen Jock? Janina put him in a carrier but she says she must not have latched the door real well because when she came back it was wide open.

  He’s asleep in the duct. I think if his people want him back, their Cat Person had better board and call him.

  The crew doesn’t really want the other crews to know how many kittens we have aboard.

  You could try to hide them, then. But Nefure’s kits don’t want Jock to go. I think they sprang him.

  Those little guys?

  Humans! Even the best of them could be so taken in by an ingenuous little face. I yawned and gave him a pitying look, but he was getting to his feet.

  Moments later hatches closed and soon a voice began calling my sire, who came ambling out of the duct, purring and looking around expectantly. “Jock!” his Cat Person, a young male, cried joyfully and knelt down rubbing his fingers together. My sire moseyed over to him, sniffed his fingers, and jumped into his arms.

  As he carried my sire away, a door sprang open and the kittens burst out and scrambled down the hall, but Janina and Jubal scooped them up.

  They cried and cried until Jubal crumpled a piece of paper and rolled it on the floor for them to chase.

  Kittens! So difficult and yet so easy.

  Aside from his cat duties, Jubal helped with routine dirtside maintenance on both ships. This included cleaning and checking the outer hulls, not that onerous a task since the weather was fine.

  That’s how he found the worm segments. However immortal the great snake might be, these were thoroughly dead—crushed and broken. He noticed the smell right away. Chester, who had been lying in the grass beside him, taking a break from the kittens, lifted his lip to show fang, slit his eyes and growled.

  You think it smells like the snake too, huh?

  There’s no mistake. Is it really dead? Shall I kill it again?

  No, but I’m going to show the captains. I don’t like to think of these things growing inside that pirate ship.

  Chester had no response to that, but sauntered, black feathery tail held high, back to the ship to watch the kittens. He’d been very attentive to the kittens lately but hadn’t shared why exactly with Jubal, and Jubal hadn’t asked. After all, he was a father now. Jubal sometimes feared he and Chester were growing apart, and he hoped the kittens would get their own homes with their own people and maybe Renpet would too, so he and Chester could return to being a team.

  Captain Vesey looked at the worm and said, “Well, good thing that one’s dead now, at least. Would you ask Chester and Chessie to make sure none got aboard somehow and are living in the ducts?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There’s something else, Jubal.”

  “Sir?”

  “You and your father are still part of Captain Loloma’s crew by contract. Your mother has signed on with me and asked if I could get Captain Loloma to release you and sign you on with the Molly Daise instead. You’re a good worker and your ability to communicate with Chester and through him with the other cats is very handy. I’d be glad to have you, though your father will be returning to the Ranzo. How do you feel about it?”

  “How about Chester, sir?”

  Captain Vesey actually looked embarrassed. “You know, most of us think of Chester as a short crewman now—we know he talks to you, and that he’s concerned for the welfare of the ship, but he has no contract as such and you are his chosen partner. You and I both know, I think, that you have no legal right to him—”

  Jubal opened his mouth to protest, and the captain made a “hold on” motion with the vertical palm of his hand before continuing.

  “But we’re not sure anybody does. His stud fees will be worthwhile, especially if the ships continue to feel that our kittens aren’t as good as purebred Barques.”

  “I don’t care about the stud fees, sir. Its kinda—embarrassing really.”

  “Well, you will, son. Your parents and the crew have discussed this and decided that the fair thing is for Chester to be considered your partner and an emancipated cat. Those who want him to make kittens with their queens can negotiate for the privilege, but since he was originally our kitten, how about half his fee reverts to Molly Daise’s crew?”

  “That’s okay with me, sir. And Chester doesn’t care about that stuff as long as we’re together and there’s kibble in his bowl.”

  “Fair enough. Just one thing, son?”

  “Sir?”

  “I want you to handle the money. Your mother has been a big help and your father is a good horse-trader, but you seem to have gotten most of the integrity in the family. Do I have your word?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So, are you staying with us or the Ranzo?”

  “The ships are on different courses after we leave here, are they, sir?”

  “It makes sense not to have all the kitten salesmen in the same area, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, sir. If we go with the Ranzo, can Chester’s family come with him so he can approve the homes for his kittens?”

  “I have no problem with that if we get our share of the sale.”

  “Then with all due respect, sir, and appreciation for the crew’s consideration of us, the Molly Daise seems like a more—I dunno, official kind of ship than the Ranzo. Like you do what you’re told more, and Captain Loloma and his crew risked their lives and their ship to help us, and—”

  It was the wrong thing to say. Captain Vesey’s face closed up. “I understand.” Because what Jubal was trying to say, evidently not diplomatically enough, was that, however respectful the Molly Daise crew was to Chester now, when the government had ordered the impounding of cats, the ship left Chester drifting in space and gave Chessie up to the authorities. Captain Vesey trusted Jubal, but Jubal wasn’t entirely sure he returned the favor. Besides, being with Mom wasn’t nearly as interesting as being around Pop.

  The Ranzo was no longer considered too dangerous for Jubal now that the pirates had been taken into custody by the local police, who almost shot Spike for resisting arrest. He wished there was a nice way to explain how he felt to Captain Vesey, but the captain had marched away.

  He consulted Chester, of course, but already knew how the cat would respond.

  Nice of them to admit I don’t belong to them, Chester said, though not entirely graciously. He remembered very well that when he was a kitten there had been talk of destroying him for misbehavior. The Molly Daise had just now gotten around to acknowledging that he was not their property, whereas the Ranzo crew had from the first seemed to look to him and Jubal for leadership in cat matters.

  To their surprise, though, Buttercup didn’t want to change ships. She had discovered Jubal’s mother.

  CHAPTER 22

  During the layover at Trudeau’s Landing while the silly Barque Cats purringly returned to enslavement to their masters, Pshaw-Ra made himself and his instruction generously available to the next generation. In addition to their paw exercises, he taught them a thing or two about a cat’s natural ability to increase or decrease gravity, th
ereby gaining advantage in fight, flight, and tromping heavily on others with pressure far greater than accounted for by a grown cat’s weight.

  While such skills came naturally to almost any cat, a Mauan mage of Pshaw-Ra’s level could extend these powers until they seemed superfeline.

  The time came when the ships were ready to depart with only Chessie aboard the Molly Daise, and Chester, Renpet, and the hapless Hadley on the Ranzo as adult cat crew. Pshaw-Ra hoped he had also taught the kittens to hone their powers of observation to a degree that would allow them to employ their strengthened paws to advantage. Meanwhile, he returned to his own cozy ship, once more docked in the Ranzo’s shuttle bay, where he stayed sequestered with Balthazar and Renpet when he wasn’t—as Jubal’s sire put it—subverting the kittens. Balthazar said the vizier had decided for a time to conserve his fuel by allowing the Ranzo to ferry him around the galaxy.

  Meanwhile, the vizier’s advice and leadership were available to all who wished to call upon it to help run the ship, the galaxy, and the universe more efficiently, and of course in the event of any emergency he would be handy to help out. Meanwhile he required a supply of the excellent cat treats the Ranzo had taken aboard at Trudeau’s Landing and needed to catch up on his rest.

  The older cats had taught the kittens the basics of vermin extermination, but the skills Pshaw-Ra taught would help this new breed become the best that they could be. Unfortunately, kittens were not the only rapidly evolving creatures in space.

  “It’s so peaceful here now,” Beulah said, leaning back in her chair and stretching. “Mavis and her lot gone from the brig, the Molly Daise en route to Sherwood again so she can drop off Dr. Vlast and try to sell some of the kittens to the farmers. Your father says they’ll pay top dollar regardless of breeding to have help with the rat problem.”

  Jubal didn’t like the idea of the kittens going to farms, even if they needed them. Farmers were not always kind to cats, as he recalled, and while they might be okay with this generation, he thought subsequent generations would probably be treated like four-legged trash.

  Besides, the kittens would have to develop some new tactics if they were going to beat the smart rats on Sherwood. Chester told him he and Doc controlled the worst of the rodent problem on shipboard by explaining to the kefer-ka-enhanced rats—who were highly intelligent to begin with—that if they chewed the insulation from the wiring on the ships, the ships would crash, life support would end, and rats would go down with the dying ship. The cats reading their thoughts probably spooked the rats worse than the idea of being spaced.

  Most of them had deserted the ship back on Mau.

  “Who could resist the little darlings?” Beulah went on, beaming at the kittens. “Look at them! They are so cute, hunkering on the console or sitting on shoulders, watching our hands when we manipulate the controls. They think it’s some sort of a game. That little ginger-stripe puss looks like he’s about to pounce on Felicia’s hand when she moves it.”

  Of course, Misu was doing no such thing. He wasn’t going to pounce on the mate’s hand, but he might nudge it gently, to correct her course, perhaps. He was carefully studying her every move and what prompted her to perform certain actions at certain times. Jubal knew that was what Misu and the rest of the kittens were doing when they watched the crew at work or followed them around as they performed their duties. He didn’t tell the crew what he knew, though. It would freak them out.

  Pshaw-Ra disregarded the crew most of the time and swept around the ship as if he were the captain. For Jubal, another advantage to shipping with this particular crew was that he didn’t have to explain to any of them what Pshaw-Ra was. While Pinot bluffly declared that he was “a nice old cat,” many of them were a little afraid of him, or at least respectfully gave him a wide berth.

  Pshaw-Ra let Sosi pet him and ignored Hadley when he hissed at him, as Hadley felt bound to do since he was back on his own turf, even though he was sharing the Ranzo with a great many interlopers.

  But Jubal knew Pshaw-Ra was constantly urging the kittens to try new things, especially things that involved using their paws in ways cats didn’t usually use their paws.

  Cabinet doors were left standing open. Lockers inexplicably spilled their contents onto the decks. More small objects went missing. Cat treat packets were scattered all over the galley deck until Jubal started locking them up and keeping the key with him.

  The day a few kittens took the shuttle for a joy ride, under the direction of Pshaw-Ra, he decided he couldn’t keep their new prowess a secret any longer. He went looking for Balthazar first.

  “Look, this is out of control,” he said. “Those kittens could hurt themselves or damage the shuttle or the ship. The crew is trying to find them homes, and if they are up to tricks like that all the time, no ship or space station is going to want them.”

  “His Excellency only tries to prepare the kits,” Balthazar said stiffly.

  “I know, I know, they’re supposed to dominate the universe.”

  “Is that what he said? I thought rather that they would be its salvation.”

  “At the rate they’re going? No way!” Jubal said. He hadn’t meant to be harsh, and regretted it later, after his sleep shift, when he saw that while the shuttle was where it belonged, the pyramid ship was gone, along with Balthazar and Pshaw-Ra.

  Jubal was still puzzling over that when Chester leaped onto his shoulder, put his cheek against his and rubbed. Renpet went with them, he said. Pshaw-Ra told her it was time for her to lead her people, before they fell into error, whatever that meant. I think they were planning on visiting the planet where most of the Mau moved all those years ago. I hope she’ll be okay.

  Me too, Chester. Me too, Jubal told him, stroking the nearest paw with his fingertip. To his surprise, he missed Pshaw-Ra already and knew that Chester did too.

  I wonder what he’s really up to, Chester said, yawning before falling asleep on the back of Jubal’s chair.

  Pshaw-Ra had not known exactly where the serpent Apep would manifest himself in his latest aspect, for the serpent was almost as wily and unpredictable as Pshaw-Ra himself. Such serpents occurred elsewhere in the universe, he knew, but no race but the Mau had ever learned what they truly were. Some conventional astronomers even considered their destructive transformation orgies as the crucibles of the galaxies. And so they were, once they had destroyed all other worlds anywhere near them.

  The trick, as he knew, was to find them in their early stages, and so he had made his little forays away from the ships with the kittens to track the progress of the worm cloud.

  The pirate ship had been utterly gone when he last returned to the site of the abortive hijackings by the unfortunate Mavis. He did not see the worm cloud at all and kept returning to look for it. It would not do to let something like that roam around loose. There was no telling what harm it might do, or to whom, so he kept returning until at last he had a sighting.

  He could not tell if the hazy bit he saw in the distance was the worm cloud or some other substance until he was close enough to see it in the view port. It was not as if Apep had dreams he could enter.

  He thought the cloud drifted toward him, and he withdrew the pyramid ship a bit. It drew closer, until he could see it tumbling its wormy bits inside its cloud. He pulled back a little more.

  Suddenly, as if it had an engine of its own, the worm cloud came after him. He opened the mouse hole before it could catch him, or so he thought.

  He hightailed it through the mouse hole and back out again, closing it behind him, his fangs bared in a fierce expression of triumph. Now he knew where it was, he thought, and how to get it.

  That was until he entered the mouse hole again, this time with Balthazar and Renpet as passengers. Balthazar fortunately was studying charts, and Renpet was sleeping, as she did a lot these days.

  He thought seeing Mau-Maat, the planet for which her ancestors had deserted the inhabitants of Mau, leaving them with little more than a shadow of their
former greatness, might rouse Renpet from her lethargy.

  How could he know that the worm cloud had entered the mouse hole with him on the previous occasion, and now, as he opened the hole into the Ra-Harahkty system, would follow?

  With swift maneuvering, he evaded the cloud, but his small ship no longer attracted it. The serpent chose as its new power source the star orbited by Mau-Maat.

  Pshaw-Ra had not intended for that to happen, but he was not entirely displeased that those who had deserted his world were about to have theirs seriously disrupted if not destroyed. Since the people and cats on this new world had abandoned the ancient teachings of the sacred feline ancestors in favor of a place with less desert and more modern conveniences, he found it fitting that they were to be given a dramatic demonstration of the error of their ways.

  Of course, this caused some friction with Balthazar.

  You played with Apep as you would a mouse, seeking him out and tempting him to follow you through the mouse holes you opened, Balthazar scolded.

  Pshaw-Ra regarded his old servant with a sideways and slitted glance. I knew it was a possible risk. But I had to know where Apep was. Once the transformation has begun, old man, it will complete its destructive metamorphosis unless stopped. I had to monitor it, did I not?

  Balthazar snorted. You have been drifting in space for how long, with no desire to visit Mau-Maat until now? But suddenly, when the worm cloud happens to have followed you into the mouse hole, you cannot wait to visit our estranged descendants to see how the immigrants are faring?

  Do not fuss, old friend, Pshaw-Ra told him. If you wish to teach kittens to hunt, you must bring them live prey to catch. The ability to battle Apep is what separates our kittens from the house cats.

  Balthazar had looked pained and unconvinced. After all the trouble you took to ensure that the kittens were born, you will now send them to be slaughtered.

  “Pfft!” Pshaw-Ra said aloud. Naturally, there are preparations to be made beforehand. The young need training to succeed.