by S. A. Barton
it. They were confusing, so he ignored them. Let the humans deal with it, he’d pick up the important bits along the way.
“Just place me in my seat, human,” Kwirrrf said to Clay, ears twitching backwards. Clay lifted him up carefully and placed him in the driver’s seat. “Do I look like I do labor, idiot? When humans fly, that’s when I do,” Kwirrrf said. “Put me in back.” Clay obeyed.
“We cleared enough room for everyone,” Eileen said. “The graduate students can pet you the whole way to Tiksi.”
“I’m not riding with servants. If there’s no room, they’ll have to stay behind. You three get in front and get this conveyance moving immediately. It’s almost naptime.”
“Again?” Clay blurted. Kwirrrf glared at him. Clay ducked his face down with a muttered 'sorry', got into the driver’s seat and started the truck. It rumbled to life in a cloud of diesel smoke.
“Great, this thing smells worse than horses. Leave it to humans to simplify travel in the worst possible way,” Kwirrrf said. He curled up in the middle of the bench seat and rested his chin on his forepaws. “Get it moving. The sooner we get to civilization, the better. I’ve been delayed long enough.” Clay started the truck moving gently.
“Hey! Hey! What are we supposed to do?” one of the graduate students shouted from behind them, mostly recovered from his cat-induced ordeal.
“Sorry, the cat wants to go,” Clay shouted back, and rolled up his window so he wouldn’t have to hear any more of the protests.
“They’re really screwed,” Sandy said. “We packed all the food in here. And we have both tents.”
“Sucks for them, but they’ve got rifles,” Eileen said. “They won’t starve.”
“I doubt any of them would know what to do with an animal if they manage to actually shoot one,” Sandy said. “Would you? I can’t believe how callous you are.”
“Do we have an option? No. Cat wants to go, we either go or end up as little piles of ash. Remember?” Eileen said. “And you can call it callous, but there’s a supply drop in a week. A person can live that long without food, if they don't shoot something to eat. They can drink from the creek, they won't die of thirst. If they're smart they'll use ropes and shrubs to build a lean-to in the excavation for shelter. They’ll be fine.”
“That’s just cold,” Sandy said.
“Yeah? Tell me, who’s getting the better deal, us or them?” Eileen retorted.
“Trying to sleep here,” Kwirrrf said, ears back. “It’s hard enough with all the bouncing around. Shut up.” They shut up.
The drive to Tiksi was long, bumpy, and cold. Somehow, they made it without anyone being transformed into a small pile of ash. They came upon the tail end of the one dirt road leading south out of town early on the fourth day of driving. For a moment, the humans forgot about their tyrannical furry passenger.
“Oh, I can’t wait to take a hot shower,” Clay said as he guided the truck onto the muddy rut-carved trail.
“A real bed,” Sandy said, one of her hands involuntarily going to her back, aching with four days of driving over tundra.
“Didn’t they finally get the clown in this podunk joint?” Eileen said, trying to remember. “I’m dying for a real McBurger.”
“All that after you take me to the cats,” Kwirrrf said from the back, waking up from his latest nap. The three in the front seat looked at each other, suddenly uneasy.
“Um…” Sandy said, letting the sound trail off into nothing. How do you tell a supercat that its descendants are all dumb animals? She looked over at Eileen with a guilty sidelong glance. If the cat didn’t like the news, and someone had to end up as an ashpile, it might as well happen to the nastiest person present…
“You do know that cats are pets, right? I mean except for you,” Clay said while Sandy was still pondering the best way to prod Eileen into spilling the beans. Sandy winced, shading her eyes against the green glare she was sure was coming.
“Say that again,” Kwirrrf said, standing up on the back seat, tail fluffing just a bit in rising angry fear. He took a very deep breath, willing the fur back down. Angry was fine, but in front of lessers it had to be cool anger.
“Maybe pull over first,” Eileen said. “You know, just in case.” Clay stopped the truck and twisted around in his seat to face the cat.
“Ah, cats, you know, today, um,” Clay said, looking into Kwirrrf’s eyes, flinching at every little reflection of light there.
“Today. What do you mean, today? Cats were different yesterday?” Kwirrrf asked, probing Clay’s mind for the hints that would come with his words. But under the glare of cat eyes, Clay just stuttered. “Get out of the truck, all of you,” Kwirrrf said, with the little huff that serves cats as an aggrieved sigh. He leapt onto the front seat after they vacated it, then out the open window. Using the side mirror as a little bridge, he stepped out onto the warm hood and sat down at the edge of it where it wasn’t too hot, but pleasingly warm in the chilly Siberian morning.
“Now. Any one of you. What do you mean, cats are pets?”
“Well…” Clay began, then started stuttering again.
“Not you,” Kwirrrf said with another little huff.
Sandy and Eileen looked at each other, locking eyes in a psychic battle of wills. You go first. No, you go first. No, you go first. Neither of the women could hear it, but it was so obvious that Kwirrrf could ‘hear’ it, his mind in both of theirs, waiting for their words to bring forth understanding.
“You,” Kwirrrf said, jabbing a paw at Eileen, the one he judged more likely to blurt out something they didn’t want to tell him.
“Cats are pets. Domestic animals. None of them can even talk, much less do that thing you do with your eyes. We own them, or they run wild and eat birds and ruin gardens,” Eileen blurted.
Finally, information. Kwirrrf wondered why he hadn’t thought to ask them about other cats before. Probably because he hadn’t wanted to hear about it, he concluded. And then he remembered what had eluded him when he woke up, back at the camp. He had gone out to spread the reign of cats to the eastern end of the world, along with a pack of human servants and a small harem. Similar expeditions had set out in the other three cardinal directions. Maybe one of the others made it?
“When you found me, how long had I been… asleep?” he asked the other female.
“Judging by the artifacts and bones you were found with, anywhere between five and fifteen thousand years,” Sandy said.
“Cats haven’t been domesticated for fifteen thousand years,” Eileen said, “So it’s more likely five or six thousand.”
“Do I look domesticated to you?” Kwirrrf asked.
“Good point. Maybe it’s more like the longer end of that range.”
“Well, you have to compare that to the age of civilization along the Nile. Fifteen thousand years is a stretch for that,” Clay said. All three of them were turning toward each other, forgetting about Kwirrrf, scientists losing themselves in an idea.
“The Nile, I understand,” Kwirrrf said, breaking the spell before it was established. “That’s where civilization is. I was one of the chosen, to go forth and spread catly dominion over all the land”
“I don’t think it worked,” Eileen said.
“Find me another cat,” Kwirrrf said, hoping the humans were mistaken, or just plain delusional. Humans always had been prone to imagining ridiculous things, which they took far too seriously. Kwirrrf returned to his seat. Clay got into the passenger seat, too rattled to drive. Sandy took them into town, with Kwirrrf standing up on the seat staring out the window as the rutted road turned to slightly smoother gravel. Houses began to appear, and then other trucks, businesses, even a couple of billboards built low and small to minimize the damage the arctic winds could do.
“This is amazing,” Kwirrrf said from the back
seat.
“This is B.F.E,” Eileen muttered under her breath. Kwirrrf looked at her sharply, but she wasn’t paying attention. The meaning of her words bubbled up in her mind, unguarded.
Kwirrrf started to worry. This was small and crude, and all made by humans? Without catly guidance? For the first time in his life, Kwirrrf didn't feel like the lord of all he surveyed. The thought made him feel somehow dirty. He licked aggressively at the fur of his shoulder, and then a growing, whining racket from above distracted him.
With a buzzing roar like a million locusts, some sort of great winged boat slid past overhead, apparently pulled behind four blurry discs on the front of the unflapping wings.
Kwirrrf bit back his question. When humans fly, he had said back at the camp. Humans flew.
The enormous flying boat-thing descended into town, out of sight. The truck continued to weave through the streets. The humans were clearly unexcited by the flying vehicle, as if it were commonplace to them. Finally, they pulled up in front of a long blocky building alongside a couple of other trucks and got out. Eileen opened Kwirrrf’s door for him.
“This is the hotel,” Sandy said, “where we can get rooms to sleep and something to eat. What now?” Kwirrrf jumped down onto the gravel and sat, sniffing the air.
The air smelled like the diesel truck, and funky like thawing tundra, and dirty…
…and like rut. Another cat came from around the nearby