Kris Longknife's Successor

by Mike Shepherd

  “Would everyone please stand up?” Penny called. They did, and their tables disappeared into the deck, along with the dais. Then, fifty-two rectangular tables rose out of the deck. They formed a rectangle themselves, but none of them touched. There was a second and third row of tables behind the first, all with comfortable chairs for cats.

  “If the delegations would decide where and with whom they’d like to sit, I can try to adjust the first row of tables. As it turned out, Columm Almar, Kingdom Bizalt, and one other nation occupied one entire short leg of the rectangle. Penny assured that everyone got a table in the first row, although several were small. A fourth row had to be added behind some delegations, but before ten minutes had gone by, everyone was seated.

  Then Penny was asked for several hundred pads of paper, pencils, and a dozen containers. Fortunately, Admiral Drago’s intel officer had stayed and he was able to quickly lay his hands on such obsolete technology.

  “We have this in a store on the station. Some of the locals trust it more than their commlink,” he said, with a shrug.

  Penny couldn’t help but smile as the containers were passed around the room and filled with commlinks and all other electronic devices. She had Marines march them out into the docking bay. Mimzy pulled up tables and the Marines scattered them around so they’d be easy for the participants to find when this meeting ended.

  Done, Penny and her intel associate headed for the exit Admiral Santiago and the rest of the Navy had left through and walked right into a room with much of Sandy’s key staff.

  There were tables set up, chairs, a screen showing the meeting room from several angles, and, depending where you stood, you could overhear several different conversations. Penny learned this quickly, when Jacques called her over to listen in on four cats debating the military problems of aligning themselves in such an unequal treaty.

  “Face it,” one cat said, “not even one of us on this planet could have stood against the fleet that they had up here in our sky. Now they’ve got four. It’s going to be a long cold night before we get anything.”

  “But they are offering to share their most violent technology with us?”

  “Are they? Will they really share it? From what I hear from the cats that have come home, they’re just junior workers on their ships.”

  “Of course they are. They’re staring at magic and trying to learn how it really works. Would you trust a cub to fly your fastest hunter plane?”

  The conversation petered out after that, with the four going their separate way in pairs that agreed with each other and disagreed with the other two.

  Penny spotted Sandy and quick marched for her. She stood while Sandy finished talking with the four fleet admirals. When Sandy paused for a break, Penny said, “May I have a word with you, Admiral?”

  “Are you going to tell me anything I don’t already know?” Sandy said with a happy smile.

  “Probably not. I guess I shouldn’t have worried when the cats walked their high tech out of the room.”

  “While you had Mimzy busy, Jacques’s computer was able to set up this room. We may not be involved in the bargaining, but at least we’ll know who hates us and who doesn’t. He’s tickled to death to get a good chance to watch the cats in conflict resolution mode.”

  “Yes, ma’am, and if the cats figure out what you’re doing here?”

  “They shouldn’t.”

  “Yes, ma’am, but their room is just one open doorway away from here. What if some cat needs a trip to the litter box?”

  Sandy got very serious. “Good point,” she said. “Penny, correct it.”

  The room got a lot deeper, and the wall on the far side of the door moved over until it was on the far side of it. “I’ve set up bathrooms for cats right past the door. May I suggest that you station Marines in the hall just past the bathrooms to keep any cat from getting lost, accidently or on purpose. Mimzy, is there another door out of the banquet hall?”

  “Besides the one to the landing bay, there is one on the opposite wall facing this door.”

  “Create a hall and bathroom off that wall,” Penny ordered.

  “Bret, you might want to get Marines in that hall as well,” Sandy ordered. “Add some to the launch bay, and a couple at this door. I don’t want anyone with fur in here.”

  “Aye, aye, Admiral,” the four-star said, and began talking into his commlink while Mimzy created another set of bathrooms.

  “Penny,” her computer said, “is it okay to put bathroom signage over the doors? We didn’t mention facilities when we were talking to the cats.”

  “We were expecting a shorter meeting,” Penny said. “Yes, go ahead and put a sign over each door so they’ll know there’s someplace to pause within.”

  With the preliminaries over, Sandy and her key staff settled in to see how long the night would go.

  10

  The initial debate in the ballroom involved whether they should negotiate one treaty or two, and which one would come first. This grew from a desire by some to resolve the conditions for the cats to work with the humans in the new technology transfer and military build-up and then tackle the thornier issue of a united defense pact.

  That left Sandy shaking her head. The tech transfer and military build-up struck Sandy as the more difficult. She had a hard time figuring out how a mutual defense pact could be a bigger problem. However, it seemed a major concern for about half of the cats.

  The other half wanted to resolve the labor pact first.

  Since President Almar was on one side and Prime Minister Gerrot was on the other, it was not an easy matter to resolve.

  After a bit more than an hour, they agreed to work on both simultaneously.

  During the debate, coats and jackets had come off, and most of the cats were down to just fur. Since the tables were arranged with a lot of space between countries, none of them had come to blows, although with the Columm Almar and the Bizalt Kingdom right next to each other, at times, it had been a close thing.

  As the cats got down to work, junior members of both those delegations were dispatched to the bathroom. Rather than use the facilities, they went to talk to the Marines. They wanted to see Penny. One of the Marine guards was dispatched to Sandy’s command center, but Penny was already on her way to meet her.

  “We have come to ask you to assist us in rearranging the room,” one of the cats told Penny.

  “Of course, I will be happy to assist,” Penny said, and followed them back to talk with President Almar and Prime Minister Gerrot.

  “We would like to have some more private rooms where small parties may talk alone,” President Almar said. “Can you make us some?”

  “No problem,” Penny said. “Anything else?”

  “Could we have some cots to nap on?” The Prime Minister asked. “Some of us are not as young as we once were and these all-night sessions are not so easy on old bones.”

  “Crafty old bones,” President Almar said, not quite under her breath.

  “Certainly,” Penny said.

  YOU HAVE ALL OF THIS, MIMZY?

  GOT IT. ASK THEM TO STAND A DOZEN PACES FROM ANY OF THE WALLS.

  “You might want to have your folks move ten or twelve paces away from any walls,” Penny said.

  That set a lot of cats scurrying toward the center of the room.

  Walls began to edge up slowly from the deck. Any cats that hadn’t scampered far enough, either stepped over the rising wall or went around to where each room would have a door. In some rooms, tables and chairs began to grow, in others, beds flowed from the deck in singles, pairs, or bunk beds.

  Beside Penny, the feline heads of state were shaking their heads, but they said nothing, until President Almar could not keep her question in, “You will be giving us the secret of this kind of, ah, well, it just looks like magic.”

  “It is likely that we will need for you to build foundries to produce Smart Metal. How much control you will have over the metal will depend on what kind of skills yo
ur programmers acquire and the level of their computers.”

  “You used a computer to do this?” the Prime Minister said, not quite concealing the awe in her voice.

  “Yes.” Penny said, very much aware that Nelly and her children were still something the cats knew nothing about.

  “Will we get such a computer?” the President asked.

  “No. My computer is special, given to me by Kris Longknife. There are only two computers with this capacity present in your solar system. You will likely get commlinks and computers as capable as the ones Grand Admiral Santiago has.”

  “Strange for an underling to have a better machine than her superior,” the President said.

  “Actually, no. Admiral Santiago did not want something this complicated. When she needs something done, she tells me what she wants, and I make it appear.”

  YOU MAKE IT APPEAR? Mimzy said in Penny’s head, clearly feeling left out.

  WE’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT YOU AROUND THESE CATS, REMEMBER?

  OH, RIGHT. SORRY.

  NO PROBLEM.

  The bulkheads were reaching the overhead. “There are breakout rooms of different sizes along the back and left wall. Most of the sleeping rooms are on the right. You can decide who gets a single or double room or who has to bunk down in the big rooms.”

  “Thank you. Did I see beds with mattresses and sheets?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I assumed some of you might need a few hours of good sleep.”

  “In our own room,” the Prime Minister said, slowly. “By all the ancestors, we must have this technology.”

  “We use it for many things, beside warships. However, the ability to duplicate just about anything just by programming a block of Smart Metal can be very disruptive. You might want to take this slow. On Alwa, just about everything is manufactured by conventional means from natural materials.”

  The two world leaders nodded, but were exchanging glances as Penny turned to leave. Then she paused. “If you need me again, just send a messenger to the Marines. I’ll likely be in bed, but they’ll get me up.”

  “I think you have done much, and given us even more to think about,” the President said.

  Penny quickly made her way back to the admiral’s command center. There, one screen still showed the entire room, however, other walls had smaller windows focused down on a small group or even two cats talking, often animatedly. As Penny watched, two angry cats finished their conversation and stomped away. The window closed and Admiral Drago came away, smiling to himself.

  “Trouble?” Penny asked.

  “Yes, but I was more interested in whether they’d come to blows. I’m going to need one of our sociologists or psychologists to study how it was that those two deescalated their verbal battle so they could both walk away. Hey, Jacques, come look at this,” and the window opened again.

  Penny made her way to Admiral Santiago.

  “They seem to be happy for the moment,” Sandy said.

  “At least they like their new amenities.”

  “You better make some sleeping arrangements for our team. No need for anyone to get a full bedroom. Just create some beds in their own small cubbyhole with a door and a light they can turn off. Oh, and an alarm clock.”

  “I’ll have the lights come up slowly at first, then maybe feed in music to wake us,” Penny said.

  “You do that. Then get yourself some sleep. Have that guy of yours take the first watch, then you two switch back and forth. I expect this to stretch into tomorrow. Maybe the next day. At least we have most of the decision makers right here, locked up in our room. Oh, check with the cat restaurants on the station. See if they can ship over some snacks and beverages. These cats are going to need to keep their energy up.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am,” Penny said. The wall farthest from the shared wall was sprouting a honeycomb of sleeping spaces, a meter high and wide at their main point, with mattresses. No one made a beeline for them. Penny checked in with her fiancé, Commander Iizuka, gave him their orders, then crawled into a bed cell, had Mimzy close the door, and dim the lights. With some relaxing music playing in the background, she was surprised at how quickly she fell asleep.

  11

  Admiral Santiago split her attention. Half the time she watched the cats as they debated what to do next and how to do it. The other half she spent watching her own staff.

  The sociologists and psychologists were in hog heaven. They viewed the events taking place in the next room with delight. They spotted dozens of cases that they’d study over and over again before writing a paper on the interrelationships taking place.

  “Admiral,” Jacques said, calling her over to watch something he and several other specialists had watched several times.

  “Yes, Jacques.”

  “We think we’ve got something here. Watch the heads on both of these guys. They’ve been shouting at each other for the last five minutes. Notice how others have been giving them a wide berth. It sure looks like they’re about to go at each other. See, the claws are edging out now.”

  Sandy nodded. She’d seen the shouting and the claws come out in meetings she’d had with the cats. The wooden tables in their conference room had a lot of claw marks cut deep into their surfaces.

  “Here it comes,” Jacques said. “There, see what they just did?”

  “I didn’t see anything,”

  “Computer, run it back ten seconds. Now, watch what the both of them do with their heads.”

  “They seemed to lean back.”

  “Both did, almost at the same time.”

  “What’s it mean?” Sandy asked.

  “I think that’s an instinctive signal that one of them wants to break off the argument before they come to blows.”

  Sandy nodded. That would be good to know, assuming she could spot it fast enough and respond to it quickly enough. It might be instinctive for cats, but not so much for humans.

  “What happens if one leans back and the other doesn’t?” the admiral asked.

  “That’s harder to say. We have samples where one side of an argument leaned back and followed it up by stepping back. It was a clear sign of surrender. We’re still hunting for a situation where one leaned back and the other didn’t and the argument went on further. None of the cats have come to blows, but the morning is yet young.”

  “Thanks for bringing this to my attention,” she told Jacques. “Next time I talk to a cat, I’ll be careful not to lean back unless I want to send that signal.”

  “I’ll let you know if we get any other juicy tidbits.”

  Sandy went back to the middle of the screen, took a few paces away from it so she could keep it all in view, then had her computer pull up a comfortable chair. She settled down for a long night.

  It had been a long day, and Sandy found herself yawning. She became more comfortable, and soon drifted off to sleep despite all the noise around her.

  She awoke several hours later with a start. A huge racket was coming from the main screen. Two cats were caterwauling. Their claws were out and they were leaning well forward.

  “Jacques. What’s happening?”

  “I think we’re about to get our first fight. The black cat with the light belly is from Columm Almar. The tawny one is from the Bizalt Kingdom. They are senior officials from both delegations and they’ve been the most vocal in the argument over separating the mutual defense pact from the tech transfer negotiations. I think we’re about to see how far they’ll go. Now, where are the President and Prime Minister?”

  Sandy studied the scene before her. Quite a few cats had formed a large circle. The president of Columm Almar and the Prime Minister of the Bizalt Kingdom were on opposite sides of the circle.

  Suddenly, the black cat leapt at the tawny one. The attack was swift, just one pass and the two swapped sides. Both showed scratches that were deep enough to drip blood on the deck.

  Now the two cats hunched low and continued their caterwauling. Those in the circle were absolutely silent.<
br />
  Again, both leapt at each other, slashing and biting, but only in a quick pass. Both were bleeding more freely now. The black cat had a bad cut over her eye, but the other cat was bleeding from deep cuts in her belly.

  “Admiral, alert sick bay. We’ll need a surgeon versed in cats real soon.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am,” Drago said and quickly was talking into his commlink. “I’ll have the med team waiting out of sight from the Marines standing guard by the restrooms.”

  “Good. We don’t want the cats to think we’re watching them.”

  “No,” Bret said. “That would be most undiplomatic of us.”

  The two enjoyed a chuckle.

  Another pass had been made while they talked. The black cat was bleeding more profusely from a head wound, but the tawny cat was slowing down. The belly wound was starting to look like a seriously deep cut into her most vulnerable organs.

  They charged again, this time both biting toward the others’ neck. They locked together, both with jaws clenched on the other’s shoulder or neck. They both now clawed at the other’s belly.

  They broke apart, not so much walking away as rolling. Both struggled to get up, even on all fours. The black cat managed to work her way up to her elbows.

  Prime Minister Gerrot stepped forward. “Enough. We accede to your position. We will have two different negotiations and treaties. Now, ask the humans for a doctor.”

  “Bret, get a Marine to the door. He can ask what all the noise was about.”

  Admiral Drago spoke for a moment to his wrist unit, and a Marine sergeant quickly show up at the door into the ballroom.

  “Is something wrong? We heard a lot of noise,” she got out as if she’d been practicing the line. Of course, she also got a good look at the two bleeding heaps of fur on the deck.

  “We require medical assistance.”

  “Corpsman, Corpsman! Cat down,” she shouted into her commlink. She signaled to a Marine guard who raced into the room, a buddy rescue pack in his hand. He slid to the deck beside the cats and began basic first aid.