Sunflower groaned. “That’s enough! Bad. Sooo very bad.”
“What’s a recombina … doozie-thing?”
“It’s in the name,” said the cat. “It’s part of the equipment that puts your monkey bodies back together in the transmat chamber when we return. If you’re done with living and this plane of existence and everything, you should try to remat without a recombinator.”
“Do not try it,” said the ship.
“Can we fix the thing?” asked Amy. “Pull into the nearest galactic service station? Call triple-A?”
Sunflower blinked at her. “That’s like asking a poona to change the oil in your hovercraft. The White Star is from Katmando, a dimension more advanced than anything you can imagine. Even if we had anything like a ‘galactic service station,’ whatever stupid dog mechanic was working there would break more than he could fix.”
“Betsy’s not here, so don’t make fun of him. That’s a rule.”
“Perhaps we have a spare?” asked Philip. “In case this one breaks, as it has done?”
“A replacement for the recombinator is not present in my storage,” said the ship. “However, if the analogue for a Cynthia MacGuffin can be located in this dimension, another recombinator has the possibility of being constructed.”
“My head hurts,” said Amy. “What’s a Cynthia MacGuffin?”
“A traitor,” growled Sunflower. “A cat who pretended to work for the Lady, but was just a spy. He stole a shuttlecraft and made it to Tau Ceti before I caught up to him, a hundred miles over the Painted Sea. I shot a missile into his main engine and the shuttle started to burn as it fell toward the water …” He stroked the whiskers on the right side of his face slowly, his voice quiet. “Bright and orange, like a velvet sundown.”
“Sunflower! Snap out of it!”
“Sorry. Luckily, the traitor only managed to grab a … wait, that’s it!”
“A recombinator,” said the ship.
Amy leaned on the console next to the cat. “You just said that he’s dead. How does that help?”
“We’ve traveled to another dimension,” said Philip. “Perhaps this MacGuffin escaped with the plans. Perhaps Sunflower never existed to stop him. Perhaps another cat stole the plans.”
“Maybe in this dimension, cats never left Earth,” said Amy. “And humans are the true masters of the universe.”
Sunflower bowed his head over the keyboard, his entire body shaking with silent laughter.
“Masters … of the … universe,” he whispered, and wiped tears from his eyes. “That’s a good one. I’ll have to remember that.”
The cat sighed and resumed typing with the thin metal fingers of the manos.
“Back to this MacGuffin,” he said. “He’s a litter box full of ‘perhaps’ and ‘maybes,’ but what choice do we have? It’s going to take a couple of days in travel time to reach Tau Ceti, and I’ll look into repairing the recombinator. Amy––since you’re in charge, but mainly because the ship seems to like you, give the order to take us to Tau Ceti.”
Amy pointed at the orange tabby. “Take us to Tau Ceti. That’s an order!”
“Not to me. To the ship!”
“Oh.” Amy cleared her throat. She didn’t know what to do, exactly, so she spread her legs and put her hands on her waist like a pirate captain.
“Blanche, plot a course to Tau Ceti,” she said sternly. “Maximum warp.”
“Course entered and calculated,” said the ship. “Estimated time of arrival: fifty-two hours, twelve minutes. One question, my lady: what is a ‘maximum warp?’”
Sunflower giggled. “Just say ‘cruising speed!’”
“Take us to Tau Ceti, Blanche,” said Amy. “Cruising speed.” She raised her right hand, then dropped it. “Engage.”
“Apologies, my lady. I accelerated to cruising velocity seven point three seconds ago.”
“Sure. I, uh … That’s fine, too.”
SPRAWLED FACE-DOWN on the metal deck of the corridor, Nistra groaned.
The giant lizard climbed to his hands and knees and slowly stood to his full height of over two meters. He wiped a trickle of blood from the end of his scaly green snout.
“What kind of ship is this?” he hissed. “No warning for gravity activation. No announcement or alarm. Not even a beep.”
The sauro muttered to himself as he walked on his clawed feet through the corridors, constantly pulling at his tight red uniform.
“Raspberries,” he growled. “Nothing smells worse than raspberries. Not even cat ships are this disgusting.”
He opened door after door in the living quarters, stuck his massive head into cabinets, and flung open lockers.
“Where are all the weapons?” he hissed. “The plasma rifles? Gun swords? Flail rods? If this was a sauro craft, you couldn’t walk ten meters without finding six different ways to kill a cat. There’s not even a plastic knife!”
Nistra stopped in the middle of the corridor and glanced left and right at a pair of circular hatches.
“One of these stinking doors must lead to the armory. Even better, a toilet. Those kebabs I had for lunch at the prison … ugh. I’ll have the cook shipped to the outer colonies.”
The lizard chose a silver hatch with “Prive” scrawled across the metal in black marker, and pressed a clawed hand to the center. The hatch spiraled away. Nistra coughed and covered his snout at the heavy smell of dust. The room was dark, but he could see the faint outline of shelves.
As the sauro tramped inside with his heavy, clawed feet, the floor panels snapped to life and cast a white glow throughout the room. A wide collection of objects sat on shelves behind protective glass: a pair of gold rings, a necklace with a heart pendant, a plastic bottle with a faded label, a paper book with a torn cover. A yellowed square of paper covered in scribble had been placed in front of each object.
“What a worthless collection of junk,” spat Nistra. “A museum for garbage! Who saves a brown skirt and a tiny crowbar? Who keeps old food containers?”
The lizard spotted a small black revolver on a lower shelf.
“Thank the egg––a projectile weapon! Against my thick hide it would be as useful as throwing a rock, but against cats and Centaurans …”
He scraped his sharp claws across the clear protective barrier, but failed to scratch the surface or pry open the shelf. The sauro punched the glass and jumped away holding his fist.
“Cat’s teeth!” he howled.
The lizard rubbed his bruised knuckles and wandered to the back of the room. He froze, forgetting all about his hand.
“Cat’s teeth …”
Images covered the back wall of the room: some paper, some plastic, most digital. Many of the plastic squares had lost their original brightness, but hadn’t faded as badly as the scraps of paper, their edges curled up like dried leaves. Digital screens glowed faintly, as clear as the day they were saved to a memory device. Every photograph featured the same subject: Amy Armstrong.
In one, she and Philip held hands beside a leafy tree. In another she wore a bulky white pressure suit on a gray lunar surface, the white silhouette of the photo-taker reflected in the dome of her helmet. She wore a diamond-covered crown and reclined on a golden throne in one photo, a black-and-white cat on her lap and a German Shepherd at her feet. She stood beside gigantic waterfalls, majestic mountains, vast oceans, strange urban landmarks, sometimes with Philip, sometimes with another man, usually with cats and dogs of all stripes and colors. Nistra chuckled at a photo of Amy with her arm around a Sauro in a business suit. Both were smiling.
“Either a mental patient or he bought the human as a pet,” he sneered.
The sauro leaned closer and scanned the hundreds of images on the wall.
“Something strange about this human female,” he murmured. “In this photo she is missing a hand. In another she has both, but is older. Here she has a scar on the right side of her face and a metal arm, but in this one she has black hair, no metal arm, and no scar. In thi
s image her leg has been replaced with metal, and in this one––”
Nistra gasped. “The Lady!”
The lizard scraped a sharp claw across the image of a half-human, half-spider creature. Her hair had turned gray, but her face was still recognizable as a very old Amy Armstrong.
Nistra stuck a thin claw behind the protective glass and pushed and prodded the plastic photo. After a bit of work it fell out.
The sauro picked the photo from the glowing floor. “Amy Armstrong is the Lady, the most powerful trader in the galaxy? How is that possible? I was just standing in front of her! Somehow, I will use this to my advantage.”
Nistra searched his tight spandex uniform for pockets. Failing to find any, he sighed and shoved the photo into his pants.
“Now for some strategy,” he mused.
The sauro searched the corners of the room, at last finding a black marker lying in a corner. He walked into the corridor, closed the hatch, and scrawled “Radiation” below the word “Prive,” along with the galactic symbol for dangerous radiological substances.
“Magnificent,” he whispered, inspecting his work.
The sauro glanced at the marker in his claw and thought about tossing it over his shoulder. At last he sighed and jammed the metal tube down the front of his trousers.
AMY FOUND Betsy and Nick in the kitchen.
Like the rest of the ship, the room was designed for both a weightless environment and artificial gravity. Food preparation counters and sinks in the center island had covers and emergency suction hoses, and floor-to-ceiling metal cabinets around the walls had locking handles to keep contents from flying out.
Sunflower stood in the doorway. “You’re going to get sick!”
The object of his scorn was the wagging tail and rear end of a brown-and-white Jack Russell terrier, busily rooting around in a steel cabinet. The dog backed out, revealing a fuzzy head completely inside a plastic bag of marshmallows, like a toddler dangerously pretending to be an astronaut.
“Hey guys!” said Betsy, his voice muffled and white marshmallows bouncing around his head.
He shook his neck wildly, causing the bag to fly off and huge marshmallows to scatter through the kitchen. The terrier scrambled up to Amy, his snout and jaws covered in sticky white goo.
“Want a marshmallow?”
Amy had a sudden vision of picking dog hairs from her teeth. “Thanks, but no thanks. I thought you only ate once a week, anyway.”
“Betsy has a weakness,” hissed Sunflower. “The medical term is ‘brain no workee.’ He knows that the changes the Lady made to our bodies means we’re on a restricted diet––remember what happened last time you ate a bag of marshmallows, Betsy?”
The dog blinked at him. “Uhhh … what was the question?”
“You don’t remember, do you? That’s because you went into a coma and we had to replace every drop of dog blood in your stupid dog body. There’s probably no dog blood on this ship, dog surgeons, or even any blood or surgeons, so you can stop eating or die. Take your pick.”
“I’ll stop eating. Thanks, Sunnie!”
The orange tabby rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
A hollow thump came from one of the cabinets.
“Where’s Nick?” asked Philip.
Betsy glanced left and right. “She … uh … just flew away. She went to find you. Yeah, that’s it!”
Philip crossed his arms. “Are you telling a lie?”
“Mabily?”
“Betsy!”
“Okay, I was telling a lie. Nick’s up there. I had to lock her inside.”
Amy pulled the handle. As the door swung open, a tiny woman flew out and buzzed around Betsy’s head, causing the terrier to howl and spin in circles. Nick’s tiny red dress was smeared with sticky marshmallow goo.
“The dog almost killed me!”
“You were stealing marshmallows!”
“They were mine!”
Amy grabbed both by the back of the neck and held them off the floor.
“Did you two have coffee this morning? You’re fighting like cats and dogs.”
Sunflower snorted. “Don’t you mean like sprites and dogs?”
“Whatever. You’re both are acting like children, especially Betsy.”
“Don’t be too hard on the dog,” said Sunflower. “He wasn’t born with all the advantages the rest of us have in life.”
“Like a brain,” piped up Nick, as she struggled in Amy’s fingers. “Everyone knows marshmallows are for sprites, not dogs! We can’t eat anything but candy and cake and ice cream and chocolate!”
Amy set Betsy on the floor first and then let Nick fly away. “That can’t be true. Is that true?”
“Absolutely,” said Sunflower. “Sprites were engineered to eat junk food. Unless, of course, you change the factory settings.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you want them to eat bugs and stuff. Dogs have gardens, too.”
“No! Why design them to eat junk food?”
The orange tabby shrugged. “Because it was funny?”
Philip raised a hand. “I lived with Nick for a few years. It sounds preposterous, but it’s absolutely true––a sprite’s diet consists entirely of sweets. Apparently the cat scientists who developed the sprites thought all dogs were too fat, so they designed them to eat everything that was bad for a dog’s diet. Also, the cats thought it was the peak of hilarity, imagining the tiny creatures swiping huge cakes from the mouths of their canine owners.”
Sunflower held a paw over his nose and giggled. “Sorry … that’s still funny.”
“Excuse me, Amy,” broke in the warm voice of the ship from speakers in the ceiling. “But I believe a clarification is necessary. The food substance in question belongs to neither the sprite nor the dog.”
Nistra stepped through the doorway of the kitchen. He saw the opened bag and scattered white cylinders, and stamped a clawed foot.
“Who’s been eating my marshdevils?”
Philip and Amy looked at each other. “Marshdevils?”
“I told you that’s what it said on the package!” yelled Nick.
Betsy stared at the floor. “I thought they were just marshmallows that tasted like a goat that died after eating another goat that died.”
“No wonder these two were ready to kill each other,” said Sunflower. “Marshdevils are disgusting sauro food. Eat a couple of those and you’ll want to roast kittens alive.”
“That’s not true at all,” said Nistra. “They must be steamed for the best flavor.”
“Marshdevils or kittens?”
“Both.”
Amy raised her hands. “Nobody’s roasting or steaming anything. Nistra, you might want to change your thinking about kittens. We’re traveling to a planet where you shouldn’t say that out loud.”
The sauro stared at her with his yellow eyes. “No! You don’t mean––”
“That’s right,” said Sunflower, a purr in his voice. “Before you can say ‘jackrabbit’ we’ll be strolling the cobbled streets of the City of Light, passing tiny cafes and bakeries, classrooms and martial arts dojos, all packed to the brim with cats living life to the fullest. For romance, tradition, and elegance nothing holds a candle to the queen of all conurbations, metropoli, and municipalities––Cheezburger, capital of Tau Ceti.”
Betsy danced and hopped, flinging tiny white globs on Amy.
“Yay! We’re going to have fun!”
Amy stared at Sunflower. “Seriously? There’s a city called Cheezburger?”
“Not just a city, but THE City,” murmured the cat. “Full of energy, parks, tea shops, intellectuals, poets, skyscrapers, monuments to great cats long dead, holoscreen celebrities, and lovers walking along the river at sunset. It’s the center of cat civilization, and that means civilization period.”
“But … Cheezburger? That’s a sandwich! Ground beef and cheese!”
“Is it? I guess you’re right. I grew up with the name, so I guess I n
ever thought about the actual meaning. The city really isn’t named after the sandwich, though. Saint Cheezburger was the first cat to set foot on Tau Ceti. Remember the colony ship from Earth?”
“How could I forget? Philip told me all about it.”
Nistra cleared his throat. “Kepler Prime has excellent dining and um, fighting arenas. Couldn’t we visit there first?”
“The transmat drive is broken and the best idea for fixing it is somewhere on Tau Ceti,” said Sunflower. “If this plan doesn’t work, we’re all stuck in this dimension.”
The sauro nodded and raised a claw gingerly.
“What’s a transmat drive? And what do you mean, ‘this dimension?’”
Amy sighed. “You’ll have plenty of time in the next two days to get caught up with all of that. In the meantime, please help Philip make a list of supplies and food on the ship. Sunflower and I’ll see if anything else is broken. Betsy … where’d he go?”
Nick hovered in the center of the room, the clear dragonfly wings of the tiny woman buzzing like a miniature lawnmower. The sprite flipped her blonde hair back and stared at her fingernails.
A thump came from under the sink. Philip pulled open a metal cabinet and Betsy tumbled out, gasping for air.
“I can’t find the candy!”
Amy crossed her arms. “Nick?”
“I didn’t do anything!”
Nistra pulled down on his red uniform top. “One more thing, um, everyone. I found a dangerous room full of radiation, which is also dangerous, so everyone should, uh, stay away.”
“How do you know it’s dangerous?” asked Philip.
“Warnings and symbols on the hatch,” said Nistra. “If you wish to continue to live, don’t open it.”
“Sure, whatever,” said Amy. “Time to get to work, everyone. We’ve got two days.”
Chapter Three
The ship flew through the vast darkness between the stars, spiraling on her axis like a silver bullet, her skin gleaming blue from deflected interstellar particles.
Six new inhabitants wandered through her corridors, poked and prodded at buttons, claimed rooms, decorated rooms, made lists, tugged at tight uniforms, stared at screens in the library, and searched fruitlessly for real marshmallows.
Empire of the Space Cats (Amy Armstrong Book 2) Page 5