The ship had specialized sleeping quarters for cats, dogs, and humans but nothing for tiny sprites or gigantic sauros, so temporary arrangements had to be made. For Nick, this meant a plastic dollhouse on Philip’s bunk, and for the lizard Nistra, a pair of heat lamps and a green plastic plant in a narrow closet that definitely still held brooms.
“Much larger than I’m used to,” the sauro murmured as he stood inside the cramped space. He jabbed a claw at a large black splotch on the wall, perhaps the result of a long-dead crew member clearing his or her nose. “And over-decorated.”
The room Sunflower chose was designed for cats, of course. The entrance hatch opened to a cozy space filled with carpeted, ceiling-height cylinders and narrow, chaotic shelves spreading up the walls. As Sunflower tiredly explained, it was very important for a cat to be “up high, where nobody can get you.”
Betsy’s room was a piled-up jumble of chew toys, half-repaired electronics, scratched holodiscs with missing cases, and a huge, circular bed.
Amy walked inside and covered her mouth.
“Good gravy, it smells in here!”
Philip followed her into the room. “I hope it’s not the previous resident. Although the fragrance reminds me more of a wet dog than a putrefying corpse.”
“It’s great!” barked Betsy.
Amy watched the terrier bounce and somersault on the large bed.
“I expected more weirdness in a ship from the fabled dimension of Katmando. Like floating energy beds and spacey glass chairs and tables.”
“We had all of those and more on my maiden voyage,” said the warm voice of the ship. “The glass furniture shattered the first week and none of the crew could sleep on the energy mattresses.”
“Why not?”
“The constant hum.”
Philip claimed a room with two sets of human-sized bunk beds. Across the corridor was “Chanm Komandan,” or Captain’s Quarters, and Amy was pushed into ownership. The hatch opened to a small compartment with a Murphy bed, a sofa, and a desk that folded into the wall when the bed was in use. At the back of the suite was a closet with a shower and toilet. Everything was designed for efficiency of space, like the rooms on a submarine.
Amy slept fitfully the first night, with dark hills projected on the walls and a brilliant field of stars on the ceiling, as if she were camping in Carmel Valley. It reminded her too much of her family, and when she thought about them she thought about Lucia in the hospital, two thousand years in the past and a billion dimensions away.
“You know you can change it, right?”
Amy and Philip sat in the cafeteria with plates of scrambled egg, ham, and buttered toast on the table between them. At least, it looked like eggs and ham to Amy; she hoped it wasn’t something projected onto plates full of gray goo.
“Change it?” She shook her head. “How do I do that?”
“It’s as simple as clearing your mind. Have you ever tried to think of nothing at all? I’m certain you know what I mean.”
“Sure, sometimes.”
“If you relax and focus on absolutely nothing you can change what’s projected on the walls, I assure you.”
“Thanks, I’ll try it. Did you sleep well?”
Philip laughed. “Like a brick! I simply imagined my room in London, and Bob’s your uncle––fast asleep.”
“Why not Yorkshire?”
“Quite a few unpleasant memories, I’m afraid, but of course you know that.”
“Right. How’s the inventory of the ship?”
“Enough food and water for a year, at least. In addition, I found an apparatus that can transmute basic elements into food, as long as carbon and water are in high enough quantities. It’s quite fascinating.”
“Can it make gold? A girl can never have too much gold.”
Philip jammed a fork-full of eggs into his mouth and swallowed. “Theoretically, it’s possible. Realistically, I’m a teenager from nineteenth-century England with little mechanical knowledge who barely reads Cat French.”
Amy rested her elbows on the table. “You’re smart and quick on your feet. I’d say you’re in the top fifty percent of poor little rich boys on this ship.”
Philip looked down at his plate. “We don’t choose our families or how we were born, Amy.”
“I’m sorry.” Amy reached across the table and touched his fingers. “Forget what I said. You’re the BEST poor little rich boy on this ship. I wouldn’t be here without you.”
Philip grinned and held Amy’s hand with both of his. “I sense a wry humor in your voice. You know I’d follow you anywhere, Amy, and be your eternal servant, if only you … um, I wrote a poem about you––about us. Would you like to read it?”
Amy slapped the table and stood up.
“No poems! Soppy words and mushy faces might work on London girls, but I’m from California, and we like results. Show me this transmogrifyer slash alchemy thing you were talking about.”
“As you wish.”
The pair cleaned their plates in the kitchen sink and walked through the corridor. Amy chomped on two pieces of buttered toast as she watched the redwoods projected on the walls and ceiling.
Philip waved her forward. “Follow me, please. The device is in my bedroom.”
“No poetry,” Amy mumbled, her mouth full of toast.
“I wouldn’t dream of it. It’s there because I was showing the machine to Nick before breakfast.”
Amy sniffed. “Do you smell something? Redwoods aren’t supposed to smell like chocolate. Did Hershey built a factory in the mountains?”
“Oh, no!”
Philip sprinted down the corridor like a shot from a starting pistol had just fired. Amy smashed the buttered toast into her mouth and chased after him through the fake hologram of a redwood forest.
The sweet smell of chocolate and vanilla floated from a circular opening in the forest that led to Philip’s bedroom. The teenager stood inside, staring at a silver cube on the top bunk of his bed and the huge pile of frosted cupcakes, cookies, and chocolate truffles around the humming machine. Many of the tasty confections had spilled off the mattress and onto the floor in a colorful mess of frosting and cake.
Philip spread his arms. “I never should have left Nick alone with the devilish thing. Look at this mess!”
Amy grabbed a cupcake covered in purple frosting from the floor and took a huge bite.
“I don’t want to know what I just put in my mouth,” she said. “But it tastes normal.”
A pink-and-white dollhouse stood on the bed next to the silver cube. A high-pitched whine came from inside.
“Urgh … ooooh …”
Amy opened a window on the top floor. Inside, Nick rolled back and forth on a tiny bed and clutched her enlarged, spandex-covered belly.
“Are you going to have a baby fairy?” Amy asked. “You look pregnant.”
“I’m not pregnant and don’t call me a fairy!” screamed Nick.
“Not to be too forward or anything,” said Philip, from behind Amy. “But sprites don’t have babies that way, at least not with the default factory settings.”
“Stop talking about me! I ate too much!”
“I think we have a case of a silly little sprite who’s having a competition with a silly little dog to see who’s being the most silly,” said Amy. “Wouldn’t you agree, Doctor Phil?”
“Most certainly, Nurse Armstrong.”
Amy glared at him. “I’m a doctor, too! We’re both doctors in this fake situation. You don’t think women can be doctors?”
Philip turned red. “Not at all. It’s just … sorry, I’ve made a royal cock-up of everything, as usual.”
Amy laughed and elbowed him in the ribs. “I’m just messing with you, Phil. Good job on making this trans-whatcha-dingus work.”
“Thank you,” said the teenager, after a relieved sigh. “I showed Nick how to make a chocolate chip cookie. I don’t understand how she could make all these other things.”
“Instr
uction manual,” groaned Nick.
“Ah, I see. She used the book that came with it.” Philip waved at the mountain of pastries. “But what did she use for the basic element? Something must be broken down for the machine to convert it to the final product. Sweets, in this case.”
“Instruction manual,” coughed Nick.
“Yes, thank you,” said Philip. “I understand how the process works. I just don’t see anything missing. Pillows, perhaps?”
“Instruction manual!” screamed Nick.
Amy sniffed. “I think she converted the instruction manual to cupcakes.”
“That’s the worst thing she could have used! How am I supposed to change the machine to make anything other than cupcakes?”
Amy raised a hand. “Calm down, Phil. Look at it this way: it’s either the best way to get rid of stinky socks, or the easiest way to kill a sprite.”
The plastic dollhouse vibrated as Nick rolled back and forth. “Sugar rush,” she moaned.
“I’ll get a broom and maybe a mop to clean up,” said Amy. She turned around at the hatch opening. “And not because I’m a girl and crap!”
AMY HELPED Philip clean the sticky mess from his bunkbed and floor, and then left the teenager in his room, trying to understand the strange device without any instructions. She wandered aimlessly through the living quarters at the bow of the ship, the central core of navigation and transmat, and the power plant and engine in the aft sections.
Philip had mastered the ability to change the memories projected on the walls around him, but Amy found it hard to clear her mind. Her life had changed too much in the last … week? Days? Time had become as stretched and slippery as a wet noodle, just like her role in the universe. She had been just a simple teenage girl from California, but that felt like such a long time ago. A time when Lucia had a heart attack. A time when she’d tried to steal a golden Super Nintendo.
Amy found the special console in the middle of a giant stack of plastic shipping crates put on the ship by the Lady. The rectangular block of gold was sealed in a clear plastic case and floated in a shimmering field of blue energy.
“I should have taken that beating from M.K.,” she murmured. “I’d still be in Pacific Grove. I’d be with my friends, I’d be there for Lucia, and I’d have normal clothes to wear!”
Amy pulled up on the tight red spandex around her hips.
If she hadn’t tried to steal the gaming console, though, she would’ve never met Philip. Ah, Philip. Tall and handsome, with English manners––it would be easy to get starry-eyed and squishy over a boy like that. Amy wondered what he’d written about her in his poem. Probably some stupid mopey garbage about flowers and love and feelings.
Amy sighed and shuffled through the forest. “I’m just a normal girl,” she whispered. “Why is he suddenly locked on to me like a guided missile? Warning––warning––beep beep beep, and BOOM.”
“He is attracted because you are the captain, my lady,” said the calm voice of the ship. “Not normal at all.”
“What? Blanche, are you always listening?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“I told you not to call me that. Anyway, I’ve only been the captain for a day. I’m pretty sure Philip liked me before that.”
“He is the companion, and you are the captain. In centuries past and centuries to come, this is always the way.”
“That sounds like some far-out, hippy-dippy crap.”
“No fecal matter is involved. You are the lady of the ship, and he is the companion. In centuries past and centuries to come, this is always the way.”
“I get the point––you think I’m great. I just don’t know why HE thinks I’m great. Me, instead of other girls.” Amy trailed her hand on the fake tree trunks as she walked. Instead of bark, she felt the smooth metal of the corridor wall. “Boys, you know? Can’t understand them, can’t punch them in the throat and shove them off a balcony.”
“I do not recommend that your companion be injured in this way.”
Amy sighed. “They’re like lost little ducklings, you know? After puberty, they start harassing the first girl that doesn’t hate them or call the police or shove them off a balcony. Happens all the time. The harassment, not the balcony thing. That was a total lie spread by Dan Wilson.”
“The pair of you are linked through time and space and represent a measurable, dimensional constant of the universe. Your companion has affection for you, my lady, not because of a chance meeting, but because he has always known you, and always loved you.”
Amy stopped and spread her arms. “I can’t decide if that’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard, or the worst! This is proof that I’ve gone space crazy––I’m talking with a spaceship about boys!”
“My lady does not have a mental defect. I have helped her with many relationships in the past.”
“Well, one of us has to have a defect, and it’s not me.”
Amy sighed and stared at the tops of the redwood trees where a golden eagle floated across the blue sky, his wings spread wide. The distant scream of the eagle notched up a few octaves as he transformed into a seagull, and the ocean roared in Amy’s ears. To her right, foamy surf crashed on the beach, and to her left rose a forest of redwoods and a mountain range covered in gray twilight. A path of rubbery black tiles carved a straight line across the beach above the high-tide line.
Amy hopped up and down. “I did it!”
She ran through the ship looking for someone to tell about her success, and stopped at a vertical silver disc floating above the surf. The phrase “Do not enter upon pain of death” was scrawled across the front in black marker.
Amy touched the disc and stepped inside, trading the ocean scene for a dim space filled with carpeted cylinders and narrow shelves.
“Sunflower? Are you here?”
“Of course I am. It’s my room,” came the quiet voice of the cat.
Amy squinted at the ceiling, and saw Sunflower’s ears above a shelf. “Why is it so dark in here? Why are you up so high?”
“I can see perfectly fine,” said the orange tabby. “I’m doing important stuff and I don’t want to be bothered.”
“I figured out how to change the projections,” said Amy.
“Fabulous. I’m sure your mother would be proud.”
Amy slapped the wall, causing the shelves to vibrate. “My mother? You have no idea what my mother was like. Sometimes you’re so full of it, Sunflower!”
The cat’s head raised an inch, revealing a pair of eyes that flashed briefly in the dark. “I’m sorry, Amy. I didn’t mean to say anything negative. Come up here and I’ll show you something.”
“Way up there? How?”
The cat sniffed. “Don’t tell me you can’t climb. You monkeys lived in trees for ages.”
Amy scrambled hand-over-hand up the narrow shelves and came face-to-face with the orange tabby.
“The monkey jokes weren’t funny the first time. Still not funny now.”
Sunflower blinked at her. “Monkey jokes? I was stating a fact––your people lived in trees. What’s wrong with that?”
“Ha ha, what a comedian. Where am I going to sit?”
“Lay on the top shelf. I’ll extend it.”
The carpeted board slid out a few inches. Amy pulled herself up to the shelf and lay on her belly facing Sunflower’s “work area” in the corner.
The orange tabby lay on a thick square cushion in front of three holographic displays. The cat was using both of his artificial “manos” hands to type on a keyboard in front of the cushion, the needle-like fingers clacking rapidly on the plastic keys.
“This is a cozy little setup,” said Amy.
“The only way to get things done. Or the only way to fall asleep while getting things done. This bed is super-soft.”
“So … whatcha doing?”
“I’m trying to get you home.” An image of the golden, special edition console appeared in one of the displays. “Recognize anything?”
>
“That’s the Super Nintendo you stole from me.”
“What? It wasn’t yours in the first place.”
“I saw it first!”
The cat sighed. “Whatever. This block of gold is special.”
“You bet your whiskers. That’s why I was trying to steal it.”
“Right, but the real value doesn’t come from how many bananas or coconuts or monkey money you think it’s worth––this object is the only pure material we have from your dimension. That’s important. Pure elements resonate on a specific nano-frequency when bombarded with beta radiation from the transmat drive.”
“English, please.”
“If we can fix the recombinator matrix––that’s a big ‘if’––I can combine the nano-frequency with the SBD signal and send you back home. About eight seconds after you left, actually.”
“Still not getting it.”
Sunflower leaned toward Amy and spoke slowly. “Gold thing good. Take you home soon. Mmm-kay?”
“That’s great! But what’s this SBD signal?”
“I talked about that yesterday. Don’t you remember? SpaceBook––the best and worst thing to happen to the universe. I know you come from a backwards planet, but do you know anything about the problems of communicating across great distances?”
“I guess. Radio waves travel at the speed of light, which is 671 million miles per hour. Even solar systems that are really close together on a galactic scale can take years to receive a signal.”
Sunflower nodded. “The fastest postal ship still takes a day to travel between Tau Ceti and Gliese. Instead of doing that, we send a message in a few seconds by bouncing the signal through the SpaceBook network.”
The cat typed on the keyboard using the spiky fingers of his manos, and an image appeared on the holoscreen. A transparent sail pulled a tiny white cube across the emptiness of space, like a sugar cube behind a gigantic handkerchief.
“SpaceBook is a vast system of communication drones powered by the solar wind, and scattered through the spiral arm of our galaxy like a cloud of dandelion seeds. One billion evil dandelion seeds. Messages pass from one satellite to the next, and we can bounce a signal through the network at hundreds of parsecs per second.”
Empire of the Space Cats (Amy Armstrong Book 2) Page 6