Nistra reached for a sturdy metal box in the center of the table. Warning stickers and “DANGER” in large red letters were plastered across the box, and it was sealed with a padlock.
Astra held up both hands. “Careful, sir! If you drop that––”
“Nothing will happen,” said Nistra. “It’s only dangerous to a few organisms.”
He slammed the hilt of a combat sword into the lock, breaking it off. The dozen sauropods around the table jumped back and tried to claw up the walls.
“We’re going to die!” screamed Astra.
Nistra lifted the lid of the box. “This is a substance deadly to cats, but will not set off alarms on the ship. I also happen to know that cats who have worked for the Lady have modified bodies. The changes that the Lady made to their biochemical structure make her feline workers even more allergic.”
The sauro reached into the box and held up a disc of Gouda cheese.
“Explosively allergic.”
FURBALL WAITED on the sidewalk outside the human cafe, his fluffy tail curled around his feet.
“I see you’ve finished early,” he said.
Amy brushed cat hair from the back of her skirt. “You were right, Furball––that place was a little bit creepy.”
“I liked it!” said Betsy. “Can we go back? Can we go back now?”
Philip shrugged. “The water tasted fine, and the young women were quite enchanting.”
“Really?” asked Amy.
“Did I say ‘young women?’ I meant to say the water was enchanting. That’s what I meant to say, and the words were somehow turned around in my mind.”
Amy laughed. “I know what’s turning around in your mind.” She linked arms with the tall teenager. “Forward! Into the valley of death.”
“—rode the six hundred,” said Philip, and grinned. “Let’s hope we don’t share the same fate as the light brigade.”
“The what?”
“The light brigade. You just quoted Tennyson, didn’t you? ‘Half a league, half a league, half a league onward?’”
“Doesn’t ring a bell. I studied burglary and petty theft in school, remember?”
“Poems are great,” said Betsy, and began to sing. “I love turkey, I love chicken, Jurg Mix, Jurg Mix please deliver!”
“That’s a commercial jingle, not a poem,” said Amy.
The white spires of Meowie University towered against the blue sky as they walked through the streets of the college district. Businesses that catered to students lined the sidewalks: bookstores, tea rooms, music shops, and dozens of strange-smelling stores selling artistic prints and posters for dormitory rooms. Cat singers and human babies were the subject of many of the posters, the most popular being a blonde infant dangling from a branch above the slogan: “Hang in there!”
Cats with backpacks heavy with books crowded at the corner of an intersection across from the official entrance to the university, waiting for the light to change and the constant traffic of bubble cars to halt. Many did a double-take at the gigantic humans and their dog companion, and gave Amy and Philip more than enough space on the packed sidewalk.
Amy pointed across the street. “Hey––can you read that?”
An imposing sign made from concrete and orange brick stood on a grassy knoll. A few cats lay on the grass reading books.
“Inivisitat Chat,” said Philip confidently.
“Peanut butter sandwich?”
Philip smiled. “Funny girl. You know it means ‘Meowie University.’”
“My mother always said it’s better to be funny than smart, and better to be good-looking than funny.”
“How lucky that you’re all three, then!”
Betsy whispered into Furball’s ear. “Where’s the sandwich? All I see are cats everywhere!”
The light changed and the crowd of cat students poured across the street, pulling Amy, Philip, Betsy, and Furball with them like a pair of department-store mannequins caught in a flash flood.
Oak trees covered the blue-green lawns of the campus, and cat students loaded down with backpacks trotted over concrete paths between the buildings. Furball walked inside the white tower of an administration building to inquire about Cynthia MacGuffin, and several cat students asked Amy and Philip for their autographs. A pair of black cats not much bigger than kittens posed excitedly for pictures with Betsy.
“I didn’t know I was famous,” said Philip, as he signed the front page of a history textbook.
“Sunflower is the famous one,” said Amy. “We’re just famous by accident.”
“Ah, I see. Everyone thinks we’re famous because we landed with Sunflower.”
Furball scrambled out of the white tower and pushed through the small crowd around the humans.
“Make way, imperial business, make way,” he shouted. “Please, honored guests––follow me.”
Philip pulled Betsy away from the outstretched paws of the terrier’s excited fans. He and Amy trotted after Furball as the white cat navigated a winding route through a maze of pale sandstone buildings covered in roofs of coffee-colored tile. A crowd of students followed at a short distance, whispering excitedly and taking photos of Amy and Philip with tiny cameras attached to their furry wrists.
The sandstone two-story buildings separated by trees and cultivated lawns reminded Amy of Stanford University, only on a smaller scale and populated entirely with cats. She spotted a pair of dogs in the distance and passed three young men on the sidewalk, but they stared blankly at Amy’s perky greeting.
“Hey, guys! I lost a cat around here. Seen any?”
Philip pulled Amy away from the puzzled humans.
“Very funny,” he whispered.
“I know! That’s why I said it.”
Apart from a mass of antennae, satellite dishes, and strange white domes on the roof, the physics department looked the same as any other sandstone building on campus.
“We’ve found the right place, it seems,” said Philip. “Now what’s the plan?”
Amy shrugged. “Find MacGuffin, get recombinator, get back to ship.”
“What if the chap doesn’t want to give it up?”
“Then we go with Plan B,” said Amy.
“And that is?”
Amy grinned. “Plan B is to come up with another plan. Honestly, we don’t even know if this Cynthia MacGuffin has anything to do with stealing the recombinator.”
Furball pushed through a low wooden door at the side of the building, and Amy, Philip, and Betsy followed him inside, the humans ducking their heads as they entered.
Amy expected low ceilings in a university for cats, but the lobby was open and stretched high above their heads to the roof. Windows in the opposite wall threw bright light on a large cone of aluminum in the center of the lobby, possibly the nose cone for an old rocket or landing craft. Sheer white walls on the left and right were studded with foot-long pegs leading diagonally to six round openings along each wall. A small cat emerged from one of the openings high above and ran gracefully down the pegs to the floor of the lobby.
“Please follow me, honored guests,” said Furball.
He jumped to the line of pegs on the left wall and began to climb.
“Wait a second,” said Amy. “How are we supposed to climb those things?”
Furball turned and blinked his blue eyes at her. “Like anyone. Don’t you have steps where you come from? If you’re scared, please stay here.”
“I’m scared,” said Betsy. “I’m staying here.”
“Definitely not scared of falling,” said Amy. “I’m scared of a cat doctor trying to put me back together if I pull a Humpty-Dumpty.”
Furball blinked at Amy.
“She means if she falls,” said Philip.
“I see. Please remain here and I will find this Cynthia MacGuffin.”
The white cat scampered expertly up the diagonal line of pegs and disappeared into an opening.
“I don’t trust him,” said Philip. “Never had luck wit
h a Persian cat.”
Amy curtsied and pointed at the wall. “Boys first.”
The tall teenager nodded and slowly climbed up the wall-pegs on his hands and knees, moving carefully from one wooden rod to the next. Amy crept after Philip, matching his pace. Halfway up the wall, she heard a scrabbling sound on the lobby floor. Something thumped on her back, and a calico cat wearing a backpack jumped over her head. The cat scrambled over Philip and disappeared into the next round opening with a desperate yowl.
“What on Earth?”
Amy shrugged. “Late for class?”
They climbed to the top opening ten meters above the lobby floor. A mob of cat students apparently waiting for them squeezed past and poured down the now-available pegs.
“No sign of Furball,” said Amy. “Watch your head.”
“Thank you,” said Philip, his dark hair brushing the ceiling. “Don’t worry. We’ll find this cat one way or another.”
“Should we put out a bowl of milk? Here kitty, kitty …”
“I wouldn’t recommend that. Cats in this time may very well hate that phrase.”
“Good thinking. Here Cynthia, Cynthia. Here MacGuffin.”
The teens walked along the cramped corridor, peering at nameplates and cracking open doors to stare into classrooms. Several cat students passed hurriedly, without taking the time to give the pair of humans a second glance.
Amy stopped at a door halfway down the hall. “Here it is––Dr. MacGuffin, PhC. Theoretical Physics.”
Furball trotted up to Amy and Philip from the far end of the hallway.
“I’ve already checked,” he said dully. “The professor is not there.”
Philip twisted the door handle. “He’s right. Locked.”
“Just because it’s locked doesn’t mean he’s not there,” said Amy. “He could be hiding.”
“From who?”
Amy shrugged. “Students? A pair of scary humans like us?”
A distant thump and patter of steps came from behind a door across the hall. The wood-framed door squealed open and a fat gray tabby with white patches on his face and chest peered out.
“Freshman lecture is on the first floor,” he growled. “Stop making such a racket!”
“Sorry,” said Amy. “We’re looking for Cynthia MacGuffin. Do you know him?”
“Of course I know him,” huffed the old tomcat. “We shared offices in graduate school.”
“Is he at lunch?”
The fat tabby cleared his throat. “Doctor MacGuffin has recently passed away. Thank you for your concern and please proceed to the building exit.” He stamped his foot. “Well? Stop staring at me. Go on!”
“But we really have to talk with him,” said Amy. “He’s got something we need.”
“A genius, a literal genius of a cat, has passed from this world and you’re worried about term papers and grades? Why did we ever let Centaurans into this school? You’re a shower of uncivilized monsters, every last one of you!”
The tabby slammed his office door.
Philip knocked on the glass. “Sir-–we’re not his students.”
“I’m not opening it, so stop knocking,” came the fat tabby’s voice.
Furball twitched his fluffy white tail. “I suppose that’s that. Should we proceed to the palace, or would you like to see the famous attractions of Cheezburger?”
Amy shook her head. “I don’t believe him.”
“Why?” asked Philip. “It’s a big city, and bound to have many famous attractions.”
“No! I don’t believe the gray cat.”
She pressed her lips to the gap between the door and the frame. “We really need to speak to Doctor MacGuffin. If we can’t find him, we’ll be stuck here forever! We’re not students, not the police, and definitely not from the government.”
The door opened a crack and the fat tabby squinted at them.
“You’re not … from the government?”
Amy shook her head. “Nope. Well, Furball is, but he’s just our bodyguard.”
“I’m your guide!” huffed the white Persian.
The door opened a crack wider. “Are you from the holoscreen?” asked the gray cat excitedly. “Is this ‘Candid Cats’?!! I’ve always wanted to be on holoscreen!”
“Whatever that is, we’re not from it. We came to Tau Ceti to meet Doctor MacGuffin.”
“It’s the only reason we’re on this planet,” said Philip.
The door swung open quickly. “Get in, get in!”
Every available space inside the small office seemed to be covered with stacks of yellowed paper covered in mathematical formulae. Books packed shelves along the walls and towered in huge piles beside a large cushion covered with cat hair. Boxes of wires, strange silver globes of various shapes, and blinking silver cubes took up space next to a greasy, dust-covered window.
The fat gray tabby sat on the large cushion and patted the fabric next to him.
“Please, have a lay-down.”
Amy wrinkled her nose at the thought of adding more cat hair to the already-significant amount sticking to her skirt and black tights.
“Thanks, but I’ll stand.”
“As will I,” said Philip.
Betsy curled up next to the tabby. “Not me. My feet hurt!”
“Allow me to introduce myself,” said the fat tomcat. “I am Doctor Darlene Jackson, professor emeritus of physics at this university.”
“Why did you say MacGuffin was dead?” asked Amy. “Did you bury him somewhere in this stuffy room? Maybe under these piles of paper?”
Doctor Jackson sighed. “No. I tell everyone he’s dead because he might as well be. A single cat has little chance when standing up to organizations with vast power and resources, even if he is a gentleman and a scholar.”
“Are you talking about the Lady?”
“Keep your voice down!” hissed Jackson. “Don’t speak that name unless you want the sharp teeth of a trillion-mao corporation biting at your neck!”
“Sorry.”
“No, I should be the one who’s sorry. I could have stopped him from making these reckless choices. Cynthia was always a genius, but not the wisest cat I’ve known. He began researching quantum gates and dimensional theory years ago. Folly and useless! As anyone with any background in physics knows, there’s no return from a quantum gate, and no way to test any route of return. Cynthia still thinks the possibility exists, and heard a rumor that the … unnamed one … had made her trillions by somehow returning from a trans-dimensional rematerialization. The stupidity! And now he’s going to get himself killed for it. What’s the point of research if you’re too dead to do the research?”
“That’s what we need to talk to him about,” said Amy. “The rematerialization.”
Jackson stared at the pair of human teenagers for a moment. At last he nodded.
“You will try to help him,” he said quietly. “Behind your eyes, I see the feeling is genuine.” He reached behind his ear and handed Amy a tiny silver disc. “Cynthia has fled to a research station near the equator. You will find the coordinates on the memory disc.”
Furball jerked up from the cushion. “The equator? Nothing can survive the heat!”
Doctor Jackson shrugged. “Perhaps, but there is also nothing to bother a scientist trying to complete his research.”
“Thank you,” said Amy. “If we find him, we’ll try to help.”
Philip crossed his arms. “Pardon me for being presumptuous, Doctor Jackson, but how are you so confident of our motives? I suspect you have your own reasons––ones that you don’t wish to reveal.”
“What are you doing?” whispered Amy.
Philip shrugged. “After a two-minute conversation, he trusts a pair of strangers with the life of his colleague? I just don’t see it.”
Doctor Jackson licked a gray paw and settled on his cushion.
“I know you are good people for one single reason,” said the cat. “She who shall not be named never, ever hires humans
.”
AMY STOPPED at the curb and waved at a yellow bubble car in the stream of approaching traffic.
“Taxi!”
The yellow sphere whisked by without slowing, a wide-eyed orange cat inside.
Amy shrugged. “Taken.”
She turned to see Furball, Betsy, and Philip staring at her.
“What are you doing?” asked Furball.
“Trying to get a taxi. We have to get back to the palace, pronto!”
“That wasn’t a taxi,” said the white cat. “Even if it was, that’s not how you get one.”
Betsy wagged his tail. “Here’s how we do it on Kapetyn!”
The brown-and-white terrier grabbed a pebble with his spidery ‘manos’ bracelet and side-armed it at a bubble car. The rock cracked on the clear windscreen, but the car sped on by with two cats staring at the terrier from the dashboard.
Betsy shrugged. “Taken.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t stop,” said Philip.
“Exactly.”
“And whack the living daylights out of you.”
“Oh.”
“Allow me to find a means of rapid conveyance,” said Furball.
The white cat walked to an upright box that looked like a tiny blue phone booth and murmured into a screen. He strutted away from the booth calmly, and before he’d even made it back to the group, a black sphere screeched to a stop beside the curb. A curved door marked with “CBTB” in block letters swung up and open, revealing a padded interior lined in plush gray cushions.
Furball bowed. “Please enter, honored guests.”
Amy pointed at the seat. “Too small. We need the extra-large, big-gulp sized taxi.”
“I’ll sit on your lap this time,” said Philip. “Does that sound fair?”
“Definitely not! It doesn’t work the other way around.”
The teenager grinned. “I expect not.”
Betsy scrambled into the taxi. “You can sit on my lap, Philly-Billy!”
“Dogs don’t have laps, everyone knows that,” said Amy.
She pulled the brown-and-white terrier out of the taxi, Philip slid inside, and Amy settled on top of him with Betsy in her arms.
Furball jumped up to the narrow, cushioned dashboard and pressed a button on the frame. The door lowered with a swish.
Empire of the Space Cats (Amy Armstrong Book 2) Page 17