Choice of the Cat

by E. E. Knight

  McDonald's built its restaurants to last; this one's roof was still more or less sound after nearly fifty years of Nebraska's seasons. Stepping softly, Valentine followed the blood trail into the back of the building, through the debris and growth springing up wherever swirls of dirt accumulated. The trail ended in the dark, cavelike metal walk-in that had once been a refrigerator, or perhaps a freezer.

  Valentine smelled more blood and heard slow, labored, breathing. He opened the door to the freezer a little farther, and looked inside.

  A Grog lay curled up on the floor. An enormous one. It looked to be a type he had glimpsed among the Twisted Cross trains, taller and not quite so broadly built as the fierce gray apes he was familiar with. This one's exposed skin, rather than resembling the thick slabs of armor plating like that of a rhino that the Grogs on Little Timber bore, was rougher and deeply wrinkled, pebbled like an elephant's. It was also wearing fitted clothing. He had never seen Grogs in anything more than simple loincloths or vests. It was dusted with soft, fawn-colored fur, in patches on its chest and somewhat heavier on its back and shoulders. Blood matted the sparse fur. An ugly brown streak ran from the Grog to a drain in the center of the floor.

  It was unconscious, obviously dying. Valentine almost shut the door, to leave it to expire in peace, when he heard the slightest whimpering sound from the Grog, lost in some pain-diffusing dream. Whatever else, it had killed six Harpies, four with its bare hands. It deserved some thanks as far as Valentine was concerned. He began to rummage around for something that could be used as bandages.

  The store was empty, but while exploring the basement, he found a few rags and old towels. The uniform closets and employee lockers had been stripped long ago, but he found a large red flag, well trodden on and obviously once used as a carpet on the cold floor by some unknown resident, long gone. He found an old box with packets of mix labeled sanitizer, read the label, opened one up and experimentally added it to some water poured from his canteen into one of the buckets scattered around the basement.

  Absently he stuck the empty packet in a pocket. Going over the Spanish instructions and comparing them to the English half would give his mind something to do later on.

  Working with speed now, he went back outside and found rainwater in a crumbled sewer. He filled two buckets with water, and then rinsed out the rags and the dirty flag as best he could in the standing water. After that he filled two buckets and poured some packets of sanitizer into one, starting the material in on a cleansing soak. Returning with the water, he gathered deadfall branches under his arm and came back to the restaurant. Using a match for expediency instead of his usual small magnifying glass, he built a fire in one of the old fry-vats with the branches and set a metal bucket of water on a rusty grill over the fire to boil.

  Valentine wondered how long the material should soak in the sanitizer. He made more trips for water, until he had every portable vessel he could find full up, then began to turn the cloth into bandages. He stripped and tied the cloth with almost hysterical speed, and forced himself to calm down. After a few deep breaths, he brought the boiled water and the strips of chlorine-scented cloth into the metal-walled room and began to wash and dress the limp creature's wounds. It was wearing a sleeveless, short robe that tied behind it in the small of its back, now badly torn and bloodstained. Valentine removed it and tossed it in the sanitizer bucket, where it joined the bloodstained rags that he used to dress the wounds.

  Its cuts and gouges and bites bled again, but slightly. Whatever else might be said about Grogs, they died hard. With more time now, Valentine took the bloody rags to the fire and threw them in another bucket of bubbling water to boil clean.

  He had a little brown sugar and a jar of honey, a gift from one of the farms in Northeastern Nebraska. The bee enthusiast had also given him pieces of dried honeycomb along with the syrup. In Valentine's next boil, he dissolved some sugar, honey, and honeycomb, and brought it in to the Grog. Using a washcloth-size piece of material, he poured the warm sugar-water into the cloth and then placed it in the creature's mouth, cradling its bearlike head in his lap. It began to instinctively suckle at the liquid.

  Twenty-four hours later, having given it six more feedings and another change of bandages, Valentine prepared to leave the Grog. He arranged the honeycomb, a large supply of water, and some dried beef within reach, along with a bag of all the edible fungi he could scour from the nearby woods.

  He hurried to pack up, for the Grog showed signs of returning to consciousness. Its breathing was slow and regular, and it no longer alternately groaned and whimpered. The Grog's remarkable body, perhaps more than Valentine's fit of tenderness, had pulled it through its numerous injuries.

  Valentine took a last look at his patient. He had made a bed for it out of some of the scraps downstairs and padded it with moldy-smelling paper, but at least it was a cushion of sorts. Oddly enough, he felt the time spent treating the Grog was not wasted. He'd needed a day or two's rest anyway, and the empty restaurant was as good a place as any. He wished to be off well before nightfall, however, since the Harpies evidently hunted the region.

  Valentine turned to leave and began to walk out of the kitchen area, when his sharp ears picked up a hoarse croak. "Wait... man."

  Valentine had never heard English out of a Grog before. Intrigued, he returned to the freezer.

  "Was .. . this ... you?" it asked, pointing to the dressings around its head and chest. It had a voice like a rock slide, a low, clattering rumble.

  Valentine nodded. "Yes."

  "Food . . . drink ... also?" It tried to sit up, failed, but managed to raise its ursine head. Its pointed ears extended, sticking up on either side of its head like a bat's when unfolded. The ear tips tilted toward Valentine. "Why?"

  He shrugged, before it occurred to him that the Grog might not know the meaning of the gesture. "You fought outside very . . . bravely. Call it a tribute. Do you understand?"

  It closed its eyes for one long second. "No."

  "It means I think you're strong, a warrior. Give help then."

  The Grog chuckled, a low sound like subterranean grinding. "No ... man. Your ... words ... I... understood. You ... purpose ... I... not... understood."

  "That makes two of us. I will leave you now. I think you'll be all right."

  "Thank ... you ... but... gratitude ... is ... owed."

  "No."

  The creature rolled onto its stomach. It lifted its chest off the floor with two muscle-wrapped arms. First one leg, then the other was drawn up under pectorals the size of manhole covers. Somehow it got to its feet, leaning as raised itself with an arm like a child's slide. It stumbled toward the door, and Valentine moved forward to catch it, forgetting that the Grog's full weight would probably knock him flat at the very least. But the Grog extended one of its five-foot arms, bracing itself against the wall.

  "No!" it said between gasps. "A ... gratitude ... is ... owed. Please ... wait... one ... day."

  Curiouser and curiouser, Valentine thought. "Very well. One day."

  "As . . . Men ... do ... I .. . am . . . Ahnkha . . . Krolph ... Mergrumneornemn," Valentine thought it said. He got the first part, partially understood the second, but the final word in what sounded like its name was a set of trailing consonants as unintelligible as his old pickup's transmission.

  "My name is David Valentine, errr .. . Ahn-Kha." He pronounced it best he could, as if saying, "Ah-ha!"

  "Valentine is your clan name?" the Grog asked, catching its breath.

  "You could say that. But it is a small clan. As far as I know, I'm it."

  "David is your close name?"

  "We say first name."

  "My David, I am grateful to you," Ahn-Kha announced, crossing its left arm across its chest, palm outward, and bowing with ears folded flat.

  "Ahn-Kha, I am pleased to meet you," Valentine responded. His knowledge of Grog habits was limited to what part of the human anatomy they liked to eat first. He extended his hand. The Gro
g either recognized the gesture or had some knowledge of human customs; he solemnly engulfed Valentine's hand with his own leathery palm and shook. "We didn't just get married or anything, did we?"

  The Grog's features split into a wide smile. It threw back its head and opened its satchel-mouth, like a baby bird looking for a feeding, and laughed. The sound reminded Valentine of a certain braying mule of recent acquaintance.

  "I hope that was a no."

  Valentine gave Ahn-Kha one more day than he asked for.

  Ahn-Kha's strength returned exponentially. Valentine admired the powerful construction of the Grog. Although he stood like a man and had longer legs than his "Gray One" relatives, when Ahn-Kha wished to move quickly, he made use of three or four limbs. Valentine eventually learned he could outrun him on the flat, but if it came to moving up or down a slope, especially one cluttered with trees or rocks, the Grog could vault and pull himself up using his enormous arms with an agility Valentine could match only with Cat jumps.

  Fully erect, Ahn-Kha stood seven feet tall. His arms formed an inverted U, with an arc of muscle at the shoulders that bulged and writhed like separate creatures riding his back. He had three fingers and a thumb, the index and middle finger a good deal longer than the digit on the end, which was nearly as opposable as the true thumb opposite. His feet mirrored his hands, but he kept the former covered with something like a thick mitten shod with leather that allowed him to better use his toes climbing.

  The two males of their respective species agreed that each was the ugliest thing they had ever met in Creation. Ahn-Kha thought Valentine looked like a flat-faced birth defect, and found the contrast between hair and skin revolting in contrast to the Grog's own all-over tan-blond body hair. For his part, Valentine kept thinking of the Grog as some kind of weird miscegenation between a shorthaired bear and an ape. He had something of the calm wisdom of a bear in his expression, with deep-set black-flecked eyes of the richest brown. The fanged mouth below marred die effect, making him look like a predatory beast of ravenous hunger. Ahn-Kha's snout was wider than a bear's. He bore a set of long white catfish whiskers that hung out and down from the sides of his mouth, though they looked more decorative than functional.

  Ahn-Kha ate constantly, giving Valentine endless opportunities to examine the Grog's mouth. He watched Ahn-Kha eat with the same fascination that he once had when he studied a rattlesnake as it ate a rat. Hinged far back, Ahn-Kha could drop open his mouth like a steam shovel, wide enough to take a grapefruit down his gullet as easily as Valentine could swallow an aspirin. His front teeth, including the overlarge incisors that projected up and down, just visible behind his rubbery lips, projected forward like a horse's, but his back teeth resembled Valentine's own, proving him omnivorous. The Grog sucked rather than lapped water. For the size of his mouth, he had a small tongue, preferring to use his lips to move food around in his mouth. When Valentine, while discussing eating habits over dinner, extended his tongue out of his mouth to touch the bottom of his own nose, the Grog choked back vomit and turned his back on Valentine for the remainder of the meal.

  Valentine learned to watch his companion's ears. The pointed shells telegraphed his mood. When interested in something, they projected slightly up and forward and narrowed into points at the top, giving him a devilish appearance. When asking for a favor, even someming as simple as passing a knife during a meal, the Grog flattened his ears against the sides of his head. When he was tired, they drooped; when something pained him, they went almost horizontal. When he and Valentine were moving over unknown ground, as they did when the Grog first got up and about and started to exercise, they twisted this way and that like radar dishes, fanlike flaps of skin spread wide.

  One mannerism that took a good deal of getting used to was Ahn-Kha's habit of closing his eyes to mean no. Until Valentine got used to it, he kept asking questions twice, a practice that annoyed both of them no end.

  They relocated a mile south as soon as Ahn-Kha felt well enough to travel. Neither said a word about accompanying the other as they set out, but the Grog's presence felt natural to Valentine. They explored and finally settled in to a ranch-style house by the wooded shores of a lake. The others in the neighborhood were burnt ruins, but this one had solid brick walls and a slate roof. The fresh air and movement had seemed to do the Grog good at first, but he fatigued quickly. The lake turned out to be rich in walleye, and Valentine decided they could feed themselves without going out of hearing distance from the house for the remainder of Ahn-Kha's recovery.

  "How did you know about the mushrooms, my David?" Ahn-Kha asked the day they found the ranch, sharing a bowl of fungi-based soup with Valentine. "You say you have never lived among us, traded among us, yet you know our tastes?"

  Valentine could take or leave mushrooms. They provided easily gathered protein, and in some cases fats, but given his choice, he would prefer to set rabbit snares or trap snakes rather than eat the chewy, tasteless growths.

  "I've tracked a lot of your kind and watched them from a distance. What did you call them again, the gray ones with the thick hides?"

  Ahn-Kha made a noise that sounded like he was getting ready to spit.

  "That's not a word, that's a bodily function," Valentine demurred. 'The Hur-rack? Is that close enough?"

  The Grog nodded—a born diplomat, he adapted to David's gestures more easily than the other way around, as Valentine's ears were as fixed as his teeth—and concentrated on his meal. Cooking for Ahn-Kha was like trying to feed a lodge of lumberjacks.

  "We've had some dealings with them down south. I knew a captive one once, he lived with some researchers. Loved root beer."

  "Root beer? I know beer. I know root."

  "It's a sweet drink—you wouldn't believe how good it tastes after a hot day's running."

  "The mushrooms?"

  "I've seen the Hur-rack stop and break off mushrooms from fallen trees and eat them on the march, even fight over them. I figured you found them tasty."

  "Yours are adequate, no more. You have never tasted a heartroot, my David, which surpasses even your bread."

  "How did you learn to speak so well?"

  "We have a tradition, my David. When one asks a question needing a story to answer, the asker must then be prepared to tell a story in turn. Fair?"

  Valentine nodded. "Fair."

  "I was born here, my David, one of the first of my clan to be brought into this world once our people had settled. I am forty-one years old, and call this land home. The 'Gray Ones' you fight come from my parent's world, too; they are jungle dwellers—they do not write or shape metal and stone. We are the Golden Ones of hill and valley, builders of dams and bridges and makers of roads. Kur lured many of our clans and the Gray Ones' tribes to this world with promises of land and space, ours for the taking from a filthy and weak race. They gave us guns and trinkets, training and promises; we did the dying and helped win their victory. My parents despised your parents, many of whom sold their species for power and small wealth. In their opinion, you got what you deserved.

  "We Golden Ones are happier as builders and planters than destroyers, and we claimed our land from Kur as soon as we could. Our clan settled around a fine stone building, once a library in this place you call Oma-Ha. My father was an overseer of our human laborers, and I heard your tongue. In my youth, I learned the English-speech and the English-script. I read many, many of your books, played your music on the electric toys, and grew in knowledge of your kind. I began to disagree with my parents, in simple rebellion at their narrow view at first, and later through conviction. A clan seer said my destiny would be with men, and so I chose as a profession trading. I was often in the house of the Big Man in Omaha, drinking his tea. I met smugglers who drove gasoline-powered off-roads. After being cheated more than once, I learned a valuable lesson: Know the man before sitting down to bargain; examine the product before making the trade. I learned that some men I could trust with my life—others were lower than dogs.

 
"By my thirtieth year, I sat at our Principal Elder's side during any meetings with your race, to help translate and advise. Men sometimes give themselves away when they lie. By my thirty-fifth year, I was an Elder, ten years before custom usually grants such an honor, and I looked forward to one day surpassing the achievements of my father.

  "Our people had fine gardens of heartroot in the old brother buildings. Heartroot thrives on moisture and waste and little else. It is our staple. We learned to care for your animals, finding chickens tasty and easy to keep. We had a good land and busied ourselves tearing down the old and planting or putting up the new in our deep, rich soil.

  "Then came the Twisted Cross, the emblem of our doom. I was optimistic when they first came; they showed us every respect. Their human 'ambassador' called for warriors to serve the new lord called the General south of the city, promising in exchange the General's protection for our lands.

  "The ambassador, who had spoke fair words at first, turned foul when he learned we would not immediately give him all he demanded.

  " 'We always protected our own before this day,' said the Elder. 'I suspect what you really offer is protection from the General himself. Look for your tribute of clan-flesh elsewhere.' "

  Valentine tried to picture the scene, on the steps of the Grog-restored library, the Golden Ones talking amongst themselves, facing a uniformed contingent under the black-and-white swastika flag. Ahn-Kha, as he warmed to his tale, switched to the cadence of his native tongue, speaking slowly, his tone rising and falling like a ship in a heavy swell.