“But we got mates for her kittens,” the Captain protested. “Won’t BioTech think there’s something odd going on?”
Dick shook his head. “You’re thinking of house-cats. Shipscats aren’t fertile until they’re four or five. At that rate, the kittens won’t be old enough to breed for four years, and the Lacu’un are going to want more cats before then. So I’ll be searching the BioTech breeding records for a tom of the right age and appearance. Solid black is recessive—there can’t be that many black toms of the right age.”
“And once you’ve found your group of candidates—?” Singh asked, both eyebrows arching. “You look for the one that’s missing?” He did not ask how Dick was supposed to have found out that SKitty “preferred” a black tom; shipscats were more than intelligent enough to choose a color from a set of holos.
Dick shrugged. “The information may be in the records. Once I know where SCat’s from, we can open negotiations to add him to our manifest with BioTech’s backing. They won’t pass up a chance to make SKitty half of a breeding pair, and I don’t think there’s a captain willing to go on BioTech’s record as opposing a shipscat’s choice of mate.”
“I won’t ask how you intend to make that particular project work,” Singh said hastily. “Just remember, no more kittens in freefall.”
Dick held up the now-empty injector as a silent promise.
“I’ll brief the crew to refer to both cats as ‘SKitty’—most of the time they do anyway,” the Captain said. “Carry on, White. You seem to have the situation well in hand.”
Dick was nowhere near that certain, but he put on a confident expression for the Captain. He saluted Singh’s retreating back, then sat down on the bunk beside the pair of purring cats. As usual, they were wound around each other in a knot of happiness.
I wish my love-life was going that well. He’d hit it off with the Terran Consul well enough, but she had elected to remain in her ground-bound position, and his life was with the ship. Once again, romance took a second place to careers. Which in his case, meant no romance. There wasn’t a single female in this crew that had shown anything other than strictly platonic interest in him.
If he wanted a career in space, he had to be very careful about what he did and said. As most junior officer on the Brightwing, he was the one usually chosen for whatever unpleasant duty no one else wanted to handle. And although he could actually retire, thanks to the prosperity that the Lacu’un contract had brought the whole crew, he didn’t want to. That would mean leaving space, leaving the ship—and leaving SKitty and SCat.
He could also transfer within the company, but why change from a crew full of people he liked and respected, with a good Captain like Singh, to one about which he knew nothing? That would be stupid. And he couldn’t leave SKitty, no matter what. She was his best friend, even if she did get him into trouble sometimes.
He also didn’t have the experience to be anything other than the most junior officer in any ship, so transferring wouldn’t have any benefits.
Unless, of course, he parlayed his profit-share into a small fortune and bought his own ship. Then he could be Captain, and he might even be able to buy SKitty’s contract—but he lacked the experience that made the difference between prosperity and bankruptcy in the shaky world of the Free Traders. He was wise enough to know this.
As for the breeding project—he had some ideas. The Brightwing would be visiting Lacu’un for a minimum of three weeks on every round of their trading-route. Surely something could be worked out. Things didn’t get chancy until after the kittens were mobile and before SKitty potty-trained them to use crew facilities. Before they were able to leave the nest-box, SKitty took care of the unpleasant details. If they could arrange things so that the period of mobility-to-weaning took place while they were on Lacu’un. . . .
Well, he’d make that Jump when the coordinates came up. Right now, he had to keep outsiders from discovering that there was feline contraband on board, and find out where that contraband came from.
:Dick smart,: SKitty purred proudly. :Dick fix everything.:
Well, he thought wryly, at least I have her confidence, if no-one else’s!
It had been a long time since the Brightwing had been docked at a major port, and predictably, everyone wanted shore leave. Everyone except Dick, that is. He had no intentions of leaving the console in Cargo where he was doing his “mate-hunting” unless and until he found his match. The fact that there was nothing but a skeleton crew aboard, once the inspectors left, only made it easier for Dick to run his searches through the BioTech database available through the station. This database was part of the public records kept on every station, and updated weekly by BioTech. Dick had a notion that he’d get his “hit” within a few hours of initiating his search.
He was pleasantly surprised to discover that there were portraits available for every entry. It might even be possible to identify SCat just from the portraits, once he had all of the black males of the appropriate age sorted out. That would give him even more rationale for the claim that SKitty had “chosen” her mate herself.
With an interested feline perching on each arm of the chair, he logged into the station’s databases, identified himself and gave the station his billing information, then began his run.
There was nothing to do at that point but sit back and wait.
“I hope you realize all of the difficulties I’m going through for you,” he told the tom, who was grooming his face thoughtfully. “I’m doing without shore-leave to help you here. I wouldn’t do this for a fellow human!”
SCat paused in his grooming long enough to rasp Dick’s hand with his damp-sandpaper tongue.
The computer beeped just at that moment to let him know it was done. He was running all this through the Cargo dumb-set; he could have used the Brightwing’s Expert-System AI, but he didn’t want the AI to get curious, and he didn’t want someone wondering why he was using a Mega-Brain to access feline family-trees. What he did want was the appearance that this was a brainstorm of his own, an attempt to boost his standing with his Captain by providing further negotiable items for the Lacu’un contract. There was something odd about all of this, something that he couldn’t put his finger on, but something that just felt wrong and made him want to be extra-cautious. Why, he didn’t know. He only knew that he didn’t want to set off any tell-tales by acting as if this mate-search was a priority item.
The computer asked if he wanted to use the holo-table, a tiny square platform built into the upper right hand corner of the desk. He cleared off a stack of hard-copy manifests, and told it “yes.” Then the first of his feline biographies came in.
He’d made a guess that SCat was between five and ten years old; shipscats lived to be fifty or more, but their useful lifespan was about twenty or thirty years. All too often their job was hazardous; alien vermin had poisonous fangs or stings, sharp claws and teeth. Cats suffered disabling injuries more often than their human crewmates, and would be retired with honors to the homes of retired spacers, or to the big “assisted living” stations holding the very aged and those with disabling injuries of their own. Shipscats were always welcome, anywhere in space.
And I can think of worse fates than spending my old age watching the stars with SKitty on my lap. He gazed down fondly at his furred friend, and rubbed her ears.
SKitty purred and butted her head into his hand. She paid very little attention to the holos as they passed slowly in review. SCat was right up on the desk, however, not only staring intently at the holos, but splitting his attention between the holos and the screen.
You don’t suppose he can read . . . ?
Suddenly, SCat let out a yowl, and swatted the holoplate. Dick froze the image and the screen-biography that accompanied it.
He looked first at the holo—and it certainly looked more like SCat than any of the others had. But SCat’s attention was on the screen, not the holo, and he stared fixedly at the modest insignia in the bottom right c
orner.
Patrol?
He looked down at SCat, dumbfounded. “You were with the Patrol?” He whispered it; you did not invoke the Patrol’s name aloud unless you wanted a visit from them.
Yellow eyes met his for a moment, then the paw tapped the screen. He read further.
Type MF-025, designation Lightfoot of Sun Meadow. Patrol ID FX-003. Standard Military genotype, standard Military training. Well, that explained how he had known how to shut down the “pirate” equipment. Now Dick wondered how much else the cat had done, outside of his sight. And a military genotype? He hadn’t even known there was such a thing.
Assigned to Patrol ship DIA-9502, out of Oklahoma Station, designated handler Major Logan Greene.
Oklahoma Station—that was this station. Drug Interdiction? He whistled softly.
Then a date, followed by the ominous words, Ship missing, all aboard presumed dead.
All aboard—except the shipscat.
The cat himself gave a mournful yowl, and SKitty jumped up on the desk to press herself against him comfortingly. He looked back down at SCat. “Did you jump ship before they went missing?”
He wasn’t certain he would get an answer, but he had lived with SKitty for too long to underestimate shipscat intelligence. The cat shook his head, slowly and deliberately—in the negative.
His mouth went dry. “Are you saying—you got away?”
A definite nod.
“Your ship was boarded, and you got away?” He was astonished. “But how?”
For an answer, the cat jumped down off the desk and walked over to the little escape pod that neither he nor SKitty ever forgot to drag with them. He seized the tether in his teeth and dragged it over to an access tube. It barely fit; he wedged it down out of sight, then pawed open the door, and dropped down, hidden, and now completely protected from what must have happened.
He popped back out again, and walked to Dick’s feet. Dick was thinking furiously. There had been rumors that drug-smugglers were using captured Patrol ships; this more-or-less confirmed those rumors. Disable the ship, take the exterior airlock and blow it. Whoever wasn’t suited up would die. Then they board and finish off whoever was suited up. They patch the lock, restore the air, and weld enough junk to the outside of the ship to disguise it completely. Then they can bring it in to any port they care to—even the ship’s home port.
This station. Which is where SCat escaped.
“Can you identify the attackers?” he asked SCat. The cat slowly nodded.
:They know he gone. He run, they chase. He try get home, they stop. He hear of me on dock, go hide in ship bringing mates. They kill he, get chance,: SKitty put in helpfully.
He could picture it easily enough; SCat being pursued, cut off from the Patrol section of the station—hiding out on the docks—catching the scent of the mates being shipped for SKitty’s kittens and deciding to seek safety offworld. Cats, even shipscats, did not tend to grasp the concept of “duty”; he knew from dealing with SKitty that she took her bonds of personal affection seriously, but little else. So once “his” people were dead, SCat’s personal allegiance to the Patrol was nonexistent, and his primary drive would be self-preservation. Wonderful. I wonder if they—whoever they are—figured out he got away on another ship. Another, more alarming thought occurred to him. I wonder if my fishing about in the BioTech database touched off any tell-tales!
No matter. There was only one place to go now—straight to Erica Makumba, the Legal and Security Officer.
He dumped a copy of the pertinent datafile to a memory cube, then scooped up both cats and pried their life-support ball out of its hiding place. Then he ran for Erica’s cabin, praying that she had not gone off on shore-leave.
The Spirits of Space were with him; the indicator outside her cabin door indicated that she was in there, but did not want to be disturbed. He pounded on the door anyway. Erica might kill him—but there were people after SCat who had murdered an entire Patrol DIA squad.
After a moment, the door cracked open a centimeter.
“White.” Erica’s flat, expressionless voice boded extreme violence. “This had better be an emergency.”
He said the one word that would guarantee her attention. “Hijackers.”
The door snapped open; she grabbed him and pulled him inside, cats, support-ball and all, and slammed the door shut behind him. She was wearing a short robe, tying it hastily around herself, and she wasn’t alone. But the man watching them both alertly from the disheveled bed wasn’t one of the Brightwing’s crew, so Dick flushed, but tried to ignore him.
“I found out where SCat’s from,” he babbled, dropping one cat to hand the memory-cube to her. “Read that—quick!”
She punched up the console at her elbow and dropped the cube in the receiver. The BioTech file, minus the holo, scrolled up on the screen. The man in the bed leaned forward to read it too, and whistled.
Erica swiveled to glare at him. “You keep this to yourself, Jay!” she snapped. Then she turned back to Dick. “Spill it!” she ordered.
“SCat’s ship was hijacked, probably by smugglers,” he said quickly. “He hid his support-ball in an access tube, and he was in it when they blew the lock. They missed him in the sweep, and when they brought their prize in here, he got away. But they know he’s gone, and they know he can ID them.”
“And they’ll be giving the hairy eyeball to every ship with a black cat on it.” She bit her knuckle—and Jay added his own two credits’ worth.
“I hate to say this, but they’ve probably got a tell-tale on the BioTech data files, so they know whenever anyone accesses them. It’s not restricted data, so anyone could leave a tell-tale.” The man’s face was pale beneath his normally dusky skin-tone. “If they don’t know you’ve gone looking by now, they will shortly.”
They all looked at each other. “Who’s still on board?” Dick asked, and gulped.
Erica’s mouth formed a tight, thin line. “You, me, Jay and the cats. The cargo’s offloaded, and regs say you don’t need more than two crew on board in-station. Theoretically no one can get past the security at the lock.”
Jay barked a laugh, and tossed long, dark hair out of his eyes. “Honey, I’m a comptech. Trust me, you can get past the security. You just hack into the system, tell it the ship in the bay is bigger than it really is, and upload whoever you want as additional personnel.”
Erica swore—but Jay stood up, wrapping the sheet around himself like a toga, and pushed her gently aside. “What can be hacked can be unhacked—or at least I can make it a lot more difficult for them to get in and make those alterations stick. Give me your code to the AI.”
Erica hesitated. He turned to stare into her eyes. “I need the AI’s help. You two and the cats are going to get out of here—get over to the Patrol side of the station. I’m going to hold them off as long as I can, and play stupid when they do get in, but I need the speed of the AI to help me lay traps. You’ve known me for three years. You trusted me enough to bring me here, didn’t you?”
She swore again, then reached past him to key in her code. He sat down, ignoring them and plunging straight into a trance of concentration.
“Come on!” Erica grabbed Dick’s arm, and put the support-ball on the floor. SKitty and SCat must have been reading her mind, for they both squirmed into the ball, which was big enough for more than one cat. They’d upgraded the ball after SKitty had proved to be so—fertile. Erica shoved the ball at Dick, and kept hold of his arm, pulling him out into the corridor.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“To get our suits, then to the emergency lock,” she replied crisply. “If we try to go out the main lock into the station, they’ll get us for certain. So we’re going outside for a little walk.”
A little walk? All the way around the station? Outside?
He could only hope that “they” hadn’t thought of that as well. They reached the suiting-up room in seconds flat.
He averted his
eyes and climbed into his own suit as Erica shed her robe and squirmed into hers. “How far is it to the Patrol section?” he asked.
“Not as far as you think,” she told him. “And there’s a maintenance lock just this side of it. What I want to know is how you got all this detailed information about the hijacking.”
He turned, and saw that she was suited up, with her faceplate still open, staring at him with a calculating expression.
This is probably not the time to hold out on her.
He swallowed, and sealed his suit up, leaving his own faceplate open. Inside the ball, the cats were watching both of them, heads swiveling to look from one face to the other, as if they were watching a tennis-match.
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