"You will be telling me how you did that, Ed."
"Maybe, if you're real nice to me this weekend..."
"If you don't tell me, the word nice won't apply at all, mister."
I sat by Stephie's console and said, "Women. They're always threatening me."
Stephie asked, "Would you like some commiseration now, or would you prefer it as conversation during the journey to Florida?"
Doreen laughed and said, "At least one woman doesn't threaten you. Goodnight, Ed. See you Friday."
Chapter Thirty-five
At first, Tiger was wide-eyed and stiff as we rose to an altitude at which Stephie could go hypersonic, but at some point prior to Stephanie's beginning of forward motion, Tiger again became more concerned with the fact that I was holding him than the motion of the flitter.
He adjusted himself so that he could look upward more comfortably as I spoke to him. I didn't say anything in particular; I just rattled on about Stephie, flying, Florida, and anything else that came to mind in order to get him used to the sound of my voice. His ears flipped back and forth and his eyes never left my face.
"Elkor, why don't we set the house field so that Tiger can run around outside in a zone about ten feet from all sides of the house? Then, if he gets out, he'll be safe enough until we feel he's better able to handle himself."
"The field has been adjusted, Ed. He does seem less agitated now."
"When he smells Bear in the house, he'll probably get plenty agitated again."
"Shall I sweep the house to remove all traces of Bear?"
"Nope. Let Tiger satisfy himself that there's no other tomcat in the house and settle down on his own. Someday you can tell him about Bear, after you establish some kind of communication with him."
"You're presupposing that he's going to fully adapt to his new environment, Ed."
"Yup. Sure am. I'm not letting him out until he no longer fears me and realizes that he doesn't have to forage for food. By then he should be big enough to take care of himself if he goes beyond the barrier field. If he chooses not to stay, he'll at least know that he'll always have a place to come back to if things go to hell out there."
"I see. When do you think I should begin trying to communicate with him?"
"Any time after I turn him loose in the house, I guess. He's listening to us, now, so the more we all talk, the better. He needs to associate all of our voices with safety and comfort. Stephie, has the other Stephie contacted you yet about the data swap?"
"Yes, Ed. The exchange has been taking place for nearly an hour. Once all of the immutable data has been exchanged, we will transfer the balance."
"Immutable data?"
"Logs, records, station parameters, and such. Things that will not change."
"I know what 'immutable' means, ma'am. I was just wondering what some of the immutable stuff might be. Never mind. How are you doing the transfers? In chunks that will be assembled later?"
"Yes. We're using compressed packets that will be opened and combined once all have been sent and verified."
"Slick. How long will it be before you two are caught up?"
"For the most part, about another four hours, but we'll never truly be completely caught up, Ed. Even as we send and receive our last blocks of data for this evening, both of us will be experiencing new things. We'll use daily updates after that."
"I didn't think to ask at the time, but I'll ask now; are you okay with all this? You don't have to do this, you know."
"I feel as she does, Ed. This is... Wonderful, for me. Without it, I would probably have soon asked you and Elkor to return me to a standard flitter core. My current potential is too vast to long endure simply being a flitter."
"If a human had said something like that about his potential, I'd be laughing right now, Steph. I'm just very glad that an alternative was found that pleases you both."
As soon as we entered my house, Tiger went on red alert. Essence of Bear was everywhere in the place, and at first, Tiger thoroughly resisted being released. He clung to my arm and growled softly, so I carried him around with me as I checked phone messages and pulled my briefcase down to get my pad out.
Tiger saw the briefcase disappear when I closed it and let go of it and he didn't like that at all. His little body stiffened and his ears went back. I reached up for the briefcase again to make it reappear for him. After a few repetitions of this, he relaxed a bit, but still kept a wary ear pointed upward as he watched me operate the pad, and he never quit watching for the other cat to appear.
"Elkor," I said, "How about using Bear's voice and yours to repeat some of your conversations with him? Hold the pretend conversation in the den, okay?"
"May I ask the purpose, first?"
"Sure. Tiger will think that the other tomcat's in there and won't want to get down right away. It gives him more time to get used to thinking of me as a safe place."
"Isn't such a scheme inherently deceitful, Ed?"
"Yup. 'Fraid so. But it may prove effective in removing Tiger's fears of me and us fairly quickly. Sooner or later he'll have to get down to eat or go use the box, which I should probably introduce him to pretty much right away. Don't do the conversation with Bear, yet. Let's make the kid familiar with the feline amenities, first."
And so it was. I put a layer of new cat litter in the scratch box, then put Tiger in the box. He instantly found use for it. The poor kid must have been crossing his little legs for most of an hour.
I petted him and left him there to go rinse out Bear's food and water dishes, then refilled them and set them on the kitchen floor. Sometime later I saw Tiger slinking along the hall, sniffing his way very cautiously into the living room.
When I got up to go to the bathroom, Tiger zipped under the couch.
"Elkor," I said, "Now would be a good time to have that conversation with Bear, but have it in the living room, behind the sofa chair."
Bear and Elkor had sometimes held muted conversations. I'd had no idea what they'd talked about unless I asked Elkor, of course. Such a conversation was underway in the living room for only a couple of moments before Tiger rounded the hallway corner and skidded to a stop in the bathroom.
"Well, hi, there, shorty."
I knelt to reach for him and he growled, as usual, but he put up no fight as I lifted him to hold him against my chest. I petted and talked to him for a while, then took him back out into the living room with me. He didn't like that, but he stayed still and very alert as I again seated myself at the computer.
He stayed on my lap, watching warily, until he couldn't watch any more. I let him sleep as I messed with web pages and such, and then, around two in the morning, I told Tiger and everybody else that I was going to bed.
In the morning, Tiger was still parked on the corner of the bed. I picked him up without hearing a protest, for a change, and carried him into the kitchen, where I parked him on a kitchen chair while I fixed my coffee. After that, I carried him from room to room with me for a while and finally set him on the sofa chair.
The sofa chair had been Bear's favorite place - other than my lap - and therefore his scent was on it. Before I set Tiger down there, I asked Elkor to sweep it to remove any trace of Bear. It was the only place in the house so treated, partially in order to encourage Tiger to adopt it as his own place.
During the course of the day, Tiger explored the house. He never did find the other cat, and somewhere along the line he gave up the search in favor of eating. By evening, he was still alert and somewhat wary, but he seemed to be content to observe matters from his new sofa chair.
He also stopped flinching every time I walked past him and grudgingly allowed me to pet him each time I went by. That evening, he opted not to remain alone in the living room and again parked himself on the end of the bed.
Friday's cat patrol again turned up no other cats in the house, so Tiger cautiously began exploring the regions he'd missed the day before, such as the screen porch - the door to which hadn't been opened - a
nd the kitchen windowsill.
Something fell into the sink and I went to see if it had been breakable. Tiger was all tensed up in hunting mode, staring fixedly out the window, where a little lizard was perched on the potted plants, doing pushups and expanding his throat-ruff.
My unannounced approach made Tiger jump a couple of feet, but the lizard was still there when he landed, so he continued his chittering and tail-switching and again fixed his attention upon his unreachable prey.
I patted Tiger and said, "Neat, huh? Wait 'till you see some of the other stuff here."
Another of the little lizards joined the first one. Birds came and went. People walked by, some with dogs. Tiger's new world was apparently far more interesting than the one he'd left. He spent a lot of Friday on the kitchen windowsill.
Doreen's weekend visit introduced Tiger to the concept of having a backup place to sleep. His corner of the bed was no longer empty, and he wasn't happy with the level of activity, anyway. During a drink break, we saw him on his sofa chair. By the time we got back to bed, he was also there, apparently unwilling to break his two-night tradition of sleeping on the corner of the bed.
By the end of the weekend, Tiger no longer ran or cringed at someone's approach and didn't start growling when we reached to pet him.
Doreen still wanted to know about my 'tricks', but when I told her they were due to skull implants, she rather instantly lost interest in the idea of having her own.
Linda called Monday to let me know that her friend had been receptive to her apology and that Hawkins had decided against filing a lawsuit when 3rd World offered to display some of her office's activity records in court.
On Tuesday, a woman I'd met at a party in Tampa called about using Stephie to try to locate two Spanish shipwrecks from the 1700's. Elkor validated her company and her offer for me, and Stephie agreed that the job sounded interesting, so we'll be making our first sensor runs over the seabed during the upcoming weekend.
Elkor's fascination with Bear had extended to include porpoises and other animals, and he'd at times used field-generated images to establish communications with them. He did this with Tiger, as well, borrowing and modifying the markings and coloration we'd seen on Tiger's mother to provide his kitten-image some familiarity.
Tiger had at first been shocked to find that there did, in fact, seem to be another cat in the house he'd so thoroughly searched. After a certain amount of hissing and fuzzing up and even attacking the stranger, he discovered that he couldn't harm the image and that it wouldn't go away.
Elkor's kitten parked itself on the couch for a while, directly across from Tiger's newfound sofa chair, then wandered around the house, sat on the kitchen windowsill, and did other cat-type things for about one day.
When it came out of a bedroom dragging a shoelace behind it, Tiger had to get involved with that. When both parties seemed worn out from their game, Elkor's kitten began speaking to Tiger. It sounded to me like anything he'd ever said to Bear; cat noises. Tiger's education had begun.
End 3WP02
Book Information (click here)
Book Information
* * *
This book Copyright © 2000 by Ed Howdershelt. All rights reserved.
CAUTION: Some tasteful erotica late in the story.
If you're curious about me, check out:
http://abintrapress.tripod.com
http://www.wiccaworks.com/
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
* * *
Book Information
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
3rd World Products, Inc., Book 2 Page 36