Bonded in Space

by Trisha McNary

  Pweet existed only in some dark, faraway place in the most hidden depths of her mind. She was dimly aware of her body resting on a bed, and she would follow its urges to eat, drink, and go to the bathroom when it needed to. But otherwise, she had few other thoughts or motivations.

  Only something, a feeling, crept not into her mind but into her chest. A caring feeling. Pweet was thoughtless, but she experienced the feeling and was warmed by it. And whatever consciousness she had became focused on that feeling.

  Then after a while, the feeling grew stronger.

  Chapter 35

  Murrie dropped out of the Jalapeno’s door to the ground with the bossy cat Potat right behind him. They both wore the cleaning bot disguises Lieutenant Dweeemm had created with the Jalapeno’s subatomic particle drafting equipment.

  Like all cats, Murrie hated wearing clothes or having anything strapped on to him, but he was willing to suffer for Pweet.

  “When I rescued Antaska, I had to get needle injections for my disguise,” Potat had told him on many occasions.

  “I’d take the needle for Pweet too,” Murrie had answered.

  But he was glad he didn’t have to.

  Now, the two disguised cats flowed away from the invisible space ships into the work plant’s courtyard. Metallic half circles with eye openings covered their heads and upper bodies. Fluffy black material attached to the circles disguised their lower parts.

  No one had put the plant’s security force field back up after Nestgorm turned it off when he went to get Pweet. But it allowed small animals to pass through anyway. The two cats made a beeline for the large plant building and crouched behind a small shrubby bush next to the door.

  A few minutes later, at the same time as happened every day, the big doors opened wide. A part-bird humanoid female carrying a plate of food walked out the door and headed toward the rundown barracks off to the side of the building.

  The two cats rushed in though the door with time to spare before it slammed closed again. Murrie stood next to Potat in the big entrance room. It was empty, and the hallway up ahead looked empty, but he could hear the sound of many telepathic voices. And he could smell the vile odor of reptilian evil!

  “Yes, they’re here. I smell it too,” said Potat.

  She had an annoying habit of reading Murrie’s mind or at least pretending to.

  “But they’re not close by, and Pweet’s not close by,” said Murrie.

  “This way,” said Potat.

  She headed though a door and Murrie followed. Like silent cleaning bots, the two cats flowed down the long hallway. They passed though another door and turned down another enormous hallway. Real cleaning bots swept back and forth, always staying out from under the feet of the alien females who wandered around too.

  Murrie wished he could rub his nose with a paw. The reptile stench grew stronger the closer they got to it.

  “If we know they’re here, they know we’re here too,” said Potat. “And they’ll be coming after us soon. So when they get here, I’ll hold them, and you take off for Pweet’s room. OK?”

  “Why do you get to decide the plan?” Murrie asked?

  “You got a better one?” Potat asked him back.

  “Nope. OK. I’ll do it,” said Murrie.

  The two of them kept going toward Pweet’s room. Just two cleaning bots among the others. No one noticed them, but not for long.

  Murrie heard the sound of heavy-pounding clawed feet approaching. The putrid smell grew stronger. Then two large reptilian humanoids came charging around the corner. Not fooled for an instant by the disguises, they headed straight for the two cats. It had to be the most terrifying moment of Murrie’s short life, but Potat didn’t look scared. Or if she was, she was good at hiding it.

  “Get ready to run on my order,” Potat said.

  This time Murrie didn’t argue with her.

  The two much larger enemy reptiles rushed in close, but Potat stood her ground. At a distance of a dozen feet, she fixed her eyes on the eyes of the reptilian invaders.

  “Go now!” she said to Murrie.

  With a tinge of guilt, Murrie took off without looking back. The complete silence and stillness he heard behind him told him Potat was handling it. For now, anyway. Murrie the out-of-control cleaning bot sped along at ten times the normal bot speed. A few of the alien females paused and remarked, but no one tried to stop him.

  And they’d better not try, he thought.

  Then, in just a few short moments, he was at the door to Pweet’s room.

  Potat stared without fear into the eyes of her species’ mortal enemy. “Kill first, introduce yourself later,” was a cat’s motto when it came to reptiles, and she knew they felt the same about her.

  Frozen in a standoff, the two overgrown lizard people flashed their hypnotic visual power into Potat’s eyes, and she pushed right back with her own power.

  A cat’s power is the strongest, Potat thought.

  But the silent battle of strength and will continued. These two were powerful, very powerful. Not only young and strong, they had the reinforcement of four more Eeeepps back on the Verdante planet who they were collectively connected to. Those others were powerful too and darkly evil.

  “Good always overpowers evil,” said Potat telepathically.

  But the two Eeeepps didn’t waver their stares for an instant. They weren’t telepathic in that way and hadn’t even heard her.

  Long minutes passed, and more minutes. A crowd of alien females gathered around. Potat didn’t look at them. She heard them asking each other what was happening in their telepathic voices, but they didn’t interfere.

  “Why are the Eeeepps staring at that cleaning bot? What’s up, Apostrophe?” Potat heard one say.

  But the Eeeepps didn’t move or answer.

  After a while, Potat knew it wasn’t going to work. They were just too powerful, and she wouldn’t be able to break them down. But would they be able to break her down? The thought was disturbing.

  It’s time to call in the reinforcements, she decided at last. So humiliating to have to do this, but I don’t see any choice.

  Potat sent out the call in the cat language.

  “Yo! Wawuul! I need some help here!” Potat yelled telepathically at the big cat.

  Then she sat tight and held on, wondering how long it would take him to convince the humanoids to let him out.

  Fortunately, it was not long. Potat didn’t look around, but she heard the sound of big pounding cat feet. Then she heard the telepathic sound of screaming females and the sound of their feet running away.

  Her fixed stare at the two Eeeepps was cut in half when a giant flying cat landed on Pooquali and crashed him down to the floor.

  Half the mental pressure was off her, and Potat heaved a sigh of relief. She focused her full power on the single Eeeepp caught in her stare. Potat made fast work of shutting down the reptilian hypnotic force and holding her fast in her own unbreakable cat gaze.

  In the background, Potat heard the sound of heavy bodies crashing into floors and walls. Snarls, the cat war cry, and reptilian hisses and screams. Fur flew in her peripheral vision, but Potat couldn’t drop her eyes from Apostrophe’s to watch the fight.

  She remembered the bite on Antaska’s neck from Iiooonaa Eeeepp. It had never completely healed.

  Wawuul’s going to need a lot of antibiotics after this fight, Potat thought. I guess I should help him out. But what to do? she wondered. Kill these Eeeepps? Zap their brains back to the state of their lizard ancestors? That’s kind of harsh. Antaska and M. Hoyvil might get mad at me for that. These creatures are humanoids, even if they’re scuzzy reptiles. And just how evil are they? I need to know that before I do anything to them, I guess.

  Potat decided to take a look inside their minds to see whether they were closer to reptiles or humanoids and to assess the depth of their evil darkness. It wouldn’t be enjoyable, in fact it could be quite a nasty experience, but sometimes a cat has to do the dirty work. />
  “Thunk! Bam! Reyoowww!” The sounds of the fight kept going.

  Potat started with Apostrophe. She didn’t just read her thoughts. Potat delved deeper than that. She found some bad things there, all right. Things this reptile had done, and things she had thought, but they weren’t completely connected to her somehow.

  This one isn’t really evil on her own, Potat realized. It’s those others back on the Verdante planet that she’s connected to. They put their evil into her. They influenced her to do bad things, but she wouldn’t have done them on her own. And she hasn’t done anything really awful since she left the Verdante planet. Hmm.

  Potat shifted her focus to read Pooquali, still jumping around in his vicious fight against Wawuul. Potat got about the same reading from him as she had from Apostrophe. Not really too evil of himself but contaminated by the sticky influence of the older Eeeepps back on the Verdante planet.

  Hmm. What to do? What to do? These creatures had a collective consciousness, Potat knew. She felt like the best thing to do would be to separate them from the other evil ones.

  But would that kill them? she wondered.

  Wawuul screamed in pain.

  He must have been bitten, Potat thought. It’s time to end this.

  She reached deep inside the minds of the two Eeeepps at once and sliced through their connection to the others with one swipe of a knife-sharp mental claw.

  Both Eeeepps screamed an ear-shattering shriek. And then both dropped to the ground and lay there unmoving.

  Chapter 36

  Murrie, disguised as a cleaning bot, flowed into Pweet’s bedroom. Pweet lay zombie-like on a gigantic bed far inside the room. The big humanoid male named Eegor sat on a chair next to her telling her a story.

  The cleaning bot cat moved unseen closer to the bed. He stopped and listened to the story. Hmm. This guy said he let all the female slaves go free, and he let them automate the work plant and take over running it or else do whatever they wanted to. Then he told Pweet he was in love with her.

  This is one of the dangerous people they warned me about? Murrie wondered. Pweet seemed to like him before she threw her shoe at him. And then they tackled her, and those evil reptiles put her in this trance. But I’m here to save her now. I just need to find out what they did to her.

  Murrie didn’t hesitate to read Pweet’s mind and look even deeper. Cats didn’t like to do that to strangers (or strange people), but it was a regular part of taking care of the humanoids they adopted.

  Yep, hypnotized into absent submission, Murrie noted. But these humanoids said there’s something else in her mind too. The reason she kept trying to kill that Eegor guy. Where’s that?

  He dug deeper into Pweet’s mind. Dug around for a while. And finally found it in the place where she buried her darkest memories and feelings. There! An order planted right in the dirt of her anger and pain against the Verdantes. The dirt left in her when M. Mort didn’t take her back on Earth.

  I can clean that up and get that mental plant out of there, thought Murrie. I just need to get up onto the bed. Then I need to be able to look into her eyes. But cleaning bots don’t crawl up the furniture. This guy would notice that, even though he’s so out of it. Would he do something violent like throw me across the room?

  Murrie stood on the ground on the side of the bed hidden from Eegor and thought about it. He decided his only option was to take off his disguise and tell the big humanoid what he was going to do. Captain Kamphone and M. Mort had made him promise not to take off the disguise unless it was an emergency.

  This is an emergency, Murrie decided.

  He pressed a claw into the release button on the strap around his belly. The strap separated, and the disguise fell off. Murrie walked around to the front of the bed where Eegor could see him, but Eegor didn’t look down at him.

  I hope this guy is telepathic, Murrie thought. This won’t work very well if I can only meow at him. OK. Here goes.

  “Hey you! Big guy. Eegor. Can you hear me?” Murrie shouted telepathically.

  “Huh? What’s that? Is someone talking in my head? Who’s here?” Eegor said out loud.

  He looked all around but not down at Murrie.

  “I’m down here. Right in front of you,” said Murrie.

  The big man looked down at Murrie, and his pale green eyes widened.

  “A cat? A talking cat?” said Eegor. “Am I going crazy?”

  “Yes, I’m a cat,” said Murrie. “And you might be crazy, but I’m not here for that. I’m here to rescue Pweet. To get her out of that trance. But I need to get up on the bed. So I had to reveal myself to you. Because you’d notice me up there.”

  Murrie squatted back on his haunches and then leapt up onto the end of the bed.

  “What do you mean rescue her? What do you mean get her out of the trance? Are you trying to take her away from me? If you take her out of that trance, she’ll keep trying to kill me over and over. And she’ll keep yelling ‘kill the Verdante!’ in my head. Is that what you want?” Eegor asked in a somewhat menacing tone.

  But Murrie wasn’t intimidated by size.

  “First, I’ll fix her so she doesn’t keep yelling that and trying to kill you. Then I’ll take her out of the other stupid trance you people put her in so she’s not a zombie anymore. And yeah, I want to take her away, but she can decide if she wants to go or not. And if she doesn’t want to leave, I’m staying here with her,” Murrie told him decisively.

  “Wow!” said Eegor. “You’re a tough little guy. It would be great if you could really do what you say. OK. Go ahead and try it.”

  “Here goes,” said Murrie.

  He padded up the bed and walked up Pweet’s side to her pillow.

  “It’s hard to look into her eyes from down here,” Murrie said to Eegor. “Can you hold me up?”

  Eegor reached out his hands and lifted Murrie so his eyes were level with Pweet’s blank staring eyes. Murrie activated his cat powers and went to work.

  Several minutes later, Pweet blinked and sat up. A look of recognition came into her eyes.

  “Murrie? Is that you?” she said. “You look so big!”

  “Yeah, it’s me,” said Murrie.

  Pweet reached out and took Murrie from Eegor. She hugged him tight and petted his head. Murrie purred loud.

  “Oh Murrie, I’ve missed you so much!” said Pweet.

  “Hey! What about me?” said Eegor.

  Murrie was happy that Pweet had noticed the right guy first, but now she turned and looked at Eegor.

  “Eegor!” she said. “I’m so sorry! I don’t know what came over me! I lost my mind and went crazy!”

  “It’s OK,” said Eegor. “We all do that sometimes.”

  He leaned in toward Pweet, and she put Murrie down on the bed and leaned in toward Eegor.

  “I think I know what’s coming next, so I’m out of here,” said Murrie.

  “Murrie, you’re not leaving are you?” Pweet asked, sounding worried.

  “No. I’m not going anywhere without you,” said Murrie. “I’m going to check on another cat, and I’ll be back later.”

  Pweet patted Murrie on the head and then turned back to Eegor.

  “Later,” said Murrie.

  He jumped off the bed and ran out the door.

  Potat looked away from the two prone Eeeepps toward Wawuul. The big cat was lying on the floor too. His loud, terrifying moans kept the crowd of curious alien females well back. Blood seeped from a deep gash in his shoulder.

  “This cat needs help!” Potat yelled telepathically at the females hiding behind doorways all down the hallway. “He’s got a dangerous venom-filled bite! Get some antibiotics quick!”

  But the useless humanoids stood frozen.

  Those cowards! thought Potat. Will I have to use compulsion on one of them to get this done? Yuck. That’s so distasteful. And it’s also against the cat laws. But there’s only two other cats here to witness. Hmm.

  At Potat sat there trying to make up
her mind whether or not to risk the penalty of death or worse, she heard the sound of thudding space boots running toward her from the front of the building.

  Potat didn’t have to look to know whose boots those were. Antaska! But she turned around and looked anyway.

  Antaska carried a small bag in one hand. She sped to a stop next to Wawuul and dropped down on her knees next to him. In a flash, she had a large needle out of the bag and into his arm.

  Ugh! Needles again, thought Potat.

  Wawuul’s moans quieted down. Antaska pulled more stuff out of the medical bag and started working on his wound. Potat could hear Antaska murmuring sweet nothings in Wawuul’s ear.

  I’d better get over there and help, Potat decided. Time to ditch this disguise.

  She reached a claw to her belly and opened the release. Her cleaning bot disguise dropped on the ground behind her. Then Potat padded across the floor and stood in front of Antaska.

  “I’m here too,” Potat said to Antaska.

  Finally, Antaska tore her attention away from Wawuul for just a moment.

  “Potat! Are you OK? Did you get hurt too?” Antaska asked.

  “No, I’m fine,” said Potat. “I took down both of these Eeeepps, as you can see, without even getting a scratch. With some help from Wawuul of course,” she admitted.

  “I should have never let you and Wawuul come in here. It was much too dangerous. But you must have known that, and you didn’t tell me,” Antaska accused her.

  “Well I couldn’t let that baby cat come in here alone,” said Potat. “You know that. Anyway, what are you doing in here? It’s much too dangerous for you too. Remember how all these females tried to attack you last time we were here?”

  Potat and Antaska both turned to look at the alien females who were still hanging back even though Wawuul had calmed down.

  “Well, we have to ask them if they want to go back to Central Planet with us on the space ship,” said Antaska. “Remember, that’s why we came here. But I don’t have time to ask them right now. I need to get Wawuul back inside the ship and into the medical bay. Are you coming with us?”