by Bill Fawcett
He counted six laser emplacements on the snake's back. The Pandora was badly outgunned. Still, they had maneuverability on their side. If they could inflict enough small wounds, it might take all the fight out of the Smoot, allowing them a chance to get away.
Jurgenevski was overwhelmed with a wave of embarrassment. They weren't fighting this battle. Their lives depended on a five-kilo feline who liked to sharpen her claws on his pantleg. Still, it was a chance.
"Win this for us, kitty, and you can have every last scrap of my Sinosian spicewurst," Jurgenevski vowed, "and wash it down with Thomas's smoked turkey. I'll make it up to him."
To a slightly blurring eye, the Smoot ship did resemble a living creature. As it rounded on them, moving into position for its next shot, Jurgenevski could almost see it narrowing its eyes and twitching its pointed tail.
There was some movement in the rear section. It attracted Kelvin, who pounced at it, smacking the tail with one paw and bounding immediately back to one-two the head as it turned toward them. Automatically, the Pandora's battery fired three shots.
The Smoot fired back, but Kelvin dodged easily out of the way of the hot, yellow light of the fireball. Her next move surprised him. She jumped up on top of the console, trying to get above the Smoot. Pandora shifted upward along the z-axis and slid through space until the top of the snake was in view at the very bottom of the screen. Kelvin dove off the console onto the snake's back, pummeling and biting her intangible foe. The head and tail angled upward, guns firing at them, but Jurgenevski could see that the Smoot was suffering some internal distress. The first fireball knocked into the Pandora's side, but the second missed by a million klicks. It was never followed by a third. Kelvin's attack must have hit squarely over the power plant. The snake blew into two pieces, each of which exploded silently, but magnificently, in the black, star-strewn sky.
Kelvin turned away from the screen, head and tail high, and walked majestically over to Thomas's crash couch. She bounded upward, settled herself with one leg over her head, and began to wash. The service hatch in the console opened up to disgorge a saucerful of ranksmelling fish. Jurgenevski couldn't possibly begrudge it to her.
It was hours before the paralysis of the Smoot ray wore off. As soon as their tongues and palates could move again, the three humans burst out talking about the unbelievable feat they had just witnessed. Damages to the ship were negligible, and Jurgenevski's leg proved to be bruised, not broken. The whole situation was the aftermath of a miracle. For the rest of the journey, every time the cat walked into a room, they petted and praised her. On Argylenia, the three of them took her into every gourmet shop in the main city, buying her a kilo of whatever seemed to interest her.
"This cat's a hero," Thomas explained to the dumbfounded shopkeepers, who were taken aback at selling their most prized delicacies to a ship's pet. "If I told you why, you'd never believe me. Just let her have what she wants."
The I.A.T.A. brass were waiting for the Pandora when she docked at Fladium Station with her hold full of textiles. Jurgenevski felt as if he could drop to the metal walkway and kiss it. Beyond the decontamination barrier, he could see dozens of reporters waiting. He exchanged glances with the other two crewmembers. Kelvin, curled up in Marius's arms, never bothered to look up.
"What are you going to say?" Thomas asked, nodding sideways at the cat.
"I don't know yet," he admitted.
"The brave crew returns!" The vice president who had seen them off came out of the V.I.P. waiting room with his arms outstretched. "Congratulations, one and all."
There was a clamor from the press, but the vice president whisked the crew into the lounge and locked the door. Following his gesture, the three sat down. Marius put the cat on the table between them.
"Well done," the executive said, nodding to them all. "We want to let the press in to talk to you in a little while, but not until we've cleared your story. For example, there are a few facets of your reports which we are finding hard to believe. And there's the matter of an item or two of expenditure which is even more difficult to justify. Are we to understand that we're paying a regular salary to a cat? Tell me why."
"She saved our lives," Jurgenevski explained, meeting the vice president's disbelieving scrutiny with a bland expression. "Everything in the reports I sent you is true. Review the ship's log if you want, but if you ask me, you won't question it."
"Kelvin here was a functioning member of the crew, and I think she deserves every minim," Marius added.
"Yes, but paying three hundred-sixty credits weekly to a cat? Plus hazard pay?" The vice president shook his head. Kelvin watched him without blinking, but her tail tip twitched.
"Look at it this way, sir," Thomas put in smoothly and Jurgenevski remembered that he had had diplomatic training. Thomas leaned forward confidingly. "Notwithstanding the fact that Kelvin blew up a Smoot warship all by herself, could you ask for better publicity for the utility and easy operation of the Drebian system, if a mere cat can use it? Think of the numbers! The press'll love it!"
"As a matter of advertisement," the vice president mused, scrubbing his chin with the tips of his fingers, "I suppose it would be just about priceless."
"And what a spokesperson you could offer them, too," Jurgenevski said. Kelvin rolled over and presented her belly to the vice president to be scratched.
The man laughed and reached out to fluff the cat's fur. "I suppose we're getting off lightly. For a human model, I'd have to pay thousands. But what about the three of you? If we publicize that the cat ran the ship, won't you feel foolish?"
Jurgenevski gathered nods of approbation from the other two and drew a deep breath. "Not if it'll help the company, sir."
The vice president mused, staring at a wall as Kelvin squirmed happily under his fingertips. "Captain," he said at last, rising to his feet and gathering up the cat, "I like your loyalty. Come out with me to see the media. I'm sure you'd like to tell them the adventures the four of you had on your ship." The emphasis fell heavily on the last two words, and Jurgenevski caught his breath. Marius and Thomas looked hopeful. The vice president didn't miss their expressions.
"I presume you're happy with your crew complement as well?" he asked casually.
"Yes, sir," Jurgenevski said, with unconcealed joy. He gave the cat a quick and grateful scratch on the head. "I ordered another spicewurst for you this morning," he told Kelvin in a low murmur just before the door opened.
"What's that, captain?"
"Oh, nothing, sir. Nothing." Grasping Marius's and Thomas's hands in a triumphant squeeze, he followed the LA.T.A. executive out of the lounge to the waiting press.
ALIEN
CATS
Chanur's Homecoming
C.J. Cherryh
She was wobbling when she reached belowdecks, staggering with the weight of the gun; she ran face-on into the others as she came off the lift and into the corridor—regular crew, with Tully and Khym. "I sent orders," she said to them both. "No. Stay here."
"It's changed out there," Khym said, "Py, for gods- sakes—"
Panic set in, facing that obdurate desperation, that look in his eyes, which met hers and asked, O gods, with a desperate pleading for his own place. If she never got him back alive . . . if she lost him out here; if, if, and if. She saw all the crew in the same mind, all thin-furred and haunted-looking, ghosts of themselves, but with weapons in hand and ears pricked up and eyes alive though flesh was fading.
"We've got to hit fast," she said, and saw Chur come round the corner from crew quarters, leaning against the wall for support, Chur with a rifle slung at her side. "You—" she said, meaning Chur. "And you" meaning Tully, who was provocation to any hani xenophobe and a class one target. "You—"
"Tully and I hold the airlock and cover the rest of you, right." Chur's voice was a hoarse whisper, befitting a ghost. "Got it, cap'n. Go on."
That was the way Chur worked, conspiracy and wit: Chur cheated at dice. So would Geran. For cause. Pyanfar
drew a ragged breath, threw a desperate look at Geran Anify and got no help: silence again, now that Chur was back in business. "Then for godssakes keep Tully with you," she said, and jabbed Tully with a forefinger. "Stay on the ship. Help Chur. Take Chur's orders. Got?"
"Got." With that kind of Tully-look that meant he would argue to go with them if he thought he could. Language-barrier worked on her side this time. "Be careful.
"Gods-be sure. Come on," she said to the others, and shoved off the wall she was using to lean on for a moment, and trotted for the airlock.
Alert began to sound, The Pride's crew call: not their business, though muscles tensed as if that alert were wired to Chanur nervous systems. There was the thunder of steps in the corridors, additional crew running to the lift behind them as they reached the airlock corridor. More footsteps behind. She looked back. Skkukuk appeared, coming from the other direction. "Orders!" she yelled at him, "Get!" and he vanished in the next blink of the eye. Then: "Sirany!" she yelled at the intercom pickup, her voice all hoarse, "open that lock—" because it was not Haral up there, Haral was beside her; and she had to depend on strangers to get their signals straight.
The airlock hatch opened. She threw the safety off the illegal AP, and inhaled the air as a wind whipped into their faces: The Pride's pressurization was a shade off; and that wind out of Gaohn smelled of things forgotten. Of hani. Or cold and hazard, too, and the chill reek of space-chilled machinery. She jogged through the lock and into the passageway, yellow plastics of the access tube and steel jointed plating, and sucked up a second wide gulp of the air her physiology was born for. Something set into her like the stim: a second wind, a preternatural clarity of things in which the whole tumble of events began to go at an acceptable speed.
"These are hani," she said, drymouthed and panting as they ran along the tube, trusting her crew around her as she trusted her own reflexes, knowing where each would dispose themselves, that Chur was where she had said she would be, that she had Tully under control, that Tirun, hindmost with her lameness, would be watching everything they were too shortfocussed to see up front, that Haral was at her side like another right hand and Hilfy and Geran were with Khym in the middle, Khym being the worst shot in the lot, and not the fastest runner, but able to lay down barrage fire with any of them if it got to that. Hani, she reminded them as she came off that ramp and headed aside for cover of the gantry rig and the consoles. Down the row another crew was hitting the docks about as fast: that was Harun. And Sif Tauran arrived: Pyanfar spun around to stare at Sif in some confusion, saw Fiar coming at a dead run down the ramp. "We're offshift," Sif panted. "Captain says get out here and help."
"Come on," she said, seeing Fiar's youth, the grudging frown on Sif—sent along for Tauran's honor, then. Another Battle for Gaohn. Everyone wanted in on it.
Fool, Sirany, this is hani against hani, don't you see it? No glory here—
There were others arriving on the docks and running up the curved flooring toward them. Some of Shaurnurn, a trio each of Faha and Harun, not whole crews, but parts and pieces. That meant that those ships were still crewed, enough hands aboard to get them away if the kif came in; enough to make them a visual threat if nothing more. She had not ordered that. Perhaps Harun or Sifeny Tauran had. It was sane. It was prudent. She still wished she had the extra personnel on dockside, with their firepower. No other crew had the APs or even rifles: it was all legal stuff. Most of them that had run the long course from Meetpoint looked exhausted already; it showed in their faces, in the dullness of coats and the set of the ears. And Harun and the rest had only come from four jumps back.
But others were coming to join them, glossy of coat and in crisp blues; in vivid green; in skycolored silk: crews and captains of other ships from farther down the docks, ships which had run their own Long Course getting in, perhaps, but which were at least clear-eyed and fresh from their time on blockade. Banny Ayhar's contingents. The ships in from mahen space. Pyanfar drew a breath, blinked against dizziness and an insufficiency of blood and in a second hazed glance at that one in sky-blue, recognized her own sister. Rhean Chanur, looking much as Rhean had looked two years ago; with a tall figure coming up behind Rhean amongst the girders and hoses and machinery of the dock, a male figure conspicuous amid that large crew of Chanur cousins and nieces. The man had too much gray on him to be her brother, but no, they were indisputably Kohan's features, it was Kohan's look about him, and he wore a gun at his hip, a pistol, which gods knew if he even knew how to use—
His Faha wife was with him, Huran, Hilfy's mother. So were others of his wives: Akify Llun was one, on his side and Chanurs and not with her own kin. "Pyanfar," Kohan said when they came to close range. They stared at one another a moment, before Kohan blinked in shock at what else he saw, the thin, scarred woman his favorite daughter had become, Hilfy Chanur par Faha, who came across to him and offered her left hand to touch, because she was carrying a black and illegal AP in the other. Hilfy Chanur touched his hand and her mother Huran Faha's, giving them and her Aunt Rhean and her cousins the nod of courtesy she might give any comrade-under-fire, with a quick word and an instant attention back to other of her surroundings, taking up guard with crewmates who shadowed her: she signed Geran one view toward the open docks and took another herself, all while everything was in motion, crews were taking positions of vantage, so there was no time to say anything, no time at all. Kohan looked stricken, Huran dismayed. Khym coughed, a nervous sound, somewhere behind her.
"We've got to get through to central," Pyanfar said. "Get Banny Ayhar out of there, get the Llun free—"
My gods, they don't know what to do, they're looking at me, at us to do something, as if none of them had fought here before this, as if they didn't know Gaohn station.
There was a time and a rhythm in leading the helpless and the morally confused; a moment to snatch up souls before they fell to wrangling or wondering or asking too keen questions.
"Come on," she yelled at them, at all the lunatic mass of hani spacers that was persistently trying to group round her like the most willing target in all the Compact; and yelled off instructions, corridors, crews, her voice cracking and her legs shaking under her as she started everyone into motion—in the next moment she could not remember what she had sent, where, when, as if her mind had wandered somewhere back into hyperspace and she had the overview of things but not the fine focus. . . .
. . . .battles fought at ports and in countrysides on a little blue pearl of a world where foolish hani thought to prevent a determined universe from encroaching on their business. . . .
. . . .Pyruun bundling Kohan onto a shuttle, smuggling him aloft to Rhean, gods knew how they had managed it or at what risk; but, then, mahendo'sat had once smuggled a human in a grain bin, right through a stsho warehouse. . . .
. . . .Banny Ayhar racing home with a message which proliferated itself across all of mahen space, sweeping up hani as she fled homeward: and alerting mahendo'sat as well, from Maing Tol to the mahen homeworld of Iji, so it could not then be taken by surprise by any kifish attack, try as Sikkukkut would. The incoming and outgoing ranges of solar systems would be mined: the mahendo'sat would have had time for that laborious action, especially up near Iji and Maing Tol, so nothing could have gotten in the back door. They would have done that, while hani ships were moving home like birds before the storm. Mahendo'sat would have pulled every spare ship borderward in defense and offense, set in motion agreements with the tc'a, so that the elaborate timetable of mahen ship movements would have functioned as a spreading communications net, news streaking from jump to jump and spreading wide with every meeting of affected ships. . . .
. . . .even to hunter captains far removed from the inner reaches, captains like Goldtooth, no longer operating on their own discretion, but receiving information and reinforcements. . . .
. . . .Goldtooth had been vexed beyond measure when Aja Jin had violated the timetable by showing up at Kefk; that had been his anger, that, the reason of
his fury at Jik, that the reason why Goldtooth had rushed away: his orders had dictated it. And what might he have told to Rhif Ehrran to send her kiting out of there with a message for homeworld? Look out, he must surely have told her: beware the consequences when the push he knew was coming rammed the kif right down hani throats. He had sent Ehrran where The Pride was supposed to be, and where Banny Ayhar was already headed, Jik would have told him, in a much slower ship but with a message he had given her, if she had lived to get to Maing Tol. Goldtooth's plan had worked till The Pride blew a vane coming out of Urtur and had to go in for repair, til Sikkukkut stole Hilfy and Tully and lured The Pride off to Mkks and then (Jik following his opportunity and a hani's desperation, and seeing only one way to make his schedule and keep his position on the inside of things) to Kefk, where things went even more grievously awry; where hani proved intractable and divided by bloodfeud, and Chur lay dying, preventing The Pride from making that critical dash homeward by the Kura route, to warn of disaster at Meetpoint. . . .
. . . .Goldtooth had given them that med equipment to make a long run possible, gave it to them the way mahendo'sat had spent millions upping The Pride's running capacity, last-ditch try at sending updated information on to Anuurn and spacer hani. . . .
. . . .because no ship could get through the kifish blockade at Kita; and in the end they had to rely on the slim hope of Banny Ayhar's ship. Jik had failed to convince Ehrran to veer from her stshoward course and The Pride had involved itself deeper and deeper in the heart of Jik's schemes; Ehrran had not budged till Goldtooth confronted her with more truth than Jik had yet told any of them.