Catalyst_ A Tale of the Barque Cats - Anne McCaffrey [107]
Ponty and Doc rejoined the Grania. Ponty found he always needed someone threatening him with death and dismemberment to do his best work, and Mavis fit the bill admirably. Besides, even though Doc had bonded with Ponty, he was still technically Mavis’s cat. They kept quiet about their link on shipboard, feeling it was best all the way around if Mavis knew nothing of it.
Older ships from smaller, less prosperous lines started being decommissioned after experiencing accidents that could have been prevented by a resident guardian cat. Even the newer, more expensive vessels that had better technology for detecting air leaks and hull holes weren’t worth a damn when it came to catching mice and other vermin.
Meanwhile, Ponty researched, repeatedly comming Janina to ask more about the short-haired cat in the triangular ship and anything she could remember about it.
“There were picture symbols,” she told him. “Like the one on the hull with the cat outline over the COB sign. The registration was in picture symbols too—a feather-shaped thing, or maybe it was a carving knife, another cat, a bird. Not Standard.” She tried to draw some of them. They looked like hieroglyphics, so he began researching places where those might still be used.
The thing was, they weren’t, except by people translating them from museum pieces of great antiquity. Very few of those had survived the disintegration of Earth.
There was one early settlement of Egyptian Revivalists, but it had been disbanded after less than a century and the inhabitants scattered among newer colonies on planets made habitable by upgraded terraforming techniques. He was trying to figure out where it might be when Mavis had a little disagreement with the Galactic Guard over a cargo consignment and decided to retire to Alexandra Station until the law got interested in someone else.
Alexandra Station was a dump, one of the earliest and still most primitive outposts of the GG, manned by surly corrupt staffers who were rejects on punishment duty from elsewhere. The place was dirty, dangerous, and so fraught with safety hazards it was a wonder it remained aloft. But it was far off the frequent flier space-ways and ignored by the Guard, who had noticed an alarming tendency for people in authority to go missing or be taken suddenly dead if they ventured onto Alexandra.
It was just the place for the Grania in disgrace.
It also gave Ponty an excuse to stay in his cabin with Doc while the rest of the crew caroused. He was fresh out of charm and amiability. His wife had left him (well, technically he’d done the leaving, but she made it clear he wasn’t welcome back), his son was missing, and he was stuck on yet another outlaw ship trying to pull off a trick he was increasingly unsure would work. His searching and researching had been a distraction to keep him from facing the truth. Dung heaps like Alexandra Station were going to be his lot for the rest of his life. It was him and Doc, and in a few years—since cats didn’t live long—Doc would be gone too. Actually, as a matter of fact, he didn’t feel too great himself. His back ached and he felt a throbbing in his left temple that maybe was the beginning of a stroke?
He lay down, hoping it would go away, and Doc curled up on his chest.
He was too depressed to sleep, which was a good thing because he was awake—or so he thought—when Chester walked into the room, jumped up on the bunk, and with a flip of his black fluffy tail beckoned Ponty and Doc to follow him. The ship was much more deserted than Ponty had ever seen it before. He thought at least a skeleton crew was aboard, but everyone seemed to be off partying or wheeling and dealing at the station.
Chester walked unconcernedly through the ship. Ponty tried to talk to him. “Did you know it was okay to come back now, boy?” he asked aloud, his own voice resonating strangely in his ears, and then asked Doc. Did