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But Doc seemed preoccupied and didn’t reply, just trotted along behind Chester.

Yeah, everything is fine and everybody really misses all you cats and wish you’d come back. Jubal’s mother and I miss him too. Is he okay? Doc, dammit, can’t you talk to him?

Doc looked over his shoulder then forward again, his tail beckoning like a finger curling in and out—come here.

One minute Ponty was staring at their tails and the next he was on the bridge.

The com screen filled with words, glowing green on a black screen. It had never done that before. Why now?

Chester jumped up to the keyboard, and as the words kept forming, it seemed to Ponty almost as if the cat was writing the message, but cats couldn’t do that. Could they?

He looked to Doc again, but Doc just hopped up beside the keyboard and looked over it while Chester’s big fluffy paws patted the keys and green letters flowed across the screen.

Some of us are ready to negotiate. The planet of Pshaw-Ra is all that he said it was, more or less, but it is also hot. It’s all very well for Pshaw-Ra and his short-furred kind, but we Barque Cats have long fur, and clouds of it rise with the heat as we try to shed ourselves cool.

Mother misses Kibble. Bat misses Weeks. Sol says the place may be a cat sanctuary where we are worshipped and our culture has had a chance to advance, but it’s too open for his taste. It reminds him of the field where Git and our sister were killed. He craves the cozy rooms on shipboard. Jubal says that is angoraphobia, but there are no angoras to fear, just us and the short-hairs.

How is Jubal? Ponty tried asking mentally, as he usually did with Doc, but Chester didn’t turn around.

Some like it here very much, but some are ready to negotiate. Kibble should come, and Weeks. And the doctor.

Come where? Are you and Jubal ready to come back, Chester boy?

The cat had disappeared, though, and on the screen the last of the flowing letters lingered for a moment: Some are willing to negotiate. Then they too disappeared.

Doc jumped down, and Ponty caught a glimpse of another fluffy tail whisking past, then Chester was sitting beside the navigation screen. On it was Alexandra Station, and the nearby moons and planets. One of the planets blinked. As if moving his hand through molasses, Ponty reached forward and clicked the SAVE SCREEN key.

Chester touched noses with Doc, then with a soft breath of fur, rubbed against Ponty’s arm. He shouldn’t have been able to feel it because he had long sleeves on, but somehow he did. Chester leaped through the viewport and out across space until his form was swallowed by a familiar triangular craft in the distance.

Ponty opened his eyes and found himself in his bunk. Doc sat up on his chest, did a hazardous stretch that threatened Ponty’s chin with extended claws, yawned with a curl of bright pink tongue, and started washing. Ponty dropped him to the deck and sat up.

Did I dream that or what? he asked the cat, but Doc yawned again, hopped back up on the bunk and snuggled up in the warm spot.

With his feet firmly on the deck, Ponty headed for the bridge. He walked down the corridor, past shipmates in other cabins playing cards or eating. Mavis was gone and the navigator was asleep at the helm, but Ponty could see something blinking on the screen that should have been blank while they were docked. The com officer was not at his station, but across the screen, in glowing green letters across the black blankness, were the words: Bring Fishie Treats.

Read on for an excerpt from

Catacombs,

by Anne McCaffrey and

Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

Published by Del Rey

Pshaw-Ra the Spectacular, Mariner of the Stars, returned to his world in what he fondly imagined as triumph, bearing with him the seeds of salvation for his race, if not his entire planet.

Were he not the bold, heroic, cunning, adventurous, incredibly brave, fast talking, quick thinking, highly skilled, and of course devastatingly handsome cat he knew himself to be, all would have been lost. But thanks to his daring, his farsightedness, his willingness