Catalyst_ A Tale of the Barque Cats - Anne McCaffrey [3]
It had more to do with the fact that unlike the previous vets, he was young, only a few years older than Janina, and he smelled good in a strong male sort of way. Janina was always sneaking looks at him when she should have been paying attention to her, so Chessie supposed that by human standards he looked good too.
Whatever the reasons, Janina seemed to come in season every time she was around Dr. Jared Vlast, though it was difficult to tell with humans. When Chessie was in season, she was in season. With most humans it only seemed to happen when they were around specific other humans. They were an odd, unpredictable race, even the best of them.
“Oh no!” Janina said to their new acquaintance, and Chessie could tell that the girl’s emphatic denial amused the man. “Why, these cats are so valued that every ship carrying a Barque Cat is required to bear a chartreuse sign with the legend ‘COB’—Cat on Board. That way, if the ship is wrecked and the humans all perish, other ships coming by will check to see if the cat found a last tiny chamber of oxygen and was somehow saved.”
“Huh,” the man said. “If the cat is the only one left, seems to me it might not have been doing the job you said it does—you know, finding leaks and such.”
Janina shifted Chessie so she couldn’t see the man’s face anymore. The girl was quivering a little as she came to the defense of Chessie and her kind. “With all of the patches on your uniform, sir, how can you fail to understand that there are many hazards in space that even the most experienced human crewmen—much less a cat, however specialized her breeding and training—could do nothing to stop—meteors, unfriendly fire, all manner of things. Thank you for walking me to the clinic. It is time for our appointment.”
Well, that told him! Chessie was sure she heard the man chuckle as he walked away. She would have wondered at his odd reaction to Janina’s snub except that Dr. Vlast was opening the clinic door for them, and the kittens had decided to play tag inside her swollen belly.
Chessie purred as Dr. Vlast took her from Janina’s arms. Even the kittens quieted down. Despite his regrettable tendency to subject her to medical indignities, Jared Vlast was a great favorite of Chessie’s as well as her girl’s. The two older vets previously operating this clinic had been very brisk and businesslike, and not at all respectful of Chessie’s importance to her ship. Janina, then little more than a child, had whispered to the kitten Chessie, “Never mind them, Duchess. Those kinds of doctors think only livestock animals are important—cattle, sheep, pigs, horses. A lot they know!”
For the first time, Chessie noticed that her doctors heart was also beating fast and his pulses were thumping as he smiled at Janina, who was trying hard to look calm and professional but couldn’t help how big and round her eyes got when she looked up at him.
Hmm. Well well. Good! The attraction appeared to be mutual! Chessie was surprised her human friends couldn’t hear each other’s chests pounding. Or maybe they could and just wouldn’t admit it. Humans were so strange about mating matters.
Janina had of course discussed the doctor with her, for she was not only her best friend but unlikely to spread rumors. Jared Vlast was only six whole years older than Janina, but was already a man of the universe who had actually spent time on other planets, not just their docking stations. He was well-educated, a sort of veterinary prodigy, whereas she had been educated in the Academy, the place where the kittens of spacefaring parents were sent, whether or not their parents were alive. Janina’s weren’t, and Chessie had heard her say the children of spacefarers who still had their parents were more likely to go on to graduate as officers or ship’s technicians. She was an orphan. Not having your parents with you as a kitten was a bad thing for humans, apparently, though it didn’t stop them from taking feline kittens from their mothers and sending them—all alone in a crowd of loud tall humans with clumsy feet—onto other ships, stations, and worlds.