Catalyst_ A Tale of the Barque Cats - Anne McCaffrey [38]
This time the old man was going to take him along, like it or not. Everything was his father’s fault, and even if he wouldn’t help get Chester back, his father would at least get Jubal closer to his cat. Jubal knew he sure couldn’t do anything while he was stuck on the ground and Chester was in space. He’d gotten the impression that the Molly Daise docked at Hood Station at pretty regular intervals. He reckoned the ship probably docked at other stations fairly often too, and met up with other ships. He just had to get himself to the right place at the right time.
It was a long uncomfortable ride wedged behind the seats. He didn’t dare go to sleep for fear he’d snore and Pop would discover him and take him back home. Mom was going to be mad, he thought, and then she was going to worry and send people looking for him, but he wasn’t going home, no matter what. Let her worry. All she cared about was getting the damned reward money. She didn’t like cats, and whatever she said, she didn’t really want him to have Chester or she’d have let him get a kitten a long time ago. She was brought up on Sherwood, among farmers who thought animals were just for eating, or riding, or catching mice. She thought loving them was dumb and something he’d grow out of. Well, he wouldn’t. Besides, she was wrong. Those people on the ship were all adults, seasoned spacers, and though they talked about how valuable Chessie was and how much they needed her, he could tell they cared about her. And the girl was crazy about her. His mom was just cold, hard-hearted, money grubbing, and weird sometimes, that was all.
The ride to the station seemed like hours, but when the shuttle began its docking routine and he checked the watch Pop had brought him for his last birthday (although he hadn’t actually given it to him until six months later, when he returned home from his latest—and better not discussed, according to Mom-venture), Jubal saw that it had only been about forty-five minutes. Shuttles were poky on the ground but had that second mode for extreme outer atmo travel that made them practical and even essential for the colonists on Sherwood.
When the transport settled down, Pop unstrapped himself, opened the hatch and said, “You’d better come out now too, Jubal. If you were planning on waiting for a ship associated with the circus you’re planning to run away to, you may have to wait a long time. Meanwhile you’d best stick with me.”
Jubal poked his head out from under the blanket, feeling foolish and a little like a turtle. “How’d you know I was here?”
“Never try to kid a kidder, sport,” the old man said. “I got eyes in the back of my head.”
“Yeah sure. And thanks for the ride, but I don’t want to stick with you. I want to find Chester.”
“Where is he anyway?”
“Mom turned him and his mother in for the reward,” Jubal told him. “The people on the ship wouldn’t give her all the reward money unless she gave them Chester too, so she did.” He had intended to be as calculating in what he said as the old man always was, but remembering what happened at the clinic got him all stirred up again and he told his dad just how much trouble he had caused, how the vet and the people on the ship had treated them, blaming them, though they didn’t exactly say so, for the loss of the clinic and the cat and kittens to begin with. “If you hadn’t made her run you off by being such a—”
“Careful, kid.”
“By making her mad,” Jubal said, altering his course slightly in the interests of avoiding getting thumped. “She wouldn’t have been so worried about money and let them take him.”
“So it’s my fault no matter who took your kittycat, is that how you’ve got it figured?”
“That’s about right,” Jubal agreed, narrowing his eyes resentfully at the old man, who clamped his lips