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By Root 516 0

I knew he was thinking of me. I thought we’d be together again soon. The girl was kind enough, but her friends talked of selling me—they didn’t think I could understand them, but I could, of course. I may not share dreams with everyone, and require a lot of cat antics to make myself understood to people who are not my boy, but having been connected with him from my birth, I understood his language perfectly well. Naturally, my vocabulary was limited to words he knew, and I had only a sketchy notion of many human concepts, but I considered those to be the humans’ concern and of no interest to me or my species. However, I understood perfectly well what the vet meant when he said all animals might be “destroyed.” That was not good, and I was glad to be able to straighten him out about the connection between our “symptoms” and our prey.

I was somewhat deflated when Mother asked, “Why did you catch a keka bug for the doctor, dear? Humans don’t eat those, you know.” I had to explain my act of selfless heroism to her—after all, keka bugs are delicious and I gave that one away without knowing if I’d ever catch another one.

Although I was disappointed that the boy had not appeared in person at the clinic by the time we left, as I’d hoped, I continued to feel his presence with me, as I had since we were parted.

I danced back to the ship, running circles around Mother, pleased with my accomplishment and certain that there never was a young cat cleverer than I. I was sure I had been chosen to spend my life doing Great Things.

But shortly after we returned to the ship, it departed the space station. We floated in what Mother called “free-fall,” and although I was frightened at first, I soon started to enjoy it. Then someone turned on the gravity again, gradually, so that we were lowered to the deck.

The separation happened then, and it wasn’t gradual. It was as if someone had snipped the harness that bound the boy and I together, the way the harness on the ship bound Mother and I together.

Without warning, the boy’s warm bright presence vanished, leaving only a cold hollow void. I could not hear his thoughts or see what he was doing. I curled up for a nap, thinking to find him while I slept, but he was not in my dreams, which were instead of wild canines breaking into the barn, hunting tender kittens, then stalking the space station while they somehow brandished laser rifles while standing on their hind legs. They clamored at the ship’s hatches and my mother cried. My boy had been with me almost since birth and now he wasn’t! It was as if I was suddenly blinded, or had lost my paws.

“Get up, you lazy kitten,” Mother chided me, unaware of my loss. “You’ve missed one patrol. Kibble let you slide since you did that showy bit of killing at the doctor’s office, but it’s time you earned your keep again.”

“Let me sleep,” I whimpered in return. “I’m trying to find the boy.”

“You can’t find him, you silly child, because he’s back at home. I tried to warn you not to get too attached but you never listened to me. The boy and his father were our abductors. They are not our people.”

“The boy is my person,” I cried. “And I want him back.”

“That is foolishness. We are back where we belong, with Kibble and the crew, doing the job we were born and bred to do. And it’s about time you got off your tail and did it. I thought you were over this nonsense.”

“Mother, without the boy, the canines will get us,” I told her, remembering my dream. “Like they got Git and Buttercup.”

“Don’t be daft. There are no canines here, and if there were, the entire crew would protect us. We’re quite valuable, you know. At least, I am, and you will be if you start performing your duties.”

I didn’t care. The boy was not to be found during dreams or waking, so what did it matter? I wanted him, and until someone produced him, they could expect whatever they wanted from me but I wasn’t interested in cooperating.

Mother was quite stubborn, and soon used her feline wiles to convince Kibble to load me into the kitten harness and attach us to each other. I lay down and