Catalyst_ A Tale of the Barque Cats - Anne McCaffrey [50]
“Yes, sir,” Janina said, and bent to retrieve Chester from his mother. The kitten laid his ears back and hissed, but Janina kept hold of his ruff while he grrred ferociously and lashed his tiny fuzzy black tail.
Captain Vesey pulled a pillowcase from his stack of bedding and tossed it so it landed on her shoulder. “Put him in that until he calms down,” he told her. Janina was shamed. She was the Cat Person. No one else, not even the captain, should have to tell her how to manage her charges.
She expertly swaddled Chester in the folds of the pillowcase and carried him off the bridge. Behind her the crew began returning things to normal, but there was a lot of muttering.
“Is that really Chessie’s kid? She’s always been such a sweetie.”
“I told you we should have looked for a better sire than the Jockey,” Charlotte’s voice answered.
“Dr. Vlast checked him for rabies and distemper, didn’t he?”
“I think he’s got mad cat disease.”
“What’s that? Is it serious?”
“Sounds like they’d have to euthanize the animal for that,” was the last comment Janina heard.
CHAPTER 13
“Are you mad, little cat?” Kibble asked as she carried me into the quarters she shared with us. “Did you hear that? They’re talking about destroying you, and these are people who admire and respect your mother and your species.”
Once inside, I expected her to release me. Instead she opened the door, grabbed a carrier from under her bunk, and popped me inside without removing my shroud.
I had been planning to let her know I was sorry about her boot. Now I wished I’d done the other one too. If my eyes had been death rays they’d have incinerated her where she stood. As it was, a squinty glare and an indignant hiss had to suffice.
I thought she and Mother would then go on patrol, but instead Kibble set me upon the little table where she wrote out her reports of Mother’s patrols. “Kitten,” she said sternly, “I know you’re just a baby and you probably do not understand what I am saying to you, but I think you are an intelligent little cat so I will try to explain this nonetheless. You must never again do what you did just now. Captain Vesey is as kind and caring a skipper as any in the universe. Wetting on his pillow was a naughty, wicked thing to do. But your rampage through the bridge was much worse because it was very dangerous. You could have caused us to lose life support, destabilize our navigation system, any number of things that could cost us all our lives.”
All that for pushing a few buttons? Surely Kibble was exaggerating.
Mother was washing her flank with quick little licks. I thought she would agree that the girl was overreacting but when I mewed inquiringly at her she raised her head, laid her ears flat against it and spat at me, saying, “Ignorant offspring, what has gotten into you? The older you get, the more you resemble that tom who sired you. You’ve disgraced me in front of my crew. Even Kibble is cross and she is never cross.”
And now that she had finished her tirade, Kibble’s eyes filled with tears and she sniffled a little, then wiped her face impatiently with the heels of her hands. She took another box from the locker beside the head of her bunk and withdrew some interesting looking articles. With her fingers, she quickly wove a little web like the one the boy had called a cat’s cradle. He, of course, had invited me to destroy it. It had been one of our games. But she attached shiny things to it and a very long snake. She emitted little wet hiccups as she did so.
“You made her cry!” Mother scolded, and rubbed Kibble’s ankles, then hopped onto the bunk beside her, not even trying to leap onto the web thing.
“You love her more than you love me, your own son!