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For a change? Why, I had bored myself to snores trying to “behave” according to what these people wanted until I could find my boy! I hadn’t demanded adoration for my concessions, but a little credit would have been nice.

I soon realized I had underestimated Kibble’s cunning and cruelty. She had made sure my paws and claws were encased in the padded shipsuit before forcing the horrible helmet over my head. I knew what it was—she had already put one on her own head, just like it, except that mine had two pointy triangles at the top. Once the helmet was over my head, my flattened ears popped up into the triangular places. A soothing hiss of oxygen filled my nostrils from the hose attaching our suits even before she locked the helmet in place, but I couldn’t help trying to paw the thing off, for fear I’d smother.

“Chester, settle down. Trust me, little one, you don’t want to be cut off from my hose. Now then, we’re going to leave the shuttle and go hunt for the other cat. I’ve my gravity boots to keep me grounded, but you will be floating in zero g once we get outside. Please don’t try to run away, baby cat. If this hose comes apart, you may not have enough oxygen in your suit to last until I can hook us back up.”

I heard her quite well in spite of the helmet, and I could still smell the inside of the shuttle as well, though her scent was cut off by her shipsuit. The noise of the Molly Daise’s bridge on an open channel buzzed in the background. The shuttle’s hatch opened and Kibble picked me up and carried me out. Once she let go of me, I was airborne!

This time it did not frighten me. After my recent dance across the buttons that controlled the gravity on the Molly Daise, once Kibble and Mother got over being angry, we had flying lessons in the training chamber. Mother said that no kit of hers was going to be afraid of weightlessness.

I meowed loudly and tumbled over three times in midair as my voice filled my own quite sensitive ears trapped in their pointy helmeted casings. “Other cat? Where are you?”

You seek my wisdom and protection, my son? a deep voice inquired in my head.

We seek your furry tail so we can save you and get us all out of this rat warren! I replied, not bothering to use words of feline language at this point. Our actual spoken vocabulary is diminished if we can’t use the eloquence of our bodies for punctuation, extended explication, and emphasis.

“Have you got the scent, Chester? Have you?” Kibble asked. From the pouch, she pulled the can opener and the bag of fishie treats.

That was easy, I thought, using my front paws for propulsion and my tail as a rudder as I dived toward the treats in her hand. I knocked them out of her hand and into free-fall, but I couldn’t retrieve them because I had nothing with which to grab them, as I discovered when my faceplate hit the package and sent it soaring upward out of my reach. I’d forgotten about the wretched helmet. I wailed at the injustice of it, the awful cruelty of her taunting me with treats. But she, oblivious, snatched the treats out of the air and rattled a can opener in her other hand. Now I understood: the sound was a lure for the stranded cat.

“Kitty kitty?” she called. Rattle rattle.

Hark! Do mine ears detect the sound of the sacred sistrum of sustenance? the other cat asked. At the same time, my amplified ears heard a miau, faint, as if far away.

No, it’s just a can opener, I told the cat.

Yes, that. And is there—perchance—a can or container of some sort for it to work its magic upon? I have had no food for weeks, months, years even!

Should I tell him about the fishie treats? I wondered, as their significance to Kibble became clear to me. Alas, they were not for me but a bribe for him. I was sure of it. Otherwise, why would she have withheld them from me aboard the shuttle when she knew I loved them? They should by rights be my fishie treats. The strange cat claimed to be starving, and he might fool Kibble with his piteous