Catalyst_ A Tale of the Barque Cats - Anne McCaffrey [64]
“Of course they can,” Indu said. “And there’s nothing we can do about it.”
CHAPTER 15
Jubal scarcely believed what he was seeing as the Ranzo threaded its way into the traffic jam over the city that was called the Hub of the Universe.
The skies of Galipolis were almost hidden from the ground by the fleets of ships, shuttles, trackers, and aircars taking off, landing, hovering while waiting to land, coming and going. The Ranzo was required to wait an entire week to enter orbit, and then had to orbit an additional two weeks before it was given permission to dock.
All of this was because of the horrible impound order. Too late, they had received the notice that ships would not be permitted to come and go as usual from Galipolis. Each one had to submit to a search. Its animals were to be impounded before any ship underwent a thorough sterile cleaning. Only then would the ship be able to go about its business.
It was taking a perilously long time. Adding to the general confusion, fuel transports were often dispatched from the city and its space stations—also overrun with traffic—to supply ships, so they could continue their wait. Jubal did not envy the transport skippers, who had to pick through the traffic between them and their target vessels.
When the Ranzo finally did dock, while the crew waited to disembark, the port authorities boarded the ship. The first thing they did was to snatch Hadley from his favorite nap place on Sosi’s bunk and stuff him into a carrier. Then one of them took off with him. Hadley mewed plaintively from the carrier and Sosi ran after him. The hazmat-suited woman carrying him looked down at Sosi through her face screen, and gave her a piece of paper. “This is the receipt for your cat. Don’t lose it. It has his number on it so he can be returned to you when the time comes, or, in the event that we are unable to return him, you’ll be reimbursed for loss of his services.”
Sosi clutched the paper and gulped back sobs to tell the woman, “He’s not used to carriers. He’s a good cat and likes to be held in your arms when he goes somewhere.” But she was talking to the back of the hazmat suit, and another suit stepped between her and Hadley’s captor.
“What’s going to happen to him out there?” she asked, and turned to Jubal, who had left his other duties when he heard Hadley’s meow and Sosi’s wail. “Jubal, what if they’re mean to him? Nobody has ever been mean to him. He won’t know what’s happening!”
Even though Sosi hadn’t been especially friendly or nice to him before, Jubal’s heart went out to her, because her grief and fear for Hadley was so much what he felt for Chester.
He put his arm around her as he had so often done with Mom when she was upset over something Dad had done, and said staunchly, “We won’t let them.”
“They’re from the government, Jubal,” she said, shaking off his arm. “Just what do you think a couple of kids can do?”
That was a good question. He said, “I dunno, but my folks always say the squeaky wheel gets the grease. We’re going to be in port awhile, right?”
“A little while.”
“It must say on the receipt where they’re taking him. For all I know, Chester will be there too. So we go and watch them.”
“They might run us off.”
“They can try. But we’re just a couple of little kids. They can’t shoot us or anything. If we play it right, they’ll end up letting us see what’s happening to shut us up. And we won’t be the only ones watching. Cats like Hadley and Chester are worth a lot of credits, and their crews are going to be really worried about them. I’m going to talk to Beulah and see if she can help.”
Beulah had by then gleaned more information about the massive impound and had a roster of ships in port. A guy in a hazmat suit was buzzing around her com station, supposedly looking for beetles, but the way she was smiling at him and the flirtatious gleam off his faceplate made Jubal think he was maybe taking a little longer than necessary at this part of the task. Beulah was kind