Catalyst_ A Tale of the Barque Cats - Anne McCaffrey [68]
He picked the cat up and tucked it in the pocket.
Hey, I wasn’t done with my bath yet!
“Yeah, well, if you don’t want to be done for, you’ll take a nap and be quiet about it until I tell you it’s okay, got it?”
This is a good place, the kitten said as it curled into the pocket. A deep purr throbbed against Ponty’s side.
“Cut that out, Doc,” he whispered to his own armpit. “They’ll hear you from the bridge if you keep purring like that.”
Sorry. I’m happy.
“Enjoy it while you can, fuzz face.”
Boss?
“What?”
You don’t have to say words to me. I can understand you. You’re my person, boss. I can read you like a cargo manifest.
Mavis was always looking at cargo manifests—of other ships, making her shopping lists for her heists. The kitten liked to get between her and her paperwork.
Like this? Ponty thought experimentally.
You got it.
Well, I’ll be spaced. Do you do this with Mavis too?
No. She’s nice to me. She likes me. I like to keep it that way. But you’re my boss.
Ponty was pretty sure now that the kitten was lying. He didn’t actually know much about cats, but he did know that most of them considered themselves their own bosses. The kitten’s story stank worse than an unemptied litter box, but the important thing now was to keep the cat safe from the goons and therefore himself safe from the wrath of Mavis.
He strolled right past the goons and their equipment, down the gangway and into Galport, then into the streets of Galipolis.
The old man looked around at the sound of Jubal’s voice, then grinned down at him as if they had agreed to meet there. “They treating you okay on the Ranzo?” he asked.
No hug, no hi, no “How’s your mom?”
“Up till now, yeah. At least they honored my contract, even if you didn’t honor yours.”
“Couldn’t help it, son. I was, as they say, unavoidably detained.”
“The law?”
“Some old—friends. Find your cat?”
Jubal said, “No. And now Hadley and Chessie and the other ship cats have been impounded. They’re probably going to kill them.”
“I know. Tough luck about that,” his father said, sounding only a little sad. Jubal recognized the credit signs in Pop’s eyes.
“I get it. You’re going to make money off this, aren’t you?” He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at his father. “You didn’t cause the impound order, did you?”
“Mercy, no! What do you take me for, boy?” he asked. Jubal didn’t answer.
But just then Sosi ran back, clutching her cloth. Seeing Jubal’s dad, she stopped in her tracks and looked from Jubal to his dad and back again.
“Ponty,” she said to his father. Of course. Pop had probably spent more time on the Ranzo and ships like her than he ever had at home. “Ponty, they took Hadley away. You can help, can’t you? Or you know somebody who can help? When they arrested my daddy you made them let him go …”
“That was a matter of knowing someone, sweet cakes,” Pop said, kneeling to talk to the girl. “I don’t think there’s anything I can do about the kitties they arrested, but I’ll see to it you have your pick of the litter of the new kitties as soon as they’re born.”
For a smart guy, Pop really didn’t get it about cats, did he? They weren’t interchangeable. Jubal felt like yelling at him, but Sosi for once made herself useful and went him one better. Her lower lip trembled, her eyes watered up and began streaming, then she let out a loud Bawwww that would have made one of the cows back home proud. Then she leaped onto his old man. Throwing her arms around his neck while the blue cloth was still in her hands, she nearly strangled him crying, “I want Hadley, Ponty. I don’t want them to h-h-h-hurt h-him! Please make them give him back. I don’t want a new kitty. I want mine.”
Under other circumstances Jubal would have been tickled to see his old man speechless for a change, but this was serious. Ponty patted Sosi and said, “There there, there there, I’ll see what I can do. Maybe I know someone who can let me rescue one cat …”
“But Pop, they took Chessie too, and what about the oth—”
The old man shot him a warning look. Then, to Jubal