Catalyst_ A Tale of the Barque Cats - Anne McCaffrey [71]
As they skittered out of the building, another team arrived. Mbele was among them, Jubal saw. He wished he could signal the man, but he wasn’t sure how far the scientist was prepared to help them anyway, even for Beulah’s sake. Then he did a double take. He recognized someone else too: Dr. Vlast, the vet from Hood Station. How had he gotten here so fast? Of course, he’d come on a GG transport! It would have been granted priority landing and would have escaped the giant traffic jam. The vet could have come all the way from Hood Station during the time the Ranzo had been waiting to land.
Dr. Vlast was surrounded by government types. He looked busy and preoccupied and not a bit happy about being there. He didn’t see Jubal and Jubal didn’t try to get his attention as the group moved into the building.
At the fountain, Jubal was deeply disappointed to see that Janina, her crewmates, and Beulah had been joined by only a half dozen other people. None of the media people Beulah knew were there yet. “A fuel transport collided with a cargo vessel over Gal-isouth,” Beulah told them. “That’s the story everyone is after. We’ll have to wait for a slower news day.”
“Hadley may not have that long,” Sosi said.
Janina looked like she was going to start crying. Jubal said, “On the way out of the building, we saw your vet friend Vlast.”
She looked startled, then hopeful, then glum again. “They’ll have forced him to come,” she said. “That’s what they’ve done historically anyway—traded the vets around so the resident vet can return to what clients are left without having them angry with him. I wish I could contact him. He’s bound to be miserable about all this.”
“Why can’t you?” Jubal asked. “We can show you where he is.”
CHAPTER 17
When the children showed her the building, Janina entered and the guard stood to intercept her. “Sorry, miss, only authorized personnel beyond this point.”
“I’m looking for my brother,” she said. “Dr. Jared Vlast of Hood Space Station.”
The lift opened and a herd of hazmat-suited personnel lumbered out of it and toward the outer door. The smell of urine, feces, and fear overlaid with antiseptic spilled down the shaft and through the lift’s open door behind them. A small portion of that smell would be Chessie’s. Janina couldn’t bear it.
“I can take a message,” the guard said.
“Could you tell him now?” she asked, her voice trembling a little. “I haven’t seen him in weeks and my ship is scheduled for departure. Tell him Janina is here, please.”
“You’ll have to wait outside,” the guard said. “Sorry, those are the rules.”
“I—I’ll be there. By the door,” she replied, and retreated to the not entirely fresh air outside, trembling with her own boldness, with anticipation at perhaps seeing Jared again, and with anguish at the thought of her beautiful, gentle Chessie trapped at the source of the stench.
But she stood staring at the reflective tint of the doors, wishing she could see more of the inside. Jubal had drawn their little group a rough sketch of the building’s layout. The lab was on the fourth floor, he said.
Imagining the lab’s location made her picture what might be happening to the cats within it, and she shook her head to dislodge all of her pitiful fancies of what those poor animals might be enduring.
The doors retracted, and there, looking weary and red around the eyes, was Jared. She wished she had had the time or the spirit to dress up a bit before this, but Jared looked as if he hadn’t slept well in days and was in no mood to notice.
She stepped up to meet him and could not resist the urge to put her arms around him and hug him, since he looked as miserable as she felt. To her surprise, he held her even closer and brought his hand up to the back of her