Catalyst_ A Tale of the Barque Cats - Anne McCaffrey [72]
“I’ve seen Chessie,” he told her. “She’s fine. I’ll not let anyone hurt her if I can help it, Jannie. I promise.”
“But if there’s an epidemic …” she said.
“There is no epidemic—no more than the glitter effect you and I have already observed in the secretions of animals who eat the beetles, as your little Chester so clearly demonstrated to us back at the clinic. This is all about ranching rivalry and politics. Varley told me all about it before I ever received any directives from the GHS.”
He went on to tell her how the import of the wild pintos had upset the balance of power between Varley’s friend and the relative of a GHS official, causing the relative to claim, falsely, that the glittery secretions were the early sign of an epidemic so the horses would be impounded.
“But that’s madness!” she protested. “What about the colonists who will be ruined, the innocent animals who will be destroyed? Surely our government does not condone such corruption and cruelty!”
“Not openly, of course,” he said sadly. He had released her but retained a hard grip on both of her hands. He was clearly angry. “Sorry to disillusion you, but the welfare of animals and those who raise them is a very low priority with most officials.”
“Dr. Vlast,” the guard said from the doorway. “You’re needed back in the laboratory, sir.”
“Coming,” Jared said over his shoulder. “I’ll try to see you again,” he told her. “I’ll leave a message with the Molly Daise when I’ll be free again. I’ll do my best to save Chessie, no matter what.”
But that was very cold comfort to Janina. She loved Chessie very much, but the thought of all of the other innocent creatures being destroyed over political game-playing sickened her.
Jared was back inside the building before she remembered she had wanted to tell him about the derelict ship and its strange feline inhabitant and the seeming abduction of Chester.
CHESTER ABOARD THE PYRAMID SHIP
Pshaw-Ra launched into his story and I was hooked. I sat with my tail curled around my paws and my eyes half shut, ears tilted forward, as he spoke.
“Long ago, when there was One Sun and One Sky, our feline kind was worshipped by a clever and industrious race of two-leggeds. We all lived in a hot country along a flowing river, the only such place for hundreds of miles. The rest of the country was desert and pretty much useless, but where we lived it was lush and fertile and teeming with prey for us and game for our followers. For our purposes, it was the world, the only world, and we were content.
“Then the two-leggeds got distracted from paying us homage and waged war on one another instead. Persians, Hittites, Greeks, Romans, yada yada yada, they all came and took over our poor country. The last race to descend upon us were the Diggers, who disinterred our ancestors, both feline and human, and carried them from the tombs where they were supposed to find eternal rest into foreign places where their mummies could be defiled and turned into litter.
“After many years, the descendants of the original two-leggeds recognized that the error of their ways, the adulation of less worthy beings and goals, had led to their downfall. They begged our forgiveness and once more paid us homage. This did not make them any more popular with their less enlightened enemies. At last our two-leggeds and our illustrious selves were banished from the sight of the One Sun in a vessel that took us to a new world. Or so those who inherited our old land believed. The truth was, our race—yours and mine—had long ago dwelt beyond the One Sun. It was our ancient wisdom that made the Two Lands great.
“To the surprise and delight of our followers, the new world was far from being a punishment. It was wondrous, an entire planet we might call our own, with a climate lush and fertile as our riverine lands had been. The game in our new home was, for the most part, imported along with our worthy selves, but there were also a few indigenous life-forms, just small ones, that neither our two-leggeds nor their skyborne overlords noticed.