Catalyst_ A Tale of the Barque Cats - Anne McCaffrey [79]
He was also bitterly disappointed that Pop had not chosen to honor his contract with the Ranzo, but had gone off doing whatever it was that Pop did when he thought no one was looking. At least now he’d have Doc riding herd on him, if he didn’t find the kitten inconvenient and abandon him somewhere or give him up to the GG goons. Jubal didn’t see how he could, but then, you never knew with the old man. Meanwhile, Pop had what Jubal wished he still had: someone to keep him company, to do stuff with him, read with him, help him figure things out, as well as all the regular cat things like sleeping beside him and purring, licking his face and hands sometimes.
When Jubal had finished his chores, he threw himself onto his bunk and fell asleep.
He awoke—or thought he did—when he felt paws land on the end of his bunk and walk across his legs. Hadley used to do that sometimes, but Hadley was gone. And then, as he came more fully awake, he knew that these were not Hadley paws marching across his calves. The cat that belonged to those paws was lighter and stepped more quickly than Hadley. The feel of this cat, although he weighed a ton compared to what he had before, was much more, wonderfully more, familiar.
“Chester?” Jubal said, rolling carefully onto his back and opening his eyes. There was no cat there, not physically. But he felt Chester’s presence more strongly than he ever had since they’d been forced apart.
“Prrt,” Chester’s voice said clearly, and the invisible paws leaped from his legs and onto the cabin floor, trotting to the door.
Jubal followed and opened the door. Trying to understand what was happening, why he was suddenly aware of the cat as he had not been for so many weeks, he had a terrible thought. Had Chester been impounded and killed? Was this a cat ghost returning to say good-bye?
A claw through the lower leg of his shipsuit trousers goaded him forward. He had the sense that there wasn’t much time. The paws padded up the carpeted corridor, and periodic nudges—mental ones and seemingly physical ones—led him to the Ranzo’s bridge. The crew was tired after the exhausting inspection and enforced shore leave, reloading the ship and threading it back through the heavy traffic orbiting the planet and circling the city. Once the course was set and the Ranzo was back in space, the bridge crew could doze at their duty stations. The first officer and navigator sat with their heads thrown back against the backs of their chairs, snoring. Beulah cradled her head in her arms and leaned across her console, her back rising and falling slightly with her breathing.
The invisible cat feet hopped across the console, and a cat shadow was outlined against the forward viewscreen. Jubal saw it then. It was very small, in the distance, another ship.
He touched the zoom control and the ship shot forward, into his face. A derelict, drifting and dark, but the COB sign, along with the outline of a sitting cat, was outlined against it.
You want me to save that cat, Chester? Is that why you’re here?
It was. Emphatically. And in a rush, Janina’s story of losing Chester on a strange derelict came back to Jubal. Before he could reach up to touch the silky cool fur that brushed his cheek, the cat shadow leaped through the viewport, into the derelict, and shrank as the zoom reversed.
Beulah had awakened and was staring at him.
“What is it, Jubal?”
“Chester. He’s on that derelict out there, Beulah. He wants me to come and get him.”
“Jubal, you can’t—”
“No, really. He is. Janina lost him there. There’s another cat.”
“We’d just have to give him up again, Jubal. He’s better off out there.”
“No. No, he’s not. He wants us to come and get him.”
“You can’t know that, honey.”
“But I do. I do. Please, Beulah. Please help us. There’s got to be a way for us to do it. Please. We have to try. He’ll starve to death if we just leave him.”
“The GG goons will take him off to that lab if you don’t leave him,” Beulah said with a sleepy sigh that actually reminded him a little of a cat waking up.
“I’ve gotta go, Beulah. He knows