Catalyst_ A Tale of the Barque Cats - Anne McCaffrey [89]
First she thought it was that something—or someone—was missing again. Who? Who had been taken? She scanned cages as far as she could see, above, below, to the right and left and behind her. She saw no one furry in the corner cage where the cranky old cat had been.
She wanted to howl a warning, but what good would a warning do? The other cats were sleeping, grooming, or murmuring quietly among themselves. She watched and waited, sensing danger so close that her fur stood on end along her ruff and back.
Peering at the Other Door again, she saw that the keka beetles were moving more purposefully now. Earlier they had been scuttling. Now they leaked around the door in several not-entirely-silent unbroken lines.
Under the babble of cat voices, she heard the skittering of the beetles, the whisper of their carapaces against the floor.
Whispering husky and hoarse, and a sigh like an expulsion of breath. “Kefer-kah!” it sounded like. “Kefer-kah! Kefer-kah!”
Some of the bugs had apparently mated, for among their ranks were young ones that were very very tiny. Even Chessie’s sharp eyes could barely detect them. Their movement was marked by the thinnest filament of motion as they crawled to the cages and up the legs of the tables and the desk where the human slept with his head thrown back and his mouth wide open. A can of liquid sat within the curl of his hand. One tiny suicidal creature made a leap of catlike proportions directly into the open mouth. Another leaped into the can. And then all of the others retreated into the corners of the room, or entered the cages of the bored cats.
Chessie could not imagine why the kekas were doing all of this. If it was instinct, it was a very odd instinct indeed, but they were bugs, not sensible cats, and their buggy agendas were beyond her comprehension.
Later, while the food dishes were being filled, the white-haired woman approached Chessie’s cage. She smelled like death and disinfectant, but Chessie noted with some satisfaction the scratch along one cheek and the red cross-hatching on the woman’s wrists.
“So,” she said in a purr that seemed ominous to Chessie. “You’re a fine fluffy lady, aren’t you, my dear? I understand you are a favorite of Dr. Vlast. We’re not quite sure what happened to your friend, or why he didn’t come to work today. Perhaps he couldn’t bear the idea of having to examine you to the degree necessary to determine the nature of your illness. So we’ll spare him the pain by doing you before he changes his mind and returns. They’ve just got to tidy up the last of that other specimen and we’ll be right with you.”
Chessie puffed to four times her size, her soft fur stiff and straight as quills. She hissed and told the woman off in no uncertain terms. Had the basest crewmen on the Molly Daise been able to understand her spitting and growling, they would have found their gentle Duchess could outcurse them. The woman unfortunately was out of her claw reach, but she leapt back anyway, uttering a high-pitched nervous giggle.
“Nice try, you nasty little beast.”
When the woman had gone, Chessie slowly deflated, her calm all gone as she huddled shaking in one back corner, pushing into the wire as hard as she could for safety. She felt a lick on her left ear. The young mother in the next cage purred comfortingly, the purr fluttering occasionally with her own fear. “Tell me again that story,” the younger cat said. “The one about the place where anyone who killed a cat was put to death.”
CHESTER ABOARD THE PYRAMID SHIP
I don’t see how we can do the other animals any good by landing and getting you and Pshaw-Ra captured too, Jubal said, stroking me. I could not seem to get close enough or be petted quickly or thoroughly enough to suit me. I flipped my tail, impatient with Jubal’s distraction from his main job of keeping my fluff patted smoothly to my form.
I hadn’t the slightest desire to talk about Pshaw-Ra while