Catalyst_ A Tale of the Barque Cats - Anne McCaffrey [90]
To Jubal’s own memories of Hadley’s capture and the cold forbidding fortress now holding my mother and most of our spacefaring kind, I added my memory of Space Jockey, my notoriously cocky sire, trembling in his fur coat as his ship cruised into port toward the fate that he sensed awaited him. I jumped down from Jubal’s lap and padded up the ramp and into the cat corridor in search of the ship’s captain. I supposed I’d have to cope with this before Jubal—for whom I had waited all these weeks—would give me the undivided attention I deserved for as long as I desired. It wasn’t fair, but there it was.
Pshaw-Ra was as enigmatic as ever when I queried him. “I need not land to command,” he said loftily. “But I do require images of the place where the unfortunate felines are being held and under what conditions.”
I showed him the building my boy showed me, the building Jubal and the others had stood in front of yowling at the tops of their voices and scratching to go in while groups of people in white coveralls and masks carried cats inside. I showed him what the boy remembered of the building plans the guard had shared with him, but Pshaw-Ra was not satisfied and was hardly paying attention.
“Stupid of those cats to get caugbt in the first place,” he remarked. He had stopped fiddling with controls and sat cleaning his claws. “But then, they’ve been captives all their lives, I suppose, cozying up to humans, afraid to meet their greater destiny. I’m not sure such devolved cats, with such a slavelike mentality, will be of any use to my grand plan.”
“What are you on about?” I growled. “The humans didn’t want to surrender the cats, and the cats didn’t want to go.”
“Nevertheless, they were surrendered and they did go,” Pshaw-Ra said, smirking through his whiskers. His ears were angled back and his eyes narrowed. “Thus delaying my plan.” His tail smacked the deck in annoyance.
“They were carried in cages,” I pointed out, reminding him of that part of the boy’s image. But though I thought I was being patient with him, my voice came out in a growl and my fur stood up in a huff. That way, even though I was still young enough to be smaller than he under normal circumstances, I was at least as big, probably bigger. I felt enormous. “So, do you really have some idea how to help them or do I have to—” I jumped on top of him, biting and clawing as I’d been wanting to do ever since I met the smug creature.
The fight ended before it began. My claws unhooked, my mouth opened so my teeth let go of the chunk of fur they were ready to yank off him, and I floated up as if back in zero g, then abruptly dropped onto the very spot from which I’d launched my attack. I hunched there glaring at him. What kind of a trick had he played on me? He cheated. Otherwise I could have walloped him at least a little.
“Foolish catling, how do you think you can stand against me? You can achieve nothing without my gracious acquiescence. Do you know how to control my vessel? I think not. Do you know how to release the shuttle? Even if you did, with the mother ship so distant and the target planet still out of range, you and your human companions would perish before you arrived. Confront your fate, catling. You are at my mercy. You and your plodding, inelegant human companions as well.”
“Stop waggling your rear and hunt if you’re going to, Pshaw-Ra. Jubal says they’re probably murdering cats while you sit here grooming your bung hole.”
“The information he provided me was inadequate. I need more details if I am to deploy my resources to the best advantage.”
I checked with my boy but he had already told me everything he could about the building. We couldn’t get past the lobby, Chester. They weren’t about to let us up there so we could tell people what they were doing.
When this was conveyed to Pshaw-Ra, he said, “Well then, if the human captors will not allow humans inside, no doubt they would be well pleased to acquire