Emily had heard enough. “No, I’m afraid not. We’re going. Come on, Jamie.”
“But, mom—”
“—No buts.” Emily stormed out of the Fit Room, looking for the ship’s exit. “This is terriful, no way to treat a cat. They should be locked up.”
Jamie chased after his mother as she left the room, leaving Bonnie looking a little worse for wear.
“Sorry.”
“Great,” Tripp said, sarcastically. “Thanks for that, Bonnie. If it weren’t for your big mouth, they’d have never known.”
“I’m sorry,” Bonnie said. “I forgot.”
Tripp ran after the Andersons with his voice lowered. “Yeah, that’s your whole problem.”
“Excuse me,” Emily asked a technician in the hub corridor. “Where is the way out, please?”
He pointed at the far end of the walkway. “About a quarter of a mile down there, to section Z.”
“Thanks.”
She grabbed Jamie’s hand and sprinted down the corridor with Tripp in pursuit.
“Emily, listen—”
“—No, leave us alone. The whole thing is off.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Tripp pushed past the technician. “Please, stop. Let me set your mind at rest.”
Emily halted in her tracks, intending to make a point in full view of the technicians. “No. Let me set your mind at rest, okay?”
Tripp slowed down and nodded. “Okay?”
“There is no way on Earth I am going to allow you to interfere with or modify my cat.”
“It won’t happen on Earth, in fact,” Tripp said, hoping his clever joke might change her mind.
It didn’t. It had the very opposite effect.
“Are you taking me seriously?”
“Of course,” Tripp said. “It’s a procedure we must put in place. Please allow me to explain.”
“You’ve got thirty seconds.”
A crowd of technicians couldn’t help but listen in as they pretended to work.
“Jelly is the first cat on a manned mission to Saturn. She can’t defend herself or perform basic procedural commands as she is. The infinity claws are a basic insurance policy for us and for her.”
“What utter lessense—”
“—No, Emily, please. Stop talking and listen to me to me very carefully. We take Jelly’s safety and well-being extremely seriously. I know it sounds strange. Bizarre, even. The whole removal of her claws sounds painful. I can assure you it isn’t.”
“You guys are sick.”
Tripp sighed, nevertheless determined to make his point. “You saw what happened to Bisoubisou, yesterday? An allergic reaction?”
“Yes, it was terriful.”
“Exactly. The primary reason why we couldn’t take her on. Jelly responded well to the temporary set yesterday during the finals. There’s no danger. She’ll be absolutely fine.”
“Mom?” Jamie looked up at her. “She’ll be okay.”
Emily considered her position on the matter. The look in her little boy’s eye was reassuring – to a point. There was simply no way Jamie would agree to the whole venture if he thought Jelly would come to any harm.
Then again, he was only five-years-old.
Emily looked Tripp dead in the eyes, wanting her arm twisted once and for all.
“No pain?” she reaffirmed.
“No. None whatsoever. I can have Wool walk you through the procedure—”
“—And she returns to normal once she’s back, right?”
“That’s right.”
Emily huffed and took a final look at Jelly. In a strangely ironic twist she dug her claws into Emily’s arm, offering her approval.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Welcome to the Control Deck,” Tripp said. “This is where we operate Alpha Beta. All the communications are conducted from this area, here.”
Tripp walked Jamie over to a huge bank of screens and buttons. An impressive sight for such young eyes. It resembled a video game console with ample opportunity for fun.
“Wow, can I sit in the seat?” Jamie ran over to the swivel chair parked in the middle of the unit.
“Sure. Please don’t touch anything, though.”
Tripp offered Emily a smile of contrition. He hoped that the debate they’d had in the corridor hadn’t shown USARIC in too bad a light.
His attention was drawn to the flight deck. Dimitri Vasilov talked to two men Tripp didn’t recognize.
“Jamie?”
“Yes, Tripp?”
“Over there, where those three men are. That’s the flight deck.”
“Wow.”
Jamie stood up and jumped on the spot. “That’s where you fly the spaceship?”
“Yes,” Tripp whistled at the three men. “Hey, Dimitri.”
The elderly man turned around, surprised to see that he and his colleagues had company. “Oh, yes. Of course. Hello, Tripp.”
Dimitri walked with the two men over to the communications deck. “Tripp, your timing is impeccable. I’d like you to meet our new intake. Communication officer Tor Klyce and engineer Baldron Landaker.”
“Ah, yes,” Tripp shook their hands in turn. “I thought you were due to arrive tomorrow?”
“Good to meet you, finally.” Tor Klyce, a thin man in his early thirties, spoke with a clear mid-western American accent. “Yes, we left Minneapolis Two a day early to run a few diagnostics on The Manuel.”
“You know what USARIC is like. Always ahead of schedule,” Baldron clocked Jamie and his mother – and the cat in the carry case. He seemed perturbed by their presence. “What’s this? Are we allowing civilians aboard our vessels, now?”
“Oh, no. Not quite,” Tripp explained. “Jamie and Emily are the owners of Jelly, here. The winner of the Star Cat Project.”
“Okay,” Baldron made eyes at the cat as it sniffed around the plastic bars. “One in a million, right?”
“Something like that,” Tripp smiled. “She’s a very special addition to Opera Beta.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Baldron cleared his throat and looked at Dimitri. “Sending a cat into space. I’m sorry, Jamie, but it’s ridiculous. Please excuse me.”
Baldron walked off, leaving Tripp, Jamie, Emily and Tor lost for words. “I’ll be with Wool if you need me.”
“I’m sorry about my colleague,” Tor said, walking over to the communications deck. “He’s a bit jet-lagged from the flight. He’s very concerned about the logistics of the whole cat thing.”
“How’s Manuel doing? Retained all his faculties?”
“He’s fine,” Tor said, punching a few buttons on the panel. “Fifteen brontobytes of data need to be reconciled. He booted up about an hour and seems bright and perky, which is a good sign. You want to meet him?”
“What is a… man-well?” Jamie asked.
“The autopilot. A veritable data bank of knowledge,” Tor explained, pointing at the screen in front of him. “To activate him, all you need to do is click your fingers and say his name.”
“Okay.”
“Did you ever see Fawlty Towers?” Tripp smirked. “That old TV show from the twentieth century?”
“What is a TV show?” Jamie asked. “Is it like a screen?”
“Never mind,” Tor chuckled. “Just click your fingers and say his name.”
Jamie held up his hand and snapped his fingers. “Manuel?”
Snap.
A holograph of a book appeared in the middle of the room, floating on the spot, flapping its pages from end to end. “Good pre-afternoon. How may I assist you?”
Jamie blinked at the transparent object floating in the air. “What do I—”
“—Ask it anything you like. It has all the answers.”