SKitty!
But whoever was firing swore, and the cat-wail faded into the distance.
“It got away!” said one voice, over the sobbing of another.
A third swore, as Dick fought for air. “You. Go after it,” the third man said, and there was the sound of running feet. Meanwhile, footsteps neared where Dick lay curled in a fetal bundle on the floor.
“What about this?” the second voice asked.
The third voice, cold and unemotional, wrote Dick’s death warrant. “Get rid of it, and the woman, too.”
And Dick could not even move. He heard someone breathing heavily just above him; sensed the man taking aim—
Then—
“Patrol! Freeze! Drop your weapons now!”
Something clattered to the deck beside him, as more running feet approached; and with a sob of relief, Dick finally drew a full breath. There was a scuffle just beside him, then someone helped him to stand, and he heard the hiss of a hypospray and felt the tell-tale sting against the side of his neck. A moment later, his eyes cleared—just in time for him to catch SKitty as she launched herself from the arms of a uniformed DIA officer into his embrace.
“So, the bottom line is, you’ll let us take SCat’s contract?” Captain Singh sat back in his chair while Dick rubbed SKitty’s ears. She and SCat both burdened Dick’s lap, as they had since SCat, the Captain, the DIA negotiator, and Erica had all walked into the sickbay where Dick was still recovering. Erica was clearly nursing a stun-headache; the Captain looked a little frazzled. The DIA man, as most of his ilk, looked as unemotional as an android. The DIA had spent many hours with a human-feline telepathic specialist debriefing SCat. Apparently SCat was naturally only a receptive telepath; it took a human who was also a telepath to “talk” to him.
“There’s no reason why not,” the DIA agent said. “You civilians have helped materially in this case; both you and he are entitled to certain compensation, and if that’s what you all want, then he’s yours with our blessing—the fact that he is only a receptive telepath makes him less than optimal for further Patrol duties.” The agent shrugged. “We can always get other shipscats with full abilities. According to the records, the only reason we kept him was because Major Logan selected him.”
SKitty bristled, and Dick sent soothing thoughts at her.
Then the agent smiled, making his face look more human. “Major Logan was a good agent, but he didn’t particularly care for having a cat talking to him. I gather that Lightfoot and he got along all right, but there wasn’t the strong bond between them that we would have preferred. It would have been just a matter of time before that squad and ship got a new cat-agent team. Besides, we aren’t completely inhuman. If your SKitty and this boy here are happily mated, who and what in the Patrol can possibly want to separate them?”
“Judging by the furrows SKitty left in that ’jacker’s face and scalp, it isn’t a good idea to get between her and someone she loves,” Captain Singh said dryly. “He’s lucky she left him one eye.”
The agent’s gaze dropped briefly to the swath of black fur draped over Dick’s lap. “Believe me,” he said fervently. “That is a consideration we had taken into account. Your little lady there is a warrior for fair, and we have no intention of denying her anything her heart is set on. If she wants Lightfoot, and he wants her, then she’s got him. We’ll see his contract is transferred over to Brightwing within the hour.” His eyes rose to meet Dick’s. “You’re a lucky man to have a friend like her, young man. She put herself between you and certain death. Don’t you ever forget it.”
SKitty’s purr deepened, and SCat’s joined with hers as Dick’s hands dropped protectively on their backs. “I know that, sir,” he replied, through swollen lips. “I knew it before any of this happened.”
SKitty turned her head, and he gazed into amused yellow eyes. :Smart Dick,: she purred, then lowered her head to her paws. :Smart man. Mate happy here, mate stay. Everything good. Love you.:
And that, as far as SKitty was concerned, was the end of it. The rest were simply “minor human matters.”
He chuckled, and turned his own attention to dealing with those “minor human matters,” while his best friend and her mate drifted into well-earned sleep.
A Better Mousetrap
If there was one thing that Dick White had learned in all his time as SuperCargo of the CatsEye Company Free Trader Brightwing, it was that having a cat purring in your ear practically forced you to relax. The extremely comfortable form-molding chair he sat in made it impossible to feel anything but comfortable, and warm black fur muffled both of Dick White’s ears, a steady vibration massaging his neck. “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door,” Dick said idly, as SCat poured himself like a second fluid, black rug over the blue-grey of his lap. It was SKitty who was curled up around his shoulders, vibrating contentedly in what Dick called her “subsonic purr-mode,” while her mate took it as his responsibility to make sure there was plenty of shed hair on the legs of his grey shipsuit uniform.
“What?” asked Terran Ambassador Vena Ferducci, looking up from the list of Lacu’un nobles petitioning for one of SKitty’s latest litter. The petite, dark-haired woman sat in a less comfortable, metal chair behind a stone desk, which stood next to a metal rack stuffed with archaic rolled paper documents. The Lacu’un had not yet devised the science of filing paperwork in multiples yet, which made them ultra-civilised in Vena’s opinion. This, her office in the Palace of the Lacu’ara and Lacu’teveras, was not often used for that very reason. When she dealt with Terran bureaucracy, she needed every electronic helper she could get.
The list she perused was very long, and made rather cumbersome due to the Lacu’un custom of presenting all official court-documents in the form of a massively ornamented yellow-parchment scroll, with case and end caps of engraved bronze and illuminated capital-initials. Dick had a notion that somewhere in the universe there probably was a collector of handwritten documents who would pay a small fortune for it, but when every petitioner on the list had been satisfied, it would probably be sent to the under-clerks, scraped clean, and reused.
“It’s an old Terran folk-saying,” Dick elaborated, and gestured to the list by way of explanation. “One which certainly seems to be borne out by our present situation.”
“Yes, well, given the length of this list we’re doubly fortunate that SKitty and SCat are so—ah—fertile, and that BioTech is willing to send us their shipscat washouts.” Vena stretched out her hand towards SCat’s head, and the huge black tom cooperated by craning his neck towards her. Even before her fingers contacted his fur, SCat was purring loudly, giving Dick an uncannily similar sensation to being strapped in while the ship he served was under full power.
Dick White could well be one of the wealthiest supercargoes in the history of space-trade—his share of the profits from CatsEye Company’s lucrative trade with the Lacu’un amounted to quite a tidy sum. It wasn’t enough to buy and outfit his own ship—yet—but if trade progressed as it had begun, there was the promise that one day it would be.