Cats Triumphant (15 page)

“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it possible,” Horus-Semnet said, marveling as he followed. He knelt before the jeweled figure of the cat goddess, and offered his sword as a sacrifice. “I give thanks to great Bast for the blessing of a successful battle.”

Ti-Bast held it and bowed toward the altar, but turned and handed it back to the general. “She thanks you but returns it that you may use this claw in her service.”

“I shall.” The black cat lounging on the plinth below the statue blinked its green eyes at him. She purred luxuriously. “My thanks to you, great goddess, and to you, for the miracle of your purring, O Kasi.”

“That is Laila,” Ti-Bast said severely. “She is the twenty-first-day cat. Can you not tell the difference?”

“Forgive me,” Horus-Semnet said, bowing low. “Forgive one who is not versed in the subtleties of the chosen ones, but who is a convert from this day forward.”

Ti-Bast opened his large, unblinking eyes so much like the cats’. “The goddess is pleased to hear you say so, Prince Horus-Semnet. But, of course, she is not surprised. All humans fall into the service of the She-Cat sooner or later. There are simply those who recognize it from the first, and those who do not.”

Peggy Ross settled one hip on the arm of the chair beside Shalimar’s carpeted pedestal, and put the dish down in front of the cat.

“Fresh tuna, sweetheart,” she cooed. “Mama found nice steaks on sale at Wright’s. All mashed up, just for you.”

The white chinchilla Persian opened her eyes from the squat-in-the-sun squint and looked at the dish, pretending disdain at its contents. Peggy felt a surge of affection for the cat.

“Oh, come on,” she said, pushing the dish a little closer and shaking it. “You love tuna. Taste it. For Mama.”

The cat stretched out her neck and nibbled a little of the food. Suddenly, she lurched to her feet, hunched over the plate, and began to wolf the fish with gusto. Peggy watched her fondly, reaching out occasionally to stroke the long fur. She adored it when Shalimar enjoyed a treat.

The cat finished eating and went back to her nap. She spent her days on specially made perches that were adjustable and movable so she could have the best sun at the best times of day, no matter what the season. Peggy Ross liked to make certain that her cat had the best of all things. Sometimes, her husband Ralph joked that he was afraid he came a distant second to Shalimar in Peggy’s heart. Peggy always laughed at that.

Peggy scooted back just a little so the bright sun wasn’t gleaming straight in her eyes. They lived in the Bascomb Building, at 135 stories the tallest residential building in the world. Above their apartment were a weather station and half a dozen television transmitters, but the engineers didn’t live there. She did.

She stood up to admire the view. The Bascomb was the most exclusive building in the city, and this was one of the most exclusive apartments in it. There were only four penthouses, each of which wrapped halfway around two sides of the narrow top of the building so the wide glass outer walls commanded a splendid panorama of the city. Peggy thought her apartment, which looked south and west, was the nicest. She felt lordly, in a ladylike way. If anyone could see into the window just then, they’d behold an elegantly tall woman with aristocratic features wearing a jade silk lounging suit. Queen of the city. Peggy laughed at her own imagination, and leaned over to give Shalimar a pat. The cat’s fur was so soft. Shalimar murmured in her sleep.

“You’re such a beauty,” Peggy crooned. Without opening her eyes, Shalimar purred.

Peggy squinted out into the afternoon sun. She could see tiny, moving glints rising and falling in the distance: jets taking off and landing from the city airport which lay almost due west of the Bascomb. She knew they came and went all day long, but they were almost invisible except at dawn and dusk, when the horizontal rays of the sun picked out the shiny metal fuselages. The bright specks were dyed with an orange glow now.

One dot of light coming in from the north caught her attention. Instead of following the others on an inclined plane leading to the distant runways, it stayed on a level with her windows, and appeared to grow larger. Peggy thought it was coming straight towards her. She gawked. Oh, no, it was probably a helicopter, carrying either a traffic reporter or some bigwig who didn’t want to fight the traffic on the ground.

But the small craft didn’t divert toward the downtown area. It kept zooming closer, homing in on the Bascomb. Peggy felt a moment of panic. Should she call someone, and report an impending crash?

The dot came closer and closer. Oddly, it seemed to slow down outside her window, and hung in the air outside the building, almost touching it. Peggy rose from the arm of the chair and sidled over to see better. She blinked.

She was looking at a flying saucer. No doubt about it. But such a thing couldn’t be
real
. Perhaps a producer was filming a sci-fi movie in the city, using the Bascomb as a setting, without telling anyone in the building. How silly of them, Peggy thought, chidingly. Why, a movie company could have all the extras they wanted, if they’d only ask. Plenty of people would volunteer, just for the fun of it. She would. Peggy confessed to a secret fondness for that kind of movie, the hokier the better. That was it. She was looking at a prop spaceship. It was odd that she couldn’t see the crane or the helicopter that was holding it up. It might be quite high in the sky, to stay out of the way of the camera. Wherever that was. Trying to stay behind her curtains, she peered upward. She didn’t want to spoil the shot and make them take it over.

The little, silver ship was very well made. It resembled a straw sun-hat, with lights around the band. As she studied it in admiration, a door on the side nearest the building slid open, and three little beings climbed out onto the brim of the ‘hat.’ They were clad in suits that looked like jointed white enamel, except for the helmets, which were clear in the front and black enamel in the back. She got a slight shock when they turned toward her, even though they couldn’t see her. The faces weren’t human. In shape they resembled ocelots or jackals – sort of a cross between canine and feline, but with intelligence in the round brown eyes. The gloved hands only had three fingers and a thumb apiece. The booted feet were round, like pegs or hooves.

They couldn’t be actual people. They were much too small. This was terrific, Peggy thought, settling down with one hip on the back of an armchair. She was watching special effects in action.

Suddenly, the small beings turned toward her window. Afraid she had been spotted, she scooted to the left, and pulled a fold of the curtain in front of her. To her shock, the beings walked right through the window, into her living room.

They had to be some kind of holographic projection. But no, the round feet made marks in the brushed nap of the carpet. No special effect could do that. They were
real
. Peggy stared in horror as they walked toward her. She backed away fearfully, wondering how she could defend herself against creatures who could pass through glass.

To her dismay, they kept going past her, toward Shalimar. The cat had awoken, and was eyeing the visitors without concern, but Peggy was frantic.

“No! Stay away from my baby!” she cried. She jumped to get between the aliens and her cat. The three beings brushed her aside, very gently but firmly, but so quickly she never understood how it happened. They kept going toward the pedestal near the corner. Peggy watched them for a moment, then staggered back toward the telephone. She picked up the receiver and dialed with shaking hands.

“Ralph?” she asked, in a voice that squeaked when her husband answered, “you’d better come home. “Spacemen just landed in our apartment, and they just presented their credentials to our cat.”

Ralph shouted something in her ear, but she barely heard him as she set the receiver down. She was watching the visitors. The little, white-suited creatures were gathered around Shalimar’s cushion-covered platform. They didn’t seem to be hurting the cat, but they were preventing Peggy from getting close. It worried her. She wanted to snatch Shalimar up in her arms and cuddle her, not for the cat’s comfort, but for her own.

“She’s just a cat, you know,” Peggy called to them. They didn’t pay any attention to her. From pouches slung on their shoulders, they produced small bronze squares, which they offered to Shalimar. The cat sniffed them, even rubbed the corner of her mouth against one of them. That seemed to please the little beings. They talked among themselves in low, musical voices. One of them, elected spokesman by the others, made an elaborate gesture with one hand, and started to speak to the cat. Shalimar regarded them blankly. When she got bored, she looked up at Peggy, and meowed. As one, the aliens turned to look at her.

They weren’t scary looking, like the monsters in Saturday afternoon movies. They looked, however inhuman, like people. She was conscious of the absurdity of her position. What did you say to aliens?”

“Um, she’s my cat,” Peggy began. “Look. Cat.” She moved away from the end table, and the visitors went on guard. Were they armed? They didn’t reach for any weapons, but Peggy’s heart was pounding in terror. “Look.” She edged over to the mantelpiece and showed them her collection of cat statues and mugs, all presents from her friends and relatives. “Cat. See?” She pointed to a narrow tapestry that hung beside the fireplace that depicted cats at play.

Enlightenment seemed to dawn on their little muzzles. They looked at Shalimar, who had put a paw down on one of the bronze plaques and was rubbing her jaw against it, and turned to Peggy. They retrieved the other two plaques and brought them to her.

The aliens only came up to her thigh. She had to reach down to accept the offerings, and wondered if they were radioactive.

“Um, thank you.”

Peggy was conscious of the hopeful and expectant expressions on the little visitors’ faces as she scanned the bronze squares.

Both plaques were identical. Etched into the surface of the metal were two images approximately the same height. Peggy recognized the shapes as being the aliens before her, but without their suits on. There were minor differences between the drawings, so she figured out they were meant to show two genders. She was faintly embarrassed to be looking at pictures of naked aliens. Beside one of the figures was a small circle with a tiny figure crouched inside.

“Oh, it’s an egg!” Peggy said, with a surprised laugh. “Well,
we
have babies.” She looked around until she spotted what she wanted. On her coffee table was a folding picture frame with facing portraits of her daughter and son. Both children were away at college. She wished they had been here with her now. With their love of weird movies and TV shows, they’d have handled an interplanetary diplomatic situation like old pros.

“My children,” she said, holding her hand about waist-high. It was higher than the aliens’ heads, so they probably didn’t understand what she meant. “Wait a moment.”

She bent beside her bookshelf, and went through the family photo albums until she came across that one embarrassing picture Ralph had taken of her when she had been pregnant with their daughter. She held out the photo to the aliens, and patted her belly.

“See?” she said. “We don’t lay eggs. I mean, we keep the babies inside us. I mean, women do.”

The aliens gabbled at one another, and looked back meaningfully at Shalimar, watching them cautiously from the window.

“Oh, she’s not my child,” Peggy said, addressing the round brown eyes. “She’s my pet. Pet. I didn’t give birth to her.” She showed them the cat collectibles again, handing them a couple of the figurines to look at. The three passed the cast-resin tabby, the china Persian, and the carved ebony Abyssinian among themselves, then solemnly handed them back to her.

The spokes-alien reached into his white pouch and came out with a small, oddly shaped device. It held it out to Peggy. She started to reach for it, but the creature snatched it away. Frightened, she jumped up and backed away.

“Don’t hurt me,” she said, keeping her hands up. She started to move toward Shalimar. Ralph ought to be home soon. If she could grab the cat and lock herself in the bedroom – but no, they could go through walls. What could she do?

The aliens, alarmed at her reaction, went into a huddle, and gabbled among themselves. They broke, then the leader held the device up at one of its companions. She heard a pinging sound. Slowly, the leader turned the device around and showed her the back. The flat glass plate held an image of the second alien.

“A camera?” she said. Her knees all but collapsed under her in relief. She felt behind her for the “Oh, yes, please. Photograph anything you want!” She gestured around the apartment. The aliens scooted happily past her, their devices pinging as they collected images of her apartment. Thank goodness the cleaning woman came today, she thought. All the aliens converged on Shalimar, who swiveled her ears curiously this way and that as the devices pinged at her.

“Peggy?” Ralph scrambled in at the door of the living room. His eyes were wild, and his thin gray hair was askew. “Are you all right? Where are the….” He caught sight of the visitors. His mouth kept moving, but his voice died away to a whisper.

“It’s all right, they’re friendly,” was all Peggy had time to say before a crowd of men in dark suits and dark glasses burst into the apartment. They all had guns drawn, and she let out a little squawk of protest.

“FBI, ma’am,” said the largest man, flashing a billfold. Peggy glimpsed something flat and gold for a fraction of a second before he clapped it shut and put it back in his breast pocket. “Special Agent in Charge Lewis. Have they harmed you in any way?”

“No,” Peggy said. “They’ve been very nice, and….”

“Get back, ma’am,” said Agent Lewis, gesturing with his pistol. “You, too, sir.” Peggy and Ralph flattened themselves against the wall next to the fireplace.

“My god, how’d they get in here?” one of the agents exclaimed, staring at the three visitors.

“There’s a spaceship outside the window,” Peggy said helpfully. She leaned forward to point, and one of the agents pushed her back.

“Don’t interfere, ma’am,” said the agent. “This is a matter of national security.”

Three of the men hurried over to look out the window, and she saw their mouths drop open.