Cats Triumphant (16 page)

“Take ‘em, boys,” Lewis said. The agents tried to round up the little aliens, who looked at them with impassive looks on their cheetah faces. Just before a man touched one of the visitors, the little alien shimmered out of existence and reappeared behind him.

“What the…?” he exclaimed. He spun around, bent over, and made a two-armed grab for his quarry. The visitor looked as bored as Shalimar as he shifted again, this time reappearing behind the cat’s perch.

“You know, you haven’t asked them yet,” Peggy said, to the astonished faces of the agents. She was amazed herself at how calm and reasonable she sounded. She promised herself a nervous breakdown later. She didn’t know what bothered her more, having aliens invade her living room, or having the FBI burst in. Peggy waved to get the spokes-alien’s attention.

“Go-with-them,” she said, very carefully keeping her tone upbeat, as if she was talking to a toddler. She made scooping motions with her hands, and pointed at Agent Lewis. “Go with him. All right?”

The aliens chittered and jabbered among themselves, then formed a wedge with the leader at the front and the other two side by side behind. They marched over to Agent Lewis and looked up at him. Lewis stared from them to Peggy.

“They’re really friendly,” Peggy said. “All you have to do is show them what you want.” Special Agent Lewis frowned at her, but he didn’t hesitate any longer. He pointed toward the door. The three aliens blinked at him. They came over to Peggy, and crouched down, bending their knees and elbows outward as they ducked their heads. Then they went to Shalimar, and made even deeper obeisance to her. The cat crossed one forepaw over the other and squeezed her eyes at them.

“What is all that?” Ralph whispered to Peggy.

“Tell you later,” she whispered back.

Lewis came over to herd the trio away from the cat, and led them toward the door. The rest of the agents fell in behind, sidearms at the ready. “By the way, where are you taking them?” Peggy called.

“You’re done now, ma’am,” Lewis said, over his shoulder. “Thank you for your assistance. Please don’t discuss this with anyone at all. It is a matter of national security.”

“But….” Peggy began.

“It’s a very serious matter, ma’am.” Lewis took off his glasses, revealing ice-cold blue eyes. Peggy regretted immediately cooperating with him.

The door boomed shut behind them. Ralph plumped down on the couch without really seeing it, and Peggy went to gather up Shalimar for a long-delayed hug. The cat nestled into her arms and let out a throaty purr.

“Oh, Ralph,” Peggy said, feeling forlorn. “They were so nice!”

“Aliens?” Ralph asked blankly. “Nice?”

“Yes,” she said, staring at him over the cat’s head. He wasn’t really hearing her, but he hadn’t had time to get used to the little visitors as she had. “Now I’m going to worry about them. What’s going to happen to them in the hands of people like that?” She shuddered, and felt as if she might burst into tears. That promised nervous breakdown was on its way. Shalimar nudged at her chin, and Peggy automatically started to scratch under the cat’s ear.

Ralph sprang to his feet. “I’ll call somebody,” he said. “We donated plenty to the President’s re-election campaign. Somebody owes us. I’ll just go up the ladder until I find him.”

* * *

Peggy hardly left the apartment for months for fear of missing a mention of her aliens on any of the news programs. She thought about the aliens daily. Her friends complained that she was preoccupied and withdrawn, and tactfully left open opportunities for her to share her worries with them. Peggy couldn’t tell her concerns to anyone but Ralph, hampered as she was by the orders of that cold-hearted FBI agent and her own fear that her friends would think she was crazy. Well, she had no proof that they had ever been there – nothing, that was, except the little plaque in Shalimar’s basket. The silver saucer had vanished from outside her window just after the aliens had left with the government agents. Since then, she’d heard nothing.

“But we know they were here, don’t we, precious?” she said to Shalimar. The cat just blinked her eyes and purred knowingly.

Ralph had pulled every string he could reach to get word. Once he’d gotten over the shock of finding aliens in his living room, he had been delighted, even thrilled, and asked Peggy for every detail, all over again. They called a high-ranking agent they knew in the local FBI office, but he couldn’t help them. The subject had become ‘need to know only.’ No one who had been on the pickup was talking. Even the National Enquirer was silent. Peggy was dying to call someone and ask, but it would start a train of inquiry that would lead the mean-looking Mr. Lewis right back to her. But she was still worried. She found herself looking out the window, hoping for a sight of the spaceship.

***Overhead, she heard the ubiquitous sound of the traffic choppers. One of them got obnoxiously loud, and she turned the television volume up to drown it out. She heard a key in the lock, and Ralph’s voice.

“Honey, are you here?” he cried. She ran to meet him. Ralph looked as excited as a schoolboy.

“Are they all right?” Peggy demanded, not even waiting for him to take off his jacket. “Oh!” she said, as she noticed a fresh-faced man in his thirties standing behind him.

“Peg, you remember Scott Papodopolous?” Ralph said, gesturing him forward.

“Of course. You’re the White House chief of staff now, aren’t you?” Peggy asked, offering her hand.

“Yes, ma’am,” Scott said, smiling. He had very white teeth.

“Right,” Ralph said. “He has a favor to ask you.”

“Me?” Peggy asked. “Is this about you-know-who?”

Ralph laughed. “You can talk about the visitors with him. He not only knows who they are, he’s seen them.”

Peggy turned to the young man. “How are they? Are they alive? The government didn’t do, you know, what they did to ET, did they?” Laughing, Ralph threw himself onto the couch and put his hands behind his head.

“Honey, you didn’t have anything to worry about. Somebody who can go through walls isn’t going to stick around for someone to dissect him,” Ralph pointed out.

“No, indeed,” Scott said. “NASA ran those little guys through every kind of test you can imagine, blood, tissue, stress, endurance, and they got through them all just fine. They have got blood, by the way. It’s green. They’d do anything the testers wanted, as long as someone showed them what they wanted them to do. Very obliging. Those little guys are pretty strong, got the Little Green Men’s version of the Right Stuff.”

“At least one of them was female,” Peggy said, defensively.

“How did you know that?” Ralph asked, in amazement. Peggy borrowed the bronze plaque from Shalimar and showed it to them. Scott looked at it, and gawked. “You’d better not let anyone know you kept that,” he said. He put it back out of sight under a cushion in the cat basket. Shalimar turned over and settled her furry tail across the place where it was hidden.

“How will anyone know?” Peggy said, watching him curiously. “I’ll never see them again. Need to know, right? National security.”

“I’m getting to that,” Scott said, scratching the cat between her ears. “We have every major linguistics researcher in the country working on their language, but they haven’t gotten very far yet. All they’ve figured out is that the visitors are peaceful. They’re here as ambassadors.”

“I could have told them that,” Peggy said, impatiently. “I’m so glad they’re safe.”

“Better than safe. The President asked to meet them! The Secret Service brought the visitors to the White House and tried to explain to them in sign language that the President is the most important man in the world, but they don’t buy it. The linguists get the idea that the aliens think the White House is too low to be important, if you know what I mean. The highest spot in Washington is the Monument. That may be why they came here in the first place. High place, high people. Maybe it’s like that on their planet.”

“Yes,” Peggy said, with perfect understanding. “And so?”

“And so,” Ralph continued, “the aliens showed the President your picture and Shalimar’s. The President introduced them to his cat, and they went over and bowed down to it. The visitors seem to feel that showing respect for our deities will please us. Scotty thinks they think cats are our gods. They figured if the President had a cat, he was a decent, religious man. In a way, they’re right thinking cats are sacred, considering what I spend on that animal.”

“Oh, Ralph,” Peggy chided him. “Well?”

“Well,” Scott said. “After that, they got downright friendly with the President, but they still weren’t convinced that he’s in charge. They think you are.” Peggy’s mouth dropped open. He grinned at her expression of shock. “Well, you live in the highest place on the planet. That seems to have impressed them.”

“So, what do they need from us?” Peggy asked, astonished.

“We want you to go to Washington,” Scott said. “You and your cat.”

”Us? Why?”

Scott raised his eyebrows and his hands. “So you and Shalimar can fix things up for him with the aliens. In the interest of national security. He can’t go on CNN and say that aliens have landed, but they won’t negotiate with him because he lives too close to the ground. In exchange, you have a standing invitation to stay at the White House, any time you like. What do you say?”

“Well, if our country needs us, of course we’ll come,” Peggy said, looking at Shalimar. “She has a travel cage. When?”

“Now,” Scott said, promptly. “That’s our helicopter on the roof. We’ll take it to the airport. My plane is waiting. Will you come? The president will be very grateful.”

“Of course we’ll come,” Peggy said, elated. “I’ll be thrilled to see them again, both the president
and
the visitors.”

* * *

She could hardly say a word during the helicopter ride. Shalimar’s travel cage was bundled up in quilts to protect her sensitive ears from the noise. The short trip to Washington in an official government jet left her speechless with awe. Ralph sat beside her, holding the hand that wasn’t holding onto Shalimar’s coop.

They transferred to another helicopter that dropped them off on the White House lawn. The president met them with a strong handshake and his trademarked smile.

“Glad you could come, Peggy.”

“I’m happy to help, Mr. President,” she said, shifting the heavy carrier on her hip.

Behind him, surrounded by Secret Service agents and armed servicemen, were Peggy’s three alien visitors. Their brown eyes brightened when they saw her, and they began to jabber. Inside her coop, Shalimar heard familiar voices, and let out a chirrup. Peggy put the coop down and took the cat out into her arms. At once, the aliens broke away from their guards and came to surround the two of them, talking and bowing. She crouched down among them. It was funny: she’d only seen them once, when they’d scared the stuffing out of her, yet she felt responsible for them.

“I’m so glad to see all of you.” Their chatter sounded fond, too, as if they were greeting an old friend. They made many soft comments that had Shalimar purring like an engine.

Scott whispered in Peggy’s ear. “If you could take care of that situation right now?”

“Of course!” Peggy said. Beckoning the aliens over to the president, she pointed at him. “You know me. I came from the place high up. Do you understand? This man is the leader of my country. The
most important
man.” She held her free hand as high over her head as she could reach. “See? Him. High up.” An inspiration hit her. She turned to the president and made the knees-out bow the little aliens had made to her. It was awkward and undignified, and she hoped no one had a camera. “He’s the big boss. Get it?”

It seemed they did. They gathered around the president with their little cameras pinging away, chattering in their own language. The linguists moved in to surround them, and the small aliens were lost from view. Peggy, holding Shalimar in her arms, moved back out of the way, escorted by Ralph, and a triumphant Scott.

* * *

Hundreds of newsmen crowded the White House lawn as the president made a momentous presentation to the world. The small aliens stood on a high platform beside the raft of microphones so they could be seen all the way at the back of the mob. More news vans arrived, and men in dark suits and dark glasses patrolled the lawn with dogs.

“We are most honored to welcome these visitors from another world,” the president said, holding up his hands for silence. “We are honored that they have chosen this nation to begin their acquaintance with this world, and I hasten to assure our fellow nations of Earth that they will have equal access to our visitors and any information we glean about them.

“We hope that our relationship will be peaceful, leading us toward a future where we will walk among our neighbors from the stars. I want to thank everyone who has been responsible in helping to make this happen.”

Standing amid the crowd of White House aides, Ralph nudged Peggy in the side. She cuddled Shalimar close and gave her a kiss on the top of the head. Shalimar, wary of the Secret Service dogs, crouched low in Peggy’s arms.

“It seems that we already have much in common with our visitors,” the president continued, giving his big smile to the news cameras. “It appears that they like cats, and any species who admires cats is all right with me.”

Hearing the word ‘cats’, Shalimar perked up and let out a trill.

“Shh, precious!” Peggy bent her head over her pet. She stroked the soft neck and looked down lovingly into the cat’s lazy green eyes. “He can have all the headlines. But we both know who’s really the most important being in the world, don’t we?”

“We need volunteers,” the video memo blaring in the IATA employee cafeteria stated, “to crew an exciting but potentially hazardous and rewarding expedition featuring the latest in Drebian/Terran technology. If you are interested in being one of the few, the brave, call extension 6508.”

That brief message had begun a dizzying odyssey for Balin Jurgieniewski. He had been with the Intergalactic Assay and Trade Association for a mere five years, four months. His dream of becoming a trade ship captain had been heretofore laughed at, let alone unfulfilled. Men and women with four times his seniority were still without commands of their own. Everyone wanted to be a captain, sailing the stars in the command chair of a powerful vessel, or even one that had the training wheels off. Still, ‘potentially hazardous’ didn’t sound nearly as interesting as ‘rewarding.’ It wouldn’t hurt to find out if their idea of rewarding matched his. He applied for the job.

As the personnel director explained it to him and the two other people who ‘made the cut’ (Jurgieniewski’s suspicion was that they were the only ones who applied), Humanity’s newest ally and trading partner, the strange, bloblike Drebs, were seeking to pay their debt for goods and services tendered to them by the Terran government by offering it their space travel technology, which lay far beyond its current reach. Naturally, every single company which had ever launched a charge into space was interested. The government threw open the rights at auction.

IATA had been the winner of the sealed bid seeking to gain and manufacture the Drebian starship electronics. The Drebs duly signed, or rather smeared, their symbols on contracts, and the deal was done. All this had been beamed all over the news for months. At last, the first machinery off the line was finished and ready for testing. Jurgieniewski’s first command would be the double shakedown cruise of a newly-refitted vessel, the
Marylou
. The flight to Argylenia was intended at first only to test the new superfast space drive, but IATA’s board of directors, had, at the last minute, decided to add the Drebs’ interactive computer electronics system to the
Marylou
. This had not been leaked to the press, or as far as Jurgieniewski could remember, throughout the rest of IATA’s personnel.

Because the knowledge was irreplaceable and the ship wasn’t, IATA loaded up three volunteers, chosen only from its rank of junior officers, and sent them on a trading mission to Argylenia, a textile supplier orbiting a blue-white star in Leo Sector.

So if it was potentially a one way trip, why take it? Jurgieniewski had to admit he knew the answers: the money, and the prestige. There was trip pay to be earned, recording fees, specialist fees, and the big one: hazard pay. It was tough for anyone with less than ten years experience to pull down that much credit or accrue the instant seniority that they’d earn for bringing the Marylou back successfully. It might, it was hinted to him, get him at least exec officer status, if not a full command, if he, the crew, and the Marylou made it back in their several pieces.

Getting to know the ship with her reconstructed innards was a piece of cake. The sky-blue-and-pink blob scientists guided them one by one into the fold-out booth that attached to the left side of the control unit.

“It reads your personality and intellect,” the chief Dreb burbled through his translator, “thereby saving time between command and execution. This is particularly of use during a crisis.”

As the newly promoted commander, Jurgieniewski went first. At twenty-six, he was the youngest of the three crew members. The whole process consisted of a lot of lights flashing into his eyes, and probes poking into his ears and against his scalp, but beyond slightly disorienting him, didn’t feel like much. He shrugged to the other two as he came out. With a wary expression on her face, Diani Marius followed. She was the ship’s helm and navigation officer. Okabe Thomas, went last. Thomas, the old man of the crew at thirty four, was known as a trade specialist and diplomat, beside his talents as an engineer. None of them had been with the company more than seven years, and none had immediate family. IATA was taking no chances with survivor benefits or suits for wrongful death.

All three of them acted with great solemnity during the departure ceremony, in which the Drebs and the Humans praised the spirit of cooperation and one another. Carrying the ship’s cat, IATA’s traditional mascot of good luck that went on every vessel it sent out, they filed on board with the floodlights of the media recorders following them into the Marylou’s hatch. They all waved goodbye to the press and their employers. Jurgieniewski felt his heart sink. Fladium Base wasn’t much, but it had been his home for years. He might never see it again.

Not everyone shared his anxiety. As soon as the white enameled doors sealed behind them, Thomas let out a whoop and slapped his hands together.

“Oh, friends, is this going to be a blast!” he cried, grabbing his shipmates in a three-and-a-half way hug. Kelvin, a black and white female mixed breed cat, protested and demanded to be put down.

Marius rescued Kelvin from the crush, and put her on the deck. “What are you so thrilled about, Thomas? This thing could blow up on us. We could all die!”

“Not a chance, Helm. Ship?” Thomas said, addressing the air. “Or can I call you Marylou?”

“Working,” the computer’s pleasant though burbly voice responded.

“Crank this sucker up, and let’s get out of here.”

“Destination?”

Marius dashed for her console and ran up the coordinates for Argylenia. “Twenty-seven degrees, fifty minutes, right ascendancy -15,” she read off.

“Understood. On the command?”

Marius looked at Jurgieniewski. “Given,” he said, with some surprise.

Lights on the console shifted from red to green, and gradually up to white. The ship moved under their feet, but so gently that the crewmembers had no trouble getting to their assigned crash couches before the Marylou attained acceleration. Jurgieniewski grabbed the cat and stuffed her into her crashbox under the console before he sat down. The huge screen which took up the entire front of the pilot’s compartment warmed up to show the field of stars and the stars surrounding Fladium’s sun.

“Destination will be reached within thirty-seven days,” the Marylou’s voice assured them, as they strapped in.

“That’s impossible,” Marius protested. “It should take at least sixty-two, even at maxiumum acceleration.”

Thomas winked at her. “Marylou, honey, give the doubting member of our crew the details of the journey.”

Unerringly, the red sensor lights of the Drebian personality monitor went on in front of Marius. Her personal screen filled with mathematical formulae and star maps, reflections of which shone on her face, the expression slowly gaining in enlightenment. “Hot damn, I didn’t think a ship this size could do that.” She looked up at the others. “Do you mean that’s all I have to do?”

Jurgieniewski grinned broadly at his crew, and settled in with his hands tucked behind his head. “I think I’m going to like this ship. She’s worth every credit they paid for her.”

The galaxy on the big screen streaked into a shock of white, and then all light vanished as the ship bounced into her first jump. When there was nothing more to look at, Jurgieniewski cleared his throat.

“Um, well,” he began. “Since we’ve got five weeks, I want us all to bone up on the features of this ship. We’ve got reports to send back at regular intervals, and I don’t want them to catch us out on a single detail.” He tapped the insignia the shoulder of his dark-blue coverall hopefully. “I want real ones of these when I get home.”

“If we get home,” Marius said gloomily.

“What are you talking about?” Thomas asked, with his customary cheerful mien. “The Marylou will take good care of us. Won’t you sweetheart?” he said to the air.

“Working,” the computer voice said. “Affirmative. Honeycakes.”

Jurgieniewski pointed toward one of the speakers. “Did you tell her to call you that?” he asked Thomas.

“Naw, but she’s picking up on the things I usually say.” Thomas thought about it a moment. “I don’t think I’ve said ‘honeycakes’ yet, though. Not in the computer’s presence. I guess the Drebs told the truth when they said that the box reads your mind.”

“This is still an experimental vessel,” Marius pointed out, resuming the previous argument.

“That’s why I want us to know everything there is to know about the Marylou,” Jurgieniewski assented. “Engine capability, clearance under bridges, armaments...”

“Yes, why are we armed?” Thomas said. “We’re only going to Argylenia. That’s right through well-established, well-patrolled throughways.”

“Not this time,” Marius said, showing him her terminal. “Marylou’s redirected us. We go right through a corner of Smoot territory. Computer, put it on the big screen?”

The diagrams appeared, greatly enlarged, with the ship’s flight path indicated by a dashed line in red. The Smoot were another bloblike race that Humanity had discovered, but had entirely failed to befriend. The Smoot seemed to be offended by the presence in the universe of a race of vertebrates, which they saw as an offense against their Creator, to be exterminated whenever possible. Thomas’s smoky complexion drained to ash, and he swallowed. “Maybe we won’t meet any of them.”

“Working,” Marylou said. Thomas’s own screen lit up suddenly with another array of formulae, this time referring to the schematics of two powerful, sidemounted laser cannon, and a nose-mounted plasma torpedo launcher. The screen blanked, only to fill again with a list of evasive maneuvers of which the Marylou was capable of executing, with diagrams, followed by a flashing cursor, and the legend, in block print,
“YOUR CHOICE?”

“Whew!” Thomas whistled, and patted the console. “You sure know how to make a fellow feel welcome, honey.”

A querelous complaint erupted from underneath the control panel.

“You want to let the cat out, Thomas?” Marius asked.

* * *

So far as Jurgieniewski could tell after only a week, the Drebs had done their work with the usual, expected degree of genius. The mind-reading capabilities of the computer were not only complete, but subtle. Every morning when he opened his eyes, a screen went on above his bunk, and beside his elbow, a door slid up to reveal a steaming cup of coffee. On the screen, the Marylou reported the ship’s status, complete with a tiny diagram of how far they had travelled during his dark shift. Nothing was wrong, or even remotely awry. Jurgieniewski sighed and reached for the cup. The system was flawless. An eight-year-old could run the ship, play a video game, and do his homework all at the same time. Even the coffee was exactly the temperature he liked to drink it, just under boiling but cool enough that it didn’t scorch his tongue. He drained his cup, down to the melted sugar on the bottom. Marylou seemed to know that he didn’t like his sugar mixed in, just dropped straight through, leaving a faint trail of sweetening in the top seven-eighths of the cup. It was absolutely uncanny what tiny details the computer picked up on and exploited. It scared him a little: what if the Marylou decided to take things into her own hands and run the show? He’d look an incredible fool back at IATA HQ.

A duty list popped up on the screen almost before the thought had finished forming. Marylou was asking permission to run scheduled system tests, send off personal mail, transmit the daily report to HQ, or do personal system maintenance. At the bottom was the flashing
“YOUR CHOICE?”

Jurgieniewski grinned as he set down the cup. “Thanks, honey. It’s nice of you to make me think I’m in charge.”

* * *

He met Marius and Thomas for breakfast in the small galley. He was undecided whether a hot, scrambled egg sandwich or blueberry pancakes would fill the gap in his belly, and decided to let Marylou surprise him.

“Hi, gang,” he said, sliding into the third chair. The hatch before him whisked open and a plate rose upward. Mmm, he thought, reaching for it. A baked pancake with blueberry filling—now that was a creative way to split the difference. He sent a mental thank you to the ship’s computer. He was two or three forkfuls into the steaming cake when he noticed his two crewmembers weren’t talking. They were staring into their cups of coffee with thoughtful expressions. “What’s the matter?”

“Jurgy,” Marius began, still staring at the cup between her fingers as if it troubled her, “don’t you feel kind of ... useless?”

“No,” he replied, surprised. He set down the fork. Was this the beginnings of mutiny? What had he done wrong? “I’ve hardly ever enjoyed a trip more in my life.”

“Seriously, Jurgy, there’s nothing for us to do.”

“That’s about it,” Thomas said with a sigh. “Ship’s too new to have loose bolts, and the Drebs already dusted, oiled, and cleaned up before we took her out. We’re just watching her run. I thought it’d be fun, too, but even I’m getting bored.”

“Yeah,” Marius agreed. “All we do is send out reports and feed Kelvin.”

Hearing her name, the cat walked over and rubbed her face against Marius’s knee. The navigator reached down and scratched the top of the cat’s head.