Claws That Catch

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“I simply have to get some sleep,” Miriam said. “And Tiny won’t leave me alone.”

“You’ve been so busy, lately,” Red said, sympathetically. “He misses his mommy.”

“I know, but he won’t go to sleep,” Miriam said, her eyes red. “I need to finally get these contacts out. I need to sleep.”

“We’ll take care of him,” Red said.

“No, he’ll just come scratching at my door,” Miriam said, desperately. “Here,” she added, handing the machinist a package with Japanese kanji characters on it. “Give him some of this and he won’t leave you.”

“What is it?” Red asked, looking at it dubiously.

“Japanese catnip,” Miriam said, yawning. “He likes it.”

“Shiny,” Red said, patting her on the shoulder. “Get some sleep.”

Miriam finally lay down and closed her eyes, glad to have the dreaded contacts out as well. Unfortunately, she was blind as a bat without either glasses or contacts and she hated doing mechanical work with her glasses on. She needed to get some safety glasses in her prescription, but they looked so dorky and she’d spent too many years being considered an ugly geek…

“…uncertainty levels within the vacuum fluctuation will interact at causal nodes whereas metric control becomes distorted via…”

“Shhh! Not now, I’m tired.” Miriam told the voice. It obediently subsided as her head hit her pillow.

It occurred to her just as sleep enveloped her that she probably should have pointed out to Red that he shouldn’t give Tiny too much of the Katty-Man, which was to catnip what super-concentrated hash was to marijuana. Even with his size, even one of the little silver packages could make him…

But by then it was too late.

“Wow, he really likes this stuff,” Red said, chuckling.

“He looks really stoned.” Sub Dude laughed as the cat flopped over on his side. “How much did you give him?”

“I figured he was big,” Red said, shrugging, “so I gave him all four packages.”

“He should be out like a — ” Gants started to say just as the cat leapt to its feet and let out a howl like a fire-engine. “Holy grapp!”

“Catch him!” Red shouted as the cat screamed his way out of the compartment.

“Good luck,” Gants replied. “I was not here. I have never heard of a giant, stoned, hyperactive catzilla…”

Space, the final and all that…

Four of the main screens in Conn could be set to external view and Captain Prael had to admit that the view was spectacular. But there were still times he pined for the view of the inside of a sub, nothing to see but steel walls and…

AND A HOWLING STREAK OF WHITE AT SHOULDER HEIGHT!

“Holy maulk!” he shouted, damned near peeing himself in surprise. For just a moment he caught a flash of feline shape at the far end of the Conn and then the thing was out the hatch headed for CIC. “COB, what did I just see?”

“That would be a Savannah, sir.”

“Not a white streak that sounds remarkably like the ship breaking up?”

“No, sir!”

“And just what is a Savannah, COB?”

“A cross between a Bengal housecat and a Cervil wildcat, sir. Males are generally docile and have doglike personalities if neutered young. In this case, it would be a Savannah named Titanus. My guess is that somebody gave him too much catnip. I will investigate the phenomenon.”

“Are you telling me that someone brought a genetic freak of a housecat onto my ship?”

“No, sir!” the Chief of Boat replied. “I would be telling you that someone brought a massively-hyper, sixty-pound genetic freak of a housecat, nicknamed Tiny, onto your ship, sir. He’s for hunting down the chee-hamsters, sir.”

“Oh,” the CO said then paused. “Chee-hamsters?”

“They’re pests, sir. Picked them up the first time we were on Cheerick when the ship got torn up and we had to set down for repairs. Leave droppings all over, get into the food…”

“I’ve got the picture, COB. Well… keep him off the Conn.”

“Will do, sir.”

“COB, I have another question.”

“Sir?”

“What else do I need to know about?” the CO asked carefully. “People covertly visiting Miss Moon to have her read tea leaves and butcher chickens so that this Hexosehr technology will work. And now a monster cat that hunts some rodent I’ve never heard of. Anything else?”

“Nothing any CO needs to know, sir,” the COB replied.

“That was not a No, COB.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sigh…