Catacombs Read Free

him for the right to eat from it.
    “Mine!” Hadley snarled. “My food. My bed. My ship. My crew. My girl. Mine!”
    The others lashed their tails and closed in.
    Space Jockey leapt into the air and Sosi screamed, “No, kitty, no! Hadley!” Hadley seemed to levitate to the top of Sosi’s head, where he clung while she screamed, now in pain.
    Hadley’s remaining food was the only cat food on the
Ranzo
. The river wasn’t far; maybe it contained fish. Jubal saw himself with a line and a pole catching endless fish to keep the cats fed. That could work out. He liked to fish, though he’d never had much time to do it.
    Fish would probably be about all they could get for the cats, though. He didn’t think a mouse could survive here.
    “Does Hadley have any extra food?” Jubal asked Sosi.
    She shook her head.
    “There’s not much,” Captain Loloma said, correcting his daughter and giving her a stern look. “We were going to restock at the next station and then we were diverted to Galipolis for the catty call.”
    If Pshaw-Ra had it wrong and they weren’t welcome on Mau, the Barque Cats could be in for a bad time. Gentle as they were with their human crews, they were used to situations in which one cat inhabited one ship. Right now there were probably more than 150 of them stuffed into every available cat-sized spot aboard the
Ranzo
. Somehow, Jubal just couldn’t see this working out long-term. But now that they’d lost the attrackers, maybe Captain Loloma could find some not-so-law-abiding place to take them until the plague scare blew over. Meanwhile, some of these cats at least were going to need other accommodations.
    He looked up into the ventilation duct and saw two cat shadows arched and bristling at each other. “Hey, you two, cut it out,” hetold them. “This is only temporary, you know.” But the cats either didn’t hear him or didn’t care.
    A larger, older cat dabbed a clawed paw at Chester, who sat calmly except for the switching of his tail. Jubal understood him to say,
Come off it, old man. You can’t fight your way out of everything. I’m younger, stronger, and I take after
you
so go scare someone else, or better yet …
Chester gave Jubal a significant look. Jubal, still in his shipsuit, grabbed the larger cat, Chester’s sire, Space Jockey, known as Jock. It wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done. Jock clawed and bit and squirmed.
I’m starving!
Jock snarled.
At least in the lab we got fed
.
    “We’ll take care of it,” Chester said. “My boy will bring food, right, Jubal?”
    “There’s an extra bag back on the pyramid ship,” Jubal said alone. “We can go get that. But let’s split up the rest of Hadley’s chow to calm everyone down first. We can put the ginger momcat and her kittens in a separate cabin so they’ll be safe.”
    By the time Jubal and Chester set out for the pyramid ship to retrieve the food, the battle cries and yowls had been replaced by the happier sound of kibble being crunched as whiskered faces dove into dishes of it.
    While Jubal dragged the large bag of cat food toward the outer hatch, Chester sprang up to the cat ramp and darted inside, his paws retreating into the cabin in the nose cone. He reemerged with a bag of fishy treats clenched in his teeth.
    The sun was setting, painting the sky in gaudy pinks and oranges. The light faded, then darkened to navy blue as Jubal and Chester returned to the
Ranzo
. Jubal had been hoping Pshaw-Ra might reappear but wasn’t terribly surprised when he didn’t.
    He hauled the bag of food to the bridge, where the officers were all in conference.
    “Unless help comes, we should all remain inside for the night,” Captain Loloma was saying. “The cooling system is overtaxed as it is.”
    “Even so, we won’t be able to maintain a comfortable—or even habitable—temperature much longer.” The engineer, Denny Gregg, spoke in a clipped, no-nonsense voice. “We were running low on fuel when we got to