Werehunter (anthology)

:Dick go courting?: SKitty asked innocently, salting her query with decidedly not-innocent images of her own “courting.”

Dick blushed. No courting, he thought firmly. Not yet, anyway.

:Silly,: SKitty replied scornfully. The overtones of her thoughts were—why waste such a golden opportunity? Dick did not answer her.

Instead, he thumbed the lock on the crate, a lock keyed to his DNA only. A tiny prickle was the only indication that the lock had taken a sample of his skin for comparison, but a moment later a hairline-thin crack appeared around the front end of the crate, and Dick carefully opened the door and looked inside.

A pair of big green eyes in a pointed gray face looked out at him from the shadows. “Meowrrrr?” said a tentative voice.

Tell her it’s all right, SKitty, he thought, extending a hand for Astra to sniff. It was too bad that his telepathic connection with SKitty did not extend to these other cats, but she seemed to be able to relay everything he needed to tell them.

Astra sniffed his fingers daintily, and oozed out of the crate, belly to the floor. After a moment though, a moment during which SKitty stared at her so hard that Dick was fairly certain his little friend was com­muni­cating any number of things to the newcomer, Astra stood up and looked around, her ears coming up and her muscles relaxing. Finally she looked up at Dick and blinked.

“Prrow,” she said. He didn’t need SKitty’s translation to read that. He held out his arms and the young cat leapt into them, to be carried in regal dignity out of the Quarantine area.

As he turned away from the crate, he thought he caught a hint of movement in the shadows at the back. But when he turned to look, there was nothing there, and he dismissed it as nothing more than his imagination. If there had been anything else in Astra’s crate, the manifest would have listed it—and Astra was definitely sterile, so it could not have been an unlicensed kitten.

Erica Makumba and Vena were waiting for him in the corridor outside. Vena offered her fingers to the newcomer; much more secure now, Astra sniffed them and purred. “She’s lovely,” Vena said in admiration. Dick had to agree; Astra was a velvety blue-gray from head to tail, and her slim, clean lines clearly showed her descent from Russian Blue ancestors.

:She for Furrball,: SKitty insisted, gently nipping at his neck.

Is this your idea or hers? Dick retorted.

:Sees Furrball in head; likes Furrball.: That seemed to finish it as far as SKitty was concerned. :Good hunter, too.: Dick gave in to the inevitable.

“Didn’t we promise one of these new cats to the Lacu’teveras?” Dick asked. “This one seems very gentle; she’d probably do very well as a companion for Furrball.” SKitty’s kittens all had names as fancy as Astra’s—or as SKitty’s official name, for that matter. Furrball was “Andreas Widefarer of Lacu’un,” Nuisance was “Misty Snowspirit of Lacu’un,” Rags was “Lady Flamebringer of Lacu’un” and Trey was “Garrison Starshadow of Lacu’un.” But they had, as cats always do, acquired their own nicknames that had nothing to do with the regi­stered names. Astra would without a doubt do the same.

Each of the most prominent families of the Lacu’un had been granted one cat, but the Royal Family had three. Two of SKitty’s original kittens, and one of the newcomers. Astra would bring that number up to four, a sacred number to the Lacu’un and very propitious.

“We did,” Vena replied absently, scratching a pleased Astra beneath her chin. “And I agree with you; I think this one would please the Lacu’teveras very much.” She laughed a little. “I’m beginning to think you’re ­psychic or something, Dick; you haven’t been wrong with your selections yet.”

“Me?” he said ingenuously. “Psychic? Spirits of Space, Vena, the way these people are treating the cats, it doesn’t matter anyway. Any ‘match’ I made would be a good one, so far as the cat is concerned. They couldn’t be pampered more if they were Lacu’un girl-babies!”

“True,” she agreed, and reluctantly took her hand away. “Well, four cats should be just about right to keep the Palace vermin-free. It’s really kind of funny how they’ve divided the place up among them with no bickering. They almost act as if they were humans dividing up patrols!” Erica shot him an unreadable glance; did she remember how he had sat down with the original three and SKitty—and a floor-plan of the place—when he first brought them all to the Palace?

“They are bred for high intelligence,” he reminded both of them hastily. “No one really knows how bright they are. They’re bright enough to use their life-support pods in an emergency, and bright enough to learn how to use the human facilities in the ships. They seem to have ways of communicating with each other, or so the people at BioTech tell me, so maybe they did ­establish patrols.”

“Well, maybe they did,” Erica said after a long moment. He heaved a mental sigh of relief. The last thing he needed was to have someone suspect SKitty’s telepathic link with him. BioTech was not breeding for telepathy, but if such a useful trait ever showed up in a fertile female, they would surely cancel Brightwing’s lease and haul SKitty back to their nearest cattery to become a breeding queen. SKitty was his best friend; to lose her like that would be terrible.