so thrilled about most of what I was learning. I looked ahead over the sky bridge to a huge tree on the far side. The bridge led to a large portal in the tree, like we were walking over the drawbridge to the entrance of a giant castle. There was dense foliage to either side of it, blocking my view of what was beyond. “You okay?” Boon asked.
“Yeah, whatever” was my answer. Truth was, I wasn’t, but what could I do?
We walked through the portal to find that this hollowed-out tree held a guard station. Two large cats stood in front of a cage that blocked the way. They each held long sticks as weapons and had coils of ropes attached to their belts. They were the same weapons I saw the cat named Kasha use against the tang.
“Boon!” one of the cats shouted jovially. “Where have you been? You missed the wippen tournament!”
“Busy,” Boon answered, trying to sound casual. “How’d it go?”
“Lousy,” the other cat answered. “Those big klees from the north end were too good.”
“They’re no better than us,” the first cat corrected. “They just train more.”
The second cat added, “We needed you, Boon.”
“Next time,” Boon promised. He nodded to the cage door. The first cat swung it open for us.
“New gar?” the cat asked.
I had been looking to the ground the whole time. I was afraid if these big cats looked into my eyes, they might see some hint of intelligence they weren’t used to. But now, I glanced to Boon to see his reaction. Boon gave me a quick, embarrassed look.
“Uh, yeah,” he answered.
“Do yourself a favor,” the first cat said. “Wash him down. He stinks.”
It took every bit of willpower I had not to say something. The truth was, these cats didn’t exactly smell like roses either.
“Yeah,” Boon said. I heard a slight nervous quiver in his voice. “I’ll do that. Thanks.”
Boon led me through the door. I was a good little gar and followed with my head down. As we walked away from the cage, Boon whispered, “Sorry.”
I decided not to give him a hard time. Instead I asked, “What’s wippen?”
“It’s the game I told you about,” Boon said, relieved to be talking about something else. “We’ve all played since we were kids.”
“Kittens,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“Forget it.”
Before I had the chance to ask him any more about what to expect, we stepped out of the portal on the far side of the tree and I got my first view of Leeandra. Oh man. What a sight! Like I wrote before, it was a city built in the air. There were wooden huts of all sizes dotting the sides of the trees. Busy sky bridges were everywhere. The structures were built high overhead, and down low, with the lowest buildings only about twenty yards off the ground. I guessed they were still high enough to be safe from marauding tangs. The city was big. I saw no end to the buildings, either way. It all looked to be manufactured out of natural material. Wood, bamboo, and woven vines. I didn’t see anything that looked like metal or plastic. Everything I saw was very much like I had seen on my way to Leeandra, but multiplied a few hundred times.
But there was more. Running alongside many of the sky bridges were vehicles that traveled on a single track, like a monorail. They were open-car trains that each carried about twenty klees. They moved silently and stopped at intersections where klees got off and on. I also saw elevators. There were round platforms that carried passengers up and down the outsides of the trees, to all levels. I saw fountains on many levels that emptied into square troughs where klees bellied up and lapped water like, well, like cats. That meant Leeandra had pumps, and plumbing. But maybe the most incredible sight was the streetlights. The entire city was covered by a thick canopy of foliage that didn’t let in much light from the sunbelt in the sky. So even though it was daytime, it was pretty dark. But the streetlights took care of that. Every few yards along the sky bridges and walkways was an overhead light fixture that was made up of a handful of small, vertical tubes that looked like wind chimes. The lights gave off a warm glow that made the city look as if it were lit by giant fireflies. It was something out of a fairy-tale fantasy.
“You have electricity?” I asked Boon.
“What’s that?”
“You know, power, juice.”
Boon shrugged and shook his head. He had no idea what I was talking about.
I tried another tack. “What makes those trains run? I mean, I doubt if you have little birds inside running on a treadmill like the Flintstones.”
“Oh! You mean energy!”
“Yeah, energy. What makes everything go?”
“Collectors, above the canopy,” Boon explained. “We use crystals to collect and store energy from the light in the sky. It’s very simple, really. But I don’t know what a ‘flintstone’ is.”
Amazing. This walking, talking jungle cat was telling me that this society of animals had figured out a way to collect enough solar energy to power their city, while our so-called advanced society on Second Earth had no clue as to how to make solar energy practical. If it was so simple, how come we couldn’t do it?
“Don’t you get your energy that way on Second Earth?” Boon asked innocently.
“Uh…yeah, sometimes,” I said quickly, not wanting to admit the truth. “Where is this meeting?” I added, changing the subject.
“At the Circle of Klee,” Boon answered. “This way.”
The two of us walked through the city, crossing over several more sky bridges and taking two different elevators. Klees were everywhere-on the sky bridges, on the elevators, riding the monorails and hanging around on every level of the city. I didn’t see many gars, though. The ones I did see were either walking along on leashes with klees, like I was with Boon, or doing some menial work, like lugging heavy materials or cleaning the monorail tracks. The gars may have been considered animals, but they were smart enough to do work. I was beginning to think there was a lot more to the social system on Eelong than Boon had explained to me. The gars were small people. The biggest guy I saw was maybe a little over five feet. They all wore rags like I did, and had wild hair that looked like it hadn’t been brushed or cut since the day they were born. Only a few had beards, though. I wasn’t sure if that’s because they shaved, or they simply didn’t have much facial hair.
What really freaked me out, though, was the look in their eyes. It was like nobody was home. They walked all hunched over, always glancing back toward the klees they walked with. I was beginning to realize what Boon meant when he said I’d stand out. Without thinking, I found myself hunching over a little bit.
One last note about the gars. Just before we reached the Circle of Klee I saw something that was kind of odd. I’m not sure what it meant, but it was strange enough to write about here. We passed two gars who were tied up outside a tree house like dogs waiting for their master. They sat huddled together, staring at something that one gar held in the palm of his hand. It was a cube about the size of a box that a ring would come in. It was amber colored and could have been made of some kind of crystal. The odd thing was that the gars were both petting it like it was alive. They made this strange cooing sound, as if they were consoling a baby. It was totally creepy. They were so focused on this little cube that they didn’t hear us coming, but as soon as we drew even with them, the one gar closed his hand around the cube and hid it so fast, it made me feel like it was either very valuable or very illegal. I made brief eye contact with the gar and could tell that the guy was scared I had seen his treasure. Or maybe he was scared that Boon saw it. Either way, he looked pretty nervous. I decided not to say anything to Boon, but filed it away to ask about later.
We took one last elevator and arrived at a platform that led to an archway into a hollow tree. As soon as we stepped off the elevator, I sensed that the tree was busy with activity. The general buzz gave it away. When Boon led me inside that archway, I saw that it was a meeting place. The room was big, with benches circling a round stage at the center. And it was packed. There must have been a hundred klees. What do you call a group of cats? A pack? A herd? A litter? They were all sitting on benches, looking toward the stage at center. Yes, they were sitting. They were cats, and they were sitting. Unbelievable.
Standing onstage was a tall cat dressed in a royal blue tunic. He actually looked somewhat like a lion, but his hair, or mane, wasn’t as full as a lion’s. It was long, though, and fell halfway down his back. He looked older, too. He stood center stage holding a long, wooden staff that had the carving of a snarling cat’s head on top. I wasn’t sure if he needed this for balance, or if it was a symbol of power. Behind him sat six more cats, each wearing tunics
