Cats in Space and Other Places by Bill Fawcett (the first e reader txt) 📕

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. Pandora 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 Pandora decided to take things into her own hands and run the show? He'd look an incredible fool back at I.A.T.A. headquarters.

A duty list popped up on the screen almost before the thought had finished forming. Pandora 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?"

Jurgenevski grinned as he set down the cup. "Thanks, honey. It's nice of you to let me think I'm in charge."

He met Marius and Thomas for breakfast in the small galley. He was deciding whether a hot, scrambled egg sandwich or blueberry pancakes would fill the gap in his belly and opted to let Pandora 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. Were these 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 blobs already dusted, oiled, and cleaned her 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.

Jurgenevski nodded. "All right, we'll come up with something. Meantime, we've survived one whole week in the ship they all thought would blow up in drydock. What say we have us a party tonight to celebrate?"

Marius and Thomas perked up. "Now there's a fine concept," Thomas agreed.

The party started at the stroke of third shift. The three humans and the cat assembled in the control room for a round of special meals and entertainments. With all of her talents, the Pandora's Drebian computer had one more heretofore undiscovered skill: she had in her memory banks every bartender's manual ever written.

"Honeycakes, make me up a . . . Viking's Elbow," Thomas commanded from his launch chair. He had staggered there for greater stability when, as he claimed, the deck started to spin.

"Are you still working your way through the alphabet?" Jurgenevski asked. He was bent raptly over a hand control for the video game Pandora had running on the screen. It was a commercial game that Jurgenevski had spent years learning to win. Tiny spaceships swirled in an attack pattern around a single red ship that dodged and evaded while it shot them down one by one. His running score was in the corner of the three-meter-high image. It was already in the millions, and Jurgenevski was still hot.

"No, man, I'm going through it again, only backwards this time," Thomas explained. The hatch next to his elbow disgorged a stylized noggin with a dragon-headed stirring rod in it. Thomas discarded the stick and took a deep drink from the mug.

"Have you tasted this banana mousse?" Marius asked, waving her spoon at the two men. "It's fabulous!"

Kelvin jumped up in her lap and demanded a taste. Marius gave her a fingerful.

"You know, it's too bad Pandora didn't whip up anything special for the cat," Thomas said, ordering up an Undertaker's Friend. "Hey, baby, make a treat for the cat, huh?"

"Working. Please clarify the command."

"The cat," Thomas repeated. "Give her a plate of tuna sushi, or whatever cats think is party food."

"Working. There is no record for ‘Thecat' in these memory circuits."

"Kelvin's our ship's cat. She's right here." Thomas pointed to Kelvin, who was busily lapping up banana cream.

There was some puzzled whirring. The three crewmembers looked at one another, and Jurgenevski put down the game control and his glass of beer. He rose to his feet somewhat unsteadily. "It's not fair we should get everything we want when our little friend gets nothing but Fishy Nibbles," he pronounced. "Let's put her in the personality reader, and Pandora can figure out what she wants."

'‘Great idea," Marius applauded. Kelvin let out an offended yowl at being forced to leave a comfortable lap when Marius picked her up and carried her over to the expandable booth. Jurgenevski and Thomas pulled out the folding sides and set the corner braces. The helm officer set the cat inside and snapped the curtain shut before Kelvin, now confused and frightened, could escape.

"Working," Pandora said. The cat's ululations rose to angry growls, and then stopped abruptly. Through the transparent panel, they could see Kelvin sitting on the booth's bench with her pupils down to tiny slits and her ears, with the probes sticking out of them, laid flat along her skull. As soon as the lights ceased flashing and the probes retracted, Marius snatched the cat out of the booth and stroked her until the fighting ridge went down on the cat's back.

"There, there, kitty,