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

you is true. Review the ship's log if you want, but if you ask me, you won't question it."

"Kelvin here was a functioning member of the crew, and I think she deserves every minim," Marius added.

"Yes, but paying three hundred-sixty credits weekly to a cat? Plus hazard pay?" The vice president shook his head. Kelvin watched him without blinking, but her tail tip twitched.

"Look at it this way, sir," Thomas put in smoothly and Jurgenevski remembered that he had had diplomatic training. Thomas leaned forward confidingly. "Notwithstanding the fact that Kelvin blew up a Smoot warship all by herself, could you ask for better publicity for the utility and easy operation of the Drebian system, if a mere cat can use it? Think of the numbers! The press'll love it!"

"As a matter of advertisement," the vice president mused, scrubbing his chin with the tips of his fingers, "I suppose it would be just about priceless."

"And what a spokesperson you could offer them, too," Jurgenevski said. Kelvin rolled over and presented her belly to the vice president to be scratched.

The man laughed and reached out to fluff the cat's fur. "I suppose we're getting off lightly. For a human model, I'd have to pay thousands. But what about the three of you? If we publicize that the cat ran the ship, won't you feel foolish?"

Jurgenevski gathered nods of approbation from the other two and drew a deep breath. "Not if it'll help the company, sir."

The vice president mused, staring at a wall as Kelvin squirmed happily under his fingertips. "Captain," he said at last, rising to his feet and gathering up the cat, "I like your loyalty. Come out with me to see the media. I'm sure you'd like to tell them the adventures the four of you had on your ship." The emphasis fell heavily on the last two words, and Jurgenevski caught his breath. Marius and Thomas looked hopeful. The vice president didn't miss their expressions.

"I presume you're happy with your crew complement as well?" he asked casually.

"Yes, sir," Jurgenevski said, with unconcealed joy. He gave the cat a quick and grateful scratch on the head. "I ordered another spicewurst for you this morning," he told Kelvin in a low murmur just before the door opened.

"What's that, captain?"

"Oh, nothing, sir. Nothing." Grasping Marius's and Thomas's hands in a triumphant squeeze, he followed the LA.T.A. executive out of the lounge to the waiting press.

ALIEN

CATS

Chanur's Homecoming

C.J. Cherryh

She was wobbling when she reached belowdecks, staggering with the weight of the gun; she ran face-on into the others as she came off the lift and into the corridor—regular crew, with Tully and Khym. "I sent orders," she said to them both. "No. Stay here."

"It's changed out there," Khym said, "Py, for gods- sakes—"

Panic set in, facing that obdurate desperation, that look in his eyes, which met hers and asked, O gods, with a desperate pleading for his own place. If she never got him back alive . . . if she lost him out here; if, if, and if. She saw all the crew in the same mind, all thin-furred and haunted-looking, ghosts of themselves, but with weapons in hand and ears pricked up and eyes alive though flesh was fading.

"We've got to hit fast," she said, and saw Chur come round the corner from crew quarters, leaning against the wall for support, Chur with a rifle slung at her side. "You—" she said, meaning Chur. "And you" meaning Tully, who was provocation to any hani xenophobe and a class one target. "You—"

"Tully and I hold the airlock and cover the rest of you, right." Chur's voice was a hoarse whisper, befitting a ghost. "Got it, cap'n. Go on."

That was the way Chur worked, conspiracy and wit: Chur cheated at dice. So would Geran. For cause. Pyanfar drew a ragged breath, threw a desperate look at Geran Anify and got no help: silence again, now that Chur was back in business. "Then for godssakes keep Tully with you," she said, and jabbed Tully with a forefinger. "Stay on the ship. Help Chur. Take Chur's orders. Got?"

"Got." With that kind of Tully-look that meant he would argue to go with them if he thought he could. Language-barrier worked on her side this time. "Be careful.

"Gods-be sure. Come on," she said to the others, and shoved off the wall she was using to lean on for a moment, and trotted for the airlock.

Alert began to sound, The Pride's crew call: not their business, though muscles tensed as if that alert were wired to Chanur nervous systems. There was the thunder of steps in the corridors, additional crew running to the lift behind them as they reached the airlock corridor. More footsteps behind. She looked back. Skkukuk appeared, coming from the other direction. "Orders!" she yelled at him, "Get!" and he vanished in the next blink of the eye. Then: "Sirany!" she yelled at the intercom pickup, her voice all hoarse, "open that lock—" because it was not Haral up there, Haral was beside her; and she had to depend on strangers to get their signals straight.

The airlock hatch opened. She threw the safety off the illegal AP, and inhaled the air as a wind whipped into their faces: The Pride's pressurization was a shade off; and that wind out of Gaohn smelled of things forgotten. Of hani. Or cold and hazard, too, and the chill reek of space-chilled machinery. She jogged through the lock and into the passageway, yellow plastics of the access tube and steel jointed plating, and sucked up a second wide gulp of the air her physiology was born for. Something set into her like the stim: a second wind, a preternatural clarity of things in which the whole tumble of events began to go at an acceptable speed.

"These are hani," she said, drymouthed and panting as they ran along the tube, trusting her crew around her as she trusted her own reflexes, knowing where each would dispose themselves, that