Chapter 18 Ror’k
I did not know what had Dottie’s fear spiking so violently, but I hated the way her shoulders tightened. I was ready to defend her against anything the universe dared throw at us. My body tensed, ready to fight, even though I sensed no immediate danger.
Then I saw it. A small flick of fur behind a broken crate. It was the pointy ears that gave it away.
Earth’s felines were small but vicious, and extremely proficient at keeping our living environments free of natural pests.
Pests were a fact of life on every planet, and I didn’t just mean the scourge.
When we first set up the food production islands, we quickly found ourselves overrun by tiny rodents, especially as we started growing and storing calorie-rich grains that humans often consumed.
Dottie relaxed, and so did I.
“Oh! It’s a cat!” She knelt and reached out to it. “Pspspspspsp, come’re kitty, kitty.”
Would that actually work? The cat did not, in fact, come here.
Dottie turned to me, her eyes lighting up. “We need that cat! The community center is at a breaking point with mice. We’re on Kurt’s waiting list, but there’s one right here. We have to catch it.”
I knew Kurt. He worked on the island I’d spent time on. The male stuck to himself and spent most of his time with his felines. “You wish to capture it and relocate it to New Franklin.”
“Yes. I know it’d probably never be super friendly, but that’s okay as long as it keeps the rodents down.”
Another flash of gray appeared and then disappeared around the corner.
“I believe it wishes to get by,” I said.
I had scented the tiny predator in the area before, but hadn’t mentioned it since the scent was weak and they were harmless.
Dottie stepped away from the door, pressing herself back against the shuttle.
I opened the door, and we stepped through, waiting just inside my shuttle for the creature to move.
Sure enough, it came around the corner and then dashed across the front of the building. It entered the shop two doors down.
“Did you see that?” Dottie whispered. “I think it’s pregnant. Look at its belly.”
That was very likely. It was the right time of year.
We followed it into the building, moving slowly so we didn’t startle it. The shop was brightly colored, with hand-painted signs and a mural on the wall. While I was certain it had once served something edible, I couldn’t figure out what. Strange metal cylinders lined the counter.
“This was the ice cream parlor. They did some fancy flavors back in the day.”
“Cold cream?” I hadn’t known what cream was until Earth. We haven’t sought to consume the lactation of other animals, but I’d tried cheese and milk and found them rather palatable. I hadn’t tried this iced-cream.
“It’s frozen sweetened cream. It’s good in the summer.
If you stay around New Franklin during the swarms, you’ll get to try some.
We even make some hunter-specific flavors that are less sweet.
And more meaty.” The look on Dottie’s face straddled the border between amusement and mild disgust. “Frozen meaty paste doesn’t exactly sound palatable, and I’m sure I’m not selling it well, but the hunters like it.
Kaj’k inhaled a whole tub of paté-flavored one in one sitting. ”
They must’ve enjoyed it a lot since none of it ever made it up to the mothership. I’d long suspected we didn’t always get the best picks, but it was still better than a steady diet of food bars.
We followed the creature up the squeaky stairs, past a door that had been left ajar, and into a domicile. The moment we stepped into the room with the sleeping platform, we immediately noticed movement from inside an open drawer of a dresser. The cat was not pregnant. It was already a mother.
Dottie’s barely contained squeal of excitement startled the cat, and it arched its back, hissing.
“Sorry, sweetie. I didn’t mean to scare you.” She went on her tiptoes so she could peer into the drawer from afar. “Oh my, look at those kittens.” Her excitement was contagious.
Kittens. Humans were strange. I did not understand the need for different names for the young of animals unless they went through some sort of metamorphosis.
All scourge started life as an egg, then became larvae, and after that, scuttlers.
Then some pupated again, turning into one of the more specialized phenotypes.
But cats and kittens looked the same. Just differently sized.
“The kittens will be easy to relocate, but Mama Cat is going to be a problem. I don’t think she’s used to humans.”
“No, it is not.”
“Maybe we can find something to use as a cat carrier.”
But I was already reaching into the pouch attached to my belt.
I located the half of a nutrient bar I’d stuffed in there for emergencies and crouched low to get down to the feline’s level.
Then I mimicked the “pspsps” sound Dottie had made.
Maybe humans used the sound to get animals’ attention, and I’d gathered that it must be effective because the little gray furball looked up at me, its yellow gaze meeting my golden ones for a fraction of a second before drifting over to the food.
Our nutrition bars were mostly meat, dried and ground, then mixed with animal fat and vegetable matter for fiber and micronutrients.
Didn’t taste the best, and humans had difficulty biting into the tough bars.
But on a place like Earth, where their existing cattle made wonderful eats, the bars were decent.
This one in particular was super high in protein, which was perfect for the carnivore in front of me, especially if she needed to produce milk to sustain her little ones.
But the feline was wary of me. I didn’t blame her; Xarc’n warriors were carnivores too. It couldn’t possibly know that I had no interest in eating her.
“Lemme try,” Dottie said.
I handed her the piece of food bar and stuffed the final quarter back inside my pouch, just in case. Dottie grinned, looking amused.
“What?”
“Some of the women mated to Xarc’n warriors say that tiny pouch on your belt is the equivalent of a Mary Poppins purse. I’ve even heard someone call it a TARDIS tote.”
That had me frowning even more. My translator only had trouble with one word, but somehow, none of it made sense.
Dottie chuckled. “It means it holds a lot more than it looks like it could.”
I grunted. Finally understanding. “They are quite spacious.”
Instead of holding the food out to the feline, Dottie tried to rip it in half. After failing, she tried again to bite it.
“What are you doing?”
“I need it in small pieces.”
The feline had sharp teeth and would most likely have no trouble eating it, but I took the food back anyway and cut it into small pieces with the knife at my belt.
She approached the feline, and when the creature hissed at her, I couldn’t help but tense, ready to stand between her and its tiny claws.
But instead of backing away, Dottie simply tossed a few pieces of the food bar in the animal’s direction.
Then she left several more as she backed away, making a trail of food that led back to us.
Then she sat down cross-legged on the floor. “And now we wait.”
I dropped down next to her, careful not to scare the creature who was now sniffing at the first piece of food. I pulled Dottie into my lap, and she let out a surprised gasp, making the cat skitter back.
“My mistake,” I said softly, but did not release her.
We waited as the sounds of the wind began to filter in from outside.
The storm had arrived, but it was still warm and dry up here.
The feline had found a good place to have her litter.
Though now that I had a good chance to look at her, she was much thinner than the ones we had back in the food production island, and even the ones I saw in New Franklin.
“It is thin,” I said softly.
The creature did not startle.
“It must be hard to find food out here.”
I grunted in agreement. “But there must be enough to sustain life. This cat came from somewhere. It had a mother and a sire. Animal life is slowly returning to the area now that the nest is gone. This is good.”
Dottie was beaming now. She practically glowed with happiness. “It’s wonderful. One of the foragers told me they saw a raccoon. Those things are slow. If they could survive, then others could too.”
The cat sniffed at the piece of food bar again before pawing at it.
It clearly knew how to survive in this new scourge-filled version of its world.
It knew not to eat anything that smelled strange or of the scourge’s fungus.
The food bar must have passed because it picked it up and ate it.
Then it moved to the next piece. It needed the energy to feed its babies.
I wondered where the sire was. Did these animals not raise their young together?
Slowly, the critter moved closer and closer, and as long as we sat still, it did not balk.
At least until the sudden flash of light lit up the room, followed by a clap of thunder.
The sounds had it skittering back to the drawer to hide, its feet scratching wildly on the wooden floor.
It knocked over a pile of items, and it made another loud racket as everything came crashing down.
The younglings inside the nest reacted as well, their eyes wide as they pressed their ears back against their heads.
Dottie also stiffened, startled by the loud crack that vibrated through the building and straight to our bones. “Well, good thing it didn’t overreact.” Dottie’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
“Even big hunters fear thunder,” I said, wishing the feline could understand my words.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared of thunder,” Dottie said with a wry grin.
“When I was a young hunter, yes. And even now, the sound gives me pause.”
“Really?” She leaned into me.
“Yes. I still remember the first time I experienced this phenomenon.”
“Tell me about it.”
“It was at the first planet I’d ever fought on.
Before then, I’d only known the sounds of the mothership.
There were terrifying beasts on the planet that didn’t understand we were there to help, so it was already a hostile environment.
The storm had forced my shuttle to land.
It was my first storm, and the winds were brutal.
I still don’t know how I managed to land safely.
But even on the ground, my shuttle was being tossed around like a dried leaf.
“The thunder was so loud, I thought for sure the fabric of reality would tear and some monster would come out to retrieve me.
Lightning had hit the spire right next to where I landed.
I can still recall the way the electricity moved the air around me.
But somehow I was left alive. For years after, thunderstorms would scare me, but I dared not tell the other hunters.
“It wasn’t until I became overseer that I realized it was a common fear. But no one spoke of it, so no one knew.”
“How did you become overseer?”
I hesitated, unsure if she understood the truth about those assigned to the mothership.
Many ended up there after injuries left them unable to serve anywhere else, yet they had also refused to die.
Younger hunters eventually learned this as they gained experience, and the reality became impossible to ignore.
I had ended up there after yet another storm, this one much more destructive. I’d tell her the story eventually, but not now. Especially when the weather was turning sour outside. Storms and I had never gotten along.
Mama Cat served as the perfect distraction as she dared to leave the safety of the drawer to snatch up another piece of food bar, this time getting much closer than before.
“Ooh, she’s getting really brave,” Dottie said with a grin.
“She is. And this is a good place to wait out the storm,” I said, ignoring her question. “It is warm, dry, and comfortable. This tiny hunter has done well in finding a place for her younglings.”
I stood slowly so as not to startle it and sat up on the sleeping platform, pulling Dottie with me.
“I could use a nap. What a morning.” She stretched, then frowned, rubbing the side of her neck.
“What is wrong?”
“Nothing. Just a bit sore. Honestly, I’m surprised all I have are some scrapes and bruises and some sore muscles.”
“Lie down,” I said, taking her jacket from her. I pulled the top, dusty layer of fabric off the bed and exposed a much cleaner, dust-free surface. “I will soothe your muscles while I keep watch.”