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  "MMRRRRRRR!" From the sound, Grimalkin was close behind him and didn't like the new strangeness at all. Wart sniggered to himself. Let'r suffer!

  Another launch—now that's the ticket. Don't aim up, aim forward! Look at that leap! Wart! King of the cats! Stalwart defender.

  He continued his leapings, traveling much farther then he usually did. He didn't even think to worry how he was going to find his way back, because he was leaving scent marks much much farther apart than normal walking, or even leaping after a prey.

  Something small was flying slowly down the corridor, humming. Wart stared at it, head cocked. It was about his own size, but dark and with the funniest shaped head he had ever seen. Winged, too, like the flutterers. PFEUGH! It smelled AWFUL. What a stench! He didn't even want to try to identify it!

  "Mrrr?" He issued a tentative challenge.

  Pfffut! At the noise, Wart launched himself. He had meant to go backward, but with his new lightness, he went up and sideways instead, bouncing off a wall and caroming in another direction again.

  BLAM! A section of the wall exploded outward. Wart, in midair again, looked amazed at the pieces of debris raining outward from the site of where the wall had been. One of the chunks hit the flying awful-smell (worse than a buzz-diver it was! … or had the creature hit the wall hard enough to break it?) and instead of flying steadily, it, too, seemed broken, was careering clumsily, randomly about.

  Wart cowered back. It was tumbling through the air, hit a wall and bounced as he had, and slammed off again. It came close to him, and he batted automatically. Both he and the awful-smell spun off.

  Ha! New game. Wart turned, got his feet under him, and launched again.

  Wham BOUNCE! The SMELL collided with his paws, and hit a wall and spun off. Wart twisted and launched again.

  OWWWWW— Something bit his paw. Wart ran, howling. It hurt. Every step hurt. He ran, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

  But if he ever saw that thing again, or anything that smelled like it.

  It was a long, long time before he found a scent trail that led back to Human-mommy and Human-tom. He was tired and hungry and his paw felt dreadful.

  He had stopped and cleaned it twice, there was a small hole on one of his pads, and a tear, too.

  He didn't even notice when he crossed through an open doorway, and got his weight back. Though less than he was used to when the ship's engines were giving close to normal G.

  Wart entered sleeping quarters complaining at the top of his lungs.

  Nobody was there.

  He headed for the control room. Yes, there they were.

  Grimalkin was licking her chops, too.

  Wart ran over to Human-mommy and rubbed against her.

  She didn't even scratch behind his ears! "MmmRRRRRR!" Wart complained. He could smell fish on Grimalkin's breath. She belched more fish in him smugly.

  "MMMMMRRRR!" He jumped up onto Human-mommy's lap.

  "Not now, Wart," she said absentmindedly. "I have to get this translated.

  "I'll take care of him." Human-tom stood up. "You keep working." He bent over Human-mommy's lap and scooped up Wart, heading out of the control room.

  Wart purred. He knew he was going to be fed and that now!

  "Here you go, pal." Human-tom popped him on the shelf that came in and out in the eating room, and put a bowl in front of him. "Jus' a sec now—" Then he was scooping FISH into the bowl.

  Wart dug in.

  "Milk for a growing boy," Human-tom added. "Not that the diagnos says you're going to grow any more, Wart my runty little man. But we can always hope, can't we."

  Wart didn't pay any attention to Human-tom's growl. He was EATING.

  "Small-bred, my foot," Human-tom continued, a genuine growl in his voice. "Runt is more like it. They saw us coming, Wart my little man. They saw us coming." A sigh. "I wonder if you're really pure bred, too. Though you look it, right enough. I admit, it seemed a neat cross for when you were grown, Siamese and Persian. Besides, Miri thought those two different colored eyes of yours were adorable." A sigh. "I wanted her to have what she wanted, even as little a thing as a kitten with mismatched eyes." A snort. "But I fixed that fakir when he tried to up the price for it, being so unusual. Humph. It isn't. Damn him. But you're a good kid, aren't you, Wart, you can't help being made out of spare parts, and not all working right, either."

  His hand rubbed just the right way and Wart stretched under the caress, but didn't miss a movement in his almost frantic eating.

  "Devi, but you eat. I don't understand. We've run you through the diagnos twice, no problems, and you eat like you were starving, but you don't grow." A sigh. "You know what I'm doing, Wart my little friend, don't you. I'm talking so I don't have to think about what's going on in the control room, how close we are to those murderous fredessers—I saw what was left of a world after they got through with it once, Wart. It was a cinder. Not a living thing on if. Yet nobody even knows why, much less how they do it."

  Another caress. Wart stopped eating long enough for a short appreciative chirrup.

  "The best anybody can come up with, is that they have a scorched earth policy. Whenever they find somebody settling on a world in what they consider their territory, they burn them off. Totally. No mercy, no survivors. The trouble is, nobody knows what they consider their territory, so nobody knows where they'll show up next. Nobody's ever even seen a fredesser, just picked up occasional transmissions and seen the results. They burn worlds, Wart, my man, whole worlds." An amused chuckle. "More? Where do you put it, Wart." But he scooped another serving into the dish, and Wart took care of that, too.

  "Nobody's ever seen them to survive and tell the tale, no ambassadors we sent with armed convoys or in unarmed ships came back, no NOTHING. Devi only knows how many indies like us who have disappeared, ran into a fredesser. Nobody knows. Though we all know the risks, and there's dangers enough out here in the boonies without counting on a fredesser armada." A laugh with no humor in it. "Though we may be small enough to ignore. If that's what's out there, I only hope so!"

  Wart burped politely.

  "Enough, little man. If we did take on a pest or two last landing, I only hope you're still hungry. enough to take care of it."

  Wart wondered where the wounded flying awful-smell creature was. If he found it, it wouldn't have a chance to bite him again. This time, he'd be smelling for it. This time—

  Human-tom turned and strode out of the eating room. Wart debated following, and decided to. Maybe he could get up on Human-mommy's lap and get a little petting

  "Anything new, Miri?"

  "Message from the nearest naval base." Her growl sounded strained. "Acknowledging the alert, warning us to be careful, asking us to keep them posted."

  "The usual."

  "Except for one item. They ran a computer analysis on indies in this sector. They say that there's an abnormally high percent of indies who haven't checked in recently. Of course, it's hard to keep track of indies, I could hear the sneer in that one, but—"

  "Devi!"

  "I've had a second transmission, too. The translation's faster, now that we have the base to work from, if you can call what little we think we have a base. It's incomplete, of course, like the first one, but the ship's almost certainly a scout, and there was a second ambush, smaller single vessel, and they've had to abandon ship. But they—or maybe it's a single survivor—are going to try to take the larger vessels, I can't tell which one; maybe both of them. It's a rough translation, of course, with no equivalent of a rosetta stone, all the translations are guesses at best."

  "I know." Human-tom was scowling. Wart decided he would be better off exploring again. He trotted out. Nothing (he sniffed in disdain) interesting anywhere near quarters, though he did find a scrap of printout and played with it a while.

  Then he decided to explore again.

  Sniff sniff. Most of the scent trails were obvious. His, or Grimalkin's, or the humans'. Nothing interesting. Again he crossed an in
visible line, and found his weight going. Wheeee! It was fun bouncing around … Sniff? Was that the faintest hint of awful-smelling flyer? He stopped his caroling and took a deep breath. Sniiiiif.

  It was—and it wasn't. Another sniff.

  It ran along here

  Was it stronger this way or that? Wart galloped along a straight corridor, decided it was getting weaker this way, and turned and retraced his path.

  Yes. This way! It was getting stronger. He slid to a crouch, and began moving as stealthily as he knew how. Unfortunately, with his weight almost nothing (though mass normal) this wasn't very stealthy; he still hadn't adjusted to being able to practically throw himself on the ceiling with every step. But if he just oooooozed along…Whatever you wanted to call it, when he was above the floor and not touching it most of the time.

  The smell was getting stronger.

  YUCK!

  Wart slithered along as best he could. He must be getting close-yes! Something was scuttling along ahead of him. It had more legs than he and Grimalkin and maybe both humans put together. It was a lot smaller than the other creature, too. He wasn't sure if he could get the whole thing in his mouth, but he thought he could if he tore the legs off first.

  But you had to be careful with scuttlers. Some of them had stings and bites that could be painful.

  Wart tried to get a little closer, bring the thing into focus.

  It moved too fast. All he could be sure of was that it was a smells-AWFUL many legged scuttler, heading along a wall.

  Maybe it wouldn't even be good to eat. Nonetheless, it was in HIS territory, and HE was going to show it its mistake!

  Besides, it might be fun to play with. Before he ate it—or decided not to. Wart edged forward, as stealthily as he could. The thing stopped.

  Wart froze, only the tip of his tail up and swishing impatiently.

  Wart could hear his own heart pounding loudly, the "breathing" of the ship-monster—and nothing else.

  Beat beat.

  Beat beat.

  The scuttler moved on. Wart moved on.

  The scuttler crapped on WART's Wall! Wart leaped.

  One slam of his paw sent the scuttler in one direction and its garbage, breaking up into tiny pieces, in another.

  OoooWWWWWWW—This time the bite was in his shoulder AND the paw he had smashed the crap with. GrrrrrrrRRRRRRR! Wart launched and again the scuttler went spinning.

  OooWWWWWW— This bite was his leg, but Wart's feline pride was outraged. No paw-sized scuttler was going to foul HIS territory and send HIM running off, tail drooping!

  The trouble was, he wasn't used to this funny flying. Cats hadn't the ability to fly, though they could leap. Wart soared and heard a funny buzz. Then he saw. The scuttler had jumped, too.

  And come down—WHERE WAS HE?

  Wart sniffed and started to swing his head around. There was a bright light reflected off the walls, and it made him blink. Had he been facing it directly, or with his good eye, it would probably have blinded him momentarily—or long enough. He whirled. There it came. He leaped, and this time his paw connected, but not a catch as he intended. The scuttler went flying, and landed with an odd crunch.

  Wart stared, but it didn't move. He stalked closer, and almost fell. Between one step and the next, weight—the humans could have told him he had crossed over into the art-grav section—gripped him. As it had the scuttler. Hard. The scuttler had fallen from a considerable (to its smallness) height. It wasn't moving. Wart batted it against a wall, as hard as he could.

  It bounced and then lay. Still. Very still.

  Wart stalked grandly up, and gave it a small bat. Nothing.

  A bigger bat. Nothing. No fun.

  But maybe—he tugged a leg. Hard outside. The inside might be good enough, despite the smell. Ugh, it was tough. Wart struggled and worked, finally he got the trick of it. You gripped one leg between your teeth, and put your paw on the body and worked and worried until the leg came off. Or partly off.

  YWEWWWWW! The inside stank even worse than the outside! He spat the end of the leg out of his mouth, and then spat again, just to get the remembrance of that awful STENCH out of his mouth.

  Where the leg was half torn off the body leaked some sort of fluid. DISgusting. Awful. NASTY-stink. Wart automatically went through bury-it motions, kicking dirt over it.

  Trouble was, there wasn't any dirt there. It still stank. Wart didn't even want to put it in the litter box. After all, HE had to use that.

  But where could he get rid of the awful thing? Wart gave the body a kick, and it skittered down the corridor.

  If only it didn't stink so, it might be fun to play with. He gave it another kick. It went farther.

  Now his paws stank of it. Ugh. But maybe— He kept batting until he was opposite the sleeping room. In the sleeping room was a large potted plant…

  Wart got the dead scuttler up against the pot. Checked in. Yep. Plenty of dirt there. The humans had spanked him enough to keep him from using the plant's dirt for his own toilet needs, but this was different. He leaped up onto the rim of the pot, dug a neat hole, leaped back down, carefully picked up the scuttler by a leg and made another leap. Dropped it in. Covered it back up. Tramped all around to pound the dirt back down.

  Smelled his feet. Tramped some more, until good honest dirt smell replaced the awful stench.

  Only when there was no smell left on his feet at all did he condescend to clean them, complaining and spitting, as even the memory of that smell lingered.

  He hadn't quite finished cleaning his paws when he started feeling sick.

  He ran for human-smell, feeling sicker and sicker. He just made it inside the door when the first surge came.

  "What the—" Human-tom turned around.

  Wart spewed.

  "Wart's throwing up," Human-tom announced the obvious, in tones of acute disgust.

  "You overfeed him." Human-mommy was still concentrated on the funny window.

  "He still looks like a kitten who needs to eat—I'll clean it up, you keep working on those translations."

  "I may never have it any better than I do now." But Human-tom had gotten out of his chair, and was getting a sheet of paper out from the printer, and using it to clean up the worst of the mess.

  Wart wanted to help bury it, but he felt dreadful. Human-tom walked out of the room with the paper full of Wart's upchuck, came back a minute or two later with a couple of wet disposables and a spray bottle. He finished getting up Wart's spew in the disposables, and then sprayed carefully over the whole area with the cleanser disinfectant.

  Wart appreciated that. Somewhat. He didn't much like the smell Human-tom used, but he liked the sour smell of his own upchuck even less.

  Then Human-tom put his cleaning equipment on a tabletop; and swooped on Wart and started out the room.

  "What, Jere—" Human-mommy asked.

  "You keep working on those translations. I'm going to put our boy through the diagnos again."

  "I told you—" But he was gone.

  Wart recognized the door to the diagnos, which he hated.

  The less said about the next few minutes, the better. Human-tom was putting antiseptic on his scratches as he went back into the room where Human-mommy was. Wart stayed out in the corridor and glared. But he was still feeling too rotten to go too far away.

  Grimalkin had come in during the altercation, and added her own sneers to his misery. Now she was back in Human-mommy's lap, but Wart felt too awful to be as much as slightly tempted by the swishing tail.

  "Food-poisoning." Human-tom flopped into his own chair. "Odd. Maybe we did pick up an alien pest."

  "I think I have all the translations." Human-mommy was paying no attention to Wart's misery or its possible causes.

  "As soon as this is over, I'll run a deconn—" Then what Human-mommy had said sunk in, and Human-tom stood straight up. "Let's have them!"

  "We'll never have the whole thing, but what I have boils down to this. A larger vessel, huge, used
some sneaky new weapon they'd never encountered before, ambushed their ship; the fredesser managed to—I think camouflage itself. Then another, smaller vessel attacked, only one of the crew was able to abandon ship. Destroyed it, I think. He intended to plant a small—it comes out as fusion-starter—maybe that's what they use on planets, too, I don't know—anyway, he was going to plant that, only it was a portable, all he could carry, and it had to be close to the ship's own reactor to do the job. The last transmission says he'd actually planted or was about to plant the fusion-starter, and he ran into the smaller vessel again. His weapons were limited, but he planned to use a broad-beam laser to burn out their visors, and then—I haven't heard any more."

  "And nothing on our screens." It wasn't a question.

  "Zip."

  Wart decided it was time he made a pathetic little moan.

  "We'll never know how it came out," Human-tom sighed.

  "Unless we run into either the scout or the armada it was probably working for or the human (if they are human) vessels. Or hear about them later when they come in and report."

  "Them's the breaks," Human-tom said. "If the fredesser manages to plant his little bomb, we'll never hear, they'll never make it."

  Wart, hunkered down and miserable, made another, slightly more plaintive (but imperative) moan.

  "Poor little man." Human-tom made a gesture, but Wart didn't see it. "Oh, poor kid. I forgot. That's your blind side, isn't it. Here—" Human-tom stood up, walked over, and gently picked up Wart, petting him softly, while grumbling under his breath, "My own people. Not saying a word about two colored eyes and what they mean in some breeds. Blind in one eye. My own people. N'mind, Wart, little buddy. You're home with us now. We'll take care of you. And—" grin in his voice, "—we'll let you take care of us."

  He sat, Wart on his lap.

  "I wish we knew," Human-mommy said softly. Wart purred as Human-tom patted him. He knew he had saved his own small universe once again; and the next time a scrap of paper, a dust bunny, a pest, or anything else threatened, he would be there.

  "How much simpler to be Wart, eh," Human-tom said, with a small laugh. "Not to have to worry about berserker killers like fredessers."