The Cat's Job Read online

  Another cannon spoke, which was the oak at the front corner of the yard dropping a branch the size of a tanker truck. Encased in ice, the branch fell, hit the power line leading into the house -- and kept on going. The wire held for a second against the added weight, ice scattering as it stretched...and gave way of a sudden at its weakest point, ripping loose from the power box on the side of the house.

  Live wire went down across the drive, tangled in oak branch, and spitting like a mad cat.

  Agnes changed her course, moving away from those wires. Electric could run through ice, same as through wire. She knew that. Jakey'd worked for the power company a couple years when the farm didn't bring in enough to satisfy the bank. Jakey'd told her all about wires and how electric was nobody's friend.

  Agnes skittered back, aiming to put distance between herself and a nasty shock. A stealthy movement down low drew her eye, which was the cat, belly to the ice, bushy tail straight behind, all its attention on the spitting, jerking wire.

  Barn cats don't have much fear, especially not a hearty, Maine-bred cat with furry feet as big as dinner plates. The cat drew in on itself as Agnes watched, setting up for the spring --

  She swooped, got a handful of neck fur and an arm around solid animal, teetered and went flat on her can again, both arms full of fighting, twenty-pound cat, which commenced to screech, claws deep into Jakey's old barn coat.

  "Stow it, you fool!" Agnes gasped. "That thing'll kill you!"

  The cat went quiet. The claws withdrew. Arms around the cat's middle, Agnes scooted them backward along the ice, away from the wire, toward the barn.

  Her back hit the wooden entry ramp and she let the cat go, following its dash into the barn at a more sedate crawl.

  She collapsed just inside the shelter of the roof, glad of a wooden floor and relief from a wind determined to turn nasty.

  Outside, she heard more shots -- more trees breaking under the weight of the ice. Sooner or later, a tree would take down the main line on the road, or a power pole itself would let go. At which point, she figured it would be safe to go back across the ice to the house. Meanwhile, she'd be lucky if her ears weren't frostbit and her tailbone sprained.

  "Brow-wow?" The cat, very soft.

  Agnes turned her head and squinted into the dimness of the barn. The cat was sitting about three feet further in, pushing a paw against what looked to be a mound of straw.

  "Brow-wow," the cat said again, and it was grief Agnes heard in its voice, no question.

  Sure of what she'd see, still she had to get up on her feet, walk over and look. It was only respectful, to go and look, and to pay proper condolence.

  The dead one was orange and white, not quite as big as the gray that was using its paw to gently push at the dead one's shoulder, as if it couldn't quite believe what its senses must surely tell it.

  But you didn't believe, she knew, not at first. She remembered finding Jakey face down in the mud between the barn and the house. She'd shaken him, yelling his name, took in that he was sick, ran inside and called the Rescue, telling herself it looked bad, but it wasn't death -- not dead. Not Jakey.

  She swallowed, throat tight, and sat down on the floor by the cat.

  "We wear out and we go," she said, which was how she'd finally settled the matter to her satisfaction, months after Jakey's dying. "Those of us who've done our best, we get to go easy. The ones left behind, we're lonely. But we go on. Life goes on, until it ends."

  "Lone-ly?" The cat's big eyes were on her face.

  "Lonely," Agnes agreed, and then did something she knew better than, meaning only to offer comfort to an equal independence, who right now sat in a pain she understood: She put out a mittened hand to stroke the cat's head.

  The cat ducked, shied and bolted into the depths of the barn, disappearing, like barn cats knew how to do.

  Agnes sighed, took another look at the dead cat, then went back to her post at the door. The town would be by in a while to clear the road, is what she figured. Trees down all over and more falling. Conditions like this, there was bound to be accidents. Rescue had to get through, and it was the town's part to keep the way clear.

  So, she sat at the door, waiting for the town plow, or a road crew, or a wire team, and maybe she drowsed, already used to the sound of cannon and gunfire in the nearby woods.

  What woke her was an unexpected weight on her outstretched leg. Inspection proved that to be the barn cat's not inconsiderable head. The cat opened its eyes when she shifted her leg.

  "Lone-ly," it explained and Agnes sighed.

  "I know," she said seriously and the cat blinked its green-gold eyes, nuzzling its chin down on her knee -- and was upright in the next second, ears to the fore.

  Agnes heard it, too, deep in her gut: the ground-shaking rumble of heavy machinery.

  "Plow's coming," she told the cat, and hauled herself to her feet.

  She took the ramp slow and careful and went a ways down the drive, wary of the wire, though it wasn't spitting anymore. The wind was a steady push against her face, carrying the racket of trees breaking. She gauged the progress of the town plow by the rumble in her chest, and her hand come up to flag 'er down the instant the blade cleared the drive.

  The plow rolled on another eight feet, braking, which is no small thing for a piece of machinery the size of your town snowplow. When it was stopped, the driver climbed down and walked back.

  "Keep back from that wire!" he called up to her.

  "I plan to," Agnes answered.

  He hit the end of the drive, braked sudden enough to skid, caught himself and stood there, hands in the pockets of his jacket, taking in the damage. Fella maybe her own age, watch cap pulled snug over his ears and a salt-pepper beard keeping the south portion of his face warm.

  He studied on the tangle of busted limb and wire, looked over at the truck, then at the barn.

  "Fine lookin' cat," he said. Agnes nodded, but he'd already put his attention back on that wire.

  "Jakey Pelletier's place, ain't it?" he asked, after he'd studied the situation to his own satisfaction.

  "Was," Agnes said. "Jakey passed summer before last."

  "Jakey? No. I heard that. I did hear that." He shook his head. "He left right close to the time I lost my wife. Cancer." Another headshake. "I'm Tom Oullette -- me and Jakey worked the lines together couple years, before I come on with the town. Good man. Solid."

  Agnes swallowed, recalling for no good reason the orange cat, laying cold and quiet in the barn. "All of that," she said, but not loud, due to her throat closing up.

  "Listen," Tom Oullette called up to her, "I need to get back on the job -- things are this bad and worse all over. I'll call in to the town, tell 'em about the wire. You need anything? Want a lift out? Elementary school's setting up as a shelter."

  "I'm fine," Agnes told him. "Plenty wood. Pantry's

  stocked. Freezer --" she looked at the down wire. "Freezer's in trouble, I guess."

  "Radio?" he asked her. "Batteries?"

  "All set."

  "You'll do," he allowed, his grin a sudden flash of white in his beard. "Best thing's for you and the cat to get inside. Load up the stove and put the kettle on. That wire -- main line's down, all the way back to the four corners. You don't want to touch that wire, but it's safe enough to get on over to the steps. Once you're inside, you'll be fine. I'll put in that call to central first thing I'm back in the truck."

  "I appreciate that," she said, and smiled. "Thanks."

  "That's all right," said Tom Oullette. "Go on inside, now. No sense standing out in the wind."

  He turned and half-walked, half-skated back to his plow truck. Agnes saw him climb into the cab before she turned herself and skated, all her bones and bruises complaining, over to the steps.

  It was a scramble to stay on the step and get the door open, but she finally managed it, and without a tumble, too. Boots firmly on kitchen floor linoleum, she looked out once more across the yard.

  And saw the
cat, sitting in the middle of all that ice, tail 'round its toes, eyes on her face.

  "Well," Agnes said, pushing the door wider, "what're you waiting for? Come in, if you want to come in. There's room."

  The cat blinked its green-gold eyes. Slowly, taking its own good time, it got up on four feet, stretched its middle talltallTALL and strolled across the ice. When it reached the steps, it neatly jumped over them, landing on the linoleum with a solid thump.

  It stayed where it was for a second or two, taking stock, Agnes thought, then stropped itself once against her leg and moved deeper into the kitchen, bushy tail held high.

  Agnes smiled, and shut the door.

  Feline Fancy

  The Cat's Job

  by Steve Miller

  "The cat's job is to be pretty!" Sheila said with some asperity. "That's all a cat in my house has to do. Purr once in awhile, let me touch it, and be pretty. What more would you have a cat do?"

  Greg shook his head sadly. They'd only moved in together three days ago and things had looked so bright. This might not work out after all...

  "Well, for starters, I expect the cat to sleep in the same room I do. It helps guard against things that come in the night. It gets the flies that buzz around in the summer. It kills the smelly socks, finds the balled up trash paper, hides the extra pens and puts them away -- normal stuff for a cat -- and it reminds us the world is not run for our convenience."

  The cat at hand was majestically above such discussions. So gray it was nearly blue, with a large squarish face and a wonderful tuft of fur on each large ear, this was no ordinary cat. This was the cat who lived here. It felt, without ever putting it into so many words, of course, that what a cat does is solely up to the cat.

  "Come now, Greg. Really, I don't mind your cat sleeping in the same room with us, though I don't think it ought to stare at us that way when we make love. I don't even mind if it sleeps at the foot of the bed. But I don't think we have to keep that stupid bag of his..."

  "Hers! I told you that ‘Landy' is short for Mrs. Landsdale!"

  "Whatever! Just let me get rid of that bag!"

  "Sheila..." he said and now the argument moved out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

  Landy continued to sit serene on the kitchen floor for several moments and then jumped without preamble to the table, with a good view of the bag.

  The argument wandered around the townhouse as the couple got ready to go out. It stayed for a few moments in the bathroom while he shaved; it meandered into the bedroom while she changed her blouse twice, decrying the weather forecast, then it moved into the upstairs hall as he searched again for the new can of deodorant in the linen closet.

  "But you were serious," she said again. "I like you, Greg. I love you. I like Landy. But I know when you're being serious and I don't think people are going to think we're quite sane if we keep a beat-up old grocery bag on the kitchen floor all of the time. You sounded so damn serious and convincing last night when you told everyone that Landy's job was to guard the monster in the bag!"

  Slowly into the front bedroom went the argument, the bedroom that doubled as the electronic entertainment center. "I promised him a tape last night. Somewhere. Somewhere..." Greg said as he stared at the wallful of tapes, until finally saying, "ta-da!"

  He turned to Sheila as if finding the tape had made his point.

  "Sheila, listen to me. Landy has been with me ever since she was a kitten. Seven years. In those seven years she's had two or three toys, a couple of pets, and a couple of jobs. You know, things that she took a shine to and played with or watched or what-have-you. I want to keep her happy, because I've only had good luck since she's been with me. So what if I say she catches the monsters? It keeps me happy and it keeps her happy. It can keep you happy, too, if you'll give it a shot."

  Downstairs, from the kitchen table, Landy spotted a subtle movement in the bag. She was positive that the little bunch of paper there in the back, next to the second crease north of the red "F" in Frank's Foodarama had moved again. Twice this week it had moved!

  Cautiously, Landy moved herself to alert, changing her casual side-lean into a genuine crouch. Her ears were near tuft-forward, she was concentrating so hard, and all four feet were firmly under her. She didn't try to control her tail; the tip of it started the count of a proper launch rhythm as she waited.

  Now the bag appeared to puff a little, to expand.

  They were trying to sneak through, again. Hah! As if she'd ever let one in without a tussle!

  NOW!

  The ugly green-black of the silent tentacle slid out of the bag, slowly, as if testing the air, as if vivid memory might have lent some caution...

  Landy leapt, uttering a war-cry a thousand generations old as she pounced on the very tip of the insidious invading pseudopod.

  She felt it move as she landed on it, felt it try to wriggle away to the left and she attacked it there, too, threatening to get her good, strong claws into the ugly flesh and drag it into the light, to blind it forever and then carry her trophy to Greg...

  That fast it was gone, withdrawn into the world that two-legged people can't see at all and which cats -- special, big gray cats -- can sense just the edge of.

  Greg stood at the top of the stairs, a proud grin on his face, a grin punctuated by laughter and the soothing call of "Good Landy, brave Landy! You saved the world again!"

  "And that noise!" came Sheila's voice, half in laughter. "What will the neighbors think is going on over here?"

  Sheila stepped from the bedroom, found herself swept into a strenuous hug.

  "Lady of mine, it comes to this. Landy stays with me because I feed her and appreciate her for what she does, not just because she's another pretty face or because she purrs good. And what she does best is save the world. If I convince some of our party-hearty friends that she saves the world, what's to hurt? It's only the truth. Getting rid of her bag would be like forcing her to retire. Let's let her keep the bag, and that way you get to keep me..."

  She hugged back, shaking her head.

  "I still think you're serious," she said as she gently bit him on the nose. "But you're right, I do want to keep you...and if that means keeping the world's bravest cat happy, we can do it."

  "Good," he said, and leaned the hug into a firm kiss as they stood on the landing at the top of the stairs.

  Down blow, Landy had barely caught her breath, and now...the wrinkle above the first "A" in Foodarama twitched, very, very slightly.

  Landy ignored the couple, eyes and tufted ears intent. You never knew when the world might need saving!

  Feline Fancy

  The King of the Cats

  by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

  The most important man in the universe sat at ease behind his desk-counter while a pair of leather-clad mercenaries moved toward him, bags in hand. He shook his head, and was annoyed when they continued forward. The effrontery of such creatures, he thought, moving his foot toward the pedal that would summon Security, expecting to be rented a room in his hyatt!

  "You've got a suite reserved for us," said the woman, dropping a bag onto the polished countertop. "Name's Robertson."

  Secure in the knowledge that no one on Staff was stupid enough to have taken such a reservation, he replied coolly.

  "I am certain you must be mistaken. Of course we have no --" For effect, he let his eyes touch the reservation board -- and stopped in mid-sentence.

  It was there: ROBERTSON, in cheery yellow letters and -- the deskmaster barely contained his rage: They'd rented the most expensive suite for an entire week! He'd not have his hyatt turned into a rowdy, drunken love-nest for --

  "Hey, not today fella, OK?" said the red-haired woman in her low-class Terran accent. "Just give us the card."

  "I am sorry -- madam," he said in his most condescending voice; "but it is my policy not to permit mercenaries here. Our illustrious patrons..."

  "Will be honored by our presence," said the startlingly mannered voice
of the man. "Please, our card."

  The manager's toe touched the silent switch; in seconds Security would rid him of this nuisance.

  The woman's hand moved, and a coin landed, spinning, on the counter.

  The deskmaster gulped.

  On many worlds a Liaden cantra is equivalent to an average yearly income. Settling slowly before him was a one twelve cantra piece.

  "We won't mess up your playground, pal. And if we do, we got enough to cover the damage." She swept the coin up. "Now. My name's Robertson and I got a reservation. Card, accazi?"

  Security arrived then and was summarily waved back by the deskmaster.

  Hastily, he produced the card in question; pressed a key to summon busbots.

  "We'll carry our own," said the woman and the pair hefted their belongings, leaving the mechanicals scurrying in bewildered circles.

  The most important man in the universe was still staring at the spot where the coin had been when his shift relief arrived.

  #

  Red-haired Miri Robertson sighed deeply as she walked into the center of the suite's parlor. Behind her, she heard the door slide shut and a faint chime as Val Con coded the lock.

  She turned and grinned.

  "Ain't every day you meet somebody that important."

  "True," he said, lips twitching. "I hope you were impressed."

  "I hope he gets fired. Almost worth buying the hyatt for the pleasure of doing it myself." She yawned suddenly. "I'm beat. Next time we go off to save somebody else's bacon we'll have to put in a shut-eye requisition. Gonna sleep for a month. You coming?"

  "On your heels," he murmured, reaching to his belt and unhooking the pellet gun. "Though perhaps not an entire month -- ?"

  "Yeah, well, if you wake up first, order breakfast and call me when it gets here. Just don't -- Val Con."

  He glanced up. "Yes?"

  "You're fading."

  His dark brows pulled together. "Fading, cha'trez?"