Catacombs by Anne McCaffrey Read Free Book Online

her kittens will stay with the woman Mesi and her lamentably catless family, who dwell in the circle nearest the temple entrance. It will be such a blessing for them to have kittens in their midst.”
    He went on and on, sometimes putting Barque Cats with native cats, sometimes in catless homes with humans he said would feel honored to finally have a sacred feline, even one of an inferior species, gracing their home.
    Jubal and I took our fellow refugees to meet each host. The human hosts promptly carried our cats off to their homes. I expected a certain amount of protest from the cats whose abodes were being invaded, but Pshaw-Ra told me he had picked each home specifically because of the hospitable nature of the resident feline deity. Again I was surprised he had been able to see beyond the end of his own whiskers long enough to figure out who had hospitable natures and who didn’t.
    My sire Space Jockey was invited to stay with the queen. Better him than me.
    The communications officer, Beulah; the second mate, Felicia Daily; and the medic, Guillame Pinot, were assigned quarters at the edge of town with three different catless families so as not to burden any one family unduly, Pshaw-Ra explained.
    “
Divide and conquer?
” Jubal muttered under his breath when I transmitted the last instructions to him.
    Pshaw-Ra, who had been prancing, tail curled high over his back, to and fro, from cat to human and back to another cat again to indicate his choices to us, finally relaxed and sat down to wash his feet.
    Most of the Barque Cats and a lot of the native cats and people still milled around the temple. “What about the rest of them?”
    Pshaw-Ra kept washing. “What of them? I have made the special assignments. Everyone else can pick up a guest and go home. I suggest we do the same.”
    ———
    By the time they left the temple, the outside was as dim as the inside had been. Pshaw-Ra did not leave with them, Jubal was somewhat relieved to find, but the round man the captain had first approached led them to the house where they’d been assigned. He stood outside the door opening, which was covered with a beaded curtain, and gestured that they should go inside. “Thanks,” Jubal said.
    “It is nothing. Make yourselves comfortable. This house is for you,” he said, looking at Chester. Soft lights bloomed from unseen sources as he entered. The little house was wonderfully cool and its furnishings pretty simple—a bed, a chair and table, a little round bed on a sisal-covered pedestal, and four blue pottery bowls, two on the table holding what seemed to be dried fish and fruit, and two on the floor, one that held dried fish, the other water. There were also a few storage baskets and bowls lining the wall.
    A small enclosure held a fairly conventional toilet and sink and a box of sand.
    There was a real door as well, and Jubal closed it. The beaded curtain appeared to act as a kind of screen door.
    Toys!
Chester cried delightedly, and began scrabbling through a basket until he dumped it onto the floor. Balls and wiggly things spilled out. Around the top of the room was a long shelf. Chester hopped onto the cat bed and from there leaped to the shelf and peered down, chin resting on paws, at Jubal. He rubbed his face against the ceiling, both marking it and pushing at the boundary.
I smell air
, he said.
    With a nudge of his nose, he opened a hole in the ceiling and slipped through it. He stood with his front paws on the roof, his back paws still on the ledge. His tail flicked back and forth as he looked.
There’s one of those ship things on the side. Looks like all of these houses have a personal pyramid ship, like a smaller version of Pshaw-Ra’s, in the yard. And there’s the temple over there
.
    He drew himself back inside and began washing his white paws, which were now a dusty tan. His chest, only a little whiter, was next.
    Jubal yawned. The excitement had worn off.
You go ahead and take a bath. You’ve had a few