Kitty Katt 11: Alien Separation (29 page)

M
OTIONED THE GUYS OVER.
“Um, Saffron says that things are dire.”

She waved her antennae again. Time was indeed of the essence, and she felt we needed to hurry up, because soon was going to come faster than we wanted. On the plus side, Saffron felt we had time to sleep, regroup, and possibly even raid the castle and visit the All Seeing Mountain. So soon was, apparently, a relative term.

“Ah. However, I guess, we still have time to do all the things we'd like to do here, like taking in the sights and taking over the castle.” Managed not to ask why she felt this was helpful information, then reminded myself that it was her world and people who were in danger.

“I realize the katyhoppers, just like everyone else, are in danger, but how does this help us?” Chuckie asked, reading my mind again. Yep, we had a katyhopper nearby.

Saffron waved her antennae again. Got the impression she'd just heaved a huge katyhopper sigh.

“Ah, gotcha. I asked Saffron to read Usha's mind. She was confirming what you guys got out of Usha. But Usha doesn't know the whole plan. However, she's been activated—she was stationed in the castle, working as one of the King's Guard. And the king is who activated her to try to find and raid Haven.”

“So that confirms that the king is a puppet for the Z'porrah, or whoever else is against the freedom of this planet,” Chuckie said. “Honestly, the big question is why? Why is this planet important to anyone? Especially since no one else seems to have discovered the special abilities the katyhoppers and strautruch possess. And since there's no mining, it seems unlikely that anyone's figured out that the core of this world is valuable, either.”

“Which leads to my question—do we storm the castle first, or do we go to the top of the All Seeing Mountain as our next stop?”

“Mountain,” Jeff said. “It's the one place none of us have been, even fleetingly. Unless James or the others have been.”

Christopher shook his head. “They haven't. And they haven't seen Jamie or Paul, either. Or Abigail, Rahmi, or Rhee.”

“So they're either in the Greenland area, on the top of the mountain, or they're not on this planet.” Didn't know what I wanted to wish for, other than having Jamie back in our arms right this moment, which I knew wasn't going to happen.

Tried not to panic about her, but I was tired, and the panic started to come anyway. Jeff's hand was on the back of my neck, gently massaging, in a flash. “It'll be fine, baby,” he said quietly. “We'll find her and she'll be fine.”

“Jamie has ACE inside her,” Chuckie reminded me. “ACE is allowed to protect himself, and therefore Jamie, and we all know he's not going to let anything happen to Paul, either.”

“The best thing we can do for all of them is get some rest, get some food, and then get going,” Christopher said. Rightly. “I realize we ate already, but I've expended a lot of energy and the guys, excuse me,
Nihalani
are starving, and the rest of you look like you could use another meal, too.”

“Yes, but we're back to the issue of what we do with Usha, though,” I pointed out. “Jeff seems to be against killing her, and using her as a bargaining chip of some kind does make sense.”

“They don't have prisons or anything like them here,” Christopher said. “I asked when I took the others back to the village.”

“This world is so unlike ours, or the others in this system. I don't get it. The moment you look closely, nothing seems normal. Oh, and Christopher, did you notice that the sound of water anywhere we went wasn't too loud?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I just sort of added it to the list of things that are strange about this planet, though.”

Jeff looked around, and moved the five of us away from the others so there was no way they would hear us. “Saffron, I'm actually sure that your people already know or suspect this. But in case you don't, this is just a guess of mine. However, based on everything we're seeing, I think this world was specifically created, versus evolving like the rest of the populated planets we know about have.”

Saffron waved her antennae. “She agrees. The Matriarchs suspect this, but haven't been able to prove it. The general belief, by the way, is that the Father of the Gods created this world in his image.”

“So just like our creation stories on Earth,” Chuckie said.

I nodded, but I was still thinking about what I'd said. I knew Algar had a vested interest in this planet. That he was the Father of the Gods was a safe bet, especially because he'd been hanging out on Alpha Four for millennia, cleaning the Royal Family's laundry and such and providing them with whatever their version of Coca-Cola was at the drop of a hat, which had to have gotten dull.

Really wanted a Coke badly now. Pushed the desire to ask my purse for one aside and went back to thinking.

So he sees a planet in the solar system. A planet with a core that's hugely valuable all over the galaxy, meaning a planet ripe for mining and destruction—which would be likely to destroy all the life on said planet.

And a planet whose entire core was made up of valuable elements that had no indigenous life on it that could fight back or plead their case was a planet that was probably going to end up a husk or destroyed. The results of which could negatively affect the entire solar system's orbits and such, not to mention giving whoever was mining the place all the destructive materials they'd ever need to wipe everyone else and themselves out of existence.

Just like Mephistopheles had.

Normally, though, valuable core or not, it's not a big deal—there's life on the planet, after all. In some instances that wouldn't be the case. But the beings in this solar system who are in charge are also being influenced by Algar, meaning they're likely to leave this planet and its people alone.
If
those people are showing clear signs of sentience.

Maybe the life-forms on this planet aren't progressing like the others, though. Maybe there's no progression that's possible for them or the planet in reality. Maybe the core of the world makes normal evolution impossible for some reason, or taints the soil in some way, so that the world would never be any place where sentient life could blossom and evolve up the brain food chain.

But Algar knows how to fix all that. Sure it's a risk, but there are so many populated planets in this system, who's going to notice one more? He's bored, he's not supposed to interfere—based on his own rules, versus the Black Hole Universe People's rules—but is it really interference? Not if he does it
fairly
. Plus, this could be how he's planning to make up for allowing Mephistopheles to destroy multiple worlds and billions of lives—by not allowing that to be repeated in this solar system.

Ergo to be
fair
, he uplifts every single creature on the planet, meaning all of them now will have free will. Some will evolve past this initial uplift and some won't, but that's okay because it's a fair fight at the start.

He creates a special continent for them, or alters the makeup of the continent they're on. He makes special places on that continent for them, too. For whatever reason, he wants the continent to be strangely set up, but he can swing that as well by making this planet conform and look just enough like some planets near the galactic core, at least superficially, that seeing one out here won't cause too much speculation from the various superconciousnesses and Black Hole Universe People who might notice. And he seeds each place with something special in some way. Some good things, some bad things, maybe. Areas better to live in—like Haven and the Purple Lands—along with others that aren't as well set up initially.

He has an underground area set up that powers the planet, so that all the special extras he's added in, like major climate control and muffling the sound of water, will run safely and effectively forever. Warp tunnels are added so that he, or his agents, can travel and survive in the world quickly and without necessarily being spotted. Or else they're there to help power the world or some such and the tunnel effect is just a happy benefit.

After all, Haven might not be the only underground country here, or it might be. He can see how they do living underground versus how they do living on volcanic rock or literally on water.

He affects the world itself so that it gives off no obvious clues that it's different and valuable, in large part by affecting the world's gravity. Meaning the orbs are probably powering that as well, or the warp tunnels are, or both. Presumably the spiral worlds have different aspects to them than “normal” worlds, so he can do his thing and inquiring minds will ignore Beta Eight, seeing it as just another planet with intelligent life in an already crowded solar system.

And then Algar watches and waits to see what happens on the Free Will World.

That nothing untoward had really happened for a long time was indicated by the fact that no one in the Alpha Centauri solar system had paid attention to this planet beyond a cursory look. They'd decided the Lecanora were the dominant species, based on numbers and their uplift having taken them the Bipedal Way that the rest of the spacefaring planets had gone. Their Bronze Age level meant the planet would be left alone.

Only it wasn't being left alone now.

The Ancients and the Z'porrah couldn't resist meddling in the affairs of lesser beings, and Algar and the rest of the Black Hole Universe People were as far above the Ancients and Z'porrah as those were above us.

“I know that look,” Chuckie said. “What are you thinking?”

Proof, as if I'd needed it, that Algar had my mind locked when I was thinking about him. But everyone was looking at me, meaning I had to say something. “I'm thinking that Jeff's right. I think the Father of the Gods is a real person, just as we are, and I think he's the one who truly made this world the way it is.”

“You think he's who pulled all of us out here?” Jeff asked.

“No. I think he's the one who ensured that we all landed where we did. Specifically where we did.” Meaning that, wherever Jamie and the others were, Algar had put them there on purpose. And I had to trust that Algar wasn't going to put my little girl in extreme danger any more than ACE would.

“So you agree with Jeff, that this world was far more created than ours?” Christopher asked.

“Yeah, I think Jeff's nailed it—this place is manmade, so to speak. There's too much that's unnatural for a planet. Sure, the girls think spirals like this exist elsewhere, but they have to be rare and I'd just bet that on those worlds it works far more randomly than here—no clear-cut divisions, more random borders, and so forth. This world is too . . . neat. Haven is too perfect—like it's climate and sound controlled. That doesn't happen in nature. But it can happen in an artificially created place.”

Chuckie nodded. “Yes, it can. And this makes Jeff's choice even more correct—something's going on up at the top of that mountain, and we need to know what it is before we take on a ruling monarch.”

“Right. But we have a dangerous prisoner. What are we going to do with her?”

Saffron waved her antennae. I raised my eyebrow. She waved some more. I gave in.

“Huh. Okay. Um, well, that's different.”

“W
HAT'S DIFFERENT?”
Chuckie asked.

“Saffron seems to think that if she covers Usha with her butt juices it'll work just like we've tied her up from head to toe and Usha won't be able to break free. And before you all ask, yes, Usha will still be able to breathe.”

“Then let's do it,” Jeff said. “I'll carry her if it works.”

“Glad Saffron's on our side,” Christopher said, speaking for all of us. Saffron gave him a gentle shove with her front legs, while explaining that this was the katyhopper version of a gentle punch to the arm between friends. Christopher grinned and nudged her back.

Then she trotted over to Usha, who started the whole rend and destroy stuff again. She reminded me a lot of Kyrellis but without the style. Clearly the Free Women had more going on in terms of trash talking than the Ancients. Go evolution.

I joined Saffron. “Usha, stop your blah, blah, blah. Trust me, right now, you want your mouth closed.”

“Why?” she asked, as I hauled her to her feet.

“We're going to contain but not kill you. Consider yourself lucky.”

“No prison can contain me—” she started. Right when Saffron started spraying. Had the feeling Saffron wanted to shut Usha up as much as the rest of us did.

I leaped out of the way, but Saffron had great aim, which was particularly impressive since she couldn't see where she was spraying. Usha slammed her mouth shut just in time, at least so far as I could tell.

Saffron walked around Usha, spraying as she went. She never missed and didn't hit anyone else. Noted that her spray was far more streamlined than when she and the others had been spraying out a protective wall back at the cavern.

“Amazing,” Jeff said when she was done. “When will Usha, ah, be dry enough to pick up?”

Saffron waved antenna. She shared the drying time and the fact that this was something katyhopper youngsters did for fun—sprayed each other to learn how to better control their most important protective asset.

“Give it about a minute, Jeff. And Saffron says it was no big, though I'm still hella impressed over here.”

Got the gentle shove from Saffron, which I returned. While we waited our requisite minute I had the Poofs go back to small and into my purse. Bruno flew over to Saffron and perched on her back, which she seemed amenable to.

Then Jeff heaved Usha over his shoulder. Her body wasn't able to bend, and I tapped on the outside. It was as if she was cocooned in fiberglass. Worked for me.

“Need help?” Chuckie asked.

Jeff nodded. “Only because it's awkward with her being rigid.”

Chuckie took Frozen Usha's feet and Jeff had her head and shoulders, then they gave hyperspeed a try. It worked, and they zipped off, with an admonition for the rest of us to hurry it up. King Benny asked Binalla to help him handle the five other Lecanora, so Christopher had them link paws, grabbed them and Saffron, who still had Bruno with her, and followed after the others.

“What do you think, traitors or fools?” I asked Fancy as I picked Ginger up and held her with her front paws wrapped around my neck. Took hold of Fancy's paw and she and I brought up the rear at the slow version of hyperspeed. I didn't want to take an hour or more to get back to the village, but I did want to talk to her, woman to woman.

“Honestly, foolish more than fools. I think they were wooed with the idea that they would move up in the clan and Musgraff's regard if they brought in the so-called castouts. Usha has not impressed any of you, but she was convincing for those who do not have the Gods' wisdom.”

“Or the wisdom that comes with leadership.”

“Exactly.” Fancy sighed. “If all goes as you plan, perhaps Musgraff should be who you put onto the throne.”

“Are you saying that from a lack of desire to be a monarch, the worry about having to leave Haven or leave your people here in Haven without your immediate leadership, or are you worried that the people on this world won't listen to you because you're a female?”

She was quiet as we waited for her answer. “A little of all of those,” she said finally.

“The katyhoppers come from a matriarchal society. They won't have an issue with a female on the Lecanora throne.”

Fancy nodded. “I see how you counsel with them. You hold them in high regard. Perhaps one of them should rule.”

I was impressed by the insight. “I would agree. However, the Lecanora have the highest population on the planet, meaning that they need to be ruled by someone they can relate to and respect.”

She shook her head. “We are already ruled by someone we cannot relate to and whom most of us cannot respect. The katyhoppers are actually from our world.”

“I think whoever does end up ruling, they're going to need to create alliances with the katyhoppers and the strautruch as well. And any other sentient groups we may not have met yet.” After all, there were a variety of sections we hadn't hit—for all I knew there were brilliant lava monsters in the Black section and talking dolphins in the Blue one. At this point, had to figure that I wasn't going to be surprised by anything else Planet Colorful tossed at me.

“As you say, Shealla. I will do what the Gods advise.”

“Only as long as you feel our counsel is wise and good. I don't care who it is, even us—no one should force you or your people to do something evil or wrong, not in the name of the Gods, nationality, or whatever.”

“And it is because you say that, Shealla, that I know you are a true God.” She squeezed my hand. “I thank you, you and the other Gods, for gracing us with your presence.”

Felt embarrassed and more than a little like a charlatan. “Let's just get things taken care of first, before we go for the ticker tape parade.”

“I don't understand you, Shealla.”

“So few ever do, Fancy. So few ever do.”

We reached the village to find everyone else having a quick meal. The villagers were reeling from the news that their village leader had been murdered and that they'd been listening to an imposter for a good couple of years.

Fancy got things under control, and the presence of the Black Wolverines helped, too, though it was clear they made most of the villagers nervous. However, they were eating and socializing, particularly the otters with King Benny and the striped gang with Skunky. Got the strong impression that the otters in particular were King Benny's close relatives, and the striped ones seemed awfully close to Skunky, too.

While we ate, guarding arrangements were made, mostly by my assigning the Poofs, Bruno, Ginger, and Wilbur to guard Usha's body. The katyhoppers and strautruch offered to help guard as well, and there were enough of them that we felt they could sleep in shifts and also warn us if anyone else identified as an Amazonian Ancient Assassin. We left all of them in the group sleeping area we'd been assigned to by Usha when she was pretending to be Under-Clan Leader Karason.

The Black Wolverines were spread out within a variety of homes, just as the Gypsy Clan was. Hopefully this would mean they all made friends, rather than earn the enmity of everyone in this village.

Patrina was praised for her being the one to alert me that something was wrong. Her parents seemed dazed by all the kudos she and they were getting. Had the strong suspicion that Patrina's family were on the more destitute side of the outcast group. Made a mental note to request that everyone get an equal portion of whatever lands they were going to be assigned in Haven. But that was something for later, once we knew if we were going to actually overthrow a king successfully or not.

Since we now knew Karason was dead, and since he also had a large home to match his rank, as soon as our newest arrivals were brought up to speed on everything we'd done, learned, and guessed, we Gods split up into different rooms in order to get some sleep. The four couples each got a small room, with the rest of the guys in the next largest room in the home. Most of these rooms weren't sleeping rooms, but the other Lecanora brought in more of the comfy floor bedding and we all figured out how to make do.

It was nice to be alone with Jeff in a room, but the reality of this situation was that I'd never managed to be quiet when we were having sex, and as much as I wanted to do the deed, I didn't think it would help our God Images to have me howling like an ocellar in heat.

Jeff picked it up of course. He grinned and pulled me to him. “I think we can be quiet, baby.”

“So far, my track record would indicate that you're a crazy optimist on that one. And trust me, there's no soundproofing around here.”

“Unless you're water. And while I'd love to suggest a romantic swim, these people use the river for far too many things for us to fool around there.”

“The water's probably cold, too. Then again, since its sound is muffled, we should see if it's cold or not. But later. Like after we've had some sexless sleep later.” Tried to keep the frustrated disappointment out of my tone, but I knew I didn't succeed because Jeff's grin got wider.

“We should have gone for it in those tunnels,” he said with a laugh, as he nuzzled my neck. “We could make it a game . . . can you stay quiet and can I make you happy that you're staying quiet.”

“Mmmm . . . ah . . . yeah . . .” Jeff's lips and tongue were on one of the areas in my neck that made me squirm in all the good ways.

He ran his mouth up to my ear. “I say we try it,” he whispered. “And I also say you're going to obey me and do exactly what I say, when I say it.” He bit my earlobe gently. “And the first rule is that you have to be quiet—not silent, but quiet. Or else I'll stop doing all the things you like.”

He ran his tongue along part of my jaw and then back to my neck. I wanted to wail.

“You . . . are totally . . . evil,” I managed to gasp out. But quietly.

Felt him smile against my neck. “You have no idea, baby. But you're about to find out.”