Kitty Katt 11: Alien Separation (31 page)

“W
ELL,
this is different.”

“How's that?” Reader asked as he put Wilbur down, while Fancy did the same with Ginger. “I mean, I ask because I have to assume you're thinking what I'm thinking, which is that we're in trouble. Again.”

“Oh, I am. But there've been people at the other doors, either trying to open them or coming in. This is a first for no one being at the special door.”

“Perhaps they did not wait for us,” Fancy suggested.

“Possibly not.” Pulled out my Glock. Safety was off, go me, Most Careless Gun Handler in the Galaxy. “Civil War” was still playing. Not sure what that meant for this situation, but figured caution was always the better part of avoiding getting my head blown off. “However, I'm not betting that way.”

Reader pulled his gun, too. “Kitty, make sure the animals stay behind you and stay quiet.”

“Wilbur, Ginger, you two stay with Fancy and protect her. Only help if Kitty and James need it. James, I've got hyperspeed, Jeff, Chuckie, and Christopher aren't here, and I outrank you, so I'm leading.”

He sighed. “Fine.”

“And the ocellar, chocho, and I are coming, too,” Fancy said. “In case you've forgotten, I'm a warrior, and a leader of warriors.” Apparently they had sarcasm knobs on Planet Colorful just like everywhere else. Fancy was at a good seven on the scale.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. Just follow James and let's all stay very, very quiet.”

“I doubt we're hunting wabbits,” Reader said.

“On this planet, dude, truly, who knows?”

We moved forward slowly. Hyperspeed meant I could go out and do a fast reconnaissance. However, for whatever reason, speedy just didn't feel like the way to go. My iPod switching to “Slow” by Fuel being a large part of why.

As we edged out, noted that there were no snakipede bodies around anymore. Maybe the Poofs had eaten them—it was possible and my Poofies had to be hungry. However, I didn't bet on that. There was also no blood around—the snow that never fell here was pristine.

The Amazonian Ancient's body was still there. This was weird. Maybe something had eaten up or cleaned up the snakipede bodies. But if so, why leave a different carcass around?

“Fancy,” I whispered, “do the Snow Globe Beetles eat dead animal remains?”

“Yes, Shealla,” she replied in kind. “It is my understanding that every region has insect carrion eaters who eat the remains of the dead. They would eat the blood, too, in case you're wondering why the area is again clean and clear.”

“Yeah, I was so wondering.”

“Then why is that body still here?” Reader asked. Wasn't sure if he was somehow in on the mind-reading plan, or if it was just such an obvious question, but since I saw no katyhoppers around, assumed it was the latter.

“No idea,” Fancy replied. “At all, Leader of the Nihalani.”

Interesting that Reader had the leader title for his warrior group. Made sense, but again, we were all slotting far too well into this world's Assigned God Roles.

However, we had other problems, and I focused on them. The others were literally nowhere to be seen.

I looked at the dead body again. The eyes were opened, and it had been moved. “James, Fancy, Wilbur, and Ginger—stay where we are, but focus on the body. Is there anything on or near it that could be considered to be a trap? I ask because everyone else is gone but last night the body was in a different spot, and I know that, because I closed her eyes.”

“Why?” Fancy asked. “Why did you close her eyes, I mean?”

“It's a sign of respect for the dead where we come from.”

“Ah. The Gods respect their enemies as well as their friends.”

“I can't see anything out of the ordinary, girlfriend, but I'm the last one of our group to be able to, so . . .”

Wilbur was sniffing like mad, and he whined softly.

“Wilbur can't see anything, but he smells something wrong. He can lead us around the wrong so we don't touch it. So, everyone, single file behind Wilbur. Fancy, please carry Ginger, just in case.”

Ginger made a soft growl-meow. She wasn't a kit, thank you very much.

“No, Ginger. I think we may have to launch you at someone or something. I'm having Fancy hold you so that she can use you as her weapon.”

This earned a purr. Ginger was fine with being a commando.

Wilbur led us out slowly and he gave the body wide berth. I could see lots of footprints now. They reached spots near the body and then they just disappeared.

“The body's trapped in some way for sure.” Nodded my head at the footsteps. “Meaning everyone else has been captured. They were moving fast enough that they'd have run or flown right into it.”

“Why wouldn't Bruno or the Poofs, or the katyhoppers and strautruch have spotted it?” Reader asked.

“Too fast, too hidden, they don't have pig-dog noses, would be my guesses.”

“Chochos have incredible senses of smell,” Fancy confirmed, as we got around the body and we all relaxed a bit. “What do we do now?”

Considered our options. “We have no idea who took them or where they went. Our force is now down to five and however many Poofs are in my purse.”

Checked. We had a lot of Poofs. Meaning the Poofs had been able to escape the trap. Or rather, the Poofs had been captured, and were now with the team who could perform the rescue. Only they were all snoozing. Pointedly. Meaning rescuing the team probably wasn't Job One. The song changed to “Band on the Run” by Paul McCartney and Wings. Rescuing the team clearly wasn't Job One.

“You want to go to the top of the mountain, don't you?” Reader asked.

I did, and not just because Algar and the Poofs were giving me such broad hints. “Yes, because ever since we've heard about it, something has been stopping all of us from getting there. I think we need to see what's there, and if that means it's just those of us here who see it, then so be it.”

“The fastest way is quite steep, Shealla,” Fancy said. “The chocho in particular will have a difficult time.”

Wilbur whined. He didn't want to be left behind. Not ever, but especially when we were going on what appeared to be a dangerous mission. I didn't want to leave him anyway, plus we might need his chocho nose again.

“Then I'll carry him.”

“He's heavy, Kitty,” Reader reminded me.

Dropped my Glock back into my purse, hefted Wilbur up, and slung him over my shoulders like he was a chocho wrap. “He's not heavy, he's my pig-dog brother.”

“Let's hope not.” Reader flashed me the cover boy grin. “You going to be able to run us all up there?”

“Yep, not even tired. Per the girls this is an oxygen-rich planet. Fancy, you lead, I'll provide the speed.”

“You're rhyming a lot, girlfriend. Oxygen-rich or just a poet and you don't know it?”

“I'll exchange grade school quips with you later, James. Right now, we're on a mission and I'm wearing the heaviest fur stole in the universe.”

He laughed as Fancy shifted Ginger to her hip so she had a paw free. Then I grabbed his hand and her paw, and we took off.

T
HE MOUNTAIN WASN'T
all that wide or impressive—but what it lacked in pizazz it made up for in height. The terrain was interesting, in that this was the midpoint for the spiral, so I could see other lands pretty easily.

There was no way the snowy height of Iceland should be snugly up against the rocky yellow terrain. The Yellow Land also had a completely different kind of rocky setup—high peaks and lots of them, not a mesa to be seen. I could see the Purple Land in the not-too-distant distance, and it just started where the Yellow Land stopped, as if a line had been drawn. I was certain by now that a line was exactly what had been drawn for each border.

The Black Land, by contrast, was comfortably against Iceland but at a much lower elevation. However, there were the remains of volcanic eruption in evidence, which stopped dead at the Iceland border with absolutely no overlap of any kind. We were able to verify this close up, because the fastest way up to the top began where this color's spiral started. This part of the world smelled like licorice tasted, and also like coal looked. There were border guards, so to speak, but they were few, far between, and easily avoided at hyperspeed.

“Can we take a look all the way around the mountain before we go up?” Reader asked. “If it won't tire you out too much, Kitty.”

My music changed to “Around the World” by The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Clearly Reader's plan was one Algar agreed with.

“I should be fine. We can always stop and rest if I have to. Is it safe for us to do that, though, Fancy?”

“I don't know why not,” she replied. “This area is always kept open for any and all to approach the Mountain.”

“Your king allows this?”

“If he did not, Shealla, then none would follow him. The All Seeing Mountain sits at the heart of our beliefs. No one who lives on our world can be denied access to it. That is our one inviolate law.”

Interesting, but not necessarily surprising. Whoever had put this world in place—and my money was still all on Algar—they clearly wanted their uplifted races to have equal access to whatever was up there.

So we zipped along the road that encircled the mountain. It was nice and wide, and though there weren't a lot of people out and about, there were enough. I had to run us past a variety of the Lecanora, some of whom were clearly making their Up The Mountain Pilgrimage.

Other than confirming that the Blue Land was indeed all water with buildings of all kinds floating on it and a lot of otters, minks, and beavers representing for the Lecanora, it wasn't someplace I wanted to stay too long, mostly because I wasn't up to running fast enough to run us all on top of the water, and the jumping we had to do from floating bridge to floating bridge was disruptive enough that I wasn't sure we wouldn't dump some unsuspecting Lecanora into the water or be discovered, or both.

The Blue Waterway—really, once I'd seen it, calling it a Land seemed ridiculous—smelled like air, and sky, and water, but the wrong kind of water. Not that it smelled stagnant or anything like that, but it also didn't smell like ocean. Frankly, it didn't smell much at all, though scent was there—but the smell here was almost ethereal.

The next song up was Coldplay's “Glass of Water.” Seemed like a hint to me. Risked stopping at the border, put Wilbur down for a moment, and put my hand into the water. Licked my fingers. “It's freshwater. Not salt.”

“Of course it is,” Fancy said, sounding confused. “What would we drink if the water was salty?”

“Rain water? Snow melt?”

She shook her head. “We have none of that.”

“That's impossible.” In a normal world. In the world of Planet Colorful, though, it probably was possible. The power orbs might be controlling the weather, or lack thereof, too.

“Let's keep moving,” Reader said. “You can discuss this with Reynolds when we find him and the others.”

He was right, so I just hoisted Wilbur back up and we took off again.

Reaching Greenland was a relief, but only insofar as we could stop jumping and teetering and almost falling into the water. As with the Black Land, there were border guards but they were as easily evaded as the others had been. However, in addition to being the greenest place I'd ever seen, there was something different in the air here.

Like everywhere else, the scent here was green, combined with smelling like a tart apple tastes, while not actually smelling
like
apples. But that wasn't what felt wrong. There was a tenseness in the air, a tang, and it was fighting with the green scent.

“There's something really rotten in this particular Denmark.”

“The king,” Reader said. “But we have a different goal right now.”

Reader was right again, so we zipped on, going faster through the Bronze and Purple Lands, simply because we'd been there before. I breathed their scents in deeply, though—they helped get the tang from Greenland out of my system.

Back to the Black Lands and the supposedly fastest trail to the top. The trail, if you could call it that, was steep, narrow, and treacherous. This was so par for our course that I didn't even comment. It was hard to hyperspeed with four others dependent upon my skills and I really missed Christopher.

“Do we need to go at regular speeds?” Reader asked as I ratcheted down to the slow version of hyperspeed.

“Not really. I'm just having issues with control and this is safer. It so figures that the fastest way up is also the most dangerous.”

“It's the least dangerous,” Fancy countered. “Each path has dangers on it, Shealla. This path is the steepest, so its dangers are less.”

“Fantastic. Why is it a gauntlet in order to get up to look up into the sky?”

“Because every worthwhile goal requires sacrifice, courage, and perseverance to achieve.”

“Cannot argue with that mindset.”

“Good, because it is something you, Shealla, said to our forebears so very long ago.”

“Go me and the pithy sayings, and I really can't argue with my wisdom.
Can
argue with the idea of running us what feels like straight up.” Oxygen-rich planet or not, I was getting tired.

“It's not quite that, but close,” Fancy said as “Eat Me, Drink Me” by Marilyn Manson came on my personal airwaves. I stopped.

“We could have run around the other obstacles,” Reader pointed out. “And an easier path might have meant we got up to the top faster.”

Fancy shook her head. “The obstacles are not avoidable. They are a requirement.”

“Religion, James. That falls under the why ask why column.”

Carefully took Wilbur—who'd been a total champ and not struggled or anything while I was carrying him—off and handed him to Reader. Rummaged around in my purse, found a waterfruit, and ate it. Selfishly didn't offer any to Reader or Fancy. Felt guilty. But not guilty enough to give them one. Presumed this meant that Pinky, Saffron, and Turkey were okay and possibly close by, or that the Matriarchs were able to extend their influence. Or that Jeff was wrong and I was actually addicted to these things. Really hoped for the former.

Selfish or not, I felt a ton better once I'd eaten the fruit. “Give me Wilbur back, I'm good now.”

We took off again, and while I felt like I could have raced on, I kept us at the slow version of hyperspeed. It seemed wiser and a way for me to conserve my energy. Luckily, my track coaches in high school and college had all lived for the No Pain, No Gain mindset. I'd done hill charges for eight straight years. Sure, most of them weren't this bad, and I hadn't had a big pig-dog on my shoulders and two people and a hefty cat to drag along when running track. On the other hand, I wasn't running in 115-plus-degree heat, so it evened out.

There were a couple of times I thought we were going to lose our footing and slide down or fall off. But each time Fancy or Reader managed to keep the rest of us steady. So, definitely not looking down, we forged on.

Hyperspeed, even the slow kind, meant that we made it up this hill in minutes versus hours or possibly days. As we crested the top, “I Have Friends in Holy Spaces” by Panic! At the Disco came on.

Couldn't really see much. There was a gigantic dome of iridescent material of some kind capping the mountain, but other than a railing that appeared to go around the perimeter, there was nothing special here. Though the iridescent cap flickered intermittently, but in a discernible pattern—it resembled the flickering of torches. Meaning this was what I'd managed to spot the night before.

However, looking like nothing much or not, we'd come a damn long way to get here, so I clambered over the metal railing—without issue, other than wearing the heaviest wrap in the universe and a minor tingling sensation—took said wrap, aka Wilbur, off my back, caught my breath, then really looked around. And then I looked up.

Had really only one thing to say. “Oh. My God.”