I Was An Alien Cat Toy (3 page)

handling.

He found his mother in one of the sun-warmed front workrooms, a favourite retreat from the bustle of

the rest of the house, where he and Jilen had played many a time in their younger days.

“Gredar! I was hoping you’d be home soon.” She extended a hand to him, and he knelt, allowing her

to scritch his head as he rubbed extravagantly against her shoulder, inhaling her familiar, comforting scent.

She was minding two kitlings, Jilen’s new offspring, barely a moonsweep old when he’d left for the

clan gathering, and a handful and a half for a much younger female than his mother. She was struggling now

to control them as they tried to crawl over her legs while she was greeting him. “Weikil, Shiri, now now,”

she said, hauling them back, but they squirmed and started to complain. She sighed in a put-upon way. “Four

strikes they’ve been awake, and not still the whole time. If Jilen wasn’t so busy with her patients, I’d take

them down to her.”

Gredar thought he might be able to help. He picked the youngsters up by their scruffs and brought

them close to his face so they could smell his breath and his scent. “Settle down, kitlings,” he said in a low,

even voice, and then licked them both on the tummy until they were limp and purring. He settled them on his

lap and began to comb their fur with his half-extended claws, using his strength and size to comfort and

control. He’d seen so many kits in thirty cycles. His mother’s clan was large and fecund, and he was always

in demand as a guardian. Yet he still found the youngsters such a joy—especially when they could be

persuaded to calm down and fall asleep with a bit of careful handling.

“Oh, thank you, dear. They’re being so boisterous today, and I’ve got so many things to attend to.

Have you been to your workroom yet?”

“Not yet,” he said as she stood and stretched, clearly trapped for too long in the one position by her

little charges. She was getting a bit too old for this, though she did adore her grandchildren and even great-

grandchildren. “But I’m yours to command, Mother, as always.”

She lightly gripped his neck in affection. “You were missed, my son. Buhi tries, but he’s got none of

your patience and the kits do misbehave around him.”

“He’s still a kit himself...what’s that?” He squinted over to the far corner of the room, where a strange

hairless creature was huddling.

“Oh! My new pet, though I think I might have taken on more than I can handle.”

Gredar frowned. His mother hadn’t kept a jopa in years, always saying that she had more than enough

pets with all the kitlings in the household. She walked over to the animal and unwound a rope from a hook in

the wall, then tugged it to its feet. With some reluctance, it let her pull it over to Gredar, where she made it sit

close by him.

“What is it? A jopa?” Instinctively he raised his hands to guard his precious charges—no harm had

ever come to a kit in his care, and he wasn’t going to allow it now, though the animal wasn’t acting in any

way threatening.

“We think so,” she said, giving the thing a slightly puzzled glance. It was like no jopa he’d ever seen.

Apart from a long mane of black hair which someone had taken the trouble to braid, and a tuft of the same

colour between its legs, it was completely naked of any fur. It also had no tail, which looked very peculiar on

its bare rump, but for all that, it was elsart—well-proportioned, and the bare skin was an attractive colour, a

light even brown, like dried clay of fine quality. “I took it to Martek. He couldn’t find a record of a similar

creature in any of the histories. His best guess is that it’s merely an aberrant form.”

Gredar reached and touched the animal’s shoulder—it flinched away from his hand. “Nervous, isn’t

it? Where did you get it? It’s a male—are you going to cut it?”

She sighed, rubbing her clan medallion absently. “Truly, I considered it, it was such a nuisance in the

beginning. Karwa caught it on a hunting trip. He was going to butcher it but then he thought I might find it

elsart. Which I did, but it’s been no end of trouble. It has a dreadfully finicky stomach, can’t eat meat unless

it’s cooked, and you daren’t let it off the chain or it tries to run off. It gets into everything if it’s left alone in

the kitchen or my workroom. I suspect its former owner wasn’t sorry to lose it.” Gredar cocked his head at

his mother quizzically. “Karwa’s sure it’s an escaped pet. It was wearing some odd ornaments, and its hair

was braided. But no one’s trained it, that’s for sure.”

“It’s behaving now.” Gredar shifted the kitlings carefully so he could lean forward and take a closer

look at the oddity. Its eyes were dark brown like other jopas, but rather larger and the wrong shape, and no

jopa had this long tail of hair on its head, nor fur this deep, pure black. “Does it make any noise?”

“When Karwa first brought it, it never shut up. It’s settled down now, but don’t let it fool you—it’s a

little terror.”

The jopa stared up at Gredar, nostrils flared. Gredar wondered how clever it was—some jopas were

very cunning in an animal way, which made them amusing but also something of a nuisance. He could

understand why Karwa thought it might be a suitable gift for his grandmother, but she had more than enough

to deal with. “Perhaps you should cut it after all.”

“I would, but Martek thought it might be possible to breed from it. I’m not interested for myself, but

you know what he’s like, always trying new things and investigating. I told him he should take it as a pet but

he said he was worried what it would do to his books.”

Gredar chuckled—after the loyalty to the clan and Kadit herself, nothing was as important to their

historian than his books. “Gredar, dear, you don’t want it, do you? You’re so good with the young ones—

maybe you could train it properly.”

“Me? But I’m due to travel again in half a moonsweep.”

“Well, you could take it for that long.”

His mother looked harassed, and though he doubted it was because of this animal, Gredar hated to

have her upset for such a trivial cause. He rubbed his head against her hand. “Yes, of course I can. Now, do

you want to take these two mischiefs back or should I see if their older brother can handle two soundly

sleeping kitlings?”

“Oh, Buhi will rouse them up again. Let me take them, but if you could let Jilen know they’ll need

feeding in a half-strike, I’d be grateful.”

“Certainly.” He passed the two kitlings carefully to her—they didn’t stir and looked as peaceful as he

was sure they were not when awake—then picked up the jopa’s leash. “Did you name him?”

“Yes—I thought ‘Kirin’ suited him.”

Gredar laughed. “That’s mean, mother.” ‘Bald one’—accurate but hardly flattering.

“It’s not like it has feelings to be offended,” she said with a whimsical flick of her ear. “The only

good thing about it is that it doesn’t bite. It did try to use its fists and feet but after a few smacks, it stopped.

It’s easy to get it under control that way—it’s not even as strong as a young jopa—but it’s not how a pet

should be trained.”

Gredar had to agree. “Perhaps breeding from it would be a bad idea. Up you get, Kirin.” He tugged

the leash and noted with amusement that it put its hands over its rather obvious genitals. No jopa he’d seen

had exposed its kala in this fashion when not in use. Most likely it had been driven out of its troop for its

strangeness—such was the way of jopas, who were quite vicious towards their own kind.

“Oh, and you can’t let it go outside. It nearly froze to death one night when Buhi put it out for being a

nuisance. Jilen had to work quite hard to save its life.”

“It has no fur—couldn’t Buhi work that out for himself?” Gredar growled a little in irritation. Buhi

could be a bit of a fool sometimes. “I’ll take it upstairs. Buhi can make himself useful and bring its bedding.”

“Thank you, dear.” He bent forward and accepted an affectionate nuzzle, raked his unclawed fingers

very gently down the tummies of the sleeping kits, then tugged his new pet to follow him. “Come on, Kirin.

Let’s see if you like your new quarters.”

~~~~~~~~

Temin didn’t even think of resisting the enormous male who now seemed to be in charge of him. Not

only could the youngest of these towering cat people outrun him with ease and knock him down with the

slightest force from their powerful paws, he had nowhere to run to. It was still winter, he didn’t know how far

he’d been taken from the podpod, he had no clothes or weapons or transport to help him get back there, and

after six weeks of lousy food and worse sleep, of sitting on stone floors and being yanked around by his neck

and occasionally his hair, he was exhausted and sick. It was just easier to let this big cat-man pull him along

and hope the shefting bugger wouldn’t knock him around too much.

There was equally no point in trying to make himself understood. He’d yelled himself hoarse in those

first few days after he was captured, but that only seemed to amuse or annoy his new owners. Their own

speech sounded nothing more than growls and purrs and chirps to his ears, yet they were clearly having

proper conversations—he could only assume he sounded just as incomprehensible to them.

They were going to the kitchen. Temin didn’t mind that. It was warm there, and after nearly dying a

month ago because no one had realised their pathetic human pet couldn’t survive the outdoor temperatures

here without the cat people’s beautiful, thick pelts, warmth wasn’t something he took for granted. The house

temperature was well above freezing thanks to the kitchen’s huge oven and closed heaters powered by wood

in some of the rooms, but the stone floors were cold, and it didn’t occur to anyone that he might find them

chilly. He was left most days to sit in corners or at the feet of the female who seemed to own the house, his

arse turning to ice and his back knotting up in tension. He’d thought himself relatively hardy and fit before

all this—now he felt three times his age, and wondered if his joints would ever recover.

The kitchen ran day and night, feeding the dozens of occupants, visitors, and other pets—some birds

in cages, and at least six of the monkey things, leashed and collared as he was. Temin had learned to keep

well clear of them—they bit and saw him as an enemy. He looked around warily now, but there were none to

be seen, just a busy, well-equipped kitchen preparing the evening meal. A carcass big as a man was being

roasted on a spit on the far side, and he could smell bread being baked. It made him hungry, but he knew

better than to expect the food to actually taste as good as it smelled.

There were twenty or so of the cat people working or idling in the kitchen, and they greeted Temin’s

keeper enthusiastically. Most of the workers came over to lick or pat him, running their claws down his arms

and back in a way that looked terrifying but which was obviously some kind of friendly gesture. Once

everyone had said hello, he spoke to one of the females apparently about Temin’s bed, and the hated litter

tray, pointing and gesturing that made it clear he was asking for something to be done with them as she

nodded. So things were going to change for him—Temin didn’t know if that was good or bad yet. He

wondered why the head female had given him away now. Maybe they just did that kind of thing.

He would never find out, most likely. Some nights, the idea that not only was he going to spend the

rest of his life without human company but it would also be spent in confusion and ignorance too, forced

tears from him that even missing Jeng could not. Sometimes it made him scream at the cat people in raw

frustration at their inability to understand him even a little bit. All it ever earned him was a pat, the gentleness

of which depended on how irritated he’d made the nearest cat-person. He didn’t do that so much now.

The big male was talking to another male. It had taken him a while to tell individuals apart. He could

just about distinguish some of the females by their fur markings, and many of them wore elaborate pendants

and bangles which he was starting to recognise, but the males came and went so often, he had yet to work out

how many there were, and who was who. But this big green-eyed fellow, the one with the firm hand on his

leash and a pendant like a golden starburst around his neck—Temin was sure he’d never seen him before. It

was eerie how much they resembled Terran felines—not the domestic cats, but the great, now extinct wild

cats. He’d once seen photos of cheetahs, and these animals reminded him strongly of them, only without the

spots. He couldn’t get used to the fact they were bipedal—he kept expecting them to drop onto all fours, but

he’d never seen any of them do that except to pick something up or play with a youngster.

Now the shefting leash was tugged again, the male having finished his conversation. He picked up a

bowl of food and rubbed his face against the female who gave it to him—they did that a lot, rubbing their

heads against each other. That and casual fucking. Hardly a day went past that he didn’t see one or other of

the adults bent over a table in the kitchen or the storeroom, being enthusiastically taken, before getting up

and going on with their routine. It seemed to mean about as much to them as a kiss. Very strange, and a little

disturbing too.

He was led through the house again, and to his surprise, found he was being taken up to the next