Kitty Katt 11: Alien Separation (20 page)

“Me too.”

We trotted on, but other than moss and poop, there was nothing. Until five minutes later.

If you could call a dead end something.

“W
HAT THE HELL?”
Jeff spoke for both of us.

“I just want to say, to whomever out there in the Greater Cosmos happens to be listening and enjoying the Jeff and Kitty Show, that just about the last thing we needed right now was a locked room mystery, especially on top of everything else.”

“A what?”

“A situation where there's no way in or out but someone's either murdered or disappeared. Like, you know, right now.”

“Ah, yeah, I'm with you, baby. This is not what we needed.”

We confirmed that neither one of us had seen a side tunnel. And the bosthoon poop was confirmation that the people we were with had come this way.

Took another look at the poop. “You know . . .”

“What? I know that look. What's weird with the poop? I can tell that's what you think is odd, so there's that.”

“Yeah, glad your skills are back to normal. There's a problem with the poop.”

“Aside from how much of it there is?”

“Yeah. We've been able to avoid all the bosthoon patties because they were sitting there, all perfectly formed and undisturbed.”

“If that's what you want to call perfectly formed, baby, sure.”

“For cow poop, yes, it's right on the money. But there are seventy-five head of bosthoon that were in this tunnel, and easily as many Lecanora. A huge pack of chochos and just as big a pride of ocellars. Seven Earthlings, six of whom were not in the lead and also were not A-Cs able to use hyperspeed. All of whom had to
walk
through this tunnel. And yet, there hasn't been one place where you and I couldn't simply step around the bosthoon patties to avoid getting our shoes mucked up.”

“So,” Jeff said slowly, “what you're saying is . . . what? That Christopher got everyone in here and they all just . . . stood still?”

Considered this. “Yeah. If I try to align the number of bosthoon with how far we've come I think we'd be at the front of the line, or where Christopher would have been, about here. And maybe the bosthoon didn't poop until they were standing around, waiting. You know, because Christopher had hit a dead end and didn't know what to do next.”

“Okay. Let's say you're right. Where the hell did they all go?”

“No idea. But I'm sure that Christopher did or triggered something, which is why they're gone.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because he was the leader and they're all gone. I'm not saying he's evil or a loser or anything like that. But whatever happened, we need to figure that he caused or created it.”

“Okay.” Jeff didn't sound like he really thought it was okay. “So, where does that leave us? Besides nowhere?”

“Think like Christopher. You know him better than anyone else does. He's here, leading all these people down a tunnel he's found and felt led somewhere. You and I aren't around—we're trying to hold off murderous creatures, call them superbeings if it helps you get into his mindset.”

“It does. Go on.”

“So, he's here. He's here long enough for an entire herd of Planet Colorful Cows to each take a dump. Meaning what?”

“Meaning he was trying to figure out how to turn everyone around.”

“Probably, at first, anyway. But that's out, remember, because we have no exit due to there being superbeings at the only exit we know about. Plus, he's been down this tunnel and he felt it went farther than he'd gone, and I was sure it went somewhere other than nowhere and he didn't argue. So, what's his next move?”

“You mean besides cursing? Ah, he'd call someone using a cell phone that doesn't work here.”

“Actually, we haven't tried our phones. Oh, sure, it's probably not the greatest coverage out here, but I'd be willing to check to see if someone could hear me now.”

“Hilarious. I guarantee Christopher didn't try that. Chuck wasn't near him, and neither were the flyboys. We had them spread out, with Chuck near the rear, so we had people we could count on keeping the rest calm.”

“Where were the katyhoppers?”

“Flying overhead. They fly all the time, and shared with Chuck that they weren't all that tired, even though they'd done a lot. Apparently they rejuvenate that fluid through flight, too, don't ask me how, so they wanted to fly for that reason, as well.”

“So whatever happened, it got the katyhoppers, too, meaning it's not something triggered by the floor, and it also means the floor didn't fall out from under them. Though the presence of the poop confirmed that already.”

Think, we had to think. Christopher had done something, I knew it, and that something had disappeared everyone in the tunnel. Really prayed that, whatever had happened, it was very good, or at least neutral, versus very bad.

Jeff shook himself. “Okay, I'm Christopher. I'm stuck here, and I have to handle it. I don't want to admit that I just led everyone to a dead end, partly because it'll cause panic, and partly because I'll sound like a moron, and I hate that.”

“Sounds like Christopher to me. So, then what?”

“He's the former Head of Imageering, he's been in worse situations than this. There's nothing trying to kill anyone in this tunnel. He considers options. We don't have many.” Jeff looked uncomfortable.

“He gets pissed, doesn't he? That's why you look like you don't want to share your next thought. You bellow and let it out, but he doesn't. So he's angry—at the situation, with himself, with me for saving some cows and so letting the snakipedes know where we were, and with me for telling him the tunnel led somewhere when it appears that it does not. What does he do when he's angry, especially when he has no one nearby who he can shout at, snarl at, or snark at?” I was certain he'd been running through all his Patented Glares, though, and possibly created a new one due to this situation.

“You know . . .” Jeff cocked his head and held my hand tightly in his. “There are times when you get so angry you just want to hit something.” He stepped us closer to the dead end. “Like the thing that's blocking you.”

With that, he pulled his fist back, then slammed it into the wall in front of us.

Results were immediate. And, as with so many things that had happened so far on this planet, it wasn't something I'd have expected in, if not a million years, certainly a good thousand.

T
HE STONE IN FRONT
of us was a circle, and that circle activated. It glowed a bright blue-white and made a humming sound, just like a machine will when it's said to be purring.

The circle didn't touch the sides of the tunnel, but it was close. I didn't have a lot of time to look, however, because blue-white light zoomed out from the rock and went past and through us, just as if the flat circle of light was actually the end of a tube being pushed down the tunnel.

The light enveloped us. There was a distinct feeling of movement, similar to the feeling I got when I walked through a gate only, happily, without the nausea. And then it stopped. And we weren't in the tunnel anymore.

Nor were we alone.

We were in another cavern, but not the one we'd just left. Looked behind me. Yep, there was the tunnel we'd used. Only it looked different. Just a little, but still, different. This cavern was shaped differently than the one we'd been in before, and in fact the tunnel entrance was far closer to this particular amphitheater and therefore the cavern's mouth. All I could see outside was white. The whitest white I'd ever seen. Got the impression I was seeing this world's version of snow, though I didn't feel any colder here than I had before.

Happily, we'd found everyone else, and it was clear that they were waiting for us, based on the expectant looks on everyone's faces, human as well as Lecanora. It was hard to tell with the katyhoppers and Big Birds, expression-wise, but the ocellars and chochos also looked relieved we'd arrived, and I could tell by the way the katyhoppers were waving their antennae and the Big Bird were ruffling their feathers that they'd been worried, too. The bosthoon didn't seem to have an opinion about us one way or the other. Chose not to be bitter.

Bruno flew into my arms and we had a cuddle. He was followed by Ginger and Wilbur, who both demanded their own pets and cuddles. Heard Jeff muttering about how we didn't need to add in more alien animals into our menagerie. Ignored him.

“Really glad you figured out how the warp tunnel worked,” Chuckie said. “Almost as glad as I was when Christopher triggered it.”

“Warp tunnel?” I managed to ask.

“Where are we?” was Jeff's question.

“That's a great question,” Chuckie said. “We have no idea. However, I have a good guess, based on a variety of factors I haven't had time to discuss with you yet.”

“The white part of this world,” Jerry said. “Based on, you know, looking outside.”

“No argument, makes sense. You know what doesn't make sense? How did a warp tunnel get into a world that doesn't have microwave ovens, let alone spaceflight?”

“My guess is outside influence,” Chuckie replied. “There's a lot that's unusual with this world.”

“We're traveling with beings that can read minds or move things using telekinesis. Let's talk unusual.”

“You're married to someone who can run at hyperspeed and knows what everyone around him is feeling, and you talk to animals. I'm talking about unusual
for
a planet. And I want to discuss this now, right now, because the warp tunnel confirms outside influence, but there are other indicators.”

“Chuck thinks this planet is really small,” Christopher said. “We had this discussion earlier today, when he and I were going all over. He measured shadows for some reason.”

Managed not to say that he was lucky Lorraine, Claudia, and Serene weren't here, because they'd tell him he was an idiot.

“You never paid attention to things that mattered in school,” Lorraine said.

Jeff and I both jumped and looked around. Sure enough, there she was, arm around Joe's waist.

Claudia and Randy wandered out from behind the bosthoon they must have been using as a make-out shield. “Eratosthenes used the method effectively over two thousand years ago on Earth,” she said. “Chuck just applied it again here.”

“It's great to see you guys. Um, anyone else with you?”

“I'm here, Kitty,” Serene said, as she came around from behind another bosthoon. “But I don't know where Brian is.” I was relieved to see the girls, but she looked ready to cry. I could understand that—her husband was a human with no enhancements. We had several missing humans, and I was worried about all of them.

“We'll find him,” I said quickly. “And everyone else. But why were you guys hiding?”

“We weren't,” Serene said. “There's something here we were studying while we waited for you two to figure out how to trigger the warp tunnel.” She turned and went back to whatever she'd been looking at. The other girls and their husbands did the same.

“How did you all find the girls?” Jeff asked.

“They were investigating this cavern and tunnel when we came through,” Jerry said. “They landed in this part of the world. It looks like snow out there because it is. They were cold, they looked for shelter, they found it here.”

“We've had time to get the story,” Hughes said. “You two took forever.”

“Yeah,” Walker added. “We were wondering if we were going to have to use the tunnel to get back to show you how it worked.”

“Were you having sex?” Jerry asked.

“My money's on yes,” Hughes said.

“Nah, we're in the middle of danger, they waited,” Walker countered. Accurately. “But I'll bet they made out.” Very accurately.

“Hilarious,” Jeff said. “Kitty and I are laughing. We're just keeping it all inside.”

“Look, you need to hear this. This world is small,” Chuckie said, as he indicated we should follow the others. “Far smaller than Earth, about the size of the moon.”

Looked toward this cavern's mouth. “It's still light here. I mean, not like it's high noon, but still, light. I have no idea if that means this world goes clockwise or counterclockwise when it spins, or if it even spins, but night had fallen back in the Bronze Lands, just before we went to the tunnels.”

“The moon is still large for us, Kitty,” Chuckie said patiently. “But even on a planet this small, yes, you'll have sections that go dark, or light, before others, as the planet turns.”

“Okay, if you say so. So it was easy to go all over?”

“No,” Christopher said, as we wended our way through animals of various shapes and sizes. “That map is accurate—the continent is pretty much a circle. What the map doesn't show you is that the blue section is all water, and it extends to go around the continent.”

“Think of us as being on a round Australia, but an Australia on the moon,” Chuckie said. “The issue isn't that. The issue is gravity.”

“Having fallen from a great height on this planet, I can promise you that gravity's still working here.”

“Yes, it is,” Chuckie said patiently. “But not as it should. For the size of this planet—moon-sized, remember—we should be able to jump just like the astronauts did and do when they're there.”

“You mean leap tall buildings with a single bound?”

“Yes. And we can't. I feel the same as when we're on Earth, and so does everyone else, I've checked.”

“Yeah, I can't run faster or lift more than I can at home,” Jeff said. “Though I'm not tiring out as quickly.”

“None of us from Earth are,” Lorraine said as we reached what she and the other girls were so interested in. It was an orb, about the size of a soccer ball, and it glowed blue-white. It was also floating between two cones, not in contact with the cones' tips. The cones were set in the ground and the roof of the cavern, like a space-aged stalagmite and stalactite set. “I think the air here is oxygen rich.”

“That looks just like it's from a movie, where if we touch that orb, we're going to get sucked into another world or universe or something. Or else it'll bounce all over the place causing mass destruction.”

“Yes, and we're not sure what it's going to do if we touch it,” Claudia said. “So we haven't.”

“Yet,” Serene added, for honesty's sake, presumably.

“So, while we stare at this thing that is clearly manmade but not by any man on this planet, Chuckie's making some point about gravity and Australia.”

“The planet's too small to have the gravitational pull it does. Meaning it's either a manmade planet, which seems unlikely based on our knowledge of this solar system, or else its core is made of heavy metals.”

“Like what?” Christopher asked.

“Like plutonium or uranium,” Chuckie replied. “You know, what we use to make nuclear weapons.”