London Wild (82 page)

As he passed into the waiting lounge, he requisitioned a luggage trolley and put his bags on it to make it easier to carry them. He had no idea where he was supposed to go, only that someone was supposed to be somewhere in the terminal waiting to tell him his duties. He had half expected them to be standing right outside the glass doors of the gate as he had gotten off of the shuttle, but there had been no one there.

The luggage trolley bounced and clunked over the uneven floor as Charles pushed it in front of him, and this seemed to provoke a head to appear over the back of a chair towards the far end of the waiting lounge.

The man got up
. He looked bleary-eyed, as if he had been taking the opportunity to grab an hour or more of sleep. He was soon standing up straight, though, his back firm and erect, throwing Charles a salute.

Charles had dressed casually because he had had to pass through a civilian spaceport to make this journey, and because he wasn’t in uniform he felt a little uncomfortable receiving the salute and replying in kind. However, never let it be said that he couldn’t be a good soldier if it was required of him
, and he threw a salute back.

‘I am Major Williams, your commanding officer while you’re on the
Moon. You may call me Terry, but only when others aren’t in earshot. It’s an honor to meet you, Slim, isn’t it?’

‘I prefer Charles, sir,’ he replied cautiously.

‘Of course, of course, Charles it is then,’ the Major commented happily. ‘Well, I should warn you, the woman you’re replacing was very good at her job. I hope you know how to be a bodyguard as well as how to kill cats.’

‘I’ve never been a bodyguard before, but up here on the
Moon, who is there to guard against, sir?’ Charles asked as he rested on the luggage trolley absently. It threatened to move under the pressure until he applied the brakes, and even then the trolley still tried to move.

‘Allow me to explain the setup,’ Major Williams replied
. ‘There are three world leaders up here for summit talks: the American President, the French President, and our own Prime Minister. Do you notice any pattern with those three countries?’

‘Not really,’ replied Charles
. He hated commanding officers who insisted on asking questions instead of getting to the point. ‘Other than the fact that all three have had some contact with cats.’

‘Exactly,’
the Major replied, ‘it’s because our three countries have an interest in dealing with the cats that they were included in the talks in the first place.’

‘You make it sound as if a fourth power is calling the shots,’ Charles commented dryly
. ‘Just what is going on?’

‘Life,’ the Major replied as simply and calmly
as if he had just explained that two and two equaled four. ‘About a hundred and twenty-five, maybe a hundred and thirty years ago, a group of starships were sent off into the inky black void to discover what they could about their assigned planets. About a week ago the ship crewed by Samuel Goldberg and his team returned. They docked here on the moon, and they brought some guests with them.’

‘Aliens?’ Charles replied
, startled. It had been one of the hopes of the mission to find life on a distant planet. Had they just brought back samples of life, it would have been all over the newspapers and a large number of skilled scientists—xenobiologists—would be working on them by now. The sort of security blanket that had been thrown about the Moon would not only suggest that the Goldberg mission had found life on a distant planet, but that it had to be intelligent life.

The Major confirmed Charles’ deductions with his next comment
: ‘These aliens have promised us technological advances in return for a certain favor. As a show of faith, they have already given us a more economical type of light speed engine. They are willing to increase our overall technology maybe ten-fold. I understand they have even discussed things like teleport systems, but only if they get what they want first.’

‘I understood teleport systems were proven to be scientifically impossible,’ Charles replied, more than a little surprised. ‘So what’s this favor?’

‘First allow me to explain their power. When they first arrived here, they wanted to show us what they are capable of and so, from a parking orbit about the moon, they destroyed Pluto. You may have seen the news reports a week or so ago. My own opinion is that it was a two-fold demonstration, to show what they could do to the Earth if they don’t get what they want. But if they do get what they want, they have promised us the plans of this weapon. They put on another show of their power, the power over the weather, for example. It’s not unheard of for it to rain for several days non-stop, but that was just a demonstration that they can control our weather patterns from all the way up here. Who knows what they might do if they don’t get what they want?’

‘But what do they want?
’ asked Charles. ‘And where do the cats fit in?’ He slowed as he spoke the last two words as he worked something out in his mind. ‘They want the cats?’

The Major nodded his head
. ‘It seems that they and our cats are old friends, and they want them destroyed totally before they’ll give us any of the really juicy stuff. All we’ve had so far is a tidbit in comparison to what they are offering once this is done.’

‘All of them?’
asked Charles rhetorically. ‘That would explain many things, such as the destruction of so many domestic cats and the rash assault on Sou’nd.’

‘They have warned us that they are only willing to tolerate a certain amount of waiting before they decide to go and do it themselves
, and they have also warned us that if they do get directly involved and humans get in the way then there may be many unfortunate human casualties. They must really hate the cats. To give you another example of their power over the weather and their method of hinting that they are getting tired of the delay, Lorelei is a grade five hurricane heading straight for the homes of the cats in Florida. It’s not even hurricane season anymore. The Americans have naturally taken this to be a warning and are acting to wipe out the Florida colony sometime in the…’ Here he paused to glance at his watch, and his voice dropped an octave as he realized the time. He finished with, ‘…last couple of hours.’

‘I have no love for the wild cats,’ Charles replied,
feeling that this was too much to take in at one go, ‘but it does seem a bit rough on the domesticated ones. Do we know why they hate the cats so much?’

‘They won’t say,’
the Major replied, ‘though it’s obviously not simply a hate on sight thing. I have a feeling this hatred has festered for over a thousand years or more, longer than the Herbaht have been on Earth, anyway. Tomorrow the aliens have invited the three leaders to have a look around their starship, so the next meeting will probably be two days from now. Personally I think they’re trying to show off their strength. The Eschiff, as they are calling themselves, are getting anxious about the destruction of the cats, though hopefully what’s happened or is happening in America and France should help our position a little. But it’s getting awfully near the stated deadline.’

‘And deadline might be literal,’ Charles commented. ‘What they offer sounds exciting, but the rest of it sounds quite frightening
. Are you sure we can trust them to keep their word?’

‘I am sure that we don’t have a lot of choice,’
the Major replied, a lot of emotion in his voice. ‘And I have to admit I’m scared of what might happen if they don’t get their way.’ Then, becoming the trained officer once again, he added, ‘Anyway, you’ll see some of them soon, at the next meeting, and maybe that’ll help you understand a little bit more about them. It might even go some way to explaining their hatred for the cats. Whatever you hear at the meeting, keep your mouth shut. Remember that you’re a bodyguard and not an ambassador. In the meantime, I should show you to your room. You should unpack, and as it’s nearly lunchtime, you should get something to eat at the refectory. I’ll point out the way to that as we go.’

Back In The Cattery

Two days had passed since Khosi had made her escape, but of those two days she remembered very little. The first twenty-four hours or so she had spent asleep, recovering from the Alpha serum that she had used to escape.

She remembered that she had failed in her mission to secure the daughter of the Matriarch. And without Lara, she was worried that she might be out of leads. However, there was one hope. A Herbaht had come to visit them in the cell just before he had been caught by the guards. Myajes, the guards had called him. She had recognized him at the time. He was one of four she had been warned that she might have to deal with in order to get to the Matriarch.

After Myajes’ capture it was only too likely that Matriarch and Patriarch would have moved their home for security reasons. But even if the information she got from him was out of date, she might still be able to follow the trail from there. The only other alternative she could think of would be to visit Benfleet, the last known location of the Lesser Patriarch.

She felt her best option was to visit the Cattery again. Myajes could still be alive in one of the cells there, and if so she needed to find a way to question him.

Ideally she would have to go as an official. Not as a soldier
, though, as chances were they all knew each other. She would have to go as someone who could go in and demand the right to visit the prisoners. And so, having been awake for at most an hour, she went into surgery again. This time they would remove her stripes, replacing her very skin with an artificial dermal layer that was indistinguishable from human skin—an operation that had taken her well into the following day.

They also replaced the serum
-filled tooth while she slept. It really was for emergencies only now. If she used that any time before her body had fully recovered from using the last dose, the chance that her heart wouldn’t be able to take the strain was higher than fifty percent.

Khosi was dressed in accordance with what she had been told businesswomen dressed like. She wore a long blue one-piece frock, a pair of white gloves, and sensible yet attractive shoes. She also carried a leather handbag in which were contained a number of items of various descriptions that she considered vital for this mission.

Her shuttle brought her to Earth close to a farmhouse, in much the same way as it had the last time she had landed. But whereas it had been part of her plan to be spotted the last time, this time she had ordered that the shuttle
’s scanners be used to ensure there was no humanoid life in the immediate vicinity. It was safe and deserted, and the shuttle landed in the remains of a cornfield that had suffered badly in the rains of a few days ago. The ground she put her feet on was still soggy, but it was secure enough to support her weight, and she was only two steps away from a solid-looking footpath towards which she quickly made her way.

From the footpath it was less than a hundred yards to the main road and from there, no more than a mile to the nearest buildings on the outskirts of the
city. She moved at a brisk walk. There was no point in hanging around. Already the shuttle had engaged its engines and was leaving the scene, getting away before any witnesses did appear.

It was close to one o’clock in the afternoon local time when she entered the
city. She had trouble believing her eyes. She had been hoping to find a car hire company for her jaunt to the Cattery, but there was no one about. In most cases, though, the houses looked as if the occupants had simply dropped whatever they were doing and had bolted as if the very whips of Lophsiokola, an evil deity of her people, had been on their tails.

There wasn’t a car in sight; the population must have taken them with them when they had fled. Ideally she wanted to hire one, and she wanted to do this legally so that there was no possibility of awkward questions being asked of her. But with everything deserted, she was almost definitely going to have to steal one. Somewhere down one of these streets there must be a car that had been left behind
—a vehicle she could take. With the owners not around, it was unlikely she would have to worry about the vehicle being reported stolen, at least until after she had the information she was seeking.

When she did at last find a suitable car, five turnings later, it was parked outside a large house with thick iron bars and several large planks of wood added to its windows and doors to keep the Herbaht out. There was every sign that the house’s owner might still be there
, but Khosi no longer cared. It was clear to her that even if the crime was reported, nothing was likely to be done about it.

She climbed into the driver’s seat of the vehicle and overrode the security code to start the car. It took no more than seven seconds. The vehicle’s computer was a virtual antique in comparison to what she was used to. Besides
, she had taken a course in how to override security systems such as this one before she had even set foot on the planet. Her main problem was that she didn’t really know how to drive such a vehicle. It took her a few minutes to get a hang of the controls before she could get it going where she wanted. Twice she only just stopped the vehicle before it rammed something. At least she thought she had stopped it, unaware that the car’s automatic collision sensors were on or even that it had such a device.