Space Cat and the Kittens Read online

  Bill was looking at the planet through a strange instrument with arms sticking out from it at different angles. He twiddled thumbscrews and moved these arms about, making different adjustments. At last he looked away from the eyepiece.

  “Yes,” he said, “so far as I can make out it is an Earth-type planet and it has got a couple of little moons of its own. Still, it is rather a small planet, not much bigger than our own Moon. That’s what I’d say at a rough guess. The green does suggest, though, that there may be life on it.”

  That was what Flyball wanted to hear. For a moment he thought of the blue balloons that passed for life on the Moon, of the thinking plants of Venus and Mars where he had met Moofa and where the mice had been armor-plated and had played with him, instead of his playing with them.

  He wrinkled his nose as he remembered those Martian mice. They had been poor apologies for mice, really, and not at all frightened of him—impudent in fact. Maybe this new planet would, if it really was Earth-type, have ordinary mice and, perhaps, even ordinary birds. It would be good for the kittens, he told himself. Of course, as a seasoned space cat he had his dignity to consider and could take or leave mice and birds.

  At the same time, he thought, it was not right that Marty and Tailspin should grow up without a proper experience of how to cope with mice and birds. Of course, he had to admit to himself, he really had not had much success with birds himself. They were pesky things that would wait until he was nearly close enough to pounce—then they would move just out of reach.

  Still, the art of bird-chasing was a part of the proper training of kittens. He looked over at Marty and Tailspin, who were snatching at Moofa’s tail, which she was obligingly swishing backwards and forwards for them. It really was strange, he thought. When he was their age he had been all set for adventure, and had gone looking for it. Marty and Tailspin, however, accepted flights into space as if they were nothing out of the ordinary.

  They had never met anything which could frighten them. Why, though they did pay some attention to what he told them, they did not really treat him with the respect which was his proper due. After all, if he had not gone to Mars and found Moofa there, they would never have been born!

  He moved over to lie beside Moofa, saying, “That’s enough, boys. Give your mother some peace.” Tailspin merely turned his attention from Moofa’s red tail to Flyball’s gray one.

  Hour after hour the Einstein plunged on, drawing nearer and nearer to the green ball, which got bigger and bigger until it filled nearly all of the porthole. Now they could see that the green was broken with blue, darker green and gray patches. None of these was as big as the Atlantic or Pacific oceans of Earth, but they were, quite clearly, seas.

  Fred and Bill were much more excited than the cats. Mars and Venus had been exciting enough, but they had been very different from Earth and men would have to make many changes to live on them. This planet, however, might be one where men could settle and live in just the same way that they did on Earth.

  Certainly, it was smaller than Earth, but that would not matter. Once one star had turned out to have a livable planet, there were certain to be others among the infinite number of stars, and now the Einstein had put them within the reach of man.

  “Of course,” said Fred, afraid that he was hoping too much, “the green and the color of water are leading us to think we’re going to find an oxygen atmosphere. For all we know, it may be something quite different.”

  “Well, there’s no point in getting too heated up,” replied Bill, his eyes on the various dials. “We’ll know soon enough!”

  “That’s right,” Fred agreed, and he too glanced at the dials. “Hmm, I suppose it’s about time for us to get ready.”

  He rose to his feet and, clumping heavily on the magnetic soles of his boots, walked across the cabin and picked up Marty. He then went to the closet which held the supply of tiny space suits which the mechanics had made for the kittens.

  The first suit that he took out was obviously not going to fit a kitten who grew at the rate these kittens grew. Fred took out a second suit. Putting Marty into the suit was rather like trying to fit five live eels into the five fingers of a glove. Somehow he would manage to get a back leg into one of the sleeves meant for a front leg. He did not scratch but wriggled and bounced and squirmed and rolled. It took Fred quite a time before he finally popped the tiny space helmet over the head of Marty and screwed it down.

  Tailspin, who had been watching, thought up several new ways of making it difficult to get him into his suit. He even managed to twist himself so that he was turned sideways with a left front paw in a right sleeve and right back paw in a left one.

  Fred, however, was a most patient man and at last managed to get the unwilling kitten dressed like his brother.

  Then he picked them both up, paying no attention to the glares and the bristling whiskers inside the globes, tucked them under his arm, and took them over to the box-like hammock into which they were firmly strapped.

  Fred wiped his brow and turned to Moofa and Flyball who were waiting ready. Although neither of them could pretend to like the special space suits that had been built for them, they knew that they would have to wear them, so they remained quiet while he fastened them into the suits. This done, he put on their goldfish-globe helmets and strapped them into their hammocks, specially sprung to absorb both prolonged strain and sudden shocks.

  By this time, Bill had put on his own suit and was strapped to his chair in front of the control panel. Fred, who was used to the job, slipped quickly into his suit, zipped it up and fixing his helmet over his head, slid into his seat beside Bill.

  He fastened the safety straps and then checked both Bill’s and his own equipment.

  “Well,” his voice echoed strangely from inside his helmet, for he had not yet turned on his two-way radio, “that’s that!”

  He looked at the various dials and moved one of the levers. Then he pressed a button which started a large clock with only minute and second hands on it.

  He watched the big red second hand go around the clock several times and then as if he were fingering a guitar, played on the buttons which were under his hand.

  They all felt their insides being pulled this way and that as the great ship swung slowly round until her stern was pointing toward the new planet.

  Once the Einstein was completely turned around, Fred pressed other firing buttons and now their insides seemed to be flying away from them upwards as the ship fell rapidly toward the new planet.

  Down, down, they went. As Fred worked the firing buttons his eyes were on the dials in front of him, while Bill was watching the radar screen.

  Just as Fred made the rockets give a final burst, the screen went completely blank, but by that time it was too late to do anything about it. With a slow and heavy lurch the Einstein came to rest.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Bill was pointing at his screen. There was nothing showing on its dark and quiet surface.

  “Look, Fred, look!” he exclaimed. “There should be something there!” His voice came quite clearly through the radio. “There’s nothing wrong with the screen or the rest of the outfit! Where are we?”

  “Don’t get so het up,” Fred had unstrapped himself and now had uncovered one of the portholes. They all, including the kittens, looked anxiously.

  Outside was dimly green. There were no trees or any sign of grass. The thick atmosphere prevented them from seeing far. A thin splinter, as small as a thumb nail, seemed to move for a moment at the edge of one of the portholes.

  Suddenly Fred started laughing. They all looked at him as if afraid he had gone mad.

  “I knew it would happen someday!” he gasped at last. “I knew it would happen! It was bound to happen someday! That was a fish and we’re sitting on the bottom of the sea!”

  Brrr! Flyball shuddered. Whatever Moofa and the kittens felt about it, and they were expert swimmers, he himself did not like water, and he would never learn to like it. Th
e kittens, now, they took after their mother. That was natural, perhaps, but an Earth-born cat, even if he had become an experienced space cat, could not be expected to develop an affection for water—horrid, sloppy stuff.

  Fred had returned to his seat and once again had strapped himself in.

  “Steady, everyone!” he called. “I’m taking off again, to try to find a better spot.” And he pressed the firing buttons.

  The noise built up for a minute until it seemed their heads would split, then the ship swooshed suddenly from the bottom of the sea. Fred did not take them up very high, but wobbled the Einstein sideways until Bill, who was looking out of a porthole as if he did not trust the radar-screen, signaled that they were above what he hoped would prove to be dry land.

  As slowly as he could, Fred lowered the ship once more. This time he made no mistake. After a final burst from the rockets, the Einstein settled on the ground, rocked slightly once or twice and then was steady, her nose pointing up toward the space from which she had come.

  Bill and Fred unbuckled themselves and let Flyball and Moofa out of their hammocks. The kittens, rumpled and somewhat indignant at the shaking up which they had received, were taken out of their box and put on the floor where they sat smoothing their fur and twitching their whiskers to show their feelings. The only trouble was that no one paid the least attention to them.

  Fred was examining a series of dials beside the entrance to the air lock. As he held his finger on a button, the needles on several of these dials quivered at different points. On other dials the needles did not quiver or move at all. This seemed to please him. “Pretty much like the atmosphere of Earth,” he announced. “The only thing is there’s rather more oxygen. It’ll be pretty heady, but that’s all. I’ll go out first and, if it’s all right, the rest of you can follow. How’s that?”

  “No,” put in Bill, firmly. “I should go. You’re the skipper and we can’t afford to risk you—not that I think there’s much risk. Thanks, but if there should happen to be anything wrong, you can rescue me. I don’t want to have to try to fly this crate back to the Moon by myself. I don’t know enough about it.”

  He took off his helmet and, carrying it in the crook of his arm, stepped past Fred into the air lock. Fred shrugged his shoulders and let the heavy door swing shut. Then, with Flyball and Moofa perched on his shoulders, all three still wearing their helmets in case they had to help Bill, he went to a porthole beside the air lock. From this they saw a heavy section of the ship swing out and a folding set of steps flip down toward the burned ground upon which the Einstein rested.

  Then Bill trotted down the steps and stood on the ground, looking up at them. He took several deep breaths and then made a gesture as if he would throw away the helmet he carried. He stood there, looking around him to beyond the big circle burned clear by the rockets of the Einstein as she had come down. There they could see trees of a sort, but not at all the same kind of trees which they had known on Earth. To begin with, the trees were not quite as tall as Bill. Then they looked like palm trees which had not quite succeeded in becoming palms. In fact, many of them were more like ferns, while others, with green sticks prodding out all around them, were more like the common horsetail which grew in swamps and meadows back on Earth.

  “Well, it seems to be all right,” Fred said, after a minute or two. No one, man or cat, would need space suits on this planet. He took off his own helmet and suit and put them neatly away. Then he did the same with Moofa’s outfit. The kittens were next. Getting them out of their suits was much easier than putting them in. It seemed that just as soon as they were unzipped they were rolling around the floor in a fierce battle with each other.

  Flyball could hardly contain his impatience. Women and children first was all very well, he thought, just so long as he himself was not bothered by this excess of politeness. Fred knew well how much he hated his helmet and space suit. It seemed to Flyball that his friend was being intentionally slow. By the time Fred stooped down to loosen the wing nuts that held his helmet in place, Flyball was really quite irritated, and the sight of Marty and Tailspin romping around unencumbered did nothing to help.

  Fred, however, knew Flyball much better than that cat was willing to admit.

  “Come on, Flyball,” he coaxed as he unzipped the suit. “I know you loathe this thing, but now you’re quit of it. Come on, now, snap out of it!”

  He gave Flyball a firm stroking which flattened him on the metal floor-plates of the cabin. Flyball puffed at his whiskers, and as he did so, his ill temper vanished.

  Fred swung open the inner door of the air lock and they all went through it. The kittens did not stop at the top of the steps but launched themselves off the threshold, just as they would have done on the Moon. As this new planet was not much larger than the Moon there was little more gravity, and they plopped safely to the ground. As befitted their greater age and dignity, Flyball and Moofa descended under Fred Stone’s arms.

  It was good to feel the ground again under pads no longer covered with magnets. Flyball and Moofa unsheathed their claws and dug them into the burned soil, stretching and humping their backs and waving one fine red tail and one fine gray tail gently in the air. Then, as the same thing occurred to them both at the same time, they started and looked quickly round for the kittens.

  After being shut up in the cabin of the Einstein for so long, Marty and Tailspin were having a fine time. They were rolling in the cinnamon-colored ashes made by the blast of the rockets, sending them up in puffing clouds which made them sneeze. This they thought was great fun.

  Relieved to see that, so far, the kittens had not managed to get up to mischief, Flyball and Moofa sat down with their tails curled round their paws, and watched Fred and Bill who had unbolted a plate on the side of the Einstein. From the hole which they uncovered they were removing a lot of odds and ends which, when put together, would make a single-seater helicopter. With the aid of this they hoped to explore and photograph the new planet.

  Flyball, who was interested in seeing things put together, watched intently as Fred and Bill fitted the slender girders and bolted them firmly in place. Moofa, who was interested in Flyball, watched his interest.

  For the moment nobody watched Marty and Tailspin, who were gradually sneezing their way toward the edge of the burned clearing.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Grr!” Tailspin, who was in the lead, bared his sharp teeth and arched his back, his tail fluffed out like that of a squirrel. Although he could see nothing for the moment, Marty followed his brother’s example and he too stuck up his tail and humped his back. Then he saw what had attracted Tailspin’s attention.

  Under one of the spreading, lacy fern trees stood a curious little animal, about eight inches high. It had a broad face with a blunt nose, two nicely shaped ears, smaller than those of the kittens, and a brown whisk of a tail, rather darker than the rest of its body, which it swished idly as it grazed on the grass which was as short and soft as moss. It had not yet noticed the kittens.

  Tailspin flattened himself to creep forward, but a dried frond of fern crackled beneath him. The little creature looked up at him out of soft, brown eyes, which seemed just a bit mournful. Though its eyes were actually smaller than Tailspin’s own, they seemed enormous in proportion to the rest of its face. As it raised its head Tailspin saw that it had a fringe of darker hair along the back of its neck. It did not seem to be at all afraid of the kittens, but just stood there looking mildly at them.

  This, Marty and Tailspin told themselves, was no mouse. They had never seen a mouse, but Flyball had told them a lot about mice, suggesting, as a matter of fact, that he was a far better mouser than he really was.

  “Miaow,” said Tailspin softly, and Marty echoed him, “Miaow!” The strange little creature perked its ears but did not seem the least frightened by the sound. Tailspin waggled himself a little closer, and still the little animal showed no signs of running away.

  “It’s certainly not a mouse,” announ
ced Tailspin after some deep thought. “A mouse has a longer tail. Then, too, if it was a mouse, it would run away. Father says mice always run away. That’s when he catches them.”

  “There’s not much fun about this thing,” agreed Marty. “It just stands there and looks at us as if there was something funny about us—about us! It doesn’t seem to know how funny it looks itself. Look at its thin legs and knobby knees!”

  “Hmp, yes,” Tailspin snorted. “It’s a poor kind of creature. Silly thing doesn’t know how to play. We might as well let it alone. Besides,” an idea seemed to strike him, “I suppose we should be getting back. You know how fussy they can be?”

  “Don’t I?” rejoined Marty. “You’d think we’d been getting into trouble instead of just taking a quiet stroll to see if there were any mice around. We might as well get back before they start hollering. Anyhow, we can always take a longer walk next time. These men,” he put a lot of feeling into the word, “say we’ll be here for a few days. Also,” he yawned widely, “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting hungry!”

  The kittens, with their tails waving proudly, turned their backs on the little brown creature. With delicate dignity they started back toward the Einstein and their traveling companions. They were a little put out when, looking back over their shoulders, they realized that the strange little animal was padding along behind them. It really was not right that two hunting kittens should be trailed by such a mild little creature. All they could do was pretend that they did not notice that it was following them. Looking their snootiest, they stalked back toward the clearing.

  They managed to reach it just as Flyball and Moofa realized that there was altogether too much quietness around. They had both been so intent upon watching the men putting the helicopter together that they had almost forgotten the existence of the kittens—and that was a risky thing to do.