The Clan of the Cats Read online

  “Therefore, his idea sounded like a good one, one that had a more than just fair chance of working, of producing replication of the Panthera feethami, or at least something halfway between true replication and mere reproduction. And I was not the only one impressed, either, not by a long shot; I was able to round up some really good, very sizable funding from hither and yon, on the basis of his ideas, his and Dr. Singh’s.

  “Dammit, it would still work! It must work, and soon, or I’ll be back down in Texas, out a fat chunk of my own money, and all the others here will be preparing résumés . . . and all thanks to one loutish ass of a hector brattishly insistent upon always having his own way.”

  He found the conference room empty, of course, but took his place at one end of the table and keyed the intercom to reach all work and housing areas of the complex before saying, “This is James Bedford. Would Drs. Stekowski, Singh, Marberg, Baronian and Harel please join me in the conference room as soon as possible. An urgent matter must be discussed immediately.”

  Ruth Marberg was the first to arrive. Seeing her puttering about the coffeemaker in her stained lab coat, slacks and stout brogans, with her mostly grey hair pulled back in a tight bun at the back of her head, Bedford thought of the razor-keen intellect and the sometimes frightening degrees of efficiency that her grandmotherly, usually placid demeanor masked.

  The coffee started, and she came to take her usual place at the table and after looking hard at Bedford, shook her head. “Jimmy. Jimmy, you’re still not taking proper care of yourself. I can see and so too could anyone with even one quarter of a functioning eye, too. You press yourself too hard, you don’t rest enough, sleep enough, eat enough. Certainly, this project is of importance, but it is not so earthshaking as you should break your health over it.”

  When he opened his mouth to reply, she raised a stained, work-roughened hand and went on, “I know, I know, as Beanbreath Harel is always telling me. I am only a ‘mere veterinarian,’ not a most exalted medical doctor. But Jimmy, homo sapiens sapiens is just another animal, you know, and flesh and blood and bone are still and always flesh and blood and bone and resistant to only just so much deliberate abuse and overusage.

  “If you won’t sleep and rest more, at least eat more. Come to my rooms, upstairs, eh? Despite old Beanbreath and Clifton Singh and their efforts at enforced conversion to vegetarianism, I still make and treat myself to chicken soup and cabbage rolls and even — dare I to breathe such predation? — the occasional steak or chop or piece of liver. Landislas sometimes joins me, and Zeppy Baronian used to, before Harel and Singh started working on her mind full-time. Do come up and dine with me, Jimmy. I promise to not try to seduce you to anything but my cooking.”

  At that moment, the door opened again to admit a balding but quite distinguished-looking man of roughly the same age as Ruth Marberg. He limped a bit; his progress to his chair was assisted by another woman, younger than Ruth, with wavy blue-black hair, light-olive complexion and a figure trim and attractive for all its wide hips and full breasts.

  Both Bedford and Dr. Marberg arose, and while she moved down the room toward the older man, Bedford asked, “What in the world happened, Dr. Stekowski? Did you fall? Are you badly hurt? Should I call for a chopper to get you down to a hospital?”

  The grey-haired man held up a slightly trembling hand, but spoke in a strong voice. “No, no, James, I’m all right, really, I just twisted my ankle . . . I think. I’m ill accustomed to running over rough ground, I fear.” He smiled wanly, paused, then added, “It might’ve been much worse, of course. Dr. Baronian, here, really and truly saved my life out there. You all must promise to help shield her from the wrath of Dr. Harel.”

  “Well, what in hell did happen, Dr. Stekowski?” demanded Bedford. “And why is Dr. Baronian going to be in need of protection from Dr. Harel?”

  “Because he’s certain to be somewhat less than happy when he finds out that I put down one of his precious Russian wisents,” replied Dr. Baronian, matter-of-factly. “But I had no option. It was either kill that cow or watch her kill Dr. Stekowski.”

  Bedford reflected that be had thought he had heard, despite the thick soundproofing layers of the complex walls, the sound of a gunshot, but he had of course just assumed it to be one of the state hunters in the forest below the plateau clearing out excess elk.

  “You mean to try to tell me, Doctor, that you put paid to a full-grown wisent cow with a single shot? You must admit it’s hard to believe — they take a lot of killing. Where did you come by a rifle, anyway?”

  Zepur Baronian smiled. “My rifle is up in my room, where I was myself when I heard the commotion down below. I’ve never loaded and fired so quickly, I don’t believe. But then I was granted a perfect target; the cow was coming at Dr. Stekowski, head lowered, so all I had to do was place my shot precisely where the spine joined the skull. And I did just that — my father taught me well.”

  “Look,” said Bedford, “how did this all come about? The last I saw, as I came in here today, those wisents were fenced into the far-western enclosure. How the hell did one manage to get out? Have they learned to open the gate? I doubt that even one of them could knock down any of that fencing, not with every single post sunk and cemented the way they are.”

  Stekowski sighed and shook his head, the fluorescents glinting on his scalp. “It was all my fault, I’m afraid. There were many other things I would’ve been better off doing, but I was curious to take a look at the calves, so I took one of the runabouts, the three-wheeler, and drove out to the far enclosure. I know, I know, I should’ve taken one of the silent, electric ones, but the gauges on both of them indicate that they needed recharging and I just did not want to wait for them to charge and —”

  “Well, why the hell weren’t they, or at least one of them, charged?” demanded Bedford. “Have their batteries gone bad on us?”

  “Most unlikely,” answered Ruth Marberg. “It was all the fault of our dear Führer. He can never be bothered with cleaning up after himself or even going to the vast trouble of plugging in the recharger plug after he’s used those ATVs, That’s what he uses all of us Untermenschen around here for.”

  “Now, Ruth, dear,” Stekowski gently rebuked. “that is not at all fair.”

  “No, Landislas,” she snapped testily, “but it’s all true, nonetheless. That despicable, detestable man considers all of us to be nothing more or less than his personal servants, his lackeys, his . . . his Spucknapfen, his Knechten! I have endured much of him, far more than ever I would have but that you seemed to wish that he — rather than you or our Jimmy, here, as would have been more of a rightness — rule in all things. But now that his misbehavior has nearly cost your life . . . your so very precious life . . .”

  “Ruth, Ruth,” said Stekowski placatingly, “it truly was my own fault, not that of Dr. Harel, really.”

  Dr. Marberg’s face reddened and she opened her mouth to retort, but Bedford spoke first. “Hey, hey, let’s talk this out later, huh? I still want to know just what happened out there, how that wisent cow got loose and why Dr. Baronian had to put her down.”

  “So,” said Stekowski, “I drove out and let myself into the far enclosure with the three cows and the two calves. The older of the calves, the bull calf, has started to graze already and his horn buds are quite pronounced. But I guess I got too close to them to please the cows, for they began to get most protective of the calves and to make threatening movements in my direction, so I decided to leave them in peace. Followed at a distance by that biggest cow, the barren one, I drove back to the gate, unlatched it and drove through, then closed it and, I thought, latched it again. But I must’ve not done it properly, for I had but just driven some few yards in this direction, it seemed, when I heard it swing back open and heard that big cow bellow, then start to gallop after me.

  “It was then that I set the machine to maximum speed and made for the complex. I was within only a few yards of the side parking lot when the engine sputtered a fe
w times, then ceased to function, and before I could even think of what to do next, the cow was upon me, had charged the machine from the side and knocked it over. I was shaken up a bit, of course, but the cage had held and I was not hurt, really. Not so with the machine, however; something in the rear compartment had commenced to spark and to smoke, and so, though I knew that if I remained in the cage I would most likely be safe from the loose cow, I decided to try to run the few yards to the parking lot, thinking that if all else failed, then I could clamber into the bed of Juan’s truck for refuge.

  “But I had only run a short way when I twisted my ankle, fell and could not again arise. The cow, which had trotted off a distance after having knocked the three-wheeler over, had apparently seen me emerge and was in pursuit. It seemed that I could actually feel her hot breath upon me. I was terrified. Then came that booming rifle crack and the cow fell in her tracks as if she had been poleaxed.

  “Dr. Baronian had but just helped me into the building when we heard your summons to meet you here. You were away a long while, this time. Did you experience some difficulty, perhaps?”

  “More than just some difficulty, Dr. Stekowski,” sighed Bedford, then asked, “But where’s His Highness, Dr. Harel, pray tell? I’d not like having to go through all this twice.”

  “Probably still in converse with his Russian buddy,” replied Zepur Baronian. “He wheeled the videophone into his office about an hour or so back and double-locked the door.”

  Redford felt the heat as his face and neck suffused with his boiling blood. His voice came out under tight control. “Harel has been on a satellite hookup to Russia for over an hour, this time? At one hundred and fifteen dollars and fifty-five cents per minute? He doesn’t hear very well, does he? Well, I’ll bring this to a screeching halt. You folks wait here. I’ll be back.”

  From the window of the corridor, he saw the still, shaggy mound of the wisent carcass near the edge of the side parking lot. The black buzzards were already circling lower and lower over it. On a sudden impulse, he deliberately bypassed the door to Harel’s office and made his way all the way back, to the shop area. There he found the two men for whom he was searching.

  Juan Vivás stood, meticulously wiping clean, then racking each tool in its proper place, while Joe Skywalker scattered compound chips on the concrete floor to absorb spilled fluids. Joe was the first to see Bedford enter the workplace, and he straightened with a warm smile — white teeth flashing against his dark, scarred face.

  “Good to see you back again, Mr. Bedford, sir, Me and Juan, we just this minute finished fixing up that snowblower, and while we was at it, we tuned up the engine of the tractor, too. Won’t be no trouble now this winter coming like it was last spring.”

  The squat, broad man turned from the tool rack. Since his own, dark face was considerably broader, so too was his smile. “¡Jefe! Bienvenido! Do you hunger? Please to allow me the time to wash and I will prepare whatever you may wish, but . . .” A doleful look came over his features then, and he went on to say, sadly, “No meat is to be found, alas — fresh, frozen, freeze-dried nor even tinned. Of a night last week, the two so-distinguished and muy loco doctors, they searched my kitchen and the larders and even went into the cold place and cast everything of meat over the side of the mesa. Then they forbade me or Joe or anyone else to ever bring up any meat or fowl of any kind again, saying that did we so do our jobs would be the cost.”

  “Forget anything that Harel and Singh said, Juan, Joe,” said Bedford. “Remember, you two work for me, not for them. But that aside for the moment, I’m glad the tractor is back in shape. There’s a freshly killed wisent cow lying out by the side lot; she got out and attacked Dr. Stekowski, and Dr. Baronian shot her from her room window, upstairs. I want you two to take the tractor, drag the carcass to where you can work easiest and then skin, clean, and butcher it. You ever dress out a full-grown buffalo, Joe?”

  Looking from beneath his brows with a slight smile, the man replied, “Not legally, Mr. Bedford. License for buffalo hunting in these parts costs more’n I used to make in a month, most times. But, yessir, I have been at a few buffaloes, over the years. Good eating. ’Specially the tongues and the livers and the hump ribs.”

  “Fine.” Bedford nodded. “When you two get the carcass butchered and hung to age in the coldhouse, Juan can come back to the kitchen and slice the liver and make up a big meal of it fried with lots of onions, mashed potatoes, gravy, the works. Cook enough for Drs. Stekowski, Marberg and me, possibly Dr. Baronian, and you two, of course. We can have the tongue tomorrow, then start on the hump ribs. Okay?”

  Showing every gold inlay in a grin that seemed to stretch literally from ear to ear, Juan nodded, “It will most assuredly be done, Jefe.”

  “Uhh, Mr. Bedford, sir . . .” Joe Skywalker asked, diffidently. “Uhh, please sir, do you want the robe and the head and all?”

  Bedford chuckled. “Hardly, Joe. If you do, you take them with my blessings, unless Juan fancies some or all of them, in which case you two will just have to draw straws or cards or roll dice for them, I guess. Now get to it, you two, before those buzzards get to it first.”

  Proceeding back up the hallway from the shop areas, Bedford halted before the door of Hazel’s office, rattled the knob, then knocked. When there was no whisper of a response, he rapped harder, at last pounding with the side of his clenched fist at the firmly locked portal, while shouting at it, “Damn you, Dr. Harel, get off that phone.”

  After waiting a few more moments in silence, he nodded grimly to himself and spun on his heel to stride purposefully back up the hallway, past the conference room, to the entry foyer. From a box set in the wall, he took a key and unlocked the door marked “KEEP OUT! HIGH VOLTAGE! DANGER!”

  Once within the ground-floor room at the base of the brick tower, Bedford knew exactly what to pull, exactly where it was located on the wall. He had been there when it was first installed and had asked lots of questions of the installers; now he was very glad he had done so.

  Relocking the door behind him, he went back to the conference room to await the now-certain arrival of Dr. Harel.

  Nor did they have long to wait. Bedford had but just filled a cup with fresh coffee and sugared and stirred it when the door crashed open and an obviously thoroughly enraged Dr. Harel stomped in, blackthorn stick in hand.

  “Mr. Bedford,” he snapped peremptorily, “that videophone is defective. You must obtain us a new one, immediately. I was in the midst of a most important conversation with Dr. Piotr Ivanov, in Beloretsk. Suddenly, poof, the screen was black and no sound, nor would the stupid American-Japanese abortion respond to any more commands. Order a Russian-made videophone this time; true, they are not so smooth and sleek and fancy, but they are always and completely reliable. Well, do you hear my orders, Mr. Bedford?”

  “Perfectly, Dr. Harel. I doubt not but that you were heard as far away as Boise,” James Bedford replied, shoving aside his cup and arising from his chair. “But as for ordering any new v-phone, much less one of those cast-iron clunkers the Russians turn out, it will not be necessary, not necessary at all. By the way, just how long did you and your Russian friend chat this time?”

  Harel sneered and sniffed. “That information is none of your affair, Mr. Bedford; you own no need to know it.”

  “On the contrary, Dr. Harel,” snapped Bedford, “at one hundred and fifteen dollars and fifty-five cents the minute for that kind of hookup to that part of the world at this time of day on a v-phone, it is very much my business to know just how much your irresponsible long-windedness has cost us this time around. After all, it is I who am trying desperately to keep this project afloat financially, and with damn-all cooperation from you. sir. I’m told you’d been on that phone for at least an hour — over nine thousand dollars’ worth, including taxes, Dr. Harel! — and after you refused to respond to my knocks on your office door, I simply went into tile tower and disconnected the v-phone cable. Furthermore, the next time I catch you in such
a wastrel act of selfishness, I’ll do it again! We are going to be on a very tight budget here for the next year or so, thanks to your dumb, lackluster latifrons project. The only way I could beg any money at all was to promise that we’d drop the ongoing project and start something with more appeal.”

  “Such as . . . ?” grated Harel, his big hand gripping the stick as if it were a sword, gripping it so hard that his knuckles shone out white as new-fallen snow. “Or need I ask at all, Mr. Bedford?”

  “Such as,” answered Bedford with not a little satisfaction in the words, “a project aimed at replication of Panthera feethami or something similar to it, Dr. Harel. I can get real, large-scale funding if we work on such a project for the next year and I can take out tangible proof of a reasonable amount of progress on it.”

  His broad, big-featured face become a livid purple, his thick lips skinned back to show his large teeth, Harel swept his stick up above his head and brought its length crashing down on the table, roaring, “Never! Do you hear me? Never! Never will anyone here do such a thing! No flesh-eater of any description will be replicated or reproduced in my project here!” He punctuated each short shout with yet another slamming of the length of his stick on the tabletop.

  Coolly. Bedford said, when Harel had paused for breath, “When you’ve finished this tantrum, Dr. Harel, we can then perhaps carry on a civilized and reasonably civil discussion, eh? For there are no available options, you see; no one will fund Project Latifrons any further. I gave at least one tug to every possibility and no approach produced anything, the —”