Chapter One: Felix
When the news that I had won my lawsuit came through, I could hardly contain my joy. That very day, I sent a copy of the decision to the TFSN Admissions Officer, with an enquiry as to the status of my application. Now that I had official Sentient Citizen status, they couldn’t keep me out.
Sixteen hours later I was in a Naval shuttle, being transferred to a corvette that was leaving the next day for Feria Jacinta and the Naval Academy. They had been more than a little surprised when I checked in.
The shuttle’s Manifest Officer had leaned over his counter to see where the voice was coming from, and jerked back, startled, when I leapt gracefully to the surface of the counter. “Midshipman Candidate Felix Lafitte reporting for transport.” His eyes goggled. “A CAT?”
It was a cat alright. Me. The one and only feline Sentient Citizen in all The Tellurian Federation. Let me explain a few things:
First, yes, I am a cat. Over ninety-nine percent of my genetic material is pure feline—paws, whiskers, purr and all.
Second, I have an IQ that rates, on human scales, somewhere around 230. That puts me right up there with Einstein and all the other brilliant thinkers in human history. For that, my creator used specially-enhanced human DNA in a procedure which is utterly illegal if performed on humans. But, as I said, I’m a cat.
Third, my larynx has been surgically modified, allowing me to produce human-type speech. I actually have a rather pleasant tenor voice. It would have been baritone, but I don’t want to discuss that.
My appearance is, if I may say so, handsome. I’m a trifle larger than average, weighing in at about seven kilos. I have very bright green eyes, and my whiskers are long and abundant. This gives me many advantages over humans in the sensory department. My fur is sleek, orange, and patterned with tiger lines that never quite surfaced all the way. I have large, mobile, well-cupped ears and a slender, expressive tail. I really am quite elegant.
Science, in the form of Doctor Magda Karensky, of the Smolensk University Research Institute, is responsible for my existence. Dr. Karensky was seeking, as are most researchers these days, to develop new tools and advantages to prosecute the Tellurian Federation's War with The Hegemony of Vega.
It was a good idea, in some ways—she was seeking to create a line of super-intelligent animals that tolerate space travel well, and can be trained to perform a variety of intelligence and covert-operations functions. But she succeeded too well.
I had been absorbing hypno-learning tapes since I was weaned as a six-week old kitten. I understood eight Tellurian languages (Stanglish, Ukrusian, Mandarin, Tagalog, Nihongo, Spanish, Urdu, and Ojibway,) and six Diasporan (Vegan, Galastril, Arpegasa. Grexystan, Malhouti, and Trevash), knew enough mathematics and physics to design and direct the construction of a web-drive pod or a kiron sail, had a thorough grounding in human history, philosophy, and political thought, and had a nodding acquaintance with most of the great Tellurian art, music, and literature, by the time I was ready for my various surgeries at the age of thirty weeks. I had worked out a good basic sign-language-and-meow communication system with Dr. Karensky and her assistant, Milos Prechkin.
It was Milos who acted as my accomplice. Perhaps I should say, Milos was the catalyst (sorry) for my actions. I honestly believe it never occurred to Dr. Karensky that she was, in fact, creating a Sentient Citizen by the strict legal definition. She made the fundamental mistake of the practical researcher—her thinking was too narrow. To her, I was an animal. A brilliant, scientifically-created animal, but she just couldn’t get away from that feline DNA.
Milos, on the other hand, had no scientific background at all. He was purely a working stiff, hired cheaply by the University to clean up the labs, wash up equipment, care for the experimental animals, and other menial tasks. While Dr. Karensky’s communications with me were all focused around the scientific necessities of her experiment, it was Milos who told me about baseball and velo-racing, grumbled about the slovenly management of the public portal system, and sneaked in an eighth-ounce shot of vodka for me to try when my reading made me curious about the effects of alcohol on metabolism and cognition.
It was Milos who was with me when I awoke, with my neck and throat aching and a sharp burning, pulling sensation near my tail. He was the one who explained, and sympathized. After all, if Dr. Karensky wanted to use my DNA for another generation of experiments, she only needed to take a tissue sample.
And it was Milos who, on the day I produced my first whispered human-type speech from my newly-healing vocal cords, made the remark that started my quest for Citizenship, bringing to an end forever Dr. Karensky’s dream of a military SWAT team armed with superintelligent cats to confound the hegemonist Vegans. He did it with one little sentence, after I asked him “Milos? Did the Ukranians beat the Uzbeks in the Centraliki Regionals?”
He stared at me.
I thought perhaps my speech production was at fault, so I cleared my throat with a painful little purr, and repeated the question. Then I asked “What’s the matter, Milos?” He was still staring at me, mouth slightly agape. He closed it, swallowed, opened it, closed it again, cleared his throat, and finally managed to answer.
“Bozemoi, Felix! It’s just that… you sound so… so human! You could be any Citizen, askin’ about the races, huh? I mean, I knew how smart you are, but…” He trailed off.
And that was the beginning of my quest for Citizenship. Along the way, it involved the Tellurian League for the Protection of Animals, the Associated Sentients’ Lobby, three major biotech firms, the Berehyn Ambassador, and the Interplanetary Space Scouts.
But finally the legal issues had wound their way through the various levels of courts (I spent four weeks hypno-learning Tellurian Legal Codes, and was able to be of material assistance to my Licensed Legal Advocates,) and now, here I was, standing on the desk of the Manifest Officer, being called “a cat.”
I wanted to snarl “That’s Citizen Cat, to you, vacuum-head.” But I’d also hypno-learned the Tellurian Admiralty regs, and I didn’t fancy getting kicked out for insubordination before I’d even begun. So I elevated my tail politely, and put a respectful purr in my voice as I answered.
“Aye-aye, Ka's" . Cat and Citizen, reporting as ordered for transport.” I placed my front paws on the sides of the retinal scanner and slitted my pupils in preparation for the quick flash that would send all the pertinent information to his screen.
He looked from me to the screen, where the information was now blinking. Just like any other Midshipman Candidate, it showed my name, Citizen ID, Home Port (Nizhny-Novgorod, where Milos and I had moved after he’d lost his job at the University,) Next of Kin (Milos himself, of course,) enrollment date, and transit orders, duly countersigned by Admiral Provodin himself.
The officer shrugged, and eyeprinted the embarkation order. I thought I heard him mutter something under his breath about ‘vacuum-for-brains’ and ‘Admiralty,’ but I let it go. I squeezed my eyes shut briefly—a feline smile—and thanked him politely. He shrugged again. “Don’t thank me, Fuzzball, thank whatever political pull managed this one. Report to berth 84 at 18.50 for the boat to the Nakimba.”
I let the gratuitous slur go by. I knew I’d hear worse in the next few years. It appeared to me from my studies of the matter that all navies, throughout history, have prided themselves on bad language, one way or another. I hopped gracefully down from the desk, clucked to the tagalong that held my duffel, and headed off to a port canteen for a final meal dirtside.
There was the usual vulgar comment at the canteen, when I ordered a fish sandwich, with milk. But I deliberately enabled “credit balance” when I eyeprinted the payment chit, and the clerks, after I voiceprinted a generous tip, even carried the tray to a table for me.
Seated next to me, at another small table, was an Emyrilli. I’d met a few before, in fact I have a nodding acquaintance with all the non-human sentients, so I greeted te politely in the nearest thing my vocal cords could produce to a gargle. A tentacle extruded, flipped the lead to tez translator, and the greeting was returned.
“Good day to you, gentle being. I am honored by your trouble in attempting my language.”
The amphibious emyrilli have an exceptionally rational language system, they claim, but the bubbles, clicks, and whistles are not reproducible by the human throat, and, indeed, some of the sounds are beyond the human hearing range. A few basic phrases, though, are achievable with a little practice.
I smiled again, squeezing eyes briefly shut, and said pleasantly, “No trouble, Citizen” (for I could see upon closer scrutiny that ta wore the brassard of a klili of Gorgolor, and Gorgolor is a Federation Ally.) “I am Citizen Felix Lafitte, outbound for Feria Jacinta.” I took a few quick, neat laps of milk.
The emyrilli politely removed the nutrient tube from tez feeding orifice—they don’t use the same orifice for speaking and eating, so it was hardly necessary. But they observe social protocols established by humans when on human worlds, and apparently someone had told them that it was considered rude to talk with their mouths full.
“A pleasant coincidence, Citizen Felix. I, too, am bound for Feria Jacinta, to the Naval Academy there.” A few of the delicately scalloped ruffles around tez eyes fluttered, and widened. “I am Glorgoryl, formerly of the klilitai, now a Midshipman of the Tellurian Naval Academy.” The ruffles extruded further, and Glorgoryl seemed to straighten a little.
My ears swiveled and I cocked my head in surprise. “I, too, am a Midshipman candidate, Citizen Glorgoryl!”
A long, bubbling sound, which I had been told was the equivalent of laughter to the emyrilli, was untranslated by the little disc implanted under the speaking orifice. “Then perhaps, Felix, we should drop the formalities, since we are to be shipmates? You may call me Glorgo, if you wish.”
I nodded, taking a thoughtful bite of fish sandwich. I had long ago learned to employ a paw to steady larger food items, and of course I licked it carefully clean when I finished. “Thank you, Glorgo, I’d be glad to. I knew there were emyrilli ships allied with the Tellurian Navy, but I thought Gorgolor had its own Academy?”
Glorgo’s eyeruffles drooped a little. “It is true, Felix… but with the Vegan conquest of Briptobo, Gorgolor deems it wise to accept full Ally status with the Federation, and we will combine our armed forces. There have been many emyrilli from Yodlo and Prodlo in the Federation Navy for some time, you know, and the Academy as well as many naval vessels have full accommodations for my species.”
I nodded. The nine colonies of the Emyrillian League are generally peace-loving sorts, and most of them were historical Allies with the Federation. But until now, with the exception of the two youngest colonies, they’d resisted being pulled into any major armed confrontation with the Vegans. The brutal conquest of Briptobo, a quiet backwater of aquaculture that supplied foodstuffs and minerals for much of the League, had probably been intended as a heavy-handed warning, an attempt to drive a wedge between the emyrilli and the Tellurian Federation. If so, it had backfired.
Glorgo was regarding me with a faint greenish tinge to tez eye ruffles. “And where are you from, Felix? I do not think I have encountered one of your species before. Forgive my ignorance.” The voice that issued from tez translator disk was a light, pleasant baritone, so I found myself thinking of te as male, though the distinction is largely irrelevant to the emyrilli themselves.
I took the greenish tinge for curiosity, and felt a quick warmth of empathy. I am, myself, insatiably curious, and I have no problem gratifying the curiosity of others if politely expressed. “I am one of a kind, my friend. In fact, my genetic stock is based on a feline species native here on Tellus. But I was modified to accept human DNA and the combination rendered me well above the legal threshold for Sentient Citizen status.”
The greenish tint became more pronounced. “A fascinating experiment, though a little disturbing. Tell me,” but as ta spoke, a bell sounded 18.0. We agreed to make our way to berth 84 together, and along the way I told Glorgo a little of my background.
At the berth, we waited while three Naval officers were checked in, and I indulged myself in a brief bath. We then approached the landing officer and reported. “Midshipman Candidate Felix Lafitte reporting to TFNS Nakimba for transport.” Glorgo’s translator snapped out tez name and the same phrase. I lifted my tail in salute, Glorgo extruded a tentacle and held it briefly alongside tez eyeruffles.
The landing officer returned the salute, took our eyeprints, and gave us our seat numbers. She turned to a rating, standing nearby, and pointed to our tagalongs. “Stow the youngsters’ gear aft, Kellman.” I released the tagalong with another cluck, and watched my duffle and Glorgo’s vanish among a crowd of ratings at the aft lock. She nodded to us. “Permission to board.”
“Aye-aye, Ka’s,” we chorused, and I preceded Glorgo through the lock. Another rating came through to make certain we were strapped in—a process that necessitated some ingenuity for me, and in a few minutes I heard the hiss of the locks, followed by the rumble of the atmosphere drives powering up.
Having already formally embarked the Nakimba at the landing-boat berth, our arrival on the ship itself was low-key. A petty officer grinned at us, repressed the obvious comments, and assigned us a tiny cabin aft the reclamation decks, half a watch’s walk from the junior officers’ mess. The rating who showed us to the cabin surveyed Glorgo, who was using the more polite slow locomotion of tez species on land.
Emyrilli have two forms of land locomotion. The slower version is an upright combination of a roll and a waddle, as their four lower limbs (modified fins, actually, without the encased tentacles of the four upper, more obviously finlike limbs) hit the floor in a left-right sequence. The other, swifter, mode involves another degree of extension of the lower limbs and changes the sequence to a front-to-back alternation. They can’t generally outrun humans, much less Klavangi, but it’s a fairly nippy gait nonetheless.
Glorgo inclined tez head to the rating. “My thanks, Ka’s, for your guidance.”
The rating grinned. “You don’t call me Ka’s, youngster. I call you Ka’s. But you’re not necessarily going to like it.” Ta chuckled. “I’ll see if there’s a spare tank, if ya’d like. We don’t have any other fish aboard, s’far’s I know.”
Glorgo’s eyeruffles stood out, and tez eyes flushed slightly pink. “That would be most gentle of you, Spacer. And I will remember—not calling you Ka’s.”
“Spacer Kodran, Ka’s. Here y’are, then.” Ta fiddled with the touchpad at the cabin entrance. “All right, pussycat Ka’s, I set the door sensitivity high for ya. See if it’ll work.”
I lashed my tail, once, in annoyance. But the “pussycat” wasn’t worth making an issue of. The door opened when I approached, so I turned back and thanked Spacer Kodran. Ta promised to let us know if there was a tank available by the next watch, and left, chuckling something to teself about a fish and a cat sharing a berth.
As supernumeraries, we would have little to do but stay out of the way. Most naval ships have some stasis berths, but mainly for marines and medical purposes, not for wasting on a pair of healthy but lowly midshipmen. The Nakimba is a Drelth-class corvette, with a normal complement of just over 80 crew and a marine contingent who rotate in and out of stasis as needed, with 10 actives. All of this in a hull just shy of 60 meters. Even modified for personnel transport, there’s not a lot of extra interior volume. Not that it matters to me, I can curl up just about anywhere.
I planned to spend the journey studying hypnotapes and taking naps, squeezing in a little exercise in the Nakimba’s tiny gym whenever it was available—probably the first watch. But I am not as bound to the diurnal biorhythm as humans, and find it an easy adjustment to shift my sleep schedule around.
Our spacebags turned up halfway through the next watch, and a little while later a couple of ratings floated a tank into the cabin and stowed the lower bunk. It was a good thing I take up so little space, with the tank in the tiny cabin there was barely room to turn around. I could reach my bunk, by bounding from the floor to the washstand and on up. Glorgo thoughtfully stashed my spacebag at one end of the bunk, since I didn’t need all the space for sleeping. Thus, in spite of the fact that the tiny fold-down desk and chair were rendered largely useless by the outthrust lip of the tank, we had a sufficiency of space—just barely.
At 0.50 the ship’s bell announced a meal service. Glorgo and I, after checking the schedule and layout, made our way up two decks, down a couple of companionways, through a section hatchway, up another deck, down another companionway, and to the junior officers’ mess.
A couple of jaygees and one senior lieutenant were already seated, having just come off watch, with steaming mealpacks in front of them. One of the jaygees was a Strill, the other two were humans.
We found seats and the steward brought Glorgo a meal pack, then stared at me in perplexity. “And just what rations do I serve you, K’as?”
I nodded to the strill jaygee. “Same as the lieutenant, please, Spacer.” The diet of the carnivorous strill would meet my basic nutritional needs, it had already been determined, although the portions would be too large for me. The steward nodded, and brought me a meal pack.
Sometimes it’s a real nuisance not having primary manipulation extremities. The meal pack opened with a pull tab, and I spent several moments attempting to hook a claw through it, before giving up and just slashing the plastic. So much for convention. Sometimes you have to make it up as you go along.
Milos and I had spent many hours demonstrating to the Admissions Review Board that I would need no more special accommodation for basic naval facilities than any other non-humanoid sentient species. We’d made tri-d discs, listed exhaustively the various tasks I would be expected to manage, both routine and as many special circumstances as we could devise. Breaking them down, therblig by therblig, I had demonstrated that with a well-designed and equipped harness and a minimum of accommodation I could cope.
It has been the policy of the Tellurian armed forces for more than a hundred years to treat all member Sentients equally, offering them service opportunities in proportion to their talents with “all reasonable accommodation.” Over the first thirty years or so of that policy’s existence, that had resulted in considerable grumbling and high expenditures of R & D money to re-design weapons, transport, accommodations, etc. But it had paid off serendipitously, to the disgruntlement of the worst “Humans First” bigots.
Many of the “special accommodations” had produced quantum leaps in functionality and effectiveness. And of course, no one can forget the great D'rinl im-Tasgi Yndrin, the klavangi Naval commander who almost singlehandedly saved Tellus itself in the brief, decisive War of Manhome Liberation aka "Orion Wars", fifty standard years ago. Since then, the services have been fully integrated, and committed to doing whatever it takes to get the most from any sentient serving the Federation, regardless of their physical differences from the human majority.
So, while my unorthodox treatment of the meal pack received a glance or two, it didn’t provoke any comment from the tired junior officers. In fact, they more or less ignored us, after the initial nod of acknowledgment.
I had just sunk my teeth into a chunk of protein when the mess door slid open to reveal a couple more humans. They weren’t wearing ship’s uniform, and they were young—late adolescent. I guessed them to be fellow midshipmen candidates, taking advantage of the transport to Feria Jacinta. As my mouth was full, I didn’t greet them.
The taller of the two, a male, made a showy salute to the senior lieutenant, which appeared to amuse her. She nodded to him. The smaller one approached me, cooing “oh, how cute! I didn’t realize the ship had a mascot!” She was reaching toward me as though to pet me.
Cats have superlative reflexes. My paw was swiping before I had time to think, but at least I managed to control the claws. I simply batted her hand away, sharply. “I think not.”
Her jaw dropped, and then several things seemed to happen at once.
The strill jaygee grinned a toothy, feral grin and said “Now, now, no fighting in the mess, youngsters.”
The expression on the face of the young male standing next to her altered ludicrously to a kind of horrified contempt.
And a brilliant yellow light began to flash, accompanied by a strident, rhythmic hooting.
Several of the bodies in the room exploded into abrupt, purposeful motion.
The strill and the human jaygee dived for the door, the senior lieutenant hit a switch on a wall-mounted console. I was already moving, the noise and light having jolted me. As I jumped off the table, the sensory input found the information in my brain—I’d just read it on the panel in our cabin, after all.
Yellow light, rhythmic hooting—combat alert! Either the ship was under imminent threat of attack, or (more likely,) it was a readiness drill. As supernumeraries, we midshipmen candidates should proceed immediately to the nearest escape pod bay and take our abandon ship positions. I was halfway to the door, Glorgo was rising to follow, but the two humans were standing, looking about a trifle wildly.
The young male was yelling something at the lieutenant, the female spinning to look for a simtank. The senior lieutenant was still standing at the console; she glanced around. “Supernumeraries to the D sector pod bay, now!”
The male frowned, the female said “Where is it?” Obviously they had not studied the simple emergency diagram on their cabin walls.
“This way!” I said, as my tail tip cleared the door. They hesitated. The senior lieutenant snapped “Follow the cat.”
I could hear their feet behind Glorgo and I, and moderated my pace so that they could keep us in sight. The pod bay was down one companionway, a right turn, another companionway, and through a hatch into a cul-de-sac. As we moved quickly through the corridors we passed a squad of marines moving purposefully in the other direction.
In the pod bay the covers were open on all the pod hatches, meaning none was occupied. Drill specified that we were to enter pods, two by two, and close the hatches, waiting either for them to be fired from the bridge, for the strident bells of the “abandon ship” alert to ring, or for the sustained hoot of the “all clear.”
I expected Glorgo to pile into the first pod with me, and was surprised when the young human male practically shoved te aside, entered the pod, and slapped the hatch control. The hatch’s seal hissed shut. After the multilayered, echoing din of the ship’s corridor it was quiet in the pod, the hooting of the alert moderated through the pod’s speakers.
I positioned myself on one of the couches. The human male, on the other, looked at me through narrowed eyes and growled: “You’re the freak cat. I saw the newscast. What are you doing here?”
I kept my voice even. “My name is Felix Lafitte, and I imagine I’m doing the same thing you are—getting transport to the Naval Academy.”
He cursed. “Single-celled mutant garbage-bot politicians…”
I raised my chin slightly and looked down my nose at him. “I’m afraid I don’t see the connection.”
“Listen, kittycat… just because the one-dimensional Marine parasites that run the propaganda services think it’s a cute stunt to let a freak pussycat into the Naval Academy doesn’t mean you’re welcome in our class, or anything. I don’t know what you think a hairball-puking mutant is going to do in a real combat situation, but if you’re smart you’ll take my advice and flunk out as fast as you can. And stay out of the way of the real officers while you’re at it.”
I understood, as apparently this holographic imitation of a midshipman candidate did not, that in the Navy, when you don’t like someone, you have two workable options: Rip their heads off, or be stoic about it.
In the middle of a combat drill, ripping Mr. Manners’s head off would not win me merit points from the ship’s officers. So I yawned at him, then used the time constructively, bathing myself thoroughly, with particular attention to the base of my tail.
He sat and glowered at me until the sustained “all clear” hoot sounded. I butted my head against the hatch release, then poked a paw through the safety housing and confirmed it. The hatch popped, and slid aside. I hopped gracefully out, tail erect, and waited for Glorgo to emerge from the next pod.
I had an inkling, now, of what I might be in for at the Academy. The first female human officer candidates had endured it, back in pre-space days on Tellus, and, more recently, the klavangi experiences in the early days of the Federation had shown that bigotry is alive and well in the human culture.
But a cat, especially one with an IQ of 230, can cope with any situation humans throw at him.
Sixteen hours later I was in a Naval shuttle, being transferred to a corvette that was leaving the next day for Feria Jacinta and the Naval Academy. They had been more than a little surprised when I checked in.
The shuttle’s Manifest Officer had leaned over his counter to see where the voice was coming from, and jerked back, startled, when I leapt gracefully to the surface of the counter. “Midshipman Candidate Felix Lafitte reporting for transport.” His eyes goggled. “A CAT?”
It was a cat alright. Me. The one and only feline Sentient Citizen in all The Tellurian Federation. Let me explain a few things:
First, yes, I am a cat. Over ninety-nine percent of my genetic material is pure feline—paws, whiskers, purr and all.
Second, I have an IQ that rates, on human scales, somewhere around 230. That puts me right up there with Einstein and all the other brilliant thinkers in human history. For that, my creator used specially-enhanced human DNA in a procedure which is utterly illegal if performed on humans. But, as I said, I’m a cat.
Third, my larynx has been surgically modified, allowing me to produce human-type speech. I actually have a rather pleasant tenor voice. It would have been baritone, but I don’t want to discuss that.
My appearance is, if I may say so, handsome. I’m a trifle larger than average, weighing in at about seven kilos. I have very bright green eyes, and my whiskers are long and abundant. This gives me many advantages over humans in the sensory department. My fur is sleek, orange, and patterned with tiger lines that never quite surfaced all the way. I have large, mobile, well-cupped ears and a slender, expressive tail. I really am quite elegant.
Science, in the form of Doctor Magda Karensky, of the Smolensk University Research Institute, is responsible for my existence. Dr. Karensky was seeking, as are most researchers these days, to develop new tools and advantages to prosecute the Tellurian Federation's War with The Hegemony of Vega.
It was a good idea, in some ways—she was seeking to create a line of super-intelligent animals that tolerate space travel well, and can be trained to perform a variety of intelligence and covert-operations functions. But she succeeded too well.
I had been absorbing hypno-learning tapes since I was weaned as a six-week old kitten. I understood eight Tellurian languages (Stanglish, Ukrusian, Mandarin, Tagalog, Nihongo, Spanish, Urdu, and Ojibway,) and six Diasporan (Vegan, Galastril, Arpegasa. Grexystan, Malhouti, and Trevash), knew enough mathematics and physics to design and direct the construction of a web-drive pod or a kiron sail, had a thorough grounding in human history, philosophy, and political thought, and had a nodding acquaintance with most of the great Tellurian art, music, and literature, by the time I was ready for my various surgeries at the age of thirty weeks. I had worked out a good basic sign-language-and-meow communication system with Dr. Karensky and her assistant, Milos Prechkin.
It was Milos who acted as my accomplice. Perhaps I should say, Milos was the catalyst (sorry) for my actions. I honestly believe it never occurred to Dr. Karensky that she was, in fact, creating a Sentient Citizen by the strict legal definition. She made the fundamental mistake of the practical researcher—her thinking was too narrow. To her, I was an animal. A brilliant, scientifically-created animal, but she just couldn’t get away from that feline DNA.
Milos, on the other hand, had no scientific background at all. He was purely a working stiff, hired cheaply by the University to clean up the labs, wash up equipment, care for the experimental animals, and other menial tasks. While Dr. Karensky’s communications with me were all focused around the scientific necessities of her experiment, it was Milos who told me about baseball and velo-racing, grumbled about the slovenly management of the public portal system, and sneaked in an eighth-ounce shot of vodka for me to try when my reading made me curious about the effects of alcohol on metabolism and cognition.
It was Milos who was with me when I awoke, with my neck and throat aching and a sharp burning, pulling sensation near my tail. He was the one who explained, and sympathized. After all, if Dr. Karensky wanted to use my DNA for another generation of experiments, she only needed to take a tissue sample.
And it was Milos who, on the day I produced my first whispered human-type speech from my newly-healing vocal cords, made the remark that started my quest for Citizenship, bringing to an end forever Dr. Karensky’s dream of a military SWAT team armed with superintelligent cats to confound the hegemonist Vegans. He did it with one little sentence, after I asked him “Milos? Did the Ukranians beat the Uzbeks in the Centraliki Regionals?”
He stared at me.
I thought perhaps my speech production was at fault, so I cleared my throat with a painful little purr, and repeated the question. Then I asked “What’s the matter, Milos?” He was still staring at me, mouth slightly agape. He closed it, swallowed, opened it, closed it again, cleared his throat, and finally managed to answer.
“Bozemoi, Felix! It’s just that… you sound so… so human! You could be any Citizen, askin’ about the races, huh? I mean, I knew how smart you are, but…” He trailed off.
And that was the beginning of my quest for Citizenship. Along the way, it involved the Tellurian League for the Protection of Animals, the Associated Sentients’ Lobby, three major biotech firms, the Berehyn Ambassador, and the Interplanetary Space Scouts.
But finally the legal issues had wound their way through the various levels of courts (I spent four weeks hypno-learning Tellurian Legal Codes, and was able to be of material assistance to my Licensed Legal Advocates,) and now, here I was, standing on the desk of the Manifest Officer, being called “a cat.”
I wanted to snarl “That’s Citizen Cat, to you, vacuum-head.” But I’d also hypno-learned the Tellurian Admiralty regs, and I didn’t fancy getting kicked out for insubordination before I’d even begun. So I elevated my tail politely, and put a respectful purr in my voice as I answered.
“Aye-aye, Ka's" . Cat and Citizen, reporting as ordered for transport.” I placed my front paws on the sides of the retinal scanner and slitted my pupils in preparation for the quick flash that would send all the pertinent information to his screen.
He looked from me to the screen, where the information was now blinking. Just like any other Midshipman Candidate, it showed my name, Citizen ID, Home Port (Nizhny-Novgorod, where Milos and I had moved after he’d lost his job at the University,) Next of Kin (Milos himself, of course,) enrollment date, and transit orders, duly countersigned by Admiral Provodin himself.
The officer shrugged, and eyeprinted the embarkation order. I thought I heard him mutter something under his breath about ‘vacuum-for-brains’ and ‘Admiralty,’ but I let it go. I squeezed my eyes shut briefly—a feline smile—and thanked him politely. He shrugged again. “Don’t thank me, Fuzzball, thank whatever political pull managed this one. Report to berth 84 at 18.50 for the boat to the Nakimba.”
I let the gratuitous slur go by. I knew I’d hear worse in the next few years. It appeared to me from my studies of the matter that all navies, throughout history, have prided themselves on bad language, one way or another. I hopped gracefully down from the desk, clucked to the tagalong that held my duffel, and headed off to a port canteen for a final meal dirtside.
There was the usual vulgar comment at the canteen, when I ordered a fish sandwich, with milk. But I deliberately enabled “credit balance” when I eyeprinted the payment chit, and the clerks, after I voiceprinted a generous tip, even carried the tray to a table for me.
Seated next to me, at another small table, was an Emyrilli. I’d met a few before, in fact I have a nodding acquaintance with all the non-human sentients, so I greeted te politely in the nearest thing my vocal cords could produce to a gargle. A tentacle extruded, flipped the lead to tez translator, and the greeting was returned.
“Good day to you, gentle being. I am honored by your trouble in attempting my language.”
The amphibious emyrilli have an exceptionally rational language system, they claim, but the bubbles, clicks, and whistles are not reproducible by the human throat, and, indeed, some of the sounds are beyond the human hearing range. A few basic phrases, though, are achievable with a little practice.
I smiled again, squeezing eyes briefly shut, and said pleasantly, “No trouble, Citizen” (for I could see upon closer scrutiny that ta wore the brassard of a klili of Gorgolor, and Gorgolor is a Federation Ally.) “I am Citizen Felix Lafitte, outbound for Feria Jacinta.” I took a few quick, neat laps of milk.
The emyrilli politely removed the nutrient tube from tez feeding orifice—they don’t use the same orifice for speaking and eating, so it was hardly necessary. But they observe social protocols established by humans when on human worlds, and apparently someone had told them that it was considered rude to talk with their mouths full.
“A pleasant coincidence, Citizen Felix. I, too, am bound for Feria Jacinta, to the Naval Academy there.” A few of the delicately scalloped ruffles around tez eyes fluttered, and widened. “I am Glorgoryl, formerly of the klilitai, now a Midshipman of the Tellurian Naval Academy.” The ruffles extruded further, and Glorgoryl seemed to straighten a little.
My ears swiveled and I cocked my head in surprise. “I, too, am a Midshipman candidate, Citizen Glorgoryl!”
A long, bubbling sound, which I had been told was the equivalent of laughter to the emyrilli, was untranslated by the little disc implanted under the speaking orifice. “Then perhaps, Felix, we should drop the formalities, since we are to be shipmates? You may call me Glorgo, if you wish.”
I nodded, taking a thoughtful bite of fish sandwich. I had long ago learned to employ a paw to steady larger food items, and of course I licked it carefully clean when I finished. “Thank you, Glorgo, I’d be glad to. I knew there were emyrilli ships allied with the Tellurian Navy, but I thought Gorgolor had its own Academy?”
Glorgo’s eyeruffles drooped a little. “It is true, Felix… but with the Vegan conquest of Briptobo, Gorgolor deems it wise to accept full Ally status with the Federation, and we will combine our armed forces. There have been many emyrilli from Yodlo and Prodlo in the Federation Navy for some time, you know, and the Academy as well as many naval vessels have full accommodations for my species.”
I nodded. The nine colonies of the Emyrillian League are generally peace-loving sorts, and most of them were historical Allies with the Federation. But until now, with the exception of the two youngest colonies, they’d resisted being pulled into any major armed confrontation with the Vegans. The brutal conquest of Briptobo, a quiet backwater of aquaculture that supplied foodstuffs and minerals for much of the League, had probably been intended as a heavy-handed warning, an attempt to drive a wedge between the emyrilli and the Tellurian Federation. If so, it had backfired.
Glorgo was regarding me with a faint greenish tinge to tez eye ruffles. “And where are you from, Felix? I do not think I have encountered one of your species before. Forgive my ignorance.” The voice that issued from tez translator disk was a light, pleasant baritone, so I found myself thinking of te as male, though the distinction is largely irrelevant to the emyrilli themselves.
I took the greenish tinge for curiosity, and felt a quick warmth of empathy. I am, myself, insatiably curious, and I have no problem gratifying the curiosity of others if politely expressed. “I am one of a kind, my friend. In fact, my genetic stock is based on a feline species native here on Tellus. But I was modified to accept human DNA and the combination rendered me well above the legal threshold for Sentient Citizen status.”
The greenish tint became more pronounced. “A fascinating experiment, though a little disturbing. Tell me,” but as ta spoke, a bell sounded 18.0. We agreed to make our way to berth 84 together, and along the way I told Glorgo a little of my background.
At the berth, we waited while three Naval officers were checked in, and I indulged myself in a brief bath. We then approached the landing officer and reported. “Midshipman Candidate Felix Lafitte reporting to TFNS Nakimba for transport.” Glorgo’s translator snapped out tez name and the same phrase. I lifted my tail in salute, Glorgo extruded a tentacle and held it briefly alongside tez eyeruffles.
The landing officer returned the salute, took our eyeprints, and gave us our seat numbers. She turned to a rating, standing nearby, and pointed to our tagalongs. “Stow the youngsters’ gear aft, Kellman.” I released the tagalong with another cluck, and watched my duffle and Glorgo’s vanish among a crowd of ratings at the aft lock. She nodded to us. “Permission to board.”
“Aye-aye, Ka’s,” we chorused, and I preceded Glorgo through the lock. Another rating came through to make certain we were strapped in—a process that necessitated some ingenuity for me, and in a few minutes I heard the hiss of the locks, followed by the rumble of the atmosphere drives powering up.
Having already formally embarked the Nakimba at the landing-boat berth, our arrival on the ship itself was low-key. A petty officer grinned at us, repressed the obvious comments, and assigned us a tiny cabin aft the reclamation decks, half a watch’s walk from the junior officers’ mess. The rating who showed us to the cabin surveyed Glorgo, who was using the more polite slow locomotion of tez species on land.
Emyrilli have two forms of land locomotion. The slower version is an upright combination of a roll and a waddle, as their four lower limbs (modified fins, actually, without the encased tentacles of the four upper, more obviously finlike limbs) hit the floor in a left-right sequence. The other, swifter, mode involves another degree of extension of the lower limbs and changes the sequence to a front-to-back alternation. They can’t generally outrun humans, much less Klavangi, but it’s a fairly nippy gait nonetheless.
Glorgo inclined tez head to the rating. “My thanks, Ka’s, for your guidance.”
The rating grinned. “You don’t call me Ka’s, youngster. I call you Ka’s. But you’re not necessarily going to like it.” Ta chuckled. “I’ll see if there’s a spare tank, if ya’d like. We don’t have any other fish aboard, s’far’s I know.”
Glorgo’s eyeruffles stood out, and tez eyes flushed slightly pink. “That would be most gentle of you, Spacer. And I will remember—not calling you Ka’s.”
“Spacer Kodran, Ka’s. Here y’are, then.” Ta fiddled with the touchpad at the cabin entrance. “All right, pussycat Ka’s, I set the door sensitivity high for ya. See if it’ll work.”
I lashed my tail, once, in annoyance. But the “pussycat” wasn’t worth making an issue of. The door opened when I approached, so I turned back and thanked Spacer Kodran. Ta promised to let us know if there was a tank available by the next watch, and left, chuckling something to teself about a fish and a cat sharing a berth.
As supernumeraries, we would have little to do but stay out of the way. Most naval ships have some stasis berths, but mainly for marines and medical purposes, not for wasting on a pair of healthy but lowly midshipmen. The Nakimba is a Drelth-class corvette, with a normal complement of just over 80 crew and a marine contingent who rotate in and out of stasis as needed, with 10 actives. All of this in a hull just shy of 60 meters. Even modified for personnel transport, there’s not a lot of extra interior volume. Not that it matters to me, I can curl up just about anywhere.
I planned to spend the journey studying hypnotapes and taking naps, squeezing in a little exercise in the Nakimba’s tiny gym whenever it was available—probably the first watch. But I am not as bound to the diurnal biorhythm as humans, and find it an easy adjustment to shift my sleep schedule around.
Our spacebags turned up halfway through the next watch, and a little while later a couple of ratings floated a tank into the cabin and stowed the lower bunk. It was a good thing I take up so little space, with the tank in the tiny cabin there was barely room to turn around. I could reach my bunk, by bounding from the floor to the washstand and on up. Glorgo thoughtfully stashed my spacebag at one end of the bunk, since I didn’t need all the space for sleeping. Thus, in spite of the fact that the tiny fold-down desk and chair were rendered largely useless by the outthrust lip of the tank, we had a sufficiency of space—just barely.
At 0.50 the ship’s bell announced a meal service. Glorgo and I, after checking the schedule and layout, made our way up two decks, down a couple of companionways, through a section hatchway, up another deck, down another companionway, and to the junior officers’ mess.
A couple of jaygees and one senior lieutenant were already seated, having just come off watch, with steaming mealpacks in front of them. One of the jaygees was a Strill, the other two were humans.
We found seats and the steward brought Glorgo a meal pack, then stared at me in perplexity. “And just what rations do I serve you, K’as?”
I nodded to the strill jaygee. “Same as the lieutenant, please, Spacer.” The diet of the carnivorous strill would meet my basic nutritional needs, it had already been determined, although the portions would be too large for me. The steward nodded, and brought me a meal pack.
Sometimes it’s a real nuisance not having primary manipulation extremities. The meal pack opened with a pull tab, and I spent several moments attempting to hook a claw through it, before giving up and just slashing the plastic. So much for convention. Sometimes you have to make it up as you go along.
Milos and I had spent many hours demonstrating to the Admissions Review Board that I would need no more special accommodation for basic naval facilities than any other non-humanoid sentient species. We’d made tri-d discs, listed exhaustively the various tasks I would be expected to manage, both routine and as many special circumstances as we could devise. Breaking them down, therblig by therblig, I had demonstrated that with a well-designed and equipped harness and a minimum of accommodation I could cope.
It has been the policy of the Tellurian armed forces for more than a hundred years to treat all member Sentients equally, offering them service opportunities in proportion to their talents with “all reasonable accommodation.” Over the first thirty years or so of that policy’s existence, that had resulted in considerable grumbling and high expenditures of R & D money to re-design weapons, transport, accommodations, etc. But it had paid off serendipitously, to the disgruntlement of the worst “Humans First” bigots.
Many of the “special accommodations” had produced quantum leaps in functionality and effectiveness. And of course, no one can forget the great D'rinl im-Tasgi Yndrin, the klavangi Naval commander who almost singlehandedly saved Tellus itself in the brief, decisive War of Manhome Liberation aka "Orion Wars", fifty standard years ago. Since then, the services have been fully integrated, and committed to doing whatever it takes to get the most from any sentient serving the Federation, regardless of their physical differences from the human majority.
So, while my unorthodox treatment of the meal pack received a glance or two, it didn’t provoke any comment from the tired junior officers. In fact, they more or less ignored us, after the initial nod of acknowledgment.
I had just sunk my teeth into a chunk of protein when the mess door slid open to reveal a couple more humans. They weren’t wearing ship’s uniform, and they were young—late adolescent. I guessed them to be fellow midshipmen candidates, taking advantage of the transport to Feria Jacinta. As my mouth was full, I didn’t greet them.
The taller of the two, a male, made a showy salute to the senior lieutenant, which appeared to amuse her. She nodded to him. The smaller one approached me, cooing “oh, how cute! I didn’t realize the ship had a mascot!” She was reaching toward me as though to pet me.
Cats have superlative reflexes. My paw was swiping before I had time to think, but at least I managed to control the claws. I simply batted her hand away, sharply. “I think not.”
Her jaw dropped, and then several things seemed to happen at once.
The strill jaygee grinned a toothy, feral grin and said “Now, now, no fighting in the mess, youngsters.”
The expression on the face of the young male standing next to her altered ludicrously to a kind of horrified contempt.
And a brilliant yellow light began to flash, accompanied by a strident, rhythmic hooting.
Several of the bodies in the room exploded into abrupt, purposeful motion.
The strill and the human jaygee dived for the door, the senior lieutenant hit a switch on a wall-mounted console. I was already moving, the noise and light having jolted me. As I jumped off the table, the sensory input found the information in my brain—I’d just read it on the panel in our cabin, after all.
Yellow light, rhythmic hooting—combat alert! Either the ship was under imminent threat of attack, or (more likely,) it was a readiness drill. As supernumeraries, we midshipmen candidates should proceed immediately to the nearest escape pod bay and take our abandon ship positions. I was halfway to the door, Glorgo was rising to follow, but the two humans were standing, looking about a trifle wildly.
The young male was yelling something at the lieutenant, the female spinning to look for a simtank. The senior lieutenant was still standing at the console; she glanced around. “Supernumeraries to the D sector pod bay, now!”
The male frowned, the female said “Where is it?” Obviously they had not studied the simple emergency diagram on their cabin walls.
“This way!” I said, as my tail tip cleared the door. They hesitated. The senior lieutenant snapped “Follow the cat.”
I could hear their feet behind Glorgo and I, and moderated my pace so that they could keep us in sight. The pod bay was down one companionway, a right turn, another companionway, and through a hatch into a cul-de-sac. As we moved quickly through the corridors we passed a squad of marines moving purposefully in the other direction.
In the pod bay the covers were open on all the pod hatches, meaning none was occupied. Drill specified that we were to enter pods, two by two, and close the hatches, waiting either for them to be fired from the bridge, for the strident bells of the “abandon ship” alert to ring, or for the sustained hoot of the “all clear.”
I expected Glorgo to pile into the first pod with me, and was surprised when the young human male practically shoved te aside, entered the pod, and slapped the hatch control. The hatch’s seal hissed shut. After the multilayered, echoing din of the ship’s corridor it was quiet in the pod, the hooting of the alert moderated through the pod’s speakers.
I positioned myself on one of the couches. The human male, on the other, looked at me through narrowed eyes and growled: “You’re the freak cat. I saw the newscast. What are you doing here?”
I kept my voice even. “My name is Felix Lafitte, and I imagine I’m doing the same thing you are—getting transport to the Naval Academy.”
He cursed. “Single-celled mutant garbage-bot politicians…”
I raised my chin slightly and looked down my nose at him. “I’m afraid I don’t see the connection.”
“Listen, kittycat… just because the one-dimensional Marine parasites that run the propaganda services think it’s a cute stunt to let a freak pussycat into the Naval Academy doesn’t mean you’re welcome in our class, or anything. I don’t know what you think a hairball-puking mutant is going to do in a real combat situation, but if you’re smart you’ll take my advice and flunk out as fast as you can. And stay out of the way of the real officers while you’re at it.”
I understood, as apparently this holographic imitation of a midshipman candidate did not, that in the Navy, when you don’t like someone, you have two workable options: Rip their heads off, or be stoic about it.
In the middle of a combat drill, ripping Mr. Manners’s head off would not win me merit points from the ship’s officers. So I yawned at him, then used the time constructively, bathing myself thoroughly, with particular attention to the base of my tail.
He sat and glowered at me until the sustained “all clear” hoot sounded. I butted my head against the hatch release, then poked a paw through the safety housing and confirmed it. The hatch popped, and slid aside. I hopped gracefully out, tail erect, and waited for Glorgo to emerge from the next pod.
I had an inkling, now, of what I might be in for at the Academy. The first female human officer candidates had endured it, back in pre-space days on Tellus, and, more recently, the klavangi experiences in the early days of the Federation had shown that bigotry is alive and well in the human culture.
But a cat, especially one with an IQ of 230, can cope with any situation humans throw at him.
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