The Cat's Job (3 page)

"Fine lookin' cat," he said. Agnes
nodded, but he'd already put his attention back on that
wire.

"Jakey Pelletier's place, ain't it?"
he asked, after he'd studied the situation to his own
satisfaction.

"Was," Agnes said. "Jakey passed
summer before last."

"Jakey? No. I heard that. I
did
hear that." He shook his head. "He
left right close to the time I lost my wife. Cancer." Another
headshake. "I'm Tom Oullette -- me and Jakey worked the lines
together couple years, before I come on with the town. Good man.
Solid."

Agnes swallowed, recalling for no good
reason the orange cat, laying cold and quiet in the barn. "All of
that," she said, but not loud, due to her throat closing
up.

"Listen," Tom Oullette called up to
her, "I need to get back on the job -- things are this bad and
worse all over. I'll call in to the town, tell 'em about the wire.
You need anything? Want a lift out? Elementary school's setting up
as a shelter."

"I'm fine," Agnes told him. "Plenty
wood. Pantry's

stocked. Freezer --" she looked at the
down wire. "Freezer's in trouble, I guess."

"Radio?" he asked her.
"Batteries?"

"All set."

"You'll do," he allowed, his grin a
sudden flash of white in his beard. "Best thing's for you and the
cat to get inside. Load up the stove and put the kettle on. That
wire -- main line's down, all the way back to the four corners. You
don't want to touch that wire, but it's safe enough to get on over
to the steps. Once you're inside, you'll be fine. I'll put in that
call to central first thing I'm back in the truck."

"I appreciate that," she said, and
smiled. "Thanks."

"That's all right," said Tom Oullette.
"Go on inside, now. No sense standing out in the wind."

He turned and half-walked, half-skated
back to his plow truck. Agnes saw him climb into the cab before she
turned herself and skated, all her bones and bruises complaining,
over to the steps.

It was a scramble to stay on the step
and get the door open, but she finally managed it, and without a
tumble, too. Boots firmly on kitchen floor linoleum, she looked out
once more across the yard.

And saw the cat, sitting in the middle
of all that ice, tail 'round its toes, eyes on her face.

"Well," Agnes said, pushing the door
wider, "what're you waiting for? Come in, if you want to come in.
There's room."

The cat blinked its green-gold eyes. Slowly, taking its own
good time, it got up on four feet, stretched its middle
talltallTALL
and strolled across the ice. When it reached the
steps, it neatly jumped over them, landing on the linoleum with a
solid thump.

It stayed where it was for a second or
two, taking stock, Agnes thought, then stropped itself once against
her leg and moved deeper into the kitchen, bushy tail held
high.

Agnes smiled, and shut the
door.

"The cat's job is to be pretty!"
Sheila said with some asperity. "That's all a cat in my house has
to do. Purr once in awhile, let me touch it, and be pretty. What
more would you have a cat do?"

Greg shook his head sadly. They'd only
moved in together three days ago and things had looked so bright.
This might not work out after all...

"Well, for starters, I expect the cat
to sleep in the same room I do. It helps guard against things that
come in the night. It gets the flies that buzz around in the
summer. It kills the smelly socks, finds the balled up trash paper,
hides the extra pens and puts them away -- normal stuff for a cat
-- and it reminds us the world is not run for our
convenience."

The cat at hand was majestically above
such discussions. So gray it was nearly blue, with a large squarish
face and a wonderful tuft of fur on each large ear, this was no
ordinary cat. This was the cat who lived here. It felt, without
ever putting it into so many words, of course, that what a cat does
is solely up to the cat.

"Come now, Greg. Really, I don't mind your cat sleeping in
the same room with us, though I don't think it ought to stare at
us
that
way when we make love. I don't even mind if it sleeps at
the foot of the bed. But I don't think we have to keep that stupid
bag of his..."

"Hers! I told you that ‘Landy' is
short for Mrs. Landsdale!"

"Whatever! Just let me get rid of that
bag!"

"Sheila..." he said and now the
argument moved out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

Landy continued to sit serene on the
kitchen floor for several moments and then jumped without preamble
to the table, with a good view of the bag.

The argument wandered around the
townhouse as the couple got ready to go out. It stayed for a few
moments in the bathroom while he shaved; it meandered into the
bedroom while she changed her blouse twice, decrying the weather
forecast, then it moved into the upstairs hall as he searched again
for the new can of deodorant in the linen closet.

"But you were serious," she said
again. "I like you, Greg. I love you. I like Landy. But I know when
you're being serious and I don't think people are going to think
we're quite sane if we keep a beat-up old grocery bag on the
kitchen floor all of the time. You sounded so damn serious and
convincing last night when you told everyone that Landy's job was
to guard the monster in the bag!"

Slowly into the front bedroom went the
argument, the bedroom that doubled as the electronic entertainment
center. "I promised him a tape last night. Somewhere. Somewhere..."
Greg said as he stared at the wallful of tapes, until finally
saying, "ta-da!"

He turned to Sheila as if finding the
tape had made his point.

"Sheila, listen to me. Landy has been
with me ever since she was a kitten. Seven years. In those seven
years she's had two or three toys, a couple of pets, and a couple
of jobs. You know, things that she took a shine to and played with
or watched or what-have-you. I want to keep her happy, because I've
only had good luck since she's been with me. So what if I say she
catches the monsters? It keeps me happy and it keeps her happy. It
can keep you happy, too, if you'll give it a shot."

Downstairs, from the kitchen table, Landy spotted a subtle
movement in the bag. She was positive that the little bunch of
paper there in the back, next to the second crease north of the red
"F" in
Frank's Foodarama
had moved again. Twice this week it had
moved!

Cautiously, Landy moved herself to
alert, changing her casual side-lean into a genuine crouch. Her
ears were near tuft-forward, she was concentrating so hard, and all
four feet were firmly under her. She didn't try to control her
tail; the tip of it started the count of a proper launch rhythm as
she waited.

Now the bag appeared to puff a little,
to expand.

They were trying to sneak through,
again. Hah! As if she'd ever let one in without a
tussle!

NOW!

The ugly green-black of the silent
tentacle slid out of the bag, slowly, as if testing the air, as if
vivid memory might have lent some caution...

Landy leapt, uttering a war-cry a
thousand generations old as she pounced on the very tip of the
insidious invading pseudopod.

She felt it move as she landed on it,
felt it try to wriggle away to the left and she attacked it there,
too, threatening to get her good, strong claws into the ugly flesh
and drag it into the light, to blind it forever and then carry her
trophy to Greg...

That fast it was gone, withdrawn into
the world that two-legged people can't see at all and which cats --
special, big gray cats -- can sense just the edge of.

Greg stood at the top of the stairs, a
proud grin on his face, a grin punctuated by laughter and the
soothing call of "Good Landy, brave Landy! You saved the world
again!"

"And that
noise
!" came Sheila's voice, half in laughter. "What
will the neighbors think is going on over here?"

Sheila stepped from the bedroom, found
herself swept into a strenuous hug.

"Lady of mine, it comes to this. Landy
stays with me because I feed her and appreciate her for what she
does, not just because she's another pretty face or because she
purrs good. And what she does best is save the world. If I convince
some of our party-hearty friends that she saves the world, what's
to hurt? It's only the truth. Getting rid of her bag would be like
forcing her to retire. Let's let her keep the bag, and that way you
get to keep me..."

She hugged back, shaking her
head.

"I still think you're serious," she
said as she gently bit him on the nose. "But you're right, I do
want to keep you...and if that means keeping the world's bravest
cat happy, we can do it."

"Good," he said, and leaned the hug
into a firm kiss as they stood on the landing at the top of the
stairs.

Down blow, Landy had barely caught her breath, and
now...the wrinkle above the first "A" in
Foodarama
twitched, very,
very slightly.

Landy ignored the couple, eyes and
tufted ears intent. You never knew when the world might need
saving!

The most important man in the universe sat at ease behind
his desk-counter while a pair of leather-clad mercenaries moved
toward him, bags in hand. He shook his head, and was annoyed when
they continued forward. The effrontery of such creatures, he
thought, moving his foot toward the pedal that would summon
Security, expecting to be rented a room in
his
hyatt!

"You've got a suite reserved for us,"
said the woman, dropping a bag onto the polished countertop.
"Name's Robertson."

Secure in the knowledge that no one on
Staff was stupid enough to have taken such a reservation, he
replied coolly.

"I am certain you must be mistaken. Of
course we have no --" For effect, he let his eyes touch the
reservation board -- and stopped in mid-sentence.

It was there: ROBERTSON, in cheery
yellow letters and -- the deskmaster barely contained his rage:
They'd rented the most expensive suite for an entire week! He'd not
have his hyatt turned into a rowdy, drunken love-nest for
--

"Hey, not today fella, OK?" said the
red-haired woman in her low-class Terran accent. "Just give us the
card."

"I am sorry -- madam," he said in his
most condescending voice; "but it is my policy not to permit
mercenaries here. Our illustrious patrons..."

"Will be honored by our presence,"
said the startlingly mannered voice of the man. "Please, our
card."

The manager's toe touched the silent
switch; in seconds Security would rid him of this
nuisance.

The woman's hand moved, and a coin
landed, spinning, on the counter.

The deskmaster gulped.

On many worlds a Liaden cantra is equivalent to an average
yearly income. Settling slowly before him was a one
twelve
cantra piece.

"We won't mess up your playground, pal. And if we do, we
got enough to cover the damage." She swept the coin up. "Now. My
name's Robertson and I got a reservation. Card,
accazi
?"

Security arrived then and was
summarily waved back by the deskmaster.

Hastily, he produced the card in
question; pressed a key to summon busbots.

"We'll carry our own," said the woman
and the pair hefted their belongings, leaving the mechanicals
scurrying in bewildered circles.

The most important man in the universe
was still staring at the spot where the coin had been when his
shift relief arrived.

#

Red-haired Miri Robertson sighed
deeply as she walked into the center of the suite's parlor. Behind
her, she heard the door slide shut and a faint chime as Val Con
coded the lock.

She turned and grinned.

"Ain't every day you meet somebody
that important."

"True," he said, lips twitching. "I
hope you were impressed."

"I hope he gets fired. Almost worth
buying the hyatt for the pleasure of doing it myself." She yawned
suddenly. "I'm beat. Next time we go off to save somebody else's
bacon we'll have to put in a shut-eye requisition. Gonna sleep for
a month. You coming?"

"On your heels," he murmured, reaching
to his belt and unhooking the pellet gun. "Though perhaps not an
entire month -- ?"