Catfantastic II Read online

  Catfantastic II

  Andre Norton

  Martin H. Greenberg

  Clare Bell

  Wilanne Schneider Belden

  Elizabeth H. Boyer

  Patricia B. Cirone

  Marylois Dunn

  P. M. Griffin

  Caralyn Inks

  A. R. Major

  Ardath Mayhar

  Karen Rigley

  Sasha Miller

  Elizabeth Moon

  Andre Norton

  Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

  Mary H. Schaub

  Roger C. Schlobin

  Susan Shwartz

  Nancy Springer

  A book in the Catfantastic series, 1990

  Two of the biggest names in the fantasy field have put together a unique collection of fantastical cat tales for friends of furry felines. Cats work a special magic in these stories from the future, from the past, and from dimensions people never dream of.

  Andre Norton, Martin H. Greenberg, Clare Bell, Wilanne Schneider Belden, Elizabeth H. Boyer, Patricia B. Cirone, Marylois Dunn, P. M. Griffin, Caralyn Inks, A. R. Major, Ardath Mayhar, Karen Rigley, Sasha Miller, Elizabeth Moon, Andre Norton, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Mary H. Schaub, Roger C. Schlobin, Susan Shwartz, Nancy Springer

  Catfantastic II

  Introduction

  We have been informed by those patient researchers who really enjoy delving into facts and figures that cats are now the most popular pets in the United States. Several reasons are listed with solemn sincerity: a cat can become an “inside” animal in a small apartment; it does not have to be escorted on “walks” but is more civilized about intimate functions; it is a pleasant lap sitter and comfort; it is less expensive (Ha, have you priced food and cat litter, or vet bills recently?); and so on. So much for official recognition.

  However, no matter how sensible one imagines oneself to be, still the cat remains a mystery either intriguing or irritating or both. We cannot help but believe that cats, always choosing to go their own way, do possess a quality for weighing the human with whom she or he chooses to live, and have a masterful way of training the whole household into a system most benefiting the cat.

  Is this some form of magic? Of course not. Magic has been placed beyond the boundaries of acceptance. If we suspect that we are chess pieces to be played for fun or profit by our “pets,” then we have definitely courted insanity.

  Magic and cats, however, have been linked in our minds for generations. Cats have been worshiped and reviled, studied and misunderstood for generations upon generations. They are still masters of themselves-magic or no magic.

  Bomber and the Bismarck by Clare Bell

  Bomber and Feathers, all met on May 23, 1941 aboard the British aircraft carrier H.M.S. Ark Royal. The meeting didn’t change Bomber much, for he was a cat. It left a more indelible impression on Lieutenant “Feathers” Geoffrey-Faucett.

  H.M.S. Ark Royal was part of Force H, a fleet of battleships and destroyers sent out from Gibraltar to protect British convoys in the Atlantic. One of the newer British aircraft carriers, she was equipped with an aircraft control tower to monitor the takeoffs and landings of the antiquated Fairey Swordfish torpedo-biplanes aboard her. If she’d been a carrier of the old “flat-iron” design, her decks all runway and all operations controlled from below, no one would have ever spotted the half-drowned animal struggling in the seas alongside.

  Geoffrey-Faucett was sharing a cup of tea and a rare idle minute up in the tower with the air controller while the “airedales” in the deck crew brought his Sword-fish biplane up from below decks on the lift. He had straight sandy hair and aristocratic features except for a slightly snub nose. He also had a reputation for sending his torpedoes into the aft end of a target ship, “right up the bastard’s tailfeathers,” as he often put it. That led to the nickname of “Tailfeathers,” which was quickly shortened to “Feathers.”

  Jack Shepherd, the air controller, put his cup down so hard that spoon and saucer clattered. He pointed through the tower window to the heaving swell just off the starboard quarter and said, “What the devil is that?”

  Shepherd took his field glasses, squinted through once, scratched his black curly hair and squinted again. “Eyes must be playing me false. Here, you have a look.” He handed the field glasses to the pilot.

  Feathers focused the binoculars, scanning the white-caps that splashed along ArkRoyal’s sides as she kept her station several hundred miles off the Spanish coast. He frowned. Was that dark spot just a bit of flotsam caught in the chop? It moved in a funny way. And did he see the outline of a head and ears and, God bless, even the end of a tail sticking up from the gray-green Atlantic?

  “It’s a cat. It really is a cat,” he said, slinging the field glasses back to Shepherd. “Must have fallen off some passenger transport. Look, see if you can get the helm to hold off on the upwind run.”

  “What are you up to now, Feathers?” Shepherd glanced down at a Swordfish biplane rising up through the lift hatch. “The airedales will have your plane ready.”

  “Bugger the old Stringbag,” Feathers threw back over his shoulder as he clattered down the iron spiral of steps. “She’ll keep. I’m going to fish that cat but. Can’t let the thing drown.”

  He drew his sheepskin jacket collar tight about his neck as he butted his way into the wind sweeping across the flight deck. The Ark Royal was giving short hard bounces in the chop, which made it hard for the pilot to keep his footing. Ignoring the waves of the flight deck crew who were prepping his aircraft, Feathers ran to the bow, threw open a locker, grabbed a life ring and hurled it out in the direction where he had last seen the cat. Behind him he heard footsteps, the unmistakable gimpy-leg gait of Patterson, his gunner.

  “Who’s gone in the drink?” the gunner asked in a voice made raspy from scotch and tobacco. “I didn’t hear no man overboard alarm.”

  “Nobody. It’s a cat.” Feathers frowned, shading his eyes against the hazy sun. “Can you spot him, Pat?”

  “Go on, you’re daft, Feathers. The old man will have your nuts for a necktie if you hold up the reconnaissance flight.”

  Geoffrey-Faucett scanned the seas, feeling a bit foolish. All this fuss about an animal, especially during wartime, when human lives were being lost. And had he really seen a cat?

  The white ring bobbed up and down in the troughs. The dark spot began to move toward the ring. Its progress was terribly slow, but Feathers felt a sudden surge of unmilitary delight. The animal was still alive, a miracle in the freezing North Atlantic. It fought its way to the ring and Feathers saw it scramble on.

  Carefully he drew in the line attached to the ring, fearful that the rough seas might sweep the cat away before he got it aboard. But at last the ring hung from its line over the ArkRoyal’s bow rail. On the life ring, spread-eagled with its claws driven deep into the white-painted cork, was the castaway.

  Feathers reached down with both hands, grabbed the outside of the ring, and brought it aboard. Yellow-gold eyes the color of sovereigns glared at Feathers as he tried to pry the cat’s paws from the ring. The brine-drenched animal held on tenaciously, growling deep in its throat.

  “Grateful one, he is,” said Patterson. “Take your face off if you’re not careful.”

  “You take a swipe at me and I’ll chuck you back,” said Feathers to the cat. With a clasp knife from his pocket, he cut the line from the life ring, then carried the ring like a platter with the cat sprawled out across the top.

  “What are you going to do with him?” Patterson asked, trotting after.

  “Give him to old Shepherd in the tower. He won’t have anything to do once the squadron takes off. I’ll let him coax our friend here off the lif
e ring and nurse him with some tea and biscuits.”

  The crackle of the Ark Royal public address system sounded on the flight deck, breaking through the shouts of the airedales and the sound of Swordfish engines warming up.

  “Attention, air and deck crews. All scheduled air operations are canceled. Repeat, all scheduled air operations are canceled on orders from the War Office. Stand by for further announcements.”

  As the system shut off with a sharp crack, airedales and pilots alike stared at each other, dumbfounded.

  “Operations canceled?” squeaked Patterson incredulously. “What’s happened? The bloody war’s over?”

  “Might be worse.” Matthews, a grubby airedale with carroty hair and freckles came up beside the pilot and gunner. “The Nazis might have invaded. U-boats in the Thames and the swastika flying from the House of Parliament, I shouldn’t doubt.”

  “Don’t think so,” said Feathers. “More likely this has something to do with that new German battleship we’ve been hearing about over the wireless.”

  “The one named after that Prussian. Otto von something-or-other.”

  ” Bismarck,” Patterson supplied in his smoky rasp. “Ah, she’s no threat. Remember, lads. We’ve got the Hood.” A cluster of men had come up behind Feathers for a look at the cat. They all broke into shouts when they heard the flagship’s name. “The Hood, the Hood, the mighty Hood. Three cheers for the Hood!”

  Fists lifted in the air and voices bellowed out. Feathers, still encumbered with the life ring and its occupant, couldn’t lift his hand, but he shouted along with the rest. For twenty years the battleship H.M.S. Hood had been the staunch symbol of British sea power. With her 42,000-ton displacement and her fifteen-inch guns, she was the most powerful battleship in the world.

  The cheering faded as the ArkRoyal’s loudspeaker crackled to life again. “This is the Captain speaking. The War Office and the Prime Minister have requested that the following information be announced to all members of the British Armed forces. This morning, at six hundred hours, the H.M.S. Hood blew up and sank during an engagement off the coast of Iceland with the enemy battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser, Prinz Eugen. Three survivors were taken aboard H.M.S. Repulse. Their names are…”

  Feathers stood, stunned. The Hood gone? Bang, just like that? And three survivors out of how many? The Hood had carried a crew of more than fourteen hundred. He felt a burning lump in his throat. Three survivors out of fourteen hundred! And he had been messing about with a bloody cat after the pride of the British Empire had gone down beneath the waves.

  The “bloody cat” gave a sharp meow. Feathers meant to answer its imperious glare with an indignant one of his own, but he noticed something about the animal’s neck. It was a brown leather collar with a buckle and bronze nameplate. As Feathers turned the collar, letters in a flourished engraved script came into view. They read, “H.M.S. Hood.”

  At the sight, the pilot felt his face flush, then pale. He stared at the half-drowned shivering cat, then at the collar. The words didn’t change, as he half-expected them to.

  “It can’t be,” he muttered.

  In principle there was no reason why the animal couldn’t have been the Hood’s ship’s cat. Many British vessels had cats aboard, whether officially or otherwise. The stores of food aboard were too tempting to the rats that infested the most well-run ships. Therefore a cat, or perhaps a pair were an essential part of a warship’s crew.

  Feathers was still baffled. According to the announcement, the Hood had gone down in the Denmark Strait, between Iceland and Greenland. The Ark Royal was, at this moment, only a few hundred miles off the coast of Spain.

  How could this cat have gotten here, more than three thousand miles from the Hood’s last known position. No. This had to have another explanation. Perhaps the cat had been on another ship, being brought to or from the Hood. Maybe it had fallen ill or grown too old and had to be retired. The Hood’s crew might have let it keep the collar and nameplate as an honor for years of service.

  Feathers admitted his reasoning was pretty flimsy, but it was the only explanation that made sense.

  And then he noticed something else about the cat. In the light gray fur on its left haunch, the pilot saw a sooty mark. When Feathers touched it, the cat flinched and stiffened. Even though the fur was soaked, the hairs looked black and brittle. Burned. And in the cat’s fur was the lingering smell of cordite.

  Suddenly an image came into his mind. A small four-footed figure darting across the tilting deckplates while guns roared and fire licked out from the superstructure of a doomed battleship.

  The Hood had blown up. A tower of fire amidships. Fire and smoke and scorched fur. And the collar.

  “Well, some cook could have thrown a hot kettle at you in the galley,” muttered Feathers, looking down at the cat, but suddenly all his contrived explanations fell apart.

  As he backed through the hatchway with cat and ring still held out in front of him like a tea tray, Feathers Geoffrey-Faucett could not help wondering if he held a fourth, if unrecognized, survivor from the H.M.S. Hood.

  Since the orders had been changed and the Swordfish biplanes were again being stowed below decks, Feathers Geoffrey-Faucett decided that he could spare a moment to look after the cat. The animal was shivering after its drenching in the sea, though it clung as stubbornly as ever to the life ring.

  As the pilot carried the cat between decks to his cramped cabin, he felt the deck vibrate as a roar shook the carrier, then subsided into a rumble. The ArkRoyal’s engines were coming up to full throttle; she was no longer at station but bound for some destination. Feathers guessed that they were heading for the North Atlantic, where the battleship Bismarck must be lurking.

  As he was tilting the cat and life ring against his chest to squeeze them and himself through the narrow cabin hatchway, he heard Jack Shepherd’s voice. The air controller stopped, stared, then broke into a grin beneath his neatly clipped mustache.

  “So there really was a cat out there. You weren’t just ragging me, Feathers.”

  “Get some rum from your kit, would you, Jack? This little perisher needs it and I could use a nip as well.”

  Feathers spread a slicker on his bunk, laid cat and ring down, then grabbed a terrycloth and toweled the animal until its fur stood up in spikes. When Shepherd came in with the bottle, Feathers laid a gentle hand over the top of the cat’s head and slipped his fingers into the corner of its mouth, prying its jaws apart. Shepherd filled the bottle cap with a small dose. Feathers deftly poured it down the animal’s throat, then followed with a second.

  “My, you know how to handle it,” said Shepherd admiringly.

  “My mum kept moggies and vetted them herself. Always had a soft spot for the creatures. All right,” Feathers said to the cat. “Sit up and let’s have a look at you.”

  By now the cat had released its grip on the life ring. Feathers gently lifted the ring off over the cat’s head. The castaway shook itself, grimaced, and raised its flattened ears. It was a compact little animal with the short thick fur and the rounded head characteristic of the sturdy British shorthair. A few more rubs with the towel and the fur was soft and fluffy, if still a little damp. The cat opened its gold eyes and stared Feathers full in the face.

  Now that the beast was halfway clean and dry, Feathers could see its markings. All along the back, sides, chest, and down the front legs on both outside and inside, the animal’s fur was a rich leathery brown. The brown ended in a border just behind the animal’s middle and its flanks, hind legs and tail were gray. Two white wristlets encircled the forelegs just above the paws. The paws themselves were black.

  “Well, aren’t we the natty little gentleman,” said Feathers, leaning over with his hands on his knees. “Look, Jack. He looks like he’s got on a bomber jacket.”

  The cat arched its back and rubbed against Feathers’ hand, then butted his palm with its nose. Its head and neck were tan, with a slightly darker color on the ears. And
the ears themselves were a bit odd. They stood up like normal cat’s ears, but the outside edge of each one curled outward and the tips pointed together like little horns.

  “Poor beggar. The wind’s blown his lugs inside out,” said Shepherd.”

  Feathers guffawed. “No Jack. That’s just the way he is. Looks a bit jaunty with those ears, doesn’t he? Doesn’t need an R.A.F. cap to match the rest of him.”

  Feathers’ fingers touched the collar as he stroked the cat. He remembered the nameplate and its upsetting message. He didn’t want anyone else in the crew to see that. Quickly he slipped it round and started to undo the buckle, but the cat raised a paw to stop him. No claws, just a firm press of one black foot and a gaze into the eyes.

  Luckily Jack Shepherd was occupied at the other end, doing a quick inspection to be sure they were using the correct gender when referring the animal.

  “Definitely a little torn, all right,” he announced, proud of his first venture into the veterinary field. “Got all the equipment intact, far as I can see.”

  Feathers, who had kept his hand on the collar, made a decision. “Jack, what do you make of this?” He showed Shepherd the bronze nameplate and the scorched spot on the cat’s side. He saw the air controller flush, then go pale, just as he himself had done.

  “H.M.S. Hood. Well, of all the queer happenings…” Shepherd sat down beside Feathers on the bunk. The cat walked onto the air controller’s lap, stood on his thighs and tilted its head back, watching him expectantly.

  “He doesn’t want me to take his collar off. Pushes my hand away.”

  “If the sinking hadn’t just been announced, I would have said that the collar was a prank,” said Shepherd.

  “Jack, no one’s been at him since I hauled him over the rail, I swear. The only thing I can think of is that he belongs to the wife or child of someone on the Hood and he fell off a transport in rough weather.” He looked at the cat. “But it just doesn’t seem to fit.”