"No, but the rest would be. Consider this carefully. I would teach you well and treat you well, but the step's irrevocable once taken. You will appreciate the loss as an adult, Dory, and regret, it. That's why I'm not pressuring you now, much as I want to have you with me."

"What about Trouble?" she asked slowly after a moment. "You can't make him old, too."

"No. He'll have to spend the next two or three years as an all black cat. After that, we'll be moving anyway. Those of us who don't age must change our bases periodically to avoid arousing comment. Once we do, it'll be safe for him to resume his natural coat again. I, for one, will welcome that. He's beautifully marked. Do you agree to that course, Trouble?" he concluded in both verbal and inner speech.

The cat slowly inclined his head. I prefer my true coloring, but this is necessary.

Dory's eyes widened. "It's like he really understood and answered you!"

"For shame, child! These animals comprehend a great deal. You'll soon realize how much, whether you accept my offer or not."

His offer. Her mouth felt dry. She had to give Martin his answer and give it soon. As matters now stood, she was a danger to all of them. One way or another, she had to escape her enemies and learn how to manage this unwanted but apparently unavoidable power of hers.

Indecision tore her. Stay, and she must trust herself to this stranger's magic. Flee a She would have to trust him still, him and some other as well, maybe someone who would use her as hard as Jocko had or harder.

The girl looked frantically to Trouble, but the cat sat motionless and unblinking on her lap, more warm statue than living being for all the response he gave her. Never had he been so cold to her need a "He won't tell you what to do," the sorcerer said gently. "He can't. He knows that only you can make a decision this important to you."

There was no contradiction or comment from the cat, just understanding, respect, and the hope that his comrade would choose well.

Thank you, friend, Martin whispered.

Dory's head raised. Both courses seemed equal in their potential for good and for ill. Her heart and instinct had to be the deciding factors.

"I've never had any chance at real schooling," she said. "If I'm going to start now, it might as well be with the best. That seems to be you."

"Are you certain, child?" he asked with a strangely sharp pang of regret. He would not be calling her that again.

"I am," she responded with surprisingly mature firmness. Now that her decision was made, she found she had no qualm about standing by ita Trouble gave a half purr, half meow of delight. He rasped his tongue once along her cheek to emphasize his happiness and approval.

She held him close to her.

"I'm not wrong about this. Trouble wants it, too, and he likes you. That's all I need to tell me it's right, really right for all of us."

SKitty.

by Mercedes Lackey.

:Nasty,: SKitty complained in d.i.c.k's head. She wrapped herself a little closer around his shoulders and licked drops of oily fog from her fur with a faint mew of distaste. :Smelly.: d.i.c.k White had to agree. The portside district of Lacu'un was pretty unsavory; the dismal, foggy weather made it look even worse. Shabby, cheap, and ill-used.

Every building herea"all twenty of them!a"was offworld design; shoddy prefab, mostly painted in shades of peeling grey and industrial green, with garish neon-bright holosigns that were (thank the Spirits of s.p.a.ce!) mostly tuned down to faintly colored ghosts in the daytime. There were six bars, two gambling-joints, one chapel run by the neo-Jesuits, one flophouse run by the Reformed Salvation Army, five government buildings, four stores, and once place better left unnamed. They had all sprung up, like diseased fungus, in the year since the planet and people of Lacu'un had been declared Open for trade. There was nothing native here; for that you had to go outside the Fencea"

And to go outside the Fence, d.i.c.k reminded himself, you have to get permits signed by everybody and his dog.

:Cat,: corrected SKitty.

Okay, okay, he thought back with wry amus.e.m.e.nt. Everybody and his cat. Except they don't have cats here, except on the ships.

SKitty sniffed disdainfully. :Fools,: she replied, smoothing down an errant bit of damp fur with her tongue, thus dismissing an entire culture that currently had most of the Companies on their collective knees begging for trading concessions.

Well, we've seen about everything there is to see, d.i.c.k thought back at SKitty, reaching up to scratch her ears as she purred in contentment. Are you quite satisfied?

:Hunt now?: she countered hopefully.

No, you can't hunt. You know that very well. This is a Cla.s.s Four world; you have to have permission from the local sapients to hunt, and they haven't given us permission to even sneeze outside the Fence. And inside the Fence you are valuable merchandise subject to catnapping, as you very well know. I played shining knight for you once, furball, and I don't want to repeat the experience.

SKitty sniffed again. :Not love me.: Love you too much, pest. Don't want you ending up in the hold of some tramp freighter.

SKitty turned up the volume on her purr, and rearranged her coil on d.i.c.k's shoulders until she resembled a lumpy black fur collar on his gray shipsuit. When she left the shipa"and often when she was in the shipa"that was SKitty's perch of choice. d.i.c.k had finally prevailed on the purser to put shoulderpads on all his shipsuitsa"sometimes SKitty got a little careless with her claws.

When man had gone to s.p.a.ce, cats had followed; they were quickly proven to be a necessity. For not only did man's old pests, rats and mice, accompany his tradea"there seemed to be equivalent pests on every new world. But the shipscats were considerably different from their Earth-bound ancestors. The cold reality was that a s.p.a.cer couldn't afford a pet that had to be cared fora"he needed something closer to a partner.

Hence SKitty and her kind; gene-tailored into something more than animals. SKitty was BioTech Type F-021; forepaws like that of a racc.o.o.n, more like stubby little hands than paws. Smooth, short hair with no undercoat to shed and clog up airfilters. Hunter second to none. Middle-ear tuning so that she not only was not bothered by hypers.p.a.ce shifts and freefall, she actually enjoyed them. And last, but by no means least, the enlarged head showing the boosting of her intelligence.

BioTech released the shipscats for adoption when they reached about six months old; when they'd not only been weaned, but trained. Training included maneuvering in freefall, use of the same sanitary facilities as the crew, and emergency procedures. SKitty had her vacuum suit, just like any other crew member; a transparent hard plex ball rather like a tiny lifeslip, with a simple panel of controls inside to seal and pressurize it. She was positively paranoid about having it with her; she'd haul it along on its tether, if need be, so that it was always in the same compartment that she was. d.i.c.k respected her paranoia; any good s.p.a.cer would.

Officially she was "Lady Sundancer of Greenfields"; Greenfields being BioTech Station NA-73. In actuality, she was SKitty to the entire crew, and only d.i.c.k remembered her real name.

d.i.c.k had signed on to the CatsEye Company ship Brightwing just after they'd retired their last shipscat to spend his final days with other creaky retirees from the s.p.a.cetrade in the Tau Epsilon Old s.p.a.cers Station. As junior officer d.i.c.k had been sent off to pick up the replacement. SOP was for a BioTech technician to give you two or three candidates to choose amonga"in actuality, d.i.c.k hadn't had any choice. "Lady Sundancer" had taken one look at him and launched herself like a little black rocket from the arms of the tech straight for him; she'd landed on his shoulders, purring at the top of her lungs. When they couldn't pry her off, not without injuring her, the "choice" became moot. And d.i.c.k was elevated to the position of Designated Handler.

For the first few days she was "d.i.c.k White's Kitty"a"the rest of his fellow crewmembers being vastly amused that she had so thoroughly attached herself to him. After a time that was shortened first to "d.i.c.k's Kitty" and then to "SKitty," which name finally stuck.

Since telepathy was not one of the traits BioTech was supposedly breeding and genesplicing for, d.i.c.k had been more than a little startled when she'd started speaking to him. And since none of the others ever mentioned hearing her, he had long ago come to the conclusion that he was the only one who could. He kept that a secret; at the least, should BioTech come to hear of it, it would mean losing her. BioTech would want to know where that particular mutation came from, for fair.

"Pretty gamy," he told Erica Mak.u.mba, Legal and Security Officer, who was the current on-watch at the airlock. The dusky woman lounged in her jumpseat with deceptive casualness, both hands behind her curly heada"but there was a stun-bracelet on one wrist, and Erica just happened to be the Brightwing's current karate champ.

"Eyeah," she replied with a grimace. "Had a look out there last night. Talk about your low-cla.s.s dives! I'm not real surprised the Lacu'un threw the Fence up around it. d.a.m.n if I'd want that for neighbors! Hey, we may be getting a break, though; invitation's gone out to about three cap'ns to come make trade-talk. Seems the Lacu'un got themselves a lawyera""

"So much for the 'unsophisticated primitives,' " d.i.c.k laughed. "I thought TriStar was riding for a fall, taking that line."

Erica grinned; a former TriStar employee, she had no great love for her previous employer. "Eyeah. So, lawyer goes and calls up the records on every Company making bids, goes over 'em with a fine-tooth. Seems only three of us came up clean; us, SolarQuest, and UVN. We got invites, rest got bye-byes. Be hearing a buncha ships clearing for s.p.a.ce in the next few hours."

"My heart bleeds," d.i.c.k replied. "Any chance they can fight it?"

"Ha! Didn't tell you who they got for their mouthpiece. Lan Ventris."

d.i.c.k whistled. "Somebody's been looking out for them!"

"Terran Consul; she was the scout that made first contact. They wouldn't have anybody else, adopted her into the ruling sept, keep her at the Palace. Nice lady, shared a beer or three with her. She likes these people, obviously, takes their welfare real personal. Nowa"you want the quick low-down on the invites?"

d.i.c.k leaned up against the bulkhead, arms folded, taking care not to disturb SKitty. "Say on."

"Onea"" she held up a solemn finger. "Venaa"that's the Consula"says that these folk have a long martial tradition; they're warriors, and admire warriorsa"but they admire honor and honesty even more. The trappings of primitivism are there, but it's a veneer for considerable sophistication. So whoever goes needs to walk a line between pride and honorable behavior that will be a lot like the old j.a.panese courts of Terra. Two, they are very serious about religiona"they give us a certain amount of leeway for being ignorant outlanders, but if you transgress too far, Vena's not sure what the penalties may be. So you want to watch for signals, body-language from the priest-caste; that could warn you that you're on dangerous ground. Threea"and this is what may give us an edge over the other twoa"they are very big on their totem animals; the sept totems are actually an important part of sept pride and the religion. So the Cap'n intends to make you and Her Highness there part of the delegation. Vena says that the Lacu'un intend to issue three contracts, so we're all gonna get one, but the folks that impress them the most will be getting first choice."

If d.i.c.k hadn't been leaning against the metal of the bulkhead he might well have staggered. As most junior on the crew, the likelihood that he was going to even go beyond the Fence had been staggeringly lowa"but that he would be included in the first trade delegation was mind-melting!

SKitty caroled her own excitement all the way back to his cabin, launching herself from his shoulder to land in her own little shock-bunk, bolted to the wall above his.

d.i.c.k began digging through his catch-all bin for his dress-insignia; the half-lidded topaz eye for CatsEye Company, the gold wings of the ship's insignia that went beneath it, the three tiny stars signifying the three missions he'd been on so fara .

He caught flickers of SKitty's private thoughts then; thoughts of pleasure, thoughts of nestinga"

Nesting!

Oh no!

He spun around to meet her wide yellow eyes, to see her treading out her shock-bunk.

SKitty, he pled, Please don't tell me you're pregnanta"

:Kittens,: she affirmed, very pleased with herself.

You swore to me that you weren't in heat when I let you out to hunt!

She gave the equivalent of a mental shrug. :I lie.: He sat heavily down on his own bunk, all his earlier excitement evaporated. BioTech shipscats were supposed to be sterilea"about one in a hundred weren't. And you had to sign an agreement with BioTech that you wouldn't neuter yours if it proved out fertile; they wanted the kittens, wanted the results that came from outbreeding. Or you could sell the kittens to other ships yourself, or keep them; provided a BioTech station wasn't within your ship's current itinerary. But of course, only BioTech would take them before they were six months old and traineda .

That was the rub. d.i.c.k sighed. SKitty had already had one litter on hima"only two, but it had seemed like twenty-two. There was this problem with kittens in a s.p.a.ceship; there was a period of time between when they were mobile and when they were about four months old that they had exactly two neurons in those cute, fluffy little heads. One neuron to keep the body moving at warp speed, and one neuron to pick out the situation guaranteed to cause the most trouble.

Everyone in the crew was willing to play with thema"but no one was willing to keep them out of trouble. And since SKitty was d.i.c.k's responsibility, it was d.i.c.k who got to clean up the messes, and d.i.c.k who got to fish the little fluffbrains out of the bridge console, and d.i.c.k who got to have the anachronistic litter pan in his cabin until SKitty got her babies properly toilet trained.

Securing a litter pan for freefall was not something he had wanted to have to do again. Ever.

"How could you do this to me?" he asked SKitty reproachfully. She just curled her head over the edge of her bunk and trilled prettily.

He sighed. Too late to do anything about it now.

" a and you can see the carvings adorn every flat surface," Vena Ferducci, the small, darkhaired woman who was the Terran Consul, said, waving her hand gracefully at the walls. d.i.c.k wanted to stand and gawk; this was incredible!

The Fence was actually an opaque forcefield, and only one of the reasons the Companies wanted to trade with the Lacu'un.Though they did not have s.p.a.ceflight, there were certain applications of forcefield technologies they did have that seemed to be beyond the Terran's abilities. On the other side of the Fence was literally another world.

These people built to last, in limestone, alabaster, and marble, in the wealthy district, and in cast stone in the outer city. The streets were carefully poured sections of concrete, cleverly given stress-joints to avoid temperature-cracking, and kept clean enough to eat from by a small army of street-sweepers. No animals were allowed on the streets themselves, except for housetrained pets. The only vehicles permitted were single or double-being electric carts, that could move no faster than a man could walk. The Lacu'un dressed either in filmy, silken robes, or in more practical, shorter versions of the same garments. They were a handsome race, upright bipeds, skin tones in varying shades of browns and dark golds, faces vaguely avian, with a frill like an iguana's running from the base of the neck to a point between and just above the eyes.

As Vena had pointed out, every wall within sight was heavily carved, the carvings all having to do with the Lacu'un religion.

Most of the carvings were depictions of various processions or ceremonies, and no two were exactly alike.

"That's the Harvest-Gladness," Vena said, pointing, as they walked, to one elaborate wall that ran for yards. "It's particularly appropriate for Kla'dera; he made all his money in agriculture. Most Lacu'un try to have something carved that reflects on their grat.i.tude for 'favors granted.' "

"I think I can guess that one," the Captain, Reginald Singh, said with a smile that showed startlingly white teeth in his dark face. The carving he nodded to was a series of panels; first a celebration involving a veritable kindergarten full of children, then those childrena"now s.e.x-differentiated and seen to be all femalea"worshiping at the alter of a very fecund-looking Lacu'un female, and finally the now-maidens looking sweet and demure, each holding various religious objects.

Vena laughed, her brown eyes sparkling with amus.e.m.e.nt. "No, that one isn't hard. There's a saying, 'as fertile as Gel'vadera's wife.' Every child was a female, too, that made it even better. Between the bride-prices he got for the ones that wanted to wed, and the officer's price he got for the ones that went into the armed services, Gel'vadera was a rich man. His First Daughter owns the house now."

"Aha"that brings up a question," Captain Singh replied. "Would you explain exactly who and what we'll be meeting? I read the briefing, but I still don't quite understand who fits in where with the government."

"It will help if you think of it as a kind of unholy mating of the British Parliamentary system and the medieval j.a.panese Shogunates," Vena replied. "You'll be meeting with the 'king'a"that's the Lacu'araa"his consort, who has equal powers and represents the priesthooda"that's the Lacu'teverasa"and his three advisors, who are elected. The advisors represent the military, the bureaucracy, and the economic sector. The military advisor is always female; all officers in the military are female, because the Lacu'un believe that females will not seek glory for themselves, and so will not issue reckless orders. The other two can be either s.e.x. 'Advisor' is not altogether an accurate term to use for them; the Lacu'ara and Lacu'teveras rarely act counter to their advice."

d.i.c.k was paying scant attention to this monologue; he'd already picked all this up from the faxes he'd called out of the local library after he'd read the briefing. He was more interested in the carvings, for there was something about them that puzzled him.

All of them featured strange little six-legged creatures scampering about under the feet of the carved Lacu'un. They were about the size of a large mouse, and seemed to d.i.c.k to be wearing very smug expressions a though of course, he was surely misinterpreting.

"Excuse me Consul," he said, when Vena had finished explaining the intricacies of Lacu'un government to Captain Singh's satisfaction. "I can't help wondering what those little lizard-like things are."

"Kreshta," she said, "I would call them pests; you don't see them out on the streets much, but they are the reason the streets are kept so clean. You'll see them soon enough once we get inside. They're like mice, only worse; fast as lightninga"they'll steal food right off your plate. The Lacu'un either can't or won't get rid of them, I can't tell you which. When I asked about them once, my host just rolled his eyes heavenward and said what translates to 'it's the will of the G.o.ds.' "

"Insh'allah?" Captain Singh asked.

"Very like that, yes. I can't tell if they tolerate the pests because it is the G.o.ds' will that they must, or if they tolerate them because the G.o.ds favor the little monsters. Inside the Fence we have to close the government buildings down once a month, seal them up, and fumigate. We're just lucky they don't breed very fast."

:Hunt?: SKitty asked hopefully from her perch on d.i.c.k's shoulders.

No! d.i.c.k replied hastily. Just look, don't hunt!

The cat was gaining startleda"and d.i.c.k thought, appreciativea"looks from pa.s.sersby.

"Just what is the status value of a totemic animal?" Erica asked curiously.

"It's the fact that the animal can be tamed at all. Aside from a handful of domestic herbivores, most animal life on Lacu'un has never been tamed. To be able to take a carnivore and train it to the hand implies that the G.o.ds are with you in a very powerful way." Vena dimpled. "I'll let you in on a big secret; frankly, Lan and I preferred the record of the Brightwing over the other two ships; you seemed to be more sympathetic to the Lacu'un. That's why we told you about the totemic animals, and why we left you until last."

"It wouldn't have worked without d.i.c.k," Captain Singh told her. "SKitty has really bonded to him in a remarkable way; I don't think this presentation would come off half so impressively if he had to keep her on a lead."

"It wouldn't," Vena replied, directing them around a corner. At the end of a short street was a fifteen foot walla"carved, of coursea"pierced by an arching entranceway.

"The palace," she said, rather needlessly.

Vena had been right. The kreshta were everywhere.

d.i.c.k could feel SKitty trembling with the eagerness to hunt, but she was managing to keep herself under control. Only the lashing of her tail betrayed her agitation.

He waited at parade rest, trying not to give in to the temptation to stare, as the Captain and the Negotiator, Grace Vixen, were presented to the five rulers of the Lacu'un in an elaborate ceremony that resembled a stately dance. Behind the low platform holding the five dignitaries in their iridescent robes were five soberly clad retainers, each with one of the "totemic animals." d.i.c.k could see now what Vena had meant; the handlers had their creatures under control, but only barely. There was something like a bird, something resembling a small crocodile, something like a snake, but with six very tiny legs, a creature vaguely catlike, but with a feathery coat, and a beast resembling a teddybear with scales. None of the handlers was actually holding his beast, except the bird-handler. All of the animals were on short chains, and all of them punctuated the ceremony with soft growls and hisses.

So SKitty, perched freely on d.i.c.k's shoulders, had drawn no few murmurs of awe from the crowd of Lacu'un in the Audience Hall.

The presentation glided to a conclusion, and the Lacu'teveras whispered something to Vena behind her fan.

"With your permission, Captain, the Lacu'teveras would like to know if your totemic beast is actually as tame as she appears?"

"She is," the Captain replied, speaking directly to the consort, and bowing, exhibiting a charm that had crossed species barriers many times before this.

It worked its magic again. The Lacu'teveras fluttered her fan and trilled something else at Vena. The audience of courtiers gasped.

"Would it be possible, she asks, for her to touch it?"