Feline Red.

by Robert Sampson.

[Sidenote: _It was up to Jerill to think fast ... to do something ...

before those strange beasts sucked away the last purified ore on the freighter Bertha._]

A shouting wave of men rioted through the engine room.

From the bridge above the hulking atomics, Chief Engineer Durval vollied orders in a thunderous voice. "You men--you!" he raged. "Use your heads, not your feet. Drive them toward the door."

A scattering of Them--compact darting beasts the color of a poppy--scuttled into the shadow of an engine. Heavy Davison wrenches clubbed futilely behind them.

As Durval flew into new bursts of shouting, Scott Jerill, First Mate of the freighter _Bertha_, grimly shook his head. His lean face was not smiling now. "Call your men back," he commanded crisply. "We don't have time to drive those cats out like this."

Durval turned on him with a snarl. "Take over then. Think of a better way. If you hadn't hauled that load of s.p.a.ce cats aboard in the first place...."

"Look out," Scott snapped.

With a crisp smack, a red creature the size of a man's hand struck the rail before them. It was all improbable angles, with no special shape, no front or back. It teetered crazily over the ten foot drop to the floor below. Then it settled, sputtering. It sounded curiously like an angry cat.

"There's one," roared Durval. His wrench slashed down, crashed shrilly on the rail as the cat skimmed effortlessly away. The wrench shot off toward the floor.

Durval shook his hand and roared. The cat, some twenty feet down the rail, cackled insanely. As Scott stepped slowly toward it, the cat hissed, bounded off the rail, and down the steps to the engine room floor.

Scott shook his head. "You're not going to catch them by hand. Better let them settle down, Durval."

"Settle down." The Chief brought the palm of his hand down on the rail.

The rail trembled. "They've already settled down. On every generator in the place. One of them crawled under the main relay switch and shorted out half the board. Didn't hurt him a bit."

Scott interrupted gruffly. "We've got to get them out of here fast.

Captain Elderburg wants to blast off here day after tomorrow, and we don't have half the ore cargo purified yet."

"And you won't have," Durval snapped. "If we blast off, we'll do it with an empty hold. I can't purify uranium with fifty cats running loose, getting caught in the machinery. It can't be done. Get these cats out and I'll give you a hold full of the best grade uranium Earth ever bought. But not till you get those cats out."

Scowling, Scott bit his knuckles. "We've got to get moving. The skipper thinks IP Metals is going to jump our claim," he said urgently.

"If you ask me, only a doddering fool would bring these things into a s.p.a.ce ship." He glanced sharply at Scott. "What's this about IPM?"

Scott shook his head slowly. "Nothing. Forget I said anything. But get these cats out. And fast. Have you tried ultra-sonics on them?"

Durval's face slipped into new lines. "Maybe," he muttered. Leaning over the railing, he thundered, "Masters. Forget those cats a minute. Yes, forget them. Hook up an ultra-sonics sender and--"

The ship intercom over Durval's head clicked mechanically, hummed into life. "Mr. Jerill. Report to Central Control. Mr. Jerill. Report--"

Scott jabbed the Acknowledgement b.u.t.ton. As he swung around Durval he glanced down into the engine room. Sweating men beat after the scuttling red beasts.

"Report to me about the sonics," he told Durval. "If that doesn't work, we'll scoop up those red kitties with our bare hands. But we got to get started on that uranium ore purification. Faster than ten minutes ago."

He slammed the engine room door, cutting off Durval's angry roar.

Striding rapidly through the bluish light of the corridor, an anger bitter as Durval's throbbed in him. But he took pains to hold it down.

"Confound those cats," he thought. "The _Kastil_ on top of us, and we have to stop work to chase s.p.a.ce fauna. And we have three days left.

Three days."

So engrossed was he in anger that he almost blundered head-on into the grinning red-head who lounged up the corridor toward him.

"Hey, Scott." Second Mate Max Vaugn raised a lazy eyebrow. "Slow down.

Think of all your ulcers."

Scott spun impatiently on his heel. "Can't stop, Max. Got to see the Captain."

"And you don't even stop to say h.e.l.lo to an old friend back from the mines of a nameless asteroid." He grinned, slapped Scott's shoulder lightly with an open palm. "What's all this scandal I hear about your s.p.a.ce cats?"

Scott grimaced. "I caught a few while we were scooping up ore over at my pit. Thought the Extra-Terrestrial Life Division back on Earth might be interested in them. They don't eat. They don't breathe.... Only their cage got smashed open, and they got into the engine room. n.o.body knows how."

"The good news has got around," Max said grinning. "You don't know it, but there's twenty more sitting outside the main cargo hatch right now.

What gets rid of them?"

"If you think of anything," Scott said as he turned away, "tell me. Got to go. Elderburg's waiting."

"Have you tried hitting them with strong light?" Max shouted after him.

"No," Scott shouted back. He was very late, and the Old Man wanted you fast when he wanted you. "Try light if you get a chance."

He broke into an effortless trot, his boots padding lightly on the shining gray floor. "Three days," he thought. He forgot Max. He forgot Durval and the cats. He thought, "Three days," and a fine film of perspiration spread cold across his back.

"We have three days," Captain Elderburg said. He was a small neat man with a prim voice. His bland eyes peered forward into some middle distance, ignoring Scott.

And Scott, sitting tautly in his chair, felt glad those eyes were not on him.

"In three days," the Captain said, "or probably before, the _Kastil_ should find us. The _Kastil_--the best ship Inner-Planet Metals ever commissioned."

Scott nodded. In the savage, free-for-all world of the s.p.a.ce-miner, the _Kastil_ was known as the big ship, the new ship. The ship that could load its cargo hatches in a day, stuffing 100,000 tons of ore down in its belly for the hungering plants of Earth.

"I've fought IP Metals for fifteen years," Elderburg said slowly. His eyes were very far away. "For fifteen years they've grown bigger and bigger, and the bigger they've got, the rougher they've played. You know their record, Scott. Murder, claim-jumping. What they can't steal with a blaster, they take by law."

Glancing through the open port behind the Captain's head, out into the star-dappled dark of s.p.a.ce, Scott asked: "Is there any way we can set up a permanent claim here on this asteroid without going back to Earth?"

"You know better than that." Elderburg's eyes turned full on Scott.

"Unless we bring a full cargo of reasonably purified ore to Earth, we can't lay claim to these mines, or to any other mineral rights here."

His hands closed neatly, one inside the other. "And we've got to get a cargo back. This is our last chance. A strike as rich as this one will keep us going for a long time. But if we lose this claim to IPM, the days of the independent miner are over. Done with. We might as well sell the _Bertha_ and get out."

"We'll be out of here in two days," Scott said eagerly. "If we...."