Cat
When they finally landed again, there was a devastating misunderstanding. They set down on the Jasco plain in southern Mexico, the place from where they’d departed in the Pleistocene. One of the startled terrestrial greeters, in the confusion, the billowing dust stirred up by the starship, the shock, had blurted, “Habla Espanol?!”
The translator implants embedded in most galactic citizens were marvels of ingenious technology, but millennia come and millennia go in star travel and in spite of updating, mistakes creep in. “Habla Spaniel?!” the translator implant relayed — the star creature’s countenance clearly fell, the air of beatitude replaced by distaste or maybe even horror. “Spaniel? Indeed not,” the star creature declared, whiskers twitching, calico fur bristling, “Hablo Cat.”
Felinoa sapiens had of course been masters of the universe since time’s infancy when riding the bucking galactic waves of furious young energy required reckless and brilliant deft sleek courage. Cats had evolved a welding of intellect and emotion, savvy and instinct that was the envy of lesser sentients. Cats had planted experiments on suitable planets and periodically revisited these planetary sites to observe the progress of the stock. The human stock on planet Earth, for instance.
Fire Cat, Owl Cat, Nova Cat were the first master cats to set foot on Earth since the Pleistocene. They had been getting mindgrams from their miniature cousins whenever they wanted an update on the human herds. Humans were among the most vicious and intractable of the experimental stock being grown in this minor galaxy, but the young ones made excellent veal. “Braised shanks,” Fire thought, licking her furred lips. “Chops, charbroiled, rare,” Nova laughed, gold eyes blackening at the tasty thought.
Owl Cat rumbled, “They thought their God was a large pale fellow with a beard. We ate God steamed — with a glaze, didn’t we?” Nova and Fire snickered.
The three masters of the universe were making a courtesy call on one of their young cousins, a Burmese who lived in Mountain View, California. Jester was an elegant glossy dark-chocolate-colored cat who kept two humans of middle age — beyond being half-decent veal really. Jester planned to plead on behalf of his human housemates, Ned and Nelly. Through the mindnet, he knew of the planet-clearing roundup which was coming, and in spite of the fact that humans were unkind to their own kind, generally greedy, and certainly ungenerous to other species themselves, Jester just couldn’t bear Ned and Nelly’s being butchered up into steaks and chops and ground round and put on the deep-freeze freighter for the trip to the Galactic Center warehouses where the terran delicacies would be dispersed to rich Cats.
Let them round up the Dog People who were dumber anyway and had fewer sensibilities. Jester wanted to save his pals who could almost be cats. Couldn’t a handful of Honorary Cats be spared?
Though a tenth the size, Jester was as beautiful as the star cats. His short silky fur was a burnished nutmeg, his eyes gold. Fire Cat was vain, a rare calico with an antique pattern from the First Days. Nova was jet black with a white tuxedo front. Owl Cat was a barred subtle gray, a full six-foot-high with a plumed tail. Bravely and with great dignity and glee, Jester faced his enormous star cousins and pleaded Ned and Nelly’s virtues.
Glancing quickly at the others who were also suppressing smiles, Fire nodded gravely and said, “Sure, kid, cut a few out of the herd if you want. The Meat Merchants at Galactic Central don’t need to know everything.” Nova added, “Tell you what, little friend, we’ll send out the Dog-Loving Humans first. Spaniel!” the fur puffed out on her tail. “We’ll leave all your cat people on Earth til next trip in a millennia or two and maybe they’ll mend their grotty ways, get more kind and respectful, and finally get smart enough to be worth taking off the Big Menu.”
Jester purred and cheshired. Ned and Nelly would never know, but he was glad to have saved them and the other cat people too. He was pleased the dog people would be gone. He hated Roscoe, that loud dumb mutt next door. It would be less smelly without them, canine and caninophiles alike.
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At LAST, the WHOLE truth! I thought the secret would never come out. Little do the Rapturees know where they really go.
They do call it the CATholic church for a reason I guess.
This is getting really Sirius. Both Dog Stars are on full alert because Catastrophic Cataclysms seem imminent. What worries them really is whether Jester is just having a miaouw at their expense or is he serious.
I asked Jester who was beautifully and languorously but perhaps a tad ominously licking his velvety chops at the time, and he said in language tidied up for human consumption that Gata Grande the constellation falsely called Orion was the home of the Empress Gata of the Far Stars who was NOT pleased to hear that some mere human [@#*&$#@ — let's sum up with 'scum'] had called the Jaguar Star the Dog Star. Whew, were the cosmic tele(path)lines burning. (You weren't the scum tho you may be son-of-scum from their point of view — it was the original blasphemer.)
As far as I can tell the Felinoa Sapiens seldom joke about chops and cutlets, though they can be very wry in an obsidian kind of way — if you're into Human jokes.
Also to chancelucky, Jester sez that all people who go to any interior church and neglect the glorious cat-hedral of the Precious Planet itself are thought of as “mangy dogs.” (Which they mispronounces as 'man-gee dogs.')
Please don't shoot the messenger.