Catacombs Read Online Free PDF

intense Jubal was sure the fish must be already cooked by the time he carried them into the ship. There wasn’t enough for all the cats to have much, but if he chopped it up and divided it, everyone could have a taste and maybe some of the others would go fishing with them the next time. He intended to speak to Captain Loloma about the girl and her cat—maybe they could join the
Ranzo
’s crew. They didn’t seem to be welcome here anymore.
    He was certainly welcome on the
Ranzo
, however. The minute he stepped through the hatch, he was surrounded by, almost engulfed by, cats tangling themselves in his flapping sheet and under his feet. Chester, still exhausted from his swim, slept through the chorus of hungry cat noises, chirrups, mews, meows, short yowls, rumbly purrs, and hungry growls, but Jubal was in no doubt about their meaning.
    A cat leaped up onto his shoulder and others immediately tried to climb him. Claws dug into him and
he
yowled. Chester woke up and looked straight into the face of the cat on Jubal’s shoulder, none other than his milk brother Bat. “Back off!” Chester hissed.
    “Cranky, aren’t we?” Bat asked.
    Jubal tried to bend over without losing Chester or the fish and smack the paws off his legs, but the cats acted as if they hadn’t eaten in months. “Help!” he yelled.
    Human help was already on the way. Beulah, Captain Loloma, and Sosi were calling the unheeding cats, and when they were close enough, began dragging cats off Jubal, whose legs and arms were bleeding freely now.
    “What’s wrong with them? Have they gone nuts?” the captain asked, and Jubal laughed.
    “It’s the fish in my pack. They want it, and they can have it but we gotta divide it up first. Take my pack and run. They’ll follow you.”
    Sosi reached for the net. “The kitties won’t hurt me.”
    Her father grabbed it instead. “I’m taller,” he said simply, and broke into a run.
    The cats abandoned Jubal and bounded after the captain. He ran pretty fast for an old guy, and of course he hadn’t been in the sun all day long either so he raced the cats to the galley and slammed the hatch in their whiskery faces.
    Die-hards scratched at the door and yowled their protests, but others among them, whose bellies were after all still filled with kibble, sat down and washed or wandered a few feet away.
    The hopeful few who tried to linger near Jubal, still smelling the remnants of the fish on him, were warned off by Chester. In the infirmary, the medical specialist cleaned and medicated his scratches and applied a couple of strategic bandages.
    “Better wash and change clothes,” Beulah suggested when he’d been treated. “Get rid of the fish smell. But Jubal—go easy on the water.”
    Jubal nodded. He had some experience with that when the well back on the farm went dry a few times. He could take a bath in half a cup of water, but here he had disinfectant soap to use as well.
    Chester had no faith in the soap or the medic and kept trying to wash Jubal’s scratches cat-fashion, with his rough tongue, and asking if the boy was okay, was he really okay? Even though the cat could tell what Jubal was thinking and feeling, he followed himanxiously, mewing aloud and inwardly asking what hurt, where it hurt, who had made this or that particular scratch.
    “It’s okay, Chester,” Jubal said aloud, finishing his washing and changing into his shipsuit again, but when he turned around, Chester wasn’t there anymore.
    Silly boy, I’m with my fish
, Chester said, and through his eyes Jubal saw the interior of the mess cabin.
    The ship’s cook—a rail-thin man named, appropriately enough, Cook—chopped fish at a small table while Sosi put it onto plates. A mass of quivering fur waited with what seemed to be amazing patience, until Jubal realized that Chessie, Bat, and Sol were facing them down. Chessie’s ears were flat and she was flipping her tail in an angry way. Bat and Sol were each twice their regular size,