The Cat's Job Read Online Free PDF

the stick was a lunatic. Just as obviously, the lush glade
in which he and Val Con had been standing was not on the world of
Panore, where Miri was. Panore was a world of oceans -- or, more
exactly, ocean. The hyatt in which she sat was part of a vast city
built on titanium girders sunk deep into the ocean
floor.
    No natural green glades
here.
    Miri sighed and opened her eyes,
reaching up to unpin her copper-colored braid.
    The galaxy was wide. Green worlds,
while not all that common, existed in sufficient plentitude that it
would take a lifetime as long as a Clutch Turtle's to search them
all.
    She sighed again, and tried to look at
the other side of the problem.
    How had the snatch been done?
Instantaneous transfer? Through vacuum? Miri shook her head. The
fading effect was similar to the effects she and Val Con had
experienced aboard a Clutch "rock-ship" years before. But where had
the fat man's power source been hidden?
    "Instantaneous transfer within the
world I'll buy," she decided, shaking the kinks out of her long
hair. "Through space ain't gonna hack it. That'd be like Jumping
without a ship..."
    Liaden and Terran math took
dimensional shifts into consideration -- that was how spaceships
got from here to there without going in-between. "Hyperspace": A
mumbo-jumbo word without any real meaning, purporting to explain
itself with its own name.
    Suppose the fat man had worked
hyperspatial math within the world, Miri thought, then groaned as
her imaginatiion conjured an image of Panore upon Panore,
stretching away into unthought-of distance, one edge of each
superimposed on the next.
    The may-be worlds of alternate chance
would run smack into the problem of time: Each mainline of When
would have its aurora of alternate Whats.
    "Sort of thing a lunatic would
do."
    She rolled to her feet, tossing her
hair behind her back.
    "Gods, I hate math," she grumped,
moving across the room to the discreetly screened-off
workstation.
    She sat on the edge of the soft chair,
fingers already on the board, calling up equations -- Liaden math,
not Terran. This was one of those things it was going to be easier
to think about in Liaden, she just knew it.
    * * *
    The King of the Cats had closed his
bright eyes, giving Kinzel the opportunity to study him more
closely.
    The black leather leggings and vest
marked him a fighting man, though he wore no sword. The wide belt
with its built-on pouch was certainly capable of supporting a
weapon. There was, in fact, a sense of edges about him: That he
carried knives on his person Kinzel didn't doubt.
    His dark shirt was of fine, soft cloth
-- surely the sort of garment a nobleman would wear next to his
skin. It was loosely laced with black cord, leaving the slender
throat bare. Kinzel looked more closely, eyes caught by something
that shone there, suspended by a dusky velvet riband.
    "So, friend Kinzel," murmured the
King. "You say you do not know what Fallan does with the cats, once
they are captured, only that he threatens to leave nothing cat-like
in the world."
    "Isn't that enough?" asked Kinzel.
"Think of the upset to the Balance! There is a reason for cats to
be as they are. Fallan is only thinking of vengeance, not of the
harm done the whole world, if cats are no longer cats!"
    He sighed suddenly, and continued in a
much younger voice.
    "It is true that Fallan is a very
learned wizard. He may be able to do what he threatens and not
endanger Balance."
    "Or he may be lying to you," said the
other briskly; "with no intention of harming further cats, or,
indeed, the ones he now holds. If he holds any."
    "He does," said Kinzel with certainty.
"And he doesn't make idle threats. He has a reputation for never
threatening to do what he won't -- or can't -- perform."
    "Useful," murmured the King. He did
not seem disposed to speak further and silence grew between
them.
    It had stretched a time when Kinzel
stirred and, typically, spoke what first popped into his
head.
    "I was admiring your amulet. The work
is