Chapter 2

Mitzep:

"Captain's Log, Stardate…."

"Mitzep! Captain wants us in the day room for an all-hands meeting, ASAP. Shut off that VCR and unfold some extra chairs," Lossp called out through the open hatchway.

I turned off the little portable TV set and rewound the tape I had just started. As it ejected I idly admired the cover art on the box, the human female's mini skirt clad (though strangely green tinted) legs and sighed. They reminded me too much of Jena's original human female shape, her curved human calves and pink, hairless feet. Before I shelved it I brushed a bit of loose reddish fur, probably my own, off the tape.

While I set up chairs I wondered how much of my attraction was just to her exotic form, and what did she see in my own. I guess all lovers have that kind of thought, little moments of self-doubt and insecurity, when they are just a few hours into a long-term separation. I missed her already.

Our ship was a few minutes into our hyperspace transit from Diyim-yi to the jaguars' homeworld, Nurnkh. We had a minimum crew with Captain Chopka and Second Officer H'raawl-Hrkh on the bridge while Navigator Lossp and myself were off-shift. Doctor Plaksa wasn't aboard: she was held back at the last minute for a special assignment just as we departed the space station. We still didn't have a new contact specialist to replace my sister Chessec. I missed her too, damn it!

"Quit daydreaming, Lieutenant. Everybody come on there, hurry up. I hate to leave the bridge unattended for too long, even in hyperspace," the Captain said.

He walked in with a bundle of thick, stapled documents in one paw. As he gestured for us to take our seats, he passed one to each crewmember. "This will be a first time assignment to the Nurnkh system for everyone in this crew. Corps' SOP is completely different for this duty. We'll be under military discipline, because of the danger. So, let's all get some studying done before we get there. Lossp, how long till we break hyper?"

"Six days, ship's time. We'll arrive in-system pretty far out, so it will be another three days to the primary's orbital space station." Lossp was thumbing through the document as he spoke. "It says here we'll be met on our inbound leg for some kind of inspection."

"Right. All ships coming in system are met and positively identified. We'll be inspected, then assigned a dry dock for the modification work." The XO raised a question.

"What kind of work? It doesn't say here."

"Armament upgrade, plus they want to evaluate the modified sensor fit we brought from Earth. While the ship gets a workover, we'll be briefed for our new mission, maybe get to see the planet."

"Sir?" Part of the job of a junior officer is to ask the obvious questions, and I rose to the occasion. "Why are we so paranoid about Nurnkh? I thought the surviving jaguars were all brain damaged by the virus?"

"Two reasons. First, most of our spacecraft building yards are still in their system since we got them from the jaguars in the first place. They are the most important facilities we own, after the homeworld itself. Second, because we don't know for certain if we got all of them. There were at least five ships that were not accounted for when the war ended, ones that we weren't able to get an agent with the virus on board, ones that never returned to either Nurnkh or Diyim'yi. Two were long-range scouts. Even after seven years, they could still be out there. If they do show up, I imagine they would be pretty upset at us considering what we did to their families." He looked at each of us in turn. "Study the material, and let's hope there won't be a test on it."

He dismissed the crew and returned to the bridge alone. I settled into the couch to read as Lossp went back to his cabin, leaving me alone with H'raawl-Hrkh for the first time since we left home. She flipped through her booklet distractedly, then tossed it on the table.

"Hrrr, I'm too sore from jump stress to sit and read. Come on, we'll go to the exercise room." She started from the room grabbing my arm in passing. What could I do but go?

The converted cargo hold was covered with mats on all walls, floor and ceiling. With the ship at one-quarter standard gravity, you could almost run on any of them. We both stripped down to fur and stretched to loosen up, then started with a light workout on the spring tension machines. Spotting her as she pulled on the rubber band-driven device, I openly admired her beautiful, powerful form. But I was really thinking about her twin, and something must have shown on my face when she looked at it.

"You miss her. Is not good to mope. I'm still here." H'raawl-Hrkh stopped with the machine at full extension as she spoke, casually holding twice my best weight. Her shift to more broken sentences was a sign of concern. "Just as good for you, maybe better. Make you remember what you're missing till you get back to her."

I was embarrassed. The Second Officer and I were casual partners already, after all. We'd been lovers long before I met Jena and, with the emphasis on 'casual' in the fashion peculiar to her species, had maintained our relationship after Jena's change. I suspected that she would have no problem picking up where we'd left off. I wasn't so sure about myself.

"I'm just missing her already. And who knows what she'll be like when we get back. She's going to college with a lot of young Diyim'yi, just like me. Maybe she'll meet someone she likes better." H'raawl eased back the weights and leaned forward.

"I don't think so. While my sister is the same outside, I felt what she's like inside, too. I don't understand all of it, but I know what she feels for you." She stood up. "She flatten you like a rug if not in shape when come home. Come, let's get some blood pumping, there!" Maybe H'raawl was right. Watching her, I had a sudden thought. With a grin, I reached out and tagged her on the nose.

"You're it!" I took off running at an angle across the room, sprang against the wall mats and dug in with my claws, running sideways in the weak gravity. The big lion jumped after me with a shout and pounced to intercept as I rounded the first corner. Changing course at the last second, I regained the floor while she bounced off the place I should have been.

"I'll get you, you little cub!"

The chase was on. My superior speed and agility let me run higher up on the walls than her, but her larger frame and strength allowed her to leap across the room to any point from the middle of the floor. I could usually keep ahead, as she was more of a sprinter, but any pounce that caught me tended to hurt. We kept up ten minutes of intense running until she finally snagged me under her arm and flung herself to the floor mats, winded. I rested with her; thankful she took the impact on her back instead of mine. She was right; the extra oxygen in my system cleared away my budding depression. I was panting.

"Quit dripping saliva all over me." She held me away from her at arms' length.

"I'm hot. We're not like those humans: we're supposed to pant. Let's go take a shower." The cold water helped our bodies, and the mutual toweling reminded us both of another appetite. I barely felt a qualm about Jena when she suggested we go to her cabin for a while. I looked at the wall clock.

"I'm on watch in four hours."

"I won't need you for that long."

"Oh."

My watch came entirely too soon. When I relieved Lossp on the bridge he recognized my expression and offered advice.

"You've got to pace yourself if you're going to play with that big girl. When I first met my Klassti, I was an anemic, undernourished grad student. Try protein drinks, and most importantly, rest. Sleep whenever she does. Or you'll keel over dead in a month."

"I don't think your wife, impressive as she is, is a match for H'raawl-Hrkh. I mean, no disrespect, but she could break me in half."

"So could Klassti! Your cats are bigger than most, I'll admit. But I went through the sprains, bruises, and yes, even a broken bone or two until we worked out between us where everything needed to be placed. But it's worth it, I've found."

"Can't disagree there." He swung out through the hatch, then leaned his head back in.

"Oh. Captain says to study that book while you're on shift. He is going to start asking surprise questions from it starting tomorrow's meal. Kitchen clean-up for whoever gives the first wrong answer. Good night." Lossp left me alone on the bridge. I checked the instruments once, took a glance out the view screen (nothing) and opened up the manual.

The first chapter was typical 'Welcome to Nurnkh, Pesthole of the Universe' cautionary warnings, the usual 'don't drink the water; don't eat the food; and whatever you do, don't pet the natives'. Because of course, they would eat you first. The jaguars, as intelligent sapients, had been on top of their planet's food chain. As slightly less than intelligent animals, they still were. They had dispersed into the forests as solitary hunters, and a 200 pound jaguar could easily bring down an unwary fox, regardless of his supposed intellectual advantage. So the rules required that all Corps personnel stay inside the fenced compounds. Sounded like a wonderful liberty port.

The succeeding chapters were a different subject, one my career had to date not emphasized: Space maneuvering and combat. The jaguar engineers who built our starships had never encountered another space-going race until us, and had not designed their ships to fight. Their bombers, used during the final days of the war, were modified bulk carriers fitted for a suicide mission, dropping nuclear-armed, reentry-shielded gravity warheads. The bulk of the fleet was survey craft like our ship: fast and maneuverable, but with only incidentally armed. With the possibility of the return of the missing jaguar ships and the increased likelihood of encountering outsiders more advanced than ourselves, had made the Corps less trusting. This manual described the rudiments; I assumed we would practice the rest.

For the next five and a half days we did just that. Captain Chopka quizzed Lossp and I unmercifully at meals and ran unscheduled piloting drills, while H'raawl-Hrkh kept me busy in engineering and damage control. And in her cabin, after duty. Since we couldn't launch the shuttle while in hyper, all I could practice were dry runs. Our ship was armed with a single laser, able to fire through an arc of 45 degrees off the centerline by means of an angled mirror. The specifications given us by the Corps indicated we would be fitted with some missiles when we arrived, ones barely effective with a conventional warhead, marginally more so if nuclear. During a hypothetical in-system fight, my shuttle would fly wing on the ship, covering the flanks and some of the rear with my own laser. Did I mention we had no shields?

Unlike the space warcraft in the many movies and videos Dave had provided, (once he saw my interest, he gifted our day room a small library) our best ship would be easy pickings for the weakest destroyer of both the notional Federation and the fictional Empire. We didn't even have a tradition of aerial combat to fall back on: Our planet had developed a unified government before we developed flight. Our naval tradition ended shortly after the armored cruiser, and the last naval battle had still included steam/sail frigates. But we were willing to learn, and I though the B-movies and old serials could well provide a starting point.

Finally we approached the Nurnkh system. The Captain stood us down for crew rest eight hours prior, giving the XO and myself pointed instructions to stay in our own beds. One final meal, a short pep talk, and we went to action stations. With the rest of the crew on the bridge or in engineering, I rode out the transition in my harness aboard the shuttle. We exited hyper on the far fringes of the system. To my unaided eye, the sun was just slightly brighter than the rest of the background star field, with the system's one gas giant a dimmer smudge slightly below it. Per our directive, we came in with passive systems only, even though the energy release from our transition told anyone with the appropriate sensors that someone new had come to town. Lossp was manning the sensor suite and he read out each signal he isolated.

"I have three standard navigation beacons, all sending the 'all clear' code. Some aged voice chatter on the tactical bands, several hours old. Nobody seems too excited. We're not picking up anybody close by. Captain, do you want me to bring up the radar or the transponder?"

"Not like that. Set the transponder to auto-respond if they query us. I want one, I repeat ONE, ping gated to max range. Let's just see if anybody's in the neighborhood first. Mitzep?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Keep your shuttle quiet. If we detect anybody, I want to kick you loose with your drives off, just lay there alongside until we locate them."

"Aye." I acknowledged. We had discussed this at the last meal. Lossp chimed over the intercom.

"One ping away, Sir. Gated for one hundred thousand kilometers. And one. And two. Max range, no echo. We're by ourselves, looks like."

"How long till that hits the outer nav beacon?"

"Seventy-eight seconds going, and another fifty back, at present speed of 0.03c."

"OK. Let's keep going. If they don't contact us inside three hours, we're going in on our own. Mitzep. I guess you can stretch out in the shuttle bay until we hear from them."

"It's all right, Sir. I'll crack the hatch, take off my helmet and catch a few right here." I did so, leaning back in my chair to watch the stars through the viewscreen.

Annas:

The flight ops board was green. One exploratory ship listed inbound and several in-system ships scattered through the outer security zone; between the gas giant's moons and the concentrating plant at its libration point. With two more days on-station before we rotate back to Nurnkh, I'm thoroughly bored with the routine. Anything would be better than patrolling, endlessly drilling holes in space.

Flight Commander met me in the supply room as I was drawing my suit and helmet. He was a silver-tipped blue fox, gorgeous. And heavily involved with a steady partner back on the orbital factory complex. No time (or much interest) in me, save on a professional basis. A waste.

"Hey, Annas. Just the pilot I wanted to see. Grab that gear, and come on down to the launch bay. We're going for a little trip."

The commander was in a good mood, better than my own. Still, his enthusiasm was infectious. I got up as he snagged his own helmet on his elbow, pulling his own gear from the nearest of the six lockers by the door. He dropped his flight gloves inside it and hoisted the rest of his g-suit onto his shoulder like a load of dry cleaning. Corralling my own gear, I followed him out into the hall.

"Where to, Boss?" My ears pricked up. I glanced back up at the board as we left. Still green.

"Practice intercept. That new ship will be in range and close enough for a camera run in ninety minutes. If we get a good vector, we might get to run in on him, at the minimum his shuttle should be able to come out and play for a few seconds without burning too much fuel. I want you to fly my wing on the approach, check out Captain Chopka's young pilot."

"Who's he?"

"Don't know him. Class before yours, I think. Fresh lieutenant, one of the Narantl Clan's males."

"What's his skill level? He hasn't been through the school here yet." Our next duty after this patrol ended would be as IP's at the combat maneuvering school.

"Not yet. He was due six month's ago, normal rotation, but got involved somehow when the human contact thing blew up. Reports said he did all right there. I'd guess he's done some atmosphere work; at best."

"Sounds like fun!" I licked my lips. Fresh meat, both professionally, and perhaps, personally.

Our outer patrol ship sat in roughly the same orb of the Nurnkh primary, 120 degrees ahead of the gas giant. Because of the significant velocity edge the decelerating inbound ship enjoyed, we were launched with strap-on boosters. Thirty minutes of their powerful thrust, then we fired our main engines and separated. Dirt mounted radar had a current track of the ship, so we maintained emission silence and adjusted our intercept course as they fed us updates. Five minutes out, the Commander keyed the low power comm system.

"Make a final weapons check. Verify ordnance safed; cameras and ranging laser only. Station will tell them were coming any second, that it's only a drill, but I'd hate for there to be an accident."

"Affirmative. Safed. Me too. I hope the new kid knows how to play nice."

" ." The flight leader broke squelch once.

We stopped talking as the station's high power radio informed the inbound ship of our little 'practice run' and we heard their bridge crew acknowledge. We drifted along our pre-programmed intercept. I carefully watched the expected enemy track for any tell-tale drive signature from either the ship or shuttle. It was a big piece of space, and I couldn't see anything. At one minute, per SOP, the Commander turned on his acquisition radar.

"Active." My 'scope repeated his own. The display showed a single blip, slightly above their predicted course, veering more sharply toward the station, and coincidentally, us. "No sign of their shuttle. Might not have launched yet. He's still passive. No, wait…."

The display lit with the target ship's own radar. An intermittent pattern of ranging blips, just enough to paint a momentary position update, not enough to lock on.

"There he is. I think we caught him with his shuttle aboard. Better luck next time, newbie. Annas, I'll lead, you stay low. Let's go in."

Their ship altered course into us and the range closed fast. He couldn't change his vector too much, and he couldn't swing his ship very much farther without masking his laser. We each carried a single radar guided missile, and locking our fire control on tight scan for the notional flight time would simulate firing. I spotted his drive signature by eyeball just as we reached firing range.

"Missile." The commander announced matter-of-factly. I lit up my own radar, acquired a solid lock, and 'launched' my own notional round. Suddenly my PPI display went crazy, with spikes around the entire periphery.

"I'm being jammed. Switching to alternate control channel." It was just as bad on the secondary channel, and his operator was good, because he beat me back to the primary. "No good, sir. Missile did not get a lock. Turn in with laser?"

"Roger. I missed too. Damn, I'm hit. You've got it, wing. Main laser just got me. Breaking off." I glanced out of the cockpit as he veered to match with the receding ship's course. I increased my angle behind him, safe inside his rear arc. Five seconds. My laser-warning receiver went crazy, indicating a near miss or minor hit on the opposite side. I looked, catching a flash of his shuttle's drive flare, blasting on a reciprocal, decelerating course, now pinwheeling swiftly for a second shot. I passed behind the ship, just beyond the drive hazard zone. I had too much v to match either ship or shuttle, and only time in range for one shot.

I decided to take out the ship. Killing my main drive, I fired full thrusters, spinning on my axis for a parting shot on the fleeing ship. My camera said I hit, and just to be sure, I fired again. Simultaneously, his shuttle nailed my own now exposed rear. A young, excited male voice came over the guard frequency.

"Got you!"

"Yes, but you'll be walking home, cause I got your ship first. What's your name, hotshot?"

"Mitzep." He sounded a little less cocky as the meaning of my remark sunk in. "What's yours?"

"Senior Flight Lieutenant Annas." Coolly.

"That was a pretty slick maneuver, could you show it to me?" He sounded a little bit chastened. I smiled.

"Oh, I will. Don't worry about that." I checked out our various courses and the scope. "Hey kid. Better get some v on to catch up with your ship. See you next week."

We met again a week later. I had arrived the day before, spent a disappointing night planetside having a flaming, drunken row with my now certainly -ex lover, and practically crawled into the classroom for the school Commandant's obligatory welcome speech. Mitzep was one of three new students, the only one from the home system. He was a dark patterned red fox, handsome. I couldn't recall meeting him at the academy, so he must have been two years behind, not just one.

Mitzep:

I've never done well in school. When docked at the enormous Corps main base in the Nurnkh system I immediately got orders to report for three weeks of space combat maneuver training. A week on planet in the classroom and simulator, followed by two weeks based at the orbital space station. With Senior Lieutenant Annas as my IP (Instructor Pilot), no less. I guess she knew her stuff, but her attitude just rubbed me the wrong way. She had a grudge against me, and everything I did wasn't up to her standard.

She sent mixed signals socially, too. During our first encounter she had that starved, carnivorous stare I've seen before on vixens returning from a long, unaccompanied tour. I probably used to have the same look. I wouldn't have minded the attention, as she was an above average attractive female, with the classic red and white pattern. But she didn't pursue it any further, and our working relationship as fellow junior officers seemed to have struck a sour note. She repeatedly asked my questions about Captain Chopka's decisions, and casting aspersions on the caliber of the rest of the crew. I assumed this was based on some past event, but when I called and asked Lossp, he drew a blank.

"No, we've never met her, as far as I remember. Back when your mother was Captain we always did solo exploration. Never fleet ops, so I guess we couldn't have encountered her there. Maybe she's one of Captain Chopka's young conquests?"

"Could be. But she's critical of the crew, not just him personally. Except for me." The message length timer beep'd. "Gotta go, Lossp. See you." The communicator cut off. I went back to my study assignment. Math isn't a strong subject, especially word problems. They confuse me.

This one was typical. "Given a standard fusion engine equipped in-system ship (one without an FTL drive), compute the most efficient combination of acceleration versus time, using the following values…." I remembered the first physics class back at the academy, when I had been required to solve a similar problem on the chalkboard in front of everyone. I worked furiously, scattering formulae, adding and subtracting logarithms frantically all around the edges of the board, and my great relief when I got an answer quicker than any other student. A remember turning to face the teacher proudly, and her frown as she checked my math. The growing wave of snickers from the class as smarter students found it. How hot my ears were when she reminded me that at 12g constant deceleration, my ship's crew would soon become a sticky mess pooled on the deck of the ship. The memory made me recheck my figures.

"Let's see. Ess equals the difference of vee sub oh from vee sub tee; all over tee squared. That's great, but what does ess stand for. Speed? No, I've got more vee's for velocity than I know what to do with already. Space!? That's stupid, it's not even a standard unit. Why not dee for distance? Who wrote this piece of….!" I thumbed back through the book. I thought enviously of Dave's laptop, and his incredible spreadsheet application. But that made me think of Earth, which made me think of Chessec, and she made me think of Marie, of course. And then I was right back to Jena. I slammed the book shut and went for a walk.

The Corps had a small compound near the Jaguar's original space flight research facility. Located on the planet's largest continent on the equator, it was an island of pavement and concrete block buildings in a dense jungle. Access was only possible by air or river barge. The dormitory/barracks complex where I was living was right up against the inner fence, less than a hundred yards from the surrounding rain forest. A walking path followed the inner fence.

I was instantly panting in the early evening humidity, but I started out at a brisk pace to try to stimulate my blood flow and clear my head. Other walkers and a few crazy joggers had the same idea, and I met or was passed by several. The total circumference was two miles, but I only planned to go half that. My destination was the snack bar, where I lapped up a cold drink, sucking on each ice cube for the full effect. On my way out, I idly looked over the small folding table of brochures that Rec Services had scattered. One advertised a guided tour of one of the Jaguar cities, which I thoughtfully folded up and put in my pocket.

When I showed it to my roommate, who had returned from his evening flight simulator period, he encouraged me to go.

"Otherwise, all you'll see of this planet is just this jungle hell-whole. The tour takes a whole day, and you get to go to the beach on the north coast and everything. Although the Jaguar-sized bathtubs in the rooms at the rest center are almost big enough to swim in. Strange, cats liking water like that. The ruins are neat, too."

"You want to go?"

"Nah. I've got three extra hours of Sim time tomorrow, because of Mepret's ear infection. He got recycled to the next class, and got the empty slot. Besides, I went already."

Rec Services had an old, noisy tilt-rotor transport laid on. With a capacity of eighteen, it shuttled us in two lifts. My co-passengers were a mix of transients like myself and station permanent party. Most of the latter seemed to be members of some kind of diving club who formed a clique near the front of the plane. During the 45 minute flight I watched the jungle unreel below us. As we neared the coast the trees gave way to savannah through which occasional sand dunes erupted. Finally, we arrived at a barrier island covered by a city larger than any I'd seen back home. It looked new, the only signs of its present abandonment a few burned districts and slight overgrowth of the side streets and buildings by vines. We landed at a heliport near one of the resort hotel complexes. As we banked in I could see a few dozen foxes scattered between the beach and pool.

Since I had two hours before the guided tour began, I checked in and then wandered around the resort complex. As I expected, everything was built to the larger scale of a Jaguar, although frequently used fixtures such as the reservation desk and barstools were converted to our height. Permanent signs were still in their language, with Diyim'yi on temporary-but-now-looking-pretty-permanent signs underneath. I puzzled out a few of the older messages using my now-rusty grasp of their language from when it had been taught in my grade school during occupation. One sign gave a jarring reminder of who the servants at this resort had been under the previous owners, as it warned patrons not to claw misbehaving vrrashn, (their word for vermin) but to instead report them to the owners for discipline. With a cold rising of fur in my ruff I recalled the rough play of the garrison soldiers lording over my sister and I before the uprising.

"They deliberately left that one untouched as a reminder, I suspect." A familiar voice announced over my shoulder. I turned to see Annas. I frowned.

"Hello, Senior Lieutenant. I'm surprised to see you here." I replied formally.

She must have seen my expression and heard my tone, because she smiled disarmingly and said, "Hey, we're off duty today. And I thought we needed to start over." She stuck out her paw. "Hi, I'm Annas. Glad to meet you." I was puzzled, but willing. After all, she hadn't actually done anything, just spoken rudely. I took hers in mine and shook.

"Glad to meet you. You must have come in on the second shuttle hop. Are you going on the tour?"

"Why not? If you'd care for some company, that is." Not her, especially, but if she was going to make an effort, so could I.

Annas:

The dormitory's small auditorium was showing a horror film I had watched four times before in the past year. Halfway through, I growled at the stupidity of the heroine and her equally mindless boyfriend and stalked out. I was disgusted and bored, a dangerous combination. The movie only emphasized that I was alone over a long weekend, except for my brother's sister-wife. And I had nothing but my own sharp tongue to blame for the situation.

I went back to our room, not talking to her, although she glanced over curiously as I entered. As I sat on my bed twisting the tip of my tail around one claw tip, Berypt looked up from the letter she was reading and frowned.

"You've been acting like a small rain cloud has been following you around since you got off work, Annas. What's the matter?"

"S'nothing."

"Hmmph. Vixen, when you and Sennet broke up and you moved in with me, you agreed that you weren't going to sulk. You said, 'I'm going to go right out and find another handsome hunk. I'm going to forget that loser ever existed.'" she remarked in a scolding tone. "So what are you doing to make that happen? Nothing!"

"I'm not sulking."

"So why's most of the hair from the tip of your tail spread all over your bedspread? The weekend starts tomorrow. Why don't you go out and meet someone? Come with me. I'm going to the beach in the morning. You could meet someone there."

"I'll stay here. I'm not so desperate I'm chasing after strangers. There just aren't any males I like the looks of here right now."

"What about that new pilot you told me about last week. The one you're certifying. He looked pretty tightly built."

"I-I guess so. But I'm afraid I've already ruined it with him." I thought for a few moments: I was being stupid. Here is a perfectly adequate male, maybe even a superior example of the breed; after all, he's a pilot too. And I've let my dislike for his ship affect my opinion of him. He's a junior lieutenant; he doesn't have any control over the kind of beings his Captain picks for crew.

"What did you do? Out-fly him in the simulator? I've told you-let them win once in a while."

"No. I was a jerk. He seems nice enough, but I really laid into him because of that ship he's crew on. I know it wasn't his fault, but I blamed him."

"For what?"

"It's a Corps Personnel problem. Not his fault. Last year, I had a chance at an XO job. Would have been an early promotion. I met Captain Chopka, he told me about the opening. But they told me a more qualified officer had already filled the spot when I got to the personnel office the next day. So then, I asked who."

"Well?"

"A cat! They gave the job to a damn cat, that's who. I can't believe we even have cats in the Corp's-never mind that one could possibly be a better ship's officer than I am."

"You're being unreasonable. I've seen… Not all cats are evil. I take it that this officer was a M'raeenn? Did he have less service time than you? Was his record less than satisfactory?"

"Her. They said the same thing. She had another year of seniority. Still, I mean, a cat?"

"She got the job. Like you said, it's not Mitzep's fault. Why don't you go over to his room and apologize. Eating crow is always a good conversation opener. He's probably as bored with the base here as we are by now. Invite him along to the beach."

"I'll think about it. Maybe tomorrow."

"Don't think too long. The shuttle leaves pretty early." Morning did come especially early. I tossed about on my bunk for most of the night. Berypt went to breakfast while I scrambled to get ready. I ran a wire brush through my tangled fur and sprayed on plenty of static remover to get it to lay flat. With my overnight bag in hand, I went next door and knocked at Mitzep's room. His roommate told me he had already gone. On the same tour, no less. I ran to Rec Services, but a note saying 'sold out' was taped on the door. I made it to the shuttle pad just as the first flight lifted off.

"Berypt! You've got to let me have your ticket."

"Why? It's not my fault you waited till the last minute. Anyway, you didn't bring your pilot friend. You can be alone here as well as on my beach."

"Please! He did go, on the first flight. I'll make it up to you, I promise. This is my only chance, I'll be back in space next weekend. You work here at base, you can go any time."

"Well, since you put it so gracefully…." She handed me her ticket. "I expect you to spill all the details, plus you're going to make me popcorn and rent the video when you get back."

I spent the whole flight rehearsing what I would say to him. I couldn't ask him to renew our relationship-we hadn't had one yet. And all I knew about him was that he was an all right pilot, and he was handsome and single. Insecurity began to set in as we banked in to our landing, and the tilt-rotor transitioned to a hover. When the door opened, I was tempted to just stay on board until the return flight. An interruption by a crewmember got me moving again.

"Ma'am. You'll have to get off the plane. We're going to load some dangerous cargo, and the loadmaster wants the ramp cleared."

"Uh, all right." I walked down the rear ramp, past a large metal box on a loader. As I passed, a yellow, spotted claw reached through an air hole and took a swipe at me, scraping across the outside. I screamed in surprise and fear, jumping back swiftly. One of the handlers tapped the back of the Jaguar's claw with a long pole, and it reluctantly withdrew back inside.

"It's OK, ma'am. She can't get out."

"W-where are you taking it?"

"Can't say. Some kind of experiment. The scientists have had us shipping live female Jaguars all week." He escorted me off the ramp, and I found my way to the hotel. I checked in and began my search for Mitzep. I found him reading one of the old signs in the hallway outside the bar.

"They deliberately left that one untouched as a reminder, I suspect." My encounter with the wild jaguar still had me rattled.

"Hello, Senior Lieutenant. I'm surprised to see you here." He sounded cold. I remembered why I had come. Before he could say anything else, I gave him as cheerful a smile as I could and stuck out my hand.

"Hey, we're off duty today. And I thought we needed to start over: Hi, I'm Annas. Glad to meet you." He looked puzzled, but at least he didn't reject my greeting out of hand. We shook.

"Glad to meet you. You must have come in on the second shuttle hop. Are you going on the tour?"

"Why not? If you'd care for some company, that is."

A guide was gathering up tourists and herding them onto a bus. The tour led us on a winding trip through the abandoned city; ending up at a converted warehouse complex the guidebook told us was a museum. There, our group was led through a series of buildings filled with exhibits. Mitzep and I gradually straggled behind, until we were in a sculpture gallery with only a few other tourists. He touched me on the arm and led me to the opposite side of a large statute.

"I can only stare at so much alien ironmongery with you standing there with your mouth shut looking at me like that. What is it you want, Annas?"

"I thought we could get along better if we got to know each other outside of work. The two of us are pretty evenly matched. We-."

"Annas. Stop right there. We're both stuck here together for the weekend, and we can certainly be friends…" He was rejecting me. I hadn't even considered that possibility. There could only be one reason.

"You have someone else, right."

"I'm afraid so. On the home world. Her name is Jena."

"Oh." It would have been obvious, had I not been more interested before in attacking him.

We walked along after that, both overly polite, both covering the awkwardness by aggressive tourism, alternately pointing out interesting museum exhibits. We crossed between buildings into a gallery that contained relics of their early space program, and as a pilot, I was interested despite my disappointment, seeing how rapidly their designs developed past our own. I stood watching an interpretive film loop of a rocket sled test of their early prototype inertial acceleration damper, the predecessor of our current 'artificial' gravity system, when Mitzep poked my arm.

I smiled in anticipation at his touch: Maybe he had gotten past his reservations. But he only pointed into the next glass case. It contained some scorched fabric and a bent piece of space hardware with lettering on it.

"What?"

"I wonder how that got in there?"

"Well, I don't know. Maybe the gloves were worn by some early jaguar explorer, and the helmet- well, the fur lining looks like it could have been rendered from a relative of ours. The device on the piece of metal looks like a stylized eagle clutching something in its claws. I don't recognize the lettering underneath, but I'm sure it's in one of their old languages. You obviously recognize it. Come on, why is it so interesting?"

"Jaguars don't have four long, clawless digits with a well-separated thumb. And that helmet, which is probably rabbit fur, by the way, was never meant for a head with pointed ears on top of it. I can't make out the lettering either: but it reads 'SPREN-something-LAGE.' I do know where to find someone who can read it-Earth!" It was an interesting puzzle, but we were interrupted by the sound of our bus' horn. I looked at my watch.

"We'd better go. The bus is getting ready to leave." We stepped outside, and heard the horn again. "Let's cut through here." I pointed to an alley. "It's probably shorter."

The sun was setting in our faces and the sky was the bright red glow that is so common in tropical sunsets. We were blinded as we entered the alley, so for a few critical seconds neither of us saw it.

An immature Jaguar, bigger than a cub yet not quite a full adult, snarled at us from behind a burned out dumpster. He was big enough to kill us if he attacked-neither of us where armed. His coat was smeared with black mud and reddish rust, like he had just climbed out of the trash. We were too close to escape, but strangely, he did not attack. His shiny black eyes boring through my own, he carefully backed out of sight around the corner, and we heard the sound of his running feet down the alley. Mitzep grabbed my own arm and pulled me toward the street. Two steps, then we both broke and ran, not stopping until we reached the lighted bus stop.

"That was close! I'll bet he was thinking about whether we ought to become dinner." My breath came in ragged gasps despite the short distance we had sprinted. "He could have sliced us both up without any trouble with those claws."

"He'd have had to drop that knife he was holding before he could do that." Mitzep sounded calm. I envied that.

"But…"

"Exactly. Very few dumb animals use tools. Which means we have a big problem on this planet."

Mitzep:

Security finished interrogating Annas and I four hours after we were flown back to base, and released us to return to our barracks and get some sleep. Annas was shook up by the incident. She said it was because of something that a Jaguar had done when she was a child, but didn't provide any more detail. I held her until she stopped shaking, but very firmly left her in the care of her roommate at the door to her own room. Returning to my own, I was about to fling myself fully clothed into bed when my own roommate told me to call the ship.

"She sounded a little upset that you didn't call from your hotel. I take it the officer in question is more than a professional acquaintance?" He practically smirked. I inferred he meant H'raawl-Hrkh had called: I'd promised to speak with her from the resort later last night. I looked at the clock and did some calculations. I had less than four hours until her duty day started, but she was off-shift and would expect me to call. It took a few minutes for the operator to establish a connection.

"Hmmm." She sounded sleepy. "So what happened? You were going to call me tonight." I explained that Annas and I had been involved in an incident with a feral jaguar, that when I explained what had happened, security insisted that it was impossible that a jaguar would use a knife, that all the survivors were nothing but animals. They had been very persistent, and I had been tired, so I finally agreed just to make them stop. H'raawl-Hrkh agreed this sounded strange, although I could almost hear her whiskers twitch when I said I had been with Annas at the time.

"So, anyway, we finally got back to our rooms a few minutes ago. She was still shaking when I gave her to her roommate."

"That must have ruined your weekend with her. Are you disappointed?" I imagined her claws unsheathing since she'd acquired a slight ability for jealousy due to her connection with Jena. This was something previously alien to her nature. Taking this into account, I reassured her.

"No. You know what? She came on the trip by herself, and I think she wanted me, but the more I've come to know her, the less attractive she is. Annas is very pretty, but every time she opens her mouth she becomes less so." This mollified H'raawl-Hrkh, and she became more affectionate. We spent the last few minutes of the call talking dirty to each other. I hung up with a smile, but was embarrassed as I saw my roommate giving me a stupid grin from across the room.

"Why don't you go lock yourself in the bathroom for a few minutes, bring down some of that swelling. And next time you can just take the whole phone call in there while I turn up the radio really loud." He rolled facing away from me and feigned sleep. I shut out the lights, and seconds later, wasn't pretending.

The next morning Annas' roommate Berypt sat down across from me in the dining hall. She introduced herself again and informed me that Annas wouldn't be able to come to the simulator today.

"I had to give her a sedative." I gave her a hard look. "Oh, I'm a nurse by the way." She slouched in her chair. "That vixen has a lot of problems. You rejecting her and the jaguar were just the latest of them."

"But I'm not interested in her!" She put up a hand.

"That's not why I'm here. I knew that, I just wanted her to confront it by actually asking you. She was building a relationship with you that I was sure was all in her mind. No," She looked around to see if anyone was listening. "I wanted to talk to you about the other thing -the jaguar. She told me what you saw and what security tried to get you to report. I just wanted to say that I believe you saw what you did, and if you'll come with me, I'd like to show you something."

"Well, since we're not going to the simulator today, why not?"

She led me on a roundabout tour of the complex, making sure we weren't followed. I was curious, so I kept quiet and went with her. We finally arrived at a blank faced building with a high security combination lock on the door. She motioned me behind a large crate.

"I'm going to relieve the nurse on duty. She will come outside past you though this door. Wait until she's out of sight, then ring the buzzer and I'll let you in. I'll explain once we're alone inside." I was curious, but I knew this could be big trouble if we were discovered. She went inside, and soon enough, a male nurse walked out, locking the door behind him. Wiping the sweat off the pads of my palms, I rang the buzzer and slipped inside.

Berypt was peering through a window in another door at the end of a short hallway. I heard an electric lock click as she led me through it. The hall continued beyond the door, past a nurses' station, past a series of doors with covered windows. A bank of video monitors, one for each room. I started to examine them, but Berypt grabbed my arm and began speaking, drawing my attention back to her.

"I started work here about three years ago, and while I've never been completely comfortable with the type of research we've been doing, lately things have been happening that make me wonder if I've misunderstood exactly what the end goal of the program has been. The attempted security blackout after your encounter at the resort city has convinced me that I need to let someone else know what's been going on here. And with Annas' attitude towards the jaguars, I obviously couldn't tell her."

"But what is going on? All I've seen is this room, and these video monitors, showing pictures of what?" I focused on one. It showed a bare room with a few scraps of rug, some basic children's toys, and a mound of blanket from which protruded- "Wait a minute, that's a jaguar cub in that room!"

"That's right. We are raising cubs captured in the wild. We have six of them, ranging in age from four months to five years. We are testing them, as well as teaching them, because-" I finished for her.

"Because the bug we spread isn't hereditary, the offspring of the jaguars have the same intelligence that their parents did before the war ended."

"Right. Slightly more than half of the second generation are immune, and we think that by the fourth generation, the whole surviving population of jaguars will be normal."

"So we'll be right back where we started from in another fifty or sixty years."

"No. Since we essentially erased their racial memory of their past, they are going to be little more than a Neolithic people, maybe for thousands of years, unless we intervene. Our original plan, the one this program was supporting, was to teach a few selected jaguars, and try to get them to like us, if not respect us."

"You say it was your original plan."

"Yes. In the past few weeks, the program has changed. All the behaviorists and child development specialists have been reassigned off the project, and now we are just focusing on their physical development. A few of us nurses are the only civilizing interaction they get now, everyone else just wants blood and other fluid samples. I'm afraid they are trying to develop a new version of the original virus, using these jaguars, children as test subjects." She led me down the hall to the last room.

"Where are we going?"

"I want you to meet someone." She opened the door. "Hello, honey. I'm here." She held out her arms, and a jaguar cub as big as her pounced, almost driving her to the floor. She ruffled his ears as he stood up. "Say hello to pilot Mitzep."

"Hroow." An animal-like sound at first. Then in recognizable, mangled Diyim'yi: "Miz Brrpt says I talk good. We play throw?" She picked up a rubber ball and tossed it into a corner, and the cat scampered off in chase.

"He is getting too big to be confined in a small room like this. We have an exercise yard, but they only get to use it once a week."

"He seems friendly enough." I tossed the ball after he handed it to me, and he was off again.

"He ought to be, he was raised by Diyim'yi from the day his eyes opened, just like all the ones we've got here. But if he doesn't get into a more socialized environment soon, I worry about his future development, if not his sanity. He belongs in school, not in a cage."

"I agree with you, but we need to be careful. Someone powerful must have authorized the change in your program, and they have a pretty powerful reason to silence anyone who tries to reveal it."

"I know. If they weren't 'just cats', this would be a crime of heinous dimension. But what can I do?"

"I don't know. But I know someone I can talk to who does."