Chapter 16
“It’s a cat, common domestic Terran-type feline, female weighing just above a kilo, which makes it somewhat larger.” the veterinary surgeon said after doing every test he could think of on the limp orange-striped body that had been brought in. “Scanner shows no unusual organs, average brain size, average everything, except a dense fur of several layers, probably a requirement to survive in the temperatures you say exist in winter on this planet. It does have large ears, with more fur growing acrossdoubtless to prevent snow getting inand a phenomenal length of whiskers. It does have heavily callused paw pads, with hair growing between the toes, and a long-haired tail, but I’ve never seen a healthier animal. And I can’t find anything out of the ordinary about it, given its environment. For instance, the hair between the paws would make it easier to travel over snow.”
“You have the report?” Ivan asked. The vet tapped one key of his handheld pad, and a narrow, long sheet inched its way out of the paper slot. He handed it to Ivan. ‘Thank you.”
“What do I do with that cat?”
Ivan hesitated. He knew what Matthew had ordered, but what had the cat done to him? “Keep it under observation. Maybe awake, it will show some deviations.”
The vet shrugged and gave a small snort. “Cats are deviant, and devious, by nature. Exactly What sort of aberrant behavior is this one supposed to exhibit when conscious? I mean, give me a clue to know what to watch out for.”
“Maybe one isn’t enough,” Ivan muttered under his breath, then added louder, “No other squad caught one?”
“No other’s been brought in to me.” The vet stifled a yawn.
Another was brought in two hours later, only it wasn’t a cat: it was a crossbreed feline that the vet couldn’t find mention of in his files. It was nearly the size of the lions that had once roved Africa, had a thick coat of dense fur with a clouded-spot design, had the fangs and retractable claws of a tiger, and had to be tranked again before the vet and the four troopers struggling with the half-aware creature could put it under the scan.
Awed by its size, beauty, and uniqueness, the vet, when Matthew Luzon himself came for his report, could only verify that this was an unusual breed of feline.
“In what way?” Matthew asked with an edge to his voice that put the vet on the alert.
“Size, color, density of fur, condition, in that most feral animals are less well nourished,” he answered, shrugging.
“No unusual organs? The size of the brain?”
“Normal for the size of the skull certainly.” Suddenly the vet decided not to mention that that was the one particular in which the animal varied from any other specimen in the genus: its skull was larger, to accommodate the larger brain.
“Destroy it,” Matthew said. “And do an autopsy. I’m looking for a scientific explanation of the so-called communication link these creatures have with the humans here. Implants, maybe.”
“Sir, for that sort of information wouldn’t behavioral observation be more”
“Destroy it! Do I have to give orders twice?”
“No, sir.” The vet wheeled around and made a show of filling a syringe and plunging the sterile water into the back of the neck. There were certain orders he would not obey, not with the oath he had taken as a young idealist who planned to catalog marvelous new alien life-forms. “Takes about twenty minutes, sir, with an animal this size.”
But Matthew Luzon had already left the surgery and the vet wondered where the hell he could safely dispose of a sleeping animal this size without being noticed. He was still running through alternatives a half hour later when a major with two soldiers, one a massive man and the other a mere slip of a lad, appeared at the door, saying they had orders to collect a dead animal. Reluctantly, he showed them the unconscious beast and desperately hoped that the second trank would wear off soon enough that the creature could escape being buried alive. Sometimes the favors one tried to do could boomerang.