Robert Adams - The Clan of the Cats

“Do not presume to speak for the group, you old fool,” snarled Harel, subjecting Stekowski to a glare hot enough to melt basalt. “We have agreed that only I now own that power here, you may recall. Besides”—he turned to Bedford with a cold, hostile smile—“wealthy as the Bedfords are with monies ground out of generations of poor working-class laborers, I am certain that whatever sums he has here expended are to him as pocket change would be to such as us.”

For the umpteenth time, James Bedford mentally castigated himself. “I should’ve bashed the bastard there and then, that very day, hour and minute, then resigned and gone back to the Steakley Foundation. But, of course, I didn’t, I took it. I took it for the sake of Stekowski and Singh and those others I had come to know and like before that damned opinionated Harel suddenly appeared on the scene and bulled and bullied his way to where he was virtual dictator of the project.

“But now … ? Hell, if the project doesn’t change course and that damned quickly, there won’t be any more funding, and that means that there’ll be no project. Odd—sometimes something in the back of my mind tells me that that’s just what Harel wants, too, that that’s precisely where he’s been heading all along, for whatever cryptic reason.”

He frowned. “And that’s just what’s so crazy about this notion of mine, too: Harel’s no big, well-known name in this field—why, I’d never even heard of him, I don’t think; if this project does go down the drain, he’ll be out in the cold, too, and with far less chance to snag a position elsewhere than people of the professional renown and stature of Stekowski or Singh or some of the others. So what could possibly be his reason for wanting to sink this venture? Creeping insanity? No, he rants and raves and swings his damned cane and, sometimes, throws things at people, but I’m dead certain that he does so fully rationally, for purposes of shock and the intimidation effect on his erstwhile colleagues; he’s a thoroughgoing bully and behaves like one.

“Could he be deliberately putting us on the skids to benefit a supposedly former employer’s project? It doesn’t seem likely. Dr. Stekowski says Harel was last connected with the dwarf fauna thing that Britain, Israel and Greece are collaborating in on Cyprus and Crete—hippopotami, elephants, that sort of thing—and God knows Stekowski’s original felid project could’ve posed no slightest threat to them or their goals. Oh, sure, there could’ve been dwarf forms of smilodon and the related types, but none have ever been found in fossil form. Indeed, the closest thing to a dwarf of this kind was just recently pried out of a glacier in the Canadian Rockies—a strange beast, looking much like the Homotherium , but smaller, more lightly built, and with digitigrade rather than plantigrade hind feet, Panthera feethami , they’re calling it. Dr. Stekowski told me, away back when before the advent of Harel, that he had access to some genetic material from this find. It was this that he was basing the original project on.

“The Canadians tried replication, of course. Hell, that project may still be going on. But they’ve never reported much success, and Drs. Stekowski and Singh think they know why; their ideas make more sense than anything else I’ve heard about it all.

“Apparently disregarding the size of the find and certain other factors, they’ve been trying for a full-fledged, oversized, classic sabertooth cat, big as or larger than an African lion, and a damned hefty lion, at that.

“Dr. Stekowski says that as this beast was found in a montane glacier, we can safely infer that it resided and hunted and bred in mountains which—as the body showed certain cold-weather adaptations—were probably as cold as or colder than they are at the present time. He goes on to say that mountain-living species seldom become really large, as compared to their lowland cousins. The find was about as big as a largish leopard, though, somewhat heavier than a true leopard, more the build of a jaguar or an undersize, gracile lion.

“Therefore, his idea sounded like a good one, one that had a more than just fair chance of working, of producing replication of the Panthera feethami , or at least something halfway between true replication and mere reproduction. And I was not the only one impressed, either, not by a long shot; I was able to round up some really good, very sizable funding from hither and yon, on the basis of his ideas, his and Dr. Singh’s.

“Dammit, it would still work! It must work, and soon, or I’ll be back down in Texas, out a fat chunk of my own money, and all the others here will be preparing résumés … and all thanks to one loutish ass of a hector brattishly insistent upon always having his own way.”

He found the conference room empty, of course, but took his place at one end of the table and keyed the intercom to reach all work and housing areas of the complex before saying, “This is James Bedford. Would Drs. Stekowski, Singh, Marberg, Baronian and Harel please join me in the conference room as soon as possible. An urgent matter must be discussed immediately.”

Ruth Marberg was the first to arrive. Seeing her puttering about the coffeemaker in her stained lab coat, slacks and stout brogans, with her mostly grey hair pulled back in a tight bun at the back of her head, Bedford thought of the razor-keen intellect and the sometimes frightening degrees of efficiency that her grandmotherly, usually placid demeanor masked.

The coffee started, and she came to take her usual place at the table and after looking hard at Bedford, shook her head. “Jimmy. Jimmy, you’re still not taking proper care of yourself. I can see and so too could anyone with even one quarter of a functioning eye, too. You press yourself too hard, you don’t rest enough, sleep enough, eat enough. Certainly, this project is of importance, but it is not so earthshaking as you should break your health over it.”

When he opened his mouth to reply, she raised a stained, work-roughened hand and went on, “I know, I know, as Beanbreath Harel is always telling me. I am only a ‘mere veterinarian,’ not a most exalted medical doctor. But Jimmy, homo sapiens sapiens is just another animal, you know, and flesh and blood and bone are still and always flesh and blood and bone and resistant to only just so much deliberate abuse and overusage.

“If you won’t sleep and rest more, at least eat more. Come to my rooms, upstairs, eh? Despite old Beanbreath and Clifton Singh and their efforts at enforced conversion to vegetarianism, I still make and treat myself to chicken soup and cabbage rolls and even—dare I to breathe such predation?—the occasional steak or chop or piece of liver. Landislas sometimes joins me, and Zeppy Baronian used to, before Harel and Singh started working on her mind full-time. Do come up and dine with me, Jimmy. I promise to not try to seduce you to anything but my cooking.”

At that moment, the door opened again to admit a balding but quite distinguished-looking man of roughly the same age as Ruth Marberg. He limped a bit; his progress to his chair was assisted by another woman, younger than Ruth, with wavy blue-black hair, light-olive complexion and a figure trim and attractive for all its wide hips and full breasts.

Both Bedford and Dr. Marberg arose, and while she moved down the room toward the older man, Bedford asked, “What in the world happened, Dr. Stekowski? Did you fall? Are you badly hurt? Should I call for a chopper to get you down to a hospital?”

The grey-haired man held up a slightly trembling hand, but spoke in a strong voice. “No, no, James, I’m all right, really, I just twisted my ankle … I think. I’m ill accustomed to running over rough ground, I fear.” He smiled wanly, paused, then added, “It might’ve been much worse, of course. Dr. Baronian, here, really and truly saved my life out there. You all must promise to help shield her from the wrath of Dr. Harel.”