Андреа Хёст - The Starfighter Invitation

It took time to work through the trees that separated me from the cat colony. It wasn’t walking that gave me trouble, but dealing with a sense I didn’t really know how to manage. The complexity of pong.

Different trees had distinct flavours , and dirt was a wine bottle label: all undernotes of chestnut with an aftertaste of bitter melon. And that was merely the substrate, for overlaid on everything was Threat and Enticement and Familiar: the traces of at least a dozen different animals.

My modal didn’t come with a translation of which scent meant which animal, but there was an in-built reaction to types . Familiar was most certainly other cats, and Enticing things I could eat. There was a single skein of Threat, and I flinched when I ran into it, and found I could do a magnificent backward leap when I didn’t put my mind to it.

The thread of Threat was strong, but seemed to be heading north-south to my imagined east-west . Invader, or passing dog?

The possibility of Actual Pain made it easy to choose the common sense option of continuing to the cat colony. Information first, then risk.

The tumble of rocks sat bathed in sunlight atop a small rise, with easy access to the branches of a number of the surrounding trees. A single black tom sprawled on the highest rock, and a trio of lanky kittens raced past as I paused for a survey. A different enough scene from my vision that I decided that had been a memory map rather than some kind of far sight.

Options for cat communication were rather limited. Blink to indicate a lack of hostility. Touch noses in greeting. I hadn’t even tried to speak, so had no idea whether I would have more than purrs and hisses at my disposal.

Philosophically, I made my way up the mound, swimming through layer upon layer of cat scent before pausing at a respectful distance to blink. The watching tom lifted his head as I approached, and I found nose-greeting less awkward than the double-cheek kiss awarded by relatives scarcely ever met. And I could now easily associate one of the scent trails with Black Tom.

A vision of a grey and white cat dragging a dead rabbit inserted itself into my frame of view, and it was all I could do not to flinch back dramatically. But there was a weird purplish flavour to the image that reminded me strongly of Black Tom, and I realised that the image had come from him.

So cats—or, at least, these cats—communicated by telepathically sending pictures! Fascinated, I tried sending back an image of the grassy clearing, distinctly empty of rabbits. Black Tom’s ears went back, and the rabbit image presented itself to me again, this time with darker overtones of purple.

Get out there and hunt rabbits you lazy so-and-so seemed a reasonable interpretation, and I attempted an apology posture, wondering if this Challenge was starting out with a collection quest after all.

Turning to go, a shiver ran along my extra-flexible spine. Lightning-quick, I snapped back to Black Tom, and saw he’d risen, ears flattened. But he was looking up, not at me. I followed suit, aware of a deep rumble, and then found myself crouching, trying to make myself smaller. A pointless gesture since animals could hardly be of interest to the thing above us.

Three many-sided polyhedrons arranged in a triangle and connected by straight sections, with the gap in the centre filled by a circle. Metallic, somewhat streamlined despite its segmented shape, though not what I’d call aerodynamic. But still a ship.

It passed quickly from my line of sight, descending, and the low, deep note of whatever it used as engines grew fainter, changing pitch as it did so, before cutting out. Landed?

An image of a patched grey and white cat chasing off after it imposed itself onto the empty sky. Two other images rapidly followed: the patched cat peering at the ship from a distance, and then returning.

A scouting mission. Right. Thoughtlessly, I started to nod, and clumsily transformed the gesture into a more catly crouch. Then I turned and raced excitedly down the rocks, past the three kittens and into the trees.

The wealth of scent I plunged into reminded me of basic caution. I might feel marvellously fast and strong and agile, but I was still housecat-sized, and so I slowed, and paid attention to scent and movement, along with my handy vision-map, that kept showing me places I was heading before I arrived. A stream, a gradually clearing slope up to a ridge. And beyond that, a valley farm.

I almost stopped altogether when presented with this image. Humans, represented in the image by a worn-looking woman working industriously with a hoe. For some reason being Cat had made me assume that this was a world of animals, but of course if the Challenges were all based on the planet—past, future or fiction—then humans were only to be expected.

Which colony was being invaded?

Cresting the ridge, I flattened myself to gritty stone, seeing the farm of my vision with the addition of the ship, currently crushing an uneven field of some grain crop. I even saw the woman, running frantically, one of a half-dozen people scattering from the house in every direction.

They’d managed quite a distance in the time it had taken me to reach the ridge, and the fact that none of them ran together made me narrow my eyes. Even the children. One, not more than six, was flagging and stumbling, clutching a shaggy black-and-white dog for support, but was also the nearest to shelter, having been sent in the direction with the shortest route out of the clear centre of the valley.

An opening appeared in one of the straight sections of the ship, and two vehicles emerged. Somewhere between sleds and chariots, they featured a single person standing at a tall front control panel, and a second seated in the long, low rear section. The ship was at enough of a distance that, even with my keen Cat eyes it took a long study to realise the sleds hovered above the ground.

They were also much faster than running people, zipping off in effortless pursuit of those nearing cover. The boy and dog were to my left, and I watched as one pursuer—a woman wearing a dark green coverall—pointed what looked like a torch at the pair. Boy and dog fell without any attempt to break their momentum, thumping into tussocky grass.

The sled bobbed a little as the woman hopped down and loaded both limp forms, and then they were off again, heading to intercept the next-nearest runner.

No-one escaped. I thought one had managed it, disappearing along a stream bed far to my right, but after the sleds had delivered their unconscious loads back to the ship, they both sped off along the stream, and returned after the barest delay.

Either the final runner hadn’t had the sense to hide, or the sleds had some way to track those they hunted. Was it specifically people, or would they be able to spot any living creature?

Movement to my right almost had me leaping, but it was only the trio of kittens, crouched much as I was, the tail of the darkest flicking.

I formed a picture of the three of them standing before Black Tom: they could report back while I continued to watch. In response I was given an image of a dark grey cat sitting in the entrance of the farm below, eyes closing in greeting. The vision was accompanied by a strong sense of concern.

Firmly, I re-sent the image of the three reporting to Black Tom, but added a rider of my patched self, much closer to ship and farm, watching. And, putting action to thought, I then snaked over the lip of the ridge and tucked myself beneath the nearest bush.

Two of the kittens stayed where they were, while the third departed. For a time I kept a portion of my attention on them, to be sure that they did not—at least immediately—follow me down. But then all of my focus turned to the drama below, and the task of reaching it without exposing myself.