Peter Dickinson - Earth and Air

David glanced at the bucket again. The water level had risen halfway to its normal level and the strange Cat was stirring.

“We’ve got to be quick,” he said. “There’s no time left. In a moment this new Cat will take us over. But we don’t have to give in. Cats don’t have total control. This one had to hang around and wait for the Bandies to finish their mating pattern, because that was an urge too powerful to be interrupted once it had begun. I don’t think Cats are very intelligent—they don’t have to be, because we do their thinking for them. But now we are aware what they do to us, I believe that we’ve got the will power and intelligence to resist the control, long enough to get clear. We can go home, find out if any of our claims are valid, and if they are we can retire. Surely we can cooperate that long, without being forced to by a Cat? You’ve got to make up your minds. Now, at once. That is part of the analysis. What’s your verdict?”

The new Cat quivered, shook itself, and stood up by the bucket. Fresh scar tissue showed on its shoulder—so Doc had done a rushed job. The Cat took a pace towards the fire. If only it had a sense of smell, Skunk could have controlled it, But it hadn’t. That too was part of the analysis.

“Quick. What’s your verdict?” hissed David.

He felt the pressure of their attentions focused on him.

“Guilty,” groaned Skunk. “Man. Guilty. Of. Mutiny.”

David was only for an instant conscious of the blast of odour that laid him out.

He woke some time after midnight. The embers were dim, but gave just enough light for him to see that the ship’s port was closed. Hippo was crashing around in the remains of the ruined grove. David rose, intending to go and say good-bye, but his legs walked him away from her—just as, a few hours back, they had walked him for no good reason towards the rocks. He was ceasing to function, but his normal intelligence was sound enough to tell him that he could never rejoin the crew, any crew, because his knowledge of the behaviour of Cats would henceforth be part of his memory and thus part of his function. He would not be able to perform his tasks without being aware of why he was doing so.

As the harsh clarity of thought faded into softer textures, full of vaguenesses and shadows, David became conscious of the planet around him, of the sweetness of its air, of the rustle of primitive leathery leaves, of the ticking insect life that might one day evolve towards a creature like Bird. He had known all these things, of course, soon after the ship had landed, but known them merely as facts—the chemical composition of the air, the level of evolution of plant and insect—and not as sensations, accepted and relished through channels other than those of the intellect.

Behind him the sound of splintering timber ceased. From vast lungs came a strange whinnying noise, dying into a long sigh. David realized he had been walking downwind from Hippo. His legs continued to do so. Breeze at, say, six kph—at any rate a little faster than he had been walking. He had about a kilometer start, so the seed cloud should reach him in . . . His mind refused to tackle even that simple sum, because it kept slithering off into irrelevancies, such as the sudden thought that Cats had five senses after all; and that they were more intelligent that he had guessed; and, to judge by their revenges, more catlike.

About the Author

Peter Dickinson OBE is the author of more than fifty books, including many books for children and young adults such as Emma Tupper’s Diary, Kin, Eva, The Dancing Bear, and The Seventh Raven. He is a two-time winner of both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award and winner of the Guardian Award. He spent seventeen years working at the magazine Punch. He lives in England and is married to the novelist Robin McKinley. Find out more at peterdickinson.com.

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