Catacombs by Anne McCaffrey Page A

it. “What is it?”
    Chester answered.
Keka bugs all squashed together. Smells yummy!
    Jubal dropped the morsel on the floor, and Chester and Renpet shared it with surprising daintiness for a pair who had been feuding less than a week before.
    “No,” Chione said to Jubal. “Not the same. But from the same source, I think.”
    “And where are we exactly?” He looked around the cavernous room, its stone walls painted with picture writing, furnishings carved from the same stone.
    “On the west bank,” she said. “We won’t be followed here.”
    “Why? Can’t they swim?”
    “This is the official place of death. The royal catacombs are here.”
    “I thought those were on the other side, where we found Chester?”
    “No, those were for the common cats, those who died before the Leavetaking, when there were many, and the ones who have died since. Here all of the royals are wrapped and waiting for their next lives.”
    “How long do they have to wait, generally speaking?” Jubal asked. He knew it probably wasn’t a very bright question, but he wanted to keep the conversation going.
    “It depends,” she said. “They live longer these days—much longer than ever before—but there are so few kittens. Renpet and Nefure were the last born here, and as you see, they are nearly grown. But soon perhaps their mother the queen will return with the kittens of Renpet and your master.”
    “My what?”
    She indicated Chester.
    “He’s not my master. He’s my friend.”
    She shrugged. It made no difference to her. She had accepted, the shrug said, the human’s place compared to the divine feline in the scheme of life.
    “And what kittens? Chester’s just a kitten himself.”
    She nodded to the two cats now curled together for a nap. “In your heart, perhaps. But Renpet is in estrus and soon there will be kittens.”
    Chester, a dad?
    Chester looked up at him with slitted eyes, his head still resting on Renpet’s golden belly, and yawned.
Why not? We’ll make beautiful kittens, and you like kittens
.
    Jubal felt an unreasonable pang of jealousy. Chester was
his
friend. He had always felt that Chester was his own age. And now he was talking about having kids of his own?
    Chione was prattling on. When she wasn’t on the run, she was quite a chatterbox. “They will be wonderful kittens, the kittens of Renpet and Chester the Fisher.”
    “Well, she shouldn’t get too attached to him. I don’t think we’re going to stay. This place isn’t real healthy for kittens.”
    “Yes,” she said sadly. “As I said, Renpet and Nefure were the last to be born.”
    “Our two pregnant cats lost their litters—all of them born too early—and the half-grown kittens of one of the other cats have disappeared. The queen claimed you had them, but Chester and I both knew that was hogwash.”
    “She probably took them herself,” Chione said.
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know! She is not quite sane, that cat.” She added quickly, “Of course, she is to be loved and respected, being of the superior species, but how she came to have the nature she has is a mystery. The late queen was wonderful, kind and wise, and—well, you know Pshaw-Ra. Perhaps he is not, as everyone thinks, Nefure’s sire. Perhaps some lesser, common tom caught the queen before she had those final two kittens and his unscrupulous opportunismaccounts for Nefure’s behavior. Certainly Renpet is much more like the queen.”
    “That’s nice,” Jubal said, “but it doesn’t seem to be doing her a lot of good.” He shook his head and looked around at the painted and carved stone room, deep underground, in a place where a cat was queen and her sister a princess, in something like a catty version of a Dumas swashbuckler, though without the sword fighting, and people just helped the cats!
    Chione caught his look, although the light from the wall sconces was not bright. “What troubles you, Chester’s boy?”
    “I don’t get this place. I don’t understand