Catalyst by Anne McCaffrey Page A

old man and that’s what I’m supposed to do, so you keep a civil tongue in your head and keep your voice down before you wake up your mama.”
    The man turned his back on Jubal and started for the shuttle. Then I had the strange experience of feeling the man fall while I also felt Jubal tackling his father’s legs and bringing him down. My bag went flying and I yowled in protest.
    “Chester!” Jubal cried. I called back that I was fine, just shaken up, but my answer was lost in the explosion and the man’s bellow.
    “Carlton Poindexter, you mangy lying sack of manure, you leave that boy alone or so help me I will blow a hole in you a horse could jump through!” a woman hollered from the house.
    “I wasn’t hurting him, honey. He attacked me over nothing. I was just going off to work and the boy went wild as a ricocheting rocket.”
    The boy looked back at the woman, who held a smoking metal object in front of her. “I know him and I know you, Carlton, so I know who’s at fault here. You think I’m an idiot? I knew you wereup to something in that barn, since you were so all-fired anxious to relieve me of any chores out there. I knew it was cats ’cause I smelled them on Jubal. When I saw that poster about that missing space cat, I thought you were probably the culprit since you never have seen much difference between what’s yours and what’s someone else’s. But I thought you were doing it for me and for the boy. I know he wanted a cat and you two were in cahoots about something I wasn’t supposed to know about. Jubal’s been so happy, I looked the other way. But now you’re going to cheat him too? What kind of daddy are you anyway? No, don’t bother to answer that. You just get out of here and don’t let me see your sorry butt around this place ever again.”
    “But, baby,” the man began, then said, slyly, “Okay, I just need to go get some stuff from the barn.”
    “You don’t need squat, Carlton. Now git before I have to traumatize our son with the sight of his mama killin’ his daddy.”
    While his mother held the man’s attention, Jubal left his father to snag my bag and hug it to him. I tried to claw my way out of the bag and he released me. I climbed his head, sat on top of his hair, made myself big, and hissed at the man.
    The man headed for the shuttle, “Okay, Dorice, but you’re making a big mistake. Those cats are worth big money and I’ve got it.”
    “Shut up and get out. And you’re not taking the shuttle either. Hit the road running, Carlton, if you value your lying hide.”
    “But, sweetie, I thought we were so happy!”
    Another blast from the object in the woman’s hands and the man ran very swiftly for a human.
    As soon as he was gone, the woman lowered her weapon and walked over to Jubal, but stood well back, no doubt frightened of my fierce and bristling stance. “Oh, honey,” she said in a weary voice, shaking her head.
    “Mom, I know you don’t like cats but I’m keeping Chester, no matter what.”
    “Yeah, I get that,” she said. “But since I ran your daddy off, Ithink you and I had best have a look at what’s in the barn. If it’s what I think it is, there’s a nice reward for her and it’ll keep us going until I figure out what to do next.”
    Shortly afterward, Mother, Mom, Jubal, and I were in the shuttle and then at the door of the clinic, where Mother was reunited with the girl, Kibble.
    Jubal’s mom made him promise not to tell the girl about his father selling my littermates and milk brothers, in exchange for which she would allow him to keep me.
    “If they knew we’d been part of it,” Jubal’s mom said, “we might not get the reward, and now that your father’s gone, we’re going to need that money.”
    I heard the man’s influence in Jubal’s thoughts as he told himself that all he wanted was for us to be together, his mom did need the money, and his father had said the other kittens all went to homes where they would be valued