Cats Triumphant by Jody Lynn Nye Page A

allergy attack was in full swing. He could feel his chest tightening up. His medicine should be right in the front of the cabinet, just in the middle of the bottom shelf. He felt for it, not trusting his eyes, which were swollen almost shut.
    The bottle was empty.
    He shook it, unwilling to believe that he had gone through the entire prescription in such a short time. A mental countup of all the pills he had taken over the last week didn’t total half of the allotted number. Karen? Had Karen taken them? Is that why she had been acting so strangely? She was taking drugs to soothe the guilt feelings? No, that didn’t seem to be likely. She was a goody-two-shoes, had antisocial behavior beaten out of her at an early age by her brute of a father. That was one of the reasons Barry and Phoebe refused to have much to do with her family. He felt around for the other antihistamines. Every box, every bottle, every blister pack, was empty. There wasn’t even a cold remedy left. Karen must have dumped them out. Why?
    Barry felt his way back into his room with the box of tissues. He was faint from lack of oxygen, and the sinus headache was increasing from canteloupe to honeydew size, straining at the inside of his skull. He sneezed into the kleenex, and another pinch of cat hair flew into the air.
    “She blames me,” he coughed. “Silly girl ... Need help. Telephone ... the phone ... phone ... ”
    Gasping, Barry reached for the telephone on the bedside, got the receiver off the hook. His fingers fumbled for the buttons, fumbled, splayed, and slid off the face of the instrument.
    “Need help,” he told the receiver. “I’m alone. Allergic reaction ...” It slid out of his hands and banged on the table. His skull refused to contain his headache any longer. He clutched at his throat. “No air ...”
    “Barry?” the phone demanded. The voice was his sister-in-law Pat. “Barry? Why are you alone? Where is Karen? Barry? Answer me. Barry, hang on. I’m coming over ... ”
    Pat’s voice faded out in a black numbness as Barry fell to the floor. No air.
    * * *
    “They say gray cats are lucky, Clyde. You sure are. You could have been killed.” The kitten looked up at Karen from her lap, and then stretched its head up to her hand, asking for a scratch under the chin. For me, too. I took a chance on saving you, didn’t I? And I ended up with this neat job.”
    Dr. Vaughan came into the boarding room then, and heard the girl’s words. “Oh, you won’t think it’s so neat in a few weeks. Anyone with any brain at all gets tired of cleaning out catboxes pretty quickly, and I think you’ve got a good brain.” Timidly, Karen smiled up at her.
    “Oh, thank you, but I’m sure you’re wrong. I’ve wanted a cat for so long I’m willing to do all the dirty work. Really.”
    “A few weeks,” Dr. Vaughan teased. “That’s all I give you, dear. There isn’t a cat’s chance, you should excuse the expression, that your gratitude will last longer. It’s a chore, like any other.”
    “Maybe. That reminds me. I have to get going pretty soon,” said Karen, fluffing up the fur at the back of Clyde’s head. “I’ve got to vacuum as soon as I get home. I can’t let my uncle think that I neglect things that need to be done. I’m very good at details.”

The burly male technician loomed over the smaller man in engineer’s orange coveralls as if by sheer size he would drive home his message.
    “I swear, Ardway, if you tell me one more cat story, I’m going to kayo you and put you out the airlock!”
    “I thought you liked hearing them, Callan,” Benny Ardway said, wondering if he could wriggle his skinny frame any farther into the bulkhead of the forward engineering compartment to escape his shipmate’s wrath. He lifted apologetic, round blue eyes to the engineer. “You laughed. I thought you enjoyed hearing about Parky and Blivit.”
    “Once, on the way out of orbit, was okay. Twice, while we were waiting for the