A few hours later, Antaska’s awareness lifted from deep sleep. She was still half asleep and groggy, but she sensed moisture on her face and neck.
Something’s wrong, she thought.
But instead of waking her up, the moisture seemed to be drowning her in a deep, drugged fog. Antaska struggled against it, but its pull was too strong, and her mind dropped back under. This time, into complete oblivion.
Even though Potat was in a deep slumber, a part of her was always aware of Antaska and watching out for her. When Antaska lay down next to her, the tiny gray cat had already been sleeping for almost seven hours waiting to hear the full message that the trees were slowly communicating. Their drawn out humming sounds couldn’t be interpreted until the entire message was complete.
Now, as Antaska was sinking into darkness, a part of Potat’s mind became alert to the danger. She knew that the message from the trees wasn’t finished, but Potat tried to wake up anyway in her usual manner.
She reached out a mental claw to scratch through the blanketing layers of sleep, only to find that the foggy sleep layers, which normally tore away easily at the slightest touch, were reinforced by something much tougher. They didn’t break apart. Potat scratched her mental claws harder. They dug into something that felt like the small branches of trees and snagged there.
The trees are trying to block me from waking up right when my pet needs me, just so they can tell me their complete stupid message, Potat realized in angry frustration.
She tore with her mental claws at the blocking branches in furious desperation, in motions almost too fast for a human eye to see if any had been looking. But as fast as she broke through one branch, another replaced it. Potat knew that her efforts were getting her nowhere, but she also knew the danger to Antaska was increasing—that Antaska was approaching death—and Potat pushed herself even harder.
Potat grew desperate. Most beings couldn’t speak telepathically while they were asleep, but cats were more advanced. From inside her dream, Potat called out telepathically as loud as she could, “Help! Help!”
“Kitty!” Potat heard the blasting telepathic voice of M. Bomp answering her from some distance away in the residence.
And then many more telepathic voices shouting. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Soon after that, the sound of pounding feet coming toward her down the hallway finally broke her free of the branchy bonds of sleep. And at that moment, the long message from the trees was finally complete: “WHEN THE TIME COMES, SEEK THE JALAPENO.”
Potat heard the message, but it didn’t interest her. Antaska was in danger! Potat sprang up with a loud “yeowl” in the curved-back attack cat position just as the three Verdante children rushed into the room in their pajamas. The Earthling Freeta stood next to the bed holding a small glass bottle and looking startled.
“Medical! Medical!” all three Verdante children shouted at once.
Freeta headed toward the door, but one of the children grabbed her arm and stopped her.
An orange light glowed down from the ceiling and surrounded Antaska while various apparatus extended down and attached to her body. A medical alert alarm blared throughout the residence. Potat could hear and sense Verdantes and Earthlings rising from their beds, but all her attention was focused on Antaska. And even though she could tell that Antaska was not in the still form lying on the bed, she hadn’t accepted that yet. Potat sent her mind out to search for any remaining spark of her.
From complete darkness, Antaska’s awareness woke to something else. She felt no sense of having a body or being in a place. All she knew was a sense of warm brightness not seen with eyes and a feeling of indescribable and total bliss. Without any thought, analysis, or questions, Antaska experienced the bliss for a time that could have been infinitesimal or could have been forever.
Then within her sense of perfect joy, she heard a familiar voice. “Antaska. Come back now.”
“Potat?” Antaska asked the voice. “Come back? But it’s so wonderful here.”
“Yes, it’s me. You’re not going to leave me now, are you? A small cat all alone with dangerous people. Don’t you care about me? Aren’t you going to take care of me?” the small, sad voice of Potat asked.
“Of course I care about you. Of course I’ll come back and take care of you,” said Antaska.
As soon as she said that, Antaska was yanked with brutal roughness out of her perfect existence and back into a pain-filled body.
Antaska tried to scream, but all that came out was a small whimper of pain. Instantly, the medical tubes attached to her body injected a strong medication into her veins. She felt the slight, familiar weight of Potat climbing onto her stomach, and then she fell into a peaceful slumber. This time true sleep, not the sleep of death.
M. Hoyvil crouched low and rushed through the human-sized doorway to Antaska’s room, breaking to a fast stop at the edge of her bed. She lay in the orange glow of a med light. A quick read of the holographic printout displayed above her told him she was alive but in a medically induced coma.
Potat sat on Antaska’s stomach, and the three Verdante children stood next to the bed. The Earthling Freeta struggled futilely to get loose from the strong grip of M. Gwaawh.
He heard the sound of gigantic pounding feet approaching in the hallway. Master Meeepp and Mistress Bawbaw, inhumanly fast runners despite their enormous size and more advanced age, came thundering up the hall to Antaska’s doorway.
It would have been an impossible squeeze for either of them to fit through Antaska’s doorway, but they both lowered their large heads at once to peer in with gigantic green eyes, their two giant-sized faces pressing against each other and entirely filling the width of the doorway.
“What’s happening here?” shouted the two adult Verdantes telepathically at the same time.
On top of Antaska’s stomach, Potat’s fur spiked up high. Her back curved up too. With a loud hiss, she turned toward the gigantic Verdantes in the doorway.
“What have you done to Antaska?!!” M. Hoyvil shouted telepathically at Master Meeepp and Mistress Bawbaw, breaking the rule of respect to one’s gene contributors in his excess of fear and rage.
“I don’t know what happened, but she appears to be fine now according to the house monitor,” said Mistress Bawbaw.
She shoved a large arm through the doorway and pointed at the glowing panel of lights suspended in the air next to Antaska’s bed. “I’ll question everyone in the household and find out what happened, and I’ll let you know.”
“We know what happened,” said M. Gwaawh, still holding Freeta is a tight grip. “This Earthling tried to kill Antaska with Ms. Janeez’s drugs!”
M. Hoyvil turned to look at the small human woman. Anger welled in him, but he restrained himself. He placed a hand on Potat to restrain her too.
“No. I didn’t!” Freeta insisted. “She stole the drugs from Ms. Janeez. I just came in here to see if she was OK.”
“She’s lying!” said Ms. Beeenaw. “I saw her spraying drugs on Antaska. Then she put the bottle in her pocket!”
Mistress Bawbaw pulled herself out of the doorway and straightened up to her full height of twelve feet. Then she turned and faced the crowd crunched together along the curving hallway.
“All of you go to the main living room and wait for me there,” she ordered out loud.
Mistress Bawbaw was not to be disobeyed, and everyone except M. Hoyvil left the room and headed in that direction, followed by Master Meeepp and Mistress Bawbaw as soon as there was space to move.
“Well,” said Master Meeepp telepathically to Mistress Bawbaw as they walked slowly down the high-ceilinged hallway, “unfortunately, it looks like this won’t be the best time to suggest to M. Hoyvil that he leave his pet here on the Verdante planet. Under the circumstances, he’s unlikely to agree. And I’d have to concur with him that it might not be safe for her here.”
Master Meeepp knew there was relief in his tone of voice, but he hoped Mistress Bawbaw would think it was caused by relief for worry about Antaska’s condition rather than for not having to engage in an argument with M. Hoyvil.
“Of course it’s safe here,” Mistress Bawbaw insisted. “This is the safest place in the entire galaxy. Otherwise, why must females stay planet-bound here to avoid the perils of space?”
The thought that the drug use of his mate and other females in his household might be a problem tried to enter his head, but once again, Master Meeepp pushed it aside. Instead, he blamed what had happened on the shortcomings of the human race.
“It’s safe for you and the other Verdante women, my dear,” said Master Meeepp. “But the relationships between Earthlings are another matter. We all know that they’re still at a violent, barbaric stage of their evolution, as this situation has just proved. I’m sure you’ll get everything straightened out after we leave.”
“Yes,” Mistress Bawbaw agreed. “Perhaps it’s best for this trouble-making Earthing Antaska to be away from the household.”
Master Meeepp was relieved that she agreed with him. Further argument was avoided as well as any even more uncomfortable discussion of the drug use of the females in his household.
But a final nagging thought forced itself into his mind. This time, it was an Earthling, but what if next time it’s a Verdante who overdoses? Humm…Maybe I’ll bring up this subject again at some point. But not today.
They entered the main family room where all the household members, except M. Hoyvil and Antaska, were gathered. Mistress Bawbaw started the questioning.
Ever since Mistress Bawbaw had pointed to the medical monitor, M. Hoyvil had stopped paying attention to her or any other humanoids except Antaska. He lowered himself to sit on the floor next to the bed and turned to read the extensive information displayed in mid-air almost from floor to ceiling.
Antaska was alive and well. Only an insignificant number of brain cells had been destroyed during her temporary cease of life function. But she wouldn’t be affected by that according to the monitor. All of her body functions and organs were healthy except for her kidneys. Those organs were now being repaired. For her own comfort and safety, Antaska would remain in an induced coma for the next twenty-four hours while the repair took place.
After she regained consciousness, Antaska would be fine, but the house’s medical system was ordering her to stay in her room for continuous monitoring for the rest of her time on the planet. The med system had given the residence orders to construct a personal bathroom in her room and a small kitchen, so she wouldn’t have to go out at any time.
The residence would also create a door that locked for Antaska’s protection.
M. Hoyvil heard a humming sound, and he turned to look at the wall behind him. It was caving inward to take the shape of the new bathroom door, or perhaps the new kitchen. The edges of a new door were growing inside Antaska’s doorway as well.
After he read Antaska’s medical information, M. Hoyvil’s fears were calmed but not his anger. It was made more complex because he didn’t know who to blame for it. He felt a slight tap against his cheek. M. Hoyvil looked at the puffed up little gray and white cat who had just slapped him. He realized that Potat must be very angry too, or he wouldn’t have felt the blow of her tiny paw.
“You’re right! It’s all my fault! I should never have left her alone here,” he said telepathically.
M. Hoyvil grabbed and pulled on his short, dark green hair. Then he lowered his large face into his long, six-fingered hands.
Potat sat back and considered her gigantic alien pet.
Is it really his fault? she wondered. I’m the master of both these pets. Wasn’t it my responsibility to look after them?
Although Potat had been in the residence, she’d been asleep when she should have been looking after Antaska, who was known to get herself in trouble when not closely watched. And why had Potat been asleep? The trees!! Yes, they were the ones who’d tricked Potat into going to sleep when she should have been watching her pet!
“It was the trees’ fault!” said Potat to M. Hoyvil. “They tricked me by telling me they had an important message about Antaska that I must hear. But it was a silly message they must have just used to manipulate me. Those losers! They’re stuck rooted in the ground, so they play games with the lives of those of us who are free to roam the galaxy!”
“Well, people say the messages of trees can be mysterious. Sometimes people don’t understand them till much later,” said M. Hoyvil. “But I can’t hear them. Only the adults can. They say.”
“The trees! It was the trees!” Potat shouted telepathically to M. Hoyvil. “Let me outside, and I’ll rip them to shreds!” she demanded.
To demonstrate, she stood up high on her back legs and waved the outstretched claws of both front paws furiously in the air.
“I will but not yet,” promised M. Hoyvil. “I believe what you’re saying, but don’t you want to wait here with Antaska until she wakes up?”
“You’re right! I have to stay and watch her. I can’t fail her again,” said Potat.
She flattened herself down on the bed and made sad whimpering sounds.
M. Hoyvil gently lifted the tiny cat in one hand larger than her entire body and pressed her lightly against his chest. Potat stopped whimpering and curled into a ball. A tiny purr rumbled in her throat.
M. Hoyvil gave a deep telepathic sigh. Potat looked up at him and was surprised to see a large tear form in the corner of one enormous eye. It flowed down the side of his face and splashed onto the bed. The little cat pushed herself deeper into his chest to avoid any possible splash.