The Clan of the Cats

XI

Milo set down his pipe with meticulous care, laid both hands flat on the table and addressed the lawman. “It was self-defense, of course, Chamberlin … not that I meant to do more than beat him insensible. I have an attorney in New York City. I’ll have to ring him up and get a local recommendation. Whatever the bond is, I can post it; even if I don’t have enough cash on me, my attorney can wire me the difference.”

“I seen it all, too, Sher’ff, ever’ minnit of it,” said Crawford, soberly. “Bubba and Wally and Abner set out to beat Mr. Moray and he jest defended hisself, was all. Bubba’s beat me a whole hell of a lot worse than Mr. Moray beat him. I’ll swear on the Bible to ever’ bit of it, too …”

Chamberlin picked up his glass of whisky and drained it off with a working of his prominent Adam’s apple, then said, “Relax, the both of you, jest relax, hear. If anybody kilt Bubba Rigny, it was Bubba Rigny. Seems he come out of it in the meat wagon, see, and beat up on pore Claude Tatum some kinda bad, then got the damn back door opened and jumped out the meat wagon that was jest then doing over sixty on the fuckin’ highway, That alone likely kilt the crazy fucker, but then too one my depities, Chuck Fontaine, was right behind in a cruiser and so close he couldn’t help but run right over Bubba’s body.”

The lawman shrugged, and as he hooked a finger around the neck of the whisky bottle and began to pour more of the dark-amber fluid into his glass, he declared, “It’s gone hurt Bubba’s pore paw and maw and some others, likely, but not as bad prob’ly as it was sure as hell goin’ to if he’d lived long enough to do suthin’ would see him in the penitent’ry ’stead of jest in my lockup or the county farm, if not the chair or in a state boobyhatch for life. Bubba, he never was swung together too tight, see, Milo; he was a murder jest waitin’ to happun from the time he was jest a tad. He got some kinda charge out of hurtin’ other folks and animals and all; he was jest born mean, seemed like, and he dint never get no diffrunt or no better. Most his kin wouldn’t have ary a particle to do with him from the time he was no more’n ten or twelve; after he beat his pore paw near to death when he was ’bout fourteen, he was put in the reform school for a couple years, but all that seemed to do was make the fucker meaner.

“Whin the war started up and all, lots the young fellers started ’listin’, but natcherly, wouldn’ any of the services take on Bubba, not with his record. The Marines come closest to takin’ him, but fin’ly even they turned him down, and that really tore his asshole, too, ’cause his paw had been a Marine in World War Two and had got shot up on New Georgia Island by the Japs.

Now, Bubba Rigny’d done beat on Billy, here, afore—hell, big as he allus was for his age, he’d beat on jest ’bout ever’body he’d went to school with—and whin Billy come home on a leave afore be was to be sent over to Vietnam, Bubba went after him. But this was afore Billy’d done lost part his leg, see, and he’d been taught a whole hell of a lot of hand-to-hand and he ended up putting Bubba in the fuckin’ hospital in a fair fight was seed by a dozen or more people. And of course Billy’d done shipped out by the time Bubba was on the street again.

That Bubba Rigny was jest no good, crazy, no-count; he was headed almost from the day he was borned for a lifer’s cell or the ’lectric chair or some pore cop’s bullet. This way, the way it went down’s for the best, his death cain’t be on nobody’s conscience, see. It was God’s will, is all.”

The copter that lifted off from his uncle’s pad beyond the outside swimming pool was not one of the senator’s; its three-man crew—despite their carefully tailored clothing and manners as carefully polished as their gleaming shoes—had security bodyguards written all over them in foot-high Day-Glo letters, and James Bedford would have been willing to bet ten years’ worth of income that the innocuous-appearing executive copter was not only well armored but was also fitted with a whole plethora of unpleasant and/or fatal surprises for any attacker to encounter.

Soon after he had been seated and served a sealed sipper of hot, fragrant coffee, one of the crew had opened an underseat locker and produced what looked at first to be a small shoulder-strapped lettercase. Going through it slowly, he courteously showed Bedford just how to manipulate the buttons and catches to open it with a slight hiss and disclose a thickly padded interior.

“Now, sir, when you close it back up, be certain to press one or both thumbs on these two buttons. After that, only the imprints of your thumbs will be able to release the lock until it is once more opened and reset with another print, you see; anyone who should attempt it will receive a most unhealthy shock.” The man allowed the ghost of a smile to flit across his face in indication of a species of grim joke.

“You see, sir, as you most likely are aware, the effects of cabin pressurization and depressurization on explosive-tipped small-arms ammunition remains, despite all the advances in weapons technology of late, sometimes distressingly less than pleasant. In the air marshals’ cubicle on board the aircraft, you will of course surrender your personal weapons and spare ammo. At that time, you will place the weapons and munitions inside this case and personally secure the catches, then there can be no slightest question that anyone might tinker with your weapons or replace them with other similar ones en route to your destination. Please note down or record the serial number of this case to guard against duplication of cases, for all of this issue are otherwise identical.” He flitted another smile. “Government-issue.

“Immediately the cabin has been depressurized. sir, the air marshal will return your cased weapons and you should at that time carefully check them and their loads, actions, et cetera, before reholstering them.

“If, on occasions other than this morning, you are proceeding unescorted through normal airport security, you must report to the air marshal headquarters, display your identification documents and your federal authority to bear weapons, then submit your weapons, ammunition and this case for examination.

“Procedures vary, after all, depending mostly upon the size of the installation. In some of the smaller ones, your weapons will be returned and you will be conducted either to the VIP section or to the plane, if it is ready to board; on board, you will encase your weapons for the on-board marshal as earlier outlined.

“However, in larger installations, you will be expected to encase them in the airport headquarters of the marshals and will then be delivered to the VIP section or plane by way of guarded, armored transport—sometimes ground car or underground rail, sometimes copter.

“Do you have any questions about anything I have described or discussed here this morning, sir? Please feel free to ask me about anything. Being certain that persons such as yourself understand all that must be done is a part of my function.”

“Just one, for now,” replied Bedford. “What’s going to happen when and if I should actually feel constrained to shoot someone? How deep in the soup am I going to be, then?”

The man suffused his voice and manner with infinite reassurance. “Sir, by now every VIP Security headquarters in the country if not the world has been in receipt of a printout of your name, your description, your authorizations and all other pertinent information. Therefore, should you determine termination of someone to be a necessary thing, do so; then you will present the laminated card you were issued to the first person on the scene who produces VIP Security Service identification. Do not surrender your weapon to anyone for any reason unless it is a federal marshal or a properly identified VIPSS representative or operative. Anyone else who demands your weapon without such identification must be considered hostile and so dealt with, up to and certainly including termination by gunfire.”

“But what if I make an error of judgment and blow away an innocent party?” probed Bedford. “What happens if I make a snap judgment, say, and shoot one of those murderous little bomblets into a maid or waiter or some tourist asking directions of me?”

The man grimaced, then shrugged. “Sir, were your particular life and well-being not considered to be of some degree of value to our nation, you would not be in possession of the cards or this case, nor would you be carrying weapons legally or, indeed, flying in this copter and guarded by this team.

“In this twenty-first-century world, humankind are in no way, shape or form considered to be an endangered species and so are not, cannot be considered of comparable importance to someone like you, sir … not by anyone with my service or a federal marshal, and only our two services now have any real jurisdiction over you and your defensive actions.”

In other words, Bedford thought with an apprehensive chill, I and anyone else with like credentials am now holder of a license to commit cold-blooded murder. Uncle Taylor is right—this world of ours is become a dangerous jungle and all of us now live under the law of a jungle. How the hell did our United States of America ever come to this?

General Eustace Barstow, U.S.A., or Milo Moray could to some extent have enlightened him in regard to that question, but as the former had died before the turn of the century and the other was out of the county and he never had or was to meet either of them anyway, the question was never resolved in his mind.

Half asleep, Milo received a telepathic beaming from the mother cat in the den area: Leader of the two-legs, a mated pair of my kind are in the entry to my den. One of them is of my litter thrown the cold time before the cold time before the cold time before this cold time. They have been told of all you have done for cats, of how you do not seek to kill cats, of your hatred of wolves. They would come close to you and smell you that they better may know you, but you first must open the rock that you used to seal the entry passage.”

Milo was out of the upper bunk in James Bedford’s disaster shelter within split seconds and stamping into his boots even as he pulled on his jacket and mentally nudged into wakefulness the other nomads who had occupied the other bunks. Once more thankful for the infiniestimally small periods of time necessary to exchange thoughts and convey messsages in nonspeech mental communication, he explained the situation, reconfirmed his aspirations for both the nomad clans and the cats, then gave his orders that the men should stand ready, awaiting his summons.

Dik Esmith snorted disgustedly aloud while beaming silently, “Ha, Bahb Linsee must be snoring atop the tower rather than keeping watch to not have seen two animals that large not only approach but enter these ruins.”

“Not so,” beamed Milo before one of the Linsees could arise in anger to the insult. “Not only must you recall that this night is one of scudding clouds over a moon far from full and bright and that the coats of these cats blends in very well with snow, but also considered that even while injured and hobbling around on three legs, the nursing cat down there managed to steal away a dead deer—a full size, full-grown, adult doe—from under the very noses of us all in broad daylight. Are there no existing circumstances under which you Esmiths and Linsees will cease to pick at and mock and attempt to anger each other like unto so many brattish toddlers? I serve you all fair warning: if your constant, petty, senseless bickerings cost me and the clans the friendship of these cats and their ilk, you will be long in forgetting it and will regret it for the rest of your lives.”

Leaving them all abashed, he strode from the body-heated room out into the chill of the outer chamber, taking one of the gasoline lanterns with him. Within the den area, amid the thick ammonia reek of cat, the cold was bone-deep, but the sinew-cracking effort of raising the ancient steel door on its warped tracks served to suffuse his body with some warmth.

Cued by the recuperating mother cat, he stepped well back from the mouth of the passage and waited. Following a flicker of movement in the dark depths of the low, narrow tunnel, a big, feline head appeared, its three-inch cuspids glinting in the glaring light of the lantern. The yellow-green eyes fixed upon him and he felt the peculiar, familiar tickle in his brain of a new mindspeak.

Lightly, warily, the first cat dropped the two feet from out the tunnel and was followed by a second, this one larger—bigger, bulkier, cuspids thicker and longer by at least a half-inch. Milo had wondered about sexual dimorphism in these strange beasts; now he knew—the male was a third again the size of the female which had led.

“The Mother says that you can communicate with cats, yet you are certainly not a cat, two-legs, so how can this be so?” asked the newcome feline female, both of them wire-tense, obviously ready to either attack of flee, as they judged best.

“This one cannot say how it is so. cat-sister,” replied Milo. “Nonetheless, it is so, as you and your mate can now tell. Nor is this one the only two-legs who can so communicate to those of your kind; within another, smaller den here are other two-legs who have communicated with the Mother and the cubs and can do so with you and your mate, if allowed.”

Slowly, cautiously, the female stalked in a circle around Milo, drawing infinitesimally nearer with each circuit, while the huge male crouched ready to leap upon the two-legs at the first sign of aggression.

Even while stalking, the smaller cat beamed, “The Mother says that you and the other two-legs have hunted and brought back much meat for her and the new cubs. She says that you slew many, many wolves with your great, long, shiny claw. The Mother says that you and at least one other two-legs did things that took away most of the hurting from her two forepaws. You do not smell very good. You smell more like a wolf than you do like a cat, though not really like a wolf, either. Are you of the breed of two-legs that go about sitting upon the back of fast-running, stupid, hornless four-leg grass-eaters and hurl sharp-pointed sticks at cats and all other ones?”

“The two-legs smells more like a bear than like a wolf,” put in the male cat. “Or more like a bear and a boar, together. He does not eat just meat, this cat thinks, yet he is not really a prey-beast, either. What are you, two-legs?”

“Quite true,” agreed Mio, readily. “My kind consume both flesh and plants, just as do the bear and the boar, and so it is understandable that our scents would be similar. Yes, my kind do ride upon fast-running four-legs and sometimes hurl sticks with sharp points at beasts of many kinds. We also keep together large numbers of other four-legs grass-eaters—these of some three kinds, all with horns; we keep them for their milk and their meat and for other things useful to us. And we guard them closely from cats, bears and wolves, using to help us guard them four-legs much like wolves but larger and fiercer.

“As to what I am, I and my kind, we are creatures who would be friends and allies of your kind of cats. We would join with you in keeping our mutual bellies filled always, in protecting kittens and cubs of both our kinds. I will freely admit that I do not know if it would work out, if it can be done; but such an alliance would benefit both two-legs and cats in many, many ways, and I would be more than willing to try to make such an arrangement work.”

“Perhaps we should just kill him and see if he tastes as foul as he smells?” the female half-questioned the waiting male.

From out the darkness of the den area, the nursing cat came hobbling on her still-healing legs. “Then you must kill this cat, too,” she snarled. “This two-legs has cared for me and my cubs, has hunted for us all and has protected us from the wolves when this cat was too hurt to do so herself. Were he a cat, he now would be my mate, but mate or not, cat or not. I will stand by him in any fight.”

And also from out the darkness of the den-area came stalking, stiff-legged and as threatening as a bristling, snarling, thirty pounds of cub could make himself appear, Killer-of-Two-Legs beaming, “And you must kill this cat, also … if you can.”

James Bedford had been aware that his original hotel reservations had been canceled and that new reservations for him had been booked at a security hotel in the greater Miami area, but it had not been until he actually arrived that he had become aware that the particular security hotel was the Jupiter Offshore Resort Hotel—unreachable save by air, expected surface vessel or the undersea-rail system.

As another VIPSS copter dropped down toward the landing pads atop the spreading hostelry, Bedford regarded the overt armaments placed here and there ready to repel hostile visitors—whether airborne or seaborne—and wondered just how much good any of them would do in event of a hurricane, not even to mention such other natural disturbances as tsunamis, tornados or earth tremors. At that moment, he really yearned for the safe, almost uninhabited isolation of the far-western mountains, where he could go about unarmed without fear or bodyguards.

To the young man beside him—virtually a clone of the one who had flown with him from his uncle’s home to the D.C. airport somewhat earlier in the day—he said, “I wish I could’ve been put upon the mainland, closer to the main business area. These offshore things give me the willies, especially down here in the heart of the hurricane belt. How many were lost back in ’oh-one, when the Kitty Hawk Offshore went under?”

The man shrugged and flitted a brief smile of the kind that seemed to be a mark of his profession—boyish, charming, very reassuring. “You should not worry yourself, sir. Remember, the regrettable disaster of which you speak—the Kitty Hawk thing—that complex was one of the first of its kind built, and it had not, it was subsequently discovered, been properly maintained, not been renovated to keep it abreast of modem technological advances, as it should have been … as it would have been, had my service been connected with it.

“The Jupiter, here, now, is something else, and I speak of personal experience when I say so, sir. I happened to be here on bodyguard duty during the bad hurricane of ’oh-six. Yes, there was some exterior damage to the structure—the surface-docking facilities were torn away or sunk, the subsurface system was damaged and rendered temporarily inoperable from either end, a few of the air-defense pods were damaged or blown off—but inside the entire complex there might have been nothing more life-threatening than a half-gale blowing around the outer surfaces; indeed, there were parties being held in almost all the guest areas during the very worst of the storm.”

Again, the trace of a reassuring smile. “Besides, there is presently not even a tropical depression listed, much less any storm activity or threat, sir. And these offshore complexes have proved far easier to render secure than even the best-planned or -built mainland units. Here at Jupiter we have what amounts to a security complex within a basically secure complex. Them is no way in which anyone or anything can come into or go out of this main complex without being closely observed and monitored … ever, under any circumstances.

“The complex is virtually self-sufficient. A small, well-shielded nuclear pile provides all power for whatever purposes, there are vast stocks of food and supplies, fresh water comes either from distillation of salt water or from an artesian well tapping Pleistocene water a thousand feet below the continental shelf, though it is not generally used because of the terrible shortage of fresh, potable water in Florida, overcrowded as the state is, these days.

“There are no less than six heated saltwater pools within this complex, two of them within the security subcomplex. Also, two of the restaurants are wholly within our confines, along with numerous other facilities. Moreover, because of the singular nature of this type of operation, we can confidently assure real and complete security to all our VIP guests, and that is something that neither we nor any other service can or could offer in even the most carefully guarded mainland facility anywhere in the nation, if not the world, sir.

“So safe are you here at Jupiter, sir, that you do not even need any personal weapons … although you will not be requested to surrender them, of course.”

Bedford did not get to see any of the main resort complex that day; he was conveyed directly from the helipad into the reception area of the security module, properly identified, and then courteously conducted to what they called an executive mini-suite. The suite was far from large, as compared with such accommodations on the mainland, but it included the utterly last words in Luxurious appointments, and Bedford only hoped that as his uncle had booked it, he was paying for it, too, for as the finances of the group now stood, he and they could not afford such opulence.

“Again, thank you, Dr. Harrel/Markov,” he hissed to himself, aloud and with intense venom. “You and your damned spendthrift nature and your triple-damned Project latifrons has very nearly ended the group before it fairly began to do anything worthwhile.”

A soft tone and a blink of subdued light emanated just then from the communications console and a female voice as soothing as warm honey intoned, “Mr. Bedford, you have a call from a Senator Bedford, in Washington, D.C., on the videophone. If you wish scrambling, you will have to do without the video aspect of the call.”

“Did the caller request scrambling?” asked Bedford.

“No, sir,” replied the disembodied voice.

“Then I can do without it, thank you,” said Bedford. “You may put it through to me, please.”

Taylor Bedford appeared on the screen, smiling. “You arrived safely, then, James. Good.”

“Yes,” agreed James, “but I may be washing dishes for the next ten years or more before they let me leave here, the Jupiter Complex. This place looks far too rich for my group to afford for even a few days.”

Taylor Bedford chuckled. “Don’t worry about it, James. You are in the suite I usually use down there, and the costs will all go on my account … call it a part of my loan to you.

“But such matters aside. I now have some answers for you as to the incident that precipitated your current need for security and secure accommodations. Pick up the receiver of the dark-green audio set—I am going to play a tape for you and I do not think it should air unscrambled. After you’ve heard it. I’ll speak with you again.”

As the screen went blank, James Bedford lifted the indicated receiver and placed it to his ear to hear a very deep voice begin to speak in Russian. “Mr. Bedford, because your most distinguished uncle, the Senator Taylor Bedford, has told me that you understand my beautiful language, I will not need to assault you with my less than perfect English.

“Mr. Bedford, my name is Piotr Barislev and I am speaking to you from my office in the embassy of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, here in Washington, District of Columbia. I sincerely wish that I could assure you that no Russian had any part in the disgraceful attempt to kidnap you and possibly harm you which took place in this city so short a time ago, but unfortunately, such is not the case.

“Nonetheless, please be certainly assured that only a small, counterproductive and basically criminal element was involved. Even as I here speak to you, our internal security forces are rooting out everyone connected with this anti-international hooligan scheme, both here and in our Motherland. Please believe me when I say that they all, when once apprehended, will be tried and severely punished for their transgressions and attempted transgressions.

“Despite the true fact that they did not in any way represent anything approaching official policy, they were still Russian nationals and, therefore, our responsibility while they were upon the soil of your beautiful country, and so I hereby offer to you, Mr. Bedford, the full, sincere and most abject apology of the ambassador, the vice-ambassadors, myself and all other officials and staff of our embassy. Whenever we can do anything of any sort to even partially recompense you for your mistreatment, please do not hesitate to so inform me. Your distinguished uncle will know how to contact me or you may ask for me, here at the embassy, if you wish.

“Before I ring off, if you know the present whereabouts of a Russian scientist who may be claiming Israeli citizenship, one Dr. Vasili Markov or possibly Harel, please inform us or your so distinguished uncle. We am most anxious to find this man and to remove him back to Russia to stand trial with his fellow criminals and share in their punishments.”

There followed a bit of mechanical noise, then Taylor Bedford’s well-modulated voice said, “Before you ask, yes, you can believe Comrade Barislev … well, as much as you can believe any of them, of his stripe, that is. The way I hear it, the whole security network over there at that embassy complex are mad as hops and getting madder as they squeeze more info out of the ones they’ve caught to date. They have a security apparatus firmly fixed in place, and they don’t need and certainly want a pack of Russian amateurs playing their own undercover games out of the same embassy, which is what it would appear this whole stinking mess was … here again, if you can believe everything they say about it.

“Thus far, in addition to the botched try for you, Barislev avers that this bunch have been responsible for two attempted kidnappings of some Canadian scientist—once in Canada, once in this country—a possible murder in Greece, an attempted murder in Israel, and some thefts of replication-related material here and there around the world, and they speculate that the same bunch or their agents may have been the ones who snatched the South African in Switzerland, collected a quite sizable ransom, then dumped his dead body into Lake Geneva. Not only that—and I didn’t get this from Barislev—it would seem that the core group of this lot had arranged to sell or assign some replication rights for themselves, bypassing the Russian government, which is a definite no-no.”

“And Harel is involved in this?” asked James Bedford.

“It would seem so,” the senator replied. “Rather deeply involved, I would imagine, based on Barislev’s real eagerness to catch up to the man.”

“Then God help him,” said James, with feeling. “I detest him, but …”

“God is about the only force that could help him,” remarked his uncle dryly, “with the KGB sniffing on his heels. They’re most efficient, you know, James, and, not to accuse them of ruthlessness, they play rough, to win, no matter what the cost.”

“Then the danger to me is over, I take it?” inquired James Bedford. “I can stop carrying this bomb-loaded pistol and move over to a normal hotel on the mainland and stop tripping over security types every time I turn around, Uncle Taylor?”

“Uhh, not quite yet, James,” came the reply. “For one thing, Barislev and the Russians still don’t know for sure just how many people were involved in this thing of theirs. Moreover, our own types have come up with another foreign group that has evinced more than just a passing interest in you and your movements, of late. I don’t know exactly who this group is or represents—the VIPSS won’t tell even me, which could mean a lot or nothing at all—but they seem to be some worried, and anything that worries them should certainly worry me … and you, especially. So keep your pistol loaded and on you, at least within reach, at all times, keep your eyes open and don’t try to slip away from those who are there to protect you. Be a good boy and maybe you’ll live to see that cat species replicated yet … if the world we know doesn’t end first, that is.

“Good night, now, James. Have a few drinks and a good dinner and get some sleep. I’ll be in touch.”

Bedford hung up and sat back to try to think out all that he had heard from his uncle and the deep-voiced Russian, but before he could even begin to order his thoughts, the same soft tone and light presaged the warm-honey voice which announced, “Mr. Bedford, the early seating will commence in the White Fleet Club in three-quarters of an hour. A printout of the evening menu may be obtained by means of following the instructions to be found in the VIP Guest Packet. However, please allow us to strongly recommend the Severn Terrapin. If you wish to dine in your suite, you may place your order in one-quarter hour and expect service within an hour. The Carronade Lounge is currently open, both the bar and the appetizer buffet.”

Never having developed a taste for raw fish, Bedford passed by the section of the buffet devoted to sashimi and finally served himself grilled crayfish tails in a torrid sauce, a few bite-size nuggets of curried alligator and a few crackers to go with his brandy and soda.

He had downed the most of the nibbles and about half the drink and was interestedly eyeing an attractive woman of about his own age who sat listening to a vaguely familiar older man and now and then nodding her head of dark curls when he felt rather than saw a presence nearby.

“Mr. James Bedford?” asked the tall, blond, elegant-seeming man. “You are Mr. James Bedford, who represents the Stekowski group?”

Hurriedly chewing and swallowing, Bedford nodded once. “Yes, I’m Bedford, Mr … ?”

With a click of the heels and a short, perfunctory bow, the man said, “I am Doktor Erich von Kurfuerst. We share mutual interests. Would you join me for dinner this evening, please?”