Thompson's Cat, Robert Moore Williams [books to read fiction TXT] 📗

"It's a dead world," Thompson spoke. There was awe in his voice, and in spite of his sure knowledge that nothing could happen to him or to his crew here on this world, there was also somewhere inside of him the trace of a beginning fear.

Standing beside him on the rooftop of the building, Kurkil spoke in a whisper, asking a question that had been better unasked. "What killed it?"

Thompson stirred fretfully. He hadn't wanted to hear this question, he didn't want to hear it now. His gaze went automatically to the trim lines of the space cruiser resting quietly in the square below the building. His spirits lifted at the sight. That was his ship, he was in charge of this far-flung exploring expedition thrown out from Sol Cluster to the fringes of the universe, thrown out by Earth-sired races beginning their long exploration of the mysteries of space and of the worlds of space. There was pride in the sight of the ship and pride in the thought of belonging to this space-ranging race. Then his gaze went over the deserted city radiating in all directions from them and he was aware again of the touch of fear.

Resolutely he turned the feeling out of his mind, began seeking an answer to Kurkil's question.

This place had been a city once. If you counted buildings and streets, tall structures where people might work quietly and effectively, broad avenues leading out to trim homes where they might rest in peace after their labors of the day, if you counted these things as being important, it was still a city. But if you thought that the important element in the make-up of a city was its inhabitants then this place no longer deserved the name.

It had no inhabitants.

"I don't know what killed it," Thompson said. Before landing they had circled this world. From the air they had seen more than a dozen cities such as this one. All of them dead, all of them deserted, all of them with streets overgrown by shrubbery, the pavements buckling from the simple pressure of roots pushing upward, the buildings falling away into ruin for the same reason. But they had seen no inhabitants. They had seen the roads the inhabitants had built to connect their cities, deserted now. They had seen the fields where these people had once worked, fields that now were turning back into forests. They had seen no evidence of landing fields for air craft or space ships. The race that had built the cities had not yet learned the secret of wings.

From the roof of the building where they stood, the only living creatures to be seen were visible through the plastic viewport of the ship below them—Grant, the communication specialist, and Buster, the ship's cat.

Grant had been left to guard the vessel. Buster had been required to remain within the ship, obviously against his will. He had wanted to come with Thompson. A trace of a grin came to Thompson's face at the sight of the cat. He and Buster were firm mutual friends.

"I don't like this place," Kurkil spoke suddenly. "We shouldn't have landed here."

Kurkil paused, then his voice came again, stronger now, and with overtones of fear in it. "There's death here." He slapped at his arm, stared around him.

"What happened?"

"Something bit me." He showed the back of his hand. A tiny puncture was visible.

"Some insect," Thompson said. The matter of an insect bite was of no concern. Kurkil, and every other member of this expedition, were disease-proof. Back in Sol Cluster vaccines and immunizing agents had been developed against every known or conceivable form of germ or virus. Each member of the crew had been carefully immunized. In addition, they had been proofed against stress, against mounting neural pressure resulting from facing real or imaginary danger.

Barring space collision or an accident on a world they were exploring, nothing could happen to them.

"We checked the air, took soil and vegetation samples, before we landed," Thompson said. "There is nothing here that is harmful to a human." There was comfort in the thought.

Kurkil brightened perceptibly. "But, what happened to the race that built this city?"

"I don't know," Thompson answered. A tinge of gruffness crept into his voice as he forced out of his mind the memories of what they had seen in this building they had entered and had climbed. This had once been an office building, a place where the unknown people who had worked here had handled their business transactions and had kept their records. They had seen no bookkeeping machines, none of the elaborate mechanical devices used in Sol Cluster to record the pulse of commerce. This race had not progressed that far. But they had left behind them books written in an unintelligible script, orders for merchandise still neatly pigeonholed, all in good order with no sign of disturbance.

The workers might have left these offices yesterday, except for the carpets of dust that covered everything.

"There isn't even any animal life left," Kurkil spoke.

"I know."

"But what happened? A race that has progressed to the city-building stage doesn't just get wiped out without leaving some indication of what happened to them."

"Apparently they did just that."

"But it's not possible."

"It happened."

"But—"

"There's Neff," Thompson spoke. Far down the avenue below them, three figures had appeared, Neff, Fortune, and Ross. Neff tall and slender, Fortune round like a ball, and Ross built square like a block of concrete. Neff saw them on top of the building and beckoned to them. There was urgency in the gesture.

"They've found something," Thompson said. With Kurkil following him he went hastily out of the building.

"What is it?"

"Come and see," Neff answered. Neff's face was gray. Fortune and Ross were silent.

The building in front of which they were standing had been a house once. The architecture resembled nothing they had ever seen on Earth but the purpose of the structure was obvious. Here somebody had lived. Thompson tried to imagine people living here, the husband coming home in the evening to the dinner prepared by the wife, kids running to meet him. His imagination failed.

"Back here," Neff said.

They went around what had been a house into what had been a garden of some kind, a quiet nook where a family might sprawl in peace. "There," Neff said pointing.

The three skeletons were huddled together in an alcove in front of what had once been a shrine. They lay facing the shrine as if they had died praying. Above them in a niche in a wall was—

"An idol," Kurkil whispered.

"They died praying to their god," Thompson said. He was not aware that he had spoken. Three skeletons....

The bones indicated a creature very similar to the human in structure. A large, a middle-sized, and a small skeleton.

"We think the small one is that of a child," Ross spoke. "We think this was a family."

"I see," Thompson said. "Did you find other skeletons?"

"Many others. We found them almost everywhere but usually tucked away in corners, as if the people had tried to hide from something." His voice went suddenly into uneasy silence.

"Any indication as to the cause of death?"

"None. It apparently came on quite suddenly. We judge that the inhabitants had some warning. At least we do not seem to find enough skeletons for a city of this size, so we estimate that part of the population fled, or tried to."

"I see," Thompson repeated tonelessly. He caught a vague impression that something had passed before his eyes, like a darting flicker of light, and he caught, momentarily, a fast rustle in the air, as of souls passing. His mind was on the flight of this race, the mass hegira they had attempted in an effort to escape from some menace. What menace? "What do you think caused it?"

Ross shrugged, a gesture eloquent with a lack of knowledge and of understanding. "War—"

"No wars were fought on this planet," Neff spoke quickly. "These cities show no evidence of conflict."

"Um," Thompson said. The four men were looking uneasily at him. They were waiting for him to make up his mind, to decide on a course of action.

Thompson did not like his own thinking. Something—the blood-brother of death—had been here on this planet, that much was certain. The evidence was everywhere.

"We will return to the ship," Thompson said.

Grant saw them coming, had the lock open for them. His worried face looked out at them. "What gives here?"

"We don't know," Thompson answered. The cat, Buster, pushed forward between Grant's legs, took a long leap at Thompson's chest, made a twenty-claw safe landing there. "Hi, old fellow, were you worried about me?"

They passed through the lock. "Take her up," Thompson said. "We need a little time to think about this enigma. Maybe we can think better when we're not so close to it."

At his words, relief showed on the faces of the men. "Maybe sometime soon we'll be heading for home?" Kurkil spoke, grinning hopefully.

"You can be certain of that," Thompson said.

The ship lifted, hung miles high in the air above the silent planet. The group considered the problem.

"I vote to make a complete investigation," Grant said. He was full of eager enthusiasm. "There was a race here. Something happened to it. We've got to find out what happened because—" He got no further. Slowly the enthusiasm went from his face. "No, that's not possible," he ended.

"There's no danger of the virus that destroyed this race crossing space to Sol Cluster," Kurkil spoke. "The distance is too great."

"The distance wasn't too great for us to cross it," Fortune spoke.

"Please," Thompson interrupted. "We can't use logic on this situation until we have adequate data. The only data we have—" His voice trailed off into silence as his memory presented him with a facsimile of that data—silent, deserted cities, a world going back to vegetation, three skeletons in front of a shrine.

Abruptly he reached a decision. It was impulsive. "Our tour of exploration is near an end anyhow. We're leaving. We're heading back to Sol Cluster. We'll mark this planet on the star maps for further exploration."

The face of every man present brightened as he made the announcement. Sol Cluster! Home! The green world of Earth across the depths of space. In even the thought there was almost enough magic to wipe out the fear of what they'd seen back there on the deserted planet.

Less than an hour later, the drone of the drivers picked up as the ship, already set on course, began to accelerate in preparation for the jump into hyper-flight. Thompson was in his cabin making a final check of the machine-provided flight data. Buster was in his lap half-asleep. Suddenly the cat jumped from his lap and seemed to pounce on some elusive prey in the room. The cat caught what it was seeking, its jaws crunched, it swallowed.

Thompson stared at the cat from disbelieving eyes. "Buster, are you dreaming? Did you dream there was a mouse in here?"

The cat meowed, came toward him, jumped again into his lap and went back to sleep. Thompson returned to his figures. They were correct.

Over the ship's communication system came the soft throb of a gong. The warning that the jump was coming. In his lap, Buster awakened, instantly sank twenty claws into Thompson's clothing. Thompson reached out and took a firm grip on the hand holds on his desk, began to breathe deeply. The gong sounded again. Final warning that the ship was going into hyper-flight. Thompson took as deep a breath as possible, held it.

The gong went into silence. The ship throbbed. The jump was in progress. Thompson had the dazed impression that every atom in his body tried to turn over at once. For a moment, there was a feeling of intense strain. Then the feeling was gone as the ship and its contents passed into hyper-flight. Thompson began to breathe again. In his lap, Buster relaxed his claw holds, began to purr. Buster was an old hand at taking these jumps.

"EEEEEEyooow!"

The eerie scream that came echoing through the ship seemed to lift up every single strand of hair on Thompson's head. Thompson ran out of the cabin. The scream came again, from the lounge. Thompson entered the lounge just in time to see Kurkil standing in the middle of