Cats in Space and Other Places Bill Fawcett (ebook reader that looks like a book .TXT) 📖

lot of volcanic debris, some of it bigger than your Ocelot. So you can pretend you're an old mountain fragment while I mosey into the settlement to see the o.t.s.

"And when the sun comes up and shines off my hull, it'll be bloody plain I'm no rock."

She gave a rippling chuckle, more like a happy growl. "Ah, but you'll be camouflaged by the time the sun rises," she said, pointing her left hand toward the couch under which her bundle was stored.

"Camouflaged?"

She chuckled again, and dropped her lower jaw in her Hrruban smile. "Just like me."

"Huh? You'd stand out a klick away."

"Not necessarily. D'you know why creatures evolved different exterior colors and patterns? Well, markings and colors help them become invisible to their natural enemies, or their equally natural victims. On your own home world, I'll cite the big felines as an excellent example." She twitched her dainty whisker hairs to indicate amusement, or was it condescension for us poorly endowed critters? "Tigers have stripes because they're jungle inhabitants; lions wear fur that blends into the veldt or grasslands; panthers are mottled black to hide on tree limbs and shadows. Their favorite prey is also colored to be less easily detected, to confuse the eye of the beholder, if they stand still.

"We've finally caught a few prisoners. A major breakthrough in Khalian biological research suggests that they are blind to certain colors and patterns. She indicated her sploshed flanks. "What I'm wearing should render me all but invisible to Khalia."

"Ah, come on, Ghra, I can't buy that!"

"Hear me out." She held her band up, her lustrous big eyes sparkling with an expression that could be amusement, but certainly resulted in my obedience. "We've also determined that, while Khalian night vision is excellent, dawn and dusk produce a twilight myopia. My present camouflage is blended for use on this planet. I can move with impunity at dawn and dusk, and quite possibly remain unseen during daylight hours, even by Khalia passing right by me. Provided I choose my ground cover correctly. That's part of early Hrruban training, anyhow. And we Hrrubans also know how to lie perfectly still for long hours." She grinned at my skeptical snort.

"Add to that inherent ability the fact that the Khalia have lost much of the olfactory acuteness they originally had as they've relied more and more on high tech, and I doubt they'll notice me." Her own nostrils dilated slightly and her whiskers twitched in distaste. "I can smell a Khalian more than five klicks away. And a Khalian wouldn't detect, much less recognize my spoor. Stupid creatures. Ignored or lost most of their valuable natural assets. They can't even move as quadrapeds anymore. We had the wisdom to retain, and improve, on our inherited advantages. It could be something as simple and nontech as primitive ability that's going to tip the scale in this war. We've already proved that ancient ways make us valuable as fighters."

"You Hrrubans have a bloody good reputation," I agreed generously. You've had combat experience?" I asked tactfully, for generally speaking, seasoned fighters don't spout off the way she was. As Ghra didn't seem to be a fully adult Hrruban, maybe she was indulging herself in a bit of psyching up for this mission.

"Frequent." The dry delivery of that single word assured me she was, indeed, a seasoned warrior. The "fingers" of her left hand clicked a rapid tattoo. "Khalia are indeed formidable opponents. Very." She spread her left hand, briefly exposing her lethal complement of claws. "Deadly in hand-to-hand with that stumpy size a strange advantage. A fully developed adult Khalian comes up to my chest: it's those short Khalian arms, incredibly powerful, that you've got to watch out for."

Some of the latest "short arm" jokes are grisly by any standards: real sick humor! And somehow, despite your disgust, you find yourself avidly repeating the newest one.

"The Khalia may prefer to use their technology against us in the air," Ghra continued, "but they're no slouches face to face. I've seen a Khalian grab a soldier by the knees, trip him up, and sever the hamstrings in three seconds. Sometimes they'll launch at the chest, compress the lungs in a fierce grip and bite through the jugular vein. However," Ghra added with understandable pride, "we've noticed a marked tendency in their troops to avoid Hrrubans. Fortunately we don't mind fighting in mixed companies."

I'd heard some incredible tales of the exploits of mixed companies and been rather proud that so many of the diverse species of the Alliance could forget minor differences for the main Objective. I'd also heard some horror tales of what the Khalia did to any prisoners of those mixed companies. (It had quickly become a general policy to dispatch any immobilized wounded.) Of course, such tales always permeate a fighting force. Sometimes, I think, not as much to encourage our own fighting men to fight that much more fiercely as to dull the edge of horror by the repetition of it.

"But it's not going to be brute force that'll overcome them: it'll be superior intelligence. We Hrrubans hope to be able to infiltrate their ground forces with our camouflages." She ran both hands down her lean and muscled thighs. "I'm going to prove we can."

"More power to you," I said, still skeptical if she was relying on body paint. While I was a space fighter pilot, I knew enough about warfare strategies to recognize that it was only battles that were won in space: wars are won when the planets involved are secured against the invader. "There's just one thing. You may be able to fool those Weasels' eyes, but what about the humans and such on Bethesda? You're going to be mighty visible to them, you know."

Ghra chuckled. "The Khalia enforce a strict dusk-to- dawn curfew on their captive planets. You'll be setting us down in an unpopulated area. None of the captured folk would venture there and all the Khalian air patrols would see is