I managed to slip away to a ready room while Ricardo Corleone took my form and mingled with our guests. In the ready room I donned my battle suit. Two of Arc Dios high-tech Smatchets and a hidden pistol, a compact plasma carbine, and a pair of rocket launchers on my backpack completed my costume. This was a change from my usual birthday suit. The other eleven members of my team met me. Six were big cats: Kimba (an albino African lion), Spots (jaguar), Flash and Dash (twin cheetahs), and Satin and Lucy (twin black panthers). The other humans were Debra, Branimira, Dawn, Fatima and Halima. The cats and humans had bands on all four limbs and what appeared to be a compact backpack.

“Am I overdressed?” I asked Debra.

“Not at all, darling. You’re supposed to be playing the starship trooper today. Yes, you’ll be laughed at, but you’re used to that.”

Did I mention that three of the women were pregnant? None of the cats were—Kimba was the only other male in our party.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To an ancient library.” Debra gave me a kiss, squeezed my hand. “We’re going there to copy the entire library in three hours while you listen to another old woman.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

A short time later we stepped off of transporter pads into frigid wind-driven sleet. I did a quick scan for dangers and then turned to check on the eleven naked party members. I detected faint shimmers around the women and big cats.

“Personal force fields?” I asked.

“These work as space suits,” Debra said. “As you can tell, the weather is too harsh for cats. Those suits not only protect them from cold and wet and supplement the inadequate oxygen supply at this altitude but allows physical contact. This way. Grandmother is waiting.”

Grandmother?

I was only a few meters from the transporter pad when my comms went dark. Diagnostics told me that my recording functions were off-line as well. I did have enhanced sensor gear but my navigation systems were out of service.

“Debra, do you have comms?”

“Don’t worry about it, Thomas,” Debra said. “We’re supposed to be isolated.”

“How will we copy that library?”

“You’ll be provided with the library,” Debra said. “Relax. Everything is fine.”

“Even my clock is off-line,” I said. “This reminds me of Bab Lab.”

“Don’t tell the others,” Debra ordered. “They don’t need to know.”

Time travel is meaningless to lions and jaguars and cheetahs and panthers. I noticed something was not quite right, a feeling that I associated with time travel—but the evidence I have for time travel isn’t “proof” or even evidence. The Confederacy gave humans radio communications that travel faster than the speed of light and some sensors can see things before the light and electromagnetic waves have enough time to cross the gap between event and sensor platform. A bit of tweaking will ‘predict’ objects in motion’s position when sub-light velocity missiles finally arrive on-target with too much accuracy for mere calculation, given the distance and time involved.

“You’re thinking too hard again, dear,” Debra reminded me. “Duck your head when inside. The ceiling is low.”

There was a tunnel just six feet tall and too perfectly circular to be natural. I’d have to move at an uncomfortable crouch. We moved single-file, with Spots in front followed by Dawn. After a short distance my suit switched from fighting the cold to refrigeration. The interior temperature was about 25C or 80F, take your pick. Sensors told me that the humidity was about 70% and air pressure was approximately sea level norm—with 30% oxygen instead of the usual 21% and 68% nitrogen instead of the usual 78%. Gravity hadn’t changed. Were you aware that gravity at 20,000 feet altitude (about 6000 meters) has less force than at sea level? It’s small, but combined with thinner air, the difference affects ballistics.

“Talk to me,” Debra commanded. “You’re still thinking too hard and it’s making our fur children nervous.”

“Not scent based?”

“Call it electrical field. Talk to me.”

“What’s a safe subject?”

“Talk to me about our cheetah sisters.”

Flash was on my left and Dash on my right, brushing against my suit. The advanced suit had adjustable tactile feedback and I could feel their fur through my suit. Their personal force fields permitted some gas exchange and direct physical contact. In the animal world, scent and touch were far more important than in the human world, where sight and sound dominate. Debra was immediately behind me and close enough to touch me—if I were that close, I’m so clumsy that I’d be stepping on the heels of the person in front of me. Not Debra. The cheetahs were in contact with me but somehow I wasn’t tripping over them—yet.

“That reminds me,” I was grinning, “Tarzan’s sidekick was called Cheetah. Might have been because the ape was a card sharp.”

Cats do laugh. They have a sense of humor and cats have several laugh modes. I put images of Cheetah from multiple Tarzan movies and the Ron Ely television series in my mind.

“That was a dirty trick,” Debra scolded as the cheetahs stumbled and tumbled. “Now they’re going to want to watch Tarzan movies!”

The tunnel walls glowed blue-gray, more than enough illumination to navigate by, as the tunnel sloped gently down and spiraled to the right. It reminded me of a castle defense mechanism—the spiral stairs were oriented so that defenders on the upper floor could freely use their sword arms but intruders below were impeded by the wall and by no guard rail.

“I haven’t heard you talk so much, my master,” Halima remarked.

“I’ve commanded Thomas to talk instead of think because we’re entering a zone where his thoughts have consequences,” Debra explained. “You’ve seen ‘Forbidden Planet.’ Earth has a lot in common with Altair Four. Thomas is at the stage between harmless and being uncontrollably dangerous. There’s safety measures in place on Arc Dios, but not here. Do you remember your CAP test, Halima?”

“No,” Halima confessed. A quick check revealed that Fatima didn’t remember, either. Branimira and Dawn did—mostly.

“Thomas is one of several humans that do remember their CAP test. A handful of the tested even took control of those tests. Mother and I haven’t taken CAP tests because, like Thomas, we’d take control of that test.”

“I was ignorant,” I claimed, “I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to do that.”

“Just like the time you had three queens on the chess board and were about to promote a fourth pawn,” Debra said.

“I forgot that I was playing against another human being,” I felt myself blushing—my ears were hot.” Insulting him was unintentional—and that made it worse. Fortunately the chess board was cheap cardboard and the pieces were cheap plastic.”

“Yes, he threw the board at you and cursed you,” Debra added. “His curse didn’t take.”