Chapter 5

Potat was waiting for Antaska and M. Hoyvil when they came in the door to their shared quarters. She lay stretched out on her back on the soft floor covering in the center of the main room. Her tiny golden eyes stared up at them.

It took them long enough, Potat thought.

“Hi kitty,” Antaska greeted Potat.”

“Where have you been?” Potat asked her telepathically, although she knew the answer.

Both Antaska and M. Hoyvil shook their heads a bit, but neither answered her. Potat gave Antaska’s mind a quick scan.

Antaska was thinking, Why do I keep imagining my cat is talking to me? and I wonder if I’ll see that guy again?

And then Potat saw an image of the hunky guy in Antaska’s mind. His shirt was unbuttoned, and his muscular chest was bursting through.

Hey! He wasn’t dressed like that when I saw him in Antaska’s mind in the dining hall! Potat thought.

She was annoyed. The little cat grumbled to herself. Antaska ignores my advice again! I think Antaska needs to learn a lesson about that and about leaving me here all alone.

Potat flipped off her back and up onto her feet. Then, like a furry gray and white streak, she dashed through the door to Antaska’s room and dived under the bed. From there, she crouched and peeked out behind the edge of a blanket.

I’m ignoring you, Potat thought at her.

But Antaska didn’t seem to get the message. The corners of her mouth turned up, and she had that look of someone trying not to laugh. Potat flopped down under the bed and grumbled some more.

“Is she OK?” M. Hoyvil asked Antaska out loud.

At least someone cares, thought Potat. I did a good job when I picked that one.

She thought about reading M. Hoyvil’s mind too. He was her new pet after all.

No. I don’t know him well enough yet. That can wait for later, she decided.

“Potat’s fine,” said Antaska, answering M. Hoyvil’s question. “Probably just nervous in a new place.”

Potat sighed a big telepathic cat sigh.

M. Hoyvil looked around in confusion. He thought he had just heard someone sighing telepathically. A small female sigh.

Could that have been Antaska? he wondered.

He looked down at her, but the corners of her mouth were turned up. M. Hoyvil interpreted her expression correctly as a smile.

Maybe I imagined that, or maybe I heard someone walking by in the hallway, he thought.

M. Hoyvil knew that he needed to make up for his neglect earlier in the day, so he decided to talk to Antaska as Master Meeepp had suggested. His vocal cords and the muscles of his mouth were already tired from the unaccustomed use of talking to her at dinner. But he was willing to sacrifice his personal comfort for her well being.

“Do you need anything, or do you have any other questions for me?” he asked.

“I think I have everything I need right now,” Antaska answered. “But I was wondering about the larger-sized man who came to our table at dinner and the other group of bigger people. I never saw any Verdantes that big when I was in space school on Earth. Are they the same species as the Verdantes, or are they a different species?”

The answer to this question was not restricted information. But it sometimes came as a shock to Earth humans. Most new pets did not ask it on their first day. M. Hoyvil decided to answer anyway, at least part of the truth.

“The larger humanoids are Verdantes too, but they’re much older than me—that’s why they’re so much bigger. Ours is a long-living and tall-growing race. We live to the age of 5,000 or more and grow to over ten feet tall by about 900 years old. I’m 650, and I’ll grow to about that size in around 250 more years,” he told her.

M. Hoyvil hoped this explanation would be enough. His voice was getting scratchy and hoarse, and he didn’t think it could stand much more use. He pressed his palm against a round, slightly raised glowing green circle on the side of the wall. A sliding panel opened, and a compartment appeared. Inside were several tubes of chlorophyll water. M. Hoyvil pulled out a tube, and the compartment closed again.

Antaska looked at him with her held slightly tilted to one side while he drank thirstily. Soon, his throat felt better.

He looked down to see the little cat Potat creeping out into the main room.

Her curiosity must have overcame her shyness, thought M. Hoyvil.

The corners of his big green eyes lifted in amusement.

Potat sat behind the edge of the couch, as if hiding, and watched him and Antaska.

Antaska covered a yawn with one hand.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I guess I’m really tired from all the excitement of my first day away from Earth. Thank you for explaining about the bigger Verdantes. I don’t have any more questions right now.”

“OK. That’s great,” said M. Hoyvil. “You should rest and get settled in your room tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll take you and Potat to the space ship’s doctor for checkups to make sure that you’re both in perfect health for space travel.”

“Is the doctor able to treat cats as well as humans?” Antaska asked with wide eyes.

“Oh, sure,” M. Hoyvil told her. “Dr. Daji is a great veterinarian.”

“Goodnight, then,” Antaska said.

She walked toward her room, and little Potat streaked in through the door ahead of her.

M. Hoyvil stood unmoving and still looking in when Antaska pressed the button to close the door. He watched the lowering door slide all the way down.

OK! I think I’ve got this, he told himself before walking away to his own room.

Inside her room now, Antaska thought about M. Hoyvil. She was more confused than enlightened by his explanation of the larger aliens. Antaska knew that the Verdantes who came to Earth to hire humans were much older than the oldest-living Earthlings. So to learn that M. Hoyvil was 650—a very old man—didn’t surprise her. But the oldest of his race lived to be thousands of years old after growing to the height of small trees. That idea was hard to absorb.

Antaska was worn out from her first day in a strange environment. She decided she could think about all this later. She walked to the bed and flopped down on her back. Potat was alert and sitting up on the bed. Antaska rolled to the side and pulled her into a gentle hug.

“How are you? Are you okay in our new home?” she asked the small cat.

Potat made no answer except for a contented purr. Antaska stirred herself to visit the small bathroom and brush her teeth. She changed into the tan sleeping clothes she found in drawers built into the walls of her room. Returning to the circular bed, she felt more awake again and sat up next to Potat.

Antaska took a closer look at the consoles built into small tables on either side of the bed. She reached out a hand and wavered it over the many possible choices of buttons to press.

Potat was watching Antaska. She jumped smoothly away to the soft, spongy floor material in a clear demonstration of disapproval. Potat sat as far from the bed as possible in the small room, cleaning between her toenails.

Antaska ignored Potat’s behavior.

I’m sure M. Hoyvil would have warned me if something harmful could happen from pushing these buttons, she thought.

There were so many rows of different-colored buttons! Which to push? Antaska randomly pressed a deep blue one. The room darkened. A holographic image appeared, filling the entire room with a slow-moving view of outer space accompanied by sound.

Mesmerized, Antaska watched thousands of star revolve gracefully on all sides of her while listening to the sound of space. A humming similar to what she had been hearing all over the space ship plus soft whooshing noises. The combined sounds were harmonious and soothing.

“It’s almost musical,” Antaska said to Potat.

The tiny gray cat had climbed back onto the bed. Antaska turned to look at the Potat. She was now lying on her back too, looking up at the ceiling. Her legs and tail stretched out straight, and her arms spread out to her sides.

“Aw! You look so cute like that! Almost like a tiny human!” Antaska told her.

Then Antaska seemed to hear a small female voice talking in her head.

“Please don’t compare me to a human,” said the voice.

Antaska looked back up the ceiling.

Just another crazy thought after many today, she told herself. At least I was smart enough to never tell anyone on Earth that I thought I could hear my cat talking to me. They would have never let me take this job! And now I have to do the same thing. I can’t tell anyone I think I hear the Verdantes talking, she told herself.

With that decided, Antaska put it out of her mind and focused on the twirling show of planets up on the ceiling and walls. The familiar desire to travel to the farthest reaches of space returned.

And now, I’m really going! she thought.

Any uncertainty or confusion about her new work situation melted away. Then Antaska was slowly lulled to sleep by the relaxing sounds that called to her in some deeply instinctive way.

After Antaska and Potat had gone into their rooms, M. Hoyvil stood unmoving for several moments. The excitement of the day and the strain of verbal communication had almost drained him of energy. He thought more about Antaska.

It seems weird to call her a pet when she’s definitely a humanoid, he mused. She’s just like a small person, only less green and with only ten fingers. Just because she’s not telepathic doesn’t make her an animal or some kind of lower life form.

He shook himself out of his stillness and walked into his room.

I’m starting to act like the adults, he told himself, standing rooted to one spot, staring at nothing.

It had been a busy day, but M. Hoyvil still had some homework to finish up for his galactic politics class. He sat at his computer console typing his assignment—give arguments for or against some of the most controversial laws that govern the discovered and undiscovered planets of the Milky Way. M. Hoyvil was tired, but this was one of his favorite subjects. He was soon absorbed in his work with renewed energy.

A few hours later, M. Hoyvil finished his homework and emailed it to his teacher. Then, after getting ready to go to sleep, he pressed the blue button on a console in his room. Like Antaska and Potat, he also fell asleep listening to soothing space sounds, to dream of new discoveries and adventures.