"Words fail me to express how brilliant this device is," I said after Yaan-ze finished explaining to me the functioning of the atmospheric dome, the tremendous camouflage we went through a day earlier.
The teenager with the mane of fire made the electromagnetic coils' holographic plans disappear with a snap of fingers before continuing her presentation: "The only drawback is the energy consumption. It's so immeasurable that it requires the presence of a nuclear reactor. Fortunately, the one installed by the people who lived here before us is still running. I think it comes from one of the oldest stranded ships."
She alluded to the tankers' carcasses, floating in the middle of the asteroid pieces; planetoids from which tiny metal debris decorated the room of the small colonial house, reproducing the most famous constellations.
As Yaan-ze began to explain to me how the reactor's cooling system worked, Ali joined us. She was no longer wearing her black jumpsuit but a white rockabilly dress with red dots. It took her less than half a day to get back on her feet after the crash. My human was undoubtedly unusual. Her test tube-grown DNA combined steel and toffee.
Grimacing under the effort, my partner leaned beside us. She then gave me a piece of peanut butter sandwich that Beek-sun, Yaan-ze's older brother who maintained the dome, had made for her. This redhead with a broken nose had spent the morning looking after Ali, sitting at her bedside.
"How do you feel?" asked the talkative teenager.
Although a simple engineering enthusiast, Yaan-ze was also an expert in emergency medical care. The girl wasn't just smart but a "Stephen Hawking" level of genius. Already, the little nurse was scrupulously inspecting each of the bandages and stitches, especially the ones on Ali's neck.
"Alive. Thanks to you," my copilot said while sitting next to me on the bed to tighten the old weighted boots she borrowed. "Nice to meet you by the way…"
"All the pleasure is mine, Ali," the girl answered. "I'm Yaanka-zeszhira. But you can call me Yaan-ze."
My human scratched me between my ears before continuing towards the chin. My purring betrayed my feelings. I wanted to stretch my legs, but I was still having a hard time unfolding them. This had one advantage: an extra piece of sandwich.
Yaan-ze withdrew, preferring to leave us alone after giving Ali an anti-radiation shot because of the reactor's recent leaks. I could speak with my sapiens who hastened to ask about our situation. I chose to comment on her new outfit instead: "On your way to a local Grease's audition, Sandy?"
"You're wearing a bow tie, fucking dweeb."
"Yes indeed. And that's a present!" I respond, adjusting my marvelous dickey. "Where did you get that dusty lamp cover?"
"In the dressing room. Someone put my suit and jacket to dry in the backyard."
"Probably Yaan-ze. Just after you fainted, these exiles from the Inner Worlds pulled us out of the swamp around the lake protecting their reactor. A few meters further on and we'd be finished. Gone forever."
I took the time to reassure Ali about the Kitty. Beek-sun and his friends were repairing her in the village's communal barn.
"A very strange tribe…" said my human.
I smiled. The companions of Yaan-ze and her brother were indeed most enigmatic. Dressed only in a layer of dry mud, they fled the Inner Worlds a couple of years ago and took refuge in this old and abandoned American colony. They were slaves in the factories of Venus; mutants who had ended up in this cluster thanks to providence.
"What's her deal?" Ali asked, pointing to a picture of Yaan-ze hanging above the straw mattress as she got up off the bed. Our host had one photo for each of the village's young people. She had positioned them around the old forty-star Stars and Stripes.
"Didn't you notice the tumors covering her back? Repeated bone cancers she cures as well she can," I replied.
"Poor guys irradiated by the Planets of Hell, eh? For sure, they discovered how to do something with their twelve fingers!"
"That's not a nice thing to say."
"I know. Sorry." Reaching the round window, she glanced outside. "Impressive infrastructure." She was talking about the hexagonal meshes forming the dome. This fantastic electromagnetic cupola protected their asylum.
Thanks to the hydroponic farms and their crops, these refugees lived in tranquility until we brought the Ceres Customs Office. It was Ali's next apprehension that I reassured the best I could: "Beeks' has observed one of the Customs's probes fly over the energetic vault a few hours ago. The asteroid cluster is dense enough to hide in. But it's only a matter of time before they see right through the subterfuge."
My sapiens let out a laugh of exhaustion. "Give me a break! They're that mad at us?"
"Ali Mary Angel Koviràn," I replied, articulating with care each syllable of her first and last names. "You ejected their captain by the Kitty's airlock."
She stammered out inaudible excuses that turned into justifications far too quickly: "—and I don't like uniforms. And I hate when corrupted goons steal my precious FIDs. And, screw you, furry ball! You were the one controlling the airlock! You spaced her!"
Slightly unimportant detail. We could debate until dinner, it didn't change the fact that the Interceptor and its corrupted crew were since asking for revenge.
"We gotta focus on basic fixes before luring them away as quickly as possible," concluded Ali, her gaze back on the miniature constellations of our host, shaped like a dove. In the Venusian dialect, Yaan-ze meant Columbia.
Fifteen minutes later, we met Beek-sun at the barn's entrance. The one-armed teenager reassured us about the repair progress. According to him, the Swallow would be functional within a few days as they had plenty of pieces to spare. The main technical problem concerned the alcoholic cooler's synthesis—the Blue—which they didn't have in stock.
He also hoped that the Interceptor had turned back. Yet, the presence of the Customs officers didn't seem to worry him much. "We're being hunted from Venus," he explained, brushing his copper hair. "That doesn't change anything in our daily life."
"I've been through this," said Ali. "And I know the need to stay hidden without simpletons blowing up our cover…"
Beek-sun tapped her shoulder with his only valid hand and reassured her: "The village doesn't see you as troublemakers at all."
A friend of the mutant, residing on the other side of the lake, but passing through the hamlet, joined us as we headed back to their home to celebrate the long-forgotten Thanksgiving. He had brought back some succulent mollusks with cobalt chitin. If Ali's right arm hadn't been restricted by the bandages, she would have devoured hers on the spot.
Besides being a rather talented mechanic, Beek-sun turned out to be a true gun fanatic. His personal collection, which he showed us after the dessert, consisted of dozens of pieces stolen here and there during his travels. I reckon that the sight of this young John Rambo, waving a baseball bat with an ammunition belt as his only clothing and a rusty ZeG-HW clipped at his stump, was quite awesome.
Yet, I preferred the company of Yaan-ze. Receiving strokes and hugs all day long greatly surpassed the testosterone demonstrations of the other two hooligans. I didn't know why, but everything was put in perspective with Yaan-ze. How nice it was to take a nap on her belly while she listened to Black Sabbath or further loud noises on her record player. Maybe I felt more like a cat and less like a bounty hunter.
"Lee! Come!" this wonderful child said one morning after we spent the night fixing the reactor's leaks.
"My dear, as you may notice, I'm still paralyzed and—" I started before she pulled me out of the bed.
"You have to see this!" she pursued as we stormed outside, right to the barn. There, she opened the doors with a big smile. "What do you think of this?"
"Sacrebleu!" I couldn't believe my eyes. The Kitty was brand-new! Because the Swallows were old UN ships, it was near impossible to find matching spare parts in most of the space highway's garages. But here, on this tiny rock lost in the middle of nowhere, mutant kids were able to restore my most precious belonging back to her former post-war glory.
"So?" asked Beek-sun, coming out of the hold through the repaired airlock's door. "What do yo—are you crying?"
I couldn't hold my tears but I had to save face in front of those dirty humans: "No. The fresh paint is tickling my nose. It's not—"
"Yaan-ze insisted on keeping this one but the coral paint is the toxic Euro-made formula. Loaded with lead," Beek-sun explained. "We can still swap with the American blue—could be really badass!"
"Don't you dare remove the pink coating!" his sister intervened.
"Thi—this one is fine," I mumbled. The coral paint was the Kitty's soul. Even Ali's dad feared to change it.
"Sure! You're the boss, tomcat!" Beek-sun concluded while putting back on his protective mask.
On the following evening, as the last load of Blue was being synthesized in the garage, Ali and I were resting by the still radioactive lake, listening to Yaan-ze playing on her roll-up silicone piano. A light mist embraced the orange sand shores. The bank was tinged red with the tiny waves caused by the changes in the reactor cycles.
"Tell me Yaan-ze," said Ali, properly cleaning Beeks-sun's rusty ZeG-HW. "Are you the youngest? I haven't seen any children in the village."
"That's because mutants can't breed," replied the teenager. "Chemical castration ordered by our masters from the Moon. And the reactor's radiation isn't helping either."
"Damn Lunar Gods! They're insane!" Ali protested. "But what will become of the colony?"
Yaan-ze then had an explanation that broke our hearts: "Nothing. But it doesn't matter. Our life expectancy is succinct anyway. I could close my eyes on a shiny afternoon and never wake up…"
"Whether the Techno-Police or the Customs come to kill us tonight or tomorrow for a reward won't make any difference to us. We're free and happy! It might as well end this way," said Beek-sun, who joined us after spending an hour washing his hands because of the fresh paint. He then handed a slice of pumpkin pie he brought from the kitchen to Ali who, against all odds, refused. To be honest, I didn't have an appetite either.
"Stop talking about that, Beek! You're spoiling the atmosphere!" Yaan-ze intervened before rolling up her musical instrument. "Come, Lee! Let's keep working on the reactor, shall we? I also found an old collection of vinyl records in a big box cart!"
Box cart! I loved box carts!
I agreed as I also liked working along with this sharp-witted little human. However, this bucolic interlude reminded me of Yggdrasil. And that, I didn't like it.
As always, my cat's sixth sense was right. Despite the village's best efforts, the Kitty wasn't ready in time. On the sixth day, the menacing Interceptor entered the artificial environment. Its turbines tore off roofs and plantations on the outskirts of the hamlet.
Yaan-ze, with whom I had gone to filter water from the ice well, quickly brought me back inside. My partner arrived shortly afterwards, telling us that Beek-sun had disappeared to fetch some weapons from his storeroom.
"They can't know you're here," Yaan-ze said, covering up the deafening noise that made the walls vibrate. "We'll try to keep them away." Her brother had returned with several of his friends. He had only been able to grab a simple revolver and his baseball bat. "I'm sure we can negotiate like we did the last time scavengers came," Yaan-ze argued. "Hide here and trust us." The teenager stroked my cheek and winked at me. I could only stay there, still immobilized in this velvet cushion.
Ali immediately took me upstairs where Yaan-ze's room was. With my nose glued to the round window, we watched the scene. I've never been so scared in my entire life. And I didn't even know why… unless, maybe… I really liked Yaan-ze.
"An NCO we've never seen with half a dozen grunts," Ali counted. "There must be at least that many inside the ship."
"Their Falcon looks badly damaged," I remarked. "The communication system is barely holding up, the reactor's running dry and their main machine guns are definitely out of action…"
"Yeah. The crew, though…"
All of them wore a personal armored red suit and a war rifle. These lobsters thought they were real soldiers. Nervousness moved up a rung when the tribe had finished gathering around the ship. Each Customs officer held the mutant he was facing at gunpoint.
Yaan-ze intervened. The commander of the Interceptor approached her. While keeping her older brother away from her bayonet, this fake soldier caressed the teenage girl's cheekbone. Her disgusting smile turned my stomach and Ali noticed it.
"She told us to trust her," she said despite the stress I felt in her voice. "We nee—"
A shot rang out. The mutants were promptly repelled with a salvo fired at their feet. Beek-sun was jostled by a Customs officer and kicked in the nose with a rifle butt.
Hell! Yaan-ze was on the ground. Motionless.
"Ali! Quick!" I cried.
My partner bolted down the stairs. But when we were back outside, the ship was distant in the sky and had crossed the border of the dome.
"Too late!" Ali said.
Beek-sun was crouched on the floor, fondling his sister's hair. With his face turned towards the firmament, he cursed the stars. His warm tears were falling into the sand. Where the blood hadn't yet flowed, they dyed it red.
"They understood that you were in the colony!" One of his friends informed us. "Knowing you to be dangerous, they asked us to go looking for you to hand you over… and she refused."
"They killed her…" I meowed.
"Everything's going to be okay…" Beek-sun said before grabbing my legs then holding me tight. It was the first time he'd ever done that. The need for a hug, though, was mutual.
"I'm sorry," Ali apologized, taking the words out of my mouth.
Behind Beek-sun, the body of the young mutant was delicately carried to her home by her companions.
"What did I tell you yesterday? It doesn't—" Beek-sun interrupted a sob before resuming: "It doesn't matter. Yaan-ze died here, under this beautiful dome, defending her friends. Isn't that nobler than perishing from a lymphoma in Venus's nickel vats?"
"We'll help you get rid of these scumbags," my copilot swore.
Beek-sun refused with a wave of his hand. "No. From what I understand, they don't know your identity. Take the opportunity to leave or you will be poached too for the rest of your life!"
To hell with humans' pride in this system!
"Is the Kitty functional enough?" my partner asked curtly.
Beek-sun put me on the ground before answering: "Affirmative! Brand-new and in much better condition than the smoking wreck of these guys…"
"So, let's get these rascals away from here," she said. "It won't be easy, but it's a fight we can win, unlike a shoot-out in the middle of the village. It's our fault. We will try to fix it."
"It's a farewell I guess…" Beek-sun noted, hugging us
Back in the house, I said goodbye to Yaan-ze. It was hard but I owed her that.