The mysterious object, the size of a small house, was now immobile and glowing with a lesser intensity.
It was looking like an egg laid by some kind of giant fiery bird, or maybe like a strange enormous phosphorescent mushroom that had grown in less than a second in the middle of the woods.
Angie got down of the car, took Eugene in her arms and started walking towards the spacecraft. She forgot about the creepy sound she heard just before of something moving in the dark woods. That luminous apparition had dispelled all her fear.
She was still at some distance when she first saw the silhouette of a man appearing somehow next to the spaceship. Then, it was the small contour of a familiar feline creature that came out next to the man. And finally, five other small cat silhouettes.
The man started running towards Angie. She recognized Marvin who met her midway and hugged her and the baby.
"I'm so relieved. The plan worked!" said Angie. "And Fluffy finally found her space crew."
"Yes. It worked." answered Marvin softly.
"But I thought you were in detention in London."
"I was. But they came to rescue me." He pointed his thumb towards the space cats that were now catching up.
Angie greeted Fluffy : "Hi my kitty! See, Eugene? I told you that you could see her again. Say hello."
"Hello Fluffy!" said Eugene.
"Hi!" answered the cat goddess.
"Don't worry." continued Marvin. "I will tell you the whole story in detail later. Anyway, it's good you came. You've received our dream-message. We were not sure"
"I have. But couldn't you just give me a call instead of sending dream-messages?"
"It was impossible. We were orbiting the Earth at a high altitude. Wouldn't have worked. And moreover, the police kept my phone, goddammit…So, dream-messages, as usual."
"So, you were orbiting the Earth inside this thing? How is it inside?"
"Oh that's awesome! You should see this. It's by far the most amazing thing I have ever lived. That's so cool!"
"Oh wow, Daddy! Can I go inside too?"
"Yes. Actually you'll go too."
"Oh yay! So kewl! I want to go inside!"
Marvin leaned towards Angie saying "I'm still not used with him being able to speak!"
"I know!" She laughed. "Lots of amazing stuff these days…"
Then she looked at the other cats. They were all dressed in some sort of light space suits adapted to their feline bodies.
"So, will you introduce our new friends? These, I suppose, are the members of the famous Golden Fleet?"
"Exactly!" said Marvin. "Here is Nero, the pilot."
Nero bowed solemnly. He was a short-haired black cat. On his forehead he was wearing some kind of metallic golden Egyptian-style beetle.
"Then" continued Marvin "here we have Ruby, the copilot. It's a she."
Ruby was a small white female cat with her right eye amber-colored and her left eye blue.
Fluffy took over from Marvin and continued the introduction: "This is Topi, our military expert."
He was brown with black ears and a black patch around his right eye.
"This is Parker…" continued Fluffy. "Our mechanic and telecommunications engineer."
Parker was a chubby short-legged orange cat with black stripes. He was wearing round welding goggles raised above his eyes, on his forehead.
"Hi there! I'm Parker cat!" he said with a friendly tone.
"And finally…" said Fluffy "Here is Pebbles, our official poet."
Pebbles was a Persian cat with grey long hair and enigmatic green eyes.
"A poet?" asked Angie. "I wouldn't have thought of poetry as being an essential skill for space travel. Of course, I'm just ignorant about these things, I mean no offense to you, Pebbles."
"None taken." answered the wise Persian cat.
Marvin said "I've thought the same at the beginning. But apparently it's in fact a very important skill."
"Now" started Fluffy mildly "I'm sorry to interrupt. But we'll have to get ready soon. We've solved all the issues. It is near the time for the great departure…"
"I know." answered Angie. "Eugene has to go with you…"
After a short hesitation, Angie added:
"But… I was thinking about something…"
"What is it?"
"Well, if Marvin has just flown with you in your spaceship, why couldn't we actually come with you? I mean, we don't have to let Eugene go alone. Marvin and me, we could also come with you and Eugene to your galaxy! I wouldn't mind it, actually."
"I'm sorry, that's not possible." answered Fluffy.
"Why not?"
"Because, you see, we have to travel a very long distance. Such a long distance that you can't even begin to imagine it. So, we need to go fast if we don't want it to take forever. Right? Now, to reach high velocities we need to be able to accelerate strongly when we depart from Earth. The problem is that the higher the mass of the object you want to accelerate, the higher the amount of energy you have to spend. The amount of energy we need is proportional to the velocity squared multiplied by the mass. So, to reach a very high velocity, we need lots of energy. Our spaceship is powerful, but not infinitely powerful. You have to understand that every additional kilogram will be a major burden and will slow us down."
"I see…" said Angie.
"Two human adults as additional passengers would constitute a considerable gain of mass. Now, think that the combined weight of all the cats of the crew, including myself, is still less than your weight. This is also one of the reasons we always chose to incarnate as cats. We are in fact spiritual, immaterial, weightless beings. But since we have to come down to material worlds, we have to incarnate as material beings. Cats are beautiful, and their body is very light. Do you understand now?"
"Well, that might be true…" intervened Topi, the military guy, "Although Parker's body is actually not that light."
"Oh, shut up you idiot!" answered Parker, the orange cat.
"Moreover…" continued Fluffy, undisturbed by the all the fuss between the other cats, "If we also take into account the quantity of food we would need in order to sustain you and Marvin during the entire travel… Forget about it. It's not doable. I'm sorry."
"I understand." replied Angie.
"Hum…" started Marvin "This is also the reason why you want to take him while he's still a baby. Because he doesn't weigh much."
"Exactly."
"All right" said Angie. "Anyway, I'm at peace with the idea of letting Eugene go. But, speaking of food… How are you going to eat? And my baby? 'Cause I've brought some powdered milk, and also diapers, and…"
"Don't worry. We've got plenty of food stored in the pantry inside the Egg (this is how we call our spaceship for obvious reasons). So, we've got enough food. For us, cat dry food and cans of pâté. For the baby tons of milk powder. And we've got a machine to synthesize water. He won't lack anything."
"All right. But I also brought some of your cheese-flavored snacks. The ones you love…"
"Oh, the cheese-flavored ones…" Fluffy seemed pleased. "I must admit we don't have those in the Fluffy galaxy. And I can't get enough of them. So… I guess… Thank you."
Now, they all knew that the time had come.
It was with some emotion that Marvin and Angie hugged Milky again.
It is true, though, that while they were all speaking together, none of them had noticed that some kind of shadow, some kind of indistinct dark shape that came out of the woods, had been lurking silently around the ovoidal spaceship.