Anyway, I had better things to do with my time. I marched right over to Pete. “What are you grinning about, Kitty?”
I didn’t wait to hear his answer. I wasn’t interested in his answer. I barked in his face and ran him up the nearest tree. It served him right. And he needed the exercise. I’d noticed that he was getting fat.
And besides, chasing him up a tree made me feel much better.
I left the Wood Butchers, hiked over to the gas tanks, and flopped down on my gunnysack. Drover was already there—had been there most of the day, in fact, sleeping his life away.
It was a warm, rather lazy afternoon, and it wasn’t long until I began to notice that my eyelids were . . . snork murk . . . exhausted from the rigor mortis of protecting the . . . skonk snirk . . .
Okay, maybe I dozed off, but I deserved a rest.
I had just pulled three shifts in a row and had put in, oh, eighteen or twenty hours straight—and we’re talking no breaks, no sleep, no nothing but rigors and exhausting work.
I was totally wiped out. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have fallen asnork in the middle of the afternork.
Drover was making his usual orchestra of noises: grunting, wheezing, yipping. He’s the noisiest sleeper I ever met. Oh, and he also quivers and jerks in his sleep, and sometimes his eyelids fall open and you can see his eyeballs rolling around.
I didn’t happen to be looking at his eyeballs because I was deeply involved in a delicious dream about . . . mercy! The lovely Miss Beulah, girl of my dreams, woman of my life, the world’s most gorgeous . . .
I almost said “collie gal,” but our use of the word “collie” is still under tight security, don’t you see, and I didn’t say it. Sorry.
Where were we? Oh yes. Pete came along just then and ruined my dream by slapping my tail with his paw.
Why does he do such things? Well, he’s a cat and cats get some kind of twisted pleasure out of tormenting things, such as birds, lizards, mice, and dog tails.
I knew he was there but tried to ignore him, hoping he might go away. You see, I knew that if I gave him my full attention, I would have to give up my dreams of Beulah and I wasn’t ready for that.
Hence, when he slapped at my tail, I moved it ever so slightly to the south. Did that stop him? Did he take a hint? Did he care that the Head of Ranch Security was trying to recharge his precious bodily fluids and get ready for another drooling night on Life’s Front Lines?
Grueling, I should say.
Oh no. Since my tail had moved, that proved that it was attached to some living object that he could torment, which made him want to slap it again.
So he slapped it again, a little harder this time, and I moved it again, with a bit more vigor, and I’m sure that made his sneaky little cat eyes grow wide with delight—although I couldn’t see them because mine were closed.
And he slapped it again, only this time he introduced claws into the equation. How foolish of him. I can be broadminded about a cat who slaps my tail around with his paws, but add claws and it changes the deal entirely.
Do you know why? BECAUSE IT HURTS, that’s why. My tail is a very sensitive piece of equipment. It’s not a brick or a tree root or a piece of windmill pipe. If you prick it, it will bleed. If you stab it, it will hurt. If you step on it, it will bring forth yelps of pain and sorrow.
Hencely, as the sharp little impulses of pain began pouring into Data Control, my eyelids began to quiver and a ferocious growl began to rumble in the deep recessitudes of my throat.
My head came up. My ears shot up to Full Alert Position. Okay, one of them did while the other went sideways into the Huh? Position.
My eyes sprang open and I saw . . . not much, actually, just a large blur. It’s the sort of image we get when our scanning devices are focused at conflicting angles. In the Security Business, we sometimes refer to this as Temporary Eye-Crosserosis.
It usually occurs when a dog comes roaring out of a deep sleep, opens his eyes, and tries to figure out whether it’s raining or Tuesday.
I know this is pretty heavy technical stuff, but it will give you a little glimpse at how life is lived on the other side of the Veil of Secrecy. Over there, where we live, life is always real but never real simple.
Where was I? Oh yes, the tree. I had just banged my head against . . . forget the tree. I had come roaring out of a deep dark sleep and just for a brief instant my eyes were crossed and my brain was in Scrambled Mode, but that lasted only the briefest of instants.
And suddenly I exclaimed, “Purple hominy regardless of feathered turnip greens and darkest porkchop!”
Then an image came into focus: the face of a cat, the face of a grinning cat who was smirking. The pieces of the puzzle began falling into place and suddenly I exclaimed, “Is this the eighth floor?”
The image of the alleged cat shook his head, and then he said in a whiny voice, “Hi, Hankie. Were you sleeping on the job?”
At that very moment, Data Control kicked in at full blast and I received a very important transmission: It was neither raining nor Tuesday. It was Pete the Barncat.
I glared at the little snipe with eyes of purest steel.
“Okay, Kitty, let’s get right to the point. We’ve just learned that there’s a porkchop on the eighth floor, and don’t bother denying it. We’ve followed the trail of turnip greens and it leads . . .”
I cut my eyes from side to side. All at once what I was saying didn’t make a great deal of sense. I shot a glance back to the cat. Had he noticed? I had to find out how much he knew.
“Pete, do you know anything about this porkchop deal?”
He grinned and shook his head. “No, I don’t, Hankie, but I would just love to hear about it. Tell me about the porkchop on the eighth floor.”
I marched a few steps away and took a deep breath of . . . well, air, of course. What else would . . . anyway, it seemed to clear my head.
“I’m sorry, Pete, but I’m not at liberty to discuss a case in progress. Our files are not open to the public, and they’re especially not open to public cats.”
“Mmmmmm! It must have been very secret.”
“Exactly. It was so secret, in fact, that if I revealed even one particle of information, I would have to arrest you for being in possession of Dangerous Particles of Information.”
“Oooooooo! My goodness, Hankie, how do you carry all that dangerous information around in your head?”
I could see that he was impressed. He should have been. Maybe he wasn’t as dumb as I had thought. I marched back over to where he was sitting.
“That’s a good question, Kitty. Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to say any more about our techniques for gathering and storing intelligence data. Sorry.”
“Oh darn.” He stared at me with those weird yellowish eyes with the little slit down the middle. “I was so eager to learn more about the porkchop on the eighth floor.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, Hankie, that’s what you said when you,” he grinned, “woke up from your nap during working hours.”
Perhaps you’re thinking that all of this sounds slightly ridiculous, but it’s leading up to something very important. You see, in the course of the conversation, Pete revealed . . . well, you’ll find out soon enough.
It had to do with