Otters in space 3, p.3
Otters In Space 3, page 3
"You'd be better with a bodyguard," Trudith said.
"I'm meeting Captain Cod, Trugger, and Emily in Ecuador. You met Trugger. He won't let anything happen to me."
Trudith looked skeptical.
Trugger may have been big compared to Kipper, but he was substantially smaller than Trudith. Kipper didn't dare suggest that he was as loyal as Trudith. That would only insult her.
"Look, I'm only going down to the Galapagos to talk to the octopi. I'm not going to Jupiter to fight raptors or anything."
Trudith gave Kipper a pained look. She may not have been the smartest dog, but she was was bright enough to see through that: just because Kipper was going to the Galapagos first didn't mean she wouldn't take off and fight raptors before she came back. Before she saw Trudith again. Or her littermates. Or the kittens.
Kipper's head felt light. Trudith must have seen her distress, because she suddenly found herself in the middle of a giant bear hug. Dog hug. Warm black furred arms held her.
"I'll be fine," Kipper said, voice shaking.
Trudith pulled away, looked at Kipper, and finally nodded, flopping her ears. "You'll be fine," she said. It was what Kipper needed her to say. So she said it.
The plane boarded on time, and Kipper left behind a strangely still Trudith -- no wagging tail, just set jowls. The image of her black lab mutt friend standing there, watching her leave, stayed with Kipper as she boarded the plane, stowed her duffel bag below her seat, and finally settled into the stiff, uncomfortable airplane seat.
She couldn't shake the sensation of loss, a growing void that was usually filled by everything in her life on Earth. But she was leaving it all behind. That space inside her felt empty.
Kipper pulled her hind feet up onto the airplane seat and curled her tail around her haunches. The seat was uncomfortable, but she was glad that it wasn't too small. A particularly large St. Bernard woman on the other side of the aisle had to struggle to fit into her seat at all. Her head kept hitting the ceiling and bumping the little buttons to turn on the light or air conditioning, and no matter how she folded her long, thick legs, they looked horribly cramped.
That was one advantage of being a cat. Airplane seats were never too small.
Kipper had a window seat, and she watched the city below shrink down to a toy model as the plane rose into the sky, flying south. She kept watching the Earth slide by outside her window, rich green mottled with the geometrical tan shapes of farms and cities, until they reached the ocean. Kipper couldn't handle looking at that much water, so she drew the shade on her window and fell asleep.
Kipper slept through dinner. She didn't miss much. Crunchy breaded chicken on an airplane couldn't compare to fresh seafood in a chowder house at the beach. It was night when she awoke. She lifted the shade on her window and saw only black outside. The ocean was down there, but she didn't have to see it anymore.
As the plane approached South America, Kipper started to feel excited about her journey. It was a small feeling at first -- mild anticipation at the idea of seeing her otter friends again. Kipper found herself wondering what kind of vessel Captain Cod had chartered to take them down to octopus city in the Galapagos. Would it be an octopus vessel filled with water? Would she have to wear SCUBA gear for days without break? Would she be able to sleep like that if she had to?
What she was feeling was fear. But fear is a lot like excitement. They feel the same sometimes. Two sides of the same anxiety.
The flat black darkness outside Kipper's window split in half as the growing glow of the approaching sun defined an edge. Gray ocean, so large that Kipper thought she could see it curve, hid the sun. But the sky hollowed out in the sun's light, pale and white fading all the way to blue as deep as black. The sky was open. The ocean was shut. But Kipper was going to break into it.
She felt like a different cat than the one who had boarded the plane. She still missed her family, but it was a feeling contained, as if it had been put into a locket, close to her heart but locked away. It didn't consume her. There was room inside her for other things.
Captain Cod met Kipper at the airport. He was a big otter with a broad chest and whiskery face. He wore his linen vest open, showing his coarse brown fur, and turquoise bangles on his short arms.
He bounced on his webbed toes, and his face lit up in a wide smile when he saw Kipper. "Leapin' lamprey, Kipper! I've never been happier to lose a bet." He took her purple duffel bag and led her out of the airport to a taxi. They got in, and Captain Cod instructed the squirrel driver to take them to the docks.
Once the car started moving, Kipper said, "What bet?"
Captain Cod chewed on his whiskers like he didn't want to answer Kipper. "Oh, I just bet that you'd stay in the Uplifted States with your family. It didn't seem like you'd be coming back to us. I owe Trugger a pound of candied clams."
In honesty, Kipper hadn't been sure whether she would come back to the Jolly Barracuda either. She'd meant to -- but then she'd gotten caught up in Alistair's new position and Petra's kittens. It was easier on Earth where the air was air instead of highly oxygenated liquid.
In fact, she still wasn't sure that she was going back to the Jolly Barracuda. She had an important mission -- only she could tell the octopi how much they had to fight for. But that didn't mean she had to go back to the Jolly Barracuda and space adventures when her oceanic mission was over.
Yet, she felt hurt that Captain Cod had doubted her. It didn't matter that he was right to. It still hurt.
"I guess Trugger knows you better than I do," Captain Cod said.
Kipper muttered something non-committal.
"You're probably really tired?" Captain Cod said, suddenly looking her over much too carefully. "You can sleep on the submarine."
"Will it have air?" Kipper asked.
Captain Cod laughed and shook his head. Kipper couldn't tell if he was shaking his head in amusement or saying that the submarine wouldn't have air. She couldn't bring herself to press the point.
Kipper watched the shining city of Guayaquil slide by outside the taxi's window. It was a beautiful city, and she never had time to really explore it. She was always on her way elsewhere, in a hurry, when she came through. "Are we taking off right away?" she asked.
"Do pigeons wish they were penguins?" Captain Cod looked as if he thought his riddle answered everything.
Kipper flattened her ears. "What?" She was out of practice with Captain Cod's metaphors.
"Of course they do! Wouldn't you rather swim than fly?"
"No...?"
Captain Cod shook his head again. This time in bemusement. "Silly cat. Swimming's always best."
Kipper sighed. She could see the docks already out the car window. "Look, can we... I mean, I've never seen anything of Guayaquil. Could we go somewhere? Get breakfast at a restaurant or see some sort of tourist sight before we go under the ocean?"
The cab pulled over, and the squirrel driver looked into the backseat. She looked Kipper up and down with her dark, sparkling eyes. Her red-furred face was tiny and pointed. She was smaller than any cat or dog Kipper had ever known.
"You're that hero cat, aren't you? The savior of Europa?" the squirrel said in a surprisingly deep, mellifluous voice. From such a tiny person, Kipper expected a high, squeaky voice, but Captain Cod's voice was actually much squeakier.
Kipper nodded.
"We don't see a lot of cats around here. I bet you don't see a lot of squirrels where you come from?"
Kipper had never spoken to a squirrel in person, but she said, "I went to a squirrel restaurant on Deep Sky Anchor once. I ate nut-mash."
Captain Cod groaned. "Trugger didn't drag you to that dive, did he?"
The red squirrel rolled her eyes -- Kipper wasn't sure if it was at her or the captain. "Let me drive you through Cedar Heights."
"Tree Town?" Captain Cod complained.
The squirrel grimaced at him and said, "Cedar Heights. It'll take half an hour." She turned her gaze back to Kipper. "If you're interested in eating real sciuridae cuisine -- not the stuff made to appeal to the otters on the space station -- I can point you toward a good restaurant there."
Kipper hadn't been crazy about the nut-mash, and she suspected that otter food, in general, appealed to her more than squirrel food would. While squirrels weren't actually herbivores, they kept mostly to plant matter and insects.
Still, Kipper liked the idea of seeing more of Guayaquil. She turned to Captain Cod and said, "Half an hour. The submarine can wait half an hour. Can't it?"
Captain Cod pointed out the cab's window at the docks. "See the one with the orange stripe?"
There were boats lined up with sails and rigging, but Captain Cod's claw pointed at the smooth metal hull of a submarine bobbing at the surface of the water at the far end of the dock. A simple steel gray fin with a single orange stripe poked out of the smooth metal. It was the only submarine at the dock, orange stripe or not.
"Sure," Kipper said.
"I'll start getting the submarine prepped. You go have fun." He handed a wad of cash to the squirrel driver. "Have her back at the docks in an hour."
The squirrel picked through the cash, flattening the bills out. She found several clam chews in plastic wrappers mixed in with the cash and handed those back to Captain Cod.
"You're not coming?" Kipper asked.
"I've seen Tree Town," he said. "But our driver here --"
He looked at the squirrel and waited until she offered her name: "Tamantha."
"Tamantha will take good care of you. Won't she?"
The squirrel finished flattening out the cash with her tiny paws and looked satisfied. She stuffed the money in her pocket. "Sure will," she said. After Captain Cod got out, she said to Kipper, "Why don't you come sit up front with me?"
As Kipper strapped herself into the front seat, she noticed that Tamantha had her seat adjusted all the way forward. Even so, it still looked like she had to stretch to reach the gas and brake pedals. Kipper wasn't used to feeling big, but next to Tamantha, she did.
"I've seen you on the news," Tamantha said, driving the taxi away from the dock again. "You're the cat who saved Europa."
Kipper's ears flattened in embarrassed modesty, and she looked out the window, away from Tamantha. "I guess so."
"And now you're planning to board a submarine? You're quite the adventurer."
Kipper didn't bite. She didn't feel like talking about herself. Instead she asked, "What can you do in Cedar Heights in less than an hour?"
Tamantha laughed sharply. "What can you do in any city in less than an hour? Not a lot. I'll give you a driving tour and take you to one or two of the best shops. Sound good?"
The buildings outside grew taller and narrower as Tamantha drove farther inland.
"It's better than getting straight into a submarine," Kipper said. "How will I know when we get to Cedar Heights?"
"You mean, will there be gleaming silver arches like intertwining tree limbs that rise over the street? Something like that?"
Kipper felt silly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..." She didn't even know what she'd accidentally implied, but Tamantha's tone had been sarcastic. Then she saw the exact arches that Tamantha had described. The sun really did gleam in their twisting metal branches. "That's beautiful." She craned her neck to keep looking at the silver arches as they drove under them.
"The otters may call it Tree Town," Tamantha said. "But Cedar Heights isn't a ghetto. It's a really nice part of Guayaquil."
Beyond the silver arches, the buildings were narrow enough that four of them fit in the space a single building usually filled. They stretched upward so high that Kipper couldn't see their tops from inside the car. All the buildings had stairs on the outside, lacing back and forth like fire escapes. Except these stairs were unusually steep, almost ladders, and they were clearly meant for every day use. Squirrels raced up and down them as quickly as the otters in space swam through the rivers on Deep Sky Anchor.
"I think I like Tree Town," Kipper said. She hated swimming, but she loved climbing.
Tamantha didn't say anything, but she made a dismissive chirruping sound.
"I mean, Cedar Heights," Kipper corrected herself. "Sorry."
Was Cedar Heights the place Kipper should have been looking for when she went on her search for Cat Havana? Why in the hell was she about to let a bunch of otters drag her down to the octopus oligarchy when there was a whole squirrel culture here for her to explore?
Never mind the raptors flying in from Jupiter. Kipper sighed.
Tamantha told Kipper about the buildings that they passed -- apartment complexes, business centers, banks, and restaurants. All the normal sorts of buildings that any city has. Then Tamantha pulled the taxi over to the curb, parked, and said, "We're getting out here."
Chapter 6: Kipper
Kipper followed Tamantha down a path between two of the towering buildings. Red and gray-furred squirrels passed by, their movements sudden and jerky. The way they moved -- stopping and starting -- made Kipper feel twitchy. Yet, their tails flowed smooth as rivers.
Behind the row of buildings that faced the street, there was a pedestrian square, surrounded by cafe awnings and outdoor seating. Squirrels in wicker chairs chattered and dined on crunchy-looking pastries. Ladders and open-air skywalks laced through the space above them.
In the center of the square stood a gray rock statue. It took Kipper a moment to recognize the central figure -- it was taller than a Great Dane and had a knobbly face, no muzzle, and head-fur piled high in complicated braids. A human woman, Kipper realized, wrought from stone. The woman was wearing simple clothes, and her arms were outstretched. Stone animals clustered around her.
A hulking bear stood behind the human. A mouse perched on her left shoulder, and a rat on her right. A bunny, fox, and badger stood like stair steps to the woman's right -- knee high, Kipper-sized, and waist-high. Each of them stared adoringly up at the human.
A stone otter with a wide grin stood to the woman's left, and in front of them all, a life-sized squirrel stood proudly with its tail wide and bushy behind it.
Kipper walked up to the statue and read the bronze plaque at the squirrel statue's feet: "To strive for betterment in all ways, for everyone, for all time -- uplift is but another step in the string of small and great steps of our kind -- all our kinds," Breanna Schweitzer, Bio-Ethics Blog, 2031.
"Who is Breanna Schweitzer?" Kipper asked. "Is it this human?"
Tamantha came up beside her, nose twitching. "You don't know her?" The squirrel cab driver's sparkling eyes showed shock. "Haven't you studied any history?"
Kipper's ears flattened as she thought back to the history classes she'd taken during her kittenhood in the cattery. They'd studied humans, but she didn't remember much. At least, nothing specific. She'd always pictured humans as a force of history, faceless and many, much like a force of nature. They'd fought wars, invented things, travelled to the moon, uplifted cats, dogs, otters, and squirrels. And, according to so many believing dogs, they would be back someday.
Humans were a massive they.
This was a singular she. An individual person.
"I never learned about a Breanna Schweitzer," Kipper admitted. "Was she important?"
The red squirrel stared slack-jawed at Kipper for a moment before pulling herself together and fixing her expression. "I'm sorry; I can't imagine never having heard of Breanna Schweitzer. She..." Tamantha paused, as if looking for the right words. Or perhaps because the right words were so fundamental to her worldview it felt ridiculous to have to say them. "She invented uplift."
Kipper looked back at the statue and stared into the stone woman's unblinking eyes.
As a cattery kitten, Kipper had never known her parents, but she felt like she'd just been handed an old, ragged photograph and told, "Here, this is your mother." What could she learn about herself by searching this stone woman's face? There must be something.
But the eyes were blank, gray, static. The face was human -- even if it was the face of a woman who'd manipulated genes passed down through the generations to Kipper, there could be no physical trace of their connection in the granite cut of this woman's cheekbones or the slope of her nose.
Kipper looked at the animals around the woman more carefully. She understood the presence of the grinning otter and proud squirrel. But why the mouse, rat, bunny, fox, badger, and bear? And, more importantly, Kipper wondered why wasn't there a cat? Or a dog?
"She has an unusual collection of animals with her," Kipper commented drily, trying not to feel offended by the lack of a cat. "I notice they're all standing upright."
"These are the species Breanna Schweitzer uplifted." Tamantha spoke so matter-of-factly that Kipper felt a fool for bringing the subject up. "I mean, I know that badgers, foxes, and rabbits died off after the first generation... And there was only ever one uplifted bear. But Teddy Bearclaw was an uplifted bear, even if he was the only one."
Kipper's ears skewed, and her understanding of history morphed and telescoped confusingly. She'd never heard of uplifted badgers, foxes, or rabbits. Or a bear named Teddy Bearclaw -- that name sounded more like a joke, cloyingly sweet, than an historical figure. Was this squirrel playing a practical joke on her? Telling her tall tales? "What are you talking about?!" Kipper spat.
Tamantha's red brush of a tail twitched wildly behind her, curling and uncurling. She took a step backward, away from the angry-looking cat. Kipper looked around the square and realized Tamantha wasn't the only squirrel watching her. Pointed red and gray muzzles faced her, glittery eyes watching with horror, from several of the cafes. A few squirrels even stared downward from the skywalks above.
Kipper had never been the largest animal in a crowd before. She wasn't much bigger than the squirrels -- maybe a head taller -- but from hanging out around terriers, spaniels, and all sorts of medium-sized dogs, Kipper knew that it didn't take much bigger to be a lot. "I'm sorry," Kipper said. "I didn't mean to raise my voice."
