The Time of The Cat 49
BREAKING OUT?
An hour later, we were beginning to doubt that our plan would work. It seemed like they had no curiosity. Nothing was happening. We speculated that the door was completely broken or that they had a view screen on the other side and could see us. We were also getting tired of holding the metal plate in place, even though we alternated periodically.
The sergeant said, “Look, if they can see us, they’d open the door right away and pitch a grenade through. That would take care of us with no problem.”
We thought about it and realized that he was probably correct. They couldn’t use one of the anti-matter bombs because it would amount to massive overkill, but it was unimaginable that they didn’t have other, less powerful explosive devices. So, we were still left waiting.
“I hope the Air Force pilot gets some action with his commanding officer, and they manage to get the airborne laser into play. The country couldn’t take an EMP burst,” Joe looked agitated.
He continued, “There’s been no decent leadership in Washington for years. Just look at the mess the Feds have made of weather-caused disasters. They can’t do anything but spend money on useless actions. I think those hundreds of mobile homes that FEMA ordered for that hurricane are still rotting away in some field somewhere.”
Joe didn’t have a good impression of our government. Actually, he was so independent that he despised all government, claiming that there had to be a better way for humans to live together. I considered his position for a moment. From the mess our leaders had made of the world, it appeared that he was mostly justified.
The room was getting hotter and more humid with our breathing, and that was compounded by the amount of heat radiating from the rocks that I’d exposed. I felt them, and they were warm to the touch.
“I think we must be a fair distance underground here. The rocks are warm,” I said.
Rudy responded, “You might be right, or we might be just under the surface, and the sun might be heating up the rocks.”
“Wait. It was night when we came in here. What time is it now?” Liz asked.
Rudy looked at his watch, “We’ve been in here an hour and twenty-seven minutes. They’re probably not coming through.”
We were all sweating, and the air was getting positively moist from our breath. Things didn’t seem as clear-cut as I remembered. I was feeling mentally foggy when I suddenly realized that we were suffering from a lack of oxygen.
“One of us has to go back through the transporter to the mountainside and then come back in. That way, we can transport a load of fresh air into this sweat box,” I said.
“I’ll go,” said the sergeant.
He stepped back to the transporter to Estes Park and pushed the button. The door popped open, releasing a Pug-bear right on top of him. He didn’t have a chance. It ripped his head right off his shoulders, and his blood splattered all over the room. A terrible wave of fear passed over us as he died, and I felt the urge to simply lie down in front of the creature.
The alien thing was fully adult and terrifically strong. It threw his body directly at me, knocking me down and taking the metal wall with me as I fell backward. The eraser-gun skidded over to the side of the room. The shock cleared my mind of the fear and left me able to act. I scrambled and rolled, desperately stretching to reach it.
Liz, Rudy, and Joe were firing away with their splinter guns at the thing as it slipped about in the blood from our friend, its claws digging for traction. That slip gave them the chance they needed to shoot a second round of splinters. One of the shots happened to go right down the alien’s gullet as it opened its fangs. The effect was the same as when I shot the one in the cage in the row house. The creature practically exploded internally. Fluid gushed out of the spiracles on its carapace, and it collapsed into a twitching hulk on the floor.
I shakily regained my feet while Liz tried to calm the hysterical cat. I recovered the eraser-gun and handed it to her. She took it in one hand as she distractedly stroked Jefferson, who was yowling as he stood against the wall.
Together, Rudy, Joe, Stormbreaker, and I laboriously replaced the piece of metal and reconstructed our ambush. The only good that came of the sergeant’s death was that we now had a transporter full of fresh air that had been released into our cubical.
We settled down to wait again. After a while, I decided that I’d better let in another load of fresh air. This time, I opened the rear transporter door myself with the eraser-gun pointing at the ready.
Nothing came through but some fresh Rocky Mountain air, naturally air-conditioned by Mother Nature. It was downright frosty, and Rudy said, “Global warming is a crock! I’m cold.”
Stormbreaker replied, “Those people who think that humans can change the global climate probably also think that the Earth shakes when they let a fart!”
We all laughed at the idea. Encouraged, he continued in a more sober vein.
“The Great Spirit makes all things work in cycles. We understand some of them, like the peak in rabbit population every seven years. It’s always followed by a die-off, and in the eighth year, you can’t hardly find a rabbit anywhere,” he paused and looked at us seriously. “If I thought like those people do, I’d be placing the rabbit on the endangered species list and forbidding hunting. It’s a good thing the rabbits don’t think that way. They get to humping other rabbits like they do, and the population builds up again so that the foxes and coyotes and hawks and owls have good years and build up their population. Everything is interrelated with cycles.”
He looked at the still closed transporter door, then started again, “I’ll bet that there is some kind of relationship between us and the Pugs, if we only understood...”
As he spoke, the damaged door opened, and we started shooting for all we were worth. The transporter was full of Pugs.