Cat's Cradle

A story by WerePuppy, copyright 2000



Chapter One:  The Theory


"Traveling through hyper-space ain't like dusting crops, boy."

Ma'ku allowed a fleeting smile to tug at the edges of his muzzle recalling the quote
so ancient, its origins were unknowable.  He couldn't see the peculiar effects of
Multi-space, of course.   In fact, while they were in transit, they couldn't even
see the stars.   Only inky, unremitting blackness filtered through the massive viewport
that encompassed nearly half the flight deck in front of him.  But he could feel it; 
in the slight tilting of his internal equilibrium; in the way every hair follicle on
his body leaned in sympathy to the perturbations of the slip-tube they navigated.

Space-time twisted and slid over the outer permagel membrane of the Za'tar, like water
off the proverbial duck's back, pressing them at unimaginable speeds through the multiverse.  
Ma'ku lounged indolently on the pilot's couch waiting for the end of his flight shift.  
Every so often, he closed his soft, blue eyes and tapped into his mental interface with 
the ship's artificial intelligence.  Occasional adjustments had to be made to be certain 
that the conversion was going smoothly--it was easy to slide into the fractal eddies 
and vortices inside a slip-tube.  

He yawned.  The ship could cope with most of these functions by itself.  These days a 
pilot's duties mostly involved monitoring.  His thoughts began to stray, and then to relax 
until he suddenly found himself standing in the middle of a jungle.  

His mind was clear and lucid, so he knew he wasn't dreaming.  Looking around, he spied 
To'jon standing on a rock at the base of a gushing waterfall.  The pool around his perch 
glittered and sparkled in the midday brightness.  Ah, of course; it was To'jon who was 
dreaming.  The psy-crystals imbedded in their foreheads were there to keep them tuned to 
the ship's AI, but occasionally that link overlapped into their private mental states.  
Ma'ku felt guilty, intruding into To'jon's dream, but he couldn't tear himself away from 
the site of his friend of a dozen years.   He looked so magnificent standing there with 
his wet, spotted fur matted against his naked body.  

To'j was a Cheetah with the slender, but powerful build of that race.  Ma'ku on the other 
paw, was a snow leopard, and was therefore somewhat shorter and more densely packed than 
his lithe friend.  Ma'ku began to pull away at last, not wishing to be caught spying by 
To'j who had poised himself for a dive.   Besides, he was supposed to be on watch.

All at once, the sky darkened and a hot burst of air whipped at his fur.  The trees and 
waterfall melted away, to be replaced by a harsh expanse of desert.  Sand laced into his 
hide, driven by the still violently shifting wind.  Then the wind died down and the whole 
atmosphere became dry with heat and the intense quiet.  He starred at To'jon, who stood 
in ancient battle gear before another Ma'ku; a dream-Ma'ku, also dressed for combat.  
They squared off against each other!  He felt as if he was spinning around them as they 
suddenly tore into one another with feral savagery.  Vicious military short-blades appeared 
from concealed scabbards and sparks flew as they wildly lunged and parried with them.  

To'jon's sword was knocked from his grasp and Ma'ku screamed as the phantom of himself 
rammed his own blade deep into his best friend's unprotected breast!  The world spun and 
when he looked down, he saw that he had replaced the dream-Ma'ku.  The sword hilt was in 
his paw, the blood spattered onto his fur. To'jon looked at him with sadness and tried to 
speak, but blood just bubbled at his muzzle and his eyelids slid together.   

The dream world collapsed and Ma'ku found himself once more on the pilot's couch, his 
breathing labored and face matted with tears.  He launched himself toward the flight-deck 
door-panel, barely remembering to order the computer to hold course and slow to half speed.  
Then he propelled himself through the weightless corridors with abandon, headed for 
To'jon's sleeping cube.  

The cheetah was still asleep, twitching restlessly.  Ma'ku hovered in the hatchway watching 
him for a brief time, wondering at the horrors he had just witnessed in his friend's 
subconscious.  To'j had an extremely high psi rating, he knew.  That dream could well 
have been a premonition...  But what could possibly set them against one another?

He spun himself around and slowly guided himself back to the flight-deck.  

------------------------

To'jon appeared in the control center right on time for his shift--not a moment early or 
an instant late.  His time-sense, his nearly instinctive mathematical abilities and his 
extraordinarily high ESP quotient made him one of the best Multi-space navigators in the 
entire StarFlight Guild.  He tried to be modest about it, but he knew to the smallest 
credit chit what he was worth to any space-faring company.  Also, modesty wasn't really 
his greatest attribute.

His family wanted him to be a Navigation Officer on a cargo liner, probably the highest 
paying (non-managment) job in the guild, but To' jon was an explorer.  He would whither 
and die in a desk-bound job like that.  They knew it and ultimately accepted his choice 
of vocation.

"Morning",  he seemed to mumble.   Ma'ku wasn't sure he didn't just imagine it.

Ma'ku watched him pass by without replying.  He knew To'jon wouldn't notice--not with 
his nose pressed to the screen of a paw-pad.   He idolized To'jon almost as much as he 
loved him, but sometimes that hairball just worked his last nerve.  Maybe it was just 
that...sometimes To'j made him feel like he didn't even exist.  

When To'jon at last looked up, it was into the gaze of a truly irritated snow leopard face.  

"What?"

"You could at least acknowledge my existance when you enter a room, you know?"

"I said 'Good Morning'", To'jon said dismissively.

"Actually, your exact words were: 'Mmmr-rr'.  The AI Crystal was friendlier."

To'jon studied his friend.   "What's wrong?"

 "I'm sorry, To'j--but you know I saw the dream."

"Ahh.  The dream."  He sighed heavily.  "Yes, I did notice that there were two of you.  
I figured one of you was probably real."

"Well?!"

"Well, what?"

"What in the nine billion names of Deus was it all about?"

To'jon chukled, purring slightly.  "Come on Ma'k.  It was just a dream.  It doesn't 
mean anything."

"To'j--I killed you!  We fought and I ruthlessly cut you down!"

"So?"

Ma'ku suddenly found it impossible to look into the cheetah's golden eyes.  "I need 
to know if you trust me.  I need you to tell me that you haven't had any other dreams 
like that."

"Of course I trust you!  Ma'k, I know you'd never harm me..., I mean, it's just..."

The snow leopard's gaze narrowed suspiciously, then widened.  "You have had other dreams 
like that, haven't you?  Haven't you?"

To'jon shugged.  "Yeah.  A few, and just in the last week or so.  Look, Ma'k--they don't 
mean anything, honestly.  I don't know where that imagery is coming from, but I do know 
where it's not coming from:  it's not coming from distrust of you!"  

Ma'ku's great, white, spotted face looked less than molified.  

"In fact, the figure in my dream probably doesn't even represent you," To'jon soothed.  
"I'm sure it's just some kind of mental masterbation."  With that the cheetah wobbled 
his eyebrows, inviting Ma'ku to retort ludely.

"Now I know it's bad," Ma'ku growled, "if it's causing you to resort to jokes."

To'j was about to indignantly reply that he posessed a perfectly adequate sense of humor, 
when the chunky white body of his companion bowled him of the end of the nav couch.  
They laughed and wrestled as they spun languidly through the control chamber.

Finally, gasping and still chuckling softly, they worked their way back to the deck.  
Once they had caught their respective breaths, they reposed as if there had been no 
inturuption at all.

"So, what is so fascinating on your paw-pad there?"  Ma'ku drawled at him.

"I've been writing up The Theory."

"To'jon's Theory of Furvolution?"

"I am not calling it Fur-volution," To'jon growled.  

Ma'ku reflected that the soft timber of his friends voice made his fiercest growl sound 
like purring. 

"As it happens, I'm not so sure it had much to do with evolution at all!"

"What does that mean?"

"I decided that the basic premise of our original theory was, well, just not sufficiantly 
logical.  I mean, we were saying that radically seperate forms had evolved from a single 
species within a mere few thousand years, and that simply didn't make any sense to me.  
And if it isn't natural selection, then it must be unnatural selection."

"It made sense to you when we worked out the calculations for 'forced accelerated 
development due to environmental factors.'  Or don't you remember  how hard we worked 
to make that gel."

"Exactly, the reason it was so difficult to work out those calcs, was because we were 
trying to circumnavigate common sense.  Think about the supposition--equines, felines, 
lupines, all developing from a single species, rather than the species as a whole 
adapting along a self-similar fashion.  Birds, for crying out loud!  Where and why 
did feathers appear, or wings for that matter?  There's not really any reason that 
avians should have developed rather than some other form because of their environment."

"On second thought," Ma'ku whispered gruffly, "maybe I could murder you after all.  
Very well, Professor--what's your idea?"

To'jon threw Ma'k his winningest grin.  "Simple--genetic manipulation."

Several seconds elapsed before the snow leopard replied to this, during which his furry 
features underwent a fairly inventive spectrum of expressions.  Finally he ventured, 
"So let me see if I understand;  the 'progenator race' decided one day to start screwing 
around with their DNA.  Why?"

"No, no--not just 'one day'.  It probably began slowly, with little things.  More acute 
eyesight or hearing perhaps.  Maybe a desire to reintroduce variations into a dying system.  
The point is that the progenators began to attempt improvments in their genetic make-up, 
and somehow it all went wrong." 

To'jon's eyes had glazed slightly, and his facial muscles slackened as he began to speak 
in an oddly detatched manner.  

"They had overrun the world, the progenators--the Humans.  There had been many species 
of mammals on Earth, but the expanding population of Humans had driven one after another 
to extinction and then they began their decline into the darkness.  But they had built 
vast DNA libraries of all the lost species, even knowing that it would be pointless to 
attempt to reintroduce them into an environment that could no longer support them. 

"The grafting had begun as a fad, a seemingly harmless experiment to revitalize and even 
enhance human DNA.  Many of the lost creatures of the Earth had posessed extremely acute 
sensory apperatice.  They  isolated sections of DNA that governed those things and they 
grafted them into human DNA strands.  And it worked.  But it got out of hand.  People 
wanted more and more designer traits, until suddenly mutations began to appear in 
alarming numbers.  The governing officials were helpless to halt the tide of change.

"But niether would they stand for diversity.  When 'races' had finally faded among 
humankind, and a single unvarying form had emerged as the dominant human stereotype, 
they had become intolerate of any deviation.  Before long there was a public backlash 
against the unregulated mutations of the 'altered', and they were dispised for their 
nonconformity.  The genetics banks were raised to the dust, and the offending 
creatures were confined, and ultimately removed..."

To'jon closed his eyes and turned away from Ma'ku.  He began to weep.

"To'j?  To'jon!"  Ma'ku reached out to grip the sobbing cheetah.  He pulled his friend 
against him and the paw-pad floated away.  For a long time there was no noise except 
the sniffles and sighs that To'jon allowed to escape.

In all their relationship, Ma'ku had never seen To'jon cry, and now it made the fur 
stand straight on end.  At last, when To'jon had been completely silent for a time, 
Ma'ku held him away and forced him to look into his dark, worried eyes.  "To'j, where 
did all that come from?  That wasn't you--it sounded like you were reciting from a 
history tape or something."

The cheetah wiped at his eyes.  "You're right.  I'm not sure where it comes from.  I've 
been zoning like that lately, but only when I concentrate on the theory.  I think 
someone is trying to communicate with me."

"What, telepathically?"

"Either that or it's posession.  It's like I'm hearing it told to me and I just repeat 
it.  I can't hear a voice or anything, but the words appear in my head."

"Deus!  How long has this been going on?"

"A week perhaps.  It started in my dreams."

"Shit!"

--------------------------
Ma'ku and To'jon stood face to face on a deserted battlefield.  Deserted, save for their 
audience of corpses.  The gray sky was thick and acrid with smoke and the tang of blood.  
The armor he and To'jon wore was strange to the snow leopard's eyes, made as it was from 
laquered wood, woven together in a beweilderingly intricate fashion by brightly colored 
cloth.  The helmets were as fierce in apperance as they were elegant, but the thing that 
chilled his heart and stomach, was the meter long, curved steel blade that resided in 
his grasp.  It was heavy, but so precisely balanced that it danced in the air like an 
extension of his own arm.  He sliced the air and assumed a posture that invited attack.  
He tried to call to To'jon, but his lips remained still.  He tried to move his body away 
from the confrontation.  It did not respond to his desires.

"You cannot control the hand of fate, my friend,"  To'jon said quietly.  

Suddenly the cheetah rushed at him, the blade in his paws swinging in a delicate arc, 
and just as suddenly Ma'ku found that his own body was in motion.  Oddly enough they 
seemed to simply pass by one another without even touching the flashing blades together, 
but when he turned to face his opponant again, To'jon dropped to his knees and collapsed 
into the dust.  A font of crimson sprayed into the air as the body of his dearest friend 
in all the multiverse split open like ripened friut.


To'jon was shaken from his sleep by frantic white paws.

"Are you okay?" he asked when he saw Ma'ku's wild, red eyes.

"I had a dream."

"Well you look like hell."

"To'j, I need you to tell me the rest of it.  I know there's more than what you recited 
to me.  I want you to tell me everything!"

"Now?" 

"Right this fucking minute!"

"Okay, okay--keep your fur on."  To'jon crawled out of his bedsack, yawning.  When he 
began struggling into his shipsuit, he realized that for the first time that he could 
recall, Ma'ku didn't make suggestive comments about his naked body.  This is serious, 
he mused.

They talked long into the cycle over tubes of hot stim-drink.  To'jon detailed the 
information from his unknown source about the origins of the various species of the 
Allied Planets Union.  The Purity Trials, the Segrigation of Artificial Species Act, 
the Containment Camps, and finally the construction of the great spaceship that would 
carry Earth's problem-children away to the stars.  

After that, the story became one of Multi-Sapien prehistory.  They became marooned on a 
planet they named Terminus Prime, a divided world of regional extremes.  Their technology 
failed them as did their society.  The survivors broke up into species specific tribes 
and sought out the climes which best suited their adaptations.  Soon generations of 
inbreeding drove the last vestiges of Humanity from their gene-pools and reinforced 
the species type of each group so that they became Felis Sapien, Ursis Sapien, Lupis 
Sapien, Saurus Sapien, Equis Sapien, etc.   

After a few thousand years, they had rebuilt their technological civilization and had 
begun to colonize the nearby stars.  Earth had become legend, then myth and at last, 
forgotten.  Terminus Prime was the only 'HomeWorld' anyone had known of.  That is 
until a team of archeologists unearthed a vast disembowled spacecraft, with 
unrecognizable symbols scrawled across its hull.  

Symbols which they later interperuted as, "Second Ark."

Ma'ku just sat shaking his head.  "Do you really believe in this fantasy?"

"I know it's true.  And more than that--I know where 'Earth' is."


To be continued...