"Mercedes Lackey - A Better Mousetrap" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

promise that one day it would be.

Not that I want my own ship yet! he told himself. Not until I know as much as
Captain Singh. There are easier ways to commit suicide than pretending I know
enough to command a starship when all I really know is how to run the cargo
hold!

Not that Captain Singh would let him take his profit-share and do something so
stupid. Dick grinned to himself, imagining the Captain's face if he showed up
in the office with that kind of harebrained proposal. Captain Singh's
expression would be one to beholdтАФfollowing which, Dick would probably find
himself stunned unconscious and wake under the solicitous attentions of a
concerned head-shrinker!

The Captain had been willing, even more than willing, to let Dick stay
on-planet for few Terran-months though, after SKitty and SCat announced the
advent of a litter-to-be. One of her last litter was co-opted to serve as
shipscat pro tem, while Dick and his two charges waited out the delivery,
maturation, and weaning of eight little black furballs who were, if that was
possible, even cuter than the last batch. It was a good thing that they all
were on-planet, too, because the Octet managed to get themselves into a
hundred times more mischief than the previous lot.

The trouble is, they have a lot of energy, absolutely no sense, and no fear at
all at this age. Brainless kitten antics rapidly begin to pall when you've
fished a wailing fuzz-mote out of the comconsole for the fifteenth time in a
single shift.

But every Lacu'un in the palace, from the Lacu'teveras down to the lowliest
scullery-lad, was thrilled to the toesтАФor rather, clawsтАФto play with, rescue,
and cuddle the Bratlings. If SKitty and SCat had not taken their duties as
parents, palace-guardians, and role-models so seriously, they wouldn't have
had to do anything but lie about and wait for the kittens to be carried in to
them for feeding.

Fortunately for all concerned, their parents had powerful senses of
responsibility towards their offspring. Both cats were born and
bredтАФliterallyтАФfor duty. Yes, they were cats, with a cat's sense of
independence and contrariness, but they took duty very, very seriously. And
their duty was Vermin Control.

This was a duty that went back centuries to the very beginnings of the
association of man and cat, but until BioTech developed shipscats, never had a
feline been better suited to or more cooperative in the execution of that
duty. Furthermore, Dick now knew what few others didтАФthat the shipscats so
necessary to the safety of traders and their ships were actually a highly
profitable byproduct of other research, secret research, designed to give the
men and women of the Patrol uniquely clever comrades-in-arms.

These genetically altered cats were not just clever, it was not just that they