Darrell Bain - Pet Plague 2 - Spacepets

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Space Pets

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or

mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system,

without the permission in writing from Double Dragon Publishing.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s

imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is

entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Deron Douglas

ISBN: 1-894841-93-X

First Edition eBook Publication October 10, 2002

SPACE PETS

Darrell Bain

Chapter One

Jamie Da Cruz woke up and looked around his bedroom. Even after six months, he still wasn't used

to the opulence. Even the bed was large and luxurious, spacious enough for four or five persons to sleep

comfortably--or do other things on it. Of course his previous apartment wouldn’t have been large enough

for himself, Jeannie, Kristi, and their four pets, even if John Whitmire of the Houston Enclave Security

Section had allowed him to stay there, which he hadn't. Since Jamie had become so important, Whitmire

was insistent that he stay within the confines of the security building to prevent a possible abduction by

Moon City agents and, Jamie had to admit, the apartment Whitmire had furnished went a long way

toward keeping him happy.

The bedroom was furnished with state of the art holovision fixtures keyed to his body computer and

the adjoining comfort room contained facilities sufficient to bathe and refresh a bull walrus and all his

family. It was more than enough for he and his consorts and anyone else they might want to invite over

for a party.

The large living room was decorated with an assortment of Kristi's beautifully tanned hides, ranging

from deer to rabbit and bobcat. On one wall Kristi's spare laserifle was racked on animal horns, and her

extra handgun and knife dangled below on a belt and shoulder harness arrangement. The one large and

several small loungers scattered around the room gave it, together with the hides and weapons, a casual,

lived-in look. One wall was blank, although it contained a barely discernible door. It was used for the

holovision projections. An unobtrusive accessory computer console was tucked in one corner, and

another door led to a large autokitchen and dining area. To one side of the bed, another door opened out

into the privacy of a large fenced yard, complete with a small pool and varied food shrubs and other

nutritive plants.

Jamie removed himself from the bed and into the comfort room. Trimming his mustache, he

reflected that Conan, the feral dog who had been the courier of the original alien message on a thought

disk would never have been able to contact his pets--and him--had he been living here then rather than

closer to the edge of the barriers. But in that case, he wouldn't have met Kristi, nor possibly have gotten

so involved with Jeannie. Even so, he sometimes missed the simplicity of his life as it had been before

Conan appeared. Then, his biggest worry had been aberrations in the hambean line of plants he had

developed, and the foibles of his boss, the chief of the Genetic Engineering Section of the Houston

Enclave.

Jamie heard soft footsteps behind him and knew that Jeannie had arrived home from her job with

the almost completed spacecraft's computer system. The door had allowed her to enter silently, alerted

by the code from her body computer. A pair of slim hands stole around his eyes.

"Hi, Jeannie. You're late"

"How did you know it was me and not Kristi?" Jeanie asked, puzzled.

"I checked with John before I left work. He said their patrol ran into some problems and were

going to be late."

"She's not hurt is she?" Jeannie asked. Alarm crept into her voice.

"He didn't say, but I'd guess not. He didn't look worried."

"Good," Jeannie said. She circled his waist with an arm and drew him into the living room, pushing

him down onto the big lounger. Fuzzy Britches, the vari-hued enhanced cat made a run for Jamie's lap,

but Jeannie beat him to it. Fuzzy Britches didn't complain; he simply held up for a moment, then hopped

up into Jeannie's lap in turn.

Jeannie was a small, dark, pretty girl, revealing a Hispanic legacy similar to Jamie's own brown

countenance. She wore the standard Enclave coveralls, sleeves rolled above the elbows and the front

closure open almost to her navel. A filmy underthing showed the swell of her breasts, large for her small

frame.

Jamie helped himself, running a hand inside the lapel of the coveralls and giving heran affectionate

squeeze.

"Mmm," Jeannie responded. "Now, or shall we wait for Kristi?"

"Let's wait.Are you hungry?"

"Not yet." Jeannie tried unsuccessfully to smooth down Fuzzy Britches' thick wiry pelt and got a soft

purr as a reward.

"How’s the work going?"

Jeanie’s face brightened, as it always did when talk turned to computers or sex. "Oh, good. I’ve

about finished the basic programming of the ship’s computer, and that’s all I can do until we install it.

When will that be?"

"It shouldn’t be much longer. Everything is basically finished, or as near as I can tell the engineers

from that Alien thought disk." Jamie fingered the thin, saucer-sized disk the alien had crafted and tuned to

his mind alone just before it died and thought of all the changes that had occurred since Conan brought

the original message to him from the alien on an even smaller, general purpose disk dangling from his

crude collar. Of all the dogs sent out by the band of feral humans after the alien’s lander crashed in their

vicinity, only Conan had been able to contact a human from one of the Enclaves--and apparently met his

death in the subsequent fighting between the rival Dallas and Houston Enclaves over access to the alien

technology.

"Where's Princess?" Jeannine asked Fuzzy Britches as she smoothed down his springy hair, only to

have it bounce up again. Princess was Kristi's white-haired enhanced cat and Fuzzy Britches' paramour

whenever she was in heat.

"Asleep," Woggly the dog said, coming into the room. "Cats always sleeping."

Woggly was large, brown, and shaggy haired. He was enhanced as well, but not quite as intelligent as

Fuzzy Britches, though it would take someone who knew them both to be able to tell the difference. Both

of Jamie's pets were loyal and protective, and both had been with him on his excursion into the wild

country beyond the Houston Enclave. It had been a horrific experience for Jamie (and Jeannie), but the

pets had enjoyed it (other than when their humans were in danger), and had been agitating for another

adventure. Life inside the Enclave seemed tame to them anymore. Jamie had been telling them that he

was soon to go on the first test flight of the new spaceship and they both wanted to accompany him.

Jamie had tried to explain the differences between an earth and a space environment.

"In space, you wouldn't weigh anything, Fuzz. You'd float."

"Like birds?" Fuzzy Britches asked, licking his lips. "Birds don't play fair. They fly away when I

chase them."

"Cats climb trees," Woggly said, pointing out that he had his problems as well.

"Not the same," Fuzzy Britches said. "Us friends. Birds food."

"Never mind that," Jamie said. "There aren't any birds in space anyway, and damn few on earth

anymore, for that matter. And there are no bad cats to chase, either, Woggly."

The animals were aware in a way that environments different from their own existed elsewhere,

mainly from watching holovision. The Houston Enclave was widely separated from the two coastal

spaceports, which were still functional, so they had no live reference to spaceships, only pictures. The

animals liked watching holovision, but had a hard time separating fact from fiction.

Fuzzy Britches considered the conversation then settled the issue in his own mind. "Take Kristi," He

said. "Have fun. Fight. Catch mice. Have lots of fun."

Jamie shrugged and gave -up trying to explain further. Since Kristi had come into their lives six

months ago, they would henceforth associate her with adventure. Kristi was a Ranger, going out

frequently with others of her profession into the wilds around the Enclave, observing and cataloging the

ever changing mix of feral, intelligently enhanced animals, the descendents of genetically altered pets and

laboratory animals.

One experience had been enough for Jamie. He was a genetic engineer himself, or had been until his

encounter with the alien in it's crashed landing craft, but his specialty had been in agriculture, using his

craft to help satisfy a hungry population confined to limited area. He had little interest in adventure, unlike

Kristi Carson, who seemed to thrive on it. He had been more or less forced into that one expedition, but

he had to admit that it had been worth it. If he had not gone on that expedition, he would probably never

had met Kristi, nor would Kristi have met Jeannie, and the three of them formed a household. It was

strange, but not nearly as strange as the situation the earth was in now.

***

Near the end of the last century, the earth was in turmoil. Back in the early part of the century, well

before Jamie's birth, genetic manipulation and its by-products had become the predominant growth

industry of the world, including Moon City and the space stations. One of the products was mentally

enhanced animals, many of them bred for the pet industry. Intelligent and semi-intelligent animals

presented little problem in the controlled environment of space, but earth was a different matter entirely.

Once the human genome had been resolved, that of other mammals presentedlittle additional

problem. Inevitably,scientists began mixing human and animal genes and sometime whole chromosome

segments. These were inserted back into man's favored species. As the craft became increasingly

simpler, control became more difficult, especially given the demand for enhanced or altered pets. At first

the insertion of human genes into other animals was banned by most nations, but the simplicity of the

process and the urgentneedof bankrupt third world economies for hard currency created a huge

clandestine trade in genetically enhanced pets, farm animals and laboratory specimens which became

impossible to stop. Therewas no longereven a complete classification of the number and kind of new

species. There were super-dogs and super-cats, imbued with the gene complexes for rational thought

and language facility; intelligentrats and mice, originally bred for use inresearch; semi-intelligent rabbits

and ducks, crafted for the Easter trade; monkeys and orangutans; cows and horses; ferrets and wildcats;

parrots and canaries; sheep and dolphins. For almost anybreed of animal, there was a demand. The only

common denominator was that almost all had at one time or another gotten outside the bonds of control

(where any was attempted) and begun to breed. Back-breeding with the original stock also occurred,

sometimes successful, other times not, but eventually the gene pool of many, many species was

unalterably changed. By the time real problems developed, it was far too late to stop the process.

North America was the prime market for enhanced animals, especially pets, and what happened

there over the next fifty years was only the forefront of the wave of disasters that swept over the

industrialized world, and soon after, the less affluent countries. The United States did fare better than

other countries initially in controlling the larger animals, simply by reason of the plethora of armed citizens

in that nation. For the first time in its history, the murder rate in that country actually dropped as people

began shooting cats and rats and dogs and rabbits, as well as other, more fearsome beasts, rather than

each other--at least they did until the food supplies began to fail.

Intelligent mice and rats and rabbits became too smart to be taken in by baited grain and ate the

food crops with a devilish ability at avoiding traps. They tunneled underground and waited out the poison

sprays until rains washed them away, then came out to feast again. Had it not been for the more intelligent

dogs, cats, and other carnivores, they might well have driven humanity completely off the planet. As it

was, depletion of the fields and attacks by starving packs of feral animals on any isolated dwelling

gradually drove men into the huge present day Enclaves where an uneasy balance was finally achieved,

although the ultimate future of the Enclaves was by no means certain.

However, humans did control their Enclaves, at least for the present, and gradually adapted to

them, even retaining a residue of loyal, intelligent pets content to live with their masters and provide no

little help in maintaining their integrity. But outside the barriers, the enhanced and altered animals warred

on each other and on unaltered species without let or hindrance.

In the third world countries, however, there was no such security. A reverse migration of the

animals back to their source, fueled by inexorable population pressure was at its peak. Less advanced

technologically, these countries were rapidly devolving into chaos and anarchy as the reverse migration of

enhanced animals swept back to their source, haunting their originators with barren fields and ecological

nightmares. The only spots of relative stability were in areas being mined or drilled for vital resources.

There, the few remaining nations still technologically sophisticated offered help in maintaining areas of

integrity in return for the vital resources and raw materials of civilization.

Within the Enclaves (with a much-reduced population), life and culture began a temporary upswing.

The rather drastic police methods necessary for the formation of the Enclaves was now giving way to a

more relaxed form of government, albeit a much regulated and in some ways a more limited one.

There were still problems, of course. Dolphins, for instance, were adamantly against deep-sea

fishing, especially the use of drift nets, and deep-sea mining was becoming so prohibitively expensive that

it was gradually dying out. Also, any cross country movement other than air travel had become so

dangerous that it was almost unheard of, and the air travel was limited mostly to vital cargo handling by

the ubiquitous floaters powered by solarmagnetic engines and fuel cells. The only regularly scheduled

passenger traffic was to and from the major Enclaves, and from the east and west spaceports, and even

that traffic was gradually lessening. As a result, the Enclaves were beginning to develop diverging

cultures.

The Houston Enclave, for instance, displayed a predominately southern and Hispanic identity,

present to a degree originally, then reinforced by the influxofsurviving refugees from other large southern

and coastal cities whenthose areas had been abandoned, while the Dallas Enclave drew most of it's

expanded population from Oklahoma City and the lower mid west.

Genetic agriculture was the saving force for the Enclaves. It enabled them to grow altered foodstuff

of very high yield, protein-rich and resistant to almost all blights and diseases. Genetic manipulation of

crop fruits and vegetables enabled the Enclaves to survive, for the time being at least, even though that

same sort of meddling was responsible for the Enclaves to begin with.

Inside the barricades, life went on, punctuated with a curious dichotomy.On the one hand, survival

required a high educational level and a technologically orientated work force to maintain the infrastructure

of the Enclaves,aswellas innovative and hard working techniciansto keep the economy functioning while

trying to cope with the increasing paucity of spare parts and raw materials. On the other, the resolution of

the human genome had eliminated almost allsickness and diseases, including sexually transmitted ones,

and that led in turn to a hedonistic, sexually liberated life style manifested in extravagant home and group

entertainment, group families such as Jamie, Jeannie, and Kristi had formed, and an almost total lack of

organized religious beliefs or observances. Crime, other than petty theft was almost unknown, for there

was only one punishment for anything more serious: banishment to the wilds, where survival could be

gauged in days, weeks, or a month at best.

It was a curious life by some historical standards, but like citizens throughout history, they accepted

their circumstances as though they would go on forever and ever. Even their increased life spans were not

sufficient to make them realize that change rather than stability is the permanent state of human affairs.

CHAPTER TWO

Jamie nuzzled Jeannie’s neck, wondering how much longer it would be before Kristi returned,

worrying a little despite John Whitmire's assurances. Besides, Jeannie was stroking his neck and back in

a familiar manner, letting him know that she was ready despite her previous disclaimer about waiting for

Kristi. It never took much to get Jeannie going, although getting her to stop was sometimes a more

difficult proposition. However, Kristi had solved that problem neatly when she moved in. She was the

first female Jeannie had ever been with, and it was still an enjoyable novelty to her.

That was fine with Kristi as well. She was more orientated to women than men anyway, Jamie being

one of the rare exceptions. He still wondered sometimes why she liked him so much, but then Jamie was

an unusually modest and unpretentious character, and more tolerant than any human had a right to be.

Kristi was attracted to him because of those traits, as well as his stubborn acceptance of unwanted

danger and hardship when he had been forced to accompany the expedition trying to recover the

stranded alien and it's landing craft down in the wilds two hundred miles north of the Houston Enclave.

That expedition had been organized in hopes of learning new technology, which might help the

Enclave survive. It had been only partially successful. Jamie had indeed met the alien, trapped in the

wreck of it's craft, and was given a thought disk by which the alien communicated, but there was nothing

there which promised any real help for the beleaguered earth. There was, however, detailed engineering

instructions for a faster than light spacecraft, given by the alien in hopes that humans would travel back to

its home system and try to save some representatives of its race where an encroaching dust cloud was

gradually rendering its planet uninhabitable. The thought disk was keyed to Jamie alone, and he still had

nightmares about the battle with the Moon City mercenaries also trying to recover the craft, as well as the

wild battles with enhanced animals and feral humans on the way there and back. His prospective trip into

space seemed tame by comparison.

Jeannie shifted her body in his lap and began tugging at his coverall closure. Jamie quit his nuzzling

and began kissing her in earnest. Fuzzy Britches, knowing what was coming, jumped down from her lap

and joined Woggly on the floor. The two animals touched noses, communicating silently their amusement

at the sexual antics of humans.

The humans continued what they were doing. Jamie had never given much thought to having sex in

the presence of self-aware animals. His pets certainly didn't mind, and sometimes even entered the fray,

not as participants, but rather as family observers, amusing their masters as well as themselves by their

antics. One of Fuzzy Britches' favorite antics was licking Jeannie' s nipples, which still embarrassed her to

an extent, much to the cat's amusement.

Jeannie had never owned pets of her own, but in the last half year she had become enchanted with

those of Jamie and Kristi.

Jeannie took herself from Jamie’s lap and stood up, somewhat rumpled, cheeks already flushing in

anticipation. Jamie snugged an arm around her waist and began leading her toward the bedroom under

the amused gaze of the two pets. Before they took more than a few steps forward, the door to the

outside dilated and Kristi Carson entered the room.

Kristi was dirty; her blonde hair was unwashed and tangled and the high cheekbones of her Nordic

ancestors smudged, but her pretty blue eyes were bright and cheerful and she held her body straight,

even after a week in the wilds. She was taller than Jeannie but curved just as amply, or perhaps more so,

but her figure was mostly concealed by thermosmotic coveralls and boots, along with belt and shoulder

harnesses holding her laserifle and pistol, various pouches and a knife which might rival the swords

carried by her Viking forefathers.

"Kristi!" Jamie and Jeannie shouted at once and ran toward her. Kristi dropped the pack from her

back and hugged them both, unmindful of the smudges she transferred to them in the process. Lady, her

white-haired dog, woofed a greeting at the humans, then plopped herself down between Fuzzy Britches

and Woggly, who immediately began pestering her to tell of her adventures in the wilds. Princess, her

equally white Persian, heard the commotion and bounded into the room. She rubbed at Kristi’s feet, then

joined the other animals, just as eager to hear some new stories as Jamie's pets were.

"Why were you late?" Jamie began almost at once. "Areyou okay? Did anyone get hurt? What's

happening outside?"

Kristi laughed and stilled his questions with a kiss, then kissed Jeannie as well. "Let's save the

questions until I get cleaned up, okay? I stopped to see John when we got in. He has some news for us,

and I have some too, but I want to wash and change first."

"I'll start a bath," Jeannie said eagerly, but didn't hurry off. Jamie put an armaround them both and

led them toward the bath. Behind his head, they winked at each other and entwined their hands. It had

been a week since they had seen one another, after all, and while Jamie might be anxious for Kristi's

company, the two women were even more ready for a re-union. Jamie could wait and watch, and be all

the better for it, they thought.

The sybaritic bath was warm and refreshing. Jamie and Jeannie vied for the pleasure of scrubbing

off the week's worth of wild country debris from Kristi's oddly tanned body. She relaxed and enjoyed

the lathering of her body, especially the contrast of a soft, feminine hand rubbing one breast and the

strong larger male one on the other. The same sensations excited her more as they worked down around

her waist and along her thighs.

Thewarm water re-cycled, carrying away the grime, then she stretched under their toweling with

movements, which would have done justice to Fuzzy Britches' best effortsafterwaking from a nap.

Once in bed, Jamie was content to wait his turn. The stimulation of just watching while Jeannie and

Kristi renewed their desire was enough to heighten his own performance even beyond his usual

competent level. He thought he might even manage another time before the eveningwas over, but for now

he was content. He leaned back against the soft headboard of the bed and remembered to ask, "You

said you had some news for us?"

"Oh," Kristi exclaimed. "So I did." She reached across Jamie's body to caress Jeannie's breasts,

admiring her light brown nipples as she did so. " Well, the first thing is that we found Conan."

"Conan? You mean he's alive?" Jamie could hardly believe it. The last sight he had had of the feral

dog was of him falling under the lasergun fire of the attacking Moon City mercenaries from the Dallas

Enclave. His own escape had taken him in another direction and he had assumed since then that Conan

had certainly been killed.

"He's alive," Kristi said. "He spent months recovering from his wounds, and since then he's been

working his way back here again. He made it as far as the barricades, but couldn't find a way in this time

without getting shot. He's just been out there waiting and hoping that someone in a Ranger patrol would

recognize him."

"That's almost like a miracle," Jamie said. "Where is he now? The pets will want to know that he's

back."

"He's being taken care of at the medical section. He's still not in very good shape, but they told me

he could be released in a couple of days. John Whitmire made the vet assign the pet autodoc to him and

discharge all the other pets it was treating."

"Great," Jamie said enthusiastically. Conan had been the original courier from the feral human and

dog town where the alien craft had crashed, and had led the expedition back to the site. Most of his

human and canine clan had perished in the attack from the rival expedition from the Dallas Enclave.

Jamie had had melancholy thoughts ever since then, remembering the dog's bravery in traversing

two hundred miles of wilderness, and even more difficult, finding a way into the Houston Enclave,

bringing that strange message imbedded in the alien thought disk, making contact with his pets and

convincing them to hide him rather than alarming the Enclave security forces that a feral dog was loose

inside, and then dying under the guns of a surprise attack. Jamie was overjoyed that he had survived.

"I'm so glad," Jeannie said, speaking to Jamie. "I didn't like him at first because I thought he was

going to get you killed or hurt out there in the wilds, but it all worked out, didn't it?"

Kristi reached up to touch Jeannie's cheek. "You were worried about him? What about your own

self? It's just a miracle that you managed to get back alive."

Jeannie shuddered. "I don't want to think about that."

It was no wonder. Jeannie had been irate that Jamie was going off into the wilds without her, and at

the time was jealous of Kristi. When by the wildest of chance she had captured a Moon City spy, she

had used his capture to blackmail Whitmire into allowing her to join the expedition with Jamie and Kristi,

but on the way to the site of the alien crash site, her floater had been shot down by the Dallas floaters and

she had spent a horrifying two days being stranded and attacked by an enhanced rat pack, then being

chased with Kristi and Jamie by the Dallas mercenaries.

She rubbed her head on Jamie’s chest, trying to get the images out of her mind, and reached over to

run her hand along Kristi's slim waist.

"Well, forget about that," Kristi said. "There's something else you need to know. We were all

planning on going on the first flight of the spaceship when it’s completed, but when I talked to John, he

told me that of us three, only Jamie is going to be allowed to go."

Jamie had been of two minds about that since the spacecraft began nearing completion. He knew

that Kristi was adamant about accompanying him and the contingent of scientists, and that Jeannie

certainly didn’t want to be left behind, but she had been strangely reticent about the arrangements. Jamie

wasn't worried about Kristi's ability to take care of herself, but Jeannie and the pets had been causing him

considerable worry. He was glad in a way about Kristi's revelation, but on the other hand he wasn't really

enthusiastic about going into space without his family, regardless of the possible dangers.

Jeannie giggled and drew Kristi's hand back down to her breasts.

"What's funny?" Jamie asked. Her reaction wasn't at all what he had expected. A puzzled

expression also crossed Kristi's face.

Jeannie grinned beatifically. "You can all stop worrying," she said, "It doesn't matter what Mr.

Whitmire wants. That spaceship will never leave orbit unless I'm on it. I've bolluxed the computer!"

Jeannie was more than ten years younger than either of the others and much more emotionally

oriented. Hardly anyone knowing her gave her credit for a very active brain, regardless of her expertise

with computer programming. A person looking at Jeannie Bostick was much more likely to notice her

overt sexuality and lush body, and never even think that a considerable intelligence might be lurking

within. Until the return of them all from the expedition in the wilds, she had worked in Jamie's own

Genetic Engineering section, and since then, she had been promoted to chief programmer of the

computer, which would control the spacecraft. Evidently she had done some of her own programming,

separate from the regular engineering specifications.

Jamie was speechless, but not Kristi. She drew Jeannie over Jamie’s reclining body and began

kissing and hugging her, laughing all the while. "Oh, Jeannie did you really? I can't wait to tell John. This is

even better than when you used that nasty Cadena to make him let you come out and join us that other

time! He'll have a litter of kittens, he’ll be so upset! Hey, I bet we could finagle him into letting Troy come

along, too. When I talked to him, he said they wanted someone younger, but there's no one better than

Troy Masters for running a Ranger company."

"Wait a minute!" Jamie exclaimed. "No one has consulted me about this yet. Don't you realize this

could be dangerous? We’ll be going to that derelict orbiting Saturn first, then maybe further on out. I

don't think --"

"I do!" Kristi said. "Oh, Jeannie, you're a doll. I just love you." She crawled across Jamie1s chest

and forced Jeannie into a reclining position, laughing and kissing her lips and neck and breasts. Presently,

the kisses grew into caresses and from there into another round of enthusiastic lovemaking. Jamie relaxed

and succumbed to the inevitable. Their last excursion had turned out all right in the end, and maybe this

one would as well. Besides, he really didn't want to go into space alone.

***

Jamie and Kristi lazed around the next morning while Jeannie went to beard John Whitmire in his

den. Jamie had no doubt that Jeannie would pull off her blackmail. He didn't even bother going into

work, where a contingent of scientists had spent the last six months using his verbalization of the data

contained in the alien thought disk to construct the FTL spacecraft, knowing that before long John

Whitmire would be calling for him, demanding that he make Jeannie change her mind. He already knew

that it wouldn't work. John Whitmire was a much older man, with a mind-set firmed long, long ago, when

men could still dominate a woman's actions. He still became embarrassed at homosexual activity, though

he tried to avoid showing it. He was an extremely intelligent man, his mind unwithered by age and he had

been instrumental in organizing the expedition that Jamie had reluctantly gone out with. He also controlled

the selection of the small Moon City contingent that was being allowed to make up part of the crew of

the first exploratory voyage of the spacecraft, but he was being extremely cautious. The Enclave needed

help from Moon City and the space stations with spacecraft engineering problems, and he was forced to

use them, even after their deadly attempt to block the Houston Enclave expedition with so much loss of

life. He might be old fashioned, but he certainly wasn't dumb.

***

"Jeannie, you'll be the death ofme,"Whitmire said. He was agitated, and his white-haired, blocky

body showed it. Jeannie had blackmailed him before, and here she was in his office again, making even

more unreasonable demands.

"It worked out before, didn't it?" Jeannie asked, not unreasonably. She crossed her arms over her

chest.

"No thanks to you," the old man said. "You almost lost your life then."

"Yes, but just think, if that poor pilot who was ferrying me out there hadn’t gotten a message off,

everything might have been lost. As it was, everything turned out fine. And it doesn't make any difference

anyway. Either Kristi and I go with Jamie on the spaceship, or it doesn't go."

"I could put you to sleep and get your codes," Whitmire said, wondering to himself whether he

would really do such a thing--and whether it would work if he tried it. From the set of Jeannie’s body

and face, he rather doubted it.

Jeannie smiled, confirming his suspicions. "No you couldn't. If I don't speak in a perfectly normal

tone of voice to the computer, it will freeze up. Oncewe’re in space, that program will drop off the net,

but until then, there's no one else who can control it."

"I see," Whitmire said. "All right, on your head be it. Now go away, and let me decide whom I have

to drop from the crew to allow you and Kristi to replace them."

"And the pets," Jeannie mentioned.

Whitmire looked pained. "Yes, of course, the pets. Isthere anyone else you want to take? Please

say no."

Jeannie suppressed another smile. "No, I can't think of anyone else."

"Good."

"Kristi can, though."

Whitmire looked to the heavens. "And who might that be? Has she taken another lover all of a

sudden?"

"If she does, she won't go," Jeannie said darkly. "No, she just thinks that Captain Masters should

command the Rangers. She trusts him."

"Well, so far as that goes, so do I," Whitmire said. "I just thought he was too old, but all right, Troy

will command the Rangers. Now, please, Jeannie, don't ask for anything else."

"Oh, I wouldn't think of it, Mr. Whitmire. All I really wanted in the first place was to go with Jamie."

"Yes, I'm sure," Whitmire said. He rubbed a hand through his thinning white hair as Jeannie left his

office, and smiled inside. He thought wistfully that it would be nice to have a daughter like Jeannie. Or

Kristi. They both made him proud.

Jamie was called to Whitmire's office later in the day. Since it was in the same building, he was able

to appear there in minutes. Whitmire's receptionist ushered him into the office. His desk was piled high

with computer printouts, engineering layouts, personnel rosters and other minutiae of his position as

Director of Enclave Security. Incongruously, he retained printed books on shelves of antique oak, a mix

of reference and fiction, all of them very old and battered. Jeannie always thought they smacked of

museum pieces rather than something to be actually used.

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SpacePetsAllrightsreserved©2002DarrellBainNopartofthisbookmaybereproducedortransmittedinanyformorbyanymeans,graphic,electronic,ormechanical,includingphotocopying,recording,taping,orbyanyinformationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutthepermissioninwritingfromDoubleDragonPublishing.Thisbookisaworkofficti...

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