Jack, the Earth fan's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The woman stared at Jack's extra whiskers. Her mouth opened. Jack saw the word forming on her lips, a shout meant for other humans. If she spoke, strangers would gather. They would crowd the square and study every cat too closely. Jack could not catalog Earth food under so many eyes. One human knowing was a problem. A crowd knowing was the end. Jack did the only thing a sweet pet could do. Jack rolled onto their back and showed their belly. The woman's hand froze above her phone. "You're... playing?" she whispered. Jack chirped and batted at her sleeve, soft as a kitten. Confusion softened her face. The shout never came. But softness would not last. The woman still believed Jack was strange. Jack needed her to doubt her own eyes. So Jack made a gamble. Jack turned and bolted behind the bench, then pushed out a second cat Jack had kept hidden since morning. It was another alien from the colony, sent to watch over Jack. The scout had three flowing tails and six legs that moved in an eerie, flowing gait. Jack had begged the scout to stay out of sight. Now Jack needed the opposite. Jack nudged the scout into the open light. The woman gasped and stumbled back. Three tails. Six legs. No sixth whisker to squint at. This was no trick of the light. This was a monster. Her trembling hand lifted the phone and snapped a photo. Then she ran, crate and pizza-plant rattling behind her. The scout flattened its three tails, furious. "You exposed me," it hissed in the colony's clicking tongue. "Now a human has my image." "She has your image," Jack agreed. "Not mine. Not my whiskers. When she shows that photo, humans will hunt a six-legged beast with three tails. They will look for you. Not a plain little cat with one extra whisker." Jack licked a paw, calm now. "No one watches the harmless cat when a monster is loose." The scout stared, then understood. Jack had traded one human's suspicion for a wild hunt aimed in the wrong direction. The woman would warn others, yes. But her warning pointed away from Jack. "Go home and hide," Jack said. "I have food to find." The scout slipped into the shadows, tails low. Jack trotted off alone, cover restored, free to pass as an ordinary stray again. Jack followed a new smell on the breeze. It was cold and clean, salt and fish. Jack rounded a corner and found a tray left on a low table. Orange slices lay draped over small mounds of rice, glossy and fresh. Jack's nose twitched. Catalog entry two waited, close enough to taste. But the table stood inside a doorway, and a human in white watched the street. Jack crouched low. The cover was safe. The food was not yet won.