For Ian.
The noises had started the week after they arrived to the new place. The cat hated the new place the moment the doors opened. It was not the faint unrecognizable smell that exuded from everywhere. It was not the artificial illumination, he was used to that. It was the gravity. The cat could not know it was just 0.16 g below Earth but he could feel it.
Moving had been stressful, but at least it was over now and the cat explored every inch of the new apartment. He explored one recess for over a day, where the stench was unbearable, otherwise it would have been a great hideout.
His owner was happy, he could tell. Work had kept them separate these days, but routine started to kick in. The same pattern of glasses left on the kitchen counter, half full, only emptied and washed at the end of the week.
And then, he heard the noise. He investigated and got out of the apartment, his jump was inaccurate and the cat landed outside the rug, now that was embarrassing. The neighbor’s dog was barking loudly uncontested. No humans were in the habitational section at this time of the day, all of them gathered in the other parts of the cabin built on the surface of the planet. Then the dog stopped abruptly. The foreign smell was closer, the cat could feel it. And then, it was gone. The cat wandered for a while, and returned to the apartment unable to find anything else.
Back on the apartment he jumped to the top of the kitchen counter. Seven glasses awaited him, he proceeded methodically to throw each and everyone to the floor. His owner wouldn’t be pleased. Satisfied with the results, he walked nonchalantly to the bed and slept.
“What in the name of Shakespeare’s sonnets is this, William?” said his owner, clearly not amused. William ignored him.
Later that night, he climbed to the top of the bookshelf, still mostly empty. His owner, tired from work and still grasping the mop with his right hand, had fallen asleep on the couch. Intergalactic Channel 5b was showing on the big screen, thankfully muted.
The strange odor returned, and William observed a round pale creature squeezing through the crevice he had explored before. The creature approached his owner quietly and stealthily, with five slim appendages it climbed up the sofa, and opened a previously hidden mouth that had a pointy tongue.
The cat calculated his jump, he could not miss. He hit the creature the moment it tried to inject his owner with a white, oozing liquid. He had the creature firmly grasped in its mouth, squeezed hard and it went limp. He tossed it to the coffee table, where yet another glass fell to the floor, waking his owner.
The owner started petting William and praising him.
“So these are the creatures everyone’s talking about. Probably that’s what killed Frank’s dog. I’m glad I have the only cat in the planet. But I guess that will change soon.”
Korpilandia 