Chapter 9
Old Tom was the bestest friend the kitty ever had because Old Tom always paid attention. But kitty never understood why Old Tom acted as if talking cats were a miracle. It was like Old Tom was seeing a talking cat for the first time! Which was weird, since the Master Scientist never mentioned that.
Old Tom showed him all the humans' great temples and great accomplishments! He saw the great temple of widow empress McKendrick, which was bigger than even the Glorious Palace itself—and it had a roof so high, higher than a tree!
And Old Tom showed him mirrors with another kitty inside that looked just like him, only stupider because it always did what he did at the same time.
And Old Tom told him … mythology, which he learned was like the monkeys' system of beliefs. He told him the holy story of the virgin cat that talked with a pigeon, but she didn't eat the pigeon because it was a talking pigeon, but that was not the point, and then the Holy Cat got pregnant miraculously, or at least that's what she said, and then the kitty Jesus got to be the savior. Savior from what? Old Tom didn't say, but the kitty Jesus gave fishes to all the peoples, which was good, and then Old Tom said that this was all he remembered for reason of his becoming atheistic.
But the thing he liked most about Old Tom was not the fact he was giving him all the fish and milk every day, but the fact that Old Tom listened to every word he was saying. Back in cat time, nobody listened to kitty. They all told him to do this and that, and all the time they were looking at him like he was stupid: "Put that thingie back! Don't touch this thingie! Don't touch that thingie! Stop standing in the way!" They made him repeat what they said and definitely did not tuck him into bed at night.
But not Old Tom!
He listened and wrote EVERYTHING kitty said in a big-big book.
Old Tom called him the Holy Spirit! And the big book was called The Codex of the Holy Spirit Cat.
Can you imagine? A book written about him! I wonder what the Master Scientist would think about that! Maybe the professors back home will make a theory on this.
"Maybe they won't," a little voice in his head snaps.
"Or maybe they will! Because this is the greatest mission of imperative knowledge to advance The Glorious and catkind! Everyone back home is going to sleep thinking of me and waiting with great curiosity to listen to my adventures."
"Oh please, after one week of hearing you thinking, I can guess how much they care about you and your mission."
The kitty startles. He had never known this voice in his head.
"Are you me?"
"No silly, I can't be you because I'm smarter than you."
"Then what are you doing in my head?"
"I'm a telepath," says the voice. "Look down."
And the cat looks down from his fluffy royal cushion that Old Tom stole from widow McKendrick, to a big-headed rat that is just standing there.
"A telepath rat?" says the cat.
"Oh, I'm sorry! You can have talking cats, but a telepath rat is out of the question, right?"
The rat has actually a good point. Should we allow the rodent to just intrude in the story like that? Or do we need to warm up the plot and let the rat make a proper entrance? Giving her a little
background.., or maybe giving her a name?
But that won't be very fair to the kitty, since we didn't give him a name also.
Oh well, let's just continue.
As the time traveling kitty tried to make sense of all this, the rat wobbles her way to the cushion.
"Such a nice resting place you have here. My, my! And fishes and milkies—all you can eat! Sorry to barge in like this, but it's not every day you get to meet a member of an extinct species."
"You mean … humans?"
"No, stupid, I mean you!"
Munch-munch-munch, and the whole fish is gone like in a disappearance magic act. The rat licks her paws and resumes the conversation.
"What? You think you are the only time traveler around here?"
Slurp-slurp-slurp, and the whole milk vanishes, just like the fish, in part two of the same magic act.
"Sorry, but this big telepath brain needs lots and lots of proteins. Burp! And to think we never thought you were sentient at all."
"Who? The humans?"
"No, stupid, you! You, the cat species! You, the ones that came ten-million years after the hominids. We truly believed that the cat fossils had big heads just to store all the extra fat for hibernation."
"Hibernation?"
"Yea, Yea, hibernation. Because you do seem to sleep a lot. And you do have big heads that never seem to have smart thoughts. So, hibernation was the best theory that fit the pattern. I can't wait to bring the news back to my time. Imagine the surprise on Doctor Ratonstick's face when he learns that there was another sentient species between us and the hominids."
"Another species? What other sentient species?"
"You, stupid! Yooou! Gaaaaaah!!"
The little paw thumps on her rodent face and pauses for a while.
Then the rat regains her composure and starts to slowly tell a simple narrative fit for a child's comprehension. The story is simple, as children's stories go, and the kitty understands the horrible, horrible truth:
Catkind does not live forever and ever, as The Glorious has promised. Not only that, but catkind was never regarded as being intelligent or highly evolved to begin with—and that is because they do not leave a mass extinction behind as proof of their civilization (unlike the brilliant, brilliant humans). That alone is reason enough to think that catkind was full of lazy, hibernating creatures. Catkind didn't alter their environment to catastrophic outcomes, they didn't cause any climate change or continental shift, and most importantly they didn't leave any ceramic tooth fillings behind.
Apparently, in the highest circles of rat academia, causing a planetary scale destruction is proof of advanced civilization—and an extinction is a sure sign of higher intelligence.
But not with the kitties.
Apparently, catkind didn't cause any mess because all the oil was already gone, the uranium and plutonium already mined, and in the end there wasn't much left to cause another great extinction. That's why, when catkind disappeared for one reason or another, all traces of their existence went extinct as well.
But not to despair! Nature followed its course, and after some thirty-million years, the good old sentience came back again as a genetic treat, but this time in rats.
And surprisingly, ratkind thought of themselves as the paramount of species, the beacon of intelligence, the highest, bestest, awesomest mammal on four paws that ever walked on the face of the planet. But when they started digging the good old rocks and studying the good old planet history, they stumbled on the good old extinction that happened during hominids' time.
And, like any self-respecting species that calls itself top of the animal pyramid and triumph of evolution, they had to come up with a wave of theories, each more mind blowing than the last, to explain how the hominids went poof!
And catkind?
Well, they discarded them as fat, lazy creatures with big heads to store fat.
"But … but … but that can't be true! It is we who are the awesomest and bestest species on four paws that ever walked the Earth! And The Glorious … nothing matches The Glorious. He is forever in history!"
"Your catkind is dead! Kaput! Your presence in the fossil records lasts for two million years, and after that poof! Bye-bye, kitty! Nothing left for posterity except dry bones and claws. No Glorious, no glorious glory, no nothing!"
"But—"
"Bones and claws!"
…bones and claws…
The echo of those words resounds in the mind of the Virtuous Pupil.
Bones and claws are all that is left.
The little kitty's eyes are as wide as can be in a state of shock and awe. And words seem no longer to matter.