Genie Read online

  Each time the orange cat approached him Harold 'heard' an increase in the volume of jabbering that constantly filled his mind. It had to be some sort of telepathy, he finally decided, but done in a totally foreign language. Harold stole glances and confirmed that the big Orange Master Cat paused to watch him work each time he passed by. No doubt about it, he was getting special attention.

  Meanwhile Harold turned over the whole situation in his mind again and again. OK, these cats were apparently intelligent, so he had gotten that part of his wish. But everything else was incredibly screwed up! Was this the sort of 'flexibility' that Genie had talked about? But everything was different! Everything! Could even Genie the genie make all the changes he was seeing? And why would he bother making them? All he had wished for was smart cats!

  As he worked away in the endless field Harold discovered something almost as disturbing as giant cats that kept humans in slavery. He was studying shadows, trying to decide if the sun had reached its zenith yet, when he noticed that the shadows were double. Instead of one distinct shadow being cast there were two!

  As the orange cat was far down the road he put down his scythe for a minute to try to figure out why. Using his hands to block some of the glare from above, he quickly determined that there were two suns instead of one!

  The realization and its implications hit him hard. He sank to his knees, his head spinning! This wasn't even Earth, it couldn't be! Where was he?

  His contemplation of this shocking discovery was soon interrupted by Ghan, who through jabbering, hand motions, pulling on his arms, and pointing towards the still distant but rapidly approaching orange cat overseer, was able to get Harold to return to his crop harvesting efforts. By the time the big Orange Master Cat reached him Harold was again dutifully cutting crops.

  Meanwhile Harold discovered even more about the work that the humans were doing. Glancing back towards the huts he was startled to find that they were all gone! The road that had a short time ago held the huts was being dug up in rows, and re-planted. Nearby there were dozens of carts full of soil and the straw of the disassembled huts. Around them were many women with infants and young children; Harold had not seen them earlier because they were inside the huts. Not far behind the cutters that slowly advanced, men and women followed with hoes and seed.

  The over-all strategy suddenly became clear to Harold. The fields were being replanted immediately after being harvested. The road, huts, and workers and their families advanced further across the field daily as the harvesting and replanting work progressed. And progress they did, foot by foot, yard by yard, acre by acre. This is how cats and their human slaves accomplished agriculture here.

  Finally after another roar and more head-splitting silent jabber from the Master Cat an apparent lunch break began, featuring a much appreciated cessation of work. All the cutters dropped to the ground to rest, while young children distributed small loaves of what looked and tasted like bread, and pitchers of what proved to be water. The bread and water made a plain and inadequate meal, but Harold had never before tasted anything so wonderful.

  Yet another question was answered when Harold noticed people flocking to the rows of planted seeds and squatting down over them. It was soon evident that during the break the humans were fertilizing the newly planted rows! Nobody stopped Harold when he walked to the nearest planted row and made his own nutrient contributions. He actually felt a little better as he sat down again with Ghan and finished the last of his water. At his age and especially under stressful conditions a drink of cool water and a good pee and bowel movement were appreciated more than almost anything else. Over the little hole he had just dug and refilled a healthy plant would soon grow as part of this monstrous circle of life.

  All too soon another thunderous roar from the Orange Master Cat ordered an end to the lunch break. Wearily Harold joined Ghan and the other cutters. “I know, quelipod smoon, fellas!" he mumbled. This time he paced himself better, but after only an hour he was again becoming so tired that he could barely continue.

  Just when he thought that he'd totally collapse, a nearby Orange Master Cat roar brought an end to the work. There was a flood of soundless mind chatter while Ghan shouted commands and then had Harold put down his scythe and walk with him out of the unpicked crops and back towards there the huts had been. The humans were looking about in confusion and apprehension. Ghan always looked frightened but now he looked totally terrified and confused. Whatever was happening was evidently unexpected and unusual. In this society that could mean death!

  The Orange Master Cat was waiting for Harold. The big cat was sitting quietly, but seemed to be tense. Instead of facing towards the approaching humans it was focused on the open replanted area to one side. It only turned its massive head towards Harold and regarded the human with its huge eyes when the Earthling was a scant dozen yards from him.

  "PLATT," it said silently, whatever that meant.

  "Platt," voiced Ghan redundantly. It occurred to Harold for the first time that Ghan also 'heard' and understood the big cat's thoughts. Handy.

  Ghan motioned Harold to sit down on the ground, then sat down behind him. Perhaps 'platt' meant 'sit'.

  "HERGOMA," said the cat.

  "Hergoma," said Harold, before Ghan could say it. He had no idea what it meant, of course, but in response several big cats from along the road immediately came running.

  Ghan's eyebrows shot up and he nodded his head, and the Master Cat rumbled something that definitely wasn't a purr. Maybe the Master wasn't pleased that Harold had telepathic skills. But most of the big cat's attention returned to the airship that was now approaching.

  The airship was huge. And silent. Whatever powered it was obviously beyond human technological capability. There were no propellers, rockets, or jet engines in evidence and it wasn't bulky enough to be a dirigible. It had no visible windows. Metallic silver in texture and shaped like a hundred-foot wide cream-filled doughnut, it floated down and towards them and finally sat down only a hundred feet from them, humming with hidden power. It remained floating a yard above the dirty field, continuing to defy gravity, as a square twenty foot per side doorway opened by sliding to one side.

  Out of it slinked an enormous cat, long and lanky, proportioned and colored very similar to his own cats Harry and Pricilla, but giant sized. It stepped nimbly to one side as a second identical cat exited the aircraft and stepped to the other side of the door, making room for yet a third cat that strutted out between the first two. This one looked identical to the first two except it was even larger. There was some sort of rainbow colored collar draped around its neck, perhaps signifying high rank.

  The three cats stepped regally forward together, heads and tails held high, the biggest cat a few yards in the lead. That they were royalty of some sort was evident by the reaction of the local cats, who bowed and groveled by rolling about on their backs and making pitiful-sounding yowling sounds. The Royal Cats completely ignored them as they strode straight towards the Orange Master Cat.

  The orange cat bowed down deeply to the Head Royal Cat that towered over him. Between them there was no doubt as to which one was dominant. A short exchange of silent yammering occurred between them before the orange cat backed away, all the while maintaining its bow of absolute subservience.

  The Head Royal turned its gaze on Harold, with cat-eyes the size of dinner-plates. "EARTH HUMAN HAROLD TIZARD, WE HAVE QUESTIONS FOR YOU," it said telepathically.

  "You know English!" said Harold.

  "THIS WILL GO FASTER IF YOU REFRAIN FROM STATING THE OBVIOUS."

  "Where am I?" Harold asked.

  "WE'LL ASK THE QUESTIONS, SUB-CREATURE. WHERE IS YOUR HOME-WORLD?"

  "You mean Earth? How could I tell you that? I don't even know where I am now!"

  "WE SEEK A PRACTICAL NEAR-ABSOLUTE DESCRIPTIVE REFERENCE THAT WOULD ENABLE PRACTICAL PATTERN MATCHING, NOT A RELATIVE ONE," said the cat. "PROVIDE YOUR ANSWER IN A MATHEMATICAL FORM THAT REFLECTS MATHEMATICAL STRUCTURE IN THE S
EVERAL-LIGHTYEAR VICINITY OF YOUR WORLD. THAT SHOULD PROVE TO BE SUFFICIENTLY UNAMBIGUOUS."

  "I have no idea what you're talking about," said Harold. He knew only the simple mathematics applied in financial spreadsheets. "But I was already thinking that this isn't Earth. That is true, isn't it? But why would the genie take me away from Earth? I didn't wish for that!"

  "WE HAVE SEEN ITS KIND BEFORE. THEY AMUSE THEMSELVES BY TRANSPORTING OTHER CREATURES WITHIN AND BETWEEN UNIVERSES. AMONG THE INFINITY OF UNIVERSES AND INFINITIES WITHIN UNIVERSES SOMETIMES THEY FIND PLACES OF INTEREST TO US. NEW TELL US WHERE YOUR HOME WORLD IS, IF YOU ARE ABLE."

  "Why do you want to know? And why should I tell you?"

  "PERHAPS A BRIEF EXPLANATION WOULD SECURE YOUR COOPERATION. WE HAVE ASSESSED THE DATA FILES CARRIED BY THE CREATURE YOU CALL A GENIE. THROUGH THEM WE HAVE LEARNED EARTH LANGUAGES AND OTHER EARTH INFORMATION.

  “WE ARE INTERESTED IN INHABITING YOUR PRIMITIVE HOME WORLD. AS AN INCENTIVE FOR YOUR COOPERATION, WE WILL LET YOU LIVE HERE WITHOUT REQUIRING YOUR FURTHER LABORS. THE ORANGE ONE WE ENTRUSTED YOU TO TELLS US THAT YOU WILL SOON FAIL IN YOUR LABORS AND DIE AS HIS FOOD. IN SUM YOUR SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON TELLING US WHAT WE WANT TO KNOW."

  "Earth is already fully inhabited by humans!" objected Harold. "Humans with technology and weapons, not slaves to cats!"

  "PLUMP STUPID HUMANS WITH PRIMITIVE TECHNOLOGY. THEY ARE NO MATCH FOR US! THEY WILL BE OUR FOOD! YOUR EARTH IS AN IDEAL WORLD RIPE FOR OUR COLONIZATION. WHERE IS IT?"

  "Ask the genie, if you know where he is."

  The cats exchanged thoughts using their own language.

  "THE CAPTIVE CREATURE KNOWN AS GENIE REFUSES TO COOPERATE EXCEPT TO STATE THAT YOU HAVE THE INFORMATION THAT WE SEEK."

  "Not that I know of. Do you mean some sort of star map or something? I'm a retired accountant, not an astronomer. But we should be able to get along, right? You are intelligent enough to reason with and so am I! And I like cats! We can be friends!"

  The cats exchanged thoughts again.

  "WE CONCLUDE THAT YOU ARE OF NO FURTHER VALUE TO US EXCEPT AS A POOR SLAVE AND SMALL MEAL, SUB-CREATURE."

  With that all three of the Royal Cats turned and strutted away regally, entered their vehicle, and flew off. The big Orange Master Cat snarled and dispersed the gathering. Ghan had sat silently though the entire episode, but now sprang back into action, and led Harold and the other humans back to work.

  "Well that didn't go quite as well as I hoped," Harold remarked. "I figured that if cats were intelligent they could be reasoned with and they would be easy to get along with. Wow; I had that wrong! Intelligent cats are as hard to get along with as people. Even worse maybe!"

  The big cats and their human slaves continued the endless harvest. By mid-afternoon Harold's hands were too tired to hold his scythe, but Ghan used straw ropes to tie the handles to his hands. Ghan also snuck him the extra water and snacks that he needed to go on, and warned him when the big Orange Master Cat was near. It might have been Harold's imagination, but it seemed to him that after the visit by the Royal Cats Ghan took extra special care of him. Something about Ghan had changed!

  The big Orange Master Cat came by frequently to see that Harold was still working. At those times Harold doubled his meager but torturous efforts, for he knew that he would be cat food if he didn't.

  Besides being the biggest slave laborer, Harold noticed that he was the oldest by far. The retirement plan here for humans didn't involve nice 55-plus communities with heated indoor swimming pools. The old and the sick were eaten by their cat masters. That's how things worked here. The humans worked to feed themselves and become cat food, or at least tasty snacks. Harold figured that much of the agricultural crop was probably going someplace to feed cat-food critters much larger than people. The cats maintained the proper human population to keep themselves fed, and kept their human slaves ignorant and helpless.

  Somehow Harold survived the work until it began to get dark. When work stopped another meager bread and water meal was brought to him by his ever present friend Ghan. The huts were quickly reassembled and at last it was time to sleep.

  Harold was so tired and sore from physical labor all day that he could barely move. He did well to get through one day, but he knew that he would never get through another like it. Tomorrow he would surely die. In the morning he would completely collapse and that would simply be the end of him. As the last sun sank below the horizon Ghan joined Harold in the hut.

  "We must talk," said Ghan quietly.

  "You speak my language!" said Harold, so astonished that he sat up.

  "I learned as much as I could from the minds of the cat leaders while they spoke with you. I am one of a growing number of humans that are not only telepathic but can read cat hidden thoughts."

  "That's amazing!" Not only were the cats super smart and talented, so where the humans!

  "Unknown to our cat masters, we have had what you would call a breeding program in place for a hundred generations, plus a body of spoken knowledge that we grow and pass on through the generations. Some day we will be strong enough to gain our freedom from the great cats."

  "I am happy for you!"

  "I wanted to thank you, Harold. We will spread across this planet and others what we have learned from you: your language both spoken and written, and knowledge of your world of humans that rule themselves and have food, freedoms, and many of the things that here only cats have. I wish that you had brought books with you so that we would have a greater depth of human knowledge. But even so you have no idea how inspiring your example is! I have already started to spread what I have learned to others! Thank you!"

  "I don't suppose I'll be around much longer to thank. I'm old and tired, Ghan. Thank you for what you have done to help me, but I'll be cat food for sure tomorrow morning."

  "Yes, the Orange Master looks forward to eating you very soon."

  "Does your Orange Master have a name that it calls itself?" Harold asked.

  "Not a voice name that humans could recognize," said Gahn. "They recognize each other chiefly through scent. Their thoughts about that do not translate to anything humans can comprehend."

  "I'll curse him anyway as he's eating me."

  "I can do nothing to save you from that fate, my friend, but perhaps I can ease your mind by informing you that your adventure has greatly helped the humans that live here. What you have brought to us will hasten our freedom."

  "Sure, now I'll die happy," said Harold. "No doubt about it."

  "Can I get you anything, Harold? More food? A woman perhaps?"

  "A woman? No thanks. That would only kill me sooner. But I wouldn't mind eating a chocolate candy bar, if you can find my suitcase. I'll eat one and you can have the rest. They might inspire you even more than the knowledge I have brought with me."

  Ghan retrieved the suitcase from a corner of the hut from under a straw mat, and brought it to Harold. From it Harold retrieved two dark-chocolate candy bars, one for him and one for Ghan. By candle-light Ghan watched Harold unwrap his and then successfully unwraped his own. They each took a small bite.

  Harold broke into a grin, while Ghan made a face that Harold couldn't interpret. "Don't you like it?"

  Ghan struggled to reply. For the first time Harold had met him he seemed to be overcome with emotion. "Wonderful! Food of the gods! Harold, Harold, Harold! How many of these things are you giving me?" He took a second bite.

  "I'm not sure, maybe ten or fifteen. Look in my suitcase and retrieve and count them for yourself."

  "I must send them to the other leaders in my network!" bubbled Ghan, as by candle-light he searched the suitcase. "Anyone that tastes it will be totally convinced that all the amazing knowledge about Earth I pass onto them is authentic! There are sixteen of them! They will indeed inspire my people to achieve freedom! What is this?"

  In his hands the little brown man held something wrapped in aluminum foil. It was only about the size of a half-loaf of bread but it was obviously very heavy.


  "Oh my gosh! I forgot I brought that!" said Harold. "That is the lamp I used to call the genie!"

  "Could you call him again?"

  "The cats say that they have captured him!" noted Harold.

  "What could it hurt to try?"

  "Perhaps the cats would detect the lamp if it became active," explained Harold. "I have nothing to lose, but you do, Ghan. I leave the choice to you. If you don't want to risk the wrath of the cats I will understand."

  "I want to see your genie, Harold of Earth. Call him. I have people monitoring the Orange Master and the skies that will warn us if there is any sign that our activity is detected." He handed Harold the foil enclosed lamp.

  Harold carefully unwrapped the mysterious crystal. It glowed no more than a candle as he held it using the foil, but Harold was reminded of how bright it became when it was touched with bare skin. That would bring the Orange Master Cat for sure! He emptied out his suitcase and carefully put the lamp inside it, with his hand next to it but not yet touching it. Then he zipped shut the suitcase around his arm at the elbow. His rolled-up red pajamas completed a hopefully light-proof seal around his arm. When warned of the danger of bright light, Ghan also added a foot-thick layer of bedding straw.

  It was fortunate that the straw had been added. Though the suitcase was made of thick dark brown vinyl, it glowed dully when Harold at last rubbed the lamp. Ghan quickly rearranged some straw to better block some slivers of light that got through.

  This time it took much longer for Genie to appear, at least three minutes, although it seemed much longer.

  At last Harold and Ghan sensed the arrival of a second naked little brown skinned man.

  "Genie? Is that you?" asked Harold.

  "If course! Were you expecting someone else? I normally take the form of the dominant local sentient creature, but I judged that a giant cat would be too conspicuous under the current circumstances. It would of course have been many times the size of this hut."