Entry For Deck Log 4-22FR Full Report: A Spacecat Comes Aboard The Mothership

The Yardmaster could see the three orphaned aliens were very sad. They were allowed to stay together in the same life-room next to the Yardmaster’s on the upper deck of the mothership. They greatly missed their recently deceased alien family. That is why at the last stop at the transit port the Yardmaster bought a gift, a very rare and expensive gift, a highly illegal gift, he bought a spacecat to bring back on board and give to the orphans.

He kept the spacecat hidden until the mothership had left port. These spacecats were not quite like the cats you often remembered on earth so long ago. They had no reproductive systems, were gender neutral and were bio-genetically ‘birthed’ in Bio labs and were designed to live on long life traveler ships. The original genetic base sequence code was usually the old Himalayan cat breed.

This breed was selected because of their beauty, their long soft hair which was a pleasure to stroke when they sat on your lap and their desire to purr. They also had low energy and a desire to sleep most of the time. Clever Bio techs genetically expanded on these traits to create a mutated breed that did not shed hair, shed skin and never had eye staining. They even slowed down its metabolism system so it only used the bathroom once every few weeks. The genetic codes were secretly shared among the Bio labs and improved upon from time to time, but, as an inside joke they often created odd colored cat hair. This spacecat had very long flowing blue hair and one dark blue eye and one light blue eye.

The Captain had watched his gruff Yardmaster assume the guardian role of the child aliens with inward amusement. “Some one’s gotta take care of those blue critters,” the Yardmaster would roughly say. Some of the crew volunteered to do so but the Yardmaster always had an excuse why that person could not do a good job. Soooo, thought the Captain, by default only the Yardmaster can take on this role, how interesting.

The Captain and the Yardmaster drank coffee alone in the Yardmasters life-room. The bio-engineered coffee was excellent of course. The mother ship’s bio-genetics lab could do just about anything with a genetic code. Sometimes as a prank, or out of boredom, they would violate the Universe Life Respect Law and combine an earth genetic sequence with an Alien sequence, usually only on something very small in their life labs. The Captain heavily frowned on this and only once had to follow up with discipline on this matter. But, that is a story for another day.

The Mothership mandate was no pets allowed on board. There was just too much risk of animal interference with the advanced systems on the ship. If animal hair was shed and bypassed the filtering systems it would be a problem, if a pet crawled into a recess and touched or chewed on intricate systems there would be problem. When the Mothership left the earth-moon shipyard decades ago there were no pets allowed on board. But, the Yardmaster planned to approach the Captain to change that.

“Captain, the little blue buggers are not doing well,” said the Yardmaster.

The Captain had noticed that for a while. He had the same concern, “Any ideas on what we can do?”

“I have done everything I could think of,” said the Yardmaster, “I have brought them down to the life centers where our young ones play but they don’t interact. Our soul counselors say they have broken hearts.”

“Yes, I can imagine that. It was very traumatic for them to watch their family die. They probably have guilt about being the only survivors.”

The Yardmaster replied, “Yes, the soul counselors said this species have extra deep relational dependencies…”

The Captain interrupted, “That just means they are extra loving and family oriented, right?”

“Aye Captain,”, replied the Yardmaster, “If these critters don’t improve, they will all die, and die soon.”

That was a surprise to the Captain. He and the rest of the crew had grown fond of these gentle orphaned aliens. It would break their hearts to have them die.

The Captain took a long sip of his coffee. He was used to successfully solving life and death problems. He had been trained since he was a young child to be a Captain. He racked his brains but had no solutions to this problem. He was perplexed and was very worried and beginning to feel sad.

“No,” the Captain said, “we have to find a solution.”

“Well Captain,” said the clever Yardmaster, “I do have an idea.”

“What?” demanded the Captain with strong interest.

Then the Yardmaster stood and walked to his sleep room then came back out. When he came back the Captain’s eyes grew wide, “Yardmaster, WHAT have you done?”

“Captain, let me explain,” as the Yardmaster quickly put the blue spacecat in the Captains lap. The spacecat settled in and began to purr. The Captain instinctively put his hand on the cat and felt its softness.

“You must get rid of this,” said the Captain as he heard the spacecat purr softly and lovingly.

“Captain, I can’t, I got it at the transit port, we can’t go back, but, if you really want me to jettison it I can,” gambled the Yardmaster.

“Yes, by all means, do it,” said the Captain as the spacecat continued to purr and softly move its paws back and forth on the Captains lap, as if it knew its fate was being decided. It looked gently upward into the captain’s eyes and began alternatively blinking one dark and one light blue eye at the Captain.

The Captain remembered as a child being given a spacecat with green hair from his Alien friends. He knew his own family would say no to it. So, he first put the spacecat on his mother’s lap and won her over. Then the both of them did the same to his father and eventually his father gave in. These spacecats were genetically designed to know how to survive and knew how to favorably soften hearts when they had to.

The Captain inwardly smiled as he remembered his father relenting but followed with a long list of rules, that everyone initially said yes to, but, were never followed. He knew what his clever Yardmaster was doing, he himself had done it before. But, the Captain knew he could not relent. The Captain had to say no and say it firmly so this never happened again.

As he spoke he looked at the spacecats blinking blue eyes, “Yardmaster, I am disappointed in you for bringing this contraband on board in violation of at least 5 Universal codes.” He kept his hand on the spacecat staring at its blinking eyes.

“Yes sir, I am guilty sir,” said the Yardmaster with no resistance.

“Purchasing this cat is illegal,” the Captain kept looking downward, “and carries severe consequences.” Why is this spacecat blinking at me like that, thought the Captain.

“It is a health hazard,” continued the Captain although knowing that these spacecats had been genetically cleansed for long term ship living. He soon realized there appeared to be pattern to the blinking.

“I will jettison the spacecat immediately,” meekly replied the Yardmaster.

“Yes, I want it immediately…..”, then the Captain stopped and watched the spacecat for a while.

The Yardmaster cringed and kept watching his Captain, willing to follow his orders no matter what.

“I don’t believe this,” whispered the Captain.

“What?”

“Its eyes, the blinking......,” faltered the Captain.

“I noticed it, but, what about it?”

“I think I know what it’s doing, it’s incredible,” stated the Captain.

“Damn it Captain, WHAT is going on?” impatiently spoke the Captain.

“He is communicating to us, look, dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot, then it goes to dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dash dot dash dot, dot dash, dash and it repeats it over again, “said the Captain.

The Yardmaster watched and then realized the Captain was correct, “Why, that’s the ancient communication language of Morse code.”

The Captain laughed loudly in disbelief,” Do you see it? SOS, Save Our Ship. It did that to get our attention.”

The Yardmaster was stunned, then regained his composure and also loudly laughed, “Then it follows SOS with SOCAT, Save Our Cat, over and over again.”

They continued laughing together as they watched the spacecat communicate to them.  The Captain continued to stroke the spacecat's long blue hair, "A Bio Tech must have inserted an extra genetic boast into this spacecat."  The Yardmaster knew the Captain was won over.

“Permission granted to keep this spacecat on a trial basis Yardmaster,” said the Captain.

“Aye-Aye Sir”

Then the Captain communicated a long list of rules and guidelines for keeping the spacecat which they both knew would be ignored.

The Yardmaster then called in the three aliens from the room next door. They came in slowly and sadly. The Captain stood up and handed the spacecat to the blue child aliens. At first, they didn’t know what it was or what to do. Then they gently held it and passed it from one to the other. Then their faces transformed into excited radiance. The aliens purred and the spacecat purred.

Then the spacecat began blinking, then after awhile the Captain and the Yardmaster stared in disbelief as the Aliens began blinking back. At first in copycat Morse code. Then after a while they noticed they were expanding their vocabulary.  

“Unbelievable,” said the Captain.

“Way to go you wonderful blue critters,” blurted the Yardmaster, “I am so proud of you.” Then the Yardmaster contained himself and became reserved, but, inwardly was bursting in pride of ‘his blue critters.’

It was obvious the spacecat was a hit with the orphans and there was now a chance for them to have a foundation from which to begin rebuilding their lives.

The spacecat became the ship’s mascot, was loved by the crew and stayed on the ship for many decades after the Captain, Yardmaster, and the Aliens grew up and left. It was never forgotten by anyone on the mothership.  Finally, its genetic DNA began to crumble. At that time the Bio-lab regenerated another identical spacecat, but, with a few enhanced capabilities.

Reader, thank you for reading this story. If you are curious how the spacecat later tickled the bastard baby born on the mothership then please read the other Deck Logs found in my profile.  Thank you, DW