John and Argent by cmsix

Chapter 94

I guess I should have been more careful with the cat but considering everything we knew about him up till now I just didn't see the need. I didn't encourage him to come with me but he came right along by my side, almost as if he were a dog I'd trained to heel. Thinking about it I realized that even if I didn't want him to come into the cave there might not be a hell of a lot I could do about it. Still I was convinced that something had been done to the cat by either the aliens, Ralph, Frank or Phil and I couldn't see it turning on us.

My mates and others that were in my kitchen and cave didn't see it that way; or at least they didn't spend a lot of time trying to reason things out. When I pushed my way through the hanging bison skins that closed the cave's entrance to keep the cold winter out I caused quite a commotion.

The first one to see the cat was Gema and this didn't surprise me since she was the first to see almost everything new. The cat surely fell into that category. She screamed long and loud as soon as her brain could make sense of what her eyes were telling her. I felt the cat tense up and so I stopped just inside the entrance and laid a hand over his back, hoping to calm him. Gema was only the first to scream. All of my mates that were present did so too and many of the men standing or sitting around the table joined in, including Raalto, Barago and Caato. Racaato, Bigglieo and Galto didn't even get a yell out, they just stared wide-eyed for a second and then joined the throng that was rushing anywhere as long as it was out. I didn't say a word, I just let them head for the exits.

I did speak up a few seconds later though. Roweea, Ameliea, Merita, Maia and Dieta were back from the practice cave with their rifles in hand in much less time than I would have thought possible.

"Don't shoot, don't hurt it," I yelled myself.

"Don't hurt it?" Ameliea asked amazed as they lowered their rifles just a little.

"No, don't hurt the cat, it seems to like me somehow."

Just then I felt fear again myself because Deimeta came running out of the hall that lead to the unmated women's quarters. She saw me before the cat and she seemed to miss it as she came directly toward me at her fastest gait. She must have noticed the cat for the first time when she was still about twenty feet from me because she came to a sliding halt.

"Daddy! Where did you get that?" she asked.

"It came up to me when I was leaving the horse cave, I was scared at first but it just rubbed itself against me and I think it likes me. Come a little closer and see what it does," I said.

She gulped and started our way slowly. I felt sure it would be safe but just in case I pulled the Glock back out of its holster. It turned out to be a needless precaution for when the cat noticed that Deimeta was coming to us it suddenly lay down on the floor beside me. This caused Deimeta's step to be more confident and she walked right up to its head.

"Can I touch it?" she asked when she reached my side.

"I think so but stay back a little and don't get between your mommies and the cat, they're ready to shoot it if it tries to do anything dangerous," I told her.

I'd noticed that as soon as I drew the Glock, all of my mates that had fetched their rifles had shouldered them again and they had the cat in their sights for the moment. It made me feel better about things since all of my mates had spent plenty of time practicing and even if the cat wanted to cause trouble he would only have about half a second to do it.

He didn't want to though. When Deimeta reached out to touch his head, near the ears, he pushed it against her hand seemingly to increase the pressure of the rub. I was frankly amazed and after a few seconds of this I holstered the Glock again and petted him a little myself. I saw that my mates had also relaxed somewhat and were headed our way.

"Before we get to friendly with the cat I want to take him into my office for a few minutes and think about this," I told them.

"Can I go too Daddy?" Deimeta asked.

"I think you'd better let me spend a little time alone with him first. If I decide he is really safe I'll bring him back out quickly. I really don't think he means us any harm at all."

"OK Daddy, we'll wait here," Deimeta said.

She backed away from the cat and I took a step or two toward the office. When the cat saw I was going away he got up and assumed his "heeling" place again. It was surprising since I'd never even had a dog that would do as well as he was. We went to the office and the cat waited while I opened the door then he preceded me as I held it open for him. I followed and then closed the door behind us.

"Welcome back John, I see that you have made friends with the cat," Ralph said as the door closed.

"Yes, I was surprised and not a little afraid at first. Is this your doing?"

"No, Argent had the cat modified on the day that you first saw it, during the bison hunt. It knows that none of your people will hurt it and it will not endanger any of those that are close to you. In fact it will no longer harm humans unless they are specifically out to do you harm. Argent gave it the ability to know the difference. I thought that it was a little much at the time and I still do but I don't guess there is really any harm in it. He is a spectacle on his own though isn't he?"

"Without a doubt, he makes a strong impression."

"He has also been trained pretty thoroughly. I guess that you noticed that he will heel to you without you even having to command it. He will also hunt with you and even fetch a stick if you want him to. In your presence he will not attack anything unless at your command. He will also "speak" at a word from you but I'd recommend that you take him outside before you try it. He can be rather loud when he speaks," Ralph said.

"I'll bet he can be. This is the damndest thing Argent has come up with yet and it seems to me that he didn't give a lot of thought to it before hand. Still it will be different and probably fun, are you convinced that it won't harm anyone, even Deimeta."

"He is no longer capable of danger to any human you are familiar with and in fact he knows exactly which ones live at your camp with you. He won't bother any human at all now unless he senses that it is intent on doing harm to you or yours," he said.

"I wasn't aware that cats could be so thoroughly trained."

"They can't be actually, he wasn't trained in the sense that you are familiar with. He was modified. His brain is now a far cry from that of a normal animal of his type. He had to be made considerably more intelligent and even had to be given a small amount of telepathic ability so he could determine whether people he encountered had knowledge of you and intent, whether good or bad, toward you," Ralph told me.

"In other words it isn't really a cat any more."

"It is and again it isn't, it will still act the same if it isn't around people and if you don't want it with you it can be sent back into the wild where it can live as it always has," he said.

"Why did it only come to me now if it has been this way so long?"

"Originally, after it was modified, it had a sanction against approaching you. Argent had that removed after he returned and the cat made its way here then," he said.

"I don't guess it will hurt anything to keep it around. I'm sure that Deimeta and probably all the others will come to like it after they have decided that it won't harm them."

"It will not harm them, it can't. I'm sure that Deimeta will find it a wonderful playmate, probably for quite a while. You can be sure that no one or no thing can bother her while the cat is with her," he said.

"I guess I'll go and give them the good news then. Come along smiley," I told the cat as I headed out of the office.

I think nearly everyone in camp was gathered around in my cave when smiley and I came out. The intake of breaths was audible when we stepped out of the door. Deimeta came scampering back up to me.

"Is it all right now Daddy, can I play with it some more?" she asked.

I stopped and picked her up. Without even thinking about it I swung her up to sit on smiley's back. He didn't have a mane as a lion would so there was really nothing she could get a good hold on. She curled her little fingers into a grip on the skin of his shoulders though and seemed that she would be able to keep her seat.

"It is all right now Deimeta. You can play with smiley or ride him around or whatever you want to do with him. I'm sure that he is a gift from the spirits and I'm also sure that he won't hurt anyone in camp. You should get down after a few minutes though and let everyone come up and meet him if they want to."

"Thank you Daddy, I will. You find me the neatest toys and pets somehow," she said, grinning her widest.

"You're welcome Deimeta. I'm glad that you like smiley. Later I'll show you some of his tricks."

I left her on his back and went to the table, hoping for coffee. Jaada brought me a cup and when she put it down I pulled her into my lap.

"What do you think of smiley Jaada?"

"Is that his name? I was very scared when I first saw him, how could I not be?" she asked.

"That is his name and I was scared when he first came up to me also. I think that once everyone is accustomed to him he will be fun to have around though. I'm sure that he will be able to discourage those that might want to bother us here. In fact I think he has already had some contact with our enemies. I'm sure that he was the cat that killed the spy and he is probably also the one that took care of Shabago for us."

"I wonder why?" she asked.

"Only the spirits can know that, I'm sure. It can only be their work for the cat to come to us like this, that's why I know that it must not mean us any harm."

"I'm sure that you are right. I should go and get you a sandwich; you're probably hungry. We will have a big meal for everyone before we leave. Are the wagons almost ready? We have finished packing everything that we will need to take with us, we have prepared enough food for a week, just in case it takes that long," she said.

"The sleighs are nearly ready but I think I will ask Danlo to hitch another one now. Smiley will take up a lot of room and since he is here now I wouldn't think of going without him."

She went to fix my sandwich then and later as I ate it and drank my coffee I tried to think of the best way to use smiley to influence the people that we would be going to deal with. I was sure that he could make quite a thrill for them although I wasn't sure if they would like him as much as Diemeta seemed to.

After I finished eating I went back to the horse cave and took smiley with me. It wasn't as if I had a lot of choice in the matter, when I left he came with me. I wondered if he would have stayed if instructed. Probably he would have but I felt it would be better to keep him with me for a time.

Danlo was speechless when I walked into the horse cave with smiley. He did his best to maintain his composure but Nadlo, Jonoco, Sahto and Talvo made a hasty retreat to the back.

"I don't know why they have done it Danlo but the spirits have made smiley here my pet. You can probably tell that they have made the horses aware that he is not harmful since they would be in a panic if it was a normal cat that had come in here."

"Now that you mention it I'm sure that is so. They don't seem to be bothered in the least by him. I guess I will have to try and act the same. It is very frightening though, at first it was anyway," he said.

"For me also, he just walked right up to me when I left here before to head back to my cave."

"I guess he got your attention pretty fast," he said, grinning.

"He did at that but now Deimeta things he is just a big pet, she has been riding around on his back."

"It didn't bother him for her to ride?" he asked.

"It seemed to me that he liked it. He was much better behaved than many horses I've ridden and it is certain that her weight didn't strain his back."

Danlo laughed at that and then I did too. Deimeta's weight on smiley couldn't have been a bother for him since he easily weighed ten times what she did. I asked Danlo to hitch another sleigh so that smiley could have his own personal ride and Danlo said that they would be glad to.

"If you are going to let Deimeta go along she will probably want to ride in it with him," he said.

"I'm going to try my hardest to leave Deimeta here. I'm afraid that this isn't going to be the type of outing that she needs to be on."

"You're right of course but it might be a job explaining that to Deimeta," he said.

"It probably will be but I'm going to. Things could easily turn dangerous on this trip and I don't want to have to be worrying about her safety. It will take away attention that I might need to be giving other things."

"Good luck with her then. We will have everything ready within a half hour and we will bring all the sleighs up to your cave for loading and leaving," he said.

"We'll be waiting on you there."

Smiley and I went back to my cave and Deimeta was waiting near the entrance. She came to get smiley and was soon leading him off by a tiny handful of the skin of his neck. Smiley didn't seem to mind at all.

"I know that you aren't going to let me go on this trip so I want to play with him all I can before you leave. How long will you be gone?" she asked.

"I hope that we will be back late tomorrow night. Much depends on how hard it is to convince Dutono that he needs to let us kill him."

"That could very well take some fast talking Daddy. I hope you have a backup plan in case he can't be convinced," she said, smiling.

"I think my backup plan may have introduced himself to me earlier today."

"Daddy, you aren't going to let smiley get hurt are you?" she asked.

"When it comes time for the hurting to be done I think smiley will be one of the last ones on the receiving end."

She looked him over then, especially noting that he was much taller at the withers than she was.

"You might be right Daddy. Not very many people would want to mess with smiley, he is just a little bit intimidating at first," she said and then she laughed.

I had some more coffee while I was waiting and as I sat at the table Georgo and Dotallto came to join me.

"We have good news John. Dotallto and I agree that the signs for the weather are favorable. I was led to believe that there would be snow but that it would not be a big obstacle," Georgo said.

"I got the same message from the spirits and I might add that it is one of the most understandable messages that I have ever received from them.

"Good, excellent in fact, we will leave as soon as we can get loaded. I have decided that I don't want to approach them in the daylight. I want to prepare some surprises for them during the night."

I lost their attention then as Deimeta came back through the cave, leading smiley, who was giving a slightly frightened Malooto a ride on his back. Georgo and Dotallto were both shocked silent.

"What do you think of my new pet?"

"I am too frightened to think. How did you get him?" Georgo asked.

"He got me, he came up to me outside the horse caves. I assume that the spirits must have given him some type of instruction to do it. I know they have done something because even the horses aren't frightened of him and you can see that he isn't causing the wolves the least bit of alarm."

"The spirits did indicate to me that we should not be afraid of the big cat but they gave no indication that it was coming to live here with us. I can clearly see now that it must have been what they wanted. There can be no doubting it now," Georgo said.

Dotallto just kept quiet. I assumed that he was hoping he wouldn't have to give cat the close inspection he had asked me about once before. Luckily Dieta brought them some coffee about then.

"We have everything ready to go now John, we are all going except for Jaada and Xailieta. Jalayla is coming to just in case she is needed," Dieta said.

"Very good, when Danlo and the others get here with the sleighs we can load up and go. Smiley has a sleigh to himself so that no one will have to ride with him. I wouldn't want anyone to scare him."

"Scare him, most people would be so frightened of him that they would prefer to walk instead of ride in his sleigh," she said.

"That might change if it gets much colder. I'm sure that smiley would be very warm to snuggle up to."

"I don't know him well enough for that yet but if it gets very cold I might try to get acquainted, you know that I like to be warm if it's possible," she said.

People that were going had gathered in my cave by now and the mood was upbeat. At first I thought it was a little odd for everyone to seem so cheerful about leaving in the middle of a cold winter to go out and maybe become involved in a battle where people might be hurt or killed. It came to me after a while though that this wasn't the first trip we'd made where conflict, pain and death had been possible. On all the other trips though the pain and death had been administered by us and not inflicted on us. I guessed that type of thing made a difference to them, in fact it made a difference to me too.

Danlo came into my cave then followed by his helpers. The loading was underway almost at once and while it was going on I went back to my office with another question for Ralph.

"Are you about ready to leave John?" he asked as soon as I entered.

"Yes, they are loading the sleighs now but I have another question for you?"

"I'll do my best to answer you," he said.

"This cat, smiley; he seems to be trained somehow. I put Deimeta on his back and he was well behaved and let her ride him all around in the cave. Has he had some training along those lines?"

"Not really, but his intelligence is much more than any cat or actually more than any animal except man. Argent decided that it would be easier to just improve his brain than to take the time to train him. He is able to understand fairly complex commands. For instance he is much smarter than a chimpanzee even and though of course he cannot talk he can understand when you speak to him as long as you keep it simple. Do you have something specific in mind for him?" he asked.

"Yes and I think when we get there I will give him a try. I guess he is also smart enough now to let me know if I tell him something and he doesn't understand."

"Yes, he will let you know if that comes up," Ralph said.

"Then he is smarter than many men or women."

Ralph reminded me that I could contact him via the palm if I had other questions after I'd left and then I did leave.

Everyone was waiting on me when I got out into the cave. They were ready to go and I was too. We mounted the wagons and I didn't even have to tell smiley which one was for him. I pulled Deimeta up to kiss her goodbye and pass her around among her mothers for the same. When she went back into the cave Danlo headed out.