17 June 2405
14.825337/106.495972/[2400]01:44:04.0/-15:56:15/3 Luculla
Voice log [Judith Hobson]
Narrative augmentation off
01:10:22
I've got it. I think I've got it! It's amazing. That was amazing, oh!
How do I explain? Katie. She came to me tonight. She, we, kissed. I was full of sleep, I thought it was a dream. But something clicked, and it was like I heard her voice, for the first time.
This has never been recorded before! But I'm sure. They don't speak, or sign; but they touch all the time.
They communicate by touch. I've been watching it all along. I thought it was something weird, erotic. But they use their... they touch with their most sensitive skin. To talk to each other!
Narrative augmentation on
08:21:12
Once I showed signs of getting up, the cat-girl stopped her restive pacing and curled upward again onto her feet, her shoulders leading like they were lifted by invisible wires. Standing at her full height she appeared almost fully human; her soft pelt and the length of her torso giving her an elfish, ethereal air. She approached warily as I swayed on my knees mustering the courage to stand.
This time she crossed into my personal space slowly, but no less wilfully, her head bowed and tilted. Again my conscious mind was repulsed, and I stood hastily, my arms coming forward to fend her off. She lazily dodged my flailing, and I thought I saw a flash of disgusted resignation in her eyes as she sprang away towards the trees. I felt stung, and while I told myself a biologist should not let emotions get in the way of impartial observation, another part of me mocked this dishonest rationalisation.
I started forward, then paused. Should I go back to the camp first? If Raja had returned, he would be as terrified as I was. And I should fetch some things. Water. Food. I looked up to the tree line. The cat-girl was gone, like a ghost. Suddenly aware of being alone, I pitched forward, croaking, 'Hey!'
There was no reply. I blundered into the foliage, fright returning. Surely I had not missed my chance? My crashing progress became more frantic as I searched for some sign of the cat-girl; but she left no trail.
After a moment my weakness and exhaustion brought me to a stop. I leaned on a tree trunk, and in between sucking air into my ravaged lungs and wincing at the pain that seemed to fill my entire body, I cursed forcefully into the undergrowth.
She dropped lightly to the ground beside me.
I collapsed like a doll. She regarded me with disdain as I swore some more, grasping at a low branch of the tree to right myself. It broke, of course. This set the pattern for the next half an hour or so: she would disappear, hinting at a general direction with her leap into the branches above; I would flounder after her at ground level, often becoming so entangled and confused that when she next appeared and bounded away it was in a completely unexpected direction.
In time, however, the going became easier, the forest canopy higher and the undergrowth more sparse. Now I could see her for longer; and as I became more confident of her continued interest I would sometimes rest and just watch, mesmerised. She seemed to fly, for even without low branches she could still find enough purchase on each bare trunk with her prehensile clawed hands to spring to the next.
The ground was rising, and my main obstacles became overgrown outcroppings of rock. Soon the forest floor was lost to a continuous jumble of huge boulders, and my pace slowed again as I picked my way precariously over and around them. My mind was occupied with not falling and breaking a leg, and only occasionally did my eyes dart behind me to quail at the distance I must now be from the camp.
The altitude we had gained gave me some idea of where we were headed, because Blackshore's lab backed onto a steep ridge. We had not explored beyond it, knowing that the people of the colony far downstream had avoided the lab and the difficult terrain around it. My new-found friend, and the killer out there somewhere: were they the reason? Blackshore had been studying how to improve the success rate of human colonies on far-flung worlds. But her ideas had found no traction with the scientific community, especially when she began to espouse long-banned practices, like compulsory birth control and genetic--
I stopped with a jerk, slipped and landed gracelessly on my backside, eyes wide. The cat-girl was out of sight, but I had her firmly in my mind's eye. Human in form, yet adapted perfectly to her environment.
Could it be? Blackshore's last upload had been a desultory essay on the uselessness of established methods. Some years later, her lab had burned to the ground. We were here to discover what she had been doing. Had I just found the answer?
The implications were staggering. I jumped to my feet, my hunger and pain forgotten, and peered forward to try and catch sight of the cat-girl. A girl, alone? No. She looked like a cat because that was an adaptation to the forest. Her claws were for climbing, not predation. She was a human. And that meant society.
In excitement I jolted back into motion. It turned out I was just below the ridge-line, the last of the trees disappearing to expose bare rock. I scrambled to surmount it, my boots raising plumes of dust, and then suddenly my stomach lurched as I was faced with the next valley, laid out hundreds of feet below me like a vast river of green under the blazing sun.
As my eyes adjusted, I gaped, awestruck. There could be no doubt. There was a colony here again.
The wilderness had been tamed; there were haphazard but unmistakable fields nestled in the vegetation; wandering lines that suggested roads, and at their hub: a huge grey mound with indecipherable intricate detail, like a single dry mud dwelling made enormous through endless extension. It was all merged with the natural features of the land, so that from space it would be unlikely to attract attention; but from here there was no doubting the hand of intelligence.
A city of cats! I almost danced with delight, tears streaming down my face, and then cast a sorrowful look behind. If only the professor had lived to see this.
There was no question of hesitation, though. I had to discover more. The other side of the ridge was a bare scree slope for some hundred yards before the vegetation took hold again. It was steep, but in my excited state it appeared manageable. I began my descent, placing my boots carefully and testing each step with my weight.
It was with a certain resignation that I accepted the outcome: the loose rubble under both feet began to move. At first I kept my balance, skiing precariously; then my backside accepted its usual role, and finally I lost all control and began to tumble, shrieking with fright.
But it was not long before I felt the branches and leaves of shrubs thumping and slapping me to a halt in a cloud of dust. I yelled a little more for good measure, curled up in a protective ball; but grazes and bruises seemed to be the only cost of my mode of descent. I even laughed a little as I flopped onto my back to get up.
Someone was standing over me.
Not the cat-girl. A giant of a woman, thickly muscled and lean. She held a spear in one hand, but it was not directed at me; and her expression was deeply unimpressed. She was not naked: strips of brown and ochre material wound their way around her torso and limbs; although they avoided her pubic area so that her stance and my vantage point gave me a startling view of her vulva.
She made no sign, so I shuffled away a little, rising onto my elbows, and for a moment we studied each other. Her hair was tied back out of sight, her eyes were jet black and narrowed, her face sharply featured and handsome. Most of all she reminded me of pictures I had seen of aboriginal peoples back on Earth, but her powerful build was distinctive and gave her an ageless quality.
'Hi,' I said, lamely. However the opportunity for an awkward conversation was interrupted by the sudden re-appearance of the cat-girl. She seemed to come from nowhere. She landed lightly onto the spear-wielder, her hands over her shoulder and her legs either side of her abdomen. At first I yelped and shrunk back at this apparent attack, but the amazon merely adjusted her stance to accommodate the weight and brought her free hand around to support the cat-girl.
A pet? But no: what happened next was far more incredible. The cat-girl hoisted herself up and around to kiss the larger woman squarely on the lips. Is this what she had tried with me? The kiss became more passionate, more erotic. The nearer of the cat-girl's hands moved down and actually began to stroke across the woman's chest, languidly curling around her prodigious breasts. I was shocked into total immobility, fascinated and repulsed in equal measure. Cross-species lesbianism? What the hell was going on here on Luculla?
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