“Hello,” he said to the thing. “Done with your food? Want more?” The thing opened its mouth as if to respond, but no noise come out. Holloway saw the thing’s teeth, which were decidedly not catlike, and were more like human teeth than not. Omnivore, said a voice in his head that was not his own, but belonged to someone he used to know quite well. The voice gave him an idea.
Holloway stood up and moved over to his work desk. He took the porkpie hat off his security camera, which he then righted because it had been knocked over while Carl chased the creature. The camera featured an omnidirectional image sensor; it could see in every direction except for directly below, where it was blocked by its own stand. He took his spare infopanel, clicked it into its own stand and turned it on, keying it to show the image feed from the security camera. Then he picked up the last slice of bindi and held it up to the cat thing. The creature, now substantially less afraid of Holloway, held out its hands to receive it.
“No,” Holloway said, and placed the slice back on the work desk. Then he picked up the chair from the floor and positioned it so that if the cat thing were to work its way back down to the floor, it could use the chair to climb up and get the fruit. “You want it, come and get it,” Holloway said. He put on the porkpie hat and then went to the cabin door, opening it just enough to let himself out without letting Carl in.
Carl was deeply displeased with this development and barked at Holloway in frustration. Holloway patted his dog’s head and walked over to his skimmer. He reached in for his infopanel, powered it up and accessed the security camera feed.
“Let’s see how smart you really are,” he said. He adjusted the image to show a panorama view of the cabin.
For several minutes, the creature did nothing. Finally it started down the bookcase, taking rather more time to climb down the case than it had to fling itself up it. For a minute, Holloway couldn’t see the cat thing, because the work desk blocked the floor. Then the chair moved slightly and the catlike head popped up, scanning for the piece of fruit.
It spied the fruit, and then suddenly gave a look of alarm and disappeared. Holloway grinned; the creature had just caught the image of itself in the infopanel he’d set the fruit in front of. Holloway had wondered whether the thing would recognize itself in a mirror, or in this case a video feed acting like a mirror. The immediate answer seemed to be that it did not, but then Holloway could remember times he’d been startled by his own reflection. What would be interesting was what would happen next.
The cat thing’s head poked up again, more slowly this time, watching the “other” cat thing. Eventually it hauled itself up on the desk and walked over to the infopanel. It crouched down to peer at it, and then tapped on it. It moved a hand and appeared to watch its doppelganger do the same thing. After a few minutes of this, satisfied, it turned away from the infopanel, grabbed the bindi slice with both hands, and then sat down on the edge of the desk, feet dangling, to eat the fruit. It had recognized itself.
“Congratulations, you are now officially as smart as a dog,” Holloway said. Carl looked up at the word dog. Holloway knew it was only his imagination that the dog appeared somewhat offended at the comparison.
Holloway rewound the images of the cat thing, recorded them, and kept the security camera on RECORD. He put the infopanel back down and went back into the cabin, once again slipping through the door to keep the increasingly annoyed Carl on the outside.
The cat thing noted Holloway’s entrance but didn’t move, or even stop kicking its feet leisurely as its legs dangled. It had apparently decided that Holloway wasn’t a threat. Carl appeared at the window behind the desk and barked at the creature. It looked over casually but didn’t stop eating its fruit. It had figured out that Carl couldn’t get through the window and, for the moment at least, represented no threat.
Carl barked again.
The cat thing set its fruit down, pulled its legs up from the edge, grabbed its fruit and then walked over to the window. Carl stopped barking, confused by what the creature was doing. The cat thing sat down, millimeters away from the windowpane, stared at Carl, and then very deliberately started eating its fruit in front of the dog. Holloway could have sworn it was intentionally chewing with its mouth open.
Carl went nuts barking. The cat thing stayed there, eating and blinking. Carl dropped from the window; two seconds later, there was a thump as Carl’s head hit the dog door. The manual lock was still on. Carl showed back up in the window a few seconds after that, no longer barking but clearly annoyed at the cat thing.
“Now you’re just getting cocky,” Holloway said, to the cat thing. The cat thing glanced back at Holloway, and then went back to staring at Carl, finishing up its fruit.
Holloway decided to push his luck. He walked over to the work desk and opened one of its drawers. The cat thing watched with interest but didn’t move. Holloway retrieved a dog collar and a leash from the drawer. He almost never put them on Carl, but sometimes they were necessary when the two of them went to Aubreytown. He closed the drawer and then went back to the cabin door, slipping out before Carl could change his position from the window. Holloway went over to the dog and in full view of the creature slipped the collar around Carl’s neck and latched the leash onto the collar.
Carl took in the collar and the leash and glanced up at Holloway, as if to say, What the hell?
“Trust me,” Holloway said to Carl. “Heel!”
Carl was frustrated, but he was also well trained; any dog that could wait for an order to detonate explosives was one that knew how to listen to its master. He reluctantly came down from the window and stood next to Holloway.
“Stay,” Holloway said, and walked back the length of the leash. Carl stayed. Holloway glanced over at the cat thing, which seemed to be taking this all in with interest.
“Sit,” Holloway said to his dog. Carl actually glanced over to the cabin window and then back at Holloway, as if to say Dude, you’re embarrassing me in front of the new guy. But he sat, an almost inaudible whine escaping as he did so.
“Down,” Holloway said. Carl lay down, dejectedly. His humiliation was complete.
“Heel,” Holloway said again, and Carl got up and stood by his master. Holloway was still looking at the cat thing, which had watched the whole event. Holloway slid his hand along the leash so that Carl was close by his side, and started walking toward the door of the cabin. The cat thing stared but didn’t move.
Holloway opened the door to the cabin but stayed outside with Carl for a minute. Carl got ready to burst through the doorway but Holloway cinched him close, compelling him to heel. Carl whined but then quickly calmed down. He had figured out how this was going to go.
The two of them walked slowly through the doorway. The cat thing remained on the desk, eyes wide but not making any panicky movements.
“Good dog,” Holloway said to Carl, and walked him right in front of the desk. “Sit.” Carl sat.
“Down,” Holloway said. Carl lay.
“Roll over,” Holloway said.
Holloway swore he heard his dog sigh. Carl rolled on his back and lay there, paws up, looking at the cat thing.
The cat thing sat there for a moment, looking at the open door and then back at the dog. Then it walked over to the edge of the desk and slid itself down into the chair. Carl made to move himself into an upright position, but Holloway laid his hand on his dog’s chest. “Stay,” he said. Carl stayed.
The cat thing slid off the chair and onto the floor less than a foot from Carl’s muzzle. The two animals regarded each other curiously; the cat thing glanced up and down Carl’s prone form while Carl, for his part, snuffled madly, trying to process every last particle of the cat thing’s scent.