Came the day when Jungle Alli and her three comrades, clad in their own anti-vacuum coveralls and bolstered by a squad of Niam-Niams, stepped out onto the lunar surface.
Now would the Cat Women find the battle brought to their very doorstep!
“All right, you may remove your helmets.”
All the members of the Earth party, which consisted of Philippe, Rafael and Hélène, as well as the several savages, followed Jungle Alli’s instructions, taking cautious breaths of the atmosphere found in the lunar caverns. As they doffed their suits, their movements were weirdly acrobatic and butterfly-like in the reduced lunar gravity.
Leaving a pair of Niam-Niams to guard the discarded suits, Jungle Alli said, “Follow me.”
Leading the way through the luminescent lunar grottoes, the piratical mercenary soon brought her charges within sight of their goal.
The decayed city of the Cat Women, older than Ninevah and Tyre combined, a chunky set of fallen towers resembling a child’s tumbled blocks.
Jungle Alli addressed her comrades. “Remember, the Cat Women can outmanoeuvre us by their powers of teleportation. But they are not supernatural. Our firearms even out the fight. And I believe if we can remove their leader, Alpha, from the equation, then the rest of them will collapse.”
“Very well,” said President Ponto. “Lead on, Alice.”
Within minutes, the Earthlings found themselves crossing a broad plaza and entering a palatial building. They had not gone far before they found their way blocked by a living Cat Woman!
“I am Omega,” said the alluring, dark-haired female, in every respect a sister to the afore-seen Alpha. “What do you humans want here?”
“Bring us to see Alpha. Our business is with her.”
“She and the others are—are busy.”
“Of course they are. Sending their evil thoughts into the innocent minds of our women!”
Quicker than a python, Jungle Alli had the blade of her machete against Omega’s throat. “You might be able to vanish before my reflexes cause my muscles to slice, but I doubt it. You’ll materialize in safety, perhaps—but with a severed artery! Now, lead us to Alpha!”
For whatever reason, Omega did not vanish, but complied. Perhaps she too chafed under the rule of the all-dominant Alpha….
The remaining seven Cat Women occupied couches in a large, column-dotted, temple-like room, looking like the Sleepers of Epheseus while they directed their malevolent thoughts Earthward. As the newcomers entered, Alpha instantly roused herself from slumber and stood.
“So,” said the head Cat Woman, “you have decided to visit us at home, Alice Bradley! Forgive my ungraciousness as a hostess, but I cannot offer you any refreshments.”
“We don’t want any. We only demand justice. You will cease your assaults on Earth’s females, or—”
“Or what? We will spontaneously relocate in the next second to a different part of the Moon, where you will never find us. And soon, your society will tear itself apart under our renewed attacks.”
Jungle Alli pondered this boast, before saying, “This struggle is all about seeing which of our two races is superior, and deserves to inherit the Earth. Why not determine the same judgement between you and me alone?”
Alpha looked tantalized by the prospect. “You mean, individual combat?”
“I do.”
“Very well, I accept. Rid yourself of weapons.”
Jungle Alli swiftly complied. “And you will promise not to employ your powers of vanishment.”
“Agreed.”
Before commencing combat, Jungle Alli solicited a kiss from both Hélène and Philippe. Thus armed with their fond endorsement, she advanced on her foe.
The two women, each formidable in her own way, circled each other like wrestlers, looking for openings. Jungle Alli was sinuous as a snake, while Alpha, the larger of the two, resembled a panther.
At last they closed, with wordless grunts and exclamations. Grappling hand to hand, they struggled for mastery.
Jungle Alli was tossed to the lunar pavement first. Falling upon her stunned prey, Alpha was surprised to find Jungle Alli wriggling out of her grip and soon riding the Cat Woman’s back! Alpha punched backwards, ramming knuckles into Jungle Alli’s cheekbones, and causing her to loosen her hold. The women separated, regained their feet and faced off again.
For a seemingly interminable time the two women fought, enacting a strange barbaric scene among the sleeping forms of the Cat Women—still pulsing out their deadly ideonemes—and the cheering figures of the wholesome Earth people. The battle inevitably took its tolclass="underline" Alpha’s long hair had come undone and disarrayed, while Jungle Alli’s shorter pelt was plastered to her skull with sweat. The clothing of both women was ripped, revealing lush bruised flesh. Their mutual panting sounded in the hall like the chuffing of some struggling engine.
The two resting apart for a moment, Alpha said, “You are a vigorous specimen, Alice Bradley. If all Earth women were like you, they might deserve to live!”
Falling into English, Jungle Alli replied, “We won’t go on without our menfolks. You bitches have been deprived too long to know what you’re missing!”
“Men!” spat Alpha. “Here’s what all males deserve!”
With that, the leader of the Cat Women impulsively teleported over to Philippe and began to strangle him with her otherworldly strength! His face purpling, the President of Helenia seemed doomed!
But then Alpha shrieked, and blood began to flow from her mouth! She released Philippe and fell to the floor, dying as she hit the tiles.
Hélène stepped away from the body of the Cat Woman, Jungle Alli’s red-dripping machete in her hand.
Jungle Alli surged to the side of Hélène, and began to comfort the stunned woman with petting and reassurances. But Hélène did not seem as distraught as one might have expected. She straightened her back, her eyes shining, and said, “So much for female supremacy!”
But whether Hélène was derogating Alpha or praising herself was unclear.
Around the Earthlings, the six sleepers began to stir. Omega, who had stood on the sidelines till this moment, now mentally apprised her sisters of what had just transpired. The remaining Cat Women appeared directionless and disinclined to carry the battle further.
Massaging his throat, his voice something of a croak, President Ponto, supported by his father, said, “Our crisis seems at an end now, thanks to the efforts of my own wife and Miss Bradley. It remains only for us to carry the good news back to a waiting planet.”
“You folks’ll be heading back without me, I reckon,” said Jungle Alli unexpectedly.
“But why?”
“I’ve plumb run out of lands to explore back home. Here I’ve got a whole new world to investigate. I need to see this place before there’s a Bon Marché in every crater.”
“But won’t you be lonely?” asked Hélène.
Jungle Alli eyed the surviving Cat Women with a certain possessive passion.
“Oh,” she said, grinning, “I figure I can do without the company of mankind for a little while.”
MURDER IN GEEKTOPIA
Max Moritz is the moniker on my NC license, and, yes, I’ve heard all the obvious allusive wisecracks already.
“Funny, you don’t look Prankish.”
“I heard you keep all your cats in jam jars.”
“What strength monofilament you use for chickens?”
“Did your Mama stick dirks in her bush?”
But of course I haven’t let smartmouth cracks like those bug me since I was twelve years old, and just finishing my third-level synergetics course at GBS Ideotorium Number 521. (Our school motto that year, picked by the students of course: “A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.” From one of my favourite Shaw and Raymond pictonovels, Major Barbara versus Ming the Merciless.)