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The Cat That Went To Uranus

by Dan Peacock

The ship was barely a million kilometres away from Earth when Commander Fowler heard a meow.

He stopped what he was doing and frowned. Spaceships did not normally meow. They’d been rocketing away from Earth for the best part of a week, and it hadn’t happened once. He wandered through into the main living room of the spaceship, where he found his crewmate, Munroe, reading the First Contact Manual. Munroe had his feet up on the table; one of them was tapping at a frantic pace.

“Did you hear that?” Fowler said. “I thought I heard a meow.”

“Me too,” Munroe said, turning a page.

“Did you hear where it came from? It sounded like it came from in here.”

“Yeah. It was the cat.”

“What cat?” Fowler said.

Munroe put his book down to reveal a small black cat sitting in his lap. It looked up at Fowler and blinked, slowly.

Fowler frowned. “There isn’t meant to be a cat on board.”

There definitely wasn’t meant to be a cat on board. Mission Control had carefully selected Fowler and Monroe for the mission to Uranus, after a thousand candidates had applied for the voyage. He would have definitely remembered if there had been a third crewmate, especially if they were so small and furry, with a yellow collar and little beans for toes.

“I thought it was your cat,” Monroe said.

“No,” Fowler said. “No, it’s not.”

“Meow,” said the cat.

Monroe gave the little black cat a scrub behind the ears. “Well, it isn’t mine. You’d better call Mission Control and see what they say.” He picked up his book and his foot started tapping again.

Fowler went up to the cockpit and sat down, pulled on his headset, and called Mission Control, back down on Earth. It was just past lunchtime, and Fowler’s stomach grumbled. The ration packs they had to eat on the ship were filling, but nowhere near as good as the meals in the Mission Control cafeteria. Down on Earth, it was Taco Tuesday.

It was a few seconds before the call connected.

“Mission Control, Director Garvey speaking,” the voice said. “Commander Fowler? It’s a little early for your daily report.” Fowler thought he heard the Director chewing.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Sir. We may have a situation.”

“Ahem, a situation? Is everything all right?”

“Yes, Sir. The mission isn’t in any immediate danger. But we’ve found a cat on board.”

“Say again, Commander? I thought you said you’d found a cat on board.”

“We have found a cat on board, Sir,” Fowler said.

“Can you describe it?” the Director said.

“I’m not sure,” Fowler said. “It’s cat-shaped, and makes noises like a cat. It’s got black fur and a little yellow collar.”

“I don’t believe it,” the Director said.

“I know, Sir,” Commander Fowler said. “Of course, this does represent a risk for the mission: there is only enough food on board for myself and Captain Munroe for the mission to Uranus, and another lifeform gobbling away at the supplies might mean we run out and, well, starve. It’s going to take us several months to get there, and several to get back, once we’ve completed the mission. We don’t have a litter tray or anything. It might start to get… unhygienic. Request permission to jettison the cat out into space, Sir.”

“No,” the Director said, and Fowler thought he heard anger in his voice.

“Sir? The risk to the mission is…”

“That’s my cat,” the Director growled.

Fowler was silent for a moment. The little black cat had wandered through, and rubbed up against his leg, purring.

“I don’t understand, Sir,” Fowler said.

“I brought little Scoopy into work with me on the day of the big launch,” the Director said. “She loves watching sci-fi shows with me on the TV, so I thought it’d be right up her alley. But just before the ship took off, I turned around and she was gone. I thought she’d run off somewhere, but she must have snuck onboard.”

“So you’re telling me we can’t jettison the cat.”

“You jettison Scoopy and I’ll get Munroe to jettison you!” the Director snarled.

“Meow,” said Scoopy.

“Is that her?” said the Director. “Put her on. I want to speak with her.”

“I…” Fowler stuttered. The little black cat was looking up at him, its tongue sticking out slightly. He pulled off the headset and placed it gently on the floor, next to the cat. He got up and walked back into the ship’s living area.

“What did they say?” Munroe said, not looking up from his book.

“It’s Director Garvey’s cat.”

“Right.”

“And he won’t let me jettison it,” Fowler said unhappily.

“You always want to jettison things.”

“I do not.”

“You do,” Munroe said. “After I beat you at cards on the first night, you tried to jettison the cards.”

“Meow,” said the cat. It had come back through from the cockpit, presumably having finished its call with the Director.

“Well,” Munroe said, putting his book down and crouching next to the cat. “You must be hungry, little lady. What’s your name?” He tilted the cat’s collar towards the light. “Scoopy,” he read.

“Meow,” Scoopy said.

“You think she’d like the ration packs? There’s some tuna flavoured ones I was saving for when we’d passed Mars.”

Fowler put his head in his hands. “If you give her any of the food, there won’t be enough for us. We can’t exactly pop to the shops to get more. What we have on the ship has to last until Uranus. And all the way home again.”

“We’ll worry about that later,” Munroe said, walking away towards the kitchen and clicking his fingers for the cat to follow. She trotted after him.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Fowler said. “We will have to worry about it later.”

“Exactly.”

Fowler gave up. Mission Control had supposedly selected Munroe and Fowler as being perfectly compatible for the long mission between Earth and Uranus. Fowler wasn’t quite sure what had happened, though, because he found the other man incredibly annoying.

The cat started to purr as Munroe scooped some of the tuna-flavoured rations onto a plate and set it down on the floor. She buried her face in the food.

“Where do you think she’s been this whole time?” Munroe said. “We’ve been away from Earth for a week. She must have been somewhere.”

“And what has she been eating?” Fowler added.

Munroe looked thoughtful. “Cats normally hide in little nooks and crannies when they move house, until they feel confident enough to explore. I bet that’s it. She’s been hiding somewhere. Poor thing must be absolutely famished.”

Scoopy had already finished the food and looked back up at them, expectantly. A little fleck of tuna ration was stuck to one whisker.

“Meow,” she said.

“Aw, look at her,” said Munroe. “Let’s give her some more.”

“Did you not hear anything I said?” Fowler was getting frustrated. “We will run out of rations. You can’t just give her food every time she looks at you. You know how important this mission is! If she’s going to stay, we’ll need to severely ration the food. For all three of us.”

“But look at her.”

Fowler looked at her. The little black cat looked back.

“Fine. Give her the tuna,” he muttered. “Just this one time. You’re right, she’s probably starving.”

“See?” Munroe said to the cat as he spooned another ration pack onto the plate. “Daddy does like you.”

“I am not Daddy.”

“Yes you are.”

“No! Look, I’m going for a lie-down. Don’t give the cat any more food.” Fowler stormed out of the kitchen, back through the living room and into his home pod.

Above his bunk, there was a tiny window that provided a clear view of the stars. Mars was still too distant to make out; it was just one point of light among many.

Commander Fowler had been as excited as anyone when NASA had announced the news, several years ago. An amazing discovery. An abandoned spaceship, presumably alien in origin, in orbit around the planet Uranus. From what they could tell, it was empty, but who knew what secrets lay inside?

He’d been beyond honoured to be chosen as one of the two people on the crew that would make first contact with a piece of alien technology. Surely, his name would go down in history among the great pioneers of space exploration: Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Lawrence Fowler, James Munroe.

And Scoopy.

---

Captain Munroe had managed to prevent Commander Fowler from blasting the cat out into space for as long as he could. In the first few weeks since Scoopy’s appearance, he kept finding the cat in the airlock, with the Commander suspiciously close to the controls that would open the outside hatch and fire her out into the void. The little black cat sat in the airlock, licking herself, while the two astronauts argued on the other side of the door.

“I’m sick of having to ration our portions for the sake of this… stowaway,” Fowler moaned. “You’re giving her too much food. Look how fat she is.”

“She is not fat.”

“She is, she wobbles when you stroke her.”

Munroe shook his head. “The rations are very calorie-dense, I can’t help that. And she can’t exactly get much exercise in here.”

That was true. Scoopy didn’t have access to a nice garden or quiet neighbourhood to explore and let off steam, so she got bored easily. Sometimes, when her energy levels built up, she would zoom around the tiny rooms of the spacecraft, banging into the walls and knocking over whatever Fowler was doing.

“You are not jettisoning her, and that’s final,” Munroe said.

“Fine,” Fowler muttered, and that had been that. Munroe hadn’t found the cat in the airlock since, although sometimes she meowed and scratched at the door, angry that there was a room she was no longer allowed in.

Back on Earth, news of the stowaway cat had spread. Munroe had made her a little spacesuit helmet using the ship’s 3D printer, and sent the pictures back to Mission Control, where they had soon gone viral. There were Scoopy t-shirts, Scoopy enamel pins, Scoopy figurines, reusable Scoopy water bottles, and all other varieties of Scoopy merchandise. Netflix were already in talks to make an animated series of Scoopy the Astro-Cat. Munroe took great pleasure in pointing out to Fowler that the little black cat was trending on social media far more than the two of them put together. He enjoyed the way it made Fowler squirm.

The weeks went by. They passed Mars, then went through the asteroid belt. Munroe knew that the asteroid belt wasn’t like it was always depicted in the movies, a tight cluster of floating rocks that a spacecraft would have to carefully weave through. The asteroids were so far apart, and space was so huge, that they didn’t see a single one on their way past.

Next was Jupiter, grand and colourful, and Saturn, with its beautiful rings. Scoopy liked to look out of the window in the spaceship’s living room, perhaps checking just in case any small birds were outside. The two astronauts joined her and stared in wonder as Saturn slid past and out of view.

Slowly, gradually, they approached Uranus and prepared the ship for orbit. Scoopy was a natural in microgravity. Munroe added a lid and a door flap to her litter tray, which mostly kept the soiled pieces of the shredded First Contact Manual contained.

The dead alien spacecraft that they had been sent to investigate was the size of a stadium, black and round and smooth. It looked like another one of the moons until they got closer and could make out more details; windows, strange markings, and what looked like an entrance, a docking bay.

Up in the cockpit, Fowler and Munroe made tiny adjustments and calculations as the ships came together. Their airlock slotted in place over the alien spaceship’s docking bay. It wasn’t a perfect match, but they had prepared for this, and a sealant was sprayed around the edges to make it airtight. Now that the ships were firmly connected, they would be able to cut into the other spacecraft, cross over, and see what lay inside.

The two of them looked at each other and nodded. It was time to enter the alien ship.

---

“You cannot be serious,” Fowler said.

“I understand your concern,” Munroe said. “But the sensors say the alien ship is still warm and pressurised and Director Garvey signed off on this personally. Also, look how cute she is!” He held up Scoopy, in the little spacesuit helmet that he had printed for her.

“I don’t care what Mission Control said. This is our first contact with alien technology, possibly even alien lifeforms. It’s an historic moment. We’re not bringing the cat with us.”

Munroe pouted. “She’s a superstar back on Earth. She has to come along. Public interest in the mission has never been higher!”

“Did they miss the part where we’re about to enter an alien spacecraft? The cat is the part they’re excited about?”

“Meow”, said Scoopy, muffled by the helmet.

“Besides,” Munroe added, “she’s been cooped up in our tiny little ship for so long. She’ll want to have a little look around.”

“Just… fine. Keep a tight hold of her, okay?” Fowler said.

Inside the open airlock, Fowler picked up his tools and began cutting through the outer door of the alien craft. It took a while to carve through the thick layers of the strange material, and the cat began to get restless in Munroe’s arms, wriggling to escape.

Eventually, Fowler was through. He pushed his way in and stared into the darkness, his torch-beam sweeping around the room. Munroe followed, but misjudged his momentum. He caught himself just in time, but Scoopy sprang free, launching herself into the shadows, excited to explore her new surroundings. They had taken her bright yellow collar off weeks before, and her sleek black outline instantly disappeared in the darkness.

“I’ve lost the cat!” Munroe said.

“You are kidding me,” Fowler said. “The first words spoken by a human being inside an alien spacecraft are ‘I’ve lost the cat’. It’s not exactly ‘one small step for man’, now, is it?”

“I can’t see her,” Munroe cried. He fumbled the torch from his belt and waved it around wildly, before pursuing her into the darkness.

“Munroe, wait!” Fowler shouted. But the other man was gone. He swung his torch around, trying to see where he had gone. He could hear a distant pspspspsps as Munroe called out for the cat, but couldn’t figure out which direction it was coming from.

Fowler looked around the room. The walls were covered in strange markings, the aliens’ language an unreadable mess of overlapping geometric shapes. Little lights blinked on and off in colours he couldn’t quite describe.

He swung his torch around; there was an opening in the wall, tall and thin. He squeezed through and followed Munroe’s trail.

The alien ship was quiet, and he could hear Munroe calling out for the cat. There didn’t seem to be anyone else onboard. Had the ship already been abandoned?

Fowler turned a corner and bumped into Munroe.

“There you are.”

“Fowler,” Munroe said. “Look.”

Fowler looked.  The room they had entered was cavernous and dimly lit, and ahead of them was a long row of tall, eerie statues. Their limbs were spindly and ended in wide, flat attachments, like fleshy leaves instead of hands. Their tall faces were completely smooth, apart from four closed eyes arranged in a perfect square. Cables poured out of various points in their arms, legs, and spine, connecting to the walls of the ship.

Fowler felt his stomach drop. They weren’t statues. They were the crew of the alien ship, and they were sleeping.

One of the aliens opened all four of its eyes and turned to look at them. Fowler slipped behind Munroe, pushing him forward slightly.

More of the aliens had awoken and were staring at them. Some were pulling the thick wires out of their limbs and backs, and one or two moved forward.

“Oh my God,” Munroe said.

“▯◯△☆⎔”, said the first alien.

“What did he say?” Munroe said. “I can’t understand his accent.”

“Tell him we come in peace,” Fowler said.

“▽◯⬜”, said the first alien.

“Yes,” Munroe said to the alien.

“What did you just agree to?” Fowler whispered.

“I don’t know.”

“Meow.”

The alien looked down. Scoopy floated in front of it, staring upwards. She looked back at the two astronauts for a second; her pupils were enormous, like two great black moons. Her helmet had come off somewhere during the pursuit, and yet she seemed fine. The air inside the ship was clearly breathable.

The alien bent down, looking closely at the strange little creature before it. More of the others slowly gathered around her. Scoopy purred and twisted in the air, showing her belly, happy with the attention she was getting.

“This is incredible,” Munroe breathed.

The first alien coughed.

It wasn’t quite a cough, more of a ◯⊠▭, but that was how it sounded to Fowler. Its “hands” came up to its chest, scratching at itself desperately. It fell backwards and twitched for a moment before it stopped moving completely and drifted aimlessly towards a wall.

All around, the other aliens were coughing and clutching their chests. One by one their eyes bulged and closed, and their limbs fell slack.

“Oh no,” Munroe said. “Oh no.”

“What?” Fowler said. “What is it? What the hell is going on?”

Munroe grabbed Fowler’s helmet with both hands. “Don’t you see?” he shouted. “They’re allergic to cats!”

---

The three of them were quiet as the ships separated and Fowler set a return course for Earth. He had sealed the alien ship back up as they left, and it got smaller and smaller behind their ship until they could no longer make it out against the backdrop of space.

“We’ll tell them we didn’t find anything,” Fowler whispered. “It wasn’t an alien spacecraft after all. It was just a big shiny asteroid that looked like an alien spacecraft, and there’s definitely no need for anyone to go back and check, definitely not.”

“Meow.”

“Are you crazy?” Munroe said. “This is still the most important discovery in the history of humankind. We messed up, sure, but…”

Fowler laughed. “I think we did a little bit more than mess up. We have no idea where they came from, why they were here, or why they were hibernating like that. What if their home planet was wiped out and they were the very last members of their species, waiting for a rescue that never came? What if they were explorers, just like us, and we’ve just accidentally started a galactic war by murdering the whole crew?”

“We didn’t murder them.”

“Meow,” said Scoopy.

“I vote that we pretend none of this ever happened, and hope that it all goes away somehow.”

“Meow.”

Fowler glared at the cat. “Will you please be quiet?”

“Don’t shout at Scoopy.”

“I will shout at her! She’s in big, big trouble!”

“Meow.”

“She didn’t mean to,” Munroe said, picking her up and setting her down in his lap. The little black cat started kneading the fabric of his spacesuit. He smiled at Fowler. “Look at her. The poor thing is really shaken up. Could you go get some of the chicken rations?”

“No!” said Fowler. “Give me the cat. She’s finally getting jettisoned.”

“No jettisoning!”

Fowler stormed off to his cabin to sulk, leaving Munroe and Scoopy alone in the cockpit.

“Don’t mind him,” Munroe said. “He’s just a bit of a grump.”

“Meow.”

“Probably best that I keep an eye on you for a while, though. Don’t want Mister I’m-Not-Cleaning-The-Litter-Tray-Again kicking you out of the airlock when I’m not looking.”

“Meow.”

“Really? You’re that hungry? I’ll tell you what. Let’s go and celebrate the start of our journey home with a double pack of rations! How about that? I’m sure Commander Fowler won’t mind cutting back for a few days to make up for it. He did shout at you, after all.” Munroe smiled. “Come on, Scoopy.”

He got up and Scoopy jumped down to the floor. Munroe walked through towards the kitchen, clicking his fingers, and the little black cat trotted after him.

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Host Commentary

I always enjoy reading the space themed submissions we get at Cast of Wonders – I’m an astrophysicist after all – and it might surprise you, but I’m not a stickler for scientific accuracy across the board. Could something like this ever happen? Nope, not in a million years…but that’s not the point. Science fiction allows us to share in the wonders of the solar system in many different ways. Sometimes the science inside the fiction is hard, and sometimes it’s pure fluff – but so long as the story keeps just the right amount of internal consistency, I’m very, very forgiving on the whimsy.  Plus, I have a small black cat of my own, who  has just been off on her own round of zoomies around the house… I wonder what she’d make of microgravity?