Everyone was asleep when she made her move. Soundless as the cool summer breeze, she slid out of her bed and crept across the floor of the room to the old wooden door. She turned the knob and slowly pulled it open.

Don't squeak, she thought at the hinges. Oh please oh please don't squeak!

Then she was out the door and down the darkened hall, her light footsteps muffled further by her slippers and the worn carpet. She trotted to the stairway, ducked by the railing and paused to consider her mission.

Okay, the Mutants have stolen all the cookies in the world, she thought. And it's up to me, Pumie, super-spy, to get'em back! And if a few get ate along the way, well...

Nodding to herself, the little Puma Clan girl stood up. She squashed the tremblings of fear in her belly; after all, a super-spy never got scared. Then she trotted downstairs to the first floor.

The dining hall was to the left, across from Maretta's office. She knew this was the most dangerous part of her mission. The old lioness who ran the Hilltop Kittens' Home slept in a room next to her office, and she had ears like a darned Jackal. Pumie would have to be a real super-spy to get any cookies past her.

She tiptoed to the dining room door and opened it. Once inside, she waited and listened for sounds of pursuit but none came. Then she rushed across the room to the adjoining kitchen. Inside she went straight to the pantry, pulled the door open and looked inside, her mouth watering in anticipation.

There they were, inside a big glass cookie jar, each one as large as her whole hand. She took the jar down and fished out three sweet treats, then muscled the heavy jar back onto the pantry shelf. She stuffed two of the cookies down the front of her nightshirt, took the last in hand and hurried back to the dining hall.

She ducked below a table to the rear of the hall and sat down a moment to gloat over her haul. Okay, so it's not all the cookies in the world, she thought. It's still as much as I can hide.

Pumie was an orphan, like all the kittens in the home. Hilltop was situated in the country, so the only money they got was from donations the townsfolk put up, and that wasn't much. The kittens shared everything; clothes, toys, books. Maretta never hesistated to tell them how lucky they were, because lots of orphans had to sleep on the streets with no one to look after them.

Pumie understood this, but sometimes she got this hungry feeling inside her. Not for food exactly, but for something hers, something she didn't have to share or give away. Something all her own.

Tonight it was cookies. She would eat one now, then stuff the rest under her bed for later. She took the cookie she'd carried out and held it in both hands, opening her mouth wide for that first big buttery bite.

Then she heard Maretta's voice, coming towards the door. Pumie's heart just about stopped. If she got caught, she'd be making everybody's bed for a month. But worst of all, she'd lose her cookies! Full of dread, she slid further back under the table, in among the chairs, hoping that the old lioness would overlook her there.

The dining room door opened and Maretta came inside, waving her arms around and talking in an angry whisper to a figure who came in behind her.

Pumie gasped softly when she saw him. He was Puma Clan, and a warrior! He was tall and slender and dressed in fine clothes. A chainmail vest hung over his muscular shoulders, cinched at the waist by a broad leather belt. Over that was a short cloak of royal purple, the kind only Thundercat nobility wore.

His mane was beginning to thin, and little bits of gray peeked out from the chocolate hair that remained. On his hip hung a beautiful dagger with a huge red jewel in it, tucked into something like a big leather oven mitt.

"We are a rural facility," Maretta was saying. "There is too much bad blood out here. Surely she'd be better off in Capitol City."

"We need to keep this quiet," he said. His voice was smooth and silky. "It's bad enough we were duped into firing on a civilian vessel, but if word got out, it would be a propoganda victory for Ratilla. We know he's trying to draw the Lunatacs into the war. That's something we don't need now, just as things are finally going our way."

Maretta went into the kitchen for a minute, then came back with two chalices of red wine. She gave one to the puma and sipped at the other. As the adults drank, Pumie watched and listened, wondering what was going on.

"Why me, as if I need to ask?" Maretta said.

"Why indeed," the puma said with a small smile. "Because Claudis remembers you, how well you looked after him when he was that age. Besides, it's not as though he's leaving you a choice," he added with a devilish grin. "This is a royal appointment, not a request. I'm leaving the child with you, whatever you say about it."

Maretta drank the rest of her wine in a single gulp, then took the puma's glass from his hand and went into the kitchen. Pumie heard water run and knew she was rinsing the glasses out before putting them away. When Maretta came back in, she walked past the warrior to the door, muttering "I don't like this, there's sure to be trouble when word gets out."

The warrior sighed and followed Maretta to the door. When he reached it, he paused with his hand on the switch. He turned and looked back directly at Pumie, smiled warmly and winked at her.

"Don't get a tummy ache," he whispered, then flicked the light off and walked on.

Pumie's eyes were as big as the cookie in her hand. But-but-but how did he know I was here?! What if he tells Maretta?! In a near-panic, she snuck to the door and peeped out into the hall. When she saw the way was clear, she raced back to the dorm.

Minutes later, safely in bed, her two remaining cookies hidden between mattress and wall, Pumie began to drift off to sleep. In that strange in-between state, the little girl allowed her mind to wander back to the great warrior she'd seen earlier.

Pumie had never known her parents. Most likely, her daddy had put her in her mommy's belly before he went to war. But something went wrong, and he hadn't come back to marry her. Having cubs outside of marriage was a really bad thing for Thundercat girls, because they could never get married in the church after that. So most of the time the girls went away somewhere until they had their cub, then left it to the orphanages.

This was bad for the cubs too. Kittens were named by their fathers. If the father died before the kitten was born, the priest could grant the name in his place. But if the kitten was a bastard, then the mommy had to name it herself. Bastards weren't allowed to go to church, or church schools. Named kittens teased them, and when they grew up the church wouldn't marry them.

Pumie hadn't even been that lucky. Abandoned new-born without any name tag or eye-dee, her name was just a play on her Clan name, the only thing they could think of at the time. "Pumie" was short for it, and she liked it better anyway.

Pumie dreamed about her daddy sometimes, and tonight she dreamed he was the very same puma she'd seen downstairs. He was on the battlefield, fighting back the mutants single-handed, when a stranger came up and said, "We found out you have a daughter! Her name is Pumie!"

Then her daddy threw down his sword and ran straight to his big shiny spaceship and flew back to Thundera as fast as it would go. He landed right outside on the lawn and ran into the orphanage, yelling, "Where is my little girl? Where is my Pumie?!"

"Daddy!" she yelled and jumped into his arms. And he squeezed her and kissed her and whispered in her ear, "I'm here now, Pumie, I'm here and nothing will ever take us away from each other again, ever!"

In her sleep Pumie smiled, oblivious to the tears dampening her pillow.

Two days later, Pumie the Super-Spy made her move again. It was morning and the sun was shining in the blue sky, the breeze was sweet and cool, and Pumie was dancing in the play yard to music only she could hear.

It was good music, and she sang along with the tune in "doo-dee-doo"s and "bop-de-bop"s. All the while she spun and wiggled and hopped from foot to foot in time. She loved to dance and sing like this. Like the cookies, of which only one remained, it was entirely hers.

She'd tried to sing her songs to the other kittens, but they never understood. Sometimes they made fun of her instead. So in the end she'd stopped trying to share her songs. And she never told anybody about the dreams she had, about the beautiful cat-headed woman with glowing eyes.

Across the yard, past where the other kittens played together, Pumie heard an engine start up. Maretta took the clanky old ground car into town twice a week to collect donations and buy supplies. Pumie knew from long experience that she'd be gone at least two hours. She pretended not to notice the car lumbering away, but as soon as the engine was out of hearing, she took off.

Every kitten had all the talents of their breed, if not as developed. Panther cubs were strong, cheetahs could outrun anything. Puma cubs were quick and nimble, so Pumie had no trouble climbing the tall tree that grew beside the orphanage to reach the third-story window that let into the attic. Pumie balanced on a limb, wrestled the window open, then hesitated.

For two days, ever since the soldier's visit, Maretta had been sneaking up here at odd hours, twice bringing food, and once a few toys nobody played with. Pumie, listening at the door, had heard whispers from inside. The voices were Maretta's, to be sure, and someone else, someone she did not recognize.

Now she stood on the threshold of the great secret. Why hadn't the new kitten been brought down to play with them? Was it sick, or deformed? Maybe it was maimed from plasma fire. Pumie thought again of her dreams, and the white-skinned, dead-eyed monsters that ran through them sometimes. Scaring herself, she backed away from the window a little.

She stopped when she got back to the trunk. This is not how a super-spy faces danger, she told herself sternly. Now get your tail in there and find out what's going on!

She passed through the window and into the large attic. The room was hot but not as dark as she'd thought looking in through the window. She waited there for her eyes to adjust and after a moment she could plainly see a bed, unmade, and a couple of toys laying beside it. They were dolls, with costumes laying on the floor in a pile. Near that was a plate of noodles and potatoes, cold and half-eaten. Pumie recognized it as left-overs from yesterday's dinner.

She nodded to herself. Yup, no doubt about it, there's somebody up here. She ducked down beside the bed and began a stealthy crawl towards the archway that led into the next room. As she neared it, she could hear shuffling sounds from within.

She reached the corner and peered around. The room was lit only by the sun through the window, casting wild shadows all around the room. Pumie paused, looking around.

"Go away!"

Pumie hissed like she'd been scalded. She slid away from the door and under the bed in one smooth motion, knocking the dishes over onto the dolls.

"You're not supposed to be up here," came another call from the archway. The voice was high-pitched, almost whiny. It was Basic language, but the words sounded funny, like the speaker's mouth wasn't shaped right to say them.

Pumie's curiosity was raging; she couldn't have left now if she'd tried. Instead, she crawled out from under the bed and stood up. She walked to the archway slowly, then stopped just inside, looking around.

"My name's Pumie," she said. "What's your name?" No answer. She waited, and after a minute she heard a rustle from a rack full of old clothes in the dimly-lit corner opposite her.

"I won't hurt you," she said, moving slowly towards the rack. "We can be friends if you like."

"The old Thundercat said I wasn't s'posed to talk to the kittens."

Again, the strange tone. Pumie hesitated a moment. Thundercat? she thought. She knew there were other kinds of people around, but everybody on Thundera was a Thundercat. She's called Maretta a lion, an old bag, and some things not as nice, but never “Thunderecat”.

She reached the corner. The glare from the nearby window shined in Pumie's face, casting a dark shadow on the rack; even so, she could see a figure hunched down behind it, trying to hide.

Inspiration struck. She fished her last cookie out of the front of her jumper. She hesitated only a moment, giving it a wistful look, then held it out to the stranger.

"Here," she said. "It's kinda smushed and soggy, but it's really good."

The huddled shadow perked up in interest. Pumie heard sniffing sounds, then saw the figure crawl forward and reach out towards the treat, into the light...

The cookie fell to the floor and broke into pieces as Pumie shrieked in terror. She fell backwards and scrambled away from the thing that had reached for her. She'd crossed the room before she stopped, realizing she was not being pursued.

The hand that had reached out of the shadows had been mishappen, the fingers too long and tipped with rounded black claws. The fur of the wrist and forearm had been long, slightly curly and reddish brown in color.

Pumie's pulse began to calm, and as it did, she became aware of a new sound from the corner, a kind of whimpering that sounded alot like crying.

"...a civilian vessel..."

The memory freed Pumie from her shock. She didn’t understand everything the adults had discussed, but she knew enough to guess this child was all alone here. Pumie screwed up her courage and crawled back to where the crumbled cookie lay. She picked up the larger fragments and held them out again to the snuffling creature.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to yell. It‘s just that I've never seen a Mutant before."

"I'm not a mutant," came the soft protest. "I'm Jackal Clan. Man made us, same as he made you. You uppity Thundercats just think you're better 'cause Man liked you better'n us."

Pumie felt a surge of indignation at this, but supressed it. She didn't want to upset the jackal cub any further. Instead, she held out the cookie crumbs and waited.

After a moment, the cub stopped snuffling; a moment later it reached again for the cookie. This time, Pumie stood fast while the shaggy hand fished the bits from her palm. The hand disappeared into the shadows once more. Munching sounds were heard.

"These're pretty bad," the cub said.

"I know," Pumie said. "They get kinda gamey when they're out of the jar for long."

"What's 'gamey' mean?"

Pumie thought about it for a moment. "It's like 'yucky', I guess."

Silence, then, "What's 'yucky' mean?"

"Never mind," Pumie said, exasperated. She was a Super-Spy, not a Basic teacher, for Humanity's sake! "What's you're name?"

"Jakara."

"Come out where I can see you," Pumie said, sliding away on her knees to give the cub room.

Haltingly, Jakara emerged from the shadows. She was a little taller than Pumie, and her arms seemed longer than they should have been. Her body was covered with fur like that on her arm, curly and brown. Her head was purely canine, with a longish snout and ears on top. She had a wet black nose and shiny amber eyes.

The cub sat down next to the kitten. She collected the other cookie bits from the floor and divided them in her hands, then gave Pumie half. The girls nibbled at the crumbs, looking at each other covertly, as though afraid of being caught staring.

The silence wore on the impatient kitten. Finally she blurted out, "Do Jackals really eat Thundercats?"

Jakara turned her head, eyes wide and ears piqued. "No!" she exclaimed. After a second she added, more thoughtfully, "At least, no jackals I ever knew."

Time passed. The cookie crumbs were almost gone when Jakara quietly asked. "Thundercats don't eat Jackals, do they?"

"Sure," Pumie said. "Eat 'em all the time. Monkians too, had one for dinner just last week."

Jakara stared at Pumie a moment, then said. "Uh-uh."

"Yeah we do!" Pumie protested.

Jakara's face split in what might have been a canine grin. "You're fibbing. Know how I can tell?"

"I'm not fibbing!" Pumie squawked, then added, "How?"

"'Cause nobody would eat a Monkian," Jakara giggled.

Pumie giggled, which made Jakara laugh harder, which made Pumie laugh harder. Soon they were rolling on the floor in hysterics, laughing so hard that they could not hear the stealthy footsteps approaching the attic door.
 
 

"Good morning, Maretta," Jensen said. "It's always a pleasure to see your face."

"Jensen, you old tomcat, if Karella heard you flirting like that she'd take a stick to you."

"It's not flirting to greet a customer cheerily," the lion shopkeep said with a smile that drew close to a leer. "Besides, what Karella doesn't know won't hurt her."

Oh, she knows alright, you ass, Maretta thought. She's known for years. The only reason I never told her about the "deal" you offered me was to spare her further shame.

Maretta was by no means a kitten, but like all Thundercats, she remained well-preserved right into her early hundreds. At sixty-seven, the only obvious changes from age fifteen were in her manners and her mane, which was lightening from red to orange.

Jensen's Drygoods was the last stop on her bi-weekly rounds to the collection cans. There were ten in town, and every two weeks she came to empty. Usually she collected about a hundred credits for the orphanage, sometimes more, sometimes less. Occasionally there were notes of support and offers of prayers tucked into the cans. Other times there were notes about letting the "bastards" starve, that being the "will of Man".

Those were troubling. What frightened her was when they, too, were accompanied by offers of prayers.

She went to the counter and removed the can, popping the top off and fishing out the coins and bills. She added up the sum and sighed. Barely seventy creds this time. Enough for food, but nothing else. Jensen gave her a sympathetic smile. It would have felt more sincere if he'd aimed it at her face instead of her breasts.

Maretta moved down the aisles, picking out assorted canned foodstuffs. One of the few benefits of the war had been the introduction of cheap packaged rations to the public. She filled a large cart with white-labeled quarter-cred cans with the words "kitten chow" printed on them. She threw in a few packages of vegetables and enough spices to make the canned food palatable.

She stopped a few aisles over and surveyed the toys. She looked enviously at a mouseball collar, the hot game of the year. Up to six children wore collars and chased a six inch gray ball, the "mouse", which skittered away from anyone wearing the collars. It took precise teamwork to corner and catch the mouse. The one collar cost as much as she had for food.

She thought, not for the first time, of the Church of Humanity orphanage in town. It competed directly with hers, and whenever the offering plate got a bit bare, Minister Verminad began to sermonize loudly about the passages in the Book of Man that ordained "the fatherless shall go hungry". Invariably, that was what happened for a month or two afterward.

She thought also about Jensen, and his "special deal", the offer of a new collar for each "visit", a ball at the end of the following month. She looked up from the collar, saw Jensen smiling at her. She smiled back, trying to conceal a shudder.

She pushed the cart to the front of the store and loaded the supplies onto the counter. Jensen began to ring up the purchases.

"Heard you had some important visitors the other day," he said.

"Inspectors," she said smoothly. "Claudis' administration is buttoning down on kitten farms. A technicality."

"Really?" Jensen said with exaggerated suprise. Kitten farms were private orphanages, similiar to Hilltop. The government supplied part of their funding, and some unscrupulous managers were known to pocket the creds meant for the kittens' care.

Hilltop got a tax exemption, so in theory it too could be inspected, although it never had been. Maretta would have loved to receive the grants the farms got, inspections and all. But the farm managers were clever, taking in only war orphans. Bastard facilities were too dicey politically for the Lord of the Thundercats to come out in support of.

Jensen was nodding as he took her creds and returned her change. "First time I ever saw an inspector in a military transport."

She hesitated only an instant. "Must have been all that was available."

"Must have been," Jensen said with a nod. As Maretta transferred the bags from counter to cart, he leaned back, crossed his arms and said, "I saw you looking at the game set again today."

She tried to ignore him. "I see the price hasn't changed."

"Now Maretta," he said. "It's true I don't give a rat's ass about a bunch of bastards. But I know how much it means to you they have it. So go on. Go get it."

Maretta wheeled her cart around and started towards the door. Without looking back she said, "No thank you. The price is too high."

"But I'm giving to you for free!" he yelled after her.

"From you, that's still too high," she muttered as she walked to the car.

She enlisted two of the kittens to help carry the groceries inside. She stowed the supplies, then reached into the pantry for the cookie jar. She counted the treats and decided to pass on one; the kittens could each have a half-cookie with dinner tonight.

She thought of the jackal cub upstairs. It was late afternoon; the poor thing was probably scared to death. Quickly she threw together a simple lunch from leftover noodles and started for the attic.

Halfway up the stairs she could hear the racket descending ahead of her.

"Oof! That's my neck!"

"Ow! N’fair, you called no bites! You can't bite me if you called no bites!"

"Uh! Well your mouth’s bigger 'n mine!"

She opened the door to find a miniature tangle of limbs on the attic floor. There was Jakara, struggling in a front head lock. The applicant of this manuever was Maretta's own personal cross to bear, Pumie. Startled by the lioness' arrival, the kitten looked up, relaxing her grip. In a twinkling the jackal cub hooked her leg around Pumie's neck and pulled the yelping kitten into a scissors hold.

Maretta waded in and pulled the two apart. Instantly her ears were innundated with protests of "She started it!" and "It's not my fault!"

"Quiet!" the lioness hissed. She carried both youngsters by the arm and dropped them on the bed in the next room. "I don't care who started what. Just pipe down!"

Pumie and Jakara eyeballed each other as Maretta paced in front of them. She stopped and turned on the kitten. "What are you...no, never mind. If anybody could have found out about this, it would've been you.".

"And you," she said, focusing on the cowering jackal cub. "Why didn't you hide? Didn't I tell you how bad it would be if someone found you up here? What if, dammit Pumie what is it?!"

The kitten left off poking her guardian in the arm. "She did hide," Pumie said in a cowed voice. "She told me to go away and I didn't. It wasn’t her fault.”

Maretta looked at the children and realized both were on the brink of tears. She took a deep breath and counted to ten. Then she looked at Pumie and counted to ten one more time.

“Listen to me, both of you,” she said. “It is very important that this stays a secret. If the people in town find out a jackal cub is here, it could be very bad for all of us, and certainly bad for you.” She said this last looking directly at Jakara.

“But why?” Pumie asked. “She’s just a cub, like us.”

Maretta put a hand on Pumie’s arm. Her gaze was tender stern. “I don’t have to tell you why, precious. Thundercats don’t treat their own little ones equally. They call you names and punish you because of something you had no choice in. If they can be this harsh to one of their own kind, imagine what they’d do to an enemy, even a child. They might hurt Jakara, or worse.”

Pumie blanched. “But, but the Code…”

Maretta shook her head. “The Code of Thundera doesn’t mean much after so many babies, brothers, sisters and parents have been killed or taken as slaves by the Clannad. That’s why nobody can ever know Jakara is here. It’s the only way to keep her safe. Do you understand?”

The kitten and cub looked at each other, then her, and nodded. Then, hesitantly, Pumie asked, “Does that mean we can’t play together anymore?”

Jakara was upstairs, asleep. Pumie had taken an uncharacteristic nap early in the afternoon while the other kittens played outside. Now she sat on her bunk in the empty dorm room, excited, watching the sun go down. Everything was going according to plan.

Maretta had allowed her and Jakara to play, had actually shown the kitten how to climb the air ducts to get into the attic undetected. They had to be quiet, of course, because other kittens might blab their secret, but Pumie was very good at being sneaky and keeping secrets. She was a super-spy, after all.

More than that, it was hers, Jakara was hers, her new best friend. Jakara didn’t care if Pumie was a bastard. On Plun-Darr, there were lots of fatherless and nobody picked on them or gave them problems. Jakara had really neat stories to tell, and she liked all of Pumie’s stories, and they told jokes and danced and Pumie sang her songs to her and Jakara never laughed if she wasn’t supposed to.

But other times the cub became quiet and sad. She missed her parents, wondered if they were alive, and Pumie thought that might somehow be worse than never having had any to start with.

The evening before, the kitten had found her friend looking out the window at the playground. “I wish I could go outside,” she’d said. “I miss running and jumping and swinging and stuff.”

Pumie had hatched a plan instantly. Now they had only to wait for bedtime and then…

And then Pumie flew across the room and slammed hard into the wall behind the door. Stunned, she saw Leona walking casually towards her.

Thundercats were supposed to be a beautiful race, but Leona gave lie to this. Bigger than she should have been for her age, misshapen, with a small face and beady eyes, the lion kitten was stupid-mean and cruel. She was a terror on the playground, picking on the other kittens mercilessly. She was a war orphan, not a bastard, and that was probably why she’d singled out Pumie for special abuse so many times.

Pumie got her feet under her and tried to stand, but even as she straightend up the lion lunged forward and punched her hard in the belly. The air flew out of Pumie’s lungs and pain blossomed like a red flower in her stomach. She fell onto the floor curled tightly into a ball, trying to draw breath and failing.

She felt Leona’s claws dig into her shoulders as the bully rolled her onto her back. Realizing what was coming, Pumie lashed out, trying to throw her attacker off. Leona grabbed her flailing arms and pinned them down. Straddling Pumie’s chest, Leona trapped the smaller kitten’s wrists beneath her own knees.

Defenseless, Pumie glared up into the bigger kitten’s face, tears of fear and impotent fury running from her eyes.

Leona leaned forward, sneered at Pumie, and began swinging.
 
 

Jakara was beginning to worry. It was late, more than an hour after Pumie should have arrived. Mingling with the worry was disappointment, because she knew she’d never be able to pull this off alone. It wasn’t fear that restrained her, but a strong sense of caution, an innate aversion to risk. She was Jackal Clan, not the fastest, strongest or smartest race in the Clannad, but certainly the safest.

The air duct cover slid out of it’s orifice and dropped onto a pile of old clothes below it. Jakara sprang from her bed and dashed across the attic to greet her friend, but even as she ran into the darkened room Pumie flew past her and to the window, whispering “C’mon!”

Jakara ran after her as Pumie slid the window up and stepped out onto the limb beyond. She hesitated only a moment, then stepped out herself. The nimble kitten was already down and running towards the playground before Jakara was halfway along. By the time she reached the playgound herself, Pumie was aready swinging on the rusty set, pumping her legs and kicking the ground to drive herself higher and higher.

Jakara took a swing and kicked off. Soon she was sailing as high as Pumie, reveling in the feeling of wind and the sensation of free-fall at the beginning and end of each pass. She concentrated and was finally able to match cadence with Pumie, feeling the entire set rock onto it’s forelegs as they strained towards the moonlit clouds above them.

Then without warning, at the height of her swing, Pumie let go. Jakara swung back, watching as the kitten hung suspended in the air for an instant, floating forward ever so slightly, then dropped. She struck the ground with her legs bent, instinctively letting her thigh muscles absorb the impact. She crouched there a moment, then turned to Jakara.

“Jump!” She yelled.

Fear lurched the cub’s heart, but the desire to impress her friend was greater. She swung again, gathering speed, then let go.

She was flying.

Then the ground rose up and swatted her like a bug. She landed on her side with a barking “woof“, jarred from head to toe. Pumie was there in an instant as the cub rolled onto her back with a groan.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Jakara opened her eyes and looked up. The moon was behind Pumie, the cub couldn’t see her face. Still, something seemed wrong...

Before she could puzzle it out, Pumie was up and running again. “Aw, you’re alright,” she called softly back. “C’mon, last one to the gym is a Monkian!”

Jakara crawled back to her feet and limped after her friend. The jungle gym was a dome-shaped web of metal bars, and Pumie already sat at the apex, waiting. Jakara reached the bottom of the set and called up to her friend.

“Come down Pumie, I wanna see you,” she said.

Pumie sat there a few moments longer then scrambled down the opposite side, away from Jakara. “C’mon, lets get in the fort!” she yelled back.

Jakara ran after the kitten to a box-like wooden stucture mounted atop four sturdy wooden pillars. As she reached it she saw the tail end of a rope ladder disappear into the trap door above.

“Pumie, let me come up,” she called, but there was no answer. She looked around and spotted a wooden pole leading upwards. She walked to it and looked upwards to find it ran through a hole in the floor of the “fort“. She wrapped herself around it and inched upwards until she could reach the edge of the hole, grasp it and pull herself through.

The interior was dark, illuminated only by moonlight filtering in through the small windows cut into the walls. The ceiling was high enough that she could stand without ducking. She looked around and spotted Pumie, a barely-visible shadow crouching in the corner. Jakara experienced a moment of deja vu, and wondered if Pumie did as well.

She crossed the room and sat cross-legged in a puddle of moonlight. She could see the outline of Pumie’s head turn to follow her. “Are you tired?” Jakara asked. “Why’d we stop?”

Pumie’s shadow shrugged. “No reason, I just wanted to come up here for a while.” She was quiet a moment, then said, “This is where the biggest kittens come. They won’t let the little ones up here. Sometimes I sneak out here at night and sit in it, like I’m getting back at them somehow.”

Jakara thought about this for a moment. “But how is it getting back at them if they don’t know about it?”

“You’re not supposed to think about that,” Pumie said.

Jakara stretched out and began to crawl towards the corner. When she reached Pumie, the kitten turned away, saying “Let’s go back down and get on the spin-wheel.” Before the puma kitten could get to her feet, Jakara grabbed her arm and stopped her. Pumie resisted for a moment, then finally allowed the cub to turn her face into the light.

Pumie’s face was a mass of swellings and abrasions. Purple skin showed through the tightly stretched facial fur, the lips were twice their normal size and split open, the right eye was nearly shut. Remnants of dried blood clung stubbornly to every surface, refusing to be washed away.

Jakara stared in horror, her canine jaws gaping. She began to titter in her own language, puncutating the alien words with keening whines and yips. Her hands raced over Pumie’s injuries, carressing and examing.

“It’s okay,” Pumie whispered, gripping her friend’s wrists, pushing the probing hands away. “It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt.”

Jakara fell silent, and leaned back on her knees. She stared at the kitten.

“Really,” Pumie said, her words distorted by the injured lips that spoke them. “Really, it isn’t so bad. In a couple days, you’ll never know it happened.”

Jakara said nothing.

“Jakara, it’s alright. It doesn’t hurt at all,” Pumie said. “I-I mean it can’t hurt, I can’t let it hurt, b-because if I let it hurt, that means they win, a-a-and...”

Jakara reached out and embraced her friend as Pumie began to cry. “Th-they don’t want me here Jakara. M-my mommy didn’t want me and the town doesn’t want me and the kittens don’t want me.” The kitten sobbed loudly into the crook of the cub’s neck. “Nobody wants me.”

Jakara tried to think of something to say, something to make it better, but she couldn’t. Everything she thought of seemed hollow and meaningless. And so she held her friend tightly as she cried, and said nothing at all.

Maretta’s patience was nearly at an end.

Two days had passed since she’d found Pumie semi-conscious on the dorm room floor. She knew perfectly well who was responsible, and her frustration over the mean-spirited kitten was almost physical.

Leona was an anomoly, a glitch in humanity’s genetic plan for their engineered “chosen people”. Her features were more bestial, she was bigger and stronger than she should have been for her age. Her records showed the removal of a vestigial tail as an infant. Worse, her mind was as twisted as her body. Her intelligence was low, her behavior almost feral. “Stupid-mean”, as Pumie had once called it.

But that wasn’t quite accurate. Leona wasn’t particularly bright, but she was not unintelligent, and she possessed a cunning that compensated for her reduced IQ in other ways. For instance, Leona knew that she was a war orphan, her parents having been carried away in a raid. She knew Pumie was a bastard. And she knew one call to the orphanage administrators and Hilltop was history.

Maretta shook her head, bringing herself out of her reverie. The well pump had stopped working that morning, leaving the orphanage without water. She leaned down and examined the pump cover, a nice solid plastic sheath that protected the motor from backsplash in the event of a leak. She could rip it loose, but then she’d have to buy another. Beside her on the floor was a kitchen knife, the tip twisted from a failed attempt to remove the cover screws.

Fortunately, she was not entirely without friends in the community. Lex operated a farm about ten miles away. An old widower panther, he often did maintenance work for her, free of charge. She knew from past experience that he’d come over after evening chores, fix or at least identify the problem, then stay for dinner and chew Maretta’s ear off well into the early hours. Still, a few hours of old war stories would be well worth it to get the water running again.

She picked up her bent knife and walked upstairs to make the call and plan dinner. The kittens would be drinking milk with it, and would not get their showers tonight. She allowed herself a smile. She couldn’t imagine there’d be too many hearts broken by those developments.

Evening, and better than two dozen milk-filled, stinky kittens had been herded to their beds. The pump was torn apart, the motor identified as bad, the replacement ordered at the expense of the wrinkled, blue-gray face seated across the office from her.

“Oh yes, I was there,” Lex said, his red eyes distant. “I’ll never forget it, the way he walked towards the front lines, wrapped in that tattered cloak. But you could see it, Maretta, you could see it in his walk. They were his, and he damned well knew it, and pity the poor mutant who crossed his path to Vertok. And later, when Claudis...”

Maretta sat, her legs curled beneath her in the old leather chair, a steaming cup of coffee in her hands to match the one forgotten on the stained end table beside the sofa where Lex sat. She wore her usual clothing, a loose top and comfortable slacks, a shawl draped over her shoulders to ward off the evening chill. Lex was clad in his own usual, a simple set of coveralls draped loosely over his thin frame.

She listened just enough to be able to prompt him when he began to slow down, while her own thoughts moved in familiar lazy circles. Not for the first time, she considered inviting Lex into her room beside the office, but she knew better. The old panther would take it as a gesture of payment, would be offended by it.

“Why do you help us?” she asked.

Lex broke off in mid-sentence. “Pardon me?”

“Why do you help us?” she repeated. “You’ve never asked for anything in all these years, not once. It’s no secret that most of these kittens are bastards, Lex, hell it’s probably cost your farm business. Why do you keep doing it?”

Lex smiled broadly. “I’m not trying to work my way into your bed, if that’s your concern.”

She almost dropped her cup, her face flushing beneath it‘s fine layer of downy fur. “No, of course, I’ve always known that about you. It’s just that, I’ve never known anyone to do anything without expecting some kind of fair payment. Tell me the truth Lex. What do you find here?”

Lex’s smile became subdued, almost embarrassed. “Well, it was the missus that started it all. We were never church-goers to start with, old Verminod’s sermons were a little too harsh for my taste. My Corrin, though, she had a different reason.”

“She used to tell me, ’Lex, I think there’s more. I think there’s something else, something that Man never wrote down in the Book of Humanity. Something Man didn’t want us to know.’”

The old panther took his cup and sipped at his cold coffee. "Now me, I think...no that's not right. I hope that there really is someone out there, and I think if he or she is out there, then he's going to be more concerned with how we treat each other than who our parents are or how we came into the world."

Maretta watched as Lex looked at his coffee cup, turning it around in his hands, quiet. "Do you really believe that, Lex?" she asked softly.

After a moment, the old panther said, "Yes, yes I do. You asked me why I came here, helped you. Well, it's not really for you, Maretta, it's for the kittens. The bastards." He raised his eyes to hers. "They're the littlest ones of us, the least ones. I guess I'm thinking that when I do for them, then maybe that one, the one I hope for, sees it. Like I did it for him somehow."

Maretta smiled at the old panther. "I hope too, Lex. I hope you're right."

Lex smiled at her. "You believe it, Maretta. You'd never have lasted this long if you didn't."

Maretta set her cup down and got up from her chair, shawl pulled tightly around her. She crossed the floor to Lex, leaned down, and kissed the old panther full on the lips. "Not for payment, dear" she said. "I'd never diminish your offering. Just for thanks. From me to you."

Lex looked into her eyes, smiled. Then they heard the scream.

Pumie wiggled out of the air duct and looked around the darkened attic. The moon shone down through the slats of the blind, and it was stuffy despite the cool outside. "Jakara?" she called softly. She was suprised her friend hadn't met her at the duct. Then she heard a scuffling sound from the adjoining room.

Pumie started towards the archway when a dark mass appeared there, blocking the light. The mass fell over onto the floor, a dark tangle that suddenly resolved itself in her adjusting eyes as Jakara, struggling to pull loose the two powerful hands clamped around her throat, strangling her.

Leona! In an instant the kitten was on the lion's back, clawing, biting and pulling. She fought with such savagery that the larger child was forced to release the weakening jackal cub before she lost her eyes to the viscious attack. She reached behind her and caught ahold of Pumie's leg, tearing the flailing kitten off of her.

She swung Pumie around like a rag doll, then slammed her fist into the kitten. As Pumie rolled on the floor, clutching her stomach in agony, Leona clamped her left hand around her throat, pinning her down. Ignoring the kitten’s feeble struggling, Leona fished around in her pocket and produced a long steel screwdriver.

"Bastard," Leona growled, her eyes glowing with menace. She turned her body, raising the weapon high.

Then Jakara grabbed Leona’s elbow. Razor sharp teeth tore into the lion's wrist, shearing through flesh until the powerful jaws cracked bone. Leona howled in pain, dropping the screwdriver. Her hand flew from Pumie's throat and began to beat at the cub's head and shoulders, but Jakara would not let go. The pair wrestled upright, Leona roaring, Jakara growling fiercely...

Then Maretta was there, and Lex, grappling with the combatants, pulling them apart. Blood sprayed from Leona’s mauled wrist, splattering the room and everyone in it with gore. Jakara’s muzzle was soaked in it, her bared, snapping teeth washed in pink.

Pumie stood unsteadily. The room was full of noise, screams and growls. Then she was scooped up and dropped on the bed next to Jakara as Maretta swept the wailing Leona out the door and downstairs.

The slamming of the door silenced everything else. Distantly, Pumie heard the ground car fire up and tear out of the drive, it’s engine noise fading in the direction of town. Pumie looked at Jakara. Jakara, her face a bloody mess, looked back. Then both turned and looked at the incredulous panther, staring at the little mutant child before him.

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

The emergency room of the clinic was staffed with former military crew, swift and efficient. Leona’s arm was set, packed with plastiflesh and embedded in a cast, all within moments. All the while, the kitten complained loudly to anyone and everyone in sight about the mutant that had attacked her.

“Wild dog, eh?” the puma physician said, examining the chart.

Maretta nodded weakly. She did not need to feign her stress and exhaustion, both were all too real. “She’s lucky I heard her, or it would have torn her to pieces. It ran as soon as it heard me coming.”

The doctor scribbled in the chart and nodded. “What was she doing outside so late?”

“Must have slipped outside to play. The children have a strict curfew, but not all of them believe me when I tell them why.”

The doctor frowned. “Of course you realize, this is a severe breach of diligence. I have to file a report with the Imperium.”

Maretta stared at him, then realized where she knew him from. He was a deacon at the church. At last, Verminod had what he’d been waiting for, an iron-clad excuse to shut Hilltop down permanently. Her eyes filled, and she got up and walked away without another word.

They were going to take her babies from her.

As she walked outside, a middle-aged nurse watched her pass, then picked up the telephone and began to dial.

Lex looked out the attic window, watching them come. He didn’t know where Maretta was, assumed she was still at the clinic. When the first set of headlights appeared, he’d hoped it was her, but then another came, and another, and another.

He turned and looked at the kitten and the cub, clinging to each other in exhaustion and fear. The story he’d heard - Leona’s claims to have heard them playing through the door, her unprovoked attack on the cub - would have been unbelievable if Lex had not already known about the violent kitten ahead of time.

“Stay here,” he told them. No matter what happens, keep the door locked and don’t come downstairs. If anyone comes to the attic, hide.”

When the children nodded their understanding, Lex left the attic, locking the door behind him. He went down both flights, passing the huddled mass of frightened kittens peering out of the dorms at him, and directly to the front door. He paused a moment in the foyer to pick up the phone, but it was dead of course.

He opened the door and walked out onto the porch. Minister Verminod was at the head of the group, clad in his black smock and collar. The lion was halfway up the steps when the panther confronted him. They stood there awhile, Lex above, Verminod below.

“You know why we’re here, Lex.”

“Yeh, I expect I do. And I expect you’ll have to go through me to do it.”

They faced each other a moment longer. Then Verminod backed down the steps and two powerfully-built panther youths started up.

They heard doors opening and closing downstairs. Pumie looked out the window, saw the other kittens being herded out into the yard and looked over by the preacher and his gang. She knew then that sneaking Jakara out would never work.

There was no sign of Lex anywhere.

“What’s happening?” Jakara asked, crowding in next to Pumie.

Pumie opened her mouth to speak, then froze. She looked past her friend to the attic door, and watched the nob slowly turn. She clapped a hand over Jakara’s muzzle, and after a few moments the rattling of the door stopped. They heard heavy footsteps descending away, and Pumie released Jakara. She watched the door as the jackal cub returned to the window.

“What are they doing?” Jakara asked.

Pumie joined her at the window. It was then that the first of the torches were struck.

Maretta was halfway back to the orphanage when she saw the orange glow over the horizon. She stomped the accelerator to the floor, her chest constricting with dread. She swerved into the drive, nearly colliding with one of the groundcars there. The first floor of Hilltop was alight, fire swarming up it’s exterior walls, but the building never entered her thoughts. Instead, she leaped from her car and ran for the huddled mass of weeping, terrified kittens, cowering under the glare of two burly young panthers.

As she approached, one of the youths moved to intercept her. She never broke stride as she kicked him in the balls, spilling him to the ground in a retching heap. The other youth stepped back, not wanting to risk a confrontation.

The children were oddly grouped, and as she began a head-count she realized why; they were huddled around the unmoving body of Lex. The old soldier was horribly beaten. She knelt down next to him and cradled his head in her hands. He looked up at her with swollen eyes, his blood-flecked lips moving. She pressed her ear to his face to hear him over the wailing of the kittens.

“Attic...” he rasped.

Maretta sprang to her feet and charged for the building. Instantly two thundercats pounced on her, one high, one low. The three tumbled to the ground as more came to restrain her.

Maretta fought like a demon. Years earlier, she had been Claudis’ personal nurse, and the training she’d received then broke several bones and cost one Thundercat most of his teeth. But she was not as young as she had been then, and soon the mass of the others pinned her down, although it took no less than six of them to hold her there. As a tiger pushed her face into the dirt, she turned her head enough to see the orphanage.

“Pumie!” she cried.

They stuffed rags beneath the door, but the smoke kept coming, thickening, obscuring their vision and choking their lungs. The attic was heating up fast. Pumie knew they were running out of time.

She ran to the rear window, where the tree was, and saw the base of it surrounded by several Thundercats. She looked back at Jakara, frantically trying to wedge more rags in around the door. She knew they would hurt the cub if they went down, maybe kill her.

No way, she thought. No way I’m gonna let them get her.

Pumie looked around, then through the haze she saw the discolored patch of wallboard where the roof had leaked over the last rainy season. “Jakara, over here!” she yelled as she dug her small claws into the panel and began to pull. Jakara ran up beside her, adding her strength. Soon the panel began to come down in dry, crumbling pieces. But beyond it, the outer wall was solid and intact. Pumie felt herself deflate. Then she noticed Jakara pulling at the panel overhead.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Jakara leapt upward, grabbed the ceiling panel and yanked hard. The panel crumbled into splintered pieces, dumping the jackal to the floor. What was revealed was a rotted patch of roof near the peak, high overhead.

The water ran down! she thought ecstatically. She helped Jakara up and the two quickly pulled the bed beneath the weakened spot. Jakara sprang onto the bed, balancing carefully, and laced her fingers together in front of her. Pumie stepped on her hand and hopped nimbly onto the jackal’s shoulders.

Pumie took a moment to get her balance, then examined the wall. Her claws cut easily into the soft wood, but she lacked the leverage to break through the wide boards, rocking them both violently in her attempts. Then she remembered Leona’s screwdriver.

She sprang from Jakara’s shoulders to the floor, dropping to all fours and searching frantically for the tool, even as the heat of the wood began to burn her hands. She looked under the bed, through the piles of old clothes and toys, then spotted it by the window.

A moment later, Pumie drove the tool into the seam between two of the cladding boards and levered. She was rewarded with a loud crack and a break in the board she was forcing. A few moments and a reposition later, and a three-foot section of board broke free. She braced herself with one hand and shoved hard against the board above the one she’d removed.

“Pumie!” Jakara whimpered.

Pumie looked down and saw flames around the door. The kitten turned back to the wall and dug her claws into the upper board, then kicked violently at the lower. The smell of burning wood grew more intense, the smoke burned her eyes and made her cough, robbing her of oxygen as she struck again and again.

Then the board broke, flying away into the air beyond. At last the hole was large enough to wriggle through. Pumie climbed outside, coughing and wheezing. The night air was sickeningly hot, only a little cleaner. She looked back at the hole, saw the brackish smoke pouring out like blood from a fatal wound. She took a deep breath, threw herself down on the sloped roof and reached through the hole towards her friend.

She waved her hands blindly in the hole, wondering if Jakara could see her, wondering if Jakara had succumbed. Her lungs ached from holding her breath, but she couldn’t give up, wouldn’t give up. She knew, deep within her soul, she would die before she gave up on her friend.

Then hands closed on her right, arm the sudden weight nearly dragging her through the hole. She reached out her left hand and braced herself on the opposite edge. Putting her back into it, she heaved upward, but to no avail. The jackal cub was too heavy for her in her weakend condition.

Digging in her claws, Pumie slid her knees under her and pulled again. She strained until her shoulders and back screamed, but still she could not pull the cub upward.

She had to breathe, she couldn’t wait anymore, and when she did the smoke poured into her lungs, burning and gagging her. Clean air was only a few inches away, but she couldn’t reach it, not without losing the jackal that clung to her wrist.

“Pumie,” she heard from below her, weak, hoarse. “Let go.”

“No,” she rasped back. “Nonononoiwon’tiwon’t...”

Then agony raced up the kitten’s right forearm, her hand opening reflexively.

“JAKARA!” Pumie screamed as her body, like a coiled spring, snapped backwards, pitching her off of the roof.

Maretta watched as a tiny, wailing form plummetted from the roof, falling three stories to strike the ground with a sickening crunch.

“NOOOO!!!” the lioness shrieked, and the full beserker strength of her clan came upon her. She threw the six thundercats away like an old cloak and charged across the yard to the crumpled body on the lawn, sliding to her knees beside it.

Pumie did not move. Blood trickled from the kitten’s ears, bubbled at her nostrils. Her arms and legs were bent at wrong angles, and in the wrong places. Her right forearm arm showed three deep gashes that ran from elbow to wrist. Her tiny face and body were painted black with the smut of the fire.

As the other Thundercats ran towards them they heard, mingling among the roar of the flames, the high-pitched yipping of the trapped jackal cub. There was a crash from inside, and the yips became screams, long horrible screams of absolute agony, the screams of a living thing reduced to fuel for the ravening flames. The screams went on and on, drilling into Maretta’s soul, damning her for her failure, and she thanked whatever gods there were that Pumie, live or die, was not awake to hear them.

There came a final wail, a cry that climbed higher and higher, the cry of a young soul snuffed out, it’s destiny unfulfilled. And then only the sound of the fire remained.

No one moved for a time. Most of them stared in horror at the building, including Verminod, whose mouth and eyes were open wide. The spell broke when one young lion tottered away from the others, dropped to all fours and vomited onto the ground beneath him.

“It-it was Man’s will,” Verminod muttered. “Th-the will of Man must be upheld at any cost. It...”

“Is this Man’s will, then?” Maretta said quietly. She stood, holding Pumie’s shattered body cradled in her arms. “Dead kittens? Is that the will of your god?”

She stepped close to Verminod, and her voice was a hissing whisper, yet none there missed her words or forgot them after.

“I don’t believe in your god, preacher,” she said. “But I hope there is one. I hope there is a god who sees what we do to each other, and rewards us accordingly. Because if there is any kind of justice to be had, anywhere, then he will damn you all to hell for what you’ve done here tonight.”

Maretta turned, Pumie still in her arms, and walked past the silent group towards the other crying kittens.

Lex died two days later. He never regained consciousness. When an inquest was held into the events at the Hilltop orphanage, one young panther with a criminal history stepped forward and confessed to both the murder of the old farmer and the arson itself. The authorities, seeing an easy way out of a nasty situation, tried and hanged the boy with record speed, despite the protests of his family and Hilltop’s former owner that the youth was never there to begin with.

No one was charged in the death of Jakara; killing a Mutant wasn’t a crime.

Reverend Verminod was never charged with anything at all.

Something was poking her. It wasn’t painful, just bothersome, and persistent. She wished it would go away, but wishing didn’t work, so she dug her mind deeper into unconsciousness, willing the thing to go away. And still it poked at her. Finally she relented and opened her eyes.

Everything was gray, fuzzy and strange-looking and very, very gray. As her eyes regained focus, she realized everything wasn’t gray, it was white, but the dim light of the room made it seem gray.

She was in a bed, slightly propped up on pillows. There were tubes in her hands, tubes in her nose, and tubes running under the sheets to places she could feel, but didn’t want to think about.

Her head was not restrained, so she turned it to look around. She’d already guessed she was in a hospital, so the beeping and flashing machines were no suprise. When she looked to her left, though, she got a very great suprise indeed.

He looked just as she remembered him, the day she saw him in the dining room at the orphanage. His hair was just as gray and thin, his chainmail vest glittering like stars in the dim light. He was sitting in a chair by the bed, his leather oven mitt beside him on the floor. He had his shiny dagger out, and seemed to be caressing the red jewel embedded at the base of the blade.

“Welcome back, Pumyra.”

“Pumie,“ she rasped. “I like Pumie.”

He smiled, taking a cup of water from the stand and holding it out to her. “Pumie it is then. How do you feel? Are you comfortable?”

She sipped water through the straw, wincing as it went down her raw throat. “What happened?” she asked.

“You fell,” he said, taking the cup from her. “How much do you remember?”

Pumie was quiet a moment, considering. Then her eyes flew open wide. “Jakara! Is she okay? Did she get out of the...the...” Pumie slowed and halted, gazing into the old warrior’s sad eyes. She leaned back onto her pillows, staring at the ceiling as tears trickled down her face.

After several moments, Pumie said, “She scratched me.“

“They said she clawed you, trying to get out.”

“No!“ Pumie cried, sitting bolt-upright, spilling her pillows onto the floor. “It’s a lie! She made me let go! She made me let go!“

The old puma reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s alright, I believe you,“ he said. He reached down, picked up the pillows and began to put them back behind the kitten.

“Why?” Pumie asked.

The old warrior sat back down. He picked up his dagger and held it up. “I saw what happened,” he said. “With this. It lets me look through your eyes and see your recent memories. So you don’t have to worry, Pumie. I know what really happened.”

He stood up, gathered his glove and put the dagger away inside it. As he did, Pumie said, “What’s going to happen to us now?”

“I have to discuss that with Maretta,” he said. “We’ll go from there.”

He turned to go, then stopped. He came back, leaned down, and kissed Pumie gently on top of her head.

“Listen to me now, Pumie,” he said. “You are very special. Most Thundercats would have run away and saved themselves, but not you. You fought hard right to the end, and that makes you a hero.”

Pumie met his great red eyes with her small ones. “But I lost her. I can’t be a hero if I lost her.”

“Everyone fails sometime, little fighter,” he said. “That’s not what matters. What matters is, you didn’t give up, even when it hurt, even when you knew it could cost you your life. Win or lose Pumie, that makes you a hero in my eyes.”

He turned and left, and Pumie felt sad, but she also felt just a little bit proud.

Maretta was in the hall outside. Jaga closed Pumie’s door and gestured down the hall. As they walked, Maretta said, “What about the others?“

“My people have placed them in private schools for military children,“ he said. “They’ll get a first-class education, and anyone who discriminates against them will have to answer to me.“ The old Thundercat’s eyes twinkled gold for an instant as he pondered the idea.

They came to the canteen. Jaga bought a bottle of water for himself and one for Maretta. They sat down, and Jaga withdrew an object from his pocket. He set it on the table and slid it across to Maretta.

Maretta picked it up. It was a credit chit. The sum on it was outrageous. “What the hell is this?“ She demanded. “I don’t have an orphanage anymore you know. It’s a little late for an Imperial largess, don’t you think?“

“It’s not from Claudis,“ Jaga said. “It’s from me. I want to hire you.“

Maretta stared at him. “Hire me for what?“

Jaga swigged his water and wiped his lips with his sleeve. “I want to contract you to care for Pumyra. Exclusively. I’ll arrange an apartment in Capitol City, a school, and a part-time job for yourself.”

Maretta was still staring at him. “Why her? Why Pumyra?”

Jaga thought for a few moments, then said, “I admire her.”

“You know what I am, Maretta. Every day I and the Clan Lords do the impossible, guide our troops into battle, and push the Clannad back further. We can do that because of the powers invested in us.”

“Pumyra is a child. That’s all, just a kitten. But what she did was, for her capabilites, no less heroic than anything I have ever done. That deserves something in my mind. At the very least it deserves a chance to grow, to become whatever it has the potential to be.”

“Of course,” he said. “No one can know it’s from me...”

Maretta’s expression went ugly. “Don’t want to be caught sponsoring a bastard, Jaga?”

“Go to hell, Maretta,” he snapped. “You know me better than that. If my association with her was known, she’d be in constant danger.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry. That was uncalled for,” she said, relaxing a little. She sipped her water, then fixed Jaga with a look of deep sorrow. “What about Lex?”

Jaga met her gaze, and his was no less grieved. “Don’t ask me for something I cannot give you, old friend.”

Maretta nodded and put one hand over her eyes and her shoulders began to shake. Jaga got up from his seat, circled the table, sat down and put his arm around her. The lioness rested her head on his shoulder and cried for a long, long time.

As she wept, Jaga stroked her main gently. They say the first casualty of war is innocence, he thought. They’re right.

Gods forgive us, we have lost ours.