Interspecies Bonding

An Apex Short Story

- by Ninmast Nunyabiz -

The alleyway walls cut out the worst of the wind and rain, but somehow still managed to let everything on the ground end up completely soaked through. And it did absolutely nothing at all to keep out the chill.

All of the water rendered the creature's own fur completely useless to this end, as well. All she could do was curl up inside the pitiable shelter of the half-collapsed box and try to compensate with natural body heat. A source that seemed to peter in and out with the complaints of her empty stomach.

Oh, how she longed for her clutch, where she'd be nestled within a pile of her brothers and sisters and it didn't matter if they didn't catch anything because her mother would bring back big, fat rodents from the docks.

She lacked a proper concept of time, but it felt distant, as all comforting memories do during times of hardship. But as she laid there, curled and shivering, she could almost feel sparks of their warmth as she struggled to dream of the memory.

A shadow fell over her, the sudden shift in light rousing her, and she raised her head to see a towering bipedal creature. It looked down at her baring teeth, its form a horrifying amalgam of folds and bare skin, topped by a mushroom that kept the rain off of it.

It kept the rain off of her, too, for the moment, but that wasn't where her mind was. She needed to flee, to escape, but the cold had her cramped and hunger had her sluggish. Her limbs wouldn't move the way she wanted. She let out a cry of protest, of threat, of pleading, but it sounded weak even to her own ears.

And as the creature bent down toward her, making noises of its own, she just knew that this was the end. Fallen to a monstrous predator because she'd failed to survive on her own.

* * *

"Kerry, I'm home."

Ash held the bundle in her arms close to her chest, making getting out of the raincoat harder than it otherwise would have been. Fortunately, the umbrella was easy to set aside, its haptic field collapsing so she needed only set the pole in the corner.

"Welcome home, Ash!" The Undpani AI's cheerful face turned to overexpressed confusion at the sight of the bundle. "Eh? Did you bring more meat home? But we're not through the last bundle!"

The human chuckled at that. "Don't say that too loud, you're liable to freak her out."

"Her?! Did you finally give in to your bloodthirsty urges and kidnap some poor little urchin off the street?!"

Ash held up a finger before her lips to encourage Kerry to quiet down, then laid the bundle gently down on the counter. "No urchin, just a stray."

Kerry leaned over the bundle, unable to hide her curiosity. "A stray?"

But she inhaled sharply when the bundle came undone and revealed the damp alien feline, fur a spiral of shifting grays as green scales came up from the feet to engulf the legs and underbody. "Ash, that's a koatil!"

The human frowned at the statement. "I know what it is," she insisted. "We have a similar species back on Earth. We call them cats."

"Yeah, well, these 'cats' are pests." The Pani girl crossed her arms under her intangible bust. "They go wherever the rat species they hunt go and end up in every port in the shipping lanes!"

"So did ours," Ash confirmed, giving the scaled neck of the koatil a little rub. "But this one was in the alley, and was cold and, if I had to guess, hungry."

She went over to the cabinet and grabbed a small bowl to put it under a dispenser. "Milk, warm," she instructed, and soon white fluid was filling the bowl to just the right height.

* * *

She blacked out when the monster grabbed her, one last attempt by her simple mind to spare her the horror and agony. But, unexpectedly, sensation returned.

She was somewhere soft and dry, and the air was warm. Something gently lifted her head up and then a sweet, mellow aroma was in her nose. On her nose. Impulsively, she licked, and the taste was delicious. She began licking more and found a pool of the nectar before her.

The thought of where it came from never entered her mind, only that this delicious concoction was the first thing she'd had to eat in days.

* * *

"There, now, that's better."

The koatil jumped at Ash's words, but she still spoke to it soothingly.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"No need to panic. You're not in any danger. Nobody's going to hurt you."

Kerry turned her gaze from the feline to the human. "Um, Ash, koatil aren't sapient. She can't actually understand what you're saying."

"She doesn't need to," Ash assured the hologram. "Our ears may not understand each other, but our stomachs speak the same language. Look."

Sure enough, when neither of the figures leaped upon her, the koatil was lured back by the warm milk and began lapping it up again, even if she did so with one eye trained on them the whole while.

Ash couldn't help but grin at the progress. "Looks like I'm going out again!"

"What for?"

"I'm going to need to pick up some sand."

Kerry's cartoonish overanimation turned to the human as if Ash had gone crazy. "Sand?"

"To microwave it," the alien explained without explaining much of anything. "The Union doesn't have much in the way of pet litter."

* * *

It had been three days since the tall creatures brought the koatil indoors. She didn't really have a concept of how long that was, only that it was a long-short time.

Emerald. She didn't know the meaning of the sound the tall ones made, but she understood that it was meant to refer to her. They said it whenever they wanted to get her attention, and usually because they had something tasty or interesting to give her.

Except when the tailed tall one said it sharply. That was usually because she'd attacked one of the little rolling rodents that the tailed one had trained to do her bidding. But, really, even if she wanted to, she couldn't help it. They just rolled around all tempting, and it's not like she hurt them any.

She tried once, and all she got was hurt teeth. But the tailed tall one always made such a great racket. Even if the rodents weren't such tempting targets, she'd have attacked them just to get a rise out of the tailed one.

The tall one without a tail always made amusement noises at the sight and praised her hunting prowess. At least, that's how the koatil decided to interpret the cooing sounds delivered with absolutely wonderful ear scratches.

Yet another reason not to give up the hunt.

The koatil had come to the conclusion that these tall ones must have been koatil, too. Why else would they bring her into their pack? It was the only logical explanation. However, they were very bad at koatiling, something she'd noted repeatedly over her time with them.

Well, the tailed tall one was horrendous at it, at least usually. She did, admittedly, have a knack for showing up in a room Emerald was absolutely certain was empty in a manner she'd yet to decipher, but otherwise, whoever her mother had been, she'd absolutely failed to teach her any hunting skills at all.

Now, the one without a tail was clearly a great and mighty hunter, as she never failed to bring home some sort of catch. As for how she did it, that was less clear. She was a better koatil than the tailed one, but still clomped about like she didn't care who heard her coming.

Maybe she was just that good at it that she didn't have to worry in her own nest? She certainly carried herself that way, and she was clearly on alert. Every time Emerald hid, the tailless one managed to find her. They even made a game of it.

Speaking of the tailless one, the last two days, she'd returned from her hunts at a time very soon from now.

Emerald licked her jowls, wondering if there would be new meat in her belly come evening. If the tailless one consented to stroking her fur-portion correctly again, maybe she'll even deign to reward the tailless one by sitting in her lap while the noise-box squawked at them.

* * *

Kerry looked down with a soft smile at the "pest" animal that now sat curled up in Ash's lap. Like most feline species, the koatil had a distinct purr. Ash said it sounded like the world's smallest diesel engine.

Kerry said that would make it the world's only diesel engine and had questioned why Ash knew what such a bizarre thing sounded like.

"It's hard to believe she's only been here a month," the hologram observed. "She acts like she's been here forever."

"I'm just glad she finally feels at home here," Ash replied. "I was worried an alien species wouldn't respond as well."

Kerry turned a disbelieving eye to the cop. "You really do this to stray cats back on Sol-III?"

Ash looked down at Emerald as she continued to stroke her fur. "And other animals. Most respond well to a gentle hand and a full bowl, but we have our favorites. Or our favorites have us."

That drove the hologram into an exaggerated expression of confusion. "What do you mean, they have you?"

"Well, like I said, there's a lot of animals we domesticate," the brunette explained. "Some are for livestock, like cows and sheep. Others are work animals, like horses and some breeds of dog. Some precious few are just for companionship. We can get attached to all of them, and vice versa. But the jury's out on whether or not we ever truly domesticated cats."

Kerry's face turned pouting. "That's not an answer at all! You're gonna make me ask what you mean twice in a row! That's just bad form!"

The officer gave a brief laugh at the reaction. "Sorry, it's just a bit long. See, our interactions with cats probably started about the same time yours did, shortly after the advent of agriculture when you started storing grain. Like you said, koatil follow rodents. The same was true of cats, so when the rats came to eat the grain, the cats came to eat the mice."

"How is that different from how you first met anything else?"

"Well, take dogs for an example," Ash explained. "Humans and wolves hunted together and shared the spoils of their cooperation. This developed bonds as they started working as a single pack unit, and eventually dogs came to be, faithful, loyal, and, as clever as they can be, dumber than their wild wolf kin."

A frown of thought came to the Undpani. "What kind of adaptation is it that would promote growing dumber?"

"One of dependence," came the answer. "That's what it means to be a domesticated creature, you become dependent on the species that domesticated you. Maybe not wholly, but to at least some degree. Be it for food or protection from predators, domesticated lifeforms entrust some level of fundamental survival to their masters in exchange for a guarantee of that survival. If the master species is strong enough, then the creature need fear no predator or scarcity."

"I see ..." Kerry rubbed her chin. "So humans take over the role of defender of the herd and gain the loyalty of other species in exchange. But this isn't the case for felines?"

Ash shook her head. "Take Emerald here." The koatil looked up at the sound of her name, and Ash reassured her by rubbing her ears. "She doesn't need us. She's fully capable of going out and hunting on her own. We helped her through a rough patch, but she stays with us because it's convenient. Cats love us or hate us, and we treat their mercurial natures as a feature rather than a flaw. We have no relationship of dependence with them."

"Then why keep them around?"

"Part of it is just that we like cute things, and we'll take them in and care for them if they're in need even if they're a completely different animal from us." Ash looked down at Emerald one more time. "But the truth is it's the same reason they stay with us. It's not a relationship of dependence. It's one of convenience."

One of the automated roller drones in charge of cleaning the floor happened to dart by at just about that time, and in an instant, Emerald had twisted and launched herself from Ash's lap, springing for the droid.

"Ah!" Kerry shouted. "Emerald! That's not a toy!"

But Ash just laughed. "And there's the other reason. To keep the rodents in check!"