While Grace was worrying about her brother, and while everybody worried about how they’d ever get home, except Neko, who was already home but wouldn’t be for long if fortune-hunters found his buried hideaway. . . While all this was going on, Java was soaring over the Libyan desert under a full moon with Major Mau.

I wasn’t with him, so I’ll have to tell you what he told us, most of which seems hard to believe. But there must some truth to it because his sister grilled him afterward, and she can spot yarns quicker than a kitten at a purling bee.

Java had no idea where any of us were because everyone already left the ship while he was sound asleep. That afternoon when the androids were chasing the camels away, Java ran back inside the comfortable air conditioned cabin of the saucer, hiding upstairs in the first room he saw. After the androids chased the grave robbers away, they went inside feeling jumpy and cautious, so they locked every door on the ship and Java was trapped.

He tried scratching on the door of his cabin, and he tried meowing, but no one came to open it like they usually do at home. He pushed all over it with his nose, but only smeared the shiny carbon-fiber panels with his nose grease.

Java had heard the blue cats talk to the doors to make them open and close, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember which words they said. He talked to the door, pleading and coaxing, until his throat was so parched and his mind so blank he even forgot his own name.

Worn out, he fell into a deep sleep with his whiskers twitching and his pink tongue sticking out between his dark lips, easily opening and closing that difficult door many times in his dreams.

Later, when the ship started moving, Java was instantly on the alert. Coming out of a deep sleep, the words sprang fresh in his mind the way they do when you’re rested. He recited, merl tsssik, but nothing happened. He tried again more slowly and the door slid up with the gentle sound of a million nano-motors.

Java happily padded to the top of the stairway to see if his friends had returned. But as the ship banked away into the sky, his feet slid out from under him on the polished floor. He flew over the top step of the upper deck, tumbling all the way down the stairs, bump bump bump, and banged his head on the cold floor of the main cabin.

Mau flinched when he turned from the pilot’s console and saw the last cat he ever expected to see again in his whole life.

But, of course, Java had slept through everything so he didn’t know much about the Major except how friendly he’d been on the trip out. Mau had even invited Java to make a video so other cats could find out about all the things he loved to eat and watch on TV.

The Bengal cat had been profoundly grateful for the attention. And Java also remembered how Khui had generously offered a plate of delicious treats, that is, until his sister spoiled everything by upsetting the dish all over the floor.

Grace could be so temperamental at times.

He stepped closer to Mau with his tail held up in friendship. Mau was just about to grab the Bengal cat by the throat and throttle him, when Java asked, “Do you have any more?”

“More what?” Mau asked suspiciously, wondering if there was something else he should know.

“Can I have more of those delicious cat treats, please?”

Mau cringed, trying to recall where Khui kept the other treats, the ones marked with a skull and cross-bones that smelled like almonds.

While Mau was busy in back rummaging through lockers, Java made himself comfortable on Sona’s purple gravity cushion, sniffing around her console to see if there was anything to eat.

Java didn’t find any food inside, but he did discover a pretty cool video game that reminded him of Space Invaders his sister liked. The stars went on forever, with lots of neat little copper-colored round things floating above the moon. As he reached out with his paw, all the objects in the holographic display spun off to the right. At the same time, as he twisted his body on the purple pilot’s seat, the ship rotated rapidly to the left.

Java leaned into the console’s open front batting round objects swirling around his paw like angry bees. The ship instantly responded to his body motion, rolling nose-down in a sickening plunge. Of course, Java didn’t feel much of the roller-coaster motion because the purple gravity cushion he was sitting on dampened the force.

“Get away from there, you —!” Mau’s booming voice was suddenly cut off with a thud as he slammed into the ceiling.

When Java poked his head out, he was surprised to see the world outside the cabin windows flipping wildly out of control. Major Mau bounced from wall to wall before he banged his head on the ceiling.

As soon as Java pulled his paws out of the console and touched the cushion, the ship righted itself and resumed its westerly course.

Mau fell to the floor and little cat treats skittered across the deck.

Grabbing one of the almond-scented treats between his teeth, Java was about to chew it up until the stern picture of his sister Grace loomed up in his mind, stridently scolding him not to eat things off the floor.

Reluctantly, he set it down again, untasted.

Grace always spoiled everything.

Mau was lying on the deck at the back of the cabin knocked out cold.

Filled with alarm, Java ran to the Major, tenderly grooming his ears. How had he managed to hurt this wonderful cat? He heaved a sigh of relief when Mau’s eyes finally fluttered open.

“You had a nasty bump on the head, Major Mau. I don’t know how it happened, but if—” Java got no further. In a flash, Mau was chasing after Java, all teeth and claws in a homicidal rage.

Around and around the cabin they chased, but there was nowhere to go in the circular ship except up the curving stairway. Racing to the top, Java slid into the same little room as before, and screamed MERL TSSSIK as loud as he could. When the door whirred down, he breathed a sigh, wondering what on Earth he’d done to the kindly cat to make him so mad?

The door whirred back up and Mau leapt into the compartment with murder in his eyes. Down the stairs they raced, around and around the cabin again. With no other place to go, Java leapt into Sona’s holographic console feet first. Once again the world outside flipped end over end.

Bang! Mau hit the front wall and he was down for the count.

Java pulled himself out of the console, and once again, the outside world righted itself. Major Mau slid around the deck to the back of the cabin, stopping not far from a small locker.

Java stood over Mau trying to imagine what had caused this sudden change to come over the kindly cat. He figured what Mau needed most was to be somewhere quiet so he could get a grip on himself.

There was a blue handle on the locker door. Java touched it with his paw and the door sprang open. Pushing the unconscious cat inside, he closed the door a with a click.

But where were Grace and MeMe? And that other cat Ridley? Java was losing interest in the video game, now that the moon had disappeared along with the bright round things. He waved his paw to bring them back and the ship lurched.

Jostled back to consciousness, Mau remembered in a wave of panic, that he’d made Khui remove the emergency handle on the inside of the compartment to prevent any of his prospective victims from escaping.

He banged his paws frantically on the door.

Java called over his shoulder, “Do you have any more quarters?”

“Let me out, you idiot!” Mau screamed, at the same time wondering who was the idiot, since he’d told Khui to remove the inside emergency handle to prevent any of his prospective victims from escaping.

Java peered inside through the small window.

“My sister plays this video game all the time and —”

“You moron!” Mau’s muffled voice shouted through the thick door. “Let me out of here, you stupid —” Mau’s eyes bulged out as Java’s paw reached up for a red handle above the door.

“Not that one, you idiotic, dumb clod! Pull the blue one!”

“NOT THE RED HANDLE!”

Java withdrew his paw and squinted through the window.

“You need a time out, Major Mau. You’re all upset.”

As Java started to turn away, he asked, “Do you know where my sister is, and MeMe? We came together and now they’re not here. And that Ridley, too. Where are they?”

With a deep breath, Mau explained, “I took them to your home in Pennsylvania, my friend. They’re waiting for you back at the farm.”

“Oh. That was nice of you, Major. I’m glad we’re friends again. But why didn’t you wake me up when you landed at the farm?”

“Just shut up and let me out of here, stupid!” Mau screamed. “And make sure you use the BLUE handle, not the RED one, you stupid fool.”

“Hey! Only my sister calls me a fool. And anyhow, I’m not the one that’s inside, am I?” Java turned away with his feelings hurt.

Mau pleaded, “OK! OK! Get on with it. Open the door and let me fly the ship. I’ll take you to your stupid sister.”

“She’s very smart. You don’t know her well enough.” Java turned away. “You need more time to be alone to find yourself.”

Mau realized he’d better change his tone, at least until Java opened he door or he might not survive the trip. In his sweetest voice, he said, “Everyone’s fine. I took them home safe and sound,” adding as an afterthought, “. . . and Ridley sends you her love.”

Java turned a curious eye on the Major.

“That’s what she said? Ridley said that?”

“Sure, sure,” Mau asserted confidently. “She said she misses you and can’t wait for you to come home.”

“She said that. Just like that.”

“Just like that.” Mau smiled out through the little window as his eyes followed Java’s paw up to the red handle.

“I want to talk to my sister. Now!”

“No, don’t do that—I mean you can’t call your sister. She doesn’t have a phone.”

“You’d better hope she does, or we’ll find out what this does.”

Java fingered the red lever and Mau knew the Bengal cat wasn’t as dumb as he looked. Through the thick door, Java could hear Mau mumbling.

“What did you say? I didn’t hear you.”

“Sit at the console and say Sona!” Mau yelled back.

In a moment Sona’s pretty face was looking back at Java on a small screen. Grace pushed in next to her.

“Java! We’ve been so worried! . . . Where are you?”

“No clue, Gracie.”

Grace was breathless with excitement to fill him in.

“When you get back I’ll tell you all about how we got lost in the dark and Ridley tried to save us! She’s a real hero.” Grace sneezed and her voice went nasal. “Ad she’s so boodiful, doo! Oh! Dees allergies.”

“Ridley Ridley Ridley!” Java groused. “What about me?”

Grace sniffed deeply. “Well, where have you been, Java? We searched all over for you and yelled ourselves hoarse.”

“Look Grace, I’ve got kind of a situation here and I need to talk to Sona.”

“Well! You don’t have to shout. She’s right here.”

As Grace stormed away in a huff, Java heard Sona’s calm reassuring voice., “Where are you, Java?”

Java shook his head doubtfully. “All I know is I’m sitting on your purple cushion in front of a video game.”

From the back of the cabin they could hear Mau laughing. “That’s right goof. We’re in a flying pachinko parlor on our way to Japan. Let me out and we’ll visit Aoshima and chase our tails on kitty-cat island.”

Grace’s angry face pushed in next to Sona. “Is that you Mau? Look you creep! After I get my claws on you, you’re going to need a fur transplant. You’ll have to stand on your head to sit down. I’ll pound you so thin you’ll have to run around in the rain to get wet. And you won’t be seeing much of yourself anymore because —”

“Where is Major Mau, Java?” Sona interrupted.

Java looked apprehensively over his shoulder. “He’s inside some kind of a locker with blue and red handles. He’s such a nice cat, but something I said made him so mad and he went sort of wild for a while.”

“Oh Java!” Sona urged, “whatever you do, don’t touch the red handle.”

“That’s what he said.”

“Just don’t let him out until you get back on the ground.”

“We need to talk about that, Sona.”

“It’s easy,” she assured him. “Simply press UNDO on the auto pilot and hit ENTER.” Sona explained where it was on the console, but when Java tried it several times nothing happened.

They heard the muffled sound of Mau’s evil laugh. “It won’t work because I erased it so nobody could ever find you.”

“Pull the red handle, Java,” Grace yelled. “Get rid of him once and for all!”

“He’s nice when you get to know him,” Java protested.

“What? That cat’s slipperier than six slick slugs.”

Sona suppressed a smile. “You’ll have to fly back to us yourself, Java.”

Java’s eyes flew wide remembering the time he tried to ride a skateboard.

Sona’s soft voice calmed him down. “It’s alright, Java. Touch your paw to the screen on the lower left so it recognizes you. You fly by looking where you want to go. Pull your left paw back to go faster, and lower your paw to slow down.”

In her calm authoritative voice Sona instructed him, “Hold your paws out in front of you, Java, and you’ll stop.” He leaned back and stuck out his front feet, bringing the ship to a sudden stop.

Mau bumped around the airlock chamber like shoes in a drier.

Sona sent a map to Java’s screen with his course marked in a red line. Never good with maps, Java squinted his eyes at it, his head tilted and his tongue poked out between his teeth.

Mau heckled from the back of the cabin. “You’re wasting your time, Sona. This buffoon couldn’t find his way out of a box if the top was open!”

Grace yelled over the cat-cam, “Keep it up Mau and you’re gonna need a diagram to keep yourself together!”

Java wasn’t laughing. This was worse than the time he went up on the roof and forgot how to get down. The whole neighborhood turned out to help. Grace was in a tree yelling at him. The cats were on the ground screaming advice like a soprano choir. Bill was on a ladder by the chimney waving at him. And Mr. Detlow the neighbor, slipped and pulled the gutters down.

In the end Java skipped down to the gable roof and rappelled the dogwood tree next to the sun room. He could never understand why all the people were so mad at him once he was on the ground, since everyone was so helpful while he was up on the roof.

“You have company, Java,” Sona warned. “Are your shields up?”

“Shields?”

“Egyptian Air Force jets are lighting you up.

“Lighting me up?”

“They do that before they blow you out of the sky.” Mau yelled.

Sona was frightened. “Put up your shields, Java.”

“How?”

“Arrrgh rahrrrh ssss ssss,” Mau cried out in his own language.

“You better not swear at my brother, you nasty cat!” Grace screamed.

Sona tried to sound calm. “The tab on the bottom left, Java. It looks like a knight’s shield.”

The supersonic shock waves of three Egyptian Air Force jets rattled Java’s teeth.

“Now pull up, Java. You’re coming down too hot!”

“Hot?”

“Too fast!” Mau screamed. “We’re going to crash into the ground!”

“Lift your right paw and look up, Java” Sona said quietly.

By now the ship was half a mile away from the cats on the ground, hugging the terrain at 200 miles an hour. The ship was invisible but in the bright moonlight they could see the cloud of dust it kicked up.

Everyone ran out to welcome him back with waving paws. Two seconds later they were running for their lives as the saucer shot past in a dust storm.

Trying to sound calm, Sona said, “Just hold steady and come around again.” She went over the procedure with him once more, leaving damp nervous paw prints on her tablet. On the next pass, Java came in at a cool 35 mph, sliding to a stop in a heap of sand.

Everyone ran out on the field cheering. Grace was first to greet her brother. Her eyes streamed as he staggered from the hatch.

Java nuzzled his sister. “Tears, Gracie? I didn’t know you missed me so much.”

“Oh you big fool! This dust is terrible for my allergies.”

When she gave Java a sisterly bat with her paw, he staggered a few steps and fainted face down in the sand.