We were sitting ducks. A sea of sandy footprints marked the way to Neko’s secret entrance as plain as airport runway lights. Camel prints led back to town like a trail of cookie crumbs, an open invitation to anyone with the slightest interest in finding a lost city. Once someone discovered where they led, hordes of treasure-hunters would swarm out and cart away all of the priceless treasures to auction galleries from Aswan to Zumbro Falls, and the story of the lost space cats would be scattered before the wind. That is, if Mau’s android army didn’t overrun us first and turn this place into a sand quarry to find whatever it was he thought was down there.

The three androids remained frozen in place a short distance from the entrance, their dimly glowing eyes still fixed on the sky.

Grace watched them suspiciously. “Don’t they know their ship came back?” she asked. “They might start chasing us again.”

“We need to give them something to do,” Sona observed. “In a moment they’ll be as sweet as —”

“Firecrackers!” Grace shot back.

Sona used her tablet to set the metal cats to work smoothing down the sand. With happy clicks and chirps, Rrrk, Gling, and Slee danced in their small red boots, gradually erasing every footprint with the aid of their clever nano-carbon brushes that twirled in their little red gloves.

We released the Major from his air lock and tethered him to a prisoner leash inside the ship. When the sun was in the right position it would be time to go home.

Sona looked across the sand toward the entrance to the buried city.

“You’re the curator of a world class museum collection. When we meet again, I hope you’ll teach us foreigners about Egyptian art.”

With regret, Neko shook his head.

“It is totally dark inside. I see by my whiskers alone.

“This will light your way,” She told him simply.

My eyes went huge when I saw Sona glide her tablet over to Neko. I was so excited for him, I could have screamed! But who else in the whole wide world could put a tablet with lights and a cosmic Internet connection to better use.

Neko looked at the device curiously. “The little girl in the house where I lived had one of these. It was fun to bat the fish that swam around in it.”

“Oh! This does a lot more than that!” I chattered eagerly. “For one thing, it has lights, but it’s not like a flashlight. It doesn't light up things — it makes things light up on their own, even around corners. You’ll never be afraid of the dark again,” I added, blushing under my fur when he winked at me.

Khui tried explain to Neko how their devices use neutron energy, those subatomic particles bombarding Earth from deep space, as a limitless source of energy. Khui was brilliant, but he could get so technical.

“He means it doesn’t need batteries. See, Neko, you take pictures with this . . . and we send them to each other like this . . . and talk through this, and see each other here —”

“And to see you again,” he said to me in a whisper, “I only have to walk through this window and come out the other side where everything is backwards, like the English girl.”

“Just call me Alice.” I whispered back, rubbing my muzzle in his fur.”

“Maybe you’d better show him,” suggested Sona with a tilt of her pretty head. “Take a tour together, you two have time. We need to delay our departure until after midnight so we can arrive in Pennsylvania after dark.”

With his tablet leading the way, Neko and I eagerly ran together toward the androids’ new entrance, now fixed up to look like an abandoned fox den. Rrrk, Gling, and Slee were born structural engineers. so as soon as they toured the ancient city, they had begged to remain with Neko to keep the place from falling down.

The small opening led down through a cleft in the rocks to the long stairway where Neko and I first saw each other in the sunlight. The moment we slipped inside, an impatient android popped out to sweep away our tracks, scolding us with clicks and chirps for kicking up the sand.

We walked side-by-side down the long staircase into the city’s labyrinth. Neko beamed. “To have light in a world of darkness! There is so much to learn from these ancient halls. Thank you from the deepest place in my heart!”

I touched my nose to his and whispered, “It’s you I have to thank, for showing me who I am.” The tablet hovered in front like a mirror, and for a moment the two of us blended into one.

“It is said cats like us have special talents.” Neko observed.

“Like opening doors and closing them again,?” I remembered the frightened look on Grace’s face when she saw me close the kitchen door.

Neko was surprised, “You do that, too? It startles other cats.”

We looked at each other and laughed.

“And you’re better with languages than I am,” I said. “But are you as good at math?” I sketched out a fourth order magic square in the sand, and drew another with the outside columns rotated 180 degrees.

Neko was impressed. “That is something I could never do.”

“But maybe with your knowledge of Egyptian writing and history, you can explain those mysteries that everyone wonders about.”

“You mean about the Land of Punt? Or where Queen Nefertiti’s tomb is? Or the Dendera Light?” he said with a smile.

“Yes, that last one especially,” I questioned him eagerly. “How is it the ancients were able to light this place without getting soot on the walls? Did they have some sort of electric light?”

Neko laughed, “The ancient people mixed natron with castor oil to make a smokeless light. As for the rest, who knows?” Growing serious, he said in a quiet voice, “Pawa said talented cats who look like us are the ones who travel at will.”

I felt a chill. “You mean, the ones who dive into that pool and come out someplace else?” He was bringing back the mystery of my life, why home never seemed to get any closer. Cats have a feeling for it, but mine seemed impossibly far away.

Softly to myself, I asked, “What if you couldn’t get back? What then?”

Neko waved his paw dismissively. “You and I are only two talented cats who happen to look the same. That’s all it is.”

“Except for my extra-special white whisker,” I reminded him, playfully nuzzling his ear.

And you know what I did? I gave him a kiss! . . Yes I did.

And he was very surprised.

We played like kittens, fearlessly chasing up and down through those beautiful halls, playing hide-and-seek behind statues of royal felines that hadn’t been touched by real cats in who knows how long.

Neko and I played until we were covered with dust, breathless and happy. We climbed onto the head of a huge stone cobra and gazed down into a forgotten world of colossal halls and giant statues illuminated from everywhere at once with the magic of Neko’s tablet. We held each other close, afraid to let go of our future together, two travelers who’d found each other in the dark.

First shaking the dust from his fur, Neko groomed me until we both looked more presentable. He led me up through many doorways and corridors to the great devotional hall of the golden sculpture of Bast.

We bowed respectfully to the golden cat.

“She favors us.” He said.

“She brought us together.” I whispered, feeling comforted by the power of a god who protects cats.

As Neko explained the hieroglyphics around the statue’s base, it was plain to me, cats who can read and write Egyptian and Greek, and solve magic squares, are not just ordinary cats. There would be trouble for us down the road. But it was enough for now to share a moment together. So I showed him how to make a video with his new tablet, and we took lots of pictures to remember the night.

We figured out how to upload our files over the Internet to some sort of cloud, which was when I discovered that those space cats don’t connect to the same world wide web we’re used to here on Earth. I mean, they use something entirely different. If you don’t believe me, wait until you see cat videos from space!

Eventually, the tablet let us know it was time to go back. That was when it finally hit us, we’d have to say good-bye.

Neko would have come with me if I’d asked, but it was obvious now, with light and the androids to help him, that he had important work to restore his fantastic museum. He asked me to stay with him, it was so hard to refuse, but there was something I needed to do first. It had seemed so important to me at the time. Looking back, it could have been such a foolish choice, to risk losing Neko forever. But if I’d stayed, we might have lost the world.

It’s never easy to say goodbye. Not at all. Especially if you’re not sure if it’s the right thing to do.

LATER

Grace met us when we climbed out from the secret den. The moon was high overhead and the sky was brilliant with stars.

“You two look like you had fun,” she said with a conspiratorial wink. “You have a secret. I can tell.”

“It’s not what you think,” I protested shyly. “The place is covered with dust.”

“Well, make up your mind, you two. Sona says it’s time to go. Java will be happy to know the metal cats are staying with Neko.”

I turned to my friend with tears in my eyes. Too afraid to say what was truly on my mind.

“Do you know how they work?”

Neko coughed shyly. “Khui gave me a complete course. They’re very friendly once you get to know them, and they have such great plans for the restoration.”

At the mention of androids, Java put his head down with his paws over his face.

Grace looked at her brother with a shrewd smile. “Don’t be silly, Java, those purple cats are no more dangerous than a toaster.”

Java was inclined to agree, because once he was warming his face over the toaster at home, enjoying the wonderful fragrance of warm bread, when, without any warning, the toast suddenly jumped up with a bang and attacked him.