The floor was freezing cold. I had a headache and felt weak. MeMe lay next to me looking like a dead cat, except her chest was moving slowly up and down. Pressing close I could hear her heartbeat.

We were in a round room about a dozen cat-lengths across. Chilly and dark, it had a smooth floor like metal, colorless gray walls, no furniture, and no place to hide. Two rings of steps led down to a round sunken terrace where those three blue cat-creatures sat on cushions.

On purple cushions.

The strangest thing, besides the place being so cold, was that two of the blue cats — at least they could have been cats — were surrounded by floating phones, like people have, hovering around them in the air.

The one sitting closest to us was busy with more than a dozen of them, constantly moving around, jostling and bumping into each other. There was a skinny cat beside him who seemed older. She had nine phones arranged in two curved rows, that she stared at with a worried frown.

The third one sat in front gazing into a hooded console rising out of the floor. This one had to be a girl because she was gorgeous. I mean she was a knockout for whatever it was she was, elegantly thin with shimmering silky turquoise fur. She was carefully groomed, and had a long thin tail that flicked at the tip the way mine does when I’m deep in thought.

Grace’s Bengal brother Java would have flipped over that one, except her cold green eyes could put him in his place quicker than his sister if she caught him eating off the floor.

MeMe was waking up, murmuring erk erk erk. Below the floor, we heard the same throbbing music again, rising in pitch this time. The walls turned into windows, spooking me so much, I puffed up and raked my claws on the hard floor with a screech. Outside, the moon was higher — we’d lost time.

Two purple cushions skidded around the floor at us. The forest dropped away in a rush, and we were squeezed down flat as road squirrels.

The one closest to us spat impatiently at his moving phones. He called out something in our direction, sounding like, “trrit-chee-tsow.” To me it was like the sounds cats make when they watch birds.

MeMe was growling, struggling to stand up, but we were too heavy to move, pinned to the floor with the wind knocked out of us.

The cat, if he was a cat, yelled at us, “Tdrow! Tdrow! Tschak schroo-sheeah!” all the while swiping the floor furiously with his paw.

The pretty one in front turned around and spoke to him in the common cat language, heavy with a foreign accent.

“We must use this opportunity to practice their language, Khui, before they’re frozen for dissection.”

MeMe regarded me curiously when she saw the look of horror on my face. Before she could ask what they meant, I shook my head.

“They don’t look like much,” observed the skinny one. “Maybe we should capture better specimens.”

“We don’t have time,” said the pretty one in front.

Making a graceful gesture toward the cushions, she spoke the Common Cat Language, softly in measured words, purring out elegant extended trills. “Sit on the gravity cushions. They will protect you.”

Trying to catch my breath, I managed to ask, “Who are you?”

“SILENCE animal!” shouted the one she called Khui.

“Right Khui, that’s the best way to learn their language,” the skinny older one replied sarcastically. “After they’re delivered to the lab you’ll never see them again, so try to control what limited emotions you have.”

The pretty one said, “My name is Sona. Obey us and no harm will come to you.”

Down through the ages, we cats have heard the same thing — just before we’re sewn into the fur lining of somebody’s coat.

With some effort, MeMe and I managed to claw ourselves onto those strange pillows. As soon as we were on top of them, we discovered we felt lighter and we could breathe again.

“What kind of creature do you suppose these guys are?” MeMe whispered, tossing her head in Khui’s direction.

“It’s so cold in here, maybe they’re some kind of lizards.”

She shook her head, “Lizards don’t have fur. Whatever they are, I’m sure they don’t come from Pennsylvania. Maybe from New Jersey. Did you hear how they talk?”

We thought about it for a while.

“Is this a car, Ridley?” she asked, her face clouded with anxiety. “I don’t like cars, especially when they’re cold. It makes me want to — you know.”

“I know,” I remembered bitterly. “The people in the car yelled like their hair was on fire when I did it.” Actually, they also put me out by the side of the road and then drove off, but I didn’t tell MeMe.

She looked at me with mischievous eyes.

“What?”

“What’s more dangerous than a bunch of strange cats from New Jersey?”

“I don’t know.”

She took a deep breath. “A rocking chair in a room full of cats.”

MeMe sat back pleased with herself.

“That’s not right MeMe,” I argued, annoyed that she could joke when we were about to be dissected for science. “It’s supposed to be, ‘Nervous as a long-tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs,’ ” which was how I was feeling about that time.

“Not quite the same thing,” she shot back defiantly.

Stewing in silence, it suddenly hit me in a fit of cat laughter that with me, sounding sort of like the clicks of a Geiger counter.

“It wasn’t that funny,” she protested.

“No, I get it! One cat yells when he gets his tail pinched. The room erupts in chaos. Cats jumping out the doors, climbing the drapes, knocking over furniture, breaking lamps, claw marks in the ceiling, torn wallpaper, carpets ripped up. Half a second later, the room is empty. A classic cat panic.” Former foster kittens know about cat panics.

That was MeMe’s joke. I had to give her that. And I did remember it much later, when her silly joke saved MeMe’s life.

In Space

The one named Sona, announced, “Altitude 12,470 Earth miles. Applying artificial gravity, you may move around.”

Sunlight glinted off a large piece of metal flashing past the window. Hundreds of smaller bits, flecks and tiny grains like sand hissed across the outside skin. We heard a bang like a rifle shot from somewhere overhead, followed by a loud hiss. A panel fell down into the cabin.

A door appeared in the ceiling. Under it, steps became visible one at a time, curving down to the floor. The one called Khui dashed up the stairway, along with the older one they called Dr. Mina.

MeMe was lying on her side, pawing the air. Her head shook uncontrollably while I tried my best to make her comfortable. Grace told me MeMe didn’t like to talk about what happened to her a long time ago when she was a kitten. All she’d say was the seizures would pass after a while if she lay quiet and she’d be fine.

Khui came down a few minutes later with the skinny doctor.

“The leak is plugged, But we’ve got to get away from here before our ship is destroyed.” Khui licked his lips anxiously. “This planet is ringed by a graveyard of dead satellites and orbiting junk.”

The doctor stopped when she saw MeMe on the floor. “What’s wrong with that one?” She demanded. “ Why is it laying that way?”

I pointed to the ceiling panel lying nearby. “That thing hit her on the head.”

The doctor regarded MeMe with detachment. “Make it lie on the cushion.”

“Why do you call MeMe ‘it?’ ” I hissed. “She’s not a thing.”

“I’ll make it move!” Khui snarled, ignoring me.

Before I could stop him, Khui roughly bit MeMe’s neck intending to drag her. He spat out a mouthful of fur.

“Yeuch! She’s shedding all over the place!”

“Of course she’s shedding! She’s scared.”

Khui sniffed contemptuously.

“MeMe wanted to be friends. You lizard-monsters have to let us go! MeMe is the Matthews’ pet—she’s micro-chipped. Take us home or Bill Matthews will have you arrested.”

“Sure, sure,” said Khui with a sardonic smile. “That’s just what we’ll do. So, what about you? Are you somebody’s pet? We have a special place for stray cats.”

“I am not a stray cat!” I yowled, bristling up. “I was lost.”

The older one they called the doctor pushed between us.

“Give yourself a rest, Khui,” she huffed.

MeMe was lying prone on the floor, staring at nothing.

The doctor looked thoughtfully into her eyes. “This cat’s pupils are different sizes. Did she suffer a head injury once?”

“I don’t know. She never told me.”

“A human must have done that!” Khui sneered. “I knew it.”

“You don’t know anything, Khui,” chided the doctor. “You’ve never even seen a human up close, none of us have.”

Khui was furious. “We need to get rid of these animals right now.”

“We will, Khui, as soon as they’re delivered to the lab. I don’t like having them on board any more than you do.”

MeMe cried out in a long low moan.

“What’s she doing now?” Khui hissed.

Unable to hold out any longer, MeMe peed on the floor.

The three of them stood frozen in helpless astonishment. Before anyone thought of blotting it up, the liquid quickly ran across the deck and leaked through a grille in the floor. We heard a crackle from below, a puff of gray smoke drifted up, followed by what sounded like frantic chirps from beneath our feet.

The steady musical throbbing, descended in pitch. First it lowered a note, then a full octave. Lights flickered and went dim.

From her console in front, Sona called out “Earth’s gravity is pulling us back to Earth.”

Khui hissed, “We’ll make a fiery plunge through Earth’s atmosphere and cook to cinders inside this cabin before the ship hits the ground.”

“If we even make it that far,” the doctor added grimly.

Clawing open a hatch in the floor, Khui leapt down into the lower deck. We heard angry growls and those same strange metallic chirps.

MeMe gradually recovered as we sat wondering what was going to become of us.

Khui jumped back out a few minutes later.

“The androids left a panel open in the oscillator bay. It got wet enough to short out the drivers. We’re in trouble.”

We heard angry chirping protests from below the floor.

The doctor gave him a scalding look.

Staring at one of her screens, Sona lashed her tail in frustration.

“I can’t make any sense out of this.”

The older one told her, “Research into advanced propulsion systems based on sound waves never happened on Earth. Instead, they invented something for listening to music called radio.” She shook her head disapprovingly. “What foolishness.”

That got our attention. “Rock and roll!” MeMe whispered. “Elvis, the king of cats!” We argued about which was best, Nashville Cats or Cool for Cats or Love Cats or Alley Cats or —

“Silence!” Khui shouted. “Enough of this stupid chattering.”

MeMe gave him a scornful glare. “Banana breath.” she whispered.

Sona had been studying her screens. “Here’s an advanced component with characteristics that could work for us. Do you see this, Khui?”

Watching Sona from the side of the cabin, I realized they were looking at the Internet.

“It’s an antique!” Khui threw up his paws in despair. “They stopped production on these things eighty years ago, squandering a quantum leap into a new age of science.”

He jumped back down through the hatch in the floor.

Listening to bangs and clanks, punctuated by those strange chirps, I had to find out what was going on underneath us. Taking a chance, I crawled across the floor and peered down into the open hatch. My surprised meow got Khui’s attention.

“Hey you! Get away from there, you spy!”

“What did you see?” MeMe whispered, when I sat down next to her..

“You won’t believe it! They have metal cats!”

“Metal cats?”

“Purple metal cats with ears and tails!” I told her breathlessly. They wear matching red gloves and boots, they walk on their back legs, and instead of paws, they have hands with thumbs like people do!”

MeMe studied the open hatch with wide curious eyes, while at the same time, Sona and the doctor were studying their screens.

“These things we need are still used by music lovers.” Sona said hopefully. “Earth people buy and sell them.”

The Doctor shook her head doubtfully. “Even if we make it back to Earth alive, where do we find money, or even a mailbox to buy something on-line? And what is this PayPal, anyway?”

Sona agreed. “Yes, we’re space cats.”

The doctor shook her head. “This is not our home.”

Listening closely, MeMe perked up.

“Wow! . . .You know something, Ridley!”

“What?”

“I think this is a SPACE SHIP.” she whispered confidentially.

“You think?”

“Sure! We’re in SPACE!”

Unconvinced, I argued, “You said yourself, space aliens are creepy rubber-people. Not lizards that look like cats. And besides, this isn’t like any space ship we’ve ever seen on TV. Where are the comfortable chairs? The wide dashboards full of complicated instruments? These guys only have phones.”

“Maybe in the future all you need to fly through space is your phone!”

She had me there. I didn’t even own a phone, most cats don’t.

“I WANT TO SEE THOSE METAL CATS!” MeMe declared.

Before I could stop her, MeMe ran to the open hatchway and was immediately met by Khui’s angry face.

“SO! The SPY who sabotaged my ship!” he hissed.

Khui leapt out through the hatch in a maniacal rage. Biting down hard on MeMe’s neck, he dragged her toward the back of the ship.

With my claws in Khui’s hide, I tried to make him let her go, but he was so deep in rage he hardly noticed. MeMe screamed in pain as he pulled her toward a small hatch.

Grabbing a blue handle, Khui sprung the door open, at the same time, kicking me away with his back legs. With a powerful thrust of his head, he threw MeMe into a small chamber. The door slammed shut with a bang.

I crouched back to spring.

“This is the air lock.” Khui sneered at me. “Jump me and your friend goes off into the vacuum of space. It’s not pretty.”

MeMe was shouting at me, trying to tell me something from the other side of the glass. I couldn’t hear her through the heavy door, but a picture came into my mind of the two of us sitting together at the edge of the canyon. I hadn’t been listening as she told me about Bill and Susan, and their cats. But now it came to me clearly — not in words, but in pictures, the way cats communicate when they silently share their thoughts.

I whirled around to face the blue cats. “Stop! MeMe knows where to find this thing you need.”

“No she doesn’t.” Khui sneered. “You’re both done.”

“Those radio things you need to fix this ship.” I insisted.

“Say goodbye now.” Khui pawed the handle that would end her life.

“Listen to the Earth cat.” insisted Sona.

“What have you got to lose,” the doctor argued. “You can kill the creatures later if they annoy you so much. But if you do, you’ll only have to find two more like them, assuming we survive the crash.”

“Use your head, Khui.”

I was leaving nervous wet footprints on the polished floor.

Khui blew out an angry breath. “Make it quick. What have you got?”

My voice cracked. “You have to ask MeMe. She knows.”

He eagerly clawed the death handle.

Sona scraped her foot, “Get on with it, Khui. Ask her.”

“Are you afraid?” scoffed the doctor.

Khui tripped the blue handle and jumped back ready to fight, as the air lock door popped open with a hiss.

Instead of springing out to freedom, the little cat was lying on her side with her feet out rigid, head back, shaking all over like before. As soon as I jumped inside to help her, the door slammed shut with a bang.

Khui grinned at me through the window.

Immediately, there was a hiss, like air escaping. I felt my skin puff out, my ears popped hard like never before, the air was sucked out of my lungs. I gripped MeMe tight to hold us together, because when the outside door opened, we’d be thrown into the vacuum of space.

There wasn’t any breath left to say goodbye. No chance to see Rose again. She’d always been so nice to me. And I wanted to tell Java there weren’t any hard feelings. After all, I’d been the one who told him to take his stupid farm and shove it up his —

Suddenly, the door hissed open with a rush of air. Strong paws reached inside and dragged us back into the cabin. When I opened my eyes, I saw the red gloves of a purple metal cat gripping us both by the scruff or our sorry necks. And this time it was me who let go on the floor.

A second metal cat was ready with sponges, quickly mopping the floor. On the other side of the cabin, Khui hunched up within himself in a snit.

My skin felt like a deflated birthday balloon and my eyes hurt.

Dr. Mina regarded us clinically. “Good, you’re still alive. You said you might be able to help us.”

Once MeMe got her voice back, she started talking and wouldn’t stop.

“Those things you need. Bill has shelves of them. He says they’re worth a fortune to the right people.”

“Who is this Bill?” demanded Dr. Mina with a cold hard stare.

Trying to be helpful, MeMe breathlessly explained how people came from all over to buy antique radio parts from Bill’s workshop, especially the rare audio transformers which everyone, including these dangerous space cats, seemed to prize so highly. I had to cut her off before she could give them the address, website, and phone number, because I was hoping we could lose these fiends in the woods and never see them again.

Imagine Bill and Susan Matthews negotiating with a trio of space cats who didn’t speak English and were broke. Of course space aliens might be willing to trade some cosmic diamonds, strange intellectual property, or a rare element not found on Earth. But they’d be more likely to simply kill everyone and burn down the house after taking what they wanted, which was obviously the way they planned to deal with the two of us.

By now, we were flying over the woods. “This ship is unstable,” Sona warned. “I’m taking over manually.”

As she descended into the dark canyon, the cabin lights went off. Sona steadied her paws so she could bring the ship in by touch. Easing down, measuring the air currents, she was doing fine until her instruments failed.

“Oh no!” She cried out. “We’re dead!”

The ship scraped the rock cliff with a sudden lurch and fell hard to the ground with a boom. When someone opened the door, I grabbed MeMe in the dark and we ran for our lives.