Chapter 7
Three and a half months after returning home from Mexico, James stood at the kitchen door looking at all of the Quatyl running around the living room floor. Nancy came up behind him and said, "Aren't they the cutest things you've ever seen?"
"There sure is a bunch of them," James said losing count at twenty. The four adult Quatyl chasing after the young looked rather frazzled by the experience. The other four were still in their dens imprinting the rest of the eggs.
"You're right. It kind of makes me think of the Star Trek Tribbles," she said. They were starting to go through a lot of applesauce, but she didn't even think of putting them on a diet. Although she was buying food by the case now, she was pretty sure that the sudden population boom wasn't occurring because they were getting over fed.
"What are we going to do with them all?" James asked. He didn't want to give them away, but he knew they were going to end up with close to a thousand of them at the rate they were breeding.
"I guess we could take them to the grocery store and give them away to nice people there," Nancy said thinking it wouldn't be right to sell them. She had gotten rid of some kittens that way when she was younger.
"I suppose. Still, I'd like to make sure that the people who get them will take good care of them," James said noticing four new Quatyl emerge from their dens. It was odd how they always appeared whenever he and Nancy were discussing them.
Thinking that it was sweet of him to care so much for the Quatyl, Nancy leaned over to kiss him. When she did there was a mass exodus of Quatyl headed in the direction of the bedroom. She paused and said, "That's so strange. Every time I go to kiss you, they run away. I wonder what that is about."
"I don't know. Did you notice, but almost every time we have sex they lay an egg," James said wondering if there wasn't some sort of connection.
"Hmm, maybe we make them horny," Nancy said with a grin.
"I don't know about them, but you tend to have that effect on me," James said kissing her neck. He swore that he could hear a whimper come from under one of the chairs.
"What are you doing?" Nancy asked several days later.
"I'm making up care and feeding of Quatyl instructions," James answered while typing on his computer.
Looking over his shoulder, Nancy checked out the list. She said, "Don't forget to put down the soaked seaweed. They really love that stuff."
"I was about to add that to the list of foods," James said. Looking at the screen, he said, "Let's see what else I have forgotten."
"That thing about sex scaring them," Nancy said.
"I wasn't talking to you," James said distracted from his thoughts.
"Who were you talking to?"
Shifting nervously, he answered, "The computer."
"You talk to your computer?" she asked even though she knew that he did it. He tried to hide it from her, but there were times when he slipped up and would go into long discourses about whatever he was writing. She enjoyed his little rants at the computer tremendously. He really came up with some off the wall stuff.
"Only when I'm writing," he answered.
"And what kinds of things do you say to it? I bet you talk sexy to it," she asked looking over at him with a smile on her face. Since that was the only use he had for his computer he talked to it all of the time he was using.
"Oh baby, make love to me. Let me stroke your mouse, fondle your keys, and gaze upon your monitor," he answered with a grin. The sounds of Quatyl leaving the room filled the air.
"You scared them away," Nancy said watching them flee the room. The older of the young Quatyl left in pairs.
"I swear that they understand what we are saying," James said shaking his head in wonder.
Lear stood at the doorway of the den watching the pair. She had finally figured out most of the language and had been teaching it to the other Quatyl. It helped when he left the television on since it gave her a lot of contextual elements in which to place the language. She wasn't sure that she liked being called Face, but there wasn't too much she could do about it.
Looking in the direction that the Quatyl had headed, Nancy said, "Have you noticed that some of the young Quatyl have already formed pairs?"
"Yes, I noticed that last night," James said.
"What is going to happen when we give them away?" Nancy asked glancing over at Face. There were times when the Quatyl seemed far more intelligent than your usual animal.
"I guess we'll have to put them up for adoption as pairs. I'd hate to break them up. You never know, they might mate for life. If we were to break up the pairs, it is possible that we'd be condemning them to a life of misery," James said with a frown. He added that to the care and feeding instructions.
Face listened to the conversation with interest. She had known that the children were going to have to move out. There were just too many of them in such a small area. The prospect of having them leave had filled her with dread. This was such a dangerous world. Hearing that the pets were taking this matter seriously gave her a small measure of relief.
"You will make sure that they are given good homes?" Nancy asked with a worried expression on her face. The idea that the Quatyl might end up in homes where they would be mistreated really bothered her.
Taking her hand, he gave her a reassuring smile and said, "You will be there with me to approve every adoption."
"Good. I think we should avoid placing them in houses with young kids. They can be so rough," Nancy said.
"You're probably right," James said.
James set up a table outside the local grocery store and set a box on the table with sixteen of the young Quatyl in it along with Scout and Scar. He had brought Scout and Scar with him so that people would know what a full grown Quatyl looked like. He didn't think he would have to wait long before giving away all of them. They had come to the store with twenty of the young Quatyl, but the manager and the assistant manager had taken one look at them and adopted a pair each.
The young Quatyl had selected their owners by having all but a pair move away from the person reaching for them. It was weird, but all of the Quatyl had growled when the produce manager had tried to take a pair. Nancy had put her foot down and wouldn't let the man have them. James was more than willing to use force if necessary. He'd never seen such a negative reaction to a person by the Quatyl.
They had just finished setting up when a young woman stopped at the table and looked in the box. One look at them and she was hooked. She cooed and said, "They are so cute. What are they?"
"They are Quatyl," James answered.
"I've never heard of them," she said. A pair moved forward and she picked them up. The pair of them was small enough to fit in one hand. Together, the young Quatyl purred to announce that they had decided to adopt that particular person as a pet.
"They are a new species," Nancy said. She gestured to Scout and said, "These are two full grown ones."
"They're so small," the woman said glancing over at the adults. Considering their size, they'd fit in a small apartment without a problem. Her eyes were drawn back to the pair in her hand. She petted their backs and exclaimed, "Their fur is so soft!"
"We have some care and feeding directions," James said holding out one of the sheets he had printed.
"Baby food? They eat baby food?" the woman asked after looking over the list.
"Yes. They love pureed peas, applesauce, watermelon, and soaked seaweed," Nancy said. She leaned over and said, "They are so easy to care for, too. Believe it or not, these are already house trained."
"You're kidding?"
James shook his head and answered, "Nope. It seems like they are born knowing to use a litter box. All you have to do is show it to them."
"Wow," the woman said looking back at the pair of Quatyl in her hands.
James looked over at Nancy and said, "Nancy, would you like to explain about the you-know-what?"
Rolling her eyes, Nancy said, "There is one little problem. It seems that having sex around a Quatyl tends to trigger a breeding activity with them. You need to give them a little distance or you'll end up with a bunch of them."
"What?" the woman asked staring at Nancy in shock. She glanced at the sheet and noticed that there was a line saying that people shouldn't have sex around a Quatyl.
"Yes. We started with eight of them. By the time we realized what was going on, we had almost a hundred," James said.
"That's weird," the woman said.
"One other thing, they lay eggs. It takes them about three months to hatch," James added.
"They lay eggs?" she asked looking at them wide-eyed.
"Yes," James answered.
"Like a platypus?"
"Yep," James answered.
"Neat," she answered.
Nancy put together a small box and put a scrap of cloth at the bottom of it. She handed it over to the woman and said, "You can keep them in that box until you get home."
The woman carefully placed the pair of Quatyl in the box. Looking up, she asked, "How much are they?"
"They're free. We just want to make sure that they get into good homes," Nancy said.
James picked up Scout and petted it. The Quatyl produced a loud happy purr of contentment. He said, "That's right."
The young woman looked down at her box and said, "They're so cute."
It took them two hours to get rid of all of the young Quatyl they had brought. While they were packing up, James said, "That went well. Twenty gone, only eighty more to go."
"I really liked that elderly couple that came in," Nancy said. The woman had reminded her of her grandmother.
"Same here," James said. He grinned and added, "They were the only ones who didn't think the sex issue would be a problem."
"Just wait until their kids come for a visit," Nancy said with a grin.
"You know, giving them to elderly couples might not be such a bad idea," James said. He thought about how many elderly people lived alone and needed companionship.
"We could stop by one of the retirement villages with the next batch," Nancy said hoping they didn't have any pet restrictions.
James said, "It's weird how they rejected three-quarters of the people who stopped by."
"Yeah, it's like they could sense something wrong with those people," Nancy said.
Nodding his head, James said, "That one guy was a real creep. All of the Quatyl started growling before he even reached the table."
"He made me nervous just looking at him. The weird thing is that I wouldn't have said that until the Quatyl reacted to him," Nancy said. The odd thing was that the man was wearing nice clothes and had a neat appearance. He looked like a very successful business man with a charming nature.
"I still don't know what was wrong with that woman who had the heavy makeup on," James said. Although she had seemed nice, the Quatyl had rejected her, but not with the kind of energy that they had rejected others.
"She was hiding bruises," Nancy said looking at James as if he had missed something very obvious. The only reason Nancy knew for wearing that much makeup and dark glasses was to hide something.
"What do you mean?"
"It looked to me like she is married to a wife beater," Nancy answered. She didn't like the idea of the Quatyl going off to a home where there was domestic violence.
"And you think the Quatyl knew that?" James asked looking down at Scout. The Quatyl looked back up at him.
"I don't know," Nancy answered thinking that she was going to start relying on the Quatyl's opinion of people a little more in the future.
The Quatyl met late that night to discuss the outcome of the human adoption program. Atac was very pleased with how things had turned out. The beasts hadn't forced any of the Quatyl to adopt pets that they didn't like. There were many potential pets who had given him an uneasy feeling. There was even one beast that had absolutely repulsed him. Moving around on the floor, he said, 'The pets were very careful in letting our children adopt their pets.'
Leac said, 'They are well trained and seem to know what to do.'
Very pleased with the performance of his pets, Atac said, 'It is amazing what a love sound does to them.'
The other Quatyl were quiet. They hadn't adopted any pets yet. In fact, they hadn't even had a chance to adopt a pet. All of the adult Quatyl agreed that it was better to have the children find pets before them. At least James and Nancy were taking care of them. Leac said, 'One day we all will have pets.'
'I miss the old servants. They were a lot easier to control than pets, ' Atac said running around on the floor. Not only was this form of communicating tiring, but it did not allow them to convey emotion like Slatherns had allowed. He wondered if they would ever be able to have a real conversation.
'I felt guilty sending the children out without a servant to take care of them, ' Leac said making reference to the typical practice of setting a child up with a support system before letting them leave the den. He knew that all of them felt the same way.
'We still have eighty children to send out into this world. I hope there are enough pets for them to adopt, ' Ceac said.
One of the things that Atac appreciated was that the pets were limiting their sexual activities to the bedroom. None of the females had laid an egg in over twenty days. Atac said, 'They warned the new pets not to have sex around our children.'
'Thank goodness, ' Ceac said. He moved to get away from the tiles and then went back to say, 'At the rate we've been mating, we'll run out of pets very soon.'
'Don't give up on finding new servants, ' Atac said. They could control a few animals on this planet. Perhaps they would find one that would make a good servant.
Ceac said, 'Maybe we can find servants that can fix our ship.'
'It is too late, ' Lear said.
'Why?'
'The television showed the beasts dismantling our ship to study in their laboratories. We can't ever return home, ' Lear said.
One of the young children went over to the tiles. It took a bit of time, but it said, 'We shall just have to get our pets to take us home.'
'These pets could be the species that we've feared would destroy our race, ' Atac said wishing to convey just how worried he was about that possibility. The fact that they couldn't be controlled made them a very dangerous species.
'Your pet does not seem very dangerous, ' Ceac said.
Atac said, 'We don't control them. They are still wild beasts.'
Nancy swung by the house after work feeling tired. She entered the house and spotted Cubby. Sitting down, she waited for Cubby to come over to her. She didn't have long to wait. Picking up the Quatyl, she put it on her lap and started petting it. When Cubby started to purr, she said, "My brother and his wife are coming over here. It would be nice if they could adopt a pair of Quatyl, but that's not possible."
Cubby looked up at her and stretched out so that Nancy could rub her whole back. It was such a glorious sensation. The purr came out without restraint. For the first time in what seemed like ages, Cubby was not watching over an egg. She and Scout could relax.
Looking down at the Quatyl, Nancy said, "It's been kind of quiet here without all of the little Quatyl running around."
The Quatyl looked up at her. Nancy sighed and said, "Maybe James will marry me and let me have a baby of my own."
James had just then walked into the kitchen from the backyard and overheard her. He backed away and listened as she said, "I really love that man. He's funny, charming, incredibly good looking, and smart. I die laughing when I read his stuff. Have you ever listened to him talk to his computer?"
She smiled down at the Quatyl and said, "No, of course not. The dialogs he has with that machine are so cute. The other night I was listening to him outline his next book. He didn't know I was there.
"You know how he is always trying to kill off the main character. When he got to the last chapter, he started talking about having his character play hopscotch on an LA highway. Hop, hop, splat. I nearly laughed out loud thinking about how his publisher and agent would react to that little scene.
"Oh, his hero gets married in this book. If Dr. Dud can get married, shouldn't I be able to get married? You're so lucky, Cubby. You've got Scout. I can tell he's a good mate for you."
Nancy sat back and petted the Quatyl. Once James was sure that she was done with her little monolog, he entered the room and said, "Oh, you're home."
"Yes. I wanted to let you know that my brother and his wife wanted to stop by here to meet you. I've got to warn you, she's a big fan of yours so be prepared for flattery," Nancy said with a smile.
"A really big fan?" he asked with a grin.
"A super-fan," she answered.
"Hero worship?"
"You bet," she answered with a smile. James stuck out his chest with his fists on his hips just like Superman. When he struck his heroic pose, she said, "Perfect, she'll love that look. You'll really impress her. It'll remind her of a kid who runs around wearing a blanket as a cape."
"You think so?" James asked.
"Yes," she said.
"I can find a small blanket around here somewhere. Will that help?"
"Definitely," she answered with a laugh. She wasn't surprised when he headed down the hall in search of a cape. Giggling, she looked down at Cubby and said, "You've got to love that man. My poor sister-in-law won't know what hit her."
The animal didn't answer. She said, "You guys might want to make yourselves scarce after my brother leaves. I brought a Genii outfit."
Cubby turned to look at her. Seeing the reaction from the animal, Nancy said, "The Genii outfit will lead to a lot of sex."
The comment sent a shiver down the spine of Cubby. She hoped they used the bedroom that night. The other Quatyl had stuck their heads out from under the various pieces of furniture.
James entered the room with a towel tied around his neck like a cape. Adopting the Superman pose, he said, "Superwriter here to save the day."
"Oh Superwriter, save me! Only you can keep me safe from the evil villain," Nancy said in a falsetto voice and clasping her hands in front of her.
"He's just an evil villain? He's not a super-villain?" James asked sounding disappointed.
Setting Cubby down on the floor, Nancy dropped to her knees and looked up at James. She batted her eyes. In the same falsetto voice, she said, "He's an evil super-villain!"
Cubby looked from James to Nancy and back again trying to figure out what was going on with them. She thought it kind of nice that the pets were playing. The other Quatyl remained with their heads sticking out from under the furniture and watched the action. For the most part, they were confused by what they were watching.
James stepped forward and announced, "Never fear, Superwriter is here. I specialize in foiling the plans of evil super-villains!"
Nancy was about to answer when the doorbell rang. Cubby ran under the couch. James said, "Ah! That must be the evil super- villain now!"
He walked to the door and swung it open. Without a hint of embarrassment, James struck the Superman pose. Joe and Katie stood there staring at him. James grinned and called back to Nancy, "Is this the evil super-villain who has come to threaten you?"
"No, that's my brother and his wife," Nancy said laughing at the look of shock on her brother's face.
"Oh, sorry," James said turning to the couple at the door, "I thought you were door to door Bible salesmen come to threaten our house with a curse against sex and all kinds of other fun things."
Joe slowly extended his hand and said, "Hello, I'm Joe."
James grabbed the other man's hand and gave it a vigorous shake. He said, "Hi Joe. I'm James."
Katie stood there staring at the famous author with a stunned expression on her face. He wasn't anything like she had imagined from reading his books. Then again, he did remind her a little of Dr. Dud. James turned to her and, in a very slow and deliberate manner, said, "Let's see. He's the male so that makes you the brother. Nope, that's not right. He's the brother so that makes you his wife. Have I got that right?"
"Uh-huh," she answered looking over at her husband for help. After a second, she asked, "Did you know you have a towel tied around your neck?"
"Oh yes," James answered. He winked at Joe and said, "I got all dressed to propose to Joe's sister, but you got here before I was able to pop the question."
"Oh," she said wondering what wearing a towel tied around his neck had to do with proposing. She looked over to see the stunned expression on Nancy's face.
James lifted her off the ground and swung her to and fro in a great big bear hug. In a very excited voice, he said, "If she says yes, then we'll be related. Won't that be fun?"
"Uh-huh."