Free Felidae on the Road - Special U.S. Edition by Akif Pirinçci

us. One of these days humans will learn our secret too, and then they'll send a disinfection squad down into the sewers to finish us off. We know we're doomed to die, dear brothers and sisters, and we don't fear death. But our mission, our sacred mission - who will carry it out then? Who will save all the lost souls, the souls who have died to rise again? Who will save the children, brothers and sisters?'
    'Save the children! Save the children! Save the children!" the whole pack of them cried, speaking as one. I raised myself from my supine position, sat up on my hind legs and observed the effects of the high priest's clever oratory in amazement. As the blind often will in excitement, this grubby lot were weaving their heads back and forth in a regular pattern of movement. While they did so they kept on urging each other to save these apparently significant children, who were obviously dear to their hearts. Their chant was accompanied by spasmodic twitchings. I was just forming a hypothesis about the subject of their lament when, all of a sudden, I actually saw them - the children, I mean. They were clinging like young penguins between the front legs of the older females, snuggling close to the shaggy belly fur and half covered by the chest fur. That was why I hadn't noticed them before. They still had a little colour left in the irises of their eyes, so I concluded that they hadn't gone completely blind yet. By comparison with the adults, their fur was sparkling clean, suggesting that much loving care had been lavished on it. But there was something else which really surprised me. In every case, the adult females and the children they were caring for were of different breeds. A baby Siamese, for instance, was sheltering under the wing of a sturdy Maine Coon, and a young Birman female was being mothered by an Egyptian Mau with only one incisor left. Even allowing for the chance effects of interbreeding, the obvious difference between mothers and children was so striking that I had to assume these were all cases of adoption.
    'We know the tale of our sad past, brothers and sisters, we know our fate,' said the big boss, picking up the thread of his discourse again and symbolically waving the uproar down to a tolerable level with his paws. The matronly wet-nurses were scowling at me as if I'd contradicted his last remarks.
    'And since we know our fate so well, we are in duty bound to it. But how can we do our job properly when idiots keep putting irresponsible members of our own species on our tracks, and there's a danger they may set humans after us too? It's high time to make an example of someone.'
    'Suppose I were to tell you I suffer from severe amnesia?' I desperately suggested, trying for a stay of execution. 'For instance, blow me if I haven't gone and forgotten my name again! Now was it Mimi or was it Pussy? Hold on, I believe it was Pinky ...'
    What, no applause? No roars of laughter such as you get in a TV sitcom when the soundtrack fires off a gag? I was obviously the only member of my own audience able to see anything amusing in my clowning. Well, I could understand that it wouldn't seem so funny if you were already visualising the comic as lunch, chopped into fraternal portions, share and share alike. The Chartreux turned his blind gaze on me again. It was like encountering the rotating floodlight beam of some gruesome lighthouse.
    'I'm sorry, little one,' he said, sounding like a father ruefully holding an empty bag of sweets in front of his little boy's nose. 'Nothing personal, you understand. We have to draw the line somewhere, to protect ourselves and our work, and you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.'
    'And I certainly met the wrong brothers and sisters,' I finished, stating the obvious.
    'Rhodes!' the Lord of the Sewers suddenly bellowed, ignoring my terrified babble.
    Rhodes? Hm, not a bad idea at all. No doubt these relations of mine with their piratical tendencies had boats of some