Space Cat and the Kittens by Ruthven Todd

Author:Ruthven Todd
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Courier Publishing Ltd
Published: 2018-01-16T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

The new planet, spinning more rapidly than Earth, had much shorter nights and days, each of them being only about eight hours long. Fred and Bill spent some time fixing up a clock that would keep the right time, and also let them know where they were in relation to Earth’s time.

Before they went into the Einstein for the night, they put an electric fence right round the ship and the helicopter, which was almost ready to take off.

“Prehistoric monsters in miniature they may be,” Bill chuckled as he switched on the current, “but they’ll be extinct too if they try fooling around with this!”

The dead pterodactyl was put in a jar of alcohol to preserve it, so that in due course it would be available to astonish professors in museums back on Earth.

Well pleased with their afternoon’s work, Tailspin and Marty ate a big meal and curled up comfortably in their box, with the lid open, to dream kittenish dreams of chasing and capturing pterodactyls which were actually terrified by the terrible pair.

Long after Bill and the cats had gone to sleep, Fred Stone sat at a porthole, making observations of the two moons which swung rapidly across the sky, one behind the other.

Once or twice, when he looked down at the ground, he thought he saw shadowy things moving about outside the fence, and was annoyed that he had not thought of rigging up a floodlight before night fell.

At last he realized that he was becoming too tired to make any more accurate observations and made his way sleepily to his comfortable hammock.

Flyball was the first to wake in the morning and he took his habitual tour of inspection round the cabin, to see that everything was just as it should be. He was pleased to find that everything was in order. Then he looked out of a porthole, half expecting to find that some strange monster had been electrocuted by the fence. Rather to his disappointment, there was nothing there and the helicopter appeared untouched.

He sat at the porthole watching the white sun rise over the fern trees and the horsetail plants. Several times he thought he saw something moving by the edge of the clearing, but it was difficult to say whether the movement was caused by an animal or only by a passing breeze.

After what seemed a long time, Bill woke up, yawned widely, stretched and swung his legs down to the floor. The faint sound was enough to waken Fred Stone, who was a light sleeper. Moofa, too, came down slowly from her hammock. Marty and Tailspin, not to be outdone, tumbled from their box and started fighting.

Moofa, as she passed them, gave each of them a hearty shake by way of saying good morning. This reminded them that there were things they were supposed to do on first getting up. For the next few minutes there was silence in the cabin of the Einstein as both humans and cats applied themselves to the business of washing.

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