The summer cat


It was morning. Or actually it wasn't, since it's always cold and dark in the
blackness of space. And it was just there where Felis I floated, abandonded
with its crew of three.

It all had started because of the Ichtyodrome, a residental building to be
situated in the sulphuric acid oceans of Venus. Hundreds of being from around
the galaxy would have come there. Even Felis I, a medium-weight cargo
freighter, had come to join the building job.
  Its crew, the accurate captain Felipe, the grumpy cargo worker Manolito and
the artistic first matess Mafalda, were excited about the Ichtyodrome project,
even though Felipe didn't like its name, because "ichtyos" means fish, but no
fish could live in the acid seas of Venus. According to Manolito, a name wasn't
an omen, so Felis I had gone to work.
  The project had failed. The galactic president couldn't afford to pay the 3.8
million buckazoid expenses, and Ichtyodrome was discontinued. The 247 ships
that had worked for it had left leaving only Felis I in spacedue to an engine
malfunction, like a summer cat. "A summer cat, indeed", had Mafalda said,
"felis means cat, doesn't it?"

In the morning Manolito woke first to the meowing of the central computer. He
didn't like it, because it grated upon his ears and was less official than a
beeping tone. Felipe and Mafalda had changed the sound effect to one of that
kind, because they had thought it would be logical on a cat ship.
  After hearing the meowing Manolito ran up to the bridge to see, what was
wrong. The computer was reporting that an unknown object had blocked the liquid
nitrogen cooler of the right engine. Manolito woke up Felipe, who put on his
spacesuit and went to fix the engine.

The object turned out to be a small spacecraft, steered by a small ten-limbed
being. It said it had left them in space on purpose, so it could demand an
object from them.
  Felipe tried dozens of objects until Mafalda, who had just woken up, came to
the airlock and offered one of her paintings. The being accepted it and left.
Then the engines of Felis I started for the voyage home.