Spacebread Read online

  The ovation lasted until the caller entered the spotlight and had called for silence three times. Finally he found quiet enough to say, “Felines and guests! By acclamation of the judges … need I say it? Spacebread, the wanderer, the wondercat, is the winner of the Branch of Bastu and the title Queen of the Festival!”

  Delighted, the crowd roared. The beautiful white cat made her way to the spotlight, where he handed her the golden branch. But when she turned the award back to him in refusal, the cries were of shock. The caller tried to return the prize, but Spacebread bowed very deeply and then held up her arm for silence. The crowd finally regained composure and listened.

  “My good friends,” she said in a clear and musical voice, panting, smiling, “you do me a great honor! The honor is great even to dance for you in the name of Bastu. I would disown that honor if I deceived you now and accepted further praise I do not deserve. I cannot do that. I must be disqualified, for that last maneuver that looked so grand was not what it appeared. It was an act of desperation. I tripped! It was not planned at all.”

  Niral leaned farther forward as the crowd cried their disapproval loudly. There was more to this cat than strength and beauty. The caller offered her the Branch yet a third time, at the crowd’s insistence, but she refused with embarrassed laughter.

  “I am here for relaxation and play, not for glory,” she insisted. “How could I accept the Branch because I stumbled?”

  In a moment she was gone from the spotlight. The caller still seemed shocked, but finally a courier trotted up with a note from the judges. He grinned widely and announced that the prize went to Dundee Dulowe, the calico adventurer.

  Klimmit applauded wildly, and Niral looked at him in surprise. He beamed and said, ‘That’s my mistress! Everyone knows she’s the winner anyway!”

  Niral turned to see the biggest and whitest and most beautiful cat he had ever seen climb onto their pedestal. She had a brilliant fluffy ruff around her delicate face and wide golden eyes. But there was no softness in her looks. Her fur was not delicate, but well-seasoned, with a rough sheen. And she bore herself with that pride and royal ease so common to felines throughout the galaxy. She settled in and ordered a drink, eyeing Niral curiously as the other cat accepted the Branch. Then professional dancers entered the spotlight for the rest of the evening’s entertainment.

  Klimmit babbled out how the Korliss came to be sitting on her pedestal, and how she had been magnificent, and how everyone admired her dance. She buckled on a wide belt and a flowing scarlet cape with straps. Niral had not noticed them before, though they had rested beside the figlet.

  She laughed, a shoulder-shaking, joyful laugh, and drained her drink at one tilt. “Ah, yes, dear Klimmit. It was great fun. More than we have had in ages, eh? I haven’t enjoyed myself so much since before Ralph. How good it was to dance!”

  Niral nodded. “But even more impressive than the Dance was your sacrifice. As a priest, I am deeply affected by your display of integrity. That is very rare. Would it be too forward of me to ask of what belief system you are? Where lies your faith?”

  Spacebread smiled and let an attentive waiter fill her cup. “My faith lies in myself. I have never found an obstacle so large I could not overcome it, with time and thought. That is why I have nothing to prove by winning contests. I know my strength.

  “But right now I am famished, and my strength fails me. Will you stay and have supper with us?”

  Niral nodded gratefully, but not because he was hungry. He no longer thought of the door. He thought, in wonder, of how it must feel to own that much confidence. Something in the white cat’s manner reminded him of the old teachings of his faith.

  Admirers thronged around Spacebread’s pedestal to pay their respects, but she gracefully brushed them off with a word or a smile or a glance. She was clearly uninterested in their praise. Klimmit overflowed with pride, and whispered to Niral little snippets of Space-bread’s reputation as she engaged each visitor. He was happy to see that Niral had become enthralled with his mistress. The Margh’s hooded eyes narrowed with each whispered tale of Spacebread’s bravery or cunning.

  Over a meal of steamed fish, Spacebread too began noticing Niral’s interest. He was an odd sort, she thought, young to be a priest of the famous Korlann. She didn’t like the way he flinched and glanced about in thinly veiled fear. And she wondered why his alien eyes fell on her as though she were his last chance for salvation. What was he summoning the courage to say?

  Finally the words found their way out. “Mr. BarKloof tells me you own a private rocket, milady.” He gulped. “And that you are acquainted with risk.”

  She smiled. “Quite true. But I am on Kiloo for pleasure after a long time away from such comforts, and if you are looking for—”

  A muscular striped cat interrupted by climbing to the level of their pedestal and introducing himself. “Balcap, milady, of Gostor’s Cluster. You danced most fetchingly tonight. Please accept this partial reward. As for the rest, might I have the honor to call on you at your inn and show you some of Kiloo’s less public wonders?”

  Spacebread took the offered bouquet and sneezed happily. “Catnip! I thank you, sir. But, though I regret it, my calendar is crowded. Some other occasion, perhaps? Good night.” She cut him in half with a smile. Dazed and rejected, he wandered off.

  Returning to Niral, Spacebread waved the flowers under her nose and said, “You are a high priest of Marghool, I take it?”

  Niral’s bony head inclined. “The Korlann is the most sacred group on Marghool. It is very old and very powerful. I am a junior member, yes.”

  Spacebread’s smile wavered, she fixed him firmly with her yellow eyes. “Then why would an influential priest such as you need to ask about rockets and risks so close to home?”

  But before he could answer, Niral was startled by two more feline heads edging over the pedestal. They were trying to elbow each other aside as they introduced themselves.

  “Spacebread, my lady! I am Drashno, a peer of …” muttered the yellow one before his hold on the grips was broken and he tumbled to the floor.

  “I am Wodil Barketree.” The sly victor, who was a dusty gray, grinned. “And I admired your form on the vines more than the rest. Here, please take this ring as a token of my affection to the most beautiful cat in the Home Worlds. I shall call at your accommodations tomorrow afternoon. Perhaps we could …”

  That was all Wodil Barketree managed before a gruff Drashno dragged him away from the edge. Niral heard hissing and a muffled curse, then the sounds of struggle. He shuddered and turned away. Spacebread frowned, annoyed. It was plain she was not in the market for a lover. She tossed the gaudy rings to one of the Margh waiters as they threw the suitors out.

  The figlet snorted. “What gall! What arrogance these Festival cats have! Why, I’ve a mind to throw the next one out myself.”

  Spacebread chuckled. “Try not to be too jealous, Klimmit. Spirits run high during the Festival. Still, I’ve had quite enough attention for one day. Perhaps we should be getting back to the hotel.”

  Klimmit folded his arms in disgust, silenced for the moment.

  The scuffle had reawakened Niral’s caution, and again he glanced at the door. He seemed to reconsider what he was about to say, then sighed and continued as though resigned. “You seem to be as honest as you are strong, milady. I will be honest with you. I have fled to Kiloo without permission of the Korlann. I am afraid. If you are willing to get me away from this system, I could reward you well.”

  “I thought priests were poor.” Spacebread sniffed over the catnip, then her eyes brightened. “But no, tell me first—what is it you fear?”

  The figlet leaned close, his sap pulsing with interest. At last, after years of idleness, he could smell adventure. Even through his helmet.

  Niral tightened, folding all four of his arms close in his dark red robe. “Another Korliss. A Margh older and shrewder than all the others. I have fallen into his power, and now that I would escape �
��” his hard eyes darted “… I am in grave danger. I have betrayed Korliss Quan.”

  A quiver swept him as he said the name. All he could feel was his guilt and dishonor in confessing to this white warrior. “Help me.”

  Spacebread looked at Klimmit, who could hardly contain his expectation. She sighed, full of misgivings, and was about to answer the priest when something at the edge of the pedestal caught her eye.

  It was not a face this time. It was a golden leaf that wavered and grew until it was an entire golden branch. Then a mottled brown hand laid it at her feet. The Branch of Bastu. Suddenly the bearer of the branch leaped in a high arc and landed on his knees before her. Niral flinched violently.

  “Dundee!” she exclaimed.

  “The same.” He grinned, and bowed a bit. His face, like the rest of him, was a crazy quilt of brown, tan, and black, but there was a cloth patch over one eye and the look of steel in his dancer’s muscles. “This branch, though you don’t claim it, is yours. As much for your honesty as for your performance. All Kiloo knows it. You were never lovelier, Spacebread.”

  Spacebread frowned at the interruption. She tossed the catnip over her shoulder. “And you would like to see me tomorrow, eh? To discuss a business proposal?”

  Dundee’s eyebrows went up. “Nay, tonight, I thought. It’s early yet. Your priestly friend and the young figlet should be retiring soon.”

  Klimmit couldn’t stand it. He buzzed between the two cats angrily. “Listen, you! My mistress has important matters of business to discuss, and she has hardly time to dally with ruffians from every corner of the galaxy who only want … who only want …”

  Dundee shrugged and thumped Klimmit right on his helmet, sending him spinning. He turned to Spacebread with a wry smile in time to receive a light kick beneath the chin, which, in the weak gravity of Kiloo, bowled him off the pedestal and across the floor. He sat up just as the golden Branch of Bastu caught him between his eyes. The pavilion erupted in a private shower of stars for Dundee.

  A moment later he had recovered enough to let a waiter help him up. With his blurred single eye he made out the shapes of Spacebread and the figlet as they left the hall with their strange dinner guest. Dundee shook some of the stars away and glanced at the golden branch in his hand. He grinned, and then his grin became a laugh and his laugh became a bounding roar.

  “For the second time tonight,” he chuckled between bellows, “you have bested me, my white friend. My quest may have begun as business but you have made it very personal indeed. And I will win, in the end.”

  Oscar Steven Senn has been writing since he was twelve. He ducked out of P.E. in high school to write novels, pecked out stories and poems on an old manual typewriter with a thick window in the back to show the works. Graduated to an electric model, on which he delivered his first published work, The Double Disappearance of Ralph Fozbek, and its two sequels. He is the author of Spacebread and its sequel, Born of Flame. His novel A Circle in the Sea was honored by the American Library Association as one of the 50 best young adult novels. The Double Disappearance of Walter Fozbek was animated by Hanna-Barbera Productions for CBS Storybreak. In all, Senn has authored eight books for young readers.

  He was educated at Ringling School of Art in Sarasota Florida. He has worked as a newspaper illustrator in Florida and advertising Art Director in both Florida and California. His work has been included in Communication Arts magazine’s Illustration Annual and honored by the New York Art Director’s Show.

  As a fine artist, he is represented in Los Angeles by Couturier Gallery on La Brea. His work is featured in collections all over the country. Mr. Senn has designed toys, TV commercials, posters, logos, and annual reports. His fine art ranges from large format landscapes to surrealist images of American life. He currently lives in Jacksonville, Florida with a dog, two cats, and a turtle.

  Table of Contents

  1: The Stolen Buckle

  2: Bazaar at Black-Black

  3: A Royal Visit

  4: Night Flight

  5: Lucidan's Vsion

  6: Sonto

  7: Guests of Lord Dezorn

  8: The Last Gnorda on Ralph

  9: Snow and Fear

  10: The Crystal Tower

  11: Into the Stars