The Purl

Kretz looked up at me from where she’d been sleeping, head on my chest. She blinked slowly. Her pink tongue darted out and licked the side of her hand; she brushed the hand over the side of her face a few times, purring as she did it.

Sometimes, just sometimes, it can be more than a little disconcerting, but in a universe the size of this one, it is – almost - bound to happen.

For such a long time, we humans had wondered if we were alone in the universe. We’d wondered whether there was life out there, somewhere amongst all those stars. Then we discovered those stars had planets, that ours was not the only one. Then, a little later we’d discovered that some of those planets were in the goldilocks zone like ours.

Then, we found we were not alone.

The Purl were one of the first races from beyond our solar system to contact us. Then when we discovered what the Purl were, then it was inevitable we’d find so much in common, considering humanity’s long association with cats. Discovered by the Purl, and brought into the association of intelligent species by them had a certain rightness about it. A race of intelligent cats – well, it was a love affair waiting to happen.

Kretz wrapped her tail around us as we lay there. She was purring again. I took a deep breath. I was going to have to tell her it was over, that I had to go back to Earth.

I looked down at those hands… paws, with their razor-sharp claws retracted. I thought about her sharp pointed teeth and about what a cat could do to a mouse. Then I thought about my pink helpless body and I decided, instead, to put off telling her… at least, for a while.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]