All Cats Are Beautiful

By Courtney Milnestein

Above, us, in the dark shadows of the outer solar system, there is the shape of something unknown, something unspeakable. It waits, it bides its time, and as the days of summer grow longer, so does its voice grow louder.

On the quiet island of Sarah Ann in the Pacific Ocean, home of the renowned Firmament Foundation, awkward teenager Eirian Calohan has come in search of the mystery of their father's recent demise. Instead, they are confronted with the stark contrast between languid life on the tiny island and an unspeakable cosmic horror.

Together with their new friends, they set out to unravel the truth surrounding the death of their father and to also uncover just what it is that the Foundation has reached out to in the dark eternal night of the distant void.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Nov 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646566174

Book preview

32

Chapter 1

His blond hair had turned to grey, receding from his forehead in a way he tried to disguise. He could not remember when his hair had started to thin. It had not been truly noticeable until he was well into middle-age. If there was one thing he could have changed about his appearance, then his hairline would have been it.

It had the unfortunate side-effect of drawing attention to the other features of his face. He watched the eyes of others whilst in conversation as they regarded his high forehead, his watery eyes, his prominent Roman nose. No one said anything, of course. He hadn’t got where he had in life on the basis of his looks, after all, but he could sense the disappointment when he engaged with others, this sort of sadness, this sort of pity that he was not a more attractive man. Perhaps it was simply that he was more sensitive to such things as he grew older? Such matters had been of little consequence in his youth, but the older he got, the easier his pride was to wound, and the more he required the validation of approval from the young.

He let out a gentle huff of disappointment, reaching up instinctively to touch his thin, grey hair, and then pulled his hand back, churlishly chiding himself for the gesture, for this small act of vanity. Before him, both stereovision screens of his terminal were alight with information, detailed equations, digitised photographs, and antique illustrations of life on other worlds.

He sighed loudly and the sound filled the darkness of his office but left the floor beyond silent and shadowed. Thirty years and still he had nothing but these suggestions, these speculations. Once a younger man coasting on the success of his many academic merits, he had founded the Firmament Foundation with his then-wife, a similarly recognised scholar, in hopes of capitalising on the popularity and notoriety of his reputation and the excitement that surrounded his first radical paper on travel via Einstein–Rosen bridges between alternate black hole cosmological models.

Asmodeus Flight, he had called his new theory of travel, named after the reputation of a particularly nasty devil in Jewish myth that had possessed the means of lifting a man out of his skin and holding him in the sky so that he might see all the world around him. The actual science of transportation supposed that the whole galaxy as it was understood, was, itself, within a black hole, and that it was possible to bridge the distance between the realms via the complicated combination of a number of factors; firstly, the inducing of an altered state in the consciousness of a human traveller, often achieved by method of psychopharmaceutical substances and the carefully cultivated environment of an isolation tank, as per the work of John C. Lilly in 1954.

Next the consciousness of the human traveller would be transferred to a carefully prepared host body, in most cases, animal clones named homunculi, though recent breakthroughs in genetics had facilitated the use of more complex chimeras employing increasingly human traits.

It was impossible to use human bodies in such circumstances as no human body could withstand the rigours of the lengthy travel required to reach the frontier of those distant black holes, yet entire colonies of silent homunculi could be sent out into space to await the connection of human minds required for them to navigate those worlds beyond.

Thirty years to change the world; thirty years in which Doc Labyrinth and the Firmament Foundation had become household names, whilst homunculi were now employed in almost every plausible industry on Earth, often lacking a human pilot, instead equipped only with a rudimentary artificial intelligence of sorts to control their routines.

He should have been proud of himself. He should have been basking in glory; between Asmodeus Flight and the use of homunculi, the foundation had helped usher in a new era, and yet, despite it all, he still yearned for space, he yearned to know what lay across those bridges. Whilst homunculi were in common usage, space travel was not, as yet, anything but a loss-making venture that very few were willing to invest in. And so, instead of reaching out to other worlds, his spent all his time now monitoring those distant black holes for any signs that something beyond might be willing to cross the divide that he himself could not.

Outside, the sun had long since faded from the sky, replaced by the blanket of night, and despite the warmth of the season, the environment of the building remained cool and rewarding, the air conditioning a perfect approximation of an environment that had never existed on the small island he called home, a tiny spec of verdant green lost amidst the waves of the Pacific Ocean. Beyond the window, he thought he could hear the night calls of various nocturnal predators, and wondered how many of them were real birds, real animals, and how many were homunculi.

He closed his eyes and leant back in his chair, stretching his arms behind his head, and tried not to think about how late it had got, and how very tired he was. On the stereovision screens before him, he did not notice the subtle change in information relayed from distant stars.

Chapter 2

"Let’s go, magcat!"

Curled up around his own tail, the creature opened one eye, viewed the child standing before him, and then slowly closed his eye again, drawing up a wing of dappled feathers to hide his face and thus avoid further interruption of his slumber.

Fourteen years old, their unkempt brown hair peeking from beneath the brim of their straw hat, Eirian stood with hands on hips in their cabin aboard the great cruise liner, watching the magcat as the beast remained immovable atop a pile of laundry, and waited for some sign, as unlikely as that might have been.

They sighed, blowing a strand of hair from their right eye, and resolved to try once again.

"Let’s go, they said, louder this time, with more force, mag—"

Having trouble with your homunculus? a voice asked from the doorway.

They flinched. Not even off the boat and they were already having trouble. Preparing a broad smile, they turned and was confronted by a girl roughly the same age as them, maybe a year or two older, dressed in denim dungarees cut off high above the knee and white Converse baseball boots, her long hair tied up in loose bunches, dyed the colour of Parma Violets, the kind of hair that looked as if it might smell of sugar and syrup and soap, Eirian thought.

Hey, the girl smiled, thrusting out a hand in greeting, I’m Mauve, nice to meet you.

Eirian nodded slowly, the hand hovering between them for a moment, as, with a blush, they realised they were expected to shake it, and, tentatively, made an effort do so.

Mauve’s grasp was warm and friendly.

My name’s Eirian, they offered weakly, nice to meet you too.

In truth, they had always been uncomfortable around girls, uncertain of what they wanted from them, and what, in turn, girls often seemed to want from them. Fourteen years old and never been kissed…Eirian felt a deep sense of awkwardness at the sudden arrival of this girl, and a faint sense of embarrassment at their lack of motivational skills when it came to the magcat slumbering on the laundry.

As if sensing Eirian’s chain of thought, Mauve glanced over their shoulder again at the winged homunculi and smiled warmly.

You know, I’ve got a pretty good reputation when it comes to these little guys. If you like, I can help you get him up and moving.

With a wink, she reached into her pocket and drew out a narrow summoning card, the sigil of an unfamiliar homunculus decorating its surface in thin ink and neat brushstrokes.

Oh. Oh, no, you’re fine, honestly. Eirian smiled weakly. He just, well, he gets like this sometimes. I’m sure he’ll move when he’s ready.

Still standing in the doorway, the girl with the violet hair raised a dark eyebrow.

You’re sure? she asked, looking over Eirian’s shoulder again at the general untidiness of the room. Aren’t you supposed to be disembarking right now?

Eirian smiled weakly in return.

Yeah, kind of, but, ah, what can you do, you know?

The girl turned the card over in her hand.

Well, you can let me help you, for a start!

Eirian offered her a worried look, and tried to find a way to express the fact that they found the situation uncomfortable and embarrassing and didn’t really want any help, but, whatever it was about the smile, the girl clearly interpreted it as conformation that her assistance was required.

Again, she turned the card about, and lifted her left wrist up, revealing the wooden box bound by boramtez leaf and plastic, pulled the card through a narrow slot in the far side of the box with a flick of her wrist, its shape dissipating in a shower of light between her fingers as she did so.

Apprentice Summoner Mauve requests your presence! Epimeliad, I call unto thee!

The light coalesced into the shape of a slender homunculi a head shorter than her summoner, long white hair coarse like the wool of sheep, flesh the colour of ripe, red apples, almost human, save for the curling ram’s horns that rose from her temples.

Eirian let out a short gasp, surprised by the shape of the creature, having never seen a homunculus her like before, and not quite knowing how to respond to her, to the obvious womanhood of her shape, her small breasts, the lips of her mons pubis, her sullen yellow eyes as her gaze met their own and she seemed to understand what it meant for the child to have been staring at her nakedness.

Blushing, they hastily took a step back, walking into the dresser on which their laundry was stacked, which, in turn, the magcat presided over. With contempt, the animal leapt up from where it had previously slumbered, hissing aggressively, and jumped down to the bed where it paused to sit and lick his front paws whilst gazing malevolently at Eirian.

Hah, seems like you didn’t need my help after all, Mauve beamed.

Eirian nodded, still blushing, feeling themself at the centre of attention of both homunculi.

I’ve never seen an epimeliad before, they murmured.

Mauve continued to smile warmly.

They’re dryad class. You see a lot of them out here since there was an accident a few years back and one got loose from Firmament. Now they’re pretty much a part of the ecosystem. She reached out and ruffled the creature’s woollen hair, getting a look of displeasure for such affection. This one’s called Penelope, or at least that’s what I call her.

Again, she ruffled the creature’s hair, and then flicked her wrist, seemingly pulling the creature out of existence in a shower of light and back into the shape of a card, which she stuffed into her pocket again.

Come on, I’ll help you get packed so you and your magcat can get off this boat.

W-Why are you doing this? Eirian stammered.

Still smiling, she looked up at them.

My dad’s the captain of this ship, she answered, "and he hates stragglers."

* * * *

It took an hour to walk from the dock to the guesthouse where they were renting a room; an hour up a hill in the heat of midday. All the while, Mauve had been there, cheerfully pointing out important locales on the island, from the Bight of Gloriana to the Meliae Garden, at every step, the path was dotted by homunculi of all shapes and sizes. Mauve said this was because of the presence of the Foundation on the island, and their construction of a large, man-made island off the coast as well as several locales in and around both Sarah Ann Island and the nearby Phoenix Islands archipelago.

Mauve, until an hour ago a complete stranger, was more than happy to offer Eirian a complete history of both Sarah Ann and the Firmament Foundation, very little of which they were able to take in, their attention being constantly drawn to the magcat that trotted along ahead of them with a swish of his tail and the occasional glance over his shoulder.

Eirian’s relationship with the magcat was a complex one, though only to the casual observer. The magcat had been their father’s, at one time; an animal that they had inherited alongside the news of their father’s death in a mountaineering accident, or so they were told. They had stood at the front door, viewing the lawyer apprehensively as he stood there with the strange animal cramped in a birdcage of sorts and relayed the news to Eirian and their mother.

They had not had a particularly good relationship with their father, had not really understood him or what he had tried to convey, but they had known he worked for the Firmament Foundation, and they had known that, on some level, the magcat was a symbol that he had been capable of caring for another life, even if it had not been Eirian.

In the sparse yet comfortable room that they had arranged to stay in at the Seawood Guesthouse on top of the hill that overlooked the island, Eirian tried to make excuses to themself for coming all the way out to this tiny island, when they had never really known their father that well.

They sighed, looking at the clothes spread across the bed, at the magcat sleeping on the pillow, a soft ball of white fur, patches of black and blue at the tips of the feathers.

What did he see in you, huh? they asked softly.

Most magcats were naturally piebald, the tips of their wings a more varied cluster of colours that were not initially noticeable from a distance, but their father’s magcat was unusually white, save for the wingtips, a near albino creature that defied the rules of how such creatures generally appeared. The exception to the rule.

Ah, but what do you know about homunculi, Eirian, they asked themself; you can’t even get one magcat to stay in reserve mode.

They sighed, running a hand through the curls of their dark hair, looking at the clothes laid out on the bed, thinking that they should get this sorted before they took a shower, and yet feeling weirdly unhappy with the whole process.

Since the introduction of homunculi into human life, not just as a function of some bizarre space travel programme that would have benefited no one, the way in which such creatures co-existed with both humanity and other animals was often contradictory. They were at once the tools of humanity and also independent creatures, the AI that governed each of their artificial bodies being a basic programme that adapted based on experience.

They said the first homunculi, the type they had first developed for sending into space, was a weird hairless cat-thing, something between one of those ugly Sphynx cats and a pig, stocky and solid. Meow, they had been called, though they didn’t know if there were any living still. Whatever the case, they were preserved in the DNA sequences of all subsequent homunculi, so they kind of were alive still, Eirian reflected, but they had never been especially fond of the idea of the things despite having never seen one in the flesh.

The second wave, the ones developed after it was obvious that no one was going to go into space like the Firmament Foundation wanted, were made as beasts of burden mostly, workers that could be held partly within the memories of a tiny, wafer-thin matter sequencers that ended up resembling playing cards as the technology was refined, and partly within the giant computers the Firmament Foundation owned.

Technically, it was only supposed to be the Foundation that made homunculi, but after the third wave, once they started getting out into the world and interbreeding with normal animals—and once other companies had had a chance to dissect them and invent their own variations on the theme—it became harder to know which creatures were born of necessity and which creatures were simply born of chance.

They sighed again, looking out at the array of clothes on their bed, shorts and T-shirts, summer dresses they had no intention of wearing but their mother had insisted they bring, skinny jeans and baggy cardigans.

Perhaps, they thought, it wouldn’t be so bad if they sorted all this out after their shower after all.

* * * *

What are they like? the other girl asked, her voice low and carefully moderated.

A mischievous smile crossed Mauve’s lips.

They’re still a kid, she said, turning the cigarette over between her fingers, watching the smoke coil from its tip. They must be about fourteen, fifteen at most?

She laughed as she recalled the encounter with them, boarding the boat to welcome her dad home and finding this awkward child with the messy brown hair and the indignant magcat instead.

"They have a magcat, and it like does nothing they tell it to."

The other girl nodded.

I see, she answered in the same tone.

Mauve rolled her eyes.

"Oh, come on, Alaina, that at least merits more than an I see. Don’t act like that answers your question so completely."

The other girl nodded, her hands resting on her knees as they sat together on the grass incline looking down over the town. Dressed in a cream Jason by Jason Kenney blouse, a black pleated A-line skirt, her blonde hair so blonde it was almost white, Alaina was the closest thing Mauve had to a best friend, her softly spoken manner complimenting the other girl’s more pronounced and vociferous behaviour.

Hey, she said with sudden enthusiasm, we should totally dye your hair before school starts up again.

Alaina looked at her friend out of the corner of her eyes.

What colour do you want? Mauve continued.

She thought on it for a moment, turning her attention away from Mauve and looking again down at the town, and the Bight of Gloriana, and the vast ocean beyond.

Blue, she said at last, and, for a moment, Mauve imagined that a smile touched her lips.

* * * *

The light of the television set illuminated the room, an ugly old thing, its inside packed with cathode ray tubes and coils lighting up the fluorescent of the screen. It wasn’t as if they couldn’t afford anything better, it wasn’t as if they weren’t wealthy enough and televisions weren’t ubiquitous enough for them to consider upgrading, and yet both mother and