The Sun stood up in the sky, but the city of the cats barely nodded in its stupor. The only movement in the stone streets was of the festal fires that, albeit left untended, here and there still crackled. Cats slept in doorways and in dark corners, one on top of the other, wherever they had crawled or dropped the night before after one cup too many. No cock did crow for the dawn, for reason that all had been eaten, only their bones remaining lying scattered. Even the guards at the main gate drowsed, sitting upon the wall, one propping his back against the other’s. If one woke and discovered his compeer snoozing, he jabbed him in the ribs viciously till he shuddered and blinked in startlement.
  ‘Awake, thou rat turd! Else, if I should sleep, who will waken me?’
  ‘I’m awake!’
  ‘Thou wast snorting in thy wakefulness, lousy skunk! The Lieutenant will have us both declawed if he finds the gate unwatched.’
  ‘Why should we be punished? The relief’s late.’
  ‘The relief ain’t coming. Hast thou not got that yet in thy worm-eaten skull? They made a night of it, damn their eyes, hearts and livers.’
  ‘Damned alley cats. What’s left in the skin? My throat’s parched.’
  ‘Thou hast sucked it drier than thy grandma’s teet.’
  ‘Ha ! Thou wouldst know.’
  ‘Art asking for thine eye to be raked out?’
  The other yawned widely and licked his chops, then his eyes began to blink heavy again and his chin to sink upon his breast.
  ‘Awake! Skunk!’
  ‘I’m awake! ‘Tis only the Sun in mine eyes.’
  ‘Ninny! The Sun is buried in yon cloud.’
  ‘So it is. Perhaps ‘tis the Moon that dazzles mine eye.’
  ‘She fell asleep hours ago.’
  ‘Then what, say ye, be that globe that hangeth beside yon peak?’
  ‘A mote in thine eye, dolt. Thou’rt still soused and presently will be seeing flying squirrels.’
  ‘Nay, look, thou, where I point. What be that? ’
  ‘That? That be the planet Mars. Or a pigeon.’
  ‘Pshaw. Now whose senses are addled? When didst thou see a pigeon so globular? ‘Tis the rotundest bird I ever clapped eyes on! And much bigger than Mars.’
  ‘ ‘Tis rosy like Mars,’ argued the other. He had stood and was squinting into the sky. ‘It grows bigger.’
  ‘Aye. And ‘tis not rosy, but golden.’
  ‘And girdled with stars. ‘Tis one of the planets for sure.’
  ‘But which? And why visit here?’
  The two guards remained silent some while, standing shoulder to shoulder, bespelled by that orb revolving in the stainless sky and growing bigger and bigger apace. Then the sudden apprehension of their danger broke their trance.
  ‘It will crash into the Earth. We are doomed!’
  ‘We must run and hide! Quick! We must find a cave to bury ourselves in before it crushes the City!’
  ‘We must sound the alarm!’
  ‘Blow the horn! Then save our own furs! Quick!’
  The horn blew, but the bell tower tarried long in answering, standing dumb whilst the city slumbered on and the great globe in the sky approached silent as the air in which it swam. Only a young servant maid, awake and abroad to seek her mistress, heard the horn. She went up into the bell tower and saw the toller passed out. She made fruitless attempts to rouse him, but when she could not budge him, she ran to find help. At last the alarm was sounded, the great bell calling out with its throat of brass, loud and insistent, shivering the stones of the houses. Then tips of tails curled without their owners’ knowing. Ears twitched. The tolling of a bell broke in most improbably on already bizarre dreams. Pusses rolled over, grumbling, and plunged deeper into sleep, but some woke, blinked, lifted reluctant heads and speculated on why their ears were ringing. In short, the amazing celestial event was slow to engender amazement on that drowsy city’s morning after.
  But at last:
  ‘The Sun is falling!’ shouted one, while another: ‘ ‘Tis Venus!’
  ‘Jupiter! Jupiter attacketh!’
  Some fell to weeping; others to fleeing, first this way, then that, bewildered which way to run, whilst others stood and marvelled. Whichever heavenly body it was, it floated already above the city, passing over one street and then the next. It sailed by the Royal House on its high hill.
  Katrina watched it glide past a window, alongside Ginger, her consort. They had been curled together, asleep late that morning, when the alarm sounded. They watched dumbly, mesmerized, till the Queen gasped and said: ‘Why, ‘tis harnessed in a net by some creature in that hanging basket that driveth it forward!’
  ‘Aye, but surely ‘tis no cat,’ said Ginger. ‘Is it a rat?’
  ‘I cannot say, but an uncommon, rare sort of rat t’would be.’
  Rare indeed, for it had a tall emerald-green cylinder for head. Then to the pair’s astonishment, it removed its head and waved it as if intending to fling it at them.
  ‘ ‘Tis not its head!’ said Katrina. ‘It’s a hat! With which it signeth to us. Doth it greet us?’
  ‘A warning, perhaps,’ said Ginger disquietly.
  ‘Or perhaps the creature’s in distress. I cannot tell whether it be captive of the orb or the other way round. How dost thou judge?’ She snatched his arm in a-maze before he could make answer, for the creature had put a thing to its mouth like a horn and shouted through it, but it was already down-wind and all Her Majesty heard was something that her fancy could translate only as, ‘Cream and grilled catfish!’ Every cat that heard the creature’s call, indeed, heard differently.
  The Queen’s thoughts raced and arrived at a conclusion: ‘Shoot it down!’
  At which Ginger her consort, and her delight, with rakish scar over his right eye, sprang to action. Ginger, whom she so liked for his doughtiness, broad chest, his attentive devotions and not least his tremendous stamina, dashed to the bed-chamber door, on the other side thereof were Her Majesty’s generals gathered, groggy and confused, waiting on the Queen’s behest.
  ‘Her Grace commandeth the trespasser shot down!’
  From the roof of the Royal House thickets of arrows dark as a rainstorm drave like swarms of hornets towards the great orb revolving leisurely, like a lotus upon a rille, as it drifted over the city’s ramparts. Many darts, flagging, dropped harmlessly well short of the quarry, for it was now straying out of range. Some, however, pricked its skin, and two or three grazed its queer pilot till the creature ducked into its basket like a turtle its shell. Clear of the mountains and now over the forest, the globe began to descend, whether with purpose or for reason of having been wounded by the darts the Queen could not say. When it was grown tiny again it dropped suddenly, disappearing amongst the emerald folds of verdure, not far, she judged, from the rodent city.
  Quod Ginger: ‘Let me go, Cluck, and kill this thing, or, if it be dead already, I will fetch thee the spoils.’
  She purred and squeezed his paw, for his lusty bravura always excited her, albeit she knew he’d not been the keenest kitten in the litter. ‘Be not so impetuous, my tiger,’ answered she. ‘Thou dost not know what powers it may possess, or if it be immortal.’
  ‘Ma’am, we have marshalled and have at hand the greatest army in history for conquest of Ratona. Thou art the powerfullest and most invincible sovereign of the world. This additional prize falls into thy front garden most opportunely.’
  ‘I say, I will not by rashness jeopardize our force. This thing came down from the heavens. Therefore, I will take council of my Chief Priest.’