Portal

Star Fallen (Sci-Fi Smackdown SFSD 7.0)

Author's Note - Qualifying entry 'Star Fallen' - written for ForbiddenPlanet's SFSD 7.0 (prompt appears in bold)

Star Fallen

"She came from the stars, says she fell from grace 

Eyes big like the Sun, not a hair out of place." 

With a rap like that, what else could she be called but Stella?  

Marjorie opened the door to the tiny cage. The large silver grey cat inside sniffed daintily at her outstretched hand, then stepped out, stretching one back leg behind her as she did so. She rubbed her head into Marjorie's hand and Marjorie picked her up, panting a little with the effort. 

She read the verse neatly printed on a white card on top of the cage, again.  

"She came from the stars, says she fell from grace 

Eyes big like the Sun, not a hair out of place." 

She supposed it was a rather novel idea to attract potential owners but this one was a bit whimsical to say the least. The cute one on the cage next door made more sense. 

"Pick me, I'm a cat 

Who'll sit on your lap." 

She looked at Stella again. Her eyes were large and golden come to think of it, they could certainly be compared to the Sun. As if aware she was being studied, Stella shut her eyes and began to purr. Any tiny lingering doubts were instantly dispelled. Marjorie turned to the staff member hovering at her side. "I'll take this one please." 

Marjorie put the cat carrier on the front seat of her car. She chatted happily to the cat all the way home, telling her what a beautiful animal she was and how she was going to love the large garden at the back of her new house. 

Stella folded her front paws beneath her chest and seemed to listen to every word.  

Marjorie carried her carefully into the kitchen and made sure the doors were shut before she released her. She knew Stella would need a day or two inside to become familiar with her new environment before she could risk letting her out into the garden. Humming happily, she set out the brand new food dishes and poured water into one of them. Stella prowled around, checking the perimeter. After a couple of circuits, she jumped up onto the window ledge and sat on it. She looked out into the garden, seeming to pay careful attention to a black and yellow honey eater on the red bottle brush outside.  

A week passed and Stella had the run of the house and garden but much to her new owner's delight, she spent most of her time following Marjorie around. She particularly seemed to enjoy sitting on her lap while she watched television, Marjorie wondered if she could see the shapes moving across the screen. 

Stella crouched on Marjorie's lap and pretended to purr. Inside she was fuming. There had been an almighty cock up on Bast. The idiots who had been studying this planet had got the dominant species totally wrong. Just because Earth cats bore a slight physical resemblance to their own species, they had made unwarranted assumptions.  

She had realised this fact as soon as she landed on the planet and was caught by a human and taken to Animal Welfare. No-one could say she hadn't tried to make the best of things since.  

She had tried using mind speech, first with the lad who had found her, then with Marjorie but ... nothing. At first she thought she just hadn't got the frequency right, after all the humans appeared to be able to communicate with each other well enough over long distances but then she had discovered they used little machines called earphones. 

Unlikely as it seemed, these ape descendents had not developed anything really useful at all, nothing like telepathy or kinetics, just a whole lot of power guzzling machines they called technology. How was she expected to be able to communicate with people like this? She might be the best mind controller on Bast but it wasn't doing her a bit of good here. 

She glared at the television screen in front of her. This was boring, she wished Marjorie would turn it off and put on some music instead, she rather liked rap, although she knew Marjorie hated it. 

Marjorie stopped her gentle stroking for a minute and said, "This isn't very interesting, is it Stella? Let's have some music, I wonder if I can find something modern and hip, eh?" she smiled.