We called her 3-C like her dad,
who said that she was “three cats wise”;
everybody thought she had nine lives
while all the rest of us had less than one.
She liked rough men and I
was never much for tough & tumble
even back at school,
so what I saw in her
she never saw in me.
Still, when she went afield
like Exobio majors are supposed to do,
I followed her to some blue jungle world
two light years out.
The Expedition took a liking to her,
everybody did,
but out of all of them she liked
an Expedition brat, born there
the same year we were born on Earth,
who served as Expedition guide.
He was tumble rough all right,
and full of frontier jokes
a twelve year old would laugh at here.
But she thought he was fun.
She called him Pikeling.
Anything but “Pike” from us
would put him in our face
until we got it right.
But she was three cats cute
and had so many lives.
“You want to go Up-land
when we go next?” he asked her.
“There’s poison “rocks” out there,” I said.
They laughed and Pikeling said,
“The bad ones have a reddish spot on top.
No danger there, unless you’re blind,
or careless.”
3-C said, “An Exobio studies alien life!”
raising a finger like our Exo prof on earth,
and made me laugh.
Ah, she was three cats curious,
and I was less than one.
So out we went
where rocks bite and blue jungle trees
can wrap you sleeping in a hug of death
like we were on a picnic in an earthside park.
A boy man raised by burly men,
Pike treated her like they were boys together.
Two days out, the way a boy would
devil his best friend with a fright,
he tossed 3-C a redless rock.
She barely caught it when it opened up,
all teeth and grizzliness inside,
and bit her on the thigh on the way down.
And when it closed again we saw the spot
bright red as new spilt blood.
She went quick, with surprise
still on her face, a smothered laugh
stuck halfway out her mouth.
Who would have thought so many lives
could go at once
and leave us none.
Maybe the “rock” was on its back,
or on its side,
the way they never lie,
according to our Exo prof,
who’d never been off Earth.
But she was dead the same for all of that.
And Pikeling looking at her, bloaty blue
already where the venom made her veins
distend to capillary depth,
picked up another red spot rock,
pressed it to his heart,
and died.
But not as quick as Three Cats Wise.
Almost rock-bit with disbelief, I cried,
“It was an accident!”. He tried
an explanation but there was no time.
“We play by different rules out here,” he said.
I tell my students that when they come in.
I tell them when they go afield,
“You young who think you’re three cats wise,
you young who think you have nine lives,
blue jungle worlds
will leave you less than none.”
©WILLIAM JOHN WATKINS
William John Watkins 