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around it was a road with houses lining the far side. But then there were more circles of houses attached to the central circle, like the petals of a flower, and in the center of each of these was another pyramid structure—Jubal thought they might be pyramid ships similar to Pshaw-Ra’s.
    Bahiti
mrowled
up at Edfu. In turn the boy told Jubal, “We go first to the temple so that each of your passengers may meet a host family. This is a great honor for us.”
    As they proceded through the city, they were met along the roads by people banging on things like drums or cymbals, rattling can openers, and sending wind chimes swinging. With each house they passed, the occupants fell in behind them and followed them to the temple.

CHAPTER 5
CHESTER IN THE TEMPLE OF MAU
    We entered the temple, a comparatively cool shadowy place dominated by the fangy openmouthed face of a huge golden cat statue. The queen and two of her feline attendants were already installed between the statue’s ears, presiding over the welcome. Well, presiding after a fashion. The two attendants sat beside her with paws crossed and faces impassive. The queen, evidently fatigued from her earlier exertions, lay splayed on her tummy, paws curved down onto the forehead of the golden cat, head cradled against one leg.
    “Come with me, catling,” Pshaw-Ra said. “Your assistance is required to get our guests housed. It will perhaps expedite matters if you inform them that more food and water awaits each of them in the new quarters, as well as two-legged servants who will devote themselves to the happiness of each cat.”
    “I’ll tell them, but some of them aren’t going to want to be split up,” I said. “And I hope you’re not thinking of trying to keep Jubal and I apart.”
    “Perish the thought!” Pshaw-Ra said with mock horror. “In fact, I am housing you in my old home, where I used to live with my senior servant before my journey.”
    “Where will you stay?” I asked him.
    “Oh, I will be nearby. But for now, we will place the others. Of course, the humans think they are making the choices, but I have some very specific ideas regarding who I want to stay with whom.”
    That surprised me. Pshaw-Ra usually didn’t concern himself with the comfort or welfare of others.
    “The girlchild, her father, and her old tom will be lodged with Heket and her family. Heket is a physician and is out a great deal, taking her assistant with her, so they will have privacy.”
    “Heket is a vet?”
    “Heket is a feline physician. We have several such. The humans may assist with tasks requiring thumbs, but who better than a cat would know how to tend the needs of a fellow feline?”
    Jubal caught that.
Wow, a cat cat doctor! That’s great
.
    Pshaw-Ra ignored him. After all,
he
was the cat pilot of a space vessel. “Your mother will stay with Bahiti and his family. He is also a physician. Your boy seems to have made friends with his boy and their lodging is next to yours, so you may easily visit your mother. From what you have said, she is the sort of cat who may be able to learn something from observing Bahiti’s skill.
    “There are, I believe, two pregnant females among the ranks,” Pshaw-Ra continued. “They will be staying with Bes, the top cat physician, so he may be within paw’s reach when they are ready to deliver.”
    Wait a minute
, Jubal said, having heard all of these arrangements through me.
I’ve heard that strange toms will kill kittens
.
    I passed this along to Pshaw-Ra, who said, “Ah, but Bes is, as male physicians always are, a eunuch. It is not a profession that runs in families.”
    Jubal was not entirely reassured, probably because he didn’t trust Pshaw-Ra. Neither did I. I found his sudden interest in the pregnancy of the two females especially suspicious; I hadn’t even known about the coming kits. But perhaps the native cats who rode on the pallets with them had passed the information to him.
    “The young ginger mother and