Gene Doucette

A region of space with different laws of physics. A child’s story about black holes. An interoffice memorandum presaging the end of the world. An alien named Gerald.

These are some of the stories you’ll find in There Is No Cat, a collection of short fiction by Gene Doucette. Each story is unique, both in the topic and the telling, as Gene never seems to approach his stories the same way twice. See what our world looks like from the perspective of a newly self-aware nanobot, or the eyes of a precocious child. Read between the lines of corporate-speak for news of an impending apocalypse. Find out what happens when cause-and-effect stops working.

There Is No Cat is funny, sometimes dark, often thought-provoking, and always interesting. The only thing missing is a cat.

Post-flight debrief.

Subject: Michael Ackine, of the Astronomic Endeavors cargo ship, Zephyr One.

Introductory notes: Mr. Ackine is the only survivor of the Zephyr’s maiden voyage. Z-One landed safely, five Earth days overdue and two kilometers from target. Mr. Ackine is not a pilot, and has stated he did not land the ship himself.

Interview conducted by Inspector Lewis Fa, of Corporate Security and Safety, Mars division.

[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

In 23762, the Interstellar Community of Planetary Systems began its campaign to add a new member: a distant, isolated planet called Rth.

It would be an understatement to say that the annexation of Rth did not go well. In fact, it went so poorly, a popular phrase entered the vernacular almost immediately: Rthing it up. Meaning either, “we’re doing everything right but it’s all going wrong,” or, “we have every intention of screwing up completely,” the phrase is probably the campaign’s most enduring legacy to popular culture.

Rachel knew Jacko Hype before just about anybody. That’s what she told people when they asked what made her some kind of expert; she knew who he was, what he was, and what he was not, because she met him first.

The circumstance that led to her (unfortunate, in hindsight) first meeting with Jacko was even easier to explain: they met riding bikes.

“She waited up for you.”

Bhara’s voice gave Pyrish a start. He should have known she was there, in the doorway, as she was whenever he returned late. Which was . . . every night now. Since the latest incident, all he’d had time to do was change his clothing and convey a word or two of kindness to Celi, and then it was back to the Facility with him.

That word or two of kindness was usually conveyed to a sleeping child.

“I’m sorry,” Pyrish said. “For the time.”

He passed Bhara to get to the liquor cabinet in the living pod, and went straight for the bog-aged Daranian whisky. The bottle was a gift from the chancellery from back when Pyrish was installed and was meant to be opened either for an exceptional situation or not at all.

Wallace Englund, captain of the United Space Fleet vessel Caroline, stared out his private office window at the only view he’d had for nearly four years—outer space, in all its dull glory—and wondered why he couldn’t get a decent cheeseburger.

Behind him were the last three attempts at a burger made by the ship’s food replicator. The first looked okay until Wallace bit into it and discovered a soft, gelatinous interior that still tasted like a cheeseburger but whose texture made it impossible to ingest. The second was visibly worse: the left side of the burger looked like brown gravy, and not in a good way. The third came out perfect, up until Wallace touched the top of the bun, at which time it collapsed into a thick lumpy puddle.

[For internal use only]

RE: YOUR COMPANY-ISSUED BREATHING APPARATUS

Attached, please find your personal company-issued Breathing Apparatus, for immediate use within all corporate campus unfiltered air locations!

This includes all outdoor locations, such as: the parking lots; the parking garage; the smoker’s hut; the paths between the buildings; the shuttlebus waiting area; the tennis court; and the corporate golf course. It also includes a limited number of indoor locations, such as: the shuttlebus; any area listed as “Under Construction”; and the employee bathroom on level two in the north wing of building H.

(Note: If you are reading this memorandum at any of the above-listed unventilated locations, please skip to the section entitled “How to Wear Your Personal Breathing Apparatus” immediately and follow the prescribed steps.)

Thomas’s first encounter with the alien was terrifying.

It happened in his bedroom. Thom was attempting to get to sleep at the time, after a long Friday night that had extended into early Saturday morning. Alcohol was involved, and a little pot, but nothing natively hallucinogenic, not unless someone slipped him something. Nothing that could explain the appearance of someone who wasn’t supposed to be there.

It took twice as long to get to the third deck from the first as it did to get to the first deck from the fifth. Alice was quite certain there was no mechanism in existence capable of adding fractional decks to the ship, and so was chalking this up to another aspect of the ongoing computer malfunction. She supposed a way to validate this was to ask that the elevator stop at, say, deck two-and-five-sixteenths, but she also didn’t want to encourage the computer’s departures from reality any more than necessary.

Things began to go badly for the crew of the USFS Erwin around the time Dr. Marchere’s coffee mug spontaneously reassembled itself.

Dr. Louis Marchere was not, at that moment, conducting some manner of experiment. Well, he was, only not on entropy and the nature of time. He was running several other tests, of the kind that make perfect sense on a scientific vessel such as the Erwin. About half of them were biological in nature, concerning how small samples of cellular material react to certain deep-space factors. Other tests were more at home in the general field of astrophysics. But—again, as this is important—he was not conducting a test on entropy.