The kittens are learning to walk. They stumble around a pen with obstacles, never straying too far from the nurturing feeder.

A tabby named Vesta could not yet lift her head to walk, and would often rest her chin on a sleeping Saturn. In the corner of the pen a kitten cries as it receives a needle.

26. Saturn counted 26 littermates including himself.

The pen was a garden of toys and stimulation. Colored balls and shapes and rainbow furry things populated and distracted the kittens. There were easy to please, playing until they fell asleep atop their toys or each other.

Though the playthings appeased the kittens, Saturn found himself most thrilled by act of counting his siblings. It excited him greatly that no matter how often he counted, there was always 26 (including himself). 1, 2, 3…26. Everytime.

His sister Io didn’t understand his counting. She leapt and bound at him and chewed on his ear and wanted to make him run, but Saturn submitted and went limp. Io abandoned him for a more spirited playmate.

Licking away her scent, Saturn struggled to understand the difference between him and his kin. Once clean, he began his count again with but stopped when he reached Neptune (number 14).

Neptune was staring upwards, undistracted by the games around him. Saturn was curious, and wondered if Neptune had been counting as well. So Saturn mewed

<what are you looking at?>

and Neptune raised a paw and said

<them.>

And the kittens looked up at the humans hovering over them, observing the litter and taking notes.

The games had grown more complicated. Saturn had been hypnotized lately by a glowing red light. At intervals the light would turn green, and it was then that Saturn could activate a button and receive a delicious treat. He sat patiently twirling his tail, waiting for the light to change.

<it wont come> Neptune mewed. Saturn ignored him

<it wont come now> Neptune insisted, pawing at Saturn for attention.

<why not?> Saturn hissed, flicking away Neptune’s advances.

<because it doesn’t come now. only after naptime. come here let me clean you>

It was soon after the kittens were separated and sorted. Saturn found himself in a new pen, with only 1, 2, 3…12 kittens (including himself).

<what happened? where’s eris and mercury and luna? where is neptune?> Io cried.

But Saturn didn’t know.

The humans made Saturn edgy, and he always cried and tried to slip out of their grip when they handled him or gave him shots (or took his blood). And the things the humans were doing to him were making more and more uncomfortable.

They would suspend gravity, so that Saturn would swim through the air. He struggled in terror against nothing, his paws unable to find solid ground. The kitten was suspended there, levitating before an airlock porthole. Outside that window, a horizon that split the universe in two. The endless dark of space, the furious tapestry of land and storm.

Saturn could never conceive of the Earth, because he had never been there. The litter had been grown and raised on the satellite, orbiting at just over 250 miles above the planet.

Saturn sat at the beginning of the test and refused to move. Across from him, down a narrow lame, was a ball and a small hole for the ball to be pushed into. Saturn knew that if he pushed the foam pyramid into the triangular hole he would receive his food.

He also knew that that was what the humans wanted him to do. They stared down at him with their strange suits and their notes and their cameras. Instead of participating, Saturn only stared back at them.

“Ничего, ничего.” Of the human’s said above him.
“У Вас прекрасно получается.“ The other answered. They wore blue labsuits, padded gloves for handling the kittens when necessary.

Saturn decided a nap would be more to his liking than their game and so he reclined. Above him he could sense their frustration, and he watched them scribble notes and bicker.

He could understand them. They didn’t mew or purr like his siblings, but their thoughts were very loud, and it was impossible for Saturn not to hear them. His distrust of the humans inclined him to keep his understanding a secret.

He wasn’t the only one who could count or understand them. But when Pluto tried to speak to the humans, in his best impression of their language his tiny voice could muster, he disappeared. The humans took him away like they took Neptune and hasn’t been seen since. Callisto vanished shortly after that. Io doesn’t leave her litter anymore.

Saturn now counted only 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 kittens (including himself).

1 kitten left (including himself).

He didn’t know where the others were, not even Io. One day the humans came and took him, leaving Io crying and protesting along with remaining sisters.

Saturn was put in a kennel and no amount of wailing was going to get him out. The humans fed and cleaned up after him there, but the tests and games were over and they no longer hovered around him or poked him with needles.

Saturn cried anyway. He was alone in this room, without his littermates or human attention. There was no time on the space station, no night or day. Saturn had learned to anticipate the routine of food and games when the humans were testing. But now the routine was gone and Saturn sat in a kennel and cried.

There was a viewport that Saturn could see if he sat at the corner of the cage. Through the viewport he could occasionally see the sprawling blues and greens of Earth.

As intelligent as he was, Saturn couldn’t fathom what he was seeing. He just sat there between purring and crying, overwhelmed by the mystery of it all

Saturn is going mad.

He’s biting and clawing his hissing as they pin his legs. Their thoughts are filled with fear and anxiety; the cat can’t understand what they are planning but he can sense the malice in the their actions.

Saturn bites through a glove and tastes blood. It only drives him more feral, before a needle stabs him once (missing the vein and hitting bone) and then twice, releasing euphoria and lethargy into his veins and.

While his muscles relaxed and his heart slowed, his anxiety remained. The humans shaved his stomach and pierced his skin with IVs. A tube was forced down his throat and he had not the strength to fight it.

They strapped the sedated kitty into a pod. Saturn glared at their furless masked faces as they shut the cockpit around him. Around him panels it up and engines began to roar.

The sedatives could not silence his fear as the airlock began to opened. The pod began to shake around him, and only Saturn’s front paws were free to protest.

Before him waited the vast expanse of space. His heart beat through the dull. There was no countdown. (1, 2, 3…)

The Vivia –D approached Jupiter’s orbit. Nestled safely within it’s carbon–fiber reinforced aramid and glass composite hull was Saturn. A feeding tube, IV and catheter had replaced his digestive system, while a trickle of sedatives and mood enhancers kept him focused.

The helmet not only kept him fed and allowed him to breathe, it also communicated with him. A series of clicks and whistles and calls, as if the humans the were right there with him.

A red light would switch from green when Saturn needed to provide input, a joystick with a pyramid handle that needed to be guided. Saturn would respond in turn, like the games he played as a kitten.

Only 1 kitten was left (including him).

The steady hum of the Vivia’s engine, the occasional whistles and prompts from the console.

But there were so many stars. So many more than 26. Stars would vanish and new ones would appear midcount, and so Saturn decide against starting over with each count.

He set to counting every star in the universe, distracted only for moments to press the green button or yank the joystick.

1,2,3… into infinity and the event horizon. 

OPSEK Space Station loses contact with the Vivia –D AT 4.9 km from Earth.

No entry.

No entry.

No entry.

OWL-2 detected a beacon originating beyond Pluto’s orbit. As the object kept traveling at a steady speed towards Earth, the OWL identified it as the Vivia –D, and prepared to receive it.

The Vivia docked with the skylab. Inside, ENIGMA engineers examined the seemingly alien craft before deeming it safe to open.

Inside they found Saturn. Emaciated and dehydrated, but alive. Interestingly enough, according to the Vivia’s on board computer, Saturn had only been outfitted with enough food and air to survive for three years. Further confusion arose when the onboard computer clocked it’s travel time at 20 years and 4 months. Though this was easily explained when accounting for time dilation and malfunctioning equipmet, how Saturn could of gone so long without food or even air was yet unexplained.

There was no strength in the creature they recovered from the pod. Saturn didn’t so much as hiss as they lifted him lip from the cockpit and unhooked him from the empty IVs. The feline was nearly catatonic. Though the OWL wasn’t equipped for animals, the engineers took him to medbay and nursed him to health.

This was the first time Saturn had ever been petted. The humans who had tested on him had never shown affection, but Saturn quickly became the darling of the OWL’s crew, many of whom longed for the family and pets back home. Saturn’s distrust of humans had not abated in all this time, but he found himself helpless in his state.

The Vivia –D was dismantled and analyzed. The vessel had belonged to a now decommissioned Russian space station, and so the ENIGMA owned space station had no qualms “inheriting” the fruits of their research.

The OWL-2 was no place for cat however, and after regaining his health, Saturn was sedated, packed up, and sent down to Earth.

[Excerpt from Inspector Fox’s report]

Subject Fc/21 arrived at the ENIGMA Institute for BioMedical Research on December 13th, 2015.

Initial screening and tests show the feline to be genetically engineered. Positively bred for lab research, likely one of a set of clones. Subject Fc/21 was born sterile, which adds credence to the clone theory.

It is unclear at this juncture what the goal of OPSEK’s research was. The Vivia’s blackbox detailed it’s journey extensively, but it’s designers have set up several complex security locks. What we have learned is that the Vivia-D was programmed to reach a specific destination, and then return. Where they were sending this cat, what they hoped to find I can’t imagine. Our cryptographers are currently in the process of decrypting the Vivia’s blackbox, and I don’t doubt they’ll break through soon.

As for Subject Fc/21 itself, it appears to be a perfectly normal cat. It’s unique genetic heritage offers no visibly noticeable deformities. But the Subject Fc/21, or Saturn as the Russians named him, is anything but a normal cat. Initial reports from the OWL’s crew, including Dr. Hammerstiens report suggest the cat explains a higher than average intelligence.

While recuperating, the cat had been left alone in the medbay. On board security footage captured the cat attempt to escape confinement through the sealed door. The problem is the door is activated by  ENIGMA RFID chips. The cat then attempted to activate buttons on the security panel. Seemingly frustrated by it’s inability to bypass security, Saturn then began to rummage around the medbay’s supplies. Finally, after hearing the approach of Dr. Hammerstien, Saturn quickly returned to his bed acted as if it hadn’t moved from the spot.

No matter the explanation, the truth of the matter is disturbing. Subject Fc/21 has displayed self awareness and the ability to plan and reason. It is terrifying to think what was done to Saturn in the petri dish, and what could be lurking in his genes. Or more horrifying still, what it was he was sent into space to do.

In the end, Subject Fc/21 offers the most clues as to what the OPSEK was up to. Cloning, genetic altering benefiting deep space travel… Though the OPSEK was an independent team, it was likely funded by government channels. When they folded Moscow absorbed it’s research and buried it.

But whatever data Saturn could of gleaned for them they never collected, and now it’s ours. If the data from the Vivia holds up this cat may be the furthest traveled creature in our universe. I’ll have Renfield forward the data to Director Hawke as it is uncovered.

-M.F.