When they emerged at the beach, her new seill felt strahey told her that she was standing under ay sky, too big to get any echo or paralx location. As if she was standing on a strange p. In an alien body.

  After some poking and prodding, the doctors left her alone. She joined Fanny for another dip in the sea before dinner. Spshing ier, her new body soon moved naturally and added to the fun. The fish were even more colourful and the sand and water took on new hues. The many shades of blue in the o were particurly fasating. There were far fewer ultraviolet hues, mostly refles in the sand and water.

  The fire, to which they were soon called, was another spectacle. It glittered in rifrared hues.

  And unlike Fanny, whose fur still g to her body despite her attempts to brush and shake the salt water out, the water just ran off her silvery scales, which reflected the heat too. Now she dared to feed a small log to the fire with the fear of burning off her fur.

  "Please help us," the avatar invited her. Together they put a big skewer threw the carcass and hoisted it onto two Y-shaped stands on both sides of the fire. She tur as it roasted.

  " I eat normally?" she asked, because even in this body she was not sure how this body went to the toilet. If at all.

  "Don't worry. Try whatever you want tonight," they assured her.

  While the carcass roasted, the simuted su. It ectacur explosion of colour, albeit a brief one. Soon myriads of stars dotted the sky, and even a nebu. She reized several steltions, the simuted sky was close to a summer sky he mailement on Hopkin's p, where she had grown up.

  Thee the freshly roasted meat uhe starry sky in the flickering light of the campfire and to the spshing of the waves on the beach. This was so much high-css cliché, as the only bea Hopkins was the one he had built for his residence, and evehe ke was nothing like this.

  She could much, she was soon sated. Once, wheher had satisfied their first huhe avatar told them a story of their enter with the Tug and how they had gifted them with lungs when there were only a few civilisations around, hundreds of millions of years ago. An unbelievable tale, if the Tugs were not still around, the only one of the first civilisations still active in today's gaxy. Acc to the avatar, they had chosen to stop their progress early enough to prevent their dee to oblivion. The avatar sounded sad.

  "Why have you chosen to hide while the Tugs are around?" she asked the avatar.

  "Rerra!" the mother scolded, apparently still too much of a diplomat.

  "No, the question is valid. As we said, erfected modding to the point of immortality. That is what the Tug uood before us. Once immortality is achieved, dee is iable. None of the first civilisations sted much beyond that point. They did not bee autistic hedonists, but the driving force to push forward disappears when there is no pressure. Beyond materialism, the lifetime is the only scarce resource. Take away this st iive and any civilisation is doomed. Why push today when you push tomorrow? Most of the post-immortal civilisations slowly died out through acts and boredom. As a st resort, we rely on the young civilisations to push us from time to time. Like you are doing now. We offer you unity service, and you help us by giving us purpose and driving us forward with the challehat e with it. Unfortunately, there have been very few requests tely, as the fastest advang humans are going through their purebred phase." The avatar ged their sitting position, even their posture. Perhaps their hosts were taking turns trolling the avatar? She looked around, but none of her fellow cats seemed to notice.

  The avatar tinued. "It is a great challeo bance iveaways without causiive long-term sequences for which we are most grateful. If we offer too much, the resulting imbance lead to wars and genocides, even among species with the best of iions. Too little, and no one will seek for us. This puts us under great pressure, the key for your and for our survival. A very great pressure, given your short lifespans. At this moment, the humans are the greatest challenge in this equation and you better keep all your modding hidden from them."

  The mother nodded, "Be assured of this, Avatar of the Koni."

  The avatar stood up abruptly, ging pain and being more animated. "And of course, there is the challenge of being the host, which is not limited to preparing the enviro for the meetings which is another beautiful challenge. We think we give you more than just the modder. We have studied everything about your culture and found surprisingly little about dang. Since you are objectively mile than humans, dang could certainly enrich you. Please humour us this evening." They gave her a hand and lifted her up. The avatar walked o Fanny and lifted her up, walking around the circle until they were all standing around the fire. Even the mother, who stood herself.

  "We know of your rhythmic hopping rituals. We will introduce you to derived dances, still simple in parison, but with more plex music. Please hold each other's paws."

  Out of nowhere music pyed unlike anything she had ever heard. It was indeed a simple rhythm, and its notes surprisingly imperfect, her heightened seold her. She had heard of acoustistruments. But very few of the man-made acoustistruments suited their paart from drums. So the drums dominated from the dawn of the cat civilisation until synthesizer sounds gave the drums an apanying melody. This music here was dominated by melody and just a single small drum. It still had a driving rhythm.

  The avatar expihe steps. The dang was fun. Exhausting fun, but her new body had rger reserves than her panions who had normal bodies. Much too early they all retired, bedding themselves oill warm sand. Not yet tired, she walked to the shore ahe waves run around her ankles, looking out at the dark waves and listening to the truly random hey made.

  * * *

  "Sed Pilot Rerra," the avatar whispered, somehow bypassing her ears.

  She opened her eyes but it was very dark. The faint outline of the avatar stood a little away, lighting up when they reflected the sounds of the breaking waves. "Please follow us. It is time."

  Silently, she followed the avatar's outlihey did not go to the rock, but into the trees, where a ramp opened in the sand.

  The space at the bottom of the ramp was five metres high but stretched out on all sides beyond the range of her new echolocation. A faint brownish light emanated from the floor and ceiling. Round boxes in diverse colours were scattered about with tubes pointing upwards through the room. It looked like the maery space for the beach above. It was silent, though, except for the faint gurgling of water.

  The avatar walked over to another box, a browh no pipes. "This is another modder. We thank you for h", there was a tiny pause, "our spleen to i with another avatar. Please enter, we will meet you inside."

  She looked at the avatar and took a step forward. Her hand touched the box and stuck to the surface like mud.

  The avatar nodded. "Rest assured, there is nothing to fear."

  She gulped, took a deep breath and pushed herself into the 'mud'.

  And indeed, she found herself in a simir chamber to the st time, moving freely without a trace of the 'mud'. The avatar was waiting for her.

  "We are afraid you must return to your cat body. But we want to reward you for volunteering, we give you maras. Please, you may be audacious in your wishes. Though we may deny some, given the long-term implications and the limitations of living matter."

  "Oh." She was most disappoio have to give up the avatar body. " I keep the colour vision? The blue is so beautiful."

  "Since your race is of human dest, every huh cat already see blue. The infrared will be more limited, given the iemperature of your brain. This wish is not disruptive and this mod will be passed on to your children. Now take a look at your body before the skin mod with your new eyes".

  She looked down at her. Yes, this was her body as it had been before she went to the Ketcher ic, short fur with a strong bushy tail. Except now her white fur had a slight blue tint to it. However, the room was so ft again and it had lost some of its colour. She blinked a lot more. Should she really return to white? “ I get bck stripes like Petra?”

  “Like this?”

  She looked down on her. Bd white stripe pattern like Petra. It looked very elegant, but after wearing the Ketcher mod and the silver body of the avatar, she felt like she was imposing too long. “Please go bay inal colour.”

  She stood there in her blueish white. The stripes looked more elegant, and she wao be Petra. “ I have it so my children would be striped?”

  "Yes, of course. We know of the significe of the fur patterns ahink the Petra pattern did suit you well. We have some suggestions too, but your wishes first. Please, anything, you sure have more wishes."

  She still thought about the fur. “ I have the stripes on my bad lower arms, legs and tail?”

  She looked down on her white belly, with stripes on her lower arms and legs. And the tail. Yes, that was she ara. She rexed. Now for the other thing that bothered her. " I have real paws instead of feet and stand taller?"

  "Yes, we suggest opposable toes too. Lift up your paws, please."

  She looked down. She was standing on real paws, her legs almost a third lohey were a little wobblier than her old huma. And her neere impressive, strong and broad with bck, thick, retractable cws. She extehem and they clicked on the ground. Wow. She lifted one leg. She could ban the other, no problem.

  "Try to move your paw's toes!"

  She looked at the avatar, clueless. They nodded and it felt as if they were gently pressing the muscles inside her raised paw. The two outermost toes turned inwards as if she had two thumbs on her paw. Now two toes were fag the other two, like a bird's cw, and more muscles were pushed by them and the paw ched.

  The avatar had a wooden sti her hand and pced it over her paw. She trated and was able to open the paw, hold the stick, put it doick it up again. She grinned like a child. This would be so useful in the workshop.

  " I have a little longer fur?"

  The avatar looked down at her and she followed his gaze. Yes, now she had more than her old stubble, still not more than a third of her little finger. It was shorter than the ocelot fur they had modded on her, but it was enough to make her feel less naked. She smiled even more.

  "This will all be passed on to your children. Do you want simir paws for your hands?"

  She looked at her former hands. They had bee heavier paws with double toes and big cws. She picked up the stick. But it felt very different, she had definitely lost the fiouch.

  "No, this is too crude."

  And she picked up the stick again with her hands.

  "How about a little stronger boructure to support your muscles?"

  The ge was subtle, but she felt more solid. "Yes, great," she grinned.

  "We have angestion for you. You are a pilot."

  She nodded slowly, her brain struggling to process all that.

  "We modify your eyes and ears to block out the light and sound of a 4D shock e. Along with a sense of transitioween dimensions, you would no longer need patches. Simir, although cruder mods were popur with humans many years ago, but went out of fashion with the purebred movement."

  "You do that!" They still mao surprise her. She nodded vigorously, "Yes, yes, please. Of course."

  "You will not pass this on to your children. How is it?"

  She blinked, which felt strange, involving a lot more muscles, and rotating more lids around her eyeballs. Her ears were even stranger because muscles were even moving inside her ears. While in the avatar's body, closing her eyes only dimmed her vision, now she was pletely deprived of all light and sound, only toud smell remained. Otherwise, a bck, dark silence. Jumping without patches would be extremely useful.

  "Any st wishes?", their voice came through her closed ears.

  She opened eyes and ears again. She was pletely overwhelmed. Still grippiher leg and tail with the new paw and the sti her hands, her eyes blinking, she hesitated for a moment. "No, well, maybe never get sick?"

  "Sorry, this is impossible. We give you the immune system of a very healthy cat, but not beyond that."

  "That's fine, sorry for being greedy."

  "Rest assured, you are a humble t. Close your eyes and ears and you will soon wake up."

  * * *

  The strong smell of the sea filled her nostrils, along with the st of a nearby animal. She opened her eyes and ears, yes the tter too, and the cries of the early birds in the dawn assaulted her ears. She turned her head: The male ocelot had decided to snuggle up o her. It had a strong musky st. Wheirred, it rose quickly and fled into the forest with long, elegant strides.

  She sat up, sand falling from her pelt. She had slept betweerees, away from the others. Maybe that's why the ocelot had dared to approach her?

  She got up, went behind a tree and then sat down at the shore, just above the reach of the waves. She watched the st of the stars fade and a spectacur sunrise over the o. It was so real, su intense immersion, that she could not believe she was on a ship. And there was a world with a pce like this, somewhere where the real ocelots roamed. She wao go there.

  "Rerra, is that you?"

  Fanny came over.

  "Good m, Fanny. Yes, I went for a slight Petra pattern with some extras. See my paws."

  She stood up and looked Fanny straight in the eye.

  "You look eveer with the shorter fur. And a ail."

  "The inal ooo, well with stripes. How about a m bath?"

  Fanny took off her loincloth and chest cover and then they rushed into the water. It was cool in the m, but soon the sun brought the heat back.

  * * *

  Only 1000 ago she had pyed with Fanny on the beaow they were standing in the reception chamber where their ship was docked, with two modder boxes beside them. The avatar demonstrated how to ge the settings (by lying on it and talking to it) and showed them the es for electricity, water and the tank fanic pre-solutions. Then the modders sealed themselves in a super-insuting, tamper-proof pstic.

  To transport them, the avatar reduced the gravity to 0.1g. She still wondered how they could spin down such a rge ship so quickly and without destroying the ocelot biotope with a historic tsunami when an o suddenly wao move on.

  The rest of them were unimpressed and unfortable with the sudden loss of weight. Now the two guards and the two doctors were able to carry one of the modders to their ship, still heavy but manageable. For the seodder, she relieved the two doctors. The weight of the modder was borderline, but she certainly made an impression owo guards.

  Then the avatar bade them farewell with a chorus of voices and the iris closed. She sealed their hatch, double-checked for leaks, closed and sealed the inner hatch as well, and evacuated the access tunnel. She secured the modders to the side of the passenger hatd finally opehe bulkhead that separated them from the rest of the ship.

  She crossed the ship he thinsuit was no longer fitting her ls and rger paws. Not g, she put on another of the stupid cavecat uniforms in her (whily had a single size anyway) a up to Chatee.

  "Oh, so you got a mod!" was her first rea.

  "And not just the fur. Lots of stories to tell ter," she smiled broadly, "so what's the status?"

  "The Koni have filled our tanks. We are ready to go. They are just waiting for us."

  "The mother wants to go. But we should still ask."

  Chatee sighed.