The cat shifted, rolling over so that Pita could scratch its belly. It used its rear paws to push itself along the books, and as it did so one was dislodged. Pita instinctively picked it up, intending to put it back into place. But then she looked around at the shelves on which books were stacked every which way, wedged into any available space. She was tempted to just drop the thing back on the floor, but the picture on the cover, done in brilliant primary colors and outlined in gold, caught her eye. It showed a beautiful woman reclining on the ground with her arms straight out in front of her, palms flat against the sandy soil, staring forward intently. Just above and behind her, framing her body with its own, was the shadowy outline of a cat whose eyes were twin dots of gold. To either side of the woman were strange sculptures of a creature with a cat’s body and a human head. The statues looked vaguely familiar, and after a moment Pita remembered where she’d seen them before—in one of her history vids. They’d had a weird name: finks, or spinks, or something like that.