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Shortly following their mutual masturbation session the tiger was once again called away by some pressing matter, likely to do with the terraforming operations on Mars. He'd quickly put his shorts, dirty socks and boots back on and with a look of annoyance he once again turned off Curiosity's tablet and was gone.

Jake had placed the rover back into its loop of taking images every minute so he'd know as soon as the cat became available again.

Hours went by with no further sign of the tiger, so Jake finally sent the command to stop the script and aim the camera upward again to let the cat know he was no longer available at this end, and then he headed home for the night.

He lived only a few miles from the campus and during the summer he liked to ride his bike to work. It was a pleasant ride home that night as his head was filled with thoughts of the big cat and how amazing it had been to watch him pleasure himself while the cat watched a video of Jake touching himself.

Needless to say he'd brought his tablet home with him and when he got into bed he once again played back the awesome video. He masturbated while imagining what it would be like to be there and receive the big cat's massive load of cum directly into his mouth. The thought of that repeating surge of hot, white spunk coming from deep inside the gorgeous tiger's heavily laden nuts and spewing directly into Jake's mouth and filling it up brought him to orgasm quickly.

After his climax he drifted off to have the most satisfying sleep he'd had in a long time with the knowledge that they were not only back on track, but the incredibly beautiful tiger might actually be falling in love with him, just as he was already feeling himself falling for the cat.

The next day he woke with his head already full of thoughts of the big tiger. He couldn't wait to hook up with him again. It suddenly occurred to him that he should have brought his laptop home with him last night, but he'd left it at the office. Now that they were getting to know each other on a much more personal level it might be better for Jake to contact him while he was at home so he wouldn't have to risk getting caught doing anything untoward in his office, like lying naked on his back on the floor with his cock in his hand while covered in his own cum.

He didn't need to be in the office to work with the tiger. It almost made more sense for him to do it from home. He would still need to go into work to maintain the ruse that he was waiting patiently for Curiosity to call home again, so he could still continue to work with the big cat there if that was what worked best for them, but he'd bring the laptop home with him from now on too.

He headed into work bright and early and went straight for the laptop. Just as he was about to open it up and put in his password there was a knock at the door. It was one of the men from the government's alien response team. They asked Jake to follow and they led him out of the office. He asked what was up and he was told that the leader of the team had requested a meeting to go over all of the details of what might be needed in the new facility to study the aliens that was being prepared in the Cheyenne Mountain bunker. It was going to be a long meeting as they intended to go over all of the guidelines they would be following and they would begin to discuss the various procedures that would be needed and how exactly they would begin to approach things. They would be introducing the rest of the team as well and each would be going over what their part would be. Jake wasn't happy with the interruption, but he could think of no excuse to get himself out of it so he went along.

The meeting was interminably long and he was distracted through the whole thing, thinking of the big tiger and wondering if he was checking in on Curiosity and wondering why the camera was still pointed up.

The team leader took them all to lunch, then dragged them back into the meeting room and the deliberations continued as they brought up slides of all of the images Curiosity had taken that included the alien, and Jake was asked to once again tell the whole story of everything that happened right up to the moment the rover lost its connection, for the benefit of the new people in the team.

There were long discussions about how they might approach things once the link came back up and what part the rover would play and how they might go about setting up a more permanent means of communicating with the aliens. Jake was happy to learn that once that happened and they no longer would be relying on Curiosity for communication with the aliens, his part would be done and he would be released from his duty to them, though still sworn to secrecy. Perhaps he wouldn't have to live in a bunker for too long after all. The one thing it did make him realize though was that if he wanted to continue his personal relationship with the amazing tiger, he would need to get his help to find some way for them to communicate that would not require the use of the rover, or Jake might be cut off from him forever at some point. He had no idea how they could possibly go about that, but so long as Jake worked for NASA and had access to their massive radio dish arrays, there should be some way to do it.

Near the end of the meeting the team was informed that they would all be taking a day trip to Colorado the day after tomorrow to tour the new facility and to identify anything that might be needed that hadn't yet been setup for them, so, much to Jake's frustration, it seemed there would be yet another full day where he wouldn't be able to work with the tiger.

By the time they finished the long meeting it was already getting late in the evening. Jake went into his office and fired up his laptop to have a quick look to see if the tiger might be around. He let it take several images over the course of a half hour, but the cat did not come into the picture. He assumed it was too late so he once again shut everything down and headed home, but this time he brought his laptop along with him.

There was still no further contact later that night or the next morning, so Jake headed into work at the usual time and set his laptop up again to keep watching. Hours went by with Curiosity taking an image every minute and Jake glancing over at his laptop each time it beeped and displayed the next picture.

The morning passed with no activity in the hangar on Mars and Jake went out to grab lunch, then came back and once again began to wait. Finally, by late afternoon, one of the images that came back from the rover showed the cat grinning up at the camera and holding his tablet up for Jake to see. He smiled as he saw that it still had the last emoji equation the cat had drawn two days ago that showed the tiger emoji followed by interlinked hearts followed by the Jake emoji with the word "love" written underneath it.

Jake's heart swelled at the sight of the big tiger. He'd been missing him and it felt so good to see him there again at last. He quickly sketched the same emoji equation in reverse to let the cat know he loved him right back and then sent it off to Curiosity.

Just after he'd hit send he suddenly realized something that his brain had somehow not locked onto earlier. The word written under the emojis in the cat's sketch on his tablet was not the tiger word like the last time, it was actually the English word "love"! Jake had never written that word out for the cat before! He'd never explained its meaning or even shown it in any previous exchange that he could remember. Had the tiger actually figured it out somehow? Was he already able to make use of the dictionary information Jake had sent before? He had to find out. This could leap them ahead a great deal. He needed to find some way to ask the cat how he'd learned the word, and whether he knew any others yet, but he would need to wait a bit. It would take a few minutes for the rover to get the last command he'd already sent to draw the emojis, and there would still be a few more images coming back from the previous loop even before that.

In the next image he saw the gorgeous cat pointing once again at his two eyes with one paw while pointing back at the interface with the other. Apparently he already had a video queued up for Jake to download.

He smiled as he sent the command to Curiosity to send a dump of its memory. His laptop then beeped again with one more image from the rover and to his puzzlement he saw that the cat had already turned off the rover's tablet even before it could draw the emoji equation he'd sent to it to show the cat that he loved him back. The cat was smiling up at the camera with a paw up in a goodbye wave, and he once again was holding up his tablet. On it were several alien words written across the top, but beneath that were English words that again, Jake was certain he'd never shown the cat. The tiger's tablet must already be able to do translations! The short message said, "Must go. Much work. Back tomorrow. Enjoy."

He was blown away. Clearly the data with the English dictionaries he'd sent to the cat just days ago were already beginning to show their value. Somehow the cat's computers were able to make some sense of them. He couldn't for the life of him figure out how it could possibly have happened quite so fast, but he was elated. This would leap them ahead in their ability to communicate to a huge degree!

He was disappointed that the tiger still didn't have time for him, but clearly even without any exchange, much headway was being made. It was all happening on the cat's end, but it was happening.

Jake could only assume the tiger had gone to work immediately following their last exchange two days ago and started his computer working on the problem of decoding the dictionaries. He was impressed with how quickly it seemed to be getting results and he wondered just how well the two of them would be able to converse when the tiger finally had time for him again.

It took a considerably longer time than usual, but his laptop finally beeped to indicate it had received the dump of Curiosity's memory. He took a quick look at it to verify that it was another video. It looked like the cat had used up almost all of the rover's memory this time. It must be at least several minutes of video for Jake to enjoy. On closer examination he saw that it was in fact two files, one short one and one very long one that took up almost all of the available space. He grinned as he saved them both. He was going to have two videos to watch instead of just one.

He ran the two files through his algorithm to decompress them. The first one was successful, but the second one crashed almost immediately with several errors. It did not follow the compression scheme they'd been using for video exchange.

Jake was puzzled. If it wasn't video data, then what was it? Maybe the cat had decided to respond to Jake sending out the English dictionary data by sending back cat dictionary information. He might think that human computers were as easily up to the task of dealing with it as the tiger computers appeared to be. If it was in fact dictionary data, it must be using some other compression scheme. He'd have to look at it later, though he doubted he could do much with it.

For now, he had at least one video to watch. He pulled it up in his video player and hit the play button.

The cat was facing the camera and smiling as he held up his tablet very closely for Jake to see. It had a very complex looking set of equations on it that were all in English. The cat must have done the conversion for Jake ahead of time to make things easier for him. He was glad of it because the set of equations was truly massive. The tiger held the tablet steady for a bit, then reached up with his other paw and swiped at it and the page flipped to show the rest of the equations.

The tiger then blew a kiss at the camera, briefly waved as if in goodbye, and then reached towards the camera and the video ended. It was a short video, but clearly it was leading to something to do with the larger file that was also included.

He looked over the equations the cat had been showing him. They were all interlinked in an interesting flow. A cursory glance suggested that it was yet another compression scheme, but it was far more complex than the one Jake had sent before.

He played the video back again and captured screen shots to clearly display the two pages the cat had been showing him. He placed them side by side and studied the equations closely. It took him quite a while to begin to see how it would work, but when he began to understand it, it quickly fell into place and he was impressed by what he saw. It was an incredibly sophisticated fractal-based video compression scheme that put his earlier method deeply to shame. If he didn't miss his guess, the second, much larger data file he'd received from the cat was in fact another video, but if it used this scheme of compression, it might be a very long video indeed. This method would allow them to fit far more video data into a much smaller space than before. If his estimation of how successful it would be with the type of video they were dealing with was correct, they'd be able to easily fit nearly an hour's worth of video into Curiosity's memory. He couldn't wait to see what the cat would be showing him in the second video that would take that much time and use so much space.

He immediately brought up a text editor and set to work writing a program that would use the equations to deal with the second data file. It took him hours to get it programmed, but the compiler was finally able to spit out an error free program. He gave it a try with the larger data file. It took considerably longer to decompress the file, but it was proceeding without errors. At the end he had another video file to play, so he loaded it up.

He looked at the time bar at the bottom of the video player and he was amazed to see the time marker at the end indicated the video was over seventy eight minutes long! He was astounded! The cat's compression scheme put Jake's to shame by a very wide margin indeed.

He grinned as he hit the play button and sat back to watch.

He was thrilled to see as he watched the beginning that it looked like it was going to be a "day in the life" video that the cat must have made for him the day before. The tiger must have wanted to show Jake what a typical day for him was like.

It began with the tiger sitting up in what appeared to be his bed, and he was wiping sleep from his eyes. He yawned and stretched in a way that Jake couldn't help but think looked adorably cat like, then he smiled at the camera.

The cat reached out and grabbed his tablet off of a bedside table. Jake could see that it had been playing a video at some point that had been paused before it was dropped on the table. He smiled as he saw that it was frozen on a frame that showed Jake covered in his own cum just after he'd finished masturbating in the video for the cat. Had the tiger jacked off to it when he'd gone to bed the night before just as Jake had done with the video of the cat?

The tiger showed it to the camera with a grin to show Jake the frame of the video, then he turned it back and kissed the tablet as though he were kissing Jake's penis and the mess all over him, and then he swiped it with a claw and the video vanished from the screen.

He then turned the backside of the tablet to face the camera and began to move it up and down a bit, then around to the side a bit this way and that, as though he were making a video of Jake himself with the tablet. He finally tapped at its screen a couple of times, then turned it around so Jake could see the face of the tablet again and he played the short video for him. Jake saw a very small white drone floating in the center of the video. The way the video moved up and down, then to one side of the drone and then to the other to give Jake a good view of the drone made him realize the cat had taken the video just now in order to show Jake that it was actually the drone that was currently recording the main video he was watching! The tiny drone must have a camera in it. He thought he saw two very small holes at the front of it. It might actually have stereoscopic vision.

It was a fascinating looking little device that wasn't dissimilar to the type of video drones found on Earth, except that it was amazingly small, and did not appear to have any propellers at the end of its four stubby arms. There were simple pods at the end of the arms that were nearly silent, except for the faintest hissing sound that Jake could hear coming from the video's audio channel. The pods looked like they were gimbaled so that they could vector their thrust in any direction without having to tilt the whole pod. It would be capable of a nice, steady image in that case. He thought he saw a slight bluish glow coming from beneath the four pods of the micro drone, like tiny exhaust cones from an ion propulsion drive. He wondered what sort of power system and fuel they might have available that would let that tiny drone just hang there on its own power for so long. It would have to be an incredibly efficient source of fuel indeed.

The cat then smiled and winked and then he put the tablet aside on his bed briefly. The cat had gone to bed fully nude and Jake once again got a wonderful view of his beautiful cock as it hung over his huge, furry balls. Jake saw the cat reach down and pick up his dirty shorts off the floor and put them back on, then he did the same with his dirty socks. These were likely the same socks and shorts Jake had seen him wearing before, during their mutual masturbation session. He smiled at the thought of how great they must smell if the big tiger had been wearing the same ones for multiple days. He would give absolutely anything to be able to sample them himself.

The cat then reached down and pulled his big boots onto his feet and laced them up. He stood from the bed and the drone moved just a bit back to keep the whole cat in the picture. Clearly it had its own AI driving its behavior so it could autonomously act as director of the video it was producing and would keep the cat properly framed at all times.

The tiger stretched one last time after standing up, then he looked into the camera and made a sort of "come on" gesture as if he was telling Jake to follow him.

He was absolutely thrilled! He was actually going to see more of the cat's Martian base of operations!

The tiger approached the door of his small bedroom and tapped it and it slid open.

He walked fairly quickly down a long, narrow hallway that had several identical doors on each side that were likely other private bedrooms with cats in them. This must be the barracks section of the base.

The tiger followed the hallway to the end and turned to a small door on the right and went through. It looked like a washroom. There were several stalls along one wall and a row of sinks across from that, and several urinals at the back wall. The cat walked up to one of the urinals and the video drone that was following him positioned itself to catch the action from the side. The cat pushed his shorts down under his massive balls and took his thick cock in hand and grunted as a powerful yellow stream erupted and arced down into the urinal he was facing.

It seemed the cat had momentarily forgotten the drone in his rush to relive himself as he suddenly looked to his left and saw the camera watching him pee, and he got a slightly annoyed look and waved at it and it dutifully turned to face away. Jake chuckled when he heard a few light farts while the cat moaned his pleasure as he continued to let out his long morning stream. He briefly wondered why the cat didn't edit that part out, but Jake realized the cat might think he was curious to see even those types of details. He was right of course. He wanted to learn absolutely everything he could about the tigers in general, and his cat in particular.

He heard rustling as the tiger shook off and then put his junk away. The drone turned back to face him as he approached a sink to wash his hands. He then dried them off by sticking them into a device that made a loud noise like a hand blower, then turned and walked back out into the hall and the camera drone followed.

He went straight across the hall to a larger door and tapped it and walked in with the drone following closely behind him.

The room looked almost like a small break room. He could see what looked like a refrigerator and some sort of coffee machine or drink dispenser along with other odd appliances and a long table in the middle with chairs all around it. Jake was somewhat disappointed to see that there was nobody else there. Either all of the other cats were already at work, or his cat was getting up so early to start his day that the others were still sleeping. He hoped to get a look at more of the tigers to see if his was exceptionally large and muscular, or if that was the norm for them. Were they all the same color? Did they come in many different sizes like humans do? Were there short ones and tall ones and skinny ones and fat ones? Did they dress in different ways? He was hoping as the cat progressed through his day that Jake would get at least some glimpses of others so he could get a chance to get a better idea of what the overall tiger race looked like in comparison to the stunning example he was already seeing.

The cat walked up to a machine, grabbed a drinking glass from a cupboard above it, then placed it under a spout on the machine. He tapped at some buttons and the spout began to dispense a greenish brown colored drink into the large glass until it was full to the top. The sludge looked like it would be extremely healthy to drink, which was to say it looked perfectly disgusting. The cat turned and took something out of the refrigerator and placed it in another appliance. Before long he was taking the food out and grabbing his drink and sitting at the table. He still had his tablet with him and he put it on the table off to the side and began tapping at it and reading whatever it was displaying.

The cat began to eat what was on the plate, which looked to Jake like it hadn't actually been cooked by the appliance, but rather perhaps just rapidly thawed and slightly warmed. It looked like fresh, bloody, raw meat and there was lots of it, but there was absolutely nothing else on the plate. There were no veggies or garnishes of any kind. He wondered if the alien cats might actually be obligate carnivores who needed to eat meat and couldn't stomach too much of anything else, just like felids on Earth.

The cat tore into his meal like he was starving and it took him no time at all to gobble it all down. Jake smiled as he watched the big tiger lick the tips of the fingers of his paw and then let out a small burp before he pushed the plate aside with a satisfied look on his face.

He then turned to the nasty looking drink and began sipping at it while futzing with his tablet and catching up on whatever status he'd been checking over on it.

Rather than have Jake sit through the whole process of watching the tiger finish his drink and catching up on whatever news was on the tablet, the video suddenly cut to the cat walking down the hall again, presumably just after leaving the break room. The tiger must have edited the video before delivering it to Jake in order to cut out the boring parts while leaving just enough for him to get a good idea of what the cat's day was like.

The tiger appeared to be in a completely different hallway than before and he stopped at a door near the end and tapped to open it up and he walked inside. This was a fairly large room that had several comfortable looking chairs in front of large computer displays that looked like they were entirely touch based. Once again there was no sign of any other tigers. All of the chairs were empty. The large screens were all busy showing all sorts of status displays of things Jake couldn't possibly understand. Information in the alien language was constantly being updated and there were graphs and charts and tables strewn across all of the displays that covered the walls of the room.

The big cat studied them all for a while, and then he moved more towards the back of the room and the camera drone followed him. As he approached another large display at the back Jake could see images flashing across it at high speed on one side, and long lists of alien words beside them that were also constantly changing. Every once in a while an image would freeze momentarily and the alien words on the right side would also freeze as if to indicate a match. Jake realized that the images on the left side must be coming from the illustrated dictionaries he'd provided to the cat! The computer would recognize what the image described, then lock onto the alien definition of what it was, then it was able to equate the English word the illustrated dictionary provided with the alien one, then the whole process would proceed forward again and the images would begin to flip through searching for another recognizable one.

He was fascinated as he watched it lock onto the image of a table, then show the English word "table", then lock into an alien word that must mean table as well, then it proceeded to flip through images again until it locked onto another, then another, then another. This was how the tiger was able to translate words already!

Jake looked closer at another display to the right of the one showing the images and he realized it was now repeatedly flashing the new word "table" as the computer found it in other definitions and to the right of that were more alien words flashing at high speed and locking in each time the word table was found. It was just as he'd imagined it might happen. The tiger's computer was advanced enough that it could do intelligent image recognition so it could figure out what most of the pictures were. Whenever it found something it understood in the illustrated English dictionary, it would then know the English word for it and the tiger equivalent, and would then move on to search for that English word in the complete English dictionary to try to find the definition of more words that contained that new word in their definition. The more words it learned the easier it became to decipher more definitions by using those new words, which gave it many more new words to once again go through another iteration with. Bit by bit it and at a constant, steady pace it was deciphering the whole English language!

Jake wasn't sure when exactly this video was taken, but he assumed it was probably yesterday. At the high rate that the computer appeared to be processing the images, it had likely made several passes through the illustrated dictionary by now and was moving on to translate more and more of the complete English dictionary using the words it learned from the illustrated one. The process would have been slower at first, but as more words became available it would use them to more quickly learn many more, which would lead to even more, and onward it would proceed in a rapid expansion. At that rate it might only be a matter of days before the translation program was as complete as it was going to get with the information it had available, but it should allow them to converse quite effectively, even if not perfectly. He was thoroughly impressed.

The tiger had his tablet in hand and he tapped away at it a bit and then held it up for the drone to see. It had an alien word written on it and below that word was the English word "dictionary". The cat smiled and waved his big paw over the large displays that were crunching away at the dictionary data. He then tapped his temple and pointed at the camera again as if to tell Jake he'd been using his head when he sent the various dictionaries along. The cat then turned his tablet towards himself and tapped at it a bit more, then turned it to the camera again and it simply said, "talk soon". The tiger winked and then moved back towards the door and out into the hall and the drone followed him.

Jake was delighted by what he'd seen. The cat was busily solving all of their language problems for them. The next time they saw each other they would likely be able to converse completely fluently!

The cat crossed the hall to another room with several large displays. He tapped at a sort of keyboard, checked some status displays and then tapped some more. Jake saw the large display in front of the cat switch to an apparent view from somewhere out in space. He could see what looked like robotic, rocket powered drones flitting about in a large field of icy bodies. This must be a view from somewhere in the Kuiper belt! The cat was using drones to fling comets at Mars! Jake watched as several drones latched on to a particularly large block of ice and began to accelerate. Their trajectory adjusted slightly and then suddenly the backside of the drones lit up hugely and an incredibly bright, long, massive exhaust cone stretched out behind each one. The plumes grew to astounding size as the drones propelled the comet faster and faster. Jake wasn't sure how long they would push the comet because the video then switched to another set of drones that looked like they were just returning to the belt and the big cat tapped away again as if to confirm their next target as they began to approach another large body of ice.

Jake was astounded. They were using robots to fling the comets at the planet. With the amazing amount of thrust they appeared to be capable of, if they pushed the comets for very long, they would be moving at amazing speeds by the time the drones released them and turned around to go back and get another. He wondered again what type of fuel the tigers were using for the drones. They looked to be putting out enough thrust to move something a thousand times more massive than themselves with ease. How long would they be able to keep that up before they ran out of gas? How were they refueling?

He heard the tiger make an annoyed grunting sound as he flipped at the controls on another display and it zeroed in on a drone that appeared to be limping along with a damaged thrust pod. The cat began to tap at the controls and before long two other drones came into the picture and approached the damaged one. The damaged drone shut down completely as the others latched onto it and began to accelerate. The video tracked the drones as they carried the broken one to a large object floating in the middle of the comet field. It looked sort of like a boxy space ship with several protrusions and access panels all around it. One of the panels opened as the drones approached and they plugged the damaged one into the exposed port. The two drones then turned and flew off into the field again as the hatch closed with the damaged drone inside. It must be a repair facility! Maybe it was where they refueled as well. He could see dozens of the same sized hatches all over the side of the large object, and there were likely more on the other sides of the cube shaped ship. It must be a robotic drone facility that serviced all of the drones being used to move the comets around and there must be a massive fleet of the little drones out there. There might be many more of these facilities scattered around the Kuiper belt, and there were likely more of them at the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter as well. This was how they were capable of launching so many asteroids and comets at Mars so efficiently!

It was fascinating to see, but while he watched the cat tapping at controls and saw drones reacting to his commands, Jake's heart suddenly jumped as he realized something incredible that he'd only just noticed. The robots were responding in real time! How the hell was that possible? The video feeds the cat was watching were also in real time! They had to be or the cat couldn't act on them and have the drones respond immediately to his commands. Jake couldn't imagine how that could be. The Kuiper belt was all the way out past the orbit of Neptune. Following the shortest straight line from Mars to the belt, it would take at least four hours for a radio signal to travel the full distance, and another four hours for a reply to come back! How the hell was the tiger doing this in real time? Had the cats figured out instantaneous communication somehow? They must have!

He filed that question away as one of the first he would ask the cat when next they talked, now that talking might actually be a real possibility, though really it would be more like texting. He wished he had the same technology at this end so they could text each other in real time without the six minute delay for radio signals to get to Mars from Earth and then back again. The prospect of instantaneous communication across great distances was extremely exciting to Jake. He hoped the tigers would be willing to share that technology with Earth. It would be a major breakthrough that would greatly facilitate long range travel and exploration of space.

As Jake's focus returned to the video he was watching, he saw that the cat had settled into a seat and it appeared he was going to be there for a while. Managing the drone facilities out at the belts must be a big part of his day because once again the video cut away so Jake wouldn't have to watch it all, though he certainly wouldn't have minded seeing the tiger doing more of his work. It was absolutely fascinating to him.

The scene then cut to the tiger in an enclosed space and he'd already stepped into a space suit. He was just finishing doing up the seals on the suit and then he put the helmet on his head and sealed it tight. Jake became excited. Was he going to get to go outside with the cat?

He saw the tiger grin at him through the clear glass front of his helmet and wink and give him a thumbs up, then he turned and punched a control and Jake heard a loud hissing as the airlock dumped its air out to replace it with whatever the Martian atmosphere was currently made up of. The door to the airlock opened to reveal the hanger where the two vehicles and Curiosity were stored and Jake saw that the large doors of the hangar had already been opened and exposed to the thin air of Mars.

The big cat entered the hangar and walked past the vehicles to where Curiosity was parked. He looked up to see Curiosity's main mast camera pointed up at the ceiling. If this video was made yesterday like he assumed it was, Jake would have actually been in the meetings with the alien response team all day and not available. The cat waved at the rover's camera and then he turned to face the video drone and raised his shoulders in a shrug as if to say he would have said 'hi' to Jake, but he must not be home right now.

The cat then walked towards the buggy that was parked next to Curiosity and he opened a door on the side of the enclosed cabin and climbed into it. The drone followed closely and took up a position just behind and to the right of the cat's head facing out of the cockpit windshield. The cat closed the door and fired up the machine.

Jake grinned. He was going to get to go for a ride somewhere with the tiger! He looked out at the Martian landscape and was surprised to see that it looked completely different than he'd remembered it. It looked as though the dust storms had abated and left behind massive drifts of sand and dust that had completely changed the look of the area. The rocks that had been used to make the arrow pointing to the ramp were gone and probably buried under a few feet of sand. Even the ramp itself appeared to be half buried. That must be why the entire structure was up on high, thick stilts. The cats knew the effect the storms they were going to create would have.

It was still fairly dull and dark out, though it must have been near the middle of the Martian day at this point of the video. Clearly the miles of fine dust was still floating high up in the atmosphere and would take some time to settle out, but the sand storms were over and things had mostly calmed down, though Jake could occasionally see jagged bolts of lightning streak across the sky here and there from the static charge built up in the dusty atmosphere.

The air was taking on an almost greenish brown hue. Once it cleared properly it would eventually likely be as blue as Earth's sky when there was enough atmosphere to scatter the shorter wavelengths of blue light more effectively.

The buggy lurched forward and proceeded down the ramp, then it began to accelerate. The tiger veered the buggy towards a large dune and gunned the accelerator and shot over it and became airborne briefly before settling back down and bouncing along the sandy Martian landscape. The big cat whooped and roared as he raced along the ground faster and faster and Jake laughed at how much fun he was having. He wished he could be seeing this through his Vive VR headset so he could feel like he was really there riding along in the buggy. It looked like a ton of fun.

The cat continued to speed along recklessly, carving up the loose sand as he tore around rocks and over sand dunes. He was clearly enjoying the trip, but he was obviously heading in a particular direction. This mustn't be just a joyride.

The video suddenly cut to a new scene again. Jake would have enjoyed going along for the whole ride, but the cat had only so much space in Curiosity's memory for the entire video, so he was cutting out anything that was unnecessary. It must have been a long drive.

The buggy had come to a stop and the cat was getting out of it with the camera drone in tow. Jake watched as the cat went to the back of the buggy and opened a compartment and brought out a large box. He then walked to the top of a dune and set the box down and opened it up. Inside were some computer displays and controls. The cat booted it up and began to tap at the displays. He looked over at a countdown timer on one side of the display and then stepped back and looked up. He pointed up and the smart drone tilted to show Jake what the cat was looking at.

There was an odd bluish-green glow high in the sky that was trying to punch through the thick layers of dust. It began to grow bigger and brighter as they watched. Jake heard an odd sound that was rapidly growing in volume. It sounded to him almost like the buzzing roar of a pulse jet engine he'd once heard being tested. It was a unique and intense sound unlike anything else and it was quickly becoming deafening as the brightness in the sky continued to intensify. After a time the bright glow began to resolve into the shape of an incredibly wide and long, intensely bright, blue-green thrust cone that was coming slowly down towards the surface of Mars as it sliced through the dirty air. Whatever was coming in for a landing was absolutely massive!

The tiger detached something from the box that looked almost like a set of binoculars that had a thick cable attached that was interfaced to the box. He began to scan the landscape off into the distance. It looked as though he was scanning for an appropriate spot to land whatever it was that was coming down.

Jake was in awe as the exhaust cone grew bigger and bigger and brighter and brighter while it continued to come closer. The sound truly became deafening as Jake finally saw a dark shape begin to resolve above the bright cone. Some sort of extremely large space ship was coming in on final approach.

Jake watched in awe as a sort of squared-off upright egg-shaped craft that looked like it was the size of a ten story high apartment building settled slowly down towards the surface to land on an exposed rock area at the top of an escarpment off in the distance. As it got closer and closer to the ground he saw the big cat fiddling with something on the side of his binoculars, then finally he brought them down and entered some values into the controls in the box. Jake saw the massive ship begin to adjust its trajectory slightly while the cat brought the binoculars back up to monitor its progress. He made no further adjustments as the gigantic ship finally reached the ground. Just before it touched down, six massive legs extended around its perimeter and it settled gently down onto them as the bright blue-green rocket plume quickly ramped down and then cut out and things went quiet.

The tiger lowered the binoculars, then turned and grinned at the camera. He put the binoculars away and pulled his tablet out of a large side pocket of his space suit and began to tap at it. He then turned the tablet to the camera and Jake saw alien writing at the top that had been translated into just two English words at the bottom. The words were "atmosphere processor".

The cat put his tablet away and then crouched down at the box and began to tap at several controls and responded to multiple queries that were displayed. Suddenly there were several loud clanking sounds and Jake saw vents and traps opening all up the sides of the massive object. The cat continued to tap at the controls in the box as the gigantic machine came to life and began to make a loud whirring and hissing noise. It was doing something to the Martian atmosphere, but he didn't know what.

Perhaps the assumptions he'd been making about the air the tiger was breathing had been wrong. If they were breathing a mixture of methane and ammonia, then they would have no need of an atmosphere processor since the comets were already adding those gasses to the atmosphere. Perhaps they actually needed something else and they simply used those highly reactive gasses to begin to make something else entirely that they couldn't find in the Kuiper belt. He hoped their ability to communicate would enable him to simply ask the big cat the next time they talked. He was interested to know exactly what the end state of the Martian atmosphere might be. What if they breathed oxygen, just like humans? That would be exciting, especially if their needs were close enough that Jake might be able to some day approach his tiger in person, without any need for a special suit or breathing apparatus. He mentally added that question to the list he was beginning to compile for the tiger to answer.

The sounds coming from the giant machine began to ramp up to a crescendo and Jake could see the dust laden air higher up near the top of the device begin to slowly churn like a vortex. Once the cat seemed satisfied that the machine was functioning correctly, he shut down and closed the control box he'd been using and stowed it back in the buggy, then he got back aboard the vehicle with the drone following closely and began to head back to his base.

Jake was absolutely fascinated to be able to see a day in the life of the cat. He was clearly very busy with his work, just as Jake had surmised. He wondered how many of these atmosphere processors they were going to need. Did the cat have to handle the deployment of all of them? It occurred to him again that in all of the video he'd seen so far from the cat's work day, he hadn't yet seen any sign of any other tigers. Could this one be all alone while he worked the planet? It seemed unlikely. Maybe there were more cats, but they were each out in a separate location alone. It would be a hard, lonely existence. Jake felt bad for the cat and hoped it wasn't that way. There must be others that Jake simply hadn't seen yet even back at the operations base where Curiosity was parked. Why else would they have multiple chairs in the break room and also multiples in the other rooms he'd seen? They even had multiple stalls, urinals and sinks in the bathroom. The base looked as though it was setup for at least a half dozen people to be in any of those rooms at once, so he wasn't sure why he hadn't seen any others. Once again, he made a mental note to ask the tiger that question as soon as he got a chance.

The video cut again and suddenly they were pulling into the hangar and the cat got out of the buggy with the drone following. He looked over at Curiosity again, but the camera was still pointed upward, so there was no Jake at the other end. The tiger walked over to the smaller door of the inner airlock and punched some controls. The large hangar doors immediately began to close while the smaller door to the air lock opened and the cat went through and it closed behind him. Jake heard loud hissing as the room evacuated the Martian air and then filled with air from the base again. Finally the cat undid his space suit and stepped out of it while Jake watched him through the eyes of the camera drone.

The video then proceeded with the cat going through various other parts of his day monitoring processes, reading outputs, adjusting things and responding to alerts while he moved about the base, and Jake watched with great interest. Some of the work looked like it was related to the process of adjusting Mars's atmosphere, but a lot of the work looked like it had something to do with the maintenance of the base itself. He saw the cat futzing with displays and status reports and he would occasionally tap something out on his tablet to explain what was going on for Jake and it seemed to have to do with correcting issues with the climate control of the base, waste management, power, and so on. There were several camera cuts so he didn't have to sit through all of it, but the cat seemed to want to show Jake almost every detail of what went on during his busy day. Maybe it was his way of explaining to Jake why he wasn't always available to work with him. In any case Jake was impressed by the tiger. It almost looked like he was handling the entire terraforming process, even what was going on out at the belts, along with maintaining their entire base and all of the drones and robots, all with no help from anyone else.

At one point the cat was back in the break room and gobbling down another large helping of raw meat. It must be the meal at the end of the work day because, from Jake's estimation, eight to ten hours had already passed.

The video then cut to the cat proceeding down another long hallway again. Jake saw him passing through what looked like some sort of large hydroponics growing operation with all sorts of green plants in it. Jake was surprised to see the plants. He hadn't seen the cat eating any sort of vegetables, so these plants must serve some other purpose. Maybe they were used in part to process and filter the air of the base. Maybe they were food for whatever animals were providing the cat with his raw meat. Maybe they were made into the concentrated sludge he'd seen the cat drinking earlier and provided him with some sort of nutritional supplement he needed. What was most interesting about them, though, was the fact that they were green. He might be wrong, but to Jake, green suggested chlorophyll, which in turn suggested photosynthesis, which ultimately suggested the presence of carbohydrate molecules to store the energy the plants derived from the light. Carbohydrates meant carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. It further suggested the strong possibility that the cats breathed oxygen and gave off carbon dioxide, while the plants took in carbon dioxide, and gave off oxygen. Maybe they really do breathe the same type of air as humans!

The use of at least one of the types of plants was soon revealed to Jake, and he was both shocked and amused. The cat stopped near the back of the room where a few plants had been harvested and were hanging upside down to dry. The tiger checked them over and broke a bit off of one of them. He rubbed it in his paws and it produced what looked a lot like tobacco, but had a more greenish hue like marijuana. The cat proceeded to put a small amount into a pipe he'd picked up off a counter, then he brought it up to his lips. He grabbed another small device off the counter and lit the pipe, then took several hits off of it. Jake chuckled as he watched the cat make a sort of satisfied moaning, growling sound that almost sounded like he was saying, "Ohhh, yeahhh", and then he nodded at the camera a couple of times with a big grin on his face as if to say, "this shit is real good" while he blew out the smoke. He continued to suck at the pipe a few more times until it ran out, then he set it back down on the counter and smiled at the camera again and looked very happy indeed.

Jake was absolutely blown away! It probably shouldn't come as too much of a surprise since so many things the cat had already done were so much like a human would do, but he certainly hadn't expected to see the alien smoke weed! They must have some sort of plant that was the equivalent of marijuana here on Earth! He really wished he could go and hang with the big cat in person now. This tiger was Jake's type of people for sure. They would have so much fun together.

The cat then proceeded on out the back of the greenhouse, through a short hallway, and into another large room that looked like some sort of workshop with several pieces of equipment around its perimeter.

He moved up towards a high work bench with what looked like all sorts of electronic parts strewn around on it. At the center was a very small device held in place by a small vice like tool. There were wires sticking out of it leading to other small devices and diagnostic instruments. It looked almost like the cat was building some sort of electronic prototype, but Jake had no idea what it might do.

The cat tapped at his tablet and turned it towards the camera. The message he'd typed said, "For you. Not ready. For talking," and then he pointed right at the device and winked at the camera.

A device for talking? Jake hoped with all his heart it was some means for them to communicate without needing Curiosity. Maybe it was a translator, or maybe it was some sort of communicator based on the tigers' method of instantaneous communication! That would be amazing! The cat was really full of surprises! How would Jake get his hands on it, though?

The cat then moved over to a big machine. He brought out his tablet and tapped at the screen several times, and then turned it to show Jake what it displayed. He was surprised to see that it was a set of images captured from the videos Jake had sent the tiger in which he'd showed off his cock and balls and then subsequently masturbated. The images were stills of Jake's junk from several angles, zoomed in closely. The cat grinned at the camera with a very slightly baked look in his eyes from the weed he'd smoked, and he raised his eyebrows up and down in rapid succession a few times and then winked. He turned and held his tablet against the control panel of the machine to transfer the data, and then tapped at the controls some more and the machine came to life.

There was a bit of a wait while the machine made a series of whirring sounds and then it emitted a loud beep. The cat opened an access panel on the side and reached in and pulled out the product the machine had been manufacturing. Jake busted out laughing when he saw what it was. It was a dildo that looked exactly like a perfect, life sized representation of Jake's erect penis, complete with his big set of balls at the base. The machine must be some sort of prototyping printer almost like a 3D printer on Earth! It was using the nuance of light and shadow in the images provided by the cat to make a three dimensional representation of what the images contained!

The tiger held up the dildo to the camera, then brought it to his face and gave the tip of it a kiss. He then smiled and winked and turned to exit the room. Jake grinned as he watched the cat going back down the hall towards the greenhouse. He hoped it was the tiger's bed time and he might get to watch the big cat play with his new toy before he went to sleep. He couldn't believe the cat had actually used their sophisticated equipment to make a sex toy based on the likeness of Jake's junk! The things a tiger will do when he's stoned! Jake chuckled as he continued to watch the video. He couldn't wait to see what else the tiger would get up to while in his current state.

The video switched to the cat passing through another door into what looked like a large exercise room. He saw free weights and several machines that looked like treadmills and stationary bikes and weight machines of various types. The cat put the dildo and his tablet down next to a bench, then went and sat down at one of the machines and began his evening workout. This was actually a good thing for the cat to be doing just after smoking the weed and it was probably the reason he'd done it. From Jake's experience, if what the cat had smoked was anything like pot, his workout would benefit from it. Weed actually raises your metabolism, lowers your cholesterol, and speeds fat loss. It helps reduce any distracting anxiety and gets you more revved up for the workout. It helps keep you in the zone, and it actually helps the muscles to recover faster and reduces the soreness that follows a hard workout.

Jake enjoyed watching the muscular cat warm up his muscles and then begin to ramp up the workout. Before long he was throwing huge amounts of weight around as he worked several muscle groups to their absolute limits and beyond. It was obvious how he was maintaining his incredible physical shape. Jake would have had no problem watching the whole workout as he ogled the big tiger's amazing physique, but once again the video suddenly switched to the cat just finishing up the long workout some time later.

He was clearly sweating profusely. He'd been working hard and his muscles bulged and rippled, and much of his fur was matted in various spots from his sweat. Jake could see obvious large wet patches at the insides of the cat's thighs on his shorts where he'd been sweating thoroughly around his balls. At one point the tiger got up and turned around to go and grab something. His tail stuck out through a hole in his shorts at the back. Jake could see that a long stripe up the back of his shorts along the crack between his muscular glutes all the way up to the base of his tail was thoroughly wet with sweat from the hard workout too. Once again Jake found himself wishing he could play with those shorts a bit and see just how great the cat's sweat must smell at those particular spots.

The tiger then turned back around and Jake saw that he'd picked up the dildo he'd made earlier.

The cat grinned wickedly at the camera and winked. He sat down at a weight bench and put the dildo down to the side. He then pulled off his boots again and then his smelly, dirty socks. He held the socks up to the camera and Jake could see they were almost dripping with sweat underneath. The big cat sniffed them again as if to tease Jake, then he dropped them on the floor, stood up, and unceremoniously pulled his shorts off and stepped out of them, then sat back down on the bench.

Jake was in awe of the beautiful creature. The cat's massive cock was rapidly beginning to inflate as he reached down and played with it just a bit while Jake watched. The huge tiger was an incredible sight to behold. He was completely ripped after just having completed his hard workout and he was glowing and sweaty. Jake groaned at his desire to be right there with him to lick absolutely every inch of his sweaty body clean for him. He would spend a great deal of extra time making sure the cat was completely clean at the spaces where his big balls met his thighs, and up his butt crack. He could easily envision himself wearing his tongue out he'd be so fixated on those spots.

The tiger then grinned at the camera and began to play with his own nipples a bit and moaned at the sensation. He then lifted one of his muscular arms and sniffed at his sweaty armpit while he continued to tug and pull at the gold ring on his pierced nipple. Jake was nearly drooling as he watched. He'd always been a bit of a raunchy pig himself, and to see the cat, completely sweaty from a long workout and sniffing at his own armpit, was turning him on big time.

The tiger reached down and swiped a finger up and down a few times in between his ball sack and his muscular thigh, and then brought it up and sniffed at it, and Jake moaned. That was one of his favorite spots on a sweaty guy, especially if they hadn't showered in a while.

The cat then ran a finger up his sweaty crack from the base of his balls up to just below his anus, and once again sniffed at it. Jake couldn't believe how turned on he was getting. His cock ached with it's wish to be satisfied as he watched the dirty cat tease him by enjoying the scents that Jake wanted so badly to sample, but couldn't.

The cat smiled and picked up the dildo and he kissed the tip of it again and then grinned at the camera. He pointed at the dildo, then pointed right at Jake through the drone's camera as if to say, "this is you."

Jake felt his heart rate going up fast as the cat then took a long lick up the length of the underside of the dildo from the balls right to the tip of the head and then turned it to point straight at his face and put his mouth over the tip. He moaned as he pushed the long, thick dildo all the way into his mouth until the balls bumped up against his chin, and then he held it and sucked hard and moaned again as he pulled it slowly back out.

Jake's hands immediately shot down and began to work the button and the zipper on his pants so he could free his rapidly expanding cock. He began to slowly work it as he watched the amazing tiger fellate the latex representation of Jake's straining erection.

The tiger began to work it harder as he moved his mouth back and forth alternately along the top, then the bottom of Jake's cock, then sucked it right back in again. He then lay down on the bench and positioned himself on his side. He continued to use one hand to suck eagerly at Jake's cock, while he reached down behind himself with his other paw and began to finger himself under his tail.

Jake moaned more urgently at the sight of the huge cat playing with himself. He was nearly ready to blow already so he slowed down. He didn't want to pop until the cat did it in the video.

The tiger was getting extremely aroused and his cock had inflated to its full size while he sucked and slurped at the imitation of Jake's cock. The cat then brought up the finger he'd been touching his asshole with and stuck it in his mouth to get it really wet. He reached back and fingered himself some more, then wet his finger even more and reached down again and pushed the spit into his hole. He continued to do this for a while until his asshole was fairly well lubricated with his own spit.

Jake took a deep breath in anticipation of what he thought was about to happen. The cat didn't disappoint. He indicated a spot a bit off to the side towards his feet, and suddenly the drone that was recording the video moved to that position. Jake groaned again loudly as the heavily muscled cat lifted his leg to put his foot on the bench and lifted his tail, completely exposing his inviting hole to the camera. The angle was more from somewhere near the cat's knees and looking up along his body. Jake could clearly see right between the tiger's legs past his big furry balls to his fully exposed anus as he lay on his side with one foot up on the bench with his knee high up. The big tiger grinned down at the camera as he sucked at the fake Jake cock one last time to leave it well coated with his spit, then he brought it down and pushed the tip of it at his asshole.

Jake moaned louder than ever in unison with the cat's moan as the amazingly attractive tiger then grabbed his tail with one big paw and pulled to open his hole while he began to push the dildo up inside of himself with the other paw. Jake really was drooling now as he watched a perfect reproduction of his own cock begin to invade the beautiful, furry, muscular tiger's tight hole.

When the cat finally had it fully inserted he grabbed his cock with his right hand, then reached down between his legs with his left and began to slowly pull Jake's cock from his rectum while he began to jack his own massive tool.

Jake moaned again as he started to work his own cock again while he watched the tiger pretending that Jake was actually fucking him up the ass. He ached to be there with the cat and fill him up for real. He couldn't believe what an amazingly erotic sight it was. The cat was moaning and began to squirm on the bench as he pulled and pushed and the latex version of Jake's cock hammered away at the tiger's rectum faster and faster.

Jake began to moan louder and his breathing became shallow and fast as he watched the cat's paw moving up and down on his own thick cock faster while he reveled in the sensation of Jake's cock invading his hole.

The cat moaned and groaned and then suddenly grunted and roared as a massive surge of spunk shot out of his cock and landed half on his chest and half on the bulging bicep of his left arm as he was reaching down between his legs to play with the dildo.

Jake moaned too and then grunted loudly as he came so hard he hit himself under the chin with the first spurt, and the next landed squarely on his shirt on his chest. He groaned as he continued to work through his intense orgasm while he watched the sweaty, muscular tiger do the same in the video. He was amazed at just how much cum the big cat could produce as the thick, pearly white fluid continued to spurt out in jets and made a mess all over himself in the video.

At long last the cat settled down and so did Jake. He watched as the tiger slowly pulled the Jake dildo from his ass and then set it aside. He sat up on the bench again and smiled and winked at the camera and growled a few words that Jake obviously couldn't understand.

The tiger then reached down for his dirty, sweaty shorts and began to use them to wipe up his cum. Jake could see clean white towels in stacks on a wall right nearby in the gym the cat was in, so he wasn't sure why he bothered to use the smelly, sweaty shorts to wipe up the spunk, but the cat was careful to get every last drop transferred onto the shorts.

He then turned around again and picked something else up. When he turned back Jake saw that he had some sort of cylindrical canister in his paw. He popped the lid off of it and stuffed the dirty shorts inside. He then picked up his dirty socks, still soaking wet with sweat from being cooped up in the boots with the cat's dirty feet through the long work day and then the intense workout. The tiger sniffed them one last time before he stuffed them in the canister as well and then sealed it shut. He put the canister down next to his tablet and then stood up and walked to the back of the room and through an open archway that led to a shower area.

Jake opened his drawer to pull out his Kleenex and began to clean himself up while he enjoyed watching the muscular cat take a long, hot shower. If Jake hadn't just finished cumming he would have likely popped again just at the amazing sight of watching the shapely cat lather himself up thoroughly and then rinse himself off. He was absolutely stunning to behold.

When the tiger emerged from the shower and toweled himself off, he grabbed a clean pair of shorts and socks from a shelf that had several of them and he got dressed and put his boots back on.

He then picked up the canister and put it under his arm and grabbed his tablet, then he walked back out of the gym, his evening workout complete.

The long day was almost over, but the tiger still had one more big surprise in store for Jake. The video cut away again and they were back in the workshop. The cat tapped away at his tablet again and then held it up to the same fabricator he'd used earlier to feed it some new data. After tapping at the controls of the machine some more it began to whir away again. Eventually it finished and the cat reached in and pulled out another dildo. This time Jake saw that it was a perfect representation of the tiger's erect penis. The cat held it up to the drone's camera and then put a paw to the side of his face as his eyebrows went up, his eyes opened wide, and his mouth made an "O" in surprise as if he was shocked by just how big this thing was. Jake laughed out loud again as he watched the cat's antics. The tiger then winked as he brought out the canister he'd put his dirty socks and shorts into. The tiger opened it up and stuffed the large dildo into it and then sealed it shut again while Jake wondered just what the heck the cat was going to do with that interesting collection.

Once again the video cut and the cat was in another room altogether. It almost looked like a much smaller version of the hangar that Curiosity was parked in. There were several odd shaped objects lined up along the floor of it that looked to be maybe two to three feet tall. They were sort of egg shaped like very miniature versions of the atmosphere processor the cat had shown him earlier. Jake saw that they looked a lot like the drones he'd seen flitting around the Kuiper belt earlier in the day. The tiger approached one and crouched down. He pulled out his tablet and began to tap away at it and the object seemed to come to life with a few status lights, and then suddenly a side panel opened up. The cat brought out the canister with the collection of dirty socks and shorts and the dildo in it, and he placed it inside the compartment in the side of the drone and then tapped at his tablet some more. Finally the panel closed shut, sealing the canister inside the pod-like device.

The cat then turned and walked out of the room and closed the door. He tapped at some controls on a display beside the door and Jake heard a faint hissing sound like the room on the other side of the door was decompressing.

The cat smiled at the camera, then turned and pointed up through the window of the door that looked through into the other room. The drone dutifully moved closer to the window and angled itself up so Jake could watch what was going on. The ceiling of the room was opening up to reveal the Martian sky so this small hangar must actually be on the roof of the base. The cat then pointed back down and the drone aimed itself down to look at the collection of pods on the floor in the other room. The one that had lit up was beginning to show more activity now as it came to life. Quite suddenly a small blue exhaust cone came out beneath it and the pod began to lift up off the ground. As it got higher in the air the cone grew brighter and longer and the pod quickly accelerated upward faster and faster. The drone angled its camera up to track the pod as it lifted off, but in just moments it became a streak as it shot up into the sky at an incredible rate and vanished from sight.

The big cat then tapped at the controls beside the door to close the ceiling in the next room and fill it with air again, then he turned and smiled at the camera. He tapped at his tablet several times and then held it up to the drone's camera. It now had what looked like a live feed from the back of the small pod that had just been launched. Jake could already see Mars steadily shrinking as the drone continued to accelerate hard. He was astonished at how far the bright blue-green thrust cone stretched out behind the pod. The small, lightweight device seemed to be producing enough thrust to lift a fully loaded Saturn V rocket. It was so low mass that all of that crazy thrust was accelerating it at an astonishing rate. There was another live feed next to that that must be from a camera at the front of the pod. It was mostly empty space in that feed, but Jake thought he saw a small blue dot near the center. Could that be the Earth? Had the cat launched the pod towards Earth? Beneath the two live video feeds was a sort of count down in alien digits that seemed to be rolling down very fast.

The cat pulled back his tablet and began to tap at it again. He then held it back up to the camera and Jake's heart jumped at what it showed. At the top was another aerial image of the JPL grounds in great detail just like the one he'd seen before when he'd sat on the bench and waved up at the cat. This image showed more towards the back of the building. There was a dense growth of trees in one secluded part of the grounds and the cat had circled a small clearing there. Underneath that image was the emoji equation that Jake had sent the cat during their last session where he'd drawn the Jake emoji followed by a heart followed by a sock giving off fumes. Below that the cat had written a few words in alien that had been translated to English. The message said simply, "Gift for you. Two days."

Jake was gobsmacked! Did the cat just launch his dirty socks and shorts along with a perfect replica of his own penis across the wide gap of space for Jake to collect back here on Earth? If that was the case, he was immediately much more deeply in love with the magnificent cat than he'd already been! It was the best gift he could possibly ever receive! This cat was clearly crazy and impulsive in a way that Jake absolutely loved! He was using all of their advanced alien technology just to send his smelly socks to Jake! He wondered what the tiger's people would think if they knew what he was up to, and then he smiled as he thought of what his own government would think of this. The cat was obviously a sweetheart and had taken note when Jake had told him he loved smelly socks, and had decided to do something about it to make Jake happy!

He wanted to rush out to the wooded copse immediately to collect his prize, but he realized since the video said two days and was likely made yesterday, the gift wouldn't arrive until tomorrow. He'd have to try to find out from the cat exactly when the drone might arrive. He didn't want anyone else seeing it and getting at its contents before he could. Hopefully the cat had planned for it to arrive in the middle of the night when nobody would be around so Jake could sneak in and grab it, then rush home with his dirty prize.

He was amazed to think the tiny craft could travel that incredible distance in just two days. It took more than half a year for Curiosity to go from Earth to Mars, though it wasn't accelerating hard the whole time and it certainly weighed thousands of times more than the tiny pod. He remembered reading articles that proposed using antimatter produced in particle accelerators to fuel future trips to Mars. They suggested that antimatter as an energy source was so incredibly dense that just ten milligrams was all it would take to propel a human mission to Mars in just over a month. That would include humans and living quarters and food and water and all sorts of equipment that would weigh hundreds of tons in total. He supposed given the pod's negligent weight combined with its amazing acceleration, if it kept the thrust going steady the whole time, it was conceivable that it could cross the gap in just a couple of days easily, but that didn't make it any less amazing. Maybe the cats had discovered an efficient way to generate and store antimatter and that was what they were using for fuel. If that was the case the tiny craft could accelerate the entire time, turning around when it got half way to start slowing down so it wouldn't smack into the Earth at over a million miles per hour, and still have enough fuel at the end to make the same trip dozens more times.

The cat was busy tapping away at his tablet again and when he turned it back to the camera there was another message on it that said, "Do not wash. Send yours back." Underneath that message was the cat emoji followed by a heart, followed by the same sock with fumes that Jake had drawn.

Jake's eyebrows went up. Was the tiger telling him to keep his socks and underwear dirty and send them back in the canister when he got the cat's? It certainly made sense if the cat was as into it as he seemed to be. He was in luck, too. Jake had been so excited by their last major breakthrough that ended with them masturbating two days ago that he hadn't even bothered to shower or change since then. Though he'd come to work clean that day, over the last two days he would go home to sleep, then rush back to work, and he'd sort of forgotten that minor detail called hygiene. Since he'd been riding his bike both ways he'd been sweating a fair bit. If he didn't change his socks again after tonight, they'd be quite rich by tomorrow. Normally Jake showered and changed every day, but lately he'd been quite distracted. He wondered if the cat was ready for that much Jake. He decided he may as well let him have it with both barrels since that was what the big cat seemed to want.

The video he was watching suddenly cut away again and the cat was back in his bedroom at the end of the long, busy day and was once more unlacing his boots and getting undressed as he sat on the edge of his bed.

He settled onto his bed, and brought up his tablet and began to tap at it. Suddenly, Jake heard music in the cat's room as the lights dimmed a bit. He couldn't believe his ears at first, but it was an Earth radio station! The cat was listening to an alternative music station from right here in Pasadena! Jake smiled as he heard the familiar voice of the DJ say "It's coming up on eleven PM in the City of Roses right now, and its just about time for all you kiddies to put your little heads down on your little pillows. Here's one to help send you off to slumber land..." and then he heard Judah & the Lion's "Take It All Back" begin to play.

The tiger must have triangulated on the strongest radio signal that was emanating nearest Jake's location after he'd found out exactly where Jake was located on Earth so he could hear the same sounds of the human culture that Jake might be listening to.

The cat got a wistful and somewhat sad look on his face as he looked into the camera for a few moments, then he tapped at his tablet some more and turned it to the camera and it said, "Have been so lonely. You have changed that. Thank you. Goodnight."

He tapped at the tablet a few more times and he smiled at it and kissed it. He then turned it to the camera and Jake's heart warmed as he saw it was displaying the first image of himself he'd sent to the cat. The same one that had gotten such a seemingly negative reaction the first time. Now the cat seemed to love it. Jake looked forward to talking with the tiger and hoped to get some explanation as to what had happened there and why he'd been upset.

Throughout the whole video Jake had seen no sign of any other cats. Was his tiger really all alone out there? Was that why he seemed to suddenly become so attached to Jake so quickly? Was that why he had such a look of longing when he looked into the camera? If so, then where were all of his people? Now that Jake thought more about it he realized they wouldn't all be able to arrive at once. They had no habitable planet to support their numbers yet. They might all be in some sort of stasis and still slowly making their way through space from their home world and not scheduled to arrive until the time was right and everything was ready for them. That would explain why there had been no attempt yet by the aliens to contact the human race in any diplomatic way. They hadn't really arrived here yet.

It must have been the job of the planetary engineers to come first and get everything ready, but again, if that was the case, where were the rest of the engineers then? Surely they wouldn't send just one tiger to take on such a huge responsibility. What if something happened to him and he couldn't fulfill his task? The population would perish when they arrived and had nowhere to live and no air to breathe.

They needed more than just breathable air, too. They needed a complete food chain starting with lowly bacteria through all the types of plants and animals that would feed the herds of whatever animals the tigers needed for food before the population could be fully supported. It might be years before any more of his people would arrive since it would take at least that long to establish the planet as fully habitable.

His heart ached with feeling for the big cat. It must be painfully lonely out there for him. This video would have been recorded last night, but likely this was now how the cat was ending every night.

It was heartbreaking to Jake to think of the magnificent tiger way out there on Mars and completely isolated. He was the only living being on a desolate planet, lying in the dark and listening to the strains of music coming from an alien world in an effort to stay connected to anyone else and to hear the sounds of life and the voices of people, even if they weren't his own people. He must have been traveling through space for decades or more and at last, the colossal undertaking of engineering an entire planet was finally beginning to come to fruition, yet he was doing it all himself with nobody to cheer him on or pick him up when he's down. His desperate loneliness must sometimes make him wonder if it was all worth it. Even the lyrics of the song he was listening to at that moment seemed fitting and particularly poignant given the cat's situation. "Feel I'm well on my way to my dreams coming true...but I'd take it all back just to have you."

He wished he could be there with the tiger right now and let him know someone was thinking of him warmly and wanted him very badly. Jake wanted to be the one to cheer him on, and to pick him up when he's down. He wanted the big cat to never feel lonely again. He wished he could somehow share the tiger's load so he wouldn't have to bear it all himself. He wanted the tiger to know that he felt that way.

In the video, the cat put the tablet on the nightstand and he curled up on the bed and growled something that caused the lights to dim completely and the video to fade out, and it ended.

Jake couldn't believe what an amazing video it was. He had been absolutely captivated by it. He'd got a sneak peak at a full day in the intensely appealing tiger's life and it had been fascinating. He felt incredibly grateful to the cat for sharing it.

His heart swelled with love for the big cat. Despite all the pressure he was under to get his job done, the tiger had gone to a lot of trouble to give Jake a tour of his operations and it showed that he'd been thinking of Jake all day, and he'd even sent off a terrific gift for him at the end of it all! The cat was lulling himself to sleep with thoughts of Jake and with the sound of a local radio station playing, likely to form a sort of tenuous, constant connection to Jake's world across the wide gulf of space while he drifted off.

In a sense Jake was the only living person in the cat's life right now. He resolved to do everything and anything in his power to make the tiger feel less alone. He intended to let him know in no uncertain terms that Jake was thinking about him always. He couldn't believe his luck at being the only human currently on the big cat's radar.

He couldn't wait to collect his gift tomorrow. His head already began to fill with thoughts of how much he was going to enjoy the contents of that canister.

With a big grin he shut down his laptop, closed up his office, and went out to ride his bike back home.