At the Aer Lingus counter, Cliff presented his items for check-in. The attendant ran through the checklist.

"Did you pack this suitcase yourself, sir?"

"I did, yes."

"Did you leave it unattended at any time?"

"No, I did not."

"And what would that be leaking out of your suitcase, sir?"

Cliff looked down at his bag and his heart froze. A little river of sand dribbled out of it, leaving a trail all the way to the revolving doorway. The attendant asked him to pick up the suitcase and put it on the counter to open it up. Cliff had no idea what would be inside, since he did not actually have anything to do with the packing. He assumed it would just be change of clothes and a toothbrush. But that was not what they saw.

The suitcase contained: a bag of kitty litter which was the substance leaking out; a small potted plant from the bedroom; a raw steak and bottle of horseradish; refrigerator magnets, the bathroom rug, rolled up; dishwashing detergent and numerous scrubbing implements; an unusual assortment of hats; and a necktie. What did the other 13 bags contain?

"Are you sure you packed this, sir?" interrogated the attendant.

"I... er... my children were playing around and must have put that stuff in there. I'm sorry..."

She looked at him with something between concern and pity. Without saying another word, she confiscated the steak, closed up the suitcase and checked it in. While she was moving the bags, Cliff whispered into the carrier with the cat.

"Why did you put a potted plant in my suitcase?"

Bismarck yawned. "It wasn't me, it was one of the other cats. I suppose I should have supervised, but I was distracted. Sorry about that."

"Oh, so I have 'team 4' to thank? You know I could have been arrested for carrying weird stuff in my suitcases. I'm just lucky you didn't pack any knives."

"Clifford, not all cats live with humans; some of us know nothing of your strange habits. There are bound to be some mistakes. But don't worry -- I'll take good care of you."

Cliff sighed. "Thanks. I'm sure you will."

He looked around and saw that people had been watching him argue with his cat carrier.

"Oh, and one other thing, Clifford. You don't need to speak out loud. We hear your thoughts just like you hear ours."

"You waited this long to tell me that?" Cliff thought angrily.

"It entertained us," shrugged the bird.

"Let me just check your reservation, sir." The attendant clicked in her keyboard. "Oh my goodness, is this right? Yes it is! You are in Supreme Elite class."

"What's that?"

"Well, er, I'm not allowed to tell you. But you can board immediately."

Cliff started to walk toward the entrance ramp.

"Er, no, sir. Supreme Elite class has its own entrance way. Show your ticket to the gentlemen over there and they will help you board."

He approached a pair of surly-looking security guards by a door marked "NO ENTRY". They watched him contemptuously as if he were covered from head to foot in manure. Cliff presented the ticket stub with its characteristic gold foil edge and green and pink stripes. The elder, thinner of the two, whose nameplate read "Goldstein" took the ticket and stared at it closely. His eyes opened wide and he elbowed his hefty partner in the ribs. Andrews, as his badge identified him, saw the ticket and straightened up quickly. Together, they saluted. Cliff waited a moment for them to stop saluting, but they stared ahead, unwavering.

"Uh, what's going on?" He asked.

Having been addressed verbally, the guards could now relax. Andrews took the cages and carry-on luggage and placed it into a pram. Goldstein hissed at him to be careful and to move more quickly. Then he turned to Cliff and held out his frail arms in invitation.

"What are you doing?" Cliff asked.

"Do you need to be carried, sir?"

"I can walk by myself, thanks."

"Excellent, sir! I am very pleased to see you hale and hardy. Now, kindly follow us and watch your step as we board the plane. If you or your wardens need anything, anything at all, just ask. Frosty beer, liver pate, millet seeds, you name it."

Once through the doorway, Twake demanded, "let us out now. The humiliating ruse is no longer necessary." He flew out the door and alit on Cliff's shoulder, promptly relieving himself on the shirt. "You will want to launder that soon."

Bizmarck emerged from her carrier more gracefully and padded along the hallway beside Cliff. The narrow hallway began to turn to the right. It spiralled upward for a full revolution before straightening out again. At this point, Cliff noted the floor sounded hollow.

"Are we walking on top of the main entrance ramp?"

"Absolutely correct, sir. The ordinary entrance way is below us. Rest assured, you will not have to mix with common people for the duration of your journey. May I be so impertinent to ask if this your first time flying Supreme Elite?"

"I have never in my life heard of this before. Is this something new?"

"Oh my, no. Since the days when we humans were allowed to fly, this has been in place. Now, I will have to ask you sir to lie prone and wriggle through the entrance way."

Cliff looked down and was shocked to see the curved aluminum shell at the top of the airplane at his feet, and a tiny open hatch connected to the hallway floor. It was not more than twenty inches high and slightly wider from side to side.

"I have to crawl through that?"

"Wriggle, sir."

Twake was on his back, rolling with laughter.

Bizmarck explained: "This is the upper deck of the airplane, Clifford. It was built for cats and birds. Occasionally human servants are permitted to accompany us, but they were not a consideration in the design."

"Well, perhaps I could just fly in business or coach class instead?"

"I do not think so. Your presence is required for training en route, since we will have little time later."

"In there?" He crouched down to peer inside. "You can't be serious?"

"It is a little higher in the middle," said Bizmarck. "You might be able to sit up there."

Cliff sighed and got down on his belly to slither into the Supreme Elite class cabin.

"I'm sorry, miss, but there are simply no more seats left on that flight. But if you wait until tomorrow morning—"

The attendant was grouchy for so many reasons. Not only was she terribly sleep-deprived, but this happened to be the night that all the crazy customers were descending on her. The fantasy role playing guy who wanted to bring his ceremonial dagger on board, the lady with four oversized carry-on items, that creepy guy who talked to his animals, and now this ranting crazy woman.

"No, it has to be this one," Noella pleaded. "Come on, I'll sit in the aisle or something. I'll wash dishes."

"It's overbooked as it is. We've had to bump two passengers already. My hands are tied."

Noella looked around then beckoned the attendant close. "I will pay you five hundred dollars." She waggled the rubberband-clad wad of bills.

"Ma'am, even if I wanted to, I can't because the computer system won't let me. If you'd gotten here earlier, you could have bought a seat from one of the passengers, but they've boarded already and the plane is due to depart in ten minutes."

Noella scowled at the lady and walked away.

This was too important. The lead of a lifetime was getting away. What could she do? She got out her phone and tapped in a rarely-used number.

After three rings, a male voice with a new york accent answered, "y-y-yellow!"

"Barry! It's Noella. I'm in a jam. I got a lead on the snake city but he's on a plane and they're all booked. I can't get on for love or money. What do I do?"

"Noella, my girl, how ya doing? It's been so long. We gotta catch up..."

"Not much time. Plane leaves in 8 minutes."

"Okay, here's what you do. Go down to baggage handling and show them your LIMOS badge..."

Despite the low ceiling in supra-class, Cliff thought it was quite lovely inside. The plaster ceiling was painted with bright murals of clouds and heavenly bodies, while the floor was carpeted with handwoven woolen tapestry with ornate floral pattern. Little booths lined the aisle, each with a set of facing benches covered in velvet cushions and hardwood perches, integrated entertainment centers, dangling toys for cats and mirrors for birds. The cabin was only sparsely populated with a couple of siamese cats and small flock of quaker parrots.

Cliff managed to close his gaping his mouth and ask, "do all planes have this upper cabin?"

"Yes," said Bizmarck, "all passenger aircraft. Here, we don't have to be on our guard from humans catching us reading the newspaper or ordering dim sum. Most houses also have a secret lounge where 'pets' as you call them can retreat for some privacy."

"Really? But where do--"

"Enough banter!" said Twake, now situated on a perch across from Bizmarck's couch. "It is time for training. In your shirt pocket you will find two items. Take them out now."

Cliff removed a pair of small medallions. He held one up. "What is this?"

"That is the Avian Seal," said Twake. "DO NOT LOSE IT. It will prove that you are working for us. When you're in the Snakes' den, it just might save your life."

"I need a magnifying glass to appreciate this," Cliff mumbled in amazement, peering very closely with squinting eyes. A small constellation of holograms hovered over it.

"And the other item is the Feline Seal. You could lose the Avian Seal, but do not lose this one."

"Pfa. Yours doesn't have holograms."

"Ours has a dynamic magnetic pattern that will move iron filings around in a miniature-animation."

"Is yours made of platinum, inlaid with rosewood and ivory?"

"No, ours is depleted uranium with electron-deposited gold circuitry."

The bird harumphed and looked away.

"The journey to Galway will take five and one half hours," said Bismarck. "In that time, you must study these materials." She pressed a button in a console and spoke into a microphone. "Bring the documents."

A cat galloped down the aisle with a bag in its mouth, left the bag on the floor in front of Cliff and then walked away. Opening the bag, he found a handful of small booklets inside.

"These are cat-style tomes," said Bismarck. "Few humans have ever seen one."

They were made of some raspy, hardened fabric. Cliff ran his fingers over them. He drew his hand back suddenly.

"What's the matter, Clifford?"

"I - I understood it."

Bismarck's eyes crinkled with amusement. "Surprised? The grooves and scratches encode our speech the way your ink on paper does. You understand it because it is in your DNA. The so-called 'junk' DNA contains much esoteric knowledge from your mammal heritage, including how to read Feline. And you will find it is even faster than reading print."

Cliff laughed in amazement as he stroked the pages and images poured directly into his mind without effort. The book he was holding was The Rules of Serpentine Etiquette. Though Feline scratch-imprinting was more dense than print and one page held as much as 20 pages of a human book, it was still quite a considerable tome. There was a chapter devoted to the hundreds of ways to compliment a snake. And another with the twenty-one preferred greeting styles. Making a mistake in protocol was likely to result in a quick and painful end. Cliff tried to absorb it, but found himself getting very bored, so he switched to another tome.

The Reptillian Culture Handbook was not much better. He struggled to understand the dense history of painting, dance, sculpture, poetry, needlework, combined dancing and painting, poetic sculpture, dance-and-needlework, and painted sculpture. If he couldn't understand human modern art there was no way he could understand anything made by snakes. He set the book aside.

Gruntlebin's Exhaustive 10 Millenium History of the Snakes made the previous books seem like the blurbs on cereal boxes. He crawled through the descriptions of the Snakes' eighteen great wars, many of which were all fought passive-aggressively through long bouts of pouting and posing. The rest were just back-and-forth literary criticism. The battle of Skiss, for example, was waged through poetry in iambic pentameter, and resulted in severe depression for thousands of Snakes.

After a couple hours of this, Cliff was more knowledgeable of snake lore than any human in history. He wished he weren't.

"Oh god. That was so..."

"Boring?" nodded the cat. "You are lucky these were the abridged editions."

"Maybe I'm not the one who should be doing this. Surely you could find some artist or diplomat..."

"No, it has to be you. Trust me on this. You fit the profile."

"Meaning," said Twake who spread his wings to stretch out, "that you are unimportant enough to be sent at short notice. Any truly talented human would be missed by her peers, which requires an expensive cover-up."

"For the last time," Bismarck hissed, "stop minimizing the candidate! This human has talents too. His negotiation skill, his ability to handle stress. Do you think we would hand this mission over to just anybody?"

"Bah, you are an idiot. What do you know?"

Bismarck's fur bristled and eyes locked on the bird. Cliff sensed she was preparing to leap onto him.

"Uh... so, tell me about these ants. What's up with them? I mean, the only reason you want to get back in good graces with the Snakes is because of the ant problem, right? Give me a little more context."

"The Fable," said Twake. "Is that included in the reading materials?"

"Mrowr, yes. Clifford, pick up that blue-tinted book there."

"Ah, a short one!" Cliff smiled. His ploy worked; another crisis averted.

"It will explain to you the real problem with which we are faced: The Fable of the Ants."

So Cliff opened the book, ran his fingertips over the scratches, and could not stop until he was finished.

"You want three thousand dollars to get me on that plane?" Noella was almost in tears she was so angry. This was the money she had scrimped for years to go to Mexico and bribe officials to help her find her brother.

"It's my ass on the line," said Hank the baggage handler. He was a short, greasy man with a irritating tendency to jangle his heavy keychain. "Anyone finds we're smuggling people in the luggage compartment, it's my job. Call it a bribe if you want. I call it risk mitigation. Of course, if you don't have the money, we can arrange something else."

"Like?" Noella bent in close, radiating waves of ire through her eyes.

Hank looked away uncomfortably. "I'm just saying, it's a risk, you know? Nowadays, airport security is really tight. Really tight."

Noella extracted her roll of saved-up money from a pocket and started peeling off Benjamins. She put all ten of them in his dirty hand and struck an impatient pose.

"All right," said Hank. "Let me show you to our deluxe accomodations. It ain't business class, but it's not too shabby either."

She rode with him in the baggage trolly across the tarmac, right up to the bottom of the plane. They walked up a narrow ramp into the dark, low-ceilinged cargo deck.

"Here we go. Your own seat with nobody to bother you. I'll skip the seatbelt lecture as there aren't any."

"Hank," Noella said. "This is a crate. Full of pillows."

"That's right. Doesn't get more comfortable than that."

"You expect me to ride across the Atlantic inside a box."

"Well, you can keep the lid off. And if you get bored, there's a copy of Oprah Magazine in there. Bathing suit issue, I think."

Noella sighed. "So, let me get this straight, you always have a crate full of pillows ready in a plane for a situation like mine?"

"Nah, not always. We were going to smuggle an embezzling CFO out of the country. The Feds found him in the airport though. So you know, it's kind of good luck you got here when you did."

"Well, there better be a damn good meal on this flight."

"Sure is! There's a box of cheese crackers and a bottle of Moxie soda. What more could you want?"