Split Purrsonalities

Herc Tom hasn’t been treated like much of a champion lately. Ever since returning from his latest escapades on Baast he’s been kept under house arrest. It doesn’t seem fair. He didn’t ask to be brainwashed by the evil Doctor Inga Quin, and besides – that’s all been cleaned out of his mind. And it’s not his fault that she made a homicidal clone of him. After all, he foiled the clone’s attempted assassination of both Ramses’ Emperor Octavio and Baast’s Supreme Leader Pang, didn’t he? Despite his heroics, he’s stuck at home, getting fat and unhappy, eager to get back to being the premier Champion of the Empire that he’s always been.
He finally has his chance. Pang and the enigmatic Colonel Tulin are coming to Ramses for a state visit, and they want Herc to be their host. Pang he could care less about, but the thought of Tulin has him purring. Maybe that brainwashing isn’t quite out of his system.
“Split Purrsonalities" is a speculative fiction novelette, the 12th of the “Herc Tom, Champion of the Empire" stories.