Treecat Wars

Treecat Wars - eARC

A Star Kingdom Novel

DAVID WEBER

&

JANE LINDSKOLD

Advance Reader Copy

Unproofed

IN THIS SERIES BY DAVID WEBER

THE STAR KINGDOM:

A Beautiful Friendship

Fire Season (with Jane Lindskold)

Treecat Wars (with Jane Lindskold)

HONOR HARRINGTON:

On Basilisk Station

The Honor of the Queen

The Short Victorious War

Field of Dishonor

Flag in Exile

Honor Among Enemies

In Enemy Hands

Echoes of Honor

Ashes of Victory

War of Honor

At All Costs

Mission of Honor

Crown of Slaves (with Eric Flint)

Torch of Freedom (with Eric Flint)

The Shadow of Saganami

Storm from the Shadows

A Rising Thunder

Shadow of Freedom

EDITED BY DAVID WEBER:

More than Honor

Worlds of Honor

Changes of Worlds

In the Service of the Sword

In Fire Forged

Beginnings

For a complete listing of Baen titles by David Weber, please go to www.baen.com.

TREECAT WARS

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Words of Weber, Inc. & Obsidian Tiger, Inc.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN 13: 978-1-4516-3933-9

Cover art by Daniel Dos Santos

First printing, October 2013

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: t/k

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Chapter One

“You want to send us to Manticore?”

Despite her best effort at adult composure, Stephanie Harrington’s voice rose in pleased astonishment. Beside her, she heard her good friend Karl Zivonik swallow a chuckle. Even Lionheart, the treecat, perched on the edge of Chief Ranger Shelton’s desk emitted a small “bleek” of amusement.

Only the Chief Ranger himself did not seem to notice the enthusiasm with which Stephanie had met his proposal. He continued his explanation without pause.

“That’s right. Two slots have opened up unexpectedly in a special accelerated training program for Forestry Service personnel on Manticore. The Sphinx Forestry Service has regularly sent its full-time members to the course. This year, given that we’re facing the aftermath of such an exceptionally bad fire season, I can’t spare any of my rangers. However, I can—just barely—spare my two provisional rangers.”

“Me and Stephanie,” Karl said, only the fact that he needed to make this unnecessary clarification showing how excited he was.

“You and Stephanie.” Chief Ranger Shelton motioned toward two chairs. “Sit down. Before you accept, I need to explain to you just what you’re getting into.”

The young people sat, although Stephanie had to fight back an impulse to perch on the edge of her chair. Lionheart made sitting back easier for her by flowing gracefully from the desk onto her lap. At around 140 centimeters, Stephanie was relatively small for her fifteen and a half years, petite, rather than just short. Holding Lionheart’s sixty-five centimeters took all of her lap and then some. Somehow, though the treecat’s face was gray tabby-striped and his eyes green, while the girl’s short hair and eyes were both brown there was something similar about the pair.

Karl, Stephanie’s senior by two and a half years, seemed to have no trouble keeping his composure, but then in many ways Karl was old beyond his years. Stephanie knew tragedy had shadowed his first real romance, a loss he had apparently gotten beyond but never over. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, already 185 centimeters tall, with a strong boned frame, Karl at eighteen was very much a young man.

Chief Ranger Shelton studied them thoughtfully for a moment before continuing. “I’m going to admit right off that there was some protest when I suggested we send you two to Manticore. The provisional ranger rank is new enough that some people still don’t accept it as real. Moreover, Stephanie in particular is quite young for the program.”

Stephanie swallowed an automatic protest. Chief Ranger Shelton knew better than most how much Stephanie was capable of doing. Indeed, he’d created the rank of provisional ranger as a way to acknowledge those achievements. She just had to trust that he was on her side.

A gentle mental “nudge” from Lionheart brought Stephanie out of her thoughts. She still wasn’t quite sure how Lionheart influenced her moods, but if there was one thing she was sure about regarding treecats it was that they were both telempathic and telepathic. Of course, the fact the treecats were telepathic was a closely guarded secret and would remain so until they’d been acknowledged as a fully sentient species with the rights and protections granted to such by law. For now, it was enough for Stephanie to know that what most people saw as a sort of long-bodied, long-tailed, furry, six-legged weasel-cat was as much a person as she was—and the sort of person who wasn’t above reminding her to pay attention, even if he used rather unconventional methods.

“You, Karl,” Chief Ranger Shelton was saying, “are a legal adult. Based on your achievements as a provisional ranger, if I’d wanted to push the matter, I could have promoted you to assistant ranger and avoided the entire question of eligibility. You, Stephanie, have shown by your actions that you’re not only competent but completely devoted to the well-being of our forests and their inhabitants. Let’s leave it at that, after considerable debate, I’ve garnered permission for you to attend the course if you choose.”

Stephanie wanted to say “I choose! I choose!” but she restrained herself to murmuring a polite, “Thank you, sir.”

In any case, something uncomfortable was niggling at the back of her thoughts, something that was making her wonder if she really did want to take up Chief Ranger Shelton’s offer. She shoved the doubt away and concentrated on listening.

“The course is geared to teach you about more than just forestry. At least as applied to Sphinx, you could learn plenty about forestry right here—and in some instances, probably teach. Sadly, though, being a member of the SFS on Sphinx includes a lot more than simply caring for plants and animals. Because Sphinx has so much undeveloped land and so few people, we also have fewer police forces compared to Manticore. That means the law enforcement aspects of a ranger’s duty are at least as important as firefighting, search and rescue, and protecting the environment. That’s why part of what you’ll be learning will be law enforcement technology, forensic techniques, basic legal theory and content, and how to handle civilian relations.

“All of this is on top of taking tests to show your competency in basic, practical forestry knowledge. Since you, Karl, have spent your entire life in a single biosphere—here on Sphinx—you can expect some individual studies designed to plug the gaps in your knowledge base. Stephanie, I know you spent your first ten or so years on Meyerdahl, but don’t be surprised if your instructors come up with individual studies for you, too. If there’s one thing I’ve learned during my years in forestry service, it’s that you can’t know too much.”

The coursework did sound intense, but Stephanie had been at the top of her class for as long as she could remember. Some of her grades had slipped a little when she joined the SFS, but her parents weren’t the sort to complain about a few percentage points—especially when it was evident to the meanest intelligence what career path Stephanie planned to follow. Thinking of her parents reminded her….

“Chief Shelton, you mentioned I’m still a minor. Have you spoken with my parents yet?”

Chief Shelton’s lips shaped what, on anyone other than his dignified self, Stephanie would have thought a mischievous grin. “I have not. Consider convincing them you should take part in the program the first proof that you’re old enough to do so. They may, of course, contact me for details.”

Karl cleared his throat nervously.

“Chief Shelton, there’s the question of tuition. I have a bunch of brothers and sisters. Our family has a lot of land, but I’m not sure my parents could come up with interplanetary tickets and living expenses, especially on short notice. Even with my job with the SFS, I’ve been helping out at home, too, but I think they can work around that.”

“Tuition’s one thing you don’t need to worry about,” Chief Ranger Shelton assured him. “If you go, you’ll be going as a member of the SFS. Other than money for personal indulgences, we’ll be covering all the bills.”

“Thank you, sir!”

Stephanie thought of another complication.

“Chief Shelton, what about Lionheart? I can’t leave him. It’s not that I won’t; I can’t.”

She hoped the Chief Ranger understood. She suspected he did. Not everyone knew about the Stray and the lengths that ’cat had gone to avenge his murdered human partner, but, even with only the evidence of the few bonded human/treecat pairs that existed, it was apparent that being separated overly long caused a great deal of distress for both human and ’cat. They could be apart for days at a time but, as Stephanie had explained it to her parents, after a while she felt anxious, like one of her senses had been dampened or even cut off.

She’d talked about this negative aspect of being part of a partnership with a treecat with her friend Jessica Pheriss, the most recent adoptee. Despite the fact that she and her Valiant had only been together for about six months, Jessica felt the same way. Now just thinking about leaving Lionheart behind on Sphinx while she went to another planet made Stephanie feel prickly. Her palms grew damp, and she surreptitiously wiped them on the legs of her trousers.

“I’ve already considered the problem of Lionheart,” Chief Ranger Shelton assured her. “Dr. Hobbard was a great deal of help in convincing the appropriate authorities that it would be beneficial if Lionheart went with you. So if you choose to go to Manticore, Lionheart may travel with you.”

“Thank you!” Stephanie let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

“You’re certain to find that there will be many places on Manticore where Lionheart won’t be permitted to go, however,” the Chief Ranger cautioned her. “Here on Sphinx, particularly near Twin Forks where both you and Jessica live, the tendency has been to let the treecats into whatever facilities their humans use. I already know the instructors for most of the courses you’ll be taking won’t wish Lionheart to be present. He’d be a distraction, you realize.”

Stephanie did realize. Even in Twin Forks, Lionheart continued to attract attention. Not only were treecats a relatively new discovery—Stephanie had “discovered” them when she had been only eleven—but with their thick, silky fur, enormous green eyes, and prick-eared heads, they were undeniably cute as well.

Cute, that is, Stephanie thought, until you learn how sharp their claws are and how good they are at using them. Then, I think, except for the dimmest of the dim, respect just has to temper the “cute.”

Even with modern technology, treecats were almost impossible to locate in the wild and, despite some pressure in that direction, none were on display in the zoos where people could see other Sphinxian creatures like hexapumas and peak bears.

Chief Ranger Shelton was continuing. “You may think that the more high-profile achievements each of you has racked up over these last few years are the reason I was finally able to convince my associates to permit you to to represent the SFS in this year’s training course. Certainly, it didn’t hurt that you both showed initiative and bravery during the recent wildfires. Moreover, it can’t be overlooked that Stephanie—and you, Karl—are among the most knowledgeable when it comes to the treecats. However, in the end, none of those things tipped the balance. Can you guess what did?”

Stephanie shook her head, but Karl said slowly, “If it isn’t the high-profile stuff, then it must be the rest, right? The time we put in as provisional rangers?”

Chief Shelton nodded emphatically. “That’s it. Your demonstrated willingness to do the non-glamorous and routine patrols that are part of a ranger’s daily job is what convinced the worst of the doubters. Stephanie, in particular, has a bit of a reputation for impulsive behavior.”

He paused, but Stephanie didn’t protest. She supposed some might see her as impulsive, but she preferred to think of what she did as taking necessary initiative. Chief Shelton gave her a sideways smile and continued.

“However, our computer logs don’t lie, and they show how faithfully you’ve done your shifts—even when those shifts have consisted of nothing more romantic and exciting than covering headquarters so someone with more experience or a wider range of skills could go out into the field. Remember that when you—if you—get to Manticore.

“I’m forwarding all the necessary information to your uni-links so you’ll be able to show it to your parents. I’m afraid I’m going to need to ask for a decision fairly quickly. Time was wasted while we went through our rosters looking to see who we could spare. Then more time was wasted while we convinced various people at various levels that our provisional rangers would fit the bill. Can you give me an answer within a week? We can stretch to ten days, but a week would be better. The class starts in two weeks.”

“A week?” Karl seemed momentarily astonished, then nodded and got to his feet as if he was prepared to start the trip back to Thunder River that very moment. “I can do it.”

“Me, too, Stephanie said, “but my folks will want a few days to make sure they’ve considered everything. Neither of them are impulsive.”

“Unlike you,” Karl said, grinning at her.

All too aware of Chief Ranger Shelton, Stephanie refrained from sticking her tongue out at Karl, but the rumble of Lionheart’s purr against her chest as she picked him up and got to her feet let her know that more than one of her friends was laughing at the joke. Immediately, the treecat flowed into approved “carry” position—his remaining front foot (his true-hand) on her shoulder, his rearmost set of feet (or true-feet) on a specially built brace she wore with all her clothing. This was a compromise her dad had recently agreed to, although Richard Harrington still preferred Stephanie let the treecat do most of his own walking.

“Good luck,” the Chief Ranger said, waving them toward the door. “I look forward to hearing from you both.”

Karl stopped in mid stride. “I suppose the information’s in our uni-links, but I forgot to ask. How long is this course, exactly?”

“Three T-months,” came the prompt reply. “As I said, there’s a lot that needs to be covered.”

Stephanie’s feet kept moving, but inside her something froze as the shapeless dread that had been haunting her for the last few minutes suddenly came into focus.

Three months! Anders! I want to go to Manticore, but can I bear to leave him for three whole months?

Despite her sudden emotional turmoil, Stephanie managed to talk naturally to Karl during the trip back to Twin Forks from Yawata Crossing. Thankfully, they had a lot to talk about. If Karl thought Stephanie was acting at all oddly, he probably put it down to her thinking about ways to convince her parents to let her go off-planet for three months.

“I’ll com you later,” he said, as she got out of his air car, “and let you know how it goes with my folks.”

“Me, too,” she replied. “Remember—don’t let your folks call mine until I get a chance to talk with them first. I need to figure out how best to let them know.”

“I promise,” Karl agreed. Then he shifted the car up to where he could pour on speed as soon as he was out of the city limits. The Zivoniks lived near Thunder River, a good many hours travel away even at top speeds, but Stephanie didn’t doubt Karl would have the car on autopilot and be on the com to his mother as soon as he was in clear airspace.

Her own mind swirled as she walked to her dad’s office. Of course, the fact that Richard Harrington had an office in Twin Forks didn’t mean he’d be in it. Stephanie’s father was a veterinarian, a job that, on Sphinx, embraced not only the care of the animals belonging to the colonists, but often of creatures native to Sphinx, as well. Add to that the numerous genetically altered creatures that were being tried out as the colonists looked for the best way to work with their environment and still have some of the meat and dairy products they were accustomed to, and one could argue that Richard Harrington was one of the most irreplaceable professionals on Sphinx. Certainly Richard’s interest in exotic creatures, combined with the fact that his wife was a plant biologist and geneticist, had assured the Harringtons of a warm welcome when they had immigrated to Sphinx back when Stephanie had been ten.

Six years later, Stephanie could hardly understand the girl she’d been then—a girl who’d been so overwhelmed by her changed environment and the loss of all her previous dreams and goals that she’d spent a lot of time sulking. Now Stephanie loved Sphinx with all her heart. She’d be happy to go visit Meyerdahl, but she knew she’d always come home to Sphinx.

Stephanie wasn’t surprised when she got to her dad’s office and found both him and the Vet Van missing, given how scattered Sphinx’s human settlers were. Besides, his recently hired assistant, Saleem Smythe, would be in shortly to cover the evening shift. Under the circumstances, she wasn’t unhappy to have the office to herself until Dr. Smythe’s arrival, though. There was celery in the fridge, and she gave Lionheart a big stalk as a thank you for his support during the meeting. Uncharacteristically, she didn’t feel very hungry, but she got herself a fruit and nut bar which she nibbled more from duty than desire. Next, she commed her parents to let them know where she was. She didn’t mention the meeting with Chief Ranger Shelton. She hadn’t been lying to Karl when she said she needed to figure out the best way to present the proposed trip to Manticore to them, but there was something else she needed to figure out first.

Anders.

Anders Whitaker had come to Sphinx last year, not long before Stephanie’s fifteenth birthday, as part of an anthropological expedition from Urako University, headed by his father and formed for the express purpose of studying the treecats. From the first time Stephanie had seen Anders, she’d been overwhelmed. It wasn’t just that he was good-looking, although with his wheat-blonde hair and dark blue eyes he was undeniably handsome. Anders was also smart, smart enough that he didn’t feel a need to hide his enthusiasms—and one of his enthusiasms turned out to be treecats.

At nearly seventeen, Anders was quite a bit younger than the next older member of the Whitaker expedition, which meant he was happy to spend time with Stephanie. She’d found ways for the two of them to spend time together, although often enough Karl (who frequently boarded with the Harringtons, since Thunder River was so far from where he and Stephanie did their ranger work) made a third. In fact, for the first time since Stephanie met him—back when Stephanie had started learning how to use firearms—Karl had definitely become less than welcome company.

Things might have gotten uncomfortable, but then the Whitaker expedition’s air van had gone missing. In the intensity of search, rescue, and forest fire, somehow any uneasiness had vanished. Then after…

Stephanie felt her lips twist in an unwilling smile as she remembered the first time she’d kissed Anders. It hadn’t been much of a kiss, but it had been her first time kissing a boy. Later, Anders had reciprocated a lot more enthusiastically than her careful lips against his cheek.

Although nothing had been formally declared, they’d become more or less a couple. It helped that part of Stephanie’s and Karl’s job as provisional rangers had been to act as advisors to the Whitaker expedition. Then, too, although he could assist, Anders wasn’t a professional anthropologist. That meant he was free to ride along when Stephanie and Karl did their patrols. Before long, he was learning to hang-glide and becoming as much a part of Stephanie’s circle of friends as any of those who lived in Twin Forks.

Things had appeared to be moving along very satisfactorily, but then, shortly after the fire, Dr. Whitaker had been sent back to their home world, Urako in the Kenichi System. His behavior on Sphinx had been…erratic, and the potential consequences could have ended his expedition to the Star Kingdom in academic disgrace. Stephanie knew Dr. Hobbard and Chief Ranger Shelton had both argued in favor of allowing the university’s expedition to remain on Sphinx, with a Sphinx Forestry Service ranger or two permanently assigned to it to keep it out of trouble. Unfortunately, the Manticoran government had been unwilling to go along. Neither Governor Donaldson nor Interior Minister Vásquez had been satisfied with Dr. Whitaker’s simple promise to behave himself. They wanted the same sort of guarantee from the university itself, and that meant sending him home to face a review of his actions by the chancellor of the university and the chairman of his department.

Dr. Whitaker hadn’t been at all happy about that, but he’d clearly realized that he had no choice. However, getting there was easier to say than to do because the Star Kingdom of Manticore was so small and so far from the core systems…like Kenichi. There was very little interstellar traffic into or out of the Star Kingdom, especially now that the assisted immigration following the Plague Years had almost entirely wound down. There was little cargo to attract freighters, passenger ships had become less frequent, and even mail couriers arrived only at intervals which were erratic, to say the least. Worse, Kenichi was 400 light-years from Manticore, so even one of the fast courier boats would take literally months to make a one-way trip between them. By the best passenger ship connection Dr. Whitaker could arrange, the trip home would have taken at least six months, which meant it could easily be well over a T-year before he returned—if he’d returned—so he’d intended to take Anders with him.

The thought of having Anders snatched away for at least an entire T-year had been devastating to Stephanie, and she’d spent more than a night or two railing to Lionheart about stupid, small-minded, chip-pushing bureaucrats. There’d been more than a few tears involved, as well, despite Lionheart’s comforting presence.

But then Dr. Whitaker’s plans had changed.

Anders’ mother was a cabinet minister in the Kenichi System government, and Kenichi turned out to have close trade ties—and treaty agreements—with the Beowulf System. Beowulf was one of the few core systems which maintained a full time consulate on Manticore, and Dr. Whitaker had appealed to the consul for assistance. As it turned out, a Beowulfan courier had been in orbit, there to collect the consul’s regular quarterly report to his home government, and Kenichi lay almost directly on the route between Manticore and Beowulf. The courier boat was scarcely a luxury liner, but it did have the capacity to carry a few passengers, and the consul had offered the available space to Dr. Whitaker.

Unfortunately (from Dr. Whitaker’s perspective; Stephanie had seen things a bit differently), there’d been room for only one additional passenger: him. There would be no place for Anders, if he took advantage of the courier boat, and he’d had only two days to make up his mind about accepting the consul’s offer, given the courier’s scheduled departure date.

In the end, he’d decided speed was of the essence, for several reasons, including the fear that some other anthropology team would be credentialed to study the treecats instead of his if the delay stretched out too long. So instead of taking Anders back to Urako, he’d left him in the Star Kingdom under the supervision of Dr. Emberly, the expedition’s xeno-biologist and botanist, and her mother, Dacey.

At first, Stephanie had been ecstatic over Dr. Whitaker’s decision, but her joy had been short-lived. Until Urako University responded with the required assurances, Governor Donaldson had barred the Whitaker Expedition’s team from further exploration. None of its members came from heavy-gravity worlds like Sphinx, and Sphinx, with a total population of less than two million, didn’t offer a great many attractions to people who were prohibited from doing the one thing they’d come to the Star Kingdom to accomplish. Dr. Emberly had certainly felt that way, at any rate, and she’d decided to withdraw the expedition’s personnel from Sphinx to Manticore, the Star Kingdom’s capital planet, whose lower gravity was far more comfortable and whose larger population provided a lot more in the way of “civilization.”

The decision had not met with unanimous approval. Unfortunately, the two people who’d most strongly objected—Anders and Stephanie—hadn’t gotten a vote. And, in her more reasonable moments, Stephanie actually understood Doctor Emberly’s thinking. Sphinx truly could be an uncomfortable planet for people who hadn’t been genetically engineered for heavy-gravity environments, like the Harringtons, or grown up on its surface, like the Zivoniks, and Dacey Emberly, Calida’s mother, wasn’t a young woman. Not only that, but Dr. Whitaker had been adamant that Anders keep up his studies, and it was hard to deny that the planet Manticore’s educational opportunities were better than Sphinx’s.

But none of that changed the fact that Manticore and Sphinx were almost ten light-minutes apart even at their closest approach and, at the moment, they were over twenty-five light-minutes from one another. That meant any real-time conversation between someone on Sphinx and someone on Manticore was impossible, since it took nearly a half hour for any lightspeed transmission to make the trip between them. Somehow, asking a question and then waiting an hour for an answer put a damper on lively discussions.

Twenty-five light-minutes was a lot better than 400 light-years, but the communication delay had still limited Stephanie and Anders to letters and recorded vids. True, they could be sent back and forth a lot more quickly than they could have been transmitted between Kenichi and the Star Kingdom, but it just wasn’t the same as face-to-face conversation…and Stephanie had discovered that even the warmest letter was a poor substitute for kisses and cuddling. There were things she just couldn’t say, or explain, even in a personal vid. Not when she couldn’t see his expression or hear his voice when she said them. It was a lot better than having him go all the way home with his father, but in some ways it was actually worse.

She’d been resigned to spending a whole half T-year pushing electronic mail back and forth, but she hadn’t counted on Dacey Emberly, the expedition’s painter and scientific illustrator. Dacey had decided that even if the entire team wasn’t permitted to study treecats, there was no reason she couldn’t be working on her portfolio of the rest of Sphinx. In addition, she’d discovered that Stephanie’s mother was also a painter, as well as at least as good a botanist as her daughter, Calida. Marjorie Harrington had cheerfully offered her services as tour guide and fellow artist and invited Calida to join them. The botanist in Calida had jumped at the chance to explore Sphinx’s plant life with a Sphinxian native who was not simply a fellow botanist but probably the planet’s best plant geneticist.

There were times when Stephanie thought it was just possible her mother had extended the invitation because she’d realized how miserable it was for Stephanie and Anders to be in the same star system but on different planets. There were other times when she wasn’t so sure about that, but the result had been wonderful. For the last two months, both Doctors Emberly had been back in Twin Forks…which meant that Anders had been back on Sphinx, too.

The day they’d returned from Manticore, her parents had invited them to a huge welcome back party, with all of Stephanie’s—and Anders’—friends in attendance. Stephanie would have preferred to have Anders to herself, but her parents did so love a party and, anyhow, she’d suddenly felt a little shy. They’d never actually declared themselves “a couple”—not like Chet and Christine—but even so, there was a lot of teasing.

Later, they’d gotten some time by themselves. Soon they were over being shy and everything had been great.

“Great,” Stephanie said to Lionheart, “except that now I’m going to be the one going away to Manticore! Three more entire months of nothing but letters…Can I do it? And even if Dr. Whitaker’s university lets him come back, it won’t let him stay here forever. I doubt Anders wants to give up his family. I mean, the only reason he’s here now is that his mom’s so busy with her position. What if it turns out Urako won’t let Dr. Whitaker come back? What if Anders finds out he has to go home before I even get back from Manticore?”

The treecat evidently sensed her distress. He leapt lightly onto her lap and laid his true-hand—still damp and smelling of celery—on her cheek. His leaf-green eyes met hers, and he bleeked a gentle sound of comfort and inquiry.

“The problem is,” Stephanie told him, “I don’t know what I want. When Chief Ranger Shelton started telling us about the training program there was nothing in the world I wanted more than to go. Now…Now I find myself thinking that maybe it would be a good idea to let my parents talk me out of it for another year. I am only fifteen and a half—okay, fifteen and eight months. I could wait. A year won’t matter too much. It’s not likely the SFS will let me become an Assistant Ranger until I’m at least seventeen anyhow….”

The sound of her father’s air van settling into its space alongside the clinic brought her back to herself. Impulsively, she hugged Lionheart, feeling his fluffy tail curl around her in return. Then she took a deep breath and straightened up.

“Whatever I decide,” she said softly, I can’t let Dad see I’m upset. That would sway him before I’ve even made up my own mind. Shall we go see if Dad needs help with his gear or a patient?”

“Bleek,” Lionheart agreed, the sounds meaning far less than the enthusiastic flirt of his tail and the expectant prick of his ears as he led the way toward the door. “Bleek! Bleek! Bleek!”

* * *

Climbs Quickly didn’t know exactly what had happened to generate such a stew of mixed emotions in his two-leg. When they had been in the meeting with Old Authority (as the treecats had dubbed the male two-leg to whom so many of their two legged friends deferred) Death Fang’s Bane had begun by being excited and happy, her mind-glow overflowing with anticipation and delight. But then, somewhere in the midst of all the mouth noises, uneasiness had begun to tint the exuberance.

Climbs Quickly had not been concerned. For many season turnings, long before he had met Death Fang’s Bane, he had served his clan as a scout. He was accustomed to the excitement that came with a new assignment, and how that excitement could be muted when one began to consider the challenges that would be involved.

However, at the very end of the meeting, Death Fang’s Bane had experienced a surge of such intense emotional pain that it had been all Climbs Quickly could do not to wail aloud in response. One of the differences he’d discovered between two-legs and the People was that two-legs frequently attempted to conceal their feelings from one another. It had seemed bizarre, but then he had remembered the two-legs were mind-blind. They could not taste one another’s mind-glows even if they tried, and it actually seemed to embarrass them sometimes if they revealed their emotions too clearly.

Sensing that the youngling was doing her best to hide what she felt at that moment, Climbs Quickly had muted his response and instead offered her a touch of comfort. He might not truly understand two-legs’ odd attitude towards sharing their emotions, but he was proud to see that Death Fang’s Bane was strong and had managed to hide her distress with very little help from him.

Once they had left Old Authority’s place and Shadowed Sunlight had gotten into his flying thing and departed, Death Fang’s Bane had let her feelings have freer play. At that point, Climbs Quickly isolated the source of her distress more clearly. He recognized the emotional notes that meant his two-leg was absorbed in thoughts about Bleached Fur, the young male in whom she had invested so much energy since his arrival back in the early days of the fire season.

Climbs Quickly liked Bleached Fur. The young male was full of lively curiosity. His mind-glow might not be as brilliant as that of Death Fang’s Bane, but it had an enthusiasm that was very appealing, and Climbs Quickly had been happy to see his return from wherever he had vanished to. Despite this, there were times when Climbs Quickly was surprised by how intensely Death Fang’s Bane cared for this young male.

At that thought, Climbs Quickly bleeked to himself in quiet amusement. Even among the People, understanding why one Person chose to be attracted to another could be a mystery—and at least the People could speak mind-to-mind. He supposed that, even as deeply as he and Death Fang’s Bane were bonded, there would always be mysteries between them.

With her usual self-control, Death Fang’s Bane had moderated at least the outer appearance of distress when her sire, Healer, had returned. She had helped Healer to settle in his latest patients—a pair of medium-sized plant-eaters with what smelled like some sort of respiratory distress—and had waited while he made mouth noises at the male who was his chief assistant. However, as soon as they were alone in the big flying thing, Death Fang’s Bane started making mouth noises.

Soon the pair of two-legs were in animated discussion. Since Death Fang’s Bane did not seem unduly agitated, Climbs Quickly contented himself with sniffing the interesting odors carried to him from the forests below. He heard the mouth noises that he knew indicated himself a few times, as well as the single hard sound that indicated Shadowed Sunlight, but most of the time the sounds meant far less than the flow of his two-legs’s mind-glow.

He kept track of it, but Death Fang’s Bane seemed to be doing fine. Climbs Quickly relaxed into the moment, the better to be prepared if a crisis did arise.

Chapter Two

“So you see, Mom,” Stephanie ended her summary of the meeting with Chief Ranger Shelton, “it’s a terrific honor. What do you think?”

Marjorie Harrington tucked a lock of curly brown hair behind one ear before answering, a gesture that meant she was deep in thought. Her hazel-brown eyes had held only interested curiosity as Stephanie told her about Chief Ranger Shelton’s offer. Now the keen mind that spliced and diced genes of just about anything that grew was at work on the pros and cons of her daughter’s newest opportunity.

Needless to say, Stephanie had told her father about the offer on their flight out to the Harrington freehold. Not to do so would have been uncharacteristic, and the last thing Stephanie wanted either of her parents to guess was how undecided she herself was. From her father’s response, Stephanie had a pretty good idea what her mother would say. She wasn’t disappointed.

“Download the information to my computer, would you? I’ll want to review it myself, then talk with your father. How do you feel about it, Steph?”

“I’m excited,” Stephanie said. “It’s a huge opportunity. Still…. Three months on Manticore is a long time. Manticore’s not at all like Sphinx.”

Marjorie nodded. “And, strangely enough, that might be the best reason for you to go. I know you’re madly in love with Sphinx, but it might be a good idea for you to see something of other planets before you get pot-bound here. You didn’t like Sphinx much at first, remember?”

“Mom! That was in winter! Now I’ve had a spring and a summer and we’re moving into autumn.”

“And winter will come again.”

“Yes, but now I know so much more about Sphinx that I’m almost looking forward to winter. I can’t wait to see how the animals and plants deal with all that snow. Before, I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere unless you or Dad were along, remember?”

“You were only ten,” came her mother’s mild reply.

“Exactly!”

“Still, Stephanie, the more I think about it, the better it seems that you spend some time on another planet. I’m not saying I’m giving permission, mind you, just that I can see some good points. You’re just a wee bit obsessive—I can’t think where you might have gotten that trait; certainly your father and I are never the least bit obsessive—and it would be good to give you some balance.”

Since Stephanie knew both her parents were perfectly capable of being quite focused—her mother had been known to spend entire nights without sleep waiting for some rare blossom to open so she could collect pollen—she knew she was being teased. Still, she couldn’t quell a certain uneasiness. She’d counted on at least one of her parents being somewhat resistant to the idea, just in case she decided to back out, but so far both had been surprisingly receptive. She wondered if—despite what he’d said—Chief Ranger Shelton might have dropped a hint or two.

“I’ll com that information from my uni-link to your computer,” Stephanie said. “Can I help with dinner or anything?”

“That would be great…”

For the rest of the evening, talk was pointedly centered on domestic matters. Eventually, Stephanie excused herself.

“I’m supposed to show Dacey that waterfall of Jessica’s she wants to paint tomorrow,” she reminded them. “She and Anders picking me up pretty early, so I need to get some sleep.”

“You’re coming back early enough to talk this over, though, right?” Richard said. “Since we need to give SFS our answer, a family conference would be in order.”

“Absolutely,” Stephanie said. “I don’t see that there’ll be any problem with my getting back in time.”

Up in the privacy of her room, Stephanie considered screening Jessica. In the end, she decided that while her own feelings were so unsettled, even talking to her best friend wouldn’t help a lot. Instead, she sat at her desk for a long time, thinking over her options while a slideshow of her favorite holo images from the time she’d spent with Anders marched across her desk. When she eventually tumbled into bed, the same images—animated and making cryptic statements—marched through her dreams. Stephanie thought that somewhere in what they said was the answer she needed, but when she awoke at dawn the dream images fell mute and only the uncertainty remained.

* * *

“Hi, Dr. Richard,” Anders said when Stephanie’s dad opened the door to the big, rambling stone house. “Is Stephanie ready?”

“Good morning to you, Anders,” Dr. Harrington replied. “Steph ran upstairs to get something. Can I offer you some coffee?”

“Dacey and I already had some,” Anderson said, “but I could use a bit more. Were you up all night again?”

The veterinarian nodded as he led the way to the kitchen. “Saleem called from the clinic. We have two nipper-hoppers with some sort of respiratory infection and one went into crisis. Probably reaction to the antibiotic. I didn’t have to fly in—Saleem’s a good vet himself—but we were in consultation until we pulled the patient through.”

“You did then?” Anders accepted the large mug of steaming hot coffee and sipped it gratefully. Stephanie preferred sweets, but he liked a bit of bitter. “Congratulations!”

“Thanks. I think they’ll both make it, but sometimes I long for the days when my practice consisted of dogs and cats, and remedies tested by centuries of care.”

Anders grinned. He knew Dr. Harrington was being melodramatic. The truth was that he was a trained xeno-veterinarian who’d treated a lot of non-Terrestrial creatures even back on Meyerdahl.

He heard the sound of Stephanie spilling down the stairs at her usual breakneck pace. A moment later she burst into the kitchen, Lionheart loping with sinuous grace beside her, her travel pack swinging from one hand.

“Sorry, Anders. I realized I’d forgotten to bring those extra nets I have for your dad.”

As always, Anders found his heart giving a joyful leap when he saw Stephanie Harrington. He knew she didn’t think much of her looks. She thought she was too short, that her hair was too curly and too boringly brown. He knew—more from watching Stephanie’s reactions than because she’d actually admitted it—that she envied girls with more curvaceous figures like Jessica or Trudy. He’d tried and tried to tell Stephanie that curvy figures were all right, but how to explain to a girl that she reminded you of an eagle lofting on a breeze or a deer leaping with lithe grace? It just didn’t come out like you meant it to, especially when the girl’s dad was a vet and she tended to think of animals from a very practical perspective.

“Dad will be really pleased to have those nets,” Anders assured her without adding “if he’s allowed to come back to Sphinx.” That was something he and Stephanie had decided by unspoken agreement not to discuss. “He never gets tired of comparing one physical artifact to another,” Anders went on, “even if they all look pretty much the same to most of us.”

“Great!” Stephanie said, turning to give her dad a quick hug. “I’ll be back for dinner. Remind Mom not to tell Jessica, okay? I want to do it myself.”

“Right,” Dr. Harrington said. “I will.”

Anders thought this last exchange was very odd. Over the last six months, Stephanie and Jessica had gotten so close that sometimes he was just a little bit jealous. He guessed their closeness had to do with the fact that both had been adopted by treecats, but maybe it was just that they were girls. Either way—even though they didn’t spend all that much time giggling over clothes or hairstyles—there were times he felt distinctly left out. What wouldn’t Stephanie tell the other girl?

Maybe it’s near Jess’ birthday or something, he thought, and Stephanie is present shopping. He resolved to ask later. Jessica Pheriss had become his friend, too, and he wouldn’t want to miss her birthday.

“Can I help with any of that junk?” he asked Stephanie as they headed towards where he’d parked the rented air car.

“I’ve got it,” she assured him. “It’s less awkward than it looks, really.”

Anders didn’t protest. He’d gotten used to the fact that, tiny as she was, Stephanie was a lot stronger than he was. She moved easily in Sphinx’s 1.35 gravity without needing the counter-grav unit that Anders wore day and night, sleeping and waking. He supposed it didn’t bother him because Stephanie would be the first to remind him that she hadn’t done anything to earn that extra strength. The Harringtons were all genies—genetically modified humans. Their home planet of Meyerdahl had cultivated several variations, all meant to help humans deal with environments for which the unaugmented human form was not intended. Anders didn’t know the full extent of those modifications, but he did know that Stephanie was strong and tough. She healed well, too. He didn’t know if Stephanie’s intelligence—she was scary smart—was a result of genetic modifications, too, or just good luck. After all, both her parents were obviously smart.

There were drawbacks to Stephanie’s mutations, of course. The most obvious was that she had a huge appetite. Most of the time that meant she simply munched away without putting on an extra ounce, but there had been that time they’d been hiking and the extra food bars they’d brought along had been ruined when a pack fell into a stream. If Lionheart hadn’t come up with some peculiar looking nuts, Stephanie would have suffered.

Anders knew from personal experience that it was a good thing humans could eat a lot of what grew on Sphinx. Of course, if humans only ate foods native to Sphinx, they would eventually suffer from dietary deficiencies. But the compatibility meant that the planet—despite its high gravity and relatively cool climate—was actually pretty friendly to humans. Friendly, that was, until something surged out of a bog and tried to eat you….

Anders grinned at the memory. Adventure was definitely more fun afterwards than when it was happening.

The air car was empty when they got to it, but Anders wasn’t surprised.

“Dacey?” he called.

“Up here, just a sec. I saw something I wanted to sketch.”

He and Stephanie looked up in time to see a tall, skinny, older woman drifting from the lower boughs of one of the many crown oaks that ornamented the area surrounding the Harringtons’ house. She adjusted her counter-grav unit just shy of the ground and came to a light landing that spoke of a lot of experience using the device.

“Good morning, Stephanie,” Dacey Emberly said cheerfully. “I hope your parents don’t mind, but the light drifting down through the leaves—especially with the leaves turning that particular golden shade—was too much for me.”

Stephanie grinned and stowed her pack in the air car. Lionheart leapt up and in, settling into one of the window seats and bleeking to have the window opened a crack so he could sniff out. Anders moved into the driver’s seat and complied with the treecat’s request.

“The autumn color’s too much for Mom, too,” Stephanie said. “This is only our second real autumn here on Sphinx, and we got here late last autumn, just as winter was coming on. Mom’s making sketches or taking images every free moment. She wants to fill out her series of season paintings.”

“I know,” Dacey agreed. “And I understand, too. We’ve been here for nearly a full T-year, and as far as I’m concerned, Sphinx exists in a sort of eternal late summer, though the color shifts in the trees these last couple of T-months are making me believe in autumn.”

“If you’re still here,” Stephanie laughed, “I can tell you, you’ll seriously believe in winter. Take my word for that!”

The flight to the waterfall she’d described to Dacey was filled with conversation comparing Sphinx and Meyerdahl to Urako and to several planets Dacey had lived on during her long life. Eventually, Anders brought the air car down into the clearing Stephanie indicated and they piled out.

“It still another couple of kilometers that way,” Stephanie said, pointing to the northeast. “Sorry I couldn’t find you a landing spot closer than this.”

“We’ll manage,” Dacey assured her, watching as Stephanie checked the enormous pistol holstered at her right hip.

Anders had acquired the Sphinxian habit of always carrying a weapon in the bush, as well, although he preferred a rather more modest-sized gun, and he was busy checking his own pistol. Dacey, on the other hand, knew her limits. She had no expertise with firearms and no real desire to acquire it. If something with lots of teeth and claws came along, she’d do her bit by getting nimbly out of the way and letting Stephanie deal with it.

“Let’s go,” Stephanie said, shouldering her pack, and started off through the picketwood along the trail she’d marked on her and Lionheart’s last visit.

Anders and Dacey followed her, and she heard them discussing Calida Emberly’s most recent meeting with Patricia Helton, Governor Donaldson’s chief of staff. It was clear from Helton’s attitude that Donaldson’s nose was still out of joint over Dr. Whitaker’s actions, but he seemed to be settling down at least a little. The fact that Dr. Whitaker had been off Sphinx for almost five months might have something to do with that, she thought.

It felt a little strange to realize that Anders’ father had been back in the Kenichi System for almost two months by now. She wondered how he’d made out defending his activities on Sphinx? He struck her as the sort who would be able to evade his fellow academics’ condemnation, but what if he hadn’t? Even if he managed to use his connections to nab another fast courier boat for his return to the Star Kingdom, he couldn’t possibly be back here for another month, so there was a little time left with Anders, no matter what happened. But what if he did come back only to collect Anders and return to Urako University in disgrace? If he had to make the trip by regular passenger ship, she and Anders had at least another five or six months before he disappeared back to Kenichi. But if he did get passage back on a courier boat, Anders could be headed home to Urako before Stephanie even got back from Manticore!

Worrying about it won’t change it, she told herself tartly, eyes and ears alert for any possible threat. Lionheart was pacing them, flowing through the picketwood a good fifteen meters above the ground, and she trusted him to spot potential dangers well before she did, but that didn’t excuse her from the responsibility of looking out for herself and her companions, as well.

She thought about the Whitaker expedition as they hiked along. Assuming Dr. Whitaker was allowed to return, his staff would be rather different, and she thought that might help. She suspected that what had happened six months ago might actually have cured him of thinking he knew how to handle everything better than anyone else—nearly getting eaten by a swamp siren should provide a wake-up call for almost anyone. And the fact that he would no longer be as surrounded by people dependent on him for their careers would probably be good for him, too.

Virgil Iwamoto had resigned as Dr. Whitaker’s chief assistant and managed to secure passage for himself and Peony Rose, his pregnant wife, aboard a starship headed for Beowulf about a month after Dr. Whitaker’s departure by courier boat. Modern medical and technological improvements meant that pregnancies in high gravity weren’t as risky as they had once been, but Anders had told her Virgil and Peony Rose were both concerned. Besides, they probably wanted to be near their families at this exciting time in their lives, and they’d barely get home in time for the birth, as it was.

Whether out of gratitude or because he was aware that Virgil could ruin his reputation if he chose to share certain stories, Dr. Whitaker had released him from his contract and given him the highest marks. He’d also granted Virgil permission to use expedition data to complete his dissertation, Anders had said, assuring that the document would get a lot of attention.

With Virgil’s departure, Calida had become the senior member of the expedition in the Star Kingdom, although it seemed probable that Kesia Guyen would step into Virgil’s place when—and if—Dr. Whitaker was allowed to return. Since Kesia’s specialization was linguistics and the treecats were being remarkably stubborn about providing her anything to work with, she’d decided to expand her expertise. It turned out the the type of mind that easily organized tiny details of word order and grammatical rules also did very well in categorizing the minutia of an alien culture. Making matters better all around, Kesia’s husband, John Qin, had made some profitable business contacts within the Star Kingdom. Unlike Virgil, who’d been all too aware of his dependence on his mentor, Kesia—eager to succeed in her field, but buffered by her husband’s increased prominence—was unlikely to be the least intimidated by her boss. And from all Stephanie had seen, the other two PhDs on the expedition—Calida and Dr. Nez—seemed to view it as part of their job to make sure the assessment of the treecats’ possible sentience went beyond examining the flint tools, nets, pots, baskets, and shelters that made up their material culture, which should serve as another brake on Dr. Whitaker’s occasional bouts of excessive enthusiasm.

If he comes back, and Governor Donaldson and Minister Vásquez let him stay, he’ll behave himself better this time, she thought with a mental smile.

* * *

Anders hiked along behind Dacey, bringing up the rear and trying to emulate Stephanie’s obvious alertness. He envied the way she seemed so completely at home here in the bush, striding along with the easy grace of her genetically engineered muscles and constantly aware of every sound, every flicker of light. This was exactly the world she’d been born to live on, he thought, and hoped his dad’s past actions weren’t going to get all of them permanently exiled from it after all.

He didn’t much like thinking about that possibility, but it had occupied his mind more and more of late. It had been frustrating, to say the very least, to find himself stuck on Manticore until Dacey managed to convince Calida to return to Sphinx. Letters and vids just weren’t the same thing as face-to-face conversations, although he did have to admit that he would always treasure the memory of the rib-popping hug Stephanie had bestowed when they finally did return. And whatever happened, they’d have at least another three or four months together, he reminded himself. And on the same planet, this time!

He smiled at the thought, and the smile broadened as he anticipated having her to himself for a change. Dacey would disappear into her sketch pad as soon as they reached the waterfall Stephanie had described, and that would give him a chance to sit and talk with Stephanie in the sort of privacy they seldom enjoyed.

Usually, when Stephanie guided him or other members of the expedition in the bush, Karl came along, as well. Anders liked Karl quite a lot, but the older boy was an intimidating presence. Like Stephanie, he often moved around without the need for a counter-grav unit. However, in Karl’s case, the ability owed nothing to genetic modification and a great deal to sheer stubbornness. Karl had the determination of a nativeborn Sphinxian to be able to move about on his home planet without being constantly dependent on a counter-grav unit. Anders had been on Sphinx long enough to know that not every Sphinxian made that difficult choice, which added to his respect for Karl.

The fact was that Anders wasn’t at all sure how Karl felt about him—Anders—and his increasingly important role in Stephanie’s life. From various things he’d overheard—and from various things Stephanie herself had let drop—Anders had learned that after the Harringtons moved to Sphinx, Stephanie had resisted making friends among people her own age. She’d managed with her own company and—later on—that of Lionheart, supplemented by corresponding with people she met on the net through classes or clubs. If her parents hadn’t pretty much forced her to join the hang-gliding club, Stephanie probably wouldn’t have met anyone her own age at all. Then a couple of rangers had talked the Harringtons into having Stephanie take lessons in how to use a variety of firearms. Karl had been brought in to act as tutor, since the rangers couldn’t always be available. It had turned out they shared interests in a lot more than target shooting, and Karl had become Stephanie’s first real friend on Sphinx.

Anders knew Steph liked Karl but thought of him as a buddy rather than anything else. What he couldn’t figure out was how Karl felt about Stephanie. There had been a few times early on when Anders thought he was being given “keep off” signals, but then Karl had seemed to accept that Stephanie would make her own mind up in matters romantic, the way she did about everything else.

Even so, when a couple of times Karl had come upon them when they couldn’t have been doing anything other than kissing, Anders had thought he saw jealousy—or maybe just protectiveness—flash in Karl’s dark eyes.

Thinking about Karl reminded Anders of the other complication in his developing relationship with Stephanie. That was her link with Lionheart. The ’cat was far more than a pet. Anders thought that anyone who bothered to spend time with the ’cats would come to the conclusion that they were intelligent—although that intelligence had taken a somewhat different shape than it did in humans. Even someone who, like Dr. Whitaker, preferred to make assessments of a race based on its material culture had decided the ’cats were intelligent. Really, the only question that remained—at least as Anders saw it—was where on the sentience scale the treecats would end up being placed.

However, Stephanie had confided in Anders something that far fewer people had had the opportunity to learn. She was certain the ’cats were at least telempathic. She was less certain—but still pretty positive—that they were telepathic, as well. Anders had to agree that something was going on with the treecats that didn’t lend itself to visual confirmation. He’d seen how Lionheart seemed aware of the flow of Stephanie’s emotions. He’d also become pretty certain that Lionheart could read people other than Stephanie—although he wasn’t sure if the ’cat got the same amount of detail from anyone else. Stephanie claimed that Lionheart was a really good judge of character. He liked Anders, didn’t he? But he’d taken a strong dislike to another off-worlder, Tennessee Bolgeo, right off.

As to whether the cats were telepathic…Anders thought Stephanie was probably right. He’d had opportunities to observe Lionheart and Valiant acting in concert when the action in question implied a whole lot more information was being exchanged than could be held in some sort of emotional burst. One of the best examples was when Valiant—who shared Jessica’s interest in gardening—had reached for a specific tool, one Jessica had borrowed a few moments before. Lionheart had loped over, retrieved the tool from Jessica, and handed it to Valiant. There’d been no exchange of sounds. Valiant hadn’t even turned around, so there couldn’t have been any of the body language signals Kesia had thought might substitute for more complex vocalizations.

All of this made Anders less than comfortable when he was alone with Stephanie and things were getting…romantic. Were the two of them really alone? How much did the treecat share in Stephanie’s reactions? How much did he feel of Anders’ own reactions? Anders was determined to keep his and Stephanie’s mutual explorations within Stephanie’s comfort range, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t had thoughts, some of them pretty detailed and pretty graphic.

It was bad enough to think that Lionheart might sense some of what he was thinking, but what if the treecat shared those feelings with Stephanie? What would she think of Anders? Would she be enticed or horrified? Could the treecat somehow contaminate or influence their feelings for each other?

Such conjectures were enough to make Anders stop short every time he got a bit carried away, even when he was pretty sure Stephanie wouldn’t mind trying a little bit more. Now, just thinking about what Lionheart might or might not know was enough to make Anders hot under the collar.

He shook his head, smiling at himself, and concentrated on paying attention to his surroundings.

* * *

“It’s gorgeous, Stephanie!” Dacey Emberly exclaimed as they came to the foot of the waterfall.

It plunged over a precipice ninety meters above them, plummeting down in a single long spill, flanked by two secondary falls that descended in a series of roaring cataracts. The seething pool at the base of the cliff was at least fifty meters across, its surface perpetually dimpled by fine drops condensing back out of the falls’ spray. The river was twenty meters across where it flowed away from them, brawling through a forest of rapids and sliding down deep, glassy smooth chutes between mossgrown boulders. The backdrop of trees and undergrowth—most of it the distinctive deep blue-green of summer red spruce but touched here and there with paintbrush kisses of autumn—framed it in a rich, luxuriant tangle of color.

It was just a bit difficult to hear Dacey over the steady, unremitting thunder of the falls, but her expression was all Stephanie had hoped for.

“Jessica was the one who spotted it, really,” she told the older woman. “She and I were mapping the freehold’s plant diversity from the air for Mom. You wouldn’t think something that tall would be hard to see, but those crown oaks”—she pointed back over her shoulder—“do a really good job of hiding it from the air unless you hit the angle just right.”

“It’s spectacular,” Dacey said, head swiveling as she absorbed the falls’ entire impact. “And speaking of crown oaks, I think that might be my best vantage point. If that’s all right with you, of course, Probationary Ranger Harrington!”

She smiled broadly, and Stephanie chuckled.

“I think it’s probably perfectly safe,” she replied. “Look—Lionheart’s already checking it out!” She pointed, and Dacey followed her finger to see the cream-and-gray blur of the treecat swarming up the tallest of the crown oaks. “We’ll just make sure nothing’s hanging around up there to eat any of us, and then Anders and I will find a good lookout post about half way up. You can climb as high as you like to get the exact angle you want.”

* * *

Climbs Quickly flowed up the towering golden-leaf, exploring his surroundings with eyes, ears, nose, and mind. He had realized early on that they must be bringing Eye of Memory out here to see the waterfall Windswept had discovered, and he was happy that they had, because he loved to watch Eye of Memory at her craft.

It would never have occurred to one of the People to make a permanent image of something one of them had seen, since they could always pass the actuality of it from mind to mind. Because of that, it had taken him longer than perhaps it ought to have to associate even the moving images on the bright, flat memory thing Death Fang’s Bane spent so much time sitting in front of with things he had actually seen. Then he had realized that of course the poor, mind-blind two-legs could not possibly exchange the memory of things seen with one another. He had been pleased by the clever way they compensated for their inability, yet the images that Eye of Memory made were even more pleasing. They were not as accurate, perhaps, and they did not move, but gazing at them was like savoring the tiny differences between two of the People’s remembered images of the same thing. It was as if Eye of Memory was able to share her own perceptions of the things whose images she captured despite the fact that she was mind-blind, and watching those images come to life under her clever, skilled fingers was almost as pleasing as the taste of her happy, focused mind-glow as she worked.

He and Death Fang’s Bane had accompanied Eye of Memory on several expeditions, and so he had already guessed where she would be most likely to perch while capturing this image. When Death Fang’s Bane turned and looked at the tallest of the golden-leafs, he had known he had guessed correctly, and it felt good to climb swiftly up the enormous tree. Well, of course it did! Had not his clan named him Climbs Quickly because climbing was one of the things he most enjoyed in all the world?

He reached a wide fork in one of the branches and paused, looking back down the way he had come. This would do well for Eye of Memory, he decided. The branch was broad enough to give her a comfortable place to sit or stand and shaded from too much direct sunlight, and the entire waterfall was clearly visible. He had detected no sign of any danger, and so he scurried out to the end of the branch, sat up high on his true-feet, and waved his true-hand at Death Fang’s Bane.

He could not make her hear his mind-voice, but he knew she would be watching him through the far-seeing thing she carried at her belt, and he felt her understanding as he beckoned to her and the other two-legs. She waved back, and he settled down on his bright, breezy perch, waiting.

* * *

“How long do you think she’ll paint this time?” Anders asked, grinning at Stephanie as they sat on their own branch, twenty meters below Dacey’s, and leaned back against the crown oak’s enormous trunk sharing the thermos of lemonade Marjorie Harrington had sent along.

“Until she runs out of light, probably,” Stephanie replied with an answering grin. She’d become very fond of Dacey Emberly, but having a mother who was also a painter had taught her a thing or two about the breed.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Anders agreed.

He looked around, thoroughly enjoying the sunlight and the cool breeze singing through the crown oak’s leaves. He might not have felt quite so happy about perching so many meters above the ground if he hadn’t had his own counter-grav, but he’d gotten accustomed to climbing trees here on Sphinx. Stephanie and Lionheart seemed to spend at least a third of their time in the treetops, after all!

The thought of the treecat drew his attention to where Lionheart clung to a branch just above Dacey, gazing intently over her shoulder as she worked. He knew Lionheart seemed to love watching Dacey paint, and he wondered how focused he was at the moment on Dacey’s emotions instead of Stephanie’s. Could he be distracted from his person’s emotions, or was the link between them—whatever it was and however it worked—always in the forefront of his attention? It was a question which had occupied Anders more than once, but in a lot of ways, he was grateful, since no one objected when he and Stephanie went off on a hike together, even without Karl. Apparently they assumed that Lionheart made an adequate chaperone.

And I guess he does, Anders thought ruefully. Even if Stephanie flat-out invited me to…well…to do more than we’ve been doing, I don’t think I’d try. I saw the records of what Lionheart and his family did to the hexapuma. I don’t really want him to decide I was offering his human some sort of threat.

Today, however, Stephanie seemed to have something on her mind other than their usual explorations of the local wildlife and each other. He hadn’t been able to put his finger on what that something else might be, but several times he’d thought her usual smile seemed a little more forced than usual. Now she looked at him for several moments, smile fading. Then she reached to hold his hand, and Anders didn’t need to be a telepath—not even a telempath—to know she was looking for comfort, not inviting a snuggle.

His eyebrows furrowed as he searched for a way to ask what was wrong without implying that she was acting particularly weird, but he didn’t have to.

“Anders,” she asked, “how did you feel when you realized you had a chance to go to Sphinx?”

Anders was surprised. They’d talked about this before when comparing notes on their various trips to other planets and it hadn’t seemed to worry her any then. Why should it be worrying her now? Unless….

Guessing this was a lead to some other topic, he answered honestly.

“Pretty happy, really. I’d already gotten interested in treecats, you know. Here was my chance to see them—not in recordings, not some captive being brought around as a display—but where they lived. I was really excited.”

“You weren’t nervous about going to a strange place?”

“Not really. I mean, it wasn’t like I was going alone. Yeah, Dad can be pretty obsessive, but if I got in trouble he’d be around. Anyway, despite my mom’s impression that a colony world was going to be pretty backward, I knew Sphinx was cutting edge in a lot of ways.”

“Manticore is even more cutting edge,” Stephanie said. “I haven’t been there since we stopped over on the way to Sphinx. I was only ten and fresh from Meyerdahl, so it didn’t seem too much to me then. Now I know lots of people on Manticore think people from Sphinx are complete rubes.”

“Some of them probably do,” Anders replied. “I don’t remember anyone actually saying anything like that to me, but most of the people I talked to knew I was a visitor. They probably wouldn’t have talked down about their neighbors to a stranger.” He smiled slightly. “I don’t think most of them think that way, though.”

“No?” Stephanie looked away for a moment. “I sort of felt that way when we first got here, you know. Until Lionheart and I met, anyway. So I guess it wouldn’t be too surprising if somebody on Manticore felt that way. Or if…if they might, I don’t know, look down on somebody from Sphinx if they were to run into them wandering around Landing or something.”

The meaning behind her somewhat jumbled words registered on Anders suddenly.

“You’ve got a chance to go to Manticore? That’s really cool, Steph. I enjoyed my visit a lot—except for the fact that you were on a different planet, that is. I think you’ll really enjoy it! What is it? Some sort of educational field trip? A competition, maybe?”

“You might say so,” Stephanie agreed. She took a deep breath, and then, the words spilling out of her in a torrent, she told Anders about her and Karl’s meeting with Chief Ranger Shelton.

Anders listened first in delight, then—as he realized just how long Stephanie would be gone—with increasing dismay. He fought to hide his reaction. He was sure Stephanie didn’t guess how he felt, but he was pretty sure that if Lionheart was paying attention to them instead of Dacey, he wasn’t fooled at all.

Stephanie ended her account on a sort of choking note, like she was swallowing back a little sob. She’d told the last part to some point on the tree limb near her right foot. Now Anders reached and tilted back her head so he could see her face. To his amazement—Stephanie was a queen of self-control—her brown eyes were swimming with unshed tears.

He thought she might pull away, but instead she flung her arms around him and squeezed him with a bone crushing intensity that demonstrated that, for once, she’d forgotten her own strength. Anders tried not to show he was gasping for breath, but hugged her back as hard as he could.

“Oh, Anders! Anders! What am I going to do? I thought that maybe Mom or Dad would be against it, but as far as I can tell, if I want to go they’re going to let me. But you only just got back from there! And…and we don’t know yet how long you’re even going to be here in the Star Kingdom at all! How can I tell them I don’t want to go because I don’t want to leave you?!”

She relaxed her hug so she could look at him. To give himself a moment to catch his breath, Anders kissed her lightly. Then, trying hard not to show how mixed up he himself felt, he settled her back next to him with his arm around her.

“I don’t want you to go, either, Steph. But I’m guessing that you don’t know what you really want.”

Stephanie gulped something between a sob and a laugh. “I do know, actually. Absolutely. I want to go and take that class and I want to stay right here on Sphinx with you. Since that’s impossible, I’m going to have to make a choice.”

Anders cuddled her against him. He’d grown a bit in the last six T-months, but Stephanie hadn’t much. Against his side, she felt deceptively fragile and delicate, like a baby bird.

Stephanie is fragile and delicate, he thought. Maybe not in her body, but inside, where it counts. I’ve got to help her make the right decision or something might break—and along with it, whatever it is we have between us.

“We’ve never really talked about being from two different planets—what that means to ‘us,’” he began.

Stephanie sniffled a little bit. When she pulled away just enough that she could look up into his face, Anders saw that she’d stopped crying.

“No,” she agreed. “I think we were just about to when your dad decided you could stay here in the Star Kingdom while he went back to Urako. I guess I didn’t want to jinx the good news. Maybe I just hoped the reprieves would keep coming.”

Anders flashed a grin that quickly faded into seriousness.

“Yeah. Me, too. And the truth is, that Dad’s good enough at working the system back at the University that I really do think the odds are that he will be able to get the guarantees Governor Donaldson and Minister Vásquez want. If he does, they may even extend his contract, leave us here longer than any of us thought. But one way or another—you going to Manticore, me going back to Urako—we’re going to be separated. Even if Dad’s contract gets extended until I reach my majority, there’s no way I’m never going to leave to see my Mom or something. And it’s not like we weren’t already separated while I was on Manticore and you were here on Sphinx, either. Right?”

Stephanie nodded. “Right. But do we need to speed up getting separated? What if I come back from Manticore and you need to leave for Urako a month later? What if you get a message from your dad telling you to come home next month while I’m stuck on another whole planet? We would have wasted whatever time we might have had together!”

Anders wrapped a lock of her hair around his finger. “I doubt even Mom would hire a private courier just to send word to me to come home. So we’re probably looking at at least another four months before I’d have to go—and we’d probably have to wait another month longer than that, at least, before we found a passenger ship headed in the right direction. So, at worst, we’d have another couple of months after you got home. And if Dad does manage to convince everyone to let him come back and stay, we’ll be here at least until the snow makes excavation impossible. That gives us eight, nine—even ten months. Then, yeah. I’m going to have to go.”

“And if you’re wrong? If you have to go sooner?”

“Leave off my going for a minute,” Anders said. “Before we go any further, there something I’ve got to say. I’ll be honest. I don’t want you to go to Manticore. I really, really don’t. But I don’t want you staying because of me, either. I think in the end it would ruin whatever we’ve got. Karl would come back with his certificate or badge, and you’d be thinking ‘That could’ve been me.’ Worse, you’d be thinking, ‘That could’ve been me and I missed the chance to be one of the youngest ever to get that badge. Anders held me back and there’s Anders, getting on a ship for home anyway.’”

Stephanie sighed. “You know me too well…I thought about all that. I think I might have felt that way if I hadn’t considered it ahead of time, but now I’d be making the decision knowing up front what the trade would be. I don’t think I’d be so small-souled that I’d resent a trade I made, well, knowing I was making it.”

“I’ll give you that, Steph. You might sometimes be impulsive, but you’re never small-souled. But you have to consider that you would’ve wasted a unique opportunity.” Anders hated the words that were taking shape in his own mouth, but he knew he had to say them or he’d be a hypocrite. “Earlier you tried to give the impression that this training class wasn’t a one-time offer, but do you know that?”

Stephanie frowned. “I want to be a member of the SFS. This is part of SFS training. Of course there’ll be another chance.”

“You’re being difficult,” Anders said. “You know exactly what I mean. You’re fifteen and, what, eight months? Chief Ranger Shelton made clear that he had to argue to get you included. Now, what if word gets around that you turned down the offer because you were obsessed with some boy? How seriously will people take you? I’m guessing not very. They’ll decide you’re one of those intense prodigies who burn out young, or, worse, one of those girls who excel in some hobby until they discover boys.”

Stephanie winced. That last had hit home. Recently, her rival in the hang-gliding club, Trudy Franchitti, had quit, saying she had more interesting things to do than play at butterflies with a bunch of kids. The fact that her on-again off-again beau, Stan Chang, had dropped out a few weeks before made it pretty clear with those “more interesting things” were.

“So you’re saying I might not get another chance next year. I might not get a chance until I was actually in the SFS.”

“Right,” Anders agreed. “Worse, you might find yourself waiting until you’re in your early twenties for that other chance. You’re still a probationary ranger. The SFS has just opened up its ranks and started active recruiting, so there are going to be new assistant rangers ahead of you next year. This opening only came up because the fire season this year was so bad Chief Ranger Shelton can’t spare any of his full-timers. I’d say this is a one-shot offer until you’re at least an assistant ranger, maybe until you’re promoted to full ranger. Wouldn’t you?”

Stephanie bit her lower lip. “I can see what you’re saying, but, Anders, you’re a one-time offer, too! I’ve heard your dad. He’s really proud of what you’ve done with your independent study here, but he wants you to finish up school back on Urako so you’re on hand to apply for university, go on interviews, do internships, all that kind of thing.”

Anders felt his mind go all cool, the way it did sometimes when he was helping Dr. Emberly or Dr. Nez sort through samples. His heart was still pounding fit to burst at the idea that Stephanie might actually go off to another planet. In some ways, the fact that they’d already endured that kind of separation only made it even worse. He thought that if he wasn’t careful he was going to embarrass himself by crying, but, thankfully, the coolness held.

“So you accept that I have to get a proper education? Apply for college. All that?”

“Of course! You’re smart! You have promise!”

Anders bent to kiss her again, this time softly, gently, on the lips.

“Then, Stephanie, my darling, how can I wish for anything less for you? You’ve got to go to Manticore. It’s really our only choice.”

Chapter Three

All the world he had known was burnt and broken, reeking of ash. Keen Eyes, scout of what had been the Swaying Fronds Clan, looked over the ruins of his former home. A few of the tall gray-bark trees still remained, but their bark was blackened and ruined. The fat, wide limbs that had protected the People when they foraged for the tangy seeds among the springy boughs were gone, except for an occasional skeleton that both evoked and mocked the trees’ former beauty.

As for the wide-leafed ground plants that had given the clan their name, they were not even skeletons, not even ash, only memory.

The People had known such destruction before and moved on. The songs of many clans contained details of migrations when fire or flood made a range no longer suited for habitation. Those songs were heart-swelling and inspirational, filled with challenges met and overcome before, at last, the clan settled into its new home.

But this time is different, Keen Eyes thought. The fires were vast. Even with the two-legs intervening to put the blaze out, the destruction spread farther than any in the recent memory of our clan and even—so Wide Ears reported before she died—in the memories of neighboring clans. Many have praised the two-legs for their intervention, but I cannot believe they did so for the good of any but themselves. No doubt it was to protect the range they have made their own, and they seem to take more of it with every turning! I have scouted to the sun-setting of what was once our range and the two-legs have settled themselves throughout that area. True, there are none of the larger settlements, but the presence of the two-legs contaminates what was once open range, and with so much burned and destroyed….

He had recently returned from scouting deeper into the mountains. The fire had burned fiercely there, making the lower elevations uninhabitable. The higher elevations were not inviting, especially since the year had already moved into the changing of leaves. Were this the time of new growth, his clan might manage in higher elevations while searching for a new range, but not now. Not with the coldest times marching closer.

Swaying Fronds Clan could not move in the direction of moss-drying. Bright Water Clan held the range there. They were known as a generous clan, but they already faced the strain of supporting their own clan with the more limited foraging offered in higher elevations. Bright Water’s range was large, so they had plenty of good hunting, but their hunters worked hard and they did not have a great deal to spare.

Moreover, Bright Water had long been considered uncomfortable neighbors by many of the older members of the Swaying Fronds Clan. Bright Water consorted too freely with the two-legs. One of their scouts had even bonded with a youngling of that strange, naked-skinned, mind-blind people. Some whispered that this Climbs Quickly had become nothing more than a lazy hanger-on, trumpeting through his memory singer sister tales of his own importance.

Keen Eyes didn’t believe this last. He had never met Climbs Quickly, but he had listened to the song of that Person’s courage and valor, not only when he had rescued the two-leg youngling who was now his partner, but during the last fire season, when he had intervened to help save members of the Damp Ground Clan who otherwise might have been trapped on their island home and burned to death.

No. Climbs Quickly was not anyone’s lazy hanger-on. Nonetheless, moving in the direction of Bright Water’s range was not an option.

So, further to sun-setting into the mountains was ruled out. The mountains to moss-drying were out. So were the mountains to moss-growing, for the fires had been worse there. That meant the only direction in which Swaying Fronds could move was the lowlands. Here the problem was that many areas were already the territory of established clans. They might let the remnants of Swaying Fronds Clan pass through their lands, but they would not wish them to settle.

The two-legs were more common in the lowlands, as well. Even where they had not claimed land for themselves, they seemed to prefer the lowlands for their own hunting and foraging. From what had been learned of the two-legs from People who lived near them, the strange creatures had a marked preference for warmer areas. Although their various made things let them do remarkable things, without them they were astonishingly defenseless. Seemingly, some of them even had trouble walking about without the aid of their made things.

Therefore, Keen Eyes did not find it at all surprising that the two-legs preferred the softer lowlands, but their activities in those regions made the already complicated problem of finding a new place for his clan almost impossible.

He breathed deeply and the bitter odor of ash and burned wood flooded his lungs. Even though the fires had been quenched since the warmer days of turning leaves, Keen Eyes still found himself inclined to cough. The smoke had done damage to his lungs, damage that might not ever heal, even with the passage of many turnings.

Others of his clan had been weakened by the smoke as well. Struggling to subsist on the tattered edges of their old range had made others thin and weak. Only the ripening of nuts that came at this time of year and the plentiful fish in the streams had let them survive thus far, but soon the nuts would be gone and the fish sealed up beneath the unrelenting ice.

Swaying Fronds must find a new home range, and soon, but where? Where could they go?

Never had the world in all its vast green reaches seemed so small.

* * *

Four days had passed since Stephanie had broken the news to Anders about her possible departure from Manticore. That night she’d talked to her parents. They’d agreed that, if she wanted, she could enroll in the Forestry Service training program. Apparently, they’d taken advantage of her being out to com Chief Ranger Shelton and were content with how the program would be managed. They’d even excused Stephanie from her regular studies here on Sphinx until after her return from Manticore.

“Even you deserve a vacation now and then,” Mom had said, “and you’ll need to be fresh to soak up everything expected of you in the training program. It’s not only a lot of information, but a very diverse curriculum.”

Now Stephanie and her best friend, Jessica Pheriss, sat on the bed in Stephanie’s room. They weren’t much alike. Jessica was curvy to Stephanie’s still-boyish figure. Jessica had vibrant hazel-green eyes and wild masses of curly light auburn hair. She was taller than Stephanie—but then, just about everyone was—and knew a lot more about “girl stuff” than Stephanie had ever bothered to learn. But they were alike in one very important thing: both of them tended to speak out about what they thought was important, no matter the cost. That had drawn them together even before Jessica had been adopted by the treecat, Valiant. After that, their friendship was sealed.

Despite cooler autumn evenings, the casement window of Stephanie’s room was cranked open, and Lionheart and Valiant sat up in the limbs of the closest crown oak, taking advantage of the convenient sunbeam. The two ’cats, superficially alike with their gray-striped tabby fur trimmed in cream, were apparently dozing, but for all Stephanie knew they might be as deep in conversation as two businessmen lounging in chairs before the fire in their favorite club.

Alike, Stephanie thought. Well, they would be if it weren’t for Lionheart’s injuries. No one could miss all the ripples of his scars under his coat, or that he’s missing his right true-hand.

Jessica often came out to spend a few days with Stephanie, so that each of the treecats could have the companionship of another of his own kind. By nature, the ’cats were social. Stephanie had often worried that Lionheart had condemned himself to loneliness by choosing to stay with her. Valiant’s availability had eased her guilt on that matter, but now she felt it rising all over again.

“Jess…How do I tell Lionheart I’m taking him not just on any old trip but off the entire planet?”

To her credit, Jessica didn’t even suggest that Stephanie not try, that Lionheart would go with her anyhow, so why get stressed? Nor did she say that maybe he wouldn’t even realize what had happened. Why worry about it?

Stephanie knew Jessica understood the relationship she and Lionheart shared in a manner that even Stephanie’s parents or Karl or Anders couldn’t. Jessica’s relationship with Valiant was a little different, forged in fire rather than in blood and battle, but no less intense for that. What made the difference were the personalities involved.

Like Stephanie, Lionheart was impulsive. After all, he’d been breaking into one of Marjorie Harrington’s greenhouses when Stephanie first met him. Valiant, by contrast, was a steady soul. He was no less inquisitive in his own way, but his interests ran to what was for treecats—at least by every indication the humans had gathered to this point—the cutting-edge science of agriculture. If Climbs Quickly was the explorer and adventurer, Valiant was the innovator, eager to watch and learn from the humans, showing every sign of not merely copying but adapting what he had learned.

And Jessica is steady like Valiant. Maybe it’s because her family’s moved so much, or because she’s had to pitch in with caring for all the littler kids, but she values stability and comfort in a way I don’t. She’s far from dull, or I couldn’t like her so much. She’s just different from me.

Typically, Jessica’s answer to Stephanie’s question hadn’t come quickly.

“I think that, since you can’t tell Lionheart, you’re going to need to show him,” she said finally. “Does he understand what he sees on a computer screen? I’m never sure how much Valiant gets or if what he sees just bores him so he doesn’t pay any attention.”

“I think Lionheart gets at least some,” Stephanie said. “I’ve shown him images and he seems to grasp what he’s seeing. It’s hard to tell how much. I’ve wondered how much a purely visual or even visual/audio presentation would mean to a treecat. They rely on their sense of smell a lot more than we do, and on their sense of touch—not just in their fingers and whiskers, but in a whole-body way.”

“I know.” Jessica nodded. “And then there’s the added element of their empathy and telepathy. Yeah. I can see what you mean. It may not be that Lionheart and Valiant don’t ‘get’ the images. It’s just that to them even a really good HD clip with full sound gives them about as much dimension as we’d get out of a flatscreen when the audio went dead.”

“You mean show Lionheart images of shuttles taking off and like that…. Wait!” Stephanie threw one hand into the air to hold back whatever Jessica might say in reply. “I’ve got it! We can make a movie of our own. It won’t be great, but we can use the animation program on my computer. We’ll feed in images of Lionheart and me from my files, then…”

Jessica got into Stephanie’s idea at once. They settled side-by-side at Stephanie’s desk and started pulling up files. Stephanie was the better programmer, but Jessica had more of an artistic flair. Her suggestions were invaluable for transforming what would otherwise have been a rather stiff presentation into something fluid and alive. The girls had to take a break for dinner, but afterwards they galloped up the stairs. Before they went to bed, they’d put together a short but detailed film showing Stephanie and Lionheart—each distinctly recognizable—entering a shuttle and what would happen afterwards.

“Of course,” Stephanie said with satisfaction after they’d reviewed their work, “Lionheart’s probably going to have to be in a carrier of some sort, not walking like we’ve shown him here. I’d want him in a carrier for his own safety, even if no one else did. I don’t want him poked by the other passengers. For that matter, we know he doesn’t get airsick, but he might find liftoff and all unsettling. Better that he have a secure place of his own.”

“I agree,” Jessica said, “but for the video, I think we’re better off showing him moving around. Adding him getting put in a carrier and hauled around would distract from the real purpose—showing him going up in the shuttle and where that goes. Are we going to show him our vid now?”

“Let’s wait,” Stephanie said. “I’m beat and I bet you are, too. When we show it to him, I want to try something to go with the images. I was hoping you and Valiant could help, too.”

“Sure. What?”

“Remember how I told you that when Bolgeo had that ’cat trapped Morgana—Lionheart’s sister—kept staring at me like she was trying to put ideas into my head?”

“Sure. You didn’t understand, did you?”

“Not really, but I did understand that whatever it was she wanted was important, and I’ve often wondered how it might work the other way around. After all, I’m not a telepath, but clearly Lionheart can read me more than I can him. I’m going to try get across to him that this isn’t just an image or something fun we made, but that it’s real—a representation of what’s going to happen.”

Jessica nodded. “We know they could at least get a mental picture through to Scott MacDallan. From the way he described what happened, it took a bunch of treecats working together for them to communicate even with someone who has ‘the sight.’ Well, we’re not telepaths, but maybe if both of us concentrate really hard on our specific ’cat then we can boost the signal strength enough that they’ll be able to understand this isn’t just pretty art.”

“Right. After all, if they can talk to each other…”

“And we’re both sure they can…”

“Then they can discuss what we’re showing them. It might help them work through what we’re telling them.”

“I like it,” Jessica agreed. “Anyway, it can’t hurt to try, can it?”

* * *

“Guess who’s coming to Manticore?” Oswald Morrow couldn’t hide a certain sly, self-satisfied smile as he spoke. He was a big man with dark skin against which his teeth flashed in brilliant contrast.

“Who?” Gwendolyn Adair asked, not even looking up from examining her manicure.

“Stephanie Harrington. I have it on good authority that not only is she coming without any adult supervision, she’s bringing the treecat with her.”

That got Gwendolyn’s full attention. She sat up straight, showing off a trim, youthful body.

“You’re joking! That’s too perfect.”

Oswald Morrow gave her another flash of the dealmaker smile that was so very well known in certain exclusive Manticoran business circles. “I’m not joking. I’m perfectly sincere. Stephanie Harrington is coming here with the famous ‘Lionheart.’ I’m not one to brag—”

“Hah!” Gwendolyn’s comment was little more than a breath.

“—but I might even say I had something to do with arranging their trip.”

“How could you have done that?”

“You know I keep alert for any information at all having to do with the SFS.”

“Through your brother-in-law, Harvey. Yes, I know.”

“Well, I asked a few leading questions when Joan and I had dinner with Harvey and his family a while back. Harvey started ranting about how Shelton of the SFS had actually had the audacity to suggest two kids be enrolled in the Forestry Service training class. Harvey was pretty indignant. He had a hand in getting that program into its current shape, and he sickeningly proud of it for turning out tough, well-trained men and women who can deal with flood, fire, or panicked tourists with equal ease. He felt Shelton was degrading the program by assuming two kids could pass.”

“And you asked who the kids were…”

“I did. And when he’d confirmed that they were indeed Stephanie Harrington and her sidekick, Karl Zivonik, I hinted that it might be a good idea to admit them. It would show he has an open mind towards those backwoods bumpkins. If—I might even have said ‘when’—the kids failed his demanding program, well, the one who’d look bad would be Shelton, not Harvey.”

“Brilliant!”

Morrow shrugged in mock humility. “I’m not saying I was the only one speaking out in favor of including them. In fact, the number of people who wanted the Harrington kid included was part of what had Harvey so riled. My comments might have tipped the balance, that’s all.”

“But Stephanie and Lionheart will be here!” Gwendolyn looked as pleased as a cat that had gotten the cream. She was an attractive enough woman, but her real gift was not beauty. It wasn’t even her family connections, valuable as those had been on occasion. It was in acting. She was a chameleon, filtering effortlessly through other people’s lives and being whoever she had to be for each of them. She’d worked profitably with Morrow before, shifting appearance and attitude with such skill she sometimes frightened him. “It’s been so hard to influence the treecat question from off planet. The Bolgeo plan was a disaster because he had a few too many irons in the fire. If he’d stuck to doing what we paid him for instead of resorting to poaching—”

“That’s water under the bridge,” Morrow said dismissively. “Bolgeo didn’t do us any favors, but now Shelton’s ambition has handed us just what we need. With Ms. Harrington and her ’cat here, we can engineer situations that show them in a less than ideal light. And with them off Sphinx, we can send in new agents without worrying about her interference.”

“You’re not afraid of a fifteen-year-old girl, are you?” Gwendolyn’s laugh held an acid bite.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” Morrow countered. “We simply can’t ignore the Stephanie Harrington seems to view anything to do with the ’cats as her personal domain, or that the SFS plays up to her because it’s good for their public image. No one else is the ‘treecat discoverer,’ though, so no one else can butt in quite so objectionably. We’ll do very well out of both her presence here and her absence there.”

Gwendolyn looked at her manicure again as if she were considering it in a new light. “Yes, we will indeed. I have some very interesting thoughts on how we might befriend the young lady.”

“I’m sure you do, my dear,” Morrow chuckled. “I’m sure you do.”

* * *

Climbs Quickly watched as the images moved before him. If he had not lived with Death Fang’s Bane for so long, observing her as she spent long hours in front of the thing—and if he had not watched Eye of Memory creating images of her own—he was not sure he would have grasped what his two-leg was trying to show him. Indeed, if she had not been so intense in her desire for him to look, to pay attention, to understand, he was not sure he would have grasped the importance of what he was seeing at all. As it was, he felt at least reasonably confident that he understood her meaning.

Mostly.

He thought, however, that some confirmation would be a good idea, just in case he was jumping from limb to limb without testing his footing—something his elders were always telling him was one of his failings.

<Dirt Grubber,> he said, <I wonder. What to do you make of these images?>

The older Person—Dirt Grubber’s long tail had two more full rings than did Climbs Quickly’s own—rubbed at his nose with his true-hand, much as he did when he had finished digging and wanted to clean his whiskers.

<In those images, empty of thought as they are, I see a song—a song of future travel. I think we now know why Death Fang’s Bane has been so unsettled since she met with Old Authority. She has decided to go in the big flying thing, up higher even than the tallest mountains, then to land on this other thing. I think perhaps it is an even bigger flying thing, but what these colored balls are I cannot quite guess. Are they islands?>

Climbs Quickly shook his head, a mannerism he had picked up from the two-legs.

<I do not think so. I admit, something like that was my first conclusion. Then I considered. We know that two-legs are from elsewhere. We have both listened to those old memory songs that tell of the egg-shaped things that roared down from above and returned to the skies. I know some People persist in believing that the two-legs come from somewhere else in the lands we know. I have heard the theories that the two-legs live on some isolated island where netwood does not grow, and so the People have not ventured there. However, I think that unlikely.>

<I agree,> Dirt Grubber said. <The two-legs did not suddenly create the flying things we see them using now. There must have been steps in between, perhaps along the lines of the folding flying things that Death Fang’s Bane and Windswept use as toys. But if they had such flying things and were anywhere near the lands that we know, certainly, a bold two-leg or two would have come into the netwood forests before Death Fang’s Bane, and that meeting would be recorded by the memory singers. Therefore, they must have come from elsewhere.>

Climbs Quickly was pleased that his friend agreed. He had not looked forward to arguing with him. Dirt Grubber could be as stubborn as the deep-rooted weeds he was always pulling from his garden patches.

<I think,> Climbs Quickly continued, <that Death Fang’s Bane is going to journey back to where the two-legs came from before coming to the world. The first ball in her images is here. The second ball is where we are going. She is trying to make sure I understand because she does not want to make the journey without me.>

<So she anticipates a long journey,> Dirt Grubber commented.

Climbs Quickly agreed. Bonded pairs could separate, sometimes for days on end, else how would a male feed his mate and kittens? However, a long separation was wearing on both. Many mated males tried not to be away from their nesting places overly long. Some, especially the older ones, chose to give up hunting entirely, focusing on contributing to the clan in other ways. Making stone tools took time and patience, and so did scraping straight shafts and tying nets. Or a mated pair might go foraging together, for although the People mostly ate meat or fish, they supplemented their diets with nuts and roots.

Since the coming of the two-legs, the People had begun to imitate them in the cultivation of plants. At first this had merely been the tending of plants that were already in place, bringing them water when the season was dry, clearing away competing plants that might choke them. In this way, the yield had increased. Now there were those such as Dirt Grubber who wanted the People to actually put useful plants where they would thrive, or bury seeds and protect the young shoots from opportunistic bark chewers. Plant growing took a lot of attention. It was proving a very good way for bonded pairs to help provide food for the clan without taking the same degree of risk as when the male went hunting.

And avoiding that risk was important. Only rarely did one half of a bonded pair survive the death of the other. Minds that had been so intertwined that they intensified each other’s glow did not often survive the loss of their match. Sometimes a female with kits would survive because they needed her, but often the clan would need to care for doubly orphaned younglings.

Climbs Quickly shook himself as if he could shake away the unhappy memories as easily as he could a bug climbing through his fur.

<I am glad that Death Fang’s Bane wants me to go with her. I am not certain she understands the dangers when a bonded pair is separated. I think she knows she would be unhappy, but I do not know if she realizes that our separation could mean my death, especially if our mind glows were so far separated. Even if I must go beyond the tops of the mountains and to this other ball—this other world—I will go. It is our pact. It is our bond.>

* * *

Anders tried not to let Calida—or even Dacey—know how mixed up he felt about Stephanie’s going off to Manticore. For the moment, he was glad Bradford Whitaker wasn’t on Sphinx. Doctor Whitaker wasn’t the most sensitive of humans, and Anders doubted he would really have understood his son’s feelings—or even noticed them. Of course, there was something to be said for that. If Anders mother had been there, he would have been forced to have a heart-to-heart or two whether he wanted to or not. There was a reason she was a politician—and a good one of the old type, the type who’d gone into politics not because she saw it as a route to fame and fortune, but because she saw it as a way to help people.

He’d had to message Mom, of course, but the nice thing about interstellar communication—well, nice in this case, although he doubted his father saw it the same way at the moment—was that there would be a considerable time lag. By the time he had to answer Mom’s well-meaning and thoughtful questions, he thought he’d have his head together.

For now, though…

His heart twisted painfully whenever he saw Stephanie. He thought she didn’t guess, but he was pretty sure Lionheart did. Oddly enough though, Anders also felt sure the treecat was keeping his secret. It made him realize the ‘cat was his friend in a way he’d never felt before, so he guessed at least one good thing had come out of this impending heartbreak.

Geez, though, I’m an insensitive jerk, aren’t I? All the time Stephanie and I have been ‘canoodling,’ as Dacey puts it, I hadn’t given a lot of thought to how Steph would feel when I went back home. I knew how bad I felt when I got dragged off to Manticore and she got left behind, but at least we could still message each other and get a reply back the same day! I figured that felt pretty darn bad anyway, but now that the shoe’s on the other foot, I know she felt even worse watching me go than I felt going, and I was so busy feeling sorry for myself I never realized it. Now that I’m the one being left, well, I can say it doesn’t feel good. In fact, it feels worse than being the one doing the leaving. The leaver has something to do; the left just gets to build life around the hole where the other person should be. And what are we going to do when I have to leave and we both know I won’t be coming back? There won’t be any same-day messages then!

Stephanie was being really sweet, Anders had to admit that. Even though she must be up to her ear in plans—he knew there’d been a shopping expedition all the way to Yawata Crossing for stuff that couldn’t be found in little Twin Forks—still she never chattered about how excited she was. Even better, the holiday Stephanie’s parents had let her have from her studies meant they still had time to meet every day, even with preparations for departure.

Today they were linking up in Twin Forks where they planned to join the hang-gliding club meeting, then go out—just the two of them—afterwards. Anders had his own glider now—a cutting-edge model that had been an “I’m sorry I screwed up” gift from his dad before Dr. Whitaker’s departure. It was really nice looking, in vibrant green and turquoise that the girls had all assured him went well with his own coloring. A few months hadn’t been enough to get Anders up to speed with the rest of Stephanie’s gang, but at least he no longer embarrassed himself.

Maybe because Stephanie’s pending departure was making him think back to when everything was fresh and new, Anders found himself thinking how much people had changed in the last six months as he hurried over to join the others.

The changes were most obvious in Toby Mednick. Toby was just a few months younger than Stephanie, and when Anders had first met him, he’d been Stephanie’s size or a little shorter. Certainly, the way the boy had carried himself—shy and meek—meant he might have been three meters tall and still have seemed small. Now nature had stepped in to give Toby more height. His shoulders were showing powerful muscle, although overall his build remained gazelle-graceful. The biggest change, though, was in his attitude.

Toby came from a very conservative family. The hang-gliding club was the only such organization he was allowed to join, and that was because it was run by Mayor Sapristos. But hang-gliding had proven to be just what Toby needed. He was well on the way to making good his vow at Stephanie’s fifteenth birthday party to become the best flyer in the club. No longer did dark brown eyes peek up shyly through a curtain of silky black hair. They met other people’s eyes directly, and the dark hair was tied back in a fashion that Anders thought—without undue modesty—was copied from how Anders wore his own.

The “Double Cs,” Chet Pointier and Christine Schroeder, had changed differently. Chet had finally slowed the growth spurt that had—he admitted cheerfully—been the bane of his parents’ clothes-buying budget. At seventeen, he was settling in at something over 188 centimeters in height, and these days his body seemed determined to fill in the frame it had stretched out. Chet’s natural hair color was just slightly lighter than Anders’ own wheaten gold, but he and his girlfriend Christine had recently indulged in matching dye jobs. Both now sported indigo blue hair, highlighted with violet. When they got set to go out, they also sported matching cat’s-eye contact lenses in silver.

On Chet, the alterations looked a little affected—or so Anders thought—but from their very first meeting Anders had always thought that Christine had something of the exotic bird about her. She’d kept her cockatoo crest, and it looked as good in indigo and violet as it ever had in white-blond. If Christine’s graceful, willowy figure had changed at all, it had been to smooth her curves into something more delightfully feminine. Silver contact lenses were hardly an improvement over her naturally ice-blue eyes, especially when contrasted with the warm sandalwood hue of her skin, but if she wanted to experiment, Anders wasn’t going to complain.

Stephanie and Jessica arrived in Jessica’s junker just as Anders was unfolding his glider. He turned to meet them, his heart lifting as always when he saw Stephanie smile at him.

How am I ever going to let her get on the shuttle without me? I’ve got to do it. I know I’ve got to do it, but I can’t let her know just how very much letting her go is going to hurt.

Chapter Four

When Keen Eyes ventured into the foothills he found himself fighting the sensation that he had moved in time, rather than space. In the mountains, snow was falling at night. The icy whiteness was neither deep nor dense, and it melted within a short time after the sun’s rising. But the coming of snow meant that many of the small ground grubbers bark chewers upon which the Swaying Fronds Clan had been relying to augment their food were harder to find.

Some of those creatures slept all through the winter. Others were simply spending more time in burrows beneath the earth. When true snowfall came, many of them would make tunnels in the snowpack itself, their foraging concealed from all but the sharpest-eared hunters. Knowing this time of relative safety was coming, they waited patiently for the same snow that Keen Eyes dreaded.

Here in the relative lowlands, even though the trees showed signs of damage from the fires that had raged so much more powerfully in the higher elevations, opportunities for hunting and foraging were more plentiful. Leaves were shading into yellow and red, but still bore traces of green. In some sheltered areas, trees were sending up shoots through the thick soil. More quick living plants were taking advantage of the damper weather and rich ash, and some of the grasses and shrubs were adorned with fat seeds. Although the people could not subsist wholly on a diet of leaves, seeds, and shoots, these would help to bulk up their bellies—and they attracted prey animals.

The difficulty did not come from the lowlands themselves. Rather it came from those People who had already claimed these lands as their own. Keen Eyes met up with the first of those one afternoon as he sat on the net wood branch enjoying a small but plump bark-chewer he had caught.

<We thought we smelled something sour.> The mind-voice came without warning. <How do you name yourself, poacher?>

Keen Eyes sniffed the air, but these People must be approaching from upwind, because he could not catch their scent. True, a mind-voice could call over a far greater distance than anyone could detect with certainty the mind-glow of another Person, but these People had obviously sensed his mind-glow and realized that it did not belong to someone they knew.

Relaxing over his meal, Keen Eyes had taken the obvious precautions, but he had not been actively searching for other People. Now he attempted to do so. Distantly, he sensed at least two People. The fuzzy quality of the contact indicated that they were attempting to mute their mind-glows, but one of the pair was upset enough that his anger came through strongly. Even as Keen Eyes sought to get a clearer reading, this one moved deliberately to take his mind-glow out of range.

Keen Eyes shaped his reply carefully. <I am not so much a poacher as a traveler. I was not aware I had crossed into another clan’s range. May I ask to whom I am speaking?>

<I am Nimble Fingers of the Trees Enfolding Clan.> The voice of the person with the less angry mind-glow shaped the answer. <My uncle, Swimmer’s Scourge, hunts with me. What are you called?>

<I am Keen Eyes of the Swaying Fronds Clan.> Keen Eyes did not open his mind to them, but he did allow his sense of loss and sorrow to color his reply. <Although you might say that those of us who survived the great fires of last season are now the Landless Clan, for our burned and tormented forests will not support us through the coming winter.>

Nimble Fingers’ mind-voice shaped the reply. <So your clan is homeless? Are you scouting for new lands?>

<If so, scout elsewhere, Keen Eyes of the Landless Clan,> Swimmer’s Scourge’s mind-voice cut in. <Our own range was burned by the fires. Our hunting has been badly reduced. We need all of what our range produces to survive the coming snows.>

Keen Eyes shared a mind picture of the lands surrounding his clan’s ravaged range. He showed them the barren land, how even where trees still stood so many were nothing more than blackened spires, the remaining limbs charred skeletons that would not hold even a small bark-chewer, much less to a robust Person.

<We would not intrude into your range if that could be avoided in any way,> he said then. <Would it be possible for us to pass through? Perhaps your scouts know of a range that is unoccupied, or that a smaller clan might be willing to share.>

Swimmer’s Scourge’s response came so quickly that Keen Eyes had the impression he had deliberately stopped his nephew from answering. At the same time, his faint awareness of Nimble Fingers’ mind-glow vanished, so that he suspected that the other had moved—or been moved—out of range.

<We know nothing of any place where you might go. Perhaps your memory singers could reach out to others of their kind and learn where there may be an open range.>

Keen Eyes could not have hidden his grief, not even if he had tried. <Wide Ears and our other memory singers fell victim to the flames. A tongue wrapped around and cut them off. We tried to save them, but they would not let us risk ourselves on such a thin chance. They had an apprentice, but Tiny Choir is still very young. She shows promise, but her voice is hardly stronger than that of an ordinary adult. She needs time.>

<And time,> Nimble Fingers replied, <is what you are seeking. Time as much as land.>

<Yes. Precisely that,> Keen Eyes replied, glad to be understood, but Swimmer’s Scourge was unable—or unwilling—to join in his nephew’s opinion.

<Stay out of our range,> came his stiff rejoinder. <Your clan may lack memory singers, but surely some of the elders have heard tales of what happens when range rights are challenged. Your clan is already reduced. Do not press a course that may lead it to become even smaller.>

With that, Keen Eyes could no longer sense the pair, even faintly. He sat perched in the net wood tree for a long time, searching, but met only with silence.

* * *

The two weeks before Stephanie and Karl’s departure rapidly dwindled to days. Time and again, Stephanie considered backing out, considered making some excuse for not going. At one point, she was even so desperate that she thought about injuring herself so she couldn’t go. The problem with modern medicine, though, was that even “accidentally” forgetting to turn on her counter-grav unit so that she fell out of a tree wouldn’t have helped much. Even badly broken bones could be patched up pretty quickly.

So began the days of saying goodbye. Stephanie thought that she and Jessica had managed to get across to Lionheart what was going to happen. Certainly, the ’cat cooperated admirably with drills designed to get him used to the standard interstellar pet carrier they’d bought for him. She’d even demonstrated the emergency life support, so the noise wouldn’t bother him in the unlikely event she had to use it.

The first of the goodbye parties came when she and Lionheart visited Lionheart’s extended family where they were settling into winter quarters in the mountains northeast of the Harrington freehold. They went out as they often did, using her hang-glider rather than an air car. As a present, Stephanie had brought with her several bunches of celery. Lionheart loved the stuff, and his family did, too.

However, Stephanie was certain that it wasn’t just the celery that gave this visit the feeling of “event.” For one thing, most of the clan was there. Even the hunters who were often away or asleep were present and active. For another, Morgana took the post of honor and gave a speech.

Stephanie knew she’d have trouble explaining why she was sure that was what Morgana was doing. Certainly she didn’t hear anything. To someone who wasn’t inclined to think of treecats as smart, it probably looked like a lot of ’cats drowsing in the sun. Still, she felt certain. Maybe it was the way the kittens, usually as ebullient and active as their feline equivalents, sat attentively prick-eared, green eyes focused on Morgana. If they were holding still, something important must be going on.

However, party or not, long before dark Lionheart marched over to where Stephanie had stowed her hang-glider, pointedly reminding his human that they had a long flight home. She took the hint. Now was not the time to start taking dumb risks.

The next party came the following day and was held at the Harrington freehold.

“Don’t think we’re just making a fuss over you and Karl,” Marjorie Harrington teased. “Actually, this party is to celebrate Frank and Ainsley’s promotion to Senior Ranger. You can’t imagine how difficult it is to get both of them scheduled for the same day off. It’s just a coincidence that we managed for a few days before you were due to leave.”

Stephanie wasn’t fooled, but she was glad to have some of the focus away from her and Karl going off to Manticore. Frank Lethbridge and Ainsley Jedrusinski had been among the first rangers she’d gotten to know well. Frank had been her handgun and rifle instructor and had introduced Karl to her, and Ainsley was his frequent partner. Celebrating their promotion to the newly created rank of Senior Ranger seemed a very good excuse for a party indeed.

Since both Frank and Ainsley were longtime friends of Karl’s family, that provided a natural excuse for all the Zivoniks to be invited, again, without too much emphasis on the departure of the probationary rangers. With them came Scott MacDallan and his wife, Irina Kisaevna, also as longtime friends of the guests of honor. Scott was the only other living human—other than Jessica and Stephanie—who had been adopted by a treecat.

Given that all of Stephanie’s friends had volunteered during the worst days of the forest fire, it made sense to include them, as well, and Anders came along with Dacey Emberly. So pretty much everyone who would have been at a going away party also ended up at this “promotion party.”

As was natural at a gathering of such size, people eventually broke into smaller groups. Irina, Marjorie, and Dacey sat in a cozy huddle around the high-ceilinged great room’s huge fireplace, discussing art while the antique ceiling fans’ blades turned lazily overhead and Richard stood with an elbow propped on the mantle and listened, interjecting an occasional comment of his own. Karl and Toby were out on the wide snow porch, its sliding sides open to the pleasant autumn breeze, organizing foot races for the younger Zivoniks. Jessica and Scott were in deep conversation, probably about living with treecats, as they tidied up the stone-flagged kitchen where hectares of the buffet dinner’s bowls and serving platters had been stacked to one side. The guests of honor had gathered around the pool table in the family room, just off the great room, cues in hand while they chatted with Christine and Chet about a new guide program the SFS was introducing to deal with the growing influx of tourists.

Coincidentally or not, Anders and Stephanie found themselves alone near the great room’s wide front windows, looking out at the mountainous trunks of the crown oaks. Even Lionheart had absented himself to visit with Valiant and Fisher.

“Want to go for a walk?” Stephanie asked.

“Sure.”

When they were out of direct sight of the party, Anders wrapped his hand tightly around Stephanie’s.

“It’s weird to think that in a few days we’re not going to be able to do this again,” he said after a long pause. He leaned and kissed her. “Or this. Or even talk to each other in real time.” He grimaced. “Messages and vids just aren’t the same, whatever anyone says.”

“I know.” Stephanie’s response came out a bit more emphatically than she’d intended as she recalled the months Anders had spent on Manticore. “Still,” she went on after a moment, “I think maybe it’s better for the transmission lag to be as great as it is. I mean, there’s no way anyone could possibly hold a conversation with a fifty-minute hole between every question and answer, and we both know it. But it was only, say, ten minutes each way, we might just try it, and think how miserable that would be!”

“Yeah, recorded messages are a lot smoother than that,” Anders agreed.

“And the delays would just make the separation more real.”

“So you’ll message?”

“I promise. I won’t let homework and all the rest get in the way.”

“Me either.”

More silence, though there was quite a bit of nonverbal communication to fill the space.

Eventually, Anders sighed and pulled back, though not before he’d carefully nested Stephanie’s head against his shoulder.

“Who was it who said that bit about parting being sweet sorrow?”

“Shakespeare.”

“I think he was cracked. I thought it the first time we went through this, and I’m sure of it now. Parting isn’t sweet at all. It’s just sad.”

Stephanie offered an explanation. “It’s sweet sorrow because you have someone to feel sad about. If you didn’t have anyone, then, well, it wouldn’t be sad, but it wouldn’t be sweet either. It would just be going different ways.”

“So this is sweet sorrow?” Anders asked, although the expression in his blue eyes when Stephanie moved to look up into his face left no doubt.

“It is,” she said. “Very sweet and very, very sad.”

* * *

Two days later, she was at the shuttleport. Her baggage had gone ahead, and she was hugging everyone who’d come to see them off—her folks, Jessica, Anders, Karl’s family—some of them more than once. Karl was doing the same. He even hugged Anders, who laughed and hugged him back.

“Take care of our girl, Karl,” Anders said. “Don’t let her intimidate all those Manticorans.”

“Promise,” Karl said. “And you be careful here. Remember, we won’t be around to rescue you.”

“I’ll remember.”

A recorded voice announced final boarding, and Anders gave Stephanie one more huge, bone-cracking hug.

“I guess we’ve got to go,” she said. “I’ll message. I’ll message everyone!”

“C’mon, Steph.” Karl’s tone was gruff. “We’ll be back before they get used to having us gone.”

“Right.” She grabbed Lionheart’s carrier, then darted back one more time to hug each of her parents. “See you when you come to Manticore for your holiday!”

Then she turned and almost ran to the shuttle.

* * *

Anders was glad he’d brought his own air car to the shuttleport. He didn’t really feel like being with anyone right now. He saw Jessica and Valiant go off with the Harringtons. Jessica looked as if she was crying. The treecat was reaching up over her shoulder to gently pat her cheek.

It’s going to feel weird for all of them, being without Stephanie. And it’s going to be weird for me to be here with all of her friends while she’s off on another planet. It’s all backwards and upside down from the way it was last time. And Steph and I have been so focused on what this means to us, I haven’t really thought about how it’s going to change things for everyone else.

He was still replaying the image of the shuttle’s port sealing behind Stephanie, of the final pale flash that might have been the wave of her hand, when he got back to the apartment building where Calida had rented their quarters.

Kesia Guyen tried to wave him down as he passed through the lobby, but he pretended not to see her. Normally, Kesia would be just the person to talk to about his bruised feelings, but right now he still wanted to be alone.

To his surprise—Kesia was normally good at picking up on nonverbal cues—she came trotting after him and caught up just before he reached the lifts.

“Hang on a minute!” she called, and Anders was forced to stop and turn around to face her. She took one look at his expression, then smiled gently and reached up to pat him on the shoulder. That smile was so sympathetic Anders felt his own expression waver uncertainly for a moment. Funny. He’d thought he was doing a better job of hiding his feelings than that.

“I know you probably have other things on your mind right now,” Kesia said, “but I thought you’d like to know about this. We got a com message from Manticore about four minutes ago, probably about the time you were parking the air car.”

“What kind of com message?” Anders asked, trying to figure out exactly how to describe her tone. She sounded both excited—almost jubilant—and irritated in equal measure.

“Your dad’s back,” she told him. “The University sent him back out in a fast charter.”

“Dad’s back?” He stared at her in shock, and she nodded.

“Just hit Manticore orbit a bit over two hours ago,” she confirmed.

Anders shook his head as if to clear it while he tried to process the completely unexpected news. Then it hit him. If Doctor Whitaker had been sent out here to collect the rest of the expedition’s personnel—if the University had chartered the courier boat in order to hustle everyone else home in disgrace as quickly as possible—then he might have just seen Stephanie for the very last time! He felt as if someone had punched a big icy hole through the spot where his stomach used to be.

“Hey!” Kesia reached up, grabbed him by both shoulders, and gave him a shake. “Lighten, Anders! Lighten! It’s good…mostly.”

“What do you mean ‘mostly’?” Anders demanded.

“Well, the good news is that the University’s excited enough about what we’ve already turned up that, despite any…minor irregularities, they’ve authorized your dad to seek a contract extension from the Star Kingdom. It’s open-ended as far as the University’s concerned!” Her eyes twinkled at the sudden leap of hope in Anders’. “And, the Chancellor and the head of department—and your mom, on behalf of of the government—have all promised everything Governor Donaldson and Minister Vásquez asked for. So I think we’ve got a pretty good chance of getting the extension. Maybe in a single time block, maybe with a break over the winter while we return to Urako with our data.”

Anders nodded. All of that was good news…except, maybe, for that bit about going home “over the winter,” since Sphinx’s winter was over sixteen T-months long. But Kesia had said….

“So what’s the news that isn’t good?” he asked. And for that matter, he thought, if Dad’s been back more than two hours, why didn’t he com us quicker than this? It’s only a twenty-five-minute transmission delay, after all!

“It may be good, and it may be bad.” Kesia shrugged. “He says that when he logged into the system data net and commed Dr. Hobbard to tell her he was back, she told him there’s been a change of plans. She says some bigwig on Manticore—Morgo, Morrow, something like that; your dad wasn’t sure of the name—is sponsoring what he called ‘some tourists with an interest in xeno-anthropology.’”

“Uh-oh.”

“Exactly.” Kesia actually chuckled. “Actually, once he calmed down a bit, he admitted they seem to be a little better than that. In fact, some of them have pretty good credentials. But your dad’s really ticked. He thinks it’s a violation of our contract’s exclusivity.”

“Well, it is,” Anders pointed out. “On the other hand, we’re probably luckier than we deserve to still have a contract. If we do, that is.”

“I think that was pretty much your dad’s conclusion, too,” Kesia said with a grin. “Apparently this Morrow or whoever he is is associated with something called the Adair Foundation. It’s some kind of nonprofit involved in preserving biodiversity that’s interested in treecats, and apparently it’s thinking about endowing a real xeno-anthropology chair at Landing University. So the Dean of Dr. Hobbard’s college asked her—told her, really—to make the Foundation’s team welcome.”

“Of course.” Anders sighed and shook his head, feeling sympathy for both his father and Dr. Hobbard.

Sonura Hobard was the current chair of the Anthropology Department at Landing University. She was also the head of the Crown Commission on Treecats and so, in a sense, his dad’s boss here in the Star Kingdom. However, the Whitaker expedition had been allowed to work on Sphinx in direct reaction to the Bolgeo disaster. The Crown wanted to be certain the people studying the ‘cats were real—and reputable—scientists, and they’d been granted a considerable amount of latitude in their operations in light of their academic credentials. And their contract had specifically protected the all important academic rights of first publication.

But that had been before Doctor Whitaker had taken his entire team off and marooned it in the bush without mentioning his plans to anyone. It was inevitable that there’d be tighter oversight in the wake of that near disaster—his dad had to know that even better than Anders did—and if there was one thing his father understood—outside of xeno-anthropology, of course—it was academic politics and funding. And that meant that he knew he had no more choice about accepting these newcomers than Dr. Hobbard had about taking her Dean’s “request” to heart.

“Is Dad sure these people are legit?” he asked.

“He says they look that way so far.” Kesia shrugged. “Apparently, this has been brewing for a while and Dr. Hobbard says the background checks have been in motion for a couple of T-months now.”

“When will they get here?”

“Probably not for at least another T-month. From your dad’s message, they’re already on their way, but they’re coming from several different out-System universities.”

“So this Adair Foundation gets an inside look at the treecats and Landing University gets the money for a chair.” Anders snorted. “Sounds as if everyone except Dad and you guys get something out of this!”

“Your father’s feelings exactly.”

“Hey!” Anders perked up, interest briefly pushing back his depression over Stephanie’s departure. “If Dad plays this right, you could get some pre-publicity for your work out of this when these visiting scientists head home again. The sort of thing that will have people panting to read your ‘full and complete’ definitive reports when they come out!”

“You really are your parents’ son, aren’t you?” Kesia said with a laugh. “I foresee a bright future in politics for you if you can only stay out of the swamps of academia! I think that’s a suggestion you should make to him as soon as he gets off the shuttle. Maybe even sooner if you want to message him!”

“Oh, I can wait till I see him in person,” Anders replied, the reference to messaging reminding him that he wouldn’t be seeing Stephanie again in person for another whole three months. The gloom came rushing back, but it was a lot less deep this time.

No, I won’t see her for another three months. But if Kesia’s right, we’ll have at least six months together after she gets back. And if Dad really is able to extend his contract into an open-ended study….

It was amazing how much brighter the universe had just become.

* * *

The taxi slowed, banking to the left across Jason Bay and circling toward the landing pad, and Stephanie rested one elbow on Lionheart’s carrier as she peered out the window beside her.

Her regret at leaving Anders behind on Sphinx was never far from the surface, but she had to admit that the trip had had its amusing moments. She’d completely forgotten that Karl had never been off the surface of Sphinx in his life—never been aboard even a little puddle-jumper ship like HMS Zephyr, their transport to the planet Manticore, far less on a visit to the “big city” of Landing. Big, tough, strong, competent Karl had been completely out of his depth aboard ship, and Stephanie had found herself in the role of senior partner for the voyage.

Nor had Karl been able to conceal his near awe at the sheer size of Landing and its gleaming pastel-tinted ceramacrete towers. After so long on Sphinx, Stephanie had been a little taken aback herself, but that hadn’t lasted long. For all its impressive ground plan, there was still plenty of room for Landing to grow, and none of the towers were much over a hundred meters tall yet. In fact, the total population of the Star Kingdom’s capital city was less than a quarter of the population of Hollister, back on Meyerdahl where she’d grown up.

Was kind of interesting to see where “Mount Royal Palace” is going to go, though, she reflected. The taxi pilot had deliberately detoured over the construction site to give the off-world kids a look. It’ll have a really nice view of the Bay, anyway. Going to be big, too, but I’d think they’d want a tower all their own, and from the architect’s drawings posted all over the city landing pad’s smart screens, they won’t be over four or five stories anywhere.

Now, as the taxi settled the last few dozen meters, she looked around Landing University of Manticore’s campus and decided she liked what she saw. They could have put the entire university into a single tower easily, since the total student body was no more than thirty thousand, but they’d chosen to scatter it around the ample four hundred-hectare site.

They’d fitted it elegantly into the landscape, doing as little damage as possible to the local eco-structure, too, and her eyes brightened as she saw species of Manticoran trees for the first time. Somehow, even though she’d known better (especially after boning up for this trip), she’d half expected Manticore’s flora to be similar to Sphinx’s, yet they looked nothing at all alike. Most of the trees she could see had a distinctively blue cast to their foliage, and everywhere she looked she saw brilliant blossoms nodding under the late morning sun. Landing was almost on Manticore’s equator, and the Star Kingdom’s capital world was almost ten light-minutes closer to the Sun than Sphinx, which gave it a substantially higher average temperature to begin with.

“It’s going to be a lot hotter out there than we’re used to,” she said, turning her head to look at Karl, and then glancing down at Lionheart’s carrier. “A lot.”

“I did read the handout, too, Steph.” Karl sounded just a little snappish, she thought. Maybe he was feeling more nervous about visiting the “big city” than he wanted to appear? “I slathered on plenty of sunscreen, too,” he added a bit pointedly.

“And a good thing you did,” she agreed equably, then leaned closer to the carrier, looking into the open side at Lionheart. “Too bad we can’t use sunscreen on you,” she told him.

* * *

Climbs Quickly’s ears pricked and his nose twitched as Death Fang’s Bane made her mouth noises at him. He didn’t much care for the scents inside this flying thing—there were too many of them, as if hands of hands of two-legs had come and gone—but new, different ones were coming to him now. He could smell them only faintly so far, since the flying things were stingy about letting smells in and out, but they were much more interesting. Indeed, they were very interesting, for they were obviously the smell of plants, yet he’d never smelled anything quite like them before, and he felt a burning need to be out and about to explore them.

But that is going to have to wait, he reminded himself. You are in a new place, Climbs Quickly! Best you not rush off like a new-weaned kitten so sure of all you think you know that you come nose-to-nose with a death fang!

He laughed silently at the thought, though he knew there was truth as well as humor to it. And even as he laughed, he wondered how much of his eagerness to explore was a way to distract himself from anxiety. He had no idea how far he and his two-leg had come from their home, but he was beginning to suspect it was even farther than he had believed it could be before they departed. The trip aboard the big flying thing from the two-legs’ nesting place hadn’t seemed to take that long, but when his person had lifted the carrying thing and let him look out the window, he had quickly realized they were traveling far faster than they had ever traveled before. They had been far higher, as well, and they’d gone on getting higher until the very sky had turned from blue to black! Yet even that had been only the beginning of their trip, for they had transferred to the biggest flying thing he had ever seen through a vast, hollow tube, and it seemed reasonable to conclude that it was probably even faster than the one which had delivered them to it. After all, it had even farther to go and there was clearly no limit to the sorts of speeds at which two-legs could travel when the mood took them! And the hollow tube had had windows, too—windows that let him look down upon the world…and know he had been right about the reason Death Fang’s Bane and Windswept had used round blue shapes of their images for this journey. They had not been islands, whatever others of the People might have believed.

Yet Climbs Quickly had found himself almost more daunted than pleased at being proved right. The blue shapes were entirely separate worlds…and that meant he was far, far away from Bright Water’s nesting place. That was a sobering thought for even the hardiest scout, for it meant he was the only Person in an entire world, and he was surprised how small that made him feel.

Still, he could not feel lonely, even if there were no other People to whom he might speak, for he was with Death Fang’s Bane, and he looked back up at her, holding tight to the flare of her mind-glow and treasuring its welcome.

* * *

“Bleek!”

There was something especially warm, especially loving, about Lionheart’s sound, and Stephanie blinked quickly. Somehow, she knew he was trying to reassure her that he was fine…and probably to take reassurance from her, as well.

“It’ll be fine,” she told him just a bit gruffly, reaching into the carrier’s side to stroke his ears with her forefinger while Karl popped the hatch. “It’ll be fine.”

Chapter Five

“I think you’ve grown,” Bradford Whitaker said, standing just inside the apartment door.

He was a big man, and he’d put back on at least a little of the weight he’d lost on Sphinx. He’d always struck Anders as being tall, and Anders supposed he was, yet he didn’t seem quite as tall as he had, and Anders realized with something of a shock that he truly had grown in the six and a half T-months his father had been away. Not all that much, perhaps, but enough. Only it wasn’t just physical height, he thought. It was that he was older…and not just by six and a half months.

Anders had already recognized that their near-disastrous excursion into the Sphinxian bush had changed his relationship with his father, but he hadn’t really thought about just how it might have changed. Dr. Whitaker had not showed to advantage dealing with the consequences of their destroyed air van, Dr. Nez’ near death, the forest fire, and the swamp siren which would have killed them all without the treecats’ intervention. He’d retreated into a sort of obsessive behavior in which his decisions had been…suspect, to say the very least, and it was his subordinates—and his son—who’d managed somehow to keep all of them alive until rescue came.

There hadn’t been much time to talk about what had happened before Dr. Whitaker had been jammed aboard the courier boat and sent home to Urako. Frankly, Anders doubted his father had been in any great hurry to talk about it, anyway. He’d probably seen the tiny starship’s cramped isolation as an escape from the way he’d humiliated himself. But Anders knew now that he’d never be able to forget that he’d been right and his father had been wrong. That he, Anders, truly had stepped up and contributed to the expedition’s survival while Dr. Whitaker occupied himself excavating treecat waste dumps and cataloging potsherds.

And yet, as he looked at his father—at the receding brown hair, the complexion which had regained its library pallor since his departure from Sphinx—he realized something else, as well.

He wasn’t angry anymore. He’d been so mad at his father—and, he finally admitted, ashamed of him. Embarrassed by him. His father had failed him, and he’d failed in his academic responsibilities…and in his responsibility for the lives of his team. Kesia had told him even while it was happening that Dr. Whitaker had been suffering from “displacement.” That he’d been so overwhelmed by his own awareness of his ruinous decisions and their consequences that he’d withdrawn into that obsessive concentration on something he understood, something he could convince himself he was actually capable of dealing with. But Anders was his son, and Anders had been failed not simply by the leader of their expedition, but by his father. And that had been the true source of his anger—that sense of betrayal.

But somehow, during Dr. Whitaker’s absence, he’d gotten past it. Not completely, of course. Their relationship would never be the same again, but perhaps it didn’t have to be ruined after all.

“Maybe I have grown…a little,” he conceded after a moment.

“I think you have. But, you know, I think most parents really have a memory of their kids as children, no matter how old they get,” Dr. Whitaker said. “Silly, I know, but here you are, almost seventeen standard, and somehow the mental picture of you I carry around is maybe twelve.” He smiled. It was an odd, almost tentative smile, and he shook his head.

“I brought you a stack of messages from your mom,” he went on in a lighter tone. “I won’t say she’s delighted by the prospect of having you here in the Star Kingdom for at least another eight to ten months, but I told her it was being good for you. In fact, I told her something that she told me it was time I told you, too.”

His voice had turned serious once more and Anders cocked his head, wondering why.

“Told me what, Dad?” he asked.

“How proud of you I am,” Dr. Whitaker said softly.

Anders blinked. He couldn’t help it, and he felt himself staring at his father. He couldn’t help that, either, and to his astonishment, his father met his eyes levelly, his expression as serious as Anders had ever seen it.

“I screwed up, son,” he said. “I made mistakes, I almost got people—including you—killed, and it was all my own stupid fault. And after I’d made the mistakes, I didn’t how to fix them, so I didn’t even try. I let you and Kesia and Calida and Virgil and Dacey deal with them, because…because I didn’t know how to.”

Anders couldn’t have been more surprised if a hexapuma had walked in the door and begun singing “Auld Lang Syne.” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard that steady, serious tone from his father. It was obvious Dr. Whitaker didn’t like saying that—admitting that—but he went on unflinchingly.

“I had a lot of time to think about it on the courier boat, and before I went to talk to the Chancellor and the Department Chair and the Faculty Senate. And before I had to face your Mom, too.” His voice changed slightly on the last sentence and he rolled his eyes. “If I’d been tempted to lie to anyone else about it, I knew I’d never be able to fool her. So I didn’t try, and she was just as mad at me as I expected her to be. Especially when she looked at the vids Calida made during the swamp siren’s attack. She was ready to take my head off for putting you in a position like that, but—somewhat to my surprise, actually—she was mad at me for putting myself into it, too.

“But that was when I told her how you’d stepped in to take up the slack. I had to go over my notes, and Calida and Virgil’s, to prepare my report for the Chancellor. That didn’t leave me a lot of room to fool myself, Anders. It’s all there in the record and the vids, even if I wasn’t paying enough attention at the time. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the mistakes I made, sorry for the responsibilities I dumped on your shoulders, and sorry for not being the person—the father—you needed me to be. But one thing I’m not at all sorry for.” Dr. Whitaker’s eyes his son’s unflinchingly. “I’m not sorry that you showed me that whatever other mistakes I’ve made along the way, and however much your mom deserves the lion’s share of the credit, between us, we raised a boy who’s turned into a fine young man. One I’m prouder of than I’ll probably ever be able to tell you.”

Anders swallowed hard, feeling his eyes burn. For some reason, his father’s words—the kind of words he’d wanted to hear from him for so long—made him want to break down and bawl.

He wanted to tell his dad that it was all right. That it didn’t matter, since everyone was safe in the end after all. That it was okay. But it wasn’t all right. His father’s apology couldn’t change the past. What had happened, had happened. It couldn’t be undone anymore than a chicken could return to the egg. And even now, he knew his father was still his father. That he was going to be himself again—focused, driven, ambitious—once he got back to work. But maybe if they couldn’t change the past, they could at least change the future. Maybe his dad really had learned something, been humbled by his experiences. He certainly sounded as if he had, and he must have been able to convince the University—and Anders’ mom!—that he had, or he wouldn’t be back here to stay. But there were limits to just how much someone could change, weren’t there?

And would I even want him to really turn into someone else completely? I mean, he is my dad, and despite everything, I really do love him. Anders shook his head mentally. Sure, he’s going to backslide. But not as far—not when he knows how much is on the line if he screws up again and that everyone in the Star Kingdom’s going to be keeping an eye on him! And if he does start screwing up again, this time I’ll have a little something to say to him about it, too.

He looked at his father for another moment or two, then gave him a smile that was only a little lopsided.

“Hey, anybody can screw up,” he said. “Even me, I guess. Maybe not quite that spectacularly, but I’ll probably find a way to do something just about as dumb sooner or later. Heck, I’m your son, aren’t I?”

Dr. Whitaker’s serious, almost somber expression, transformed into a smile and he shook his head.

“Yeah, but you’re your mother’s son, too. Her genetic contribution will probably come to the surface if you start to do something that ‘dumb.’ I sure hope it will, anyway!”

“Me, too,” Anders told him, and then he was wrapping his arms around his father. “Me, too. But it’s good to see you again, Dad. It really is.”

* * *

Anders never knew exactly what his father had to say to the other members of the team. But he spoke to each of them individually, and whatever it was he had to say, it seemed to have worked. There was definitely a different atmosphere, and he thought it was going to be a much better one. Dr. Whitaker was still the senior member of the expedition, still in charge, still had the final decision, but none of the others—and especially not Calida Emberly and Kesia Guyen—were going to accept his orders without question if they disagreed. Not anymore. And that, Anders thought, was probably exactly what his father had needed for years. He’d become too accustomed to the unchallenged authority of his exalted academic position and reputation, but now he’d been brought face-to-face with an awareness of just how bad a mistake he could make…and so had the rest of his team.

The surprising thing was that their new relationships actually seemed to make everybody, including his dad, more comfortable, not less.

“—so Chancellor Warwick made the University’s position very clear,” Dr. Whitaker was saying now, looking at the people seated around the dining table in his and Anders’ apartment for his first working meeting with the entire team. “Calida,” he turned to Dr. Emberly, “you are now officially the team’s executive officer. The Chancellor didn’t go quite as far as saying you have veto authority, but he didn’t leave me with much doubt about whether or not I’m supposed to pay attention to your recommendations.”

He smiled as he said it, and Anders wondered if the rest of the team was as surprised by his father’s attitude as he’d been.

“The Chancellor also made it very clear that if any of you choose to return to Kenichi instead of continuing with this expedition, you’re free to do so and there will be no academic or professional consequences. I told him I was confident all of you would prefer to stay and continue our study of the treecats, but if you’d prefer not to, I’ll understand your decision.”

He paused, as if waiting for someone to jump up and leave immediately, but no one stirred.

“The Chancellor also made it clear that any member of the University faculty will be liable for some pretty severe penalties, tenure or no tenure, if there’s another incident anything like the last one,” he continued, and grimaced. “I expect most of those penalties would probably come down on me, but from what he had to say, I’m confident there’d be enough of them to go around for anyone else responsible for it.”

This time it was the others who smiled—Kesia actually chuckled—and Dr. Whitaker shook his head.

“I’ve delivered Chancellor Warwick’s messages to Dr. Hobbard, and I spoke personally to Minister Vásquez before leaving Manticore for Sphinx. I have a meeting scheduled with Governor Donaldson this evening, as well. And then, of course, I’m going to have to sit down and discuss all of this with Chief Ranger Shelton.” He shook his head again. “I’m not really looking forward to that conversation. Do you think you could get Ms. Harrington and Lionheart to come along and protect me, Anders?”

“I’m afraid not,” Anders said. His father looked at him, and he shrugged. “Stephanie’s on Manticore for the next three months. She’s attending a forestry training program there for the SFS.”

He’d thought his voice had come out perfectly naturally. From the flicker in Dr. Whitaker’s eyes, he’d been wrong.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” his father said after a moment, looking directly at him.

“It was a surprise for all of us,” Calida said. “Frankly, I’m not sure it’s a wonderful idea to take Lionheart into such a radically different environment, but none of the people involved in the decision asked my opinion. And even if they had, I don’t know if Stephanie had any alternative but to take him with her.”

“I don’t think she did,” Calida’s mother put in. “At least, neither she nor Lionheart thought she did! And it’s not as if we’ve been left without any ambassador to treecats. There’s always young Jessica, you know.”

“Jessica?” Dr. Whitaker repeated a bit blankly.

“Jessica Pheriss, Dad,” Anders said. “Stephanie’s best friend. She got hurt fighting the fire and wound up paired with a treecat of her own, remember?”

“Tall girl—red hair?” Dr. Whitaker said after a moment.

“More auburn than red, but that’s her.”

For some reason, Anders was a little nettled by the vagueness of his father’s memory.

Well, of course I am, he thought as he recognized the reason. Jessica was a big part of saving our butts, and Dad was so far gone I don’t think he even noticed she was there!

“I do remember her,” Dr. Whitaker said. “She was with Ms. Harrington and young Zivonik and the others in the forest fire, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, she was,” Anders confirmed, pleased to discover that his father had noticed his rescuers.

“Well, if she’s half as knowledgeable about treecats as Ms. Harrington was—and if she’s willing to work with us—I’m sure she could be a very valuable asset,” Dr. Whitaker went on. “And, in addition, Minister Vásquez made it abundantly clear that she wants at least one SFS ranger assigned as a full-time member of our team. I’d really like to object, but, unfortunately, I’m not in much of a position to do that. And there is a good side to it.” Dr. Whitaker rubbed his hands together cheerfully. “If he’s assigned as a full-time team member, we should be able to get a decent priority from the Rangers when we need to go into the bush!”

Now that, Anders thought, sounded like the Dr. Whitaker he knew. He was a little surprised by how much the thought amused him.

“What about these other xeno-anthropologists, Bradford?” Langston Nez asked. “How are they going to fit into the picture?”

“That’s difficult to say at the moment.” Dr. Whitaker scowled. “What Dr. Hobbard was able to show me about their credentials looked…reasonably good.” He flipped one hand back and forth in a waving away gesture. “I wouldn’t say any of them are absolutely top-drawer, but they all seem competent enough. And unlike that cretin Bolgeo, they’re all from reputable institutions. Really from them, I mean. They were pre-vetted by the Adair Institute before they were ever proposed, and Dr. Hobbard and Minister Vásquez have double and triple-checked the documentation this time! Unfortunately, I’m still not very clear on exactly what it is they hope to accomplish.”

“I did a little research on the data net after we got your message, Doctor,” Calida Emberly said. “The Adair Institute has an excellent reputation. It was established in the first decade or so of the colony here and it’s been dedicated to researching the biospheres of all three habitable planets ever since. According to its site, its primary emphasis up to this point has been on Manticore, rather than Sphinx or Gryphon, which makes a sort of sense. There are a lot more people on Manticore, and their footprint’s already a lot bigger there. I think we can safely say that the Institute’s priorities shifted just a bit when the possibility that Sphinx has a native sentient species hit the boards, though.”

“Yes, well whether or not the treecats are truly sentiment—demonstrably and provably, I mean—remains to be seen,” Dr. Whitaker said. “I hope these people are going to keep an open mind about that instead of slanting their findings to suit their sponsors! But from what you’re saying, at least they’re unlikely to want to rush in and contaminate our contacts with the treecats or start anthropomorphizing them with all sorts of untrained preconceptions. Unlike some other people.”

Anders started to protest the obvious shot at the Forestry Service’s handling of the human-treecat situation—and probably Stephanie, too—but stepped on the temptation. Whatever else might have changed, Dr. Whitaker was still a xeno-anthropologist. He would have been far happier if the Star Kingdom’s authorities had declared the entire planet a nature preserve and decreed that no one—no one at all…except, of course, for him and his team—could have any contact whatsoever with the treecats until he’d completed his study of them. Which probably wouldn’t take longer than, oh, twenty or thirty T-years.

If he rushed himself, that was.

“Well, we’ll just have to see how all of that works out,” Dr. Whitaker continued. “Dr. Hobbard tells me that we probably have a T-month or so before they begin arriving, and I’d really like to have our new relationship with the SFS worked out before we have to start integrating them into our team’s schedule. So, bearing that in mind, Calida, what I’d like to do tonight is—”

Chapter Six

Anders found himself checking his mail several times a day, especially first thing in the morning while he ate his breakfast. He didn’t go out of his way to bring that to the attention of any of the Whitaker expedition’s other members, although he was certain they’d noticed anyway.

Stephanie’s first few messages included copious quantities of video about the trip itself and the campus. The accompanying commentary was obviously genuinely enthusiastic…and equally obviously an effort to pretend she didn’t miss Anders as much as she did. He found that rather sweet and touching, and he supposed he really had to admit that his messaged replies were intended to disguise exactly the same loneliness.

The vids got somewhat shorter as she started settling in, dealing with things like registration, dorm rooms, finding her way around campus, and all the other preliminaries for her course of study. Still, he was a little surprised when he received a message less than a week after her departure that was not only very short but text-only.

“I bet you thought I forgot your birthday,” it read. “I didn’t! Happy Seventeenth, Anders Whitaker! The attached file will show you where I hid your present. Hugs and kisses, Stephanie.”

Anders blinked. Stephanie hadn’t forgotten his birthdate…but he had. He supposed it was the fact that he was living on another planet, under a different calendar, which had mixed him up. At home on Urako, his birthday usually came sometime in summer; here on Sphinx it was autumn. He checked to make sure the date was right and noticed a flurry of messages in his queue from friends and family off-planet. They’d probably sent them—quite possibly with Doctor Whitaker on his return from Urako—to be delivered specifically on this date.

He read a bunch of them, saving Stephanie’s attachment for last. It was very short, even shorter than the message to which it had been attached:

It starts your name.

It’s cherry bright.

It gives a zing,

So you can stay up at night.

Anders stared at the four lines in confusion.

His name started with the letter “A,” but the rest seemed like complete nonsense. How could this tell him where Stephanie had left his present?

“Anders?” Dad’s voice came through the door. “Are you coming with us to the site today?”

“You bet!”

The entire team was upbeat and eager now that they’d been allowed back into the field. Anders was just as happy about that as any of the others, and he was ready to go except for his boots and jacket. He shoved his feet into the one and his arms into the other. Dad was never patient about being delayed but, to Anders’ surprise, Dr. Whitaker hadn’t even put on his jacket or picked up his pack. Instead, with a sheepish smile, he extended a large package to Anders.

“From your mother and me. We picked it out before the expedition ever left Urako. I’ve been hiding it for months!”

Anders ripped off the wrapping paper. Inside was a new uni-link, one of the fancy high processor models he’d coveted. Surrounding it were about six packages of socks in different colors—the need to have plenty of socks having become a running joke between Anders and his mom.

“Dad, this is super-hexy! Thanks so much. It’s the exact model I wanted.”

Dr. Whitaker looked very pleased. “And you can be certain that this model is calibrated to access the com net here on Sphinx.”

Anders grinned. Screwed up communications equipment had been the cause of a lot of last year’s trouble. He strapped on his new uni-link while his dad got into his jacket. Daytimes were still pretty nice, especially if the site was sunny, but the rest of the time a jacket was an absolute necessity.

Father and son hurried down the steps together. It rapidly became apparent that the rest of the crew also knew it was Anders’ birthday. Once they were all in the air van and speeding toward the site, gifts came out. Langston Nez presented him with a text on how sentience and intelligence had been judged practically from the dawn of human history.

“Did you know that things like skin color were once considered indicators of human intelligence?” he said. “This book will help you understand why getting humans to admit anyone—even other humans—to the exclusive ‘person’ not ‘animal’ club can be so difficult.”

Anders was a little overwhelmed. From what he could see, this was a pretty serious book, but then one of the reasons he’d always liked Dr. Nez was that he never treated Anders like a kid.

“Thanks!”

The rest of the gifts were less serious. Kesia Guyen and her husband had found Anders a selection of popular music from back on Urako—“So you won’t be too behind when you get back home.” Dr. Emberly, true to her botanist background—and perhaps as a sly reference to all the foraging they’d done together—had given him an assortment of dried fruit from all the planets in the Manticore system. Dacey Emberly had painted Anders a portrait of several male treecats lolling on pads of leaves and branches, their gray and cream coloration blending in amazingly well with the long streaks of sunlight coming through the limbs overhead.

“I put in several of our friends and acquaintances,” she said, pointing. “There’s Lionheart. Valiant is over to the side. He looks like he’s asleep, but you can see he has a root in his hand-feet and he’s drowsed off while inspecting it. Right-Striped and Left-Striped are the two who’re wrestling. Fisher is licking his true-hands clean. Next to him, you can see the bones and scales from his most recent catch.”

Anders laughed. “Thanks so much. This is great.”

“It’s an original painting,” Dacey said, “not a print. It’s from the series I’m doing to illustrate the expedition reports.”

“That makes it a real treasure, Anders,” Dad cut in. “We’ll wrap it very carefully when we pack up this winter.”

Pack up, Anders thought. This winter, when it will be my turn to leave. And not just to another planet in the same star system, this time. At least Dad sounds like he’s given up on the idea of shipping me home early.

All the gifts got Anders thinking about Stephanie’s little rhyme. He played it over in his head, then used his new uni-link to check his guess. “Cherry” was one of those words that had mutated a lot since humans started cultivating the particular sub variety of genus prunus back on Old Earth. When humans had taken off for the stars, they’d shown a strong tendency to name new things after what they’d left behind, whether they looked a lot like the original or not. Certainly the Sphinxian crown oak, with its arrowhead-shaped leaves and enormous size, bore only the faintest resemblance to the oaks of Old Earth. The same was even more true of the Sphinxian red spruce, which was not much like a spruce at all, given that it had blue-green leaves rather than needles. However, some colonist had seen a similarity between the timber produced by that particular tree and that of the terrestrial spruce. As was so often the case, the name had stuck.

So what remained “cherry” when everything else changed? Anders happily viewed a variety of fruits and fruit woods that used “cherry” in their names and spent much of the morning considering that question. In the end, he decided that—although even on Old Earth cherries had come in pink and yellow, as well in various shades of red, including a hue so dark it was almost black—to most people “cherry bright” would mean bright red.

Okay. He made a note to himself. The letter A and bright red.

For a moment, a potential answer tingled in the back of his mind, but it drifted off. Rather than chase after it, he decided to let it percolate on its own while he considered the next line. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of an answer for that one, either.

At mid-afternoon, the crew stopped for a break. Anders had been helping Dr. Nez sift through river gravels to see if the treecats might be able to forage for sufficient flint there rather than traveling—or trading—to get it closer to the source. He was glad to take a rest from the neck and back-stiffening work and play waiter to the rest of the group.

Kesia Guyen, who had managed to keep her plump—she referred to it as “full” figure—despite hours of hard labor, plopped down and leaned back against one of the picketwood trees that were always part of a treecat settlement.

“Anders, my boy, I know it’s your birthday, but I’m too pooped to pop up again. Can you grab me something to drink from the cooler?”

“Sure, but would you like? There’s a bunch of stuff here.”

“Anything as long as it has caffeine.” She chuckled one of her deep, throaty laughs. “This girl needs some caff if she’s gonna stay on Dr. Whitaker’s staff.”

Anders grabbed a bulb of a cream-coffee drink he knew Kesia liked and tossed it over to her. He was reaching for a bulb of spike thorn tea with associated honey when an idea hit him.

Gives a zing. Caffeine. Caff. It’s not the letter “A” only; it’s a letter. A cherry letter. A red letter. Caff-A! The Red Letter Café in Twin Forks! That’s got to be what Stephanie meant.

He knew the Red Letter Café well. The owner, Eric Flint, had been one of the first business owners to announce that—despite Lionheart’s terrible table manners—his business was a treecat-friendly zone. In thanks, the Harringtons had frequented the café, although thanks alone probably wouldn’t have kept them coming back if the Red Letter Café hadn’t also served ample portions and made excellent milkshakes.

After Jessica had been adopted by Valiant, the café had become the preferred hangout for the hang-gliding club after practice. So when, on the way home, Dr. Whitaker asked, “So, son, where do you want to go for your birthday dinner?” there was really only one answer.

“The Red Letter Café. All this shifting stone has given me a real taste for a milkshake.”

* * *

Stephanie swung her feet out of bed as soon as her alarm beeped, but it was harder than usual for some reason this morning. Even having stayed up last night getting to know a few of the other students couldn’t explain why she felt so dragged down.

Only after she’d gotten out of the shower and was strapping on her uni-link did she glance at the date and remember.

“Anders’ birthday!” she said aloud.

Lionheart stopped scratching at his shedding further. “Bleek?”

“It’s Anders’ birthday,” Stephanie repeated. “I wonder if he’s got my message yet?” She calculated the differences in time quickly. “I bet he has…I wonder if he’s figured it out yet?”

“Bleek!”

“Yeah. I think he will, too. He’s pretty smart.”

Her uni-link beeped and for a moment she had the crazy hope it might be a message from Anders. Instead, it was a text from Karl: “Heading down to eat. Meet you. Remember. Early target shooting before forensics.”

Stephanie sighed and shoved her feet into her shoes. She thought about eating in her room—she’d laid in a stash—and seeing if she could record a quick message to Anders, a follow-up to the timed one. Then she shook her head and continued talking to Lionheart as she gathered up her stuff.

“No. I can’t risk seeming standoffish, especially not so early in the session. Last night was fun. I especially liked that Carmen Telford. But there were a lot of people who were looking at me like I was a trained neo-monk or something. And if the word somehow got out that I was brooding over a boy….”

She hugged Lionheart, sneezed at the cloud of shed fur that came up, and ran for the door.

* * *

Anders certainly hadn’t been wrong about his solution to Stephanie’s puzzle. What he hadn’t expected was that it would have more than one part. After they’d had dinner, he’d gone up to Eric Flint and said, “I believe you have something Stephanie left for me.”

Mr. Flint had grinned and immediately produced a slim envelope from one of the cubbies at the reception desk. When Anders got home and opened it, the contents read: “High, high, up in the sky, where purple moths go drifting by!”

He got this one immediately. Not long ago, when he and Stephanie had been hang-gliding on the Harrington freehold, they’d found themselves flying in the midst of a host of delicate little six-winged creatures that they’d dubbed “purple moths.” They’d hovered on the counter-grav units built into the gliders, taking images and—when a few unfortunates chose to commit suicide against the glider wings—taking samples, as well.

They’d nursed hopes that they’d discovered another new species, but it turned out that their moths were already known under the name “lavender hexaflies.” Nonetheless, the SFS was happy to have the samples and images, since it was suspected that various species of hexaflies played an essential role in the late-season pollination of some of the faster-growing Sphinxian plant species.

That had been a wonderful, magical day, and Anders was certain he could locate the place again. However, he also knew he was one of the less skillful flyers in Stephanie’s gang, and air currents this time of year could be unpredictable. It would be a good idea to bring someone else along. He’d also better get the Harringtons’ permission. Their freehold was huge—over six hundred square kilometers—and they would probably not even notice people poking around, but Anders’ mother had always stressed that remembering one’s manners applied even when no one was likely to notice.

Richard Harrington asked where Anders wanted to go and, after checking the coordinates, gave the okay.

“You’re not going alone, are you?”

“I know the safety rules, Coach,” Anders replied promptly. “I figured on asking the gang: Toby, Chet, Christine, and Jessica. Club games and races are nice but, well, there’s something great about flying just for the fun of it.”

“I agree. Have a good time, then.”

Anders debated which of his friends to call first. He realized that despite the amount of time he’d spent with them, this would be the first time he was the one setting something up. Usually Stephanie handled that, following some shared unwritten assumption that they were “her” friends. Finally, Anders decided a blanket invitation had the best chance of succeeding.

He was delighted—and a little suspicious, when all four were available. Could Stephanie have set this up in advance? Maybe Mr. Flint had been asked to let them all know when Anders picked up the note, indicating that he’d solved the first puzzle. Or maybe Richard Harrington was in on it and had signaled when Anders called to get permission. Anders wouldn’t have been surprised. If Stephanie hadn’t wanted to be a ranger, she would have made a great fleet commander.

* * *

“So that’s Ms. Stephanie Harrington and the famous Lionheart,” Gwendolyn Adair murmured, gazing at the imagery on her display. Harrington and the SFS had maintained a very low profile on her arrival and none of the newsies seemed to have realized she was coming, but Gwen had positioned her own camera team ahead of time.

“Yep,” Oswald Morrow agreed, looking over her shoulder. “Doesn’t look all that impressive, does she? She’s just a kid!”

“Who went up against a hexapuma with just a vibro blade and a treecat,” Gwen reminded him a bit frostily. “And you might want to remember what happened to our good friend Bolgeo when he crossed swords with her.” She shook her head, never looking away from the imagery. “Don’t sell this particular kid short, Ozzie.”

“Umph.” Morrow shrugged, but he didn’t argue with her. Not out loud, anyway. Instead, he tapped the display with a fingertip. “That’s Zivonik?”

“No, Ozzie; its Crown Prince Edward.” She glared over her shoulder at him. “Of course it’s Zivonik!”

Morrow glared back at her, but only from the corner of one eye, and she snorted.

“Sorry.” There might have been just a little insincerity in her tone. “Yes, that’s Zivonik. Bigger than I expected, really…though he could just look bigger because he’s standing next to her.”

“How did they do coming through the terminal?”

“Better than I’d hoped they would, actually.” Gwen shook her head. “I’d sort of hoped all the people running around everywhere would spook the ’cat, but he seems to’ve taken it in stride.”

“Too bad,” Morrow murmured. “That probably means he’ll behave himself in crowds on campus, too.”

“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy.” Gwen shrugged, gazing at the imagery for another handful of seconds, then shut it off and tipped back in her chair. “Like I say, our young friend Stephanie’s not someone to take lightly, and I’m beginning to think her six-legged friend isn’t, either.”

“Are you thinking about changing the plan?” Morrow sounded both surprised and perhaps a bit anxious, but then, despite his confident exterior and reputation for brokering big deals, he was much more of a creature of habit than Gwen. He liked to make a plan then stick with it, and her tendency to improvise made him nervous on occasion.

“No,” she reassured him. “I am thinking about how best to apply it, though. And the more I look at the imagery, the less confident I am of our being able to convince people treecats aren’t really sentient.”

“Then why are we sending all those anthropologists to Sphinx?” Morrow demanded, and grimaced. “It’s costing a pretty penny just to get them out here, Gwen. And even with your backing through the Foundation, I burned more favors with the Interior Ministry than I like to think about getting Vásquez to sign off on making Hobard give them access right along with Whitaker! If he hadn’t messed up so badly during the forest fires, I don’t think she would’ve overruled Hobard, no matter how we’d approached her.”

“Oh, stop hugging your wallet, Ozzie!” Gwen shook her head again. “Our people are going to argue against admitting sentience as long as they can, and even if Hobard doesn’t buy into it, it’ll create plenty of confusion in the minds of people who aren’t anthropologists. In the end, it doesn’t really matter what the scientists decide, now does it? What matters is what Parliament decides, and that means we have to convince a bunch of voters who probably don’t even know what ‘sentient’ means that the ’cats are only cute, cuddly woodland creatures.”

“But you said—”

“I said it was going to be harder, not that I thought it was going to be impossible. Besides, that was never more than our first line of defense. You just be sure your pet anthropologists’ reports underline these things’ inability to truly understand the implications of modern technology or the real impact human settlements are going to have on them. We deny their sentience as long as we can, and when we finally admit it, we argue that the reason it took us so long to realize the truth is because they’re so different from human beings. And with the Foundation sponsoring their research, it’ll be easy to tell everyone how concerned we are about their well-being. How much we want to protect them from the corrupting influence of human contact. After all, think how other aboriginal cultures have been scarred and destroyed by contact with more advanced societies!”

He looked at her, eyes narrowing, and then began to nod slowly.

* * *

Stephanie finished the newly arrived message from Anders, freezing the final frame on her viewscreen so she could enjoy the warmth of his parting smile while she thought about the news. More xeno-anthropologists! She was happy for Anders that his dad had returned, and she was ecstatic at the thought that the Whitaker expedition’s time on Sphinx had actually been extended, rather than cut short. But she’d learned to know the members of Doctor Whitaker’s team, and she didn’t know any of these newcomers Anders was talking about. She wished she could be there to see them firsthand—and to have Lionheart check them out.

“We can’t be there, though. But I wonder…” An impish grin lit her face, and she quickly set herself to record.

“Anders…I’m so glad you’re enjoying the scavenger hunt. Thanks for telling me about this new group of xeno-anthropologists. I never thought I’d say this, but I agree with your dad, and I wish Lionheart and I could be there to check them out. Since we can’t, though, I’ve got an idea. How about Jessica and Valiant?

“Jessica’s good with people—better than I am, really. She’s been so many places. I think Valiant is a bit more shy about strangers than Lionheart, but he’s a wise sort. I think he’d be able to spot a blackhole like Bolgeo right off. Then you and Jess and all would know who to keep an eye on.

“I’m going to message Jess right away and see what she thinks. If she’s for it, then I’m sure something can be set up.”

Her voice softened. “I really, really wish I could be there—and not just to check out these new arrivals. I can’t believe it’s only been three days…Three months seem like an eternity.” She blew him a kiss. “Miss you!”

* * *

The weather wasn’t as cooperative as the human elements, so it wasn’t until a few days after Anders’ birthday that the group assembled on the top of a cliff that offered a good place to park Jessica’s car and Chet’s truck. Unlike traditional hang-gliders, the modern glider included a counter-grav unit that made the blind leaps into the air that belonged to the traditional sport unnecessary. A few of the stronger fliers—Karl and Toby among them—had experimented with jumping off cliffs anyway, but Anders was just as glad to let his counter-grav carry him up to where he could find a strong thermal.

As he shrugged into his glider, Anders noticed Valiant reaching up to accept a neat little shoulder bag from Jessica. The contents clinked slightly as the treecat slung the strap over one shoulder, then over his chest, positioning it so that it rested comfortably between his upper and middle sets of limbs. Then the ’cat wandered off toward a cluster of thick, shrubby trees that—despite showing evidence of having been bent by the winds—were evidently thriving.

“Dr. Richard helped adapt my glider so Valiant could ride with me like Lionheart does with Stephanie,” Jessica explained, “but he’s not as keen on flying as Lionheart. I get the impression that Lionheart’s a bit of a daredevil.”

“Like Stephanie,” Christine chuckled, settling her helmet over her indigo crest. “Where’s Valiant off to?”

“Collecting plants,” Jessica said. “Dr.Marjorie set him up with little bags that will protect his samples. She figured that was a good compromise that let her encourage him while not steering him. Valiant has gardens at our place, in the Harrington greenhouses, and back with his clan.”

Very much the anthropologist’s son, Anders asked, “Does Valiant seem to be doing any sort of systematic gardening or is he just sticking things in at random?”

“Systematic,” Jessica answered promptly, “although what his system is, I can’t say. We can’t talk, remember. The best I can do is observe, but it sure looks to me as if he’s trying out the same plants in different locations. His clan lives where the soil is very moist compared to our garden.”

“I remember.” Anders grinned. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget. It’s interesting that Valiant’s clan moved back into that territory after the fires burned them out of their new home. My dad had the impression that they’d moved in the first place because the area near the bog was fished out or hunted out or something.”

“Maybe,” Jessica agreed. “But they’re back—despite having to put up with a swamp siren for a neighbor.”

“I wonder,” Anders continued thinking aloud as he went through his preflight check, “if they didn’t have a lot of choice. Maybe treecats are territorial.”

“Maybe,” Jessica agreed again. She might have said more, but at that moment, Chet cut in.

“Hey, are we going to fly and find Anders’ prezzie, or are we going to yack?”

“Fly,” Anders replied. “Let’s go prezzie hunting.”

The small flock of gliders rose on counter-grav, gleaming in the sun, and from his newly elevated perch, Anders checked his uni-link for the coordinates he and Stephanie had filed when they had first discovered the purple moths.

“There,” he murmured to himself. “Over by those rocks, then over to the right…Uh-oh.”

He spoke into his uni-link. “Guys, we’ve got a problem.”

“Problem?” Chad asked. “Can’t you find the spot?”

“Oh, I’ve found it,” Anders replied. “But something’s changed since Stephanie and I were out here.” He read off the location, then pointed. “See? Looks as if a flock of some sort of avians has decided this series of cliffs would make a perfect autumn aerie.”

“I’ve got a good visual on them,” Toby commed in. “I think your avians are rock ravens. Karl told me about them when we went out to do some traditional gliding a couple of weeks ago.”

Still listening, Anders called up the SFS ranger’s guide on his uni-link. The information available was depressingly brief. Like most lifeforms native to Sphinx, rock ravens were structured on a hexapedal model. In this particular case, that worked out two sets of wings and a single pair of powerful talon-tipped legs.

The wingspan was about a meter wide, and their feathers seemed to change color between shades of blue and brown, depending on their surroundings. No one had yet had time to study whether the color variants indicated different species or whether some other factor was involved. That was it.

“The rock ravens weren’t there when you were here before?” Christine asked.

“Nope. All that was here were a bunch of purple moths—like I told you when I showed you Stephanie’s clue.”

“They weren’t here when Steph and I came out to—” Jessica cut in, then stopped. “I guess I’ve got to admit that I know where the prize is hidden,” she continued after a moment. “Anders has pinpointed it exactly, so it’s not like I’m helping him cheat.”

“I’ve got a different angle on the cliff from Toby,” Chet said. “Jess, is what we’re looking for wrapped in purple?”

Anders shifted screens on his uni-link and saw that the star indicating Chet on his map was drifting higher than the rest of them.

“Yep.”

“Then I’ve spotted it, and you’re right, Anders has pinpointed the target. There’s something wedged in a cleft down there, right where the rock ravens are thickest.”

“What a lousy coincidence!” Toby said, his voice full of sympathy.

Anders cleared his throat. “Actually, it may not be a coincidence. It’s possible the rock ravens were drawn here by the swarms of lavender hexaflies—or because they came to prey on the creatures that came to eat the hexaflies.”

“The circle of lunch,” Chet quipped. “I always thought that would be a better name than “circle of life.’ So, how do we scare them off?”

Anders shifted the sights on his flying goggles for long distance. He’d honed his skill at this when he went gliding. Stephanie’s capacity for aerial acrobatics went far beyond what he could manage. Rather than slow her down, he sometimes preferred to switch to counter-grav mode and drift on the winds, observing the land below. Now he focused in on the area where the rock ravens were thickest.

Looking at the flock, Anders could understand why some long-ago colonist had given the birds (“bird analogs, not birds,” he heard his father pedantically lecturing in his head) the name “rock raven.” They definitely belonged to the group that possessed beaks and feathers—a group which included mountain eagles and finches—rather than the more bat-like flyers like the condor owls. Where condor owls were covered with a fine down, these rock ravens had the Sphinxian equivalent of feathers—hollow quills with outlying veins that captured the air. The rock ravens were nicely streamlined, too, with wedge-shaped tails that gave them extra finesse as they dodged and dove, sometimes skimming right up against the rock face before looping around into open-air.

“They don’t look too dangerous,” he said. “I mean, they don’t have nasty hooked beaks, so I’m guessing they’re omnivores or scavengers rather than hunters. I can’t really get a good look at their feet, though, so it’s hard to say.”

“Karl said something…” Toby’s voice faltered. “I can’t remember what.”

“Did he say they were dangerous? Christine asked. “I mean, do they have poison or spines or something that might make up for them not being super huge?”

“Naw, nothing like that,” Toby assured her. “It was something about them being migratory and moving into lower areas when winter came on. Something like that. I’m pretty sure he didn’t say anything about them being dangerous.”

Anders wondered if he imagined the warble of doubt in the younger boy’s voice, but when none of the others questioned Toby, he figured he must have. After all, they knew Toby a lot better.

“Here’s my idea,” he said. “Stephanie wouldn’t like it very much if we hurt—or even really disrupted—the rock ravens, not just to get a present. So how about I go in alone? I’ll grab whatever’s there, then get out.”

“I don’t want to give away too much,” Jessica said, “but I can say that what Stephanie left is small enough for one person to pull out. Still, wouldn’t you like some of us to fly cover?”

“Or maybe go in for you?” Toby added. “Like you said, Stephanie wouldn’t like it if any of the rock ravens got hurt and, well, you’re not the best flyer here.”

“I am,” Anders replied, “the worst. I know that. You know that. More importantly, Stephanie knew that. I’m sure she wouldn’t have set up something I couldn’t handle. So I’m going in.”

He didn’t want to admit it, but he was actually nervous about taking his glider in among all those birds. However, he also didn’t want to give anyone a chance to talk him out of it. Stephanie had set this up for him, not for the whole gang.

Shifting his goggles back to normal range, he readied himself for the maneuver. He knew that Christine or Jessica would have managed a fancy dive, but he figured prudence was best. He’d drop down to the level of Stephanie’s purple whatever, then go in on a flat horizontal course until he came up alongside. He’d grab it and get out. Then they’d all scatter and the rock ravens could go back to doing whatever it was rock ravens did.

Perfect.

Except, as with most plans, it didn’t work out quite that way.

The rock ravens didn’t react until Anders was on their level and speeding toward them. Then, rather than scattering as he’d figured they would, they bunched up. Not wanting to hurt them, Anders started braking. That would have been a bad idea with a traditional glider, since he’d risk losing loft as well as speed, but he had the counter-grav unit to compensate.

He’d managed to slow up before he reached the flock. Then, to his horror, the flock came at him. The sounds they made were more like the shrill shrieks of a peacock than the hoarser caws and croaks of Old Earth ravens. They penetrated into his inner ear, creating a sensation of vertigo. His body felt as if he were wobbling, falling, even as his intellect assured him that the counter-grav unit had to be keeping him aloft.

The rock ravens were all around him, mobbing him, beating at him with their wings, pecking indiscriminately at the glider’s fabric, his clothing, the exposed skin of his face, their hard beaks tapping against his goggles. He felt hot beads of blood coursing into streams. The edges of the feathers rasped against his skin, causing a small pocket of his brain to guess that whatever made the side veins was stronger and coarser than the material of terrestrial feathers.

For a long and terrible moment, overwhelmed on all sides and all senses, Anders found it nearly impossible to think. He was aware of the voices of his friends shouting at him on the open channel of his new uni-link, but he couldn’t make out anything over the shrieking of the rock ravens. He had to get free of the flock before they drove his faltering glider into the edge of the cliff. The counter-grav unit couldn’t stop that.

The cliff face swirled and danced in front of him. The shrieking in his ears reverberated louder and louder. Buffeted by angry aviforms, Anders struggled to find a way to avoid certain doom….

Chapter Seven

Counter-grav!

Anders fumbled for the control, then pushed the weight-control slide to make himself lighter. For a moment, he thought the sheer mass of the avians on top of him would hold him down, but although the mob of ravens was dense, it couldn’t contain him. He peeled up and out, floating toward the sky with increasing speed once the obstructions had been pushed aside. Quickly, he leveled off, then brought himself lower once more.

The shrieks of the rock ravens had shifted to something that sounded suspiciously triumphant, and Anders craned around to see how much damage they done to his glider. Thankfully, Bradford Whitaker’s usual tendency to skimp on anything other than anthropology hadn’t won out when he’d been choosing his son’s glider. The high-tech fabrics were dimpled but largely intact.

“Wow!” Toby’s voice was the first to register on Anders’ recovering ears. “That was amazing.”

“Good thing you got out of there so fast,” Chet said. “You think well on your feet—and off them, too, now that I think about it.”

His warm chuckle startled Anders, until he realized that what had been to him a horrible ordeal had probably lasted no more than a few seconds. The peacock cries of the rock ravens had distorted more than his sense of balance.

“You okay, Anders?” Jessica’s voice held deep concern. “They didn’t get your eyes or anything?”

“I had my flying goggles on,” Anders replied, “and I’m really glad. They definitely were going for my eyes. Clever little monsters.”

“Land at base,” Christine said firmly. “We better make sure you and your glider didn’t take any real damage.”

Anders thought about arguing. With the counter-grav unit on it wasn’t like he could fall or anything, even if his glider was damaged, but he knew that tone. If he argued, Christine would simply get Chet to help her grab him and tow him in. Chet would probably think it was really funny.