Treecat Wars (15 page)

* * *

Although the gang offered to help Anders with the rest of his scavenger hunt, none of the other clues offered the same level of threat. Probably the most “dangerous” challenge was one that took Anders to the burned out island where Stephanie and the others had fought to save Valiant’s clan. However, the danger offered by the island was due more to people than to the environment. It shared a border with lands held by the Franchitti family—a family that believed animals were for hunting, shooting, and imprisoning rather than preserving. They’d already received several reprimands for abuse of flora and fauna alike. As a result, they’d become very guarded about who crossed their airspace.

But Anders carefully kept his air car within the boundaries of public lands and, although there might have been an annoyed Franchitti or two just waiting to warn him off, he gave them no justification to intervene.

His prize in the end was worth every minute of his effort, though—as he wrote to Stephanie—the hunt in itself was a present.

“It kept you near me,” he dictated, taking care with every word. “I could feel you there before me. Sometimes you seemed so close that I felt if I hurried just a little faster I’d glimpse you, be able to reach out and hold your hand.”

He wanted to say more, but it was harder to talk about how much you wanted to kiss your girl than it was to do it. Weird.

Stephanie’s present managed to be both romantic and practical—rather like the girl herself—a custom band for his new uni-link. She’d crafted it herself in her family’s workshop and had inscribed the band so that the words would nuzzle up against his wrist, “To Anders, from his Steph. The void between worlds cannot divide hearts.”

* * *

Dad grinned when Anders showed him the custom band.

“I can’t say I’m completely surprised,” he said, admiring the careful workmanship. “She did ask me what we were getting you. She’s quite a talented young lady. I certainly wish she were still on planet.”

Despite any other changes in attitude, Anders doubted that his father felt that way because he commiserated so deeply with his son’s emotional life, so he said, “Still upset about those touring anthropologists? Have you learned anything about them that will help you deal with them?”

“Not much,” Doctor Whitaker replied glumly. “It’s been twelve days now, but given the lags in inter-system communication, all we have to go on is what we brought with us and what the Manticorans had on file. Langston and I cross-referenced the information Sonura Hobard sent us against our own research libraries, of course.”

“And?”

“And if these are the people who wrote the articles we’ve turned up, then we don’t have any excuse not to offer them at least professional courtesy.

Anders understood why his dad had included that wistful “if these are the people.” Tennessee Bolgeo hadn’t been any of the things included in his academic credentials. However, it was too much to hope for the same thing to happen twice and save the Whitaker expedition from the interlopers.

“In fact,” Dad sighed, “we’d be idiots not to offer them a reasonable amount of access. Dr. Radzinsky is quite respected for her work on non-human intelligence. In my opinion, she’s a bit conservative, but it was too much to imagine she wouldn’t be interested in developments here.”

“She’s not the only one coming, though, is she?”

Dad shook his head. “Under other circumstances, I could actually enjoy meeting Gary Hidalgo. He shares my interest in archeo-anthropology. Mind you, I don’t agree with a lot of his conclusions, but he definitely knows his stuff. He feels very strongly about the preservation of indigenous cultures in an uncontaminated state, so I’m sure he’ll have fits over how the SFS has given some treecats knives and axes. He’s certainly going to be in favor of having them protected from interference.”

Anders didn’t think this sounded too bad. “Anyone else?”

“They’ve got a linguistics specialist coming, too.” Dad scowled. “I had Kesia Guyen check them out, and she immediately got the shakes. Apparently, this Russell Darrolyn is on the cutting edge of nonverbal communication studies.”

Anders felt a flash of worry. He knew Stephanie and Scott had been torn from the first as to whether or not it would be a good thing to have the treecats recognized as as intelligent as they were. Better for humans to get used to them, come to like them, before they had to face the undoubted threat another sentient species could offer to human interests.

“Still, a linguist is good, right?” he said. “I mean, Kesia hasn’t been able to find any evidence that the treecats use complex verbal communication. Maybe this Dr. Darrolyn will have some new insights.”

Doctor Whitaker made a “tcching” noise with his tongue. “I’m not so sure providing that sort of proof will be his aim. Kesia says this Darrolyn is positively ‘cranky’ on the subject of communication forms that don’t involve words lined up into neat sentences.”

“Huh? I thought you said he was a specialist in nonverbal communications?”

“He is. But, basically, Darrolyn is very limited as to what he’ll agree is a viable communications form. Kesia said she thinks he’d doubt that even he is communicating, except for the undeniable fact that he gets replies.”

Anders blinked. The very idea made his headache. He’d heard of specialists who were extremely careful, but this seemed like going to extremes. Still, on the good side, it didn’t look as if Dr. Darrolyn was going to immediately jump to the conclusion that because treecats were telempaths, they were also telepaths. In fact, it sounded as if Darrolyn would need to prove to himself that the ’cats were even telempathic, despite ample existing evidence.

“Anyone else?”

“No one as important,” Doctor Whitaker said, sounding just a little happier. “Of course, each of them has a hanger-on or two, but none of them have the same level of prestige.”

“Well, Dad, I’m sure you’ll manage just fine.”

“Still,” Doctor Whitaker said, I’m glad Ms. Pheriss volunteered to take over for Stephanie. Now she can waste
her
time talking to these people will I get on with my work.”

* * *

“So, Ms. Harrington,” Dr. Gleason said, regarding her with his head cocked to one side, “what can you tell me about picketwood?”

Gleason had brown hair and eyes, a slender build, and a fussy manner. He hadn’t said so in so many words, but Stephanie was pretty sure he didn’t think it had been a good idea to let a pair of “kids” jump the queue and use up two of the slots in the School of Forestry. Not that his classes were all that crowded, as far as she could see. There were only eighteen people in this lecture course, after all, including her and Karl. And she didn’t much like the way he emphasized “Ms.” whenever he spoke to her. She’d heard that patronizing tone from too many adults.

“Picketwood is the common name for any of at least six species of the genus
Neo-ulmus Sphinx
,” she replied, “although ‘
ulmus’
is something of a misnomer applied by the original survey crew. It’s really not very much like an Old Terran elm; it’s more like a cross between an Old Earth Willow and a Beowulfan ash tree, when you come down to it. The most common species are gray picketwood, yellow-leaf picketwood, mountain picketwood, magnolia picketwood, and narrow-leaf picketwood. They differ considerably in appearance, particularly in the fall, but all of them form a clear taxonomic genus. Picketwood is deciduous and unusual in that it produces vegetatively, not sexually, using a sort of proto-stolon well above ground level. The stolons are distinguishable from the picketwood’s normal branches because they always form in groups of four, at right angles to one another, and grow horizontally, rather than spreading from the main trunk. They extend outward for from ten to fifteen meters, at which point they form adventitious buds that develop into nodes, extending rootlets vertically down to ground level. Each rootlet then establishes itself as a new ‘main trunk,’ extending the original plant and radiating stolons of its own. Sometimes, a stolon runs into one from another picketwood system, at which point they merge, sending down a rootlet from the new junction point. Because of that, it’s difficult to say where one picketwood begins and another one ends—or if they ever
do
end, really. Studies indicate that the merging stolons’ share genetic material in putting down their rootlet, and the trunk which develops from that rootlet isn’t a clone of either parent, but a new individual, although physically linked to both of the systems in which it arose. There’s some speculation that—”

“Ah, that will do, Ms. Harrington,” Gleason interrupted. His eyes had widened as she rattled off her description, and from the corner of one eye she could see Karl trying valiantly to suppress a grin. She hoped Gleason wasn’t looking at him, and she smiled winningly at the professor.

He gazed back at her for several seconds, his expression thoughtful, and she found herself wishing (not for the first time) that she’d been allowed to bring Lionheart to class. Unfortunately, Gleason was clearly one of the faculty members who felt the treecat would be a “disruptive influence” in his classroom. She wasn’t certain, but she suspected he was also one of the people who figured treecats had too little body mass to support a brain large enough for true sentience.

On the other hand, he obviously thought
I
didn’t support true sentience, either
, she thought. It was what her mother would’ve called “snippy” of her, but she didn’t really care.

Obviously he hadn’t paid any attention to who her parents were if he thought he could throw her with a question that simple.

“Yes, well.” Gleason gave himself a shake, then regarded the class as a whole. Fortunately, Karl had his expression back under control.

“As Ms. Harrington has so…competently described, picketwood has a highly unusual mode of reproduction. It provides certain obvious survival advantages, but it also exposes the entire picketwood system to disease and parasite threats. There are additional drawbacks, such as susceptibility to fire, as recent events on Sphinx have demonstrated, but the speed at which picketwood grows and propagates is really quite remarkable. Since picketwood is so widespread and central to Sphinx’s arboreal biosystem, and since over half of you will be returning to Sphinx after you complete your course work here, I thought it would be a good idea for this class if we began by considering those advantages and risk factors.

“Now, Ms. Telford, building on what Ms. Harrington’s shared with us, how would you describe—”

* * *

“I thought old Gleason’s jaw was going to hit the floor, Steph!” Carmen Telford chortled as she, Stephanie, and Karl headed for their next class.

“What’s his problem, anyway?” Karl asked, and Carmen shrugged.

She was in her mid-twenties, at least five or six T-years older than Karl, and like him she was a nativeborn Sphinxian. Her father was Eduardo Telford, Baron Crown Oak, and he and her various uncles and aunts owned several thousand square kilometers of virgin woodland. They intended to develop the timber resources, but they also intended to be certain they didn’t destroy the habitat, and Carmen was here on Manticore to learn the best silviculture techniques for reforestation and sustained timber production. Despite her age advantage and the fact that Stephanie was a mere yeoman’s daughter, the two of them had hit it off well.

“I’m not really sure,” she said now, “but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s probably that he figures the two of you only got here because of who you know. I don’t think anyone here on Manticore was paying a lot of attention to the news when you guys were involved in those forest fires this summer. Gleason sure as heck wasn’t, anyway!”

She made a face.

“He knows your dad’s a baron, Karl, and I think he figures your father pulled strings to get you and your little buddy here—” she twitched her head at Stephanie with a grin that took the sting out of “little buddy”—“seats that should’ve gone to someone else. He doesn’t take the whole ‘provisional ranger’ thing very seriously, I’m afraid. But Steph rang his chimes pretty good, didn’t she?”

“I shouldn’t have done it.” Stephanie shook her head with a sigh. “Mom keeps telling me ‘you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.’”

“Hey, I
know
your mom!” Karl said, thumping her on the shoulder. “If she’d heard that look-down-my-nose-at-you tone of his, she’d’ve been standing in the back of the room cheering you on, and you know it!”

He probably had a point, Stephanie decided. And even if he didn’t, it was nice of him to be on her side. Of course that, she’d discovered over the last T-year or two, was one of the things friends did for each other, and she smiled warmly up at him.

“Well, at least Mom wouldn’t have
whacked
me for it,” she conceded. Then she looked down at the time display on her uni-link, and her eyes widened. “Cripes! We’re going to be late for class if we don’t get a move on—come on!

Chapter Eight

The days following Stephanie’s departure turned slowly into weeks. Although he missed her, Anders kept himself busy helping out on his father’s project and going on outings with his Sphinxian friends. Just about every day he messaged Stephanie, trying to provide her with a link to the people and events she’d left behind. She was incredibly busy but did her best to squeak off a message of her own most days.

Anders made sure he was on hand when the “tourist” xeno-anthropologists arrived on Sphinx. Chet and Christine were there, too, as official wilderness guides in the new program established by the SFS and the Sphinx Department of Tourism. Until recently, the SFS had been able to handle what wilderness tourism there’d been, but the aftermath of the severe fire season put an extra strain on the Forestry Service’s resources, even now, and the treecats had raised the profile of the Sphinxian bush.

Never mind that the known treecat areas were restricted. That didn’t keep some poorly informed visitors from thinking they could find a group of treecats and get themselves adopted—and have a nifty pet to take back home. There’d always been those tourists who wanted to “bag” a hexapuma, a peak bear, or some other sample of Sphinx’s oversized wildlife, as well. Happily, the majority of the wilderness tourists were content with less dramatic goals: taking images of condor owls or of Crown Oaks in full autumn foliage, or viewing the magnificent vistas of Megana Canyon or Mikal Falls.