Treecat Wars (17 page)

A chorus of student chuckles answered him, and he smiled.

“Now, Ms. Harrington,” he invited. “Suppose you join me here and give us all the benefit of your insightful observations.”

* * *

“I feel like an idiot,” Stephanie groused to Karl as they headed across the quadrangle towards their dormitory. “I should’ve realized that wasn’t blood!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Karl said judiciously, with something which looked suspiciously like a grin. “It looked like blood to
me
.”

“Well, it wasn’t,” Stephanie replied in a withering tone. She really, really didn’t like making public mistakes.

“Seriously, Steph,” Karl said, his grin fading, “he was making a point. All of us have a tendency to jump to conclusions, especially when the evidence seems so clear. I don’t think anyone else in the class questioned whether or not it was blood, either. That was the whole point.”

“Well, I wish he’d chosen someone else to make it,” she said feelingly.

“I guess I can understand that. But I kinda think he was killing two birds with one stone, Steph.”

“Oh, yeah?” She knew she sounded sour.

“Yeah. I know you’ve been sort of hanging back in class to keep from getting up the noses of some of the other students, but you and Lionheart can’t really
hide
, whatever you do, you know. I think it was his way of making the point that anyone can make a mistake…and of letting
you
be the one to make it this time.
Some
of ’em are going to take it as proof you’re not as hot a hotshot as they think you think you are, but most of the others’re going to sympathize with you. Might just help out in the long run, you know.”

Stephanie regarded him skeptically, but once she thought about it for a few moments, she had to admit he might have a point. Not that it made her feel a lot better about jumping to conclusions like that. Still, it
was
something to think about.

* * *

A few days after the Radzinsky group arrived, a formal meet-and-greet was held so that the visitors could be introduced to various important residents of the planet. Anders went as part of his dad’s expedition. Jessica and Valiant were there, as well, as were Chet and Christine. The “Double Cs” had tamed their flamboyant hairstyles in honor of their new job and looked very mature in their new guide uniforms.

The meet-and-greet was about as much fun as Anders had always found such events—that is, not much fun at all, unless you happened to be an enthusiast on the particular reason for the gathering. Anders was interested in treecats, but not so much in the fine points of anthropology which were under discussion. Still, between his parents’ different jobs, he’d had a lot of experience with such events.

Jessica, on the other hand, was clearly overwhelmed. Valiant—hand-feet on her shoulder, true-feet on a support built into the back of her dress—stared at the humans clustered around, his green eyes wide with what might be the beginnings of panic.

Anders hurried over to Jessica’s side, making his way through the little crowd of onlookers who’d gathered to get a better look at a real, live treecat. Dr. Darrolyn, the linguistics expert, was asking Jessica questions. For all that his smile was warm and affable, there was something hammering about how he fired them off.

“So, is Valiant communicating with you this moment?”

“I can feel a bit of what he’s feeling,” Jessica admitted.

“And that is?”

“Well, there are a lot of people here. I think he’s a bit overwhelmed.”

“But you have a large family, don’t you? Two adults, six children? Certainly Valiant is used to crowds?”

“He
knows
my family—” Jessica began.

“But the treecat must know a fair number of the people here?” Dr. Darrolyn cut her off.

“He’s met Doctor Whitaker’s group, yes, but he doesn’t really know them well. And most of the rest of you are complete strangers.”

“Are you certain you’re not projecting your own apprehensions on the animal?”

Jessica stared at the linguist in shock. “Are you saying I’m lying?”

Dr. Darrolyn smiled condescendingly, and his words took on a lecturing tone. “I’m saying that—in my field—we’ve learned that humans often project their own emotional landscape onto their animal companions. A man sees his dog wagging his tail and looking eager. He thinks, ‘My dog is happy to see me.’ This may be so, but only because the dog associates the man with food or outings. So what the man interprets as affection may only be a hope for some service the man supplies the dog.”

Jessica’s eyes narrowed. “I am not projecting my reactions on the Valiant. I really can feel what he feels. He doesn’t—”

She cut herself off, but Anders could guess that what she’d been about to say was something like, “And he doesn’t like you at all.” From the flicker in Dr. Darrolyn’s expression, he guessed the linguist had figured it out too.

Anders inserted himself into the conversation. “Jessica, I hate to interrupt, but Doctor Emberly was wondering if you could spare her a moment.”

He’d checked, and Calida Emberly was just visible on the far side of the room, talking quietly with her mother, who appeared to be sketching.

“Sure,” Jessica said. She bobbed her head politely to Dr. Darrolyn. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“I look forward to talking with you further,” Dr. Darrolyn said.

Valiant’s “bleek” could have meant anything.

“Thanks for rescuing me from those x-a’s,” Jessica said under cover of the room’s general noise level as they walked away.

“X-a’s?”

“Xeno-anthropologists.” Jessica laughed. “It’s too much of a mouthful to say all the time.”

“I like it,” Anders said. “It sounds vaguely like a curse, which is about how I feel about the whole profession right now.”

“Me, too. Valiant, three. I’ll tell you more later.”

As they approached Dr. Emberly, Anders said, “I brought Jessica and Valiant over like you asked.”

Calida Emberly was not a pretty woman—in fact, she was actually pretty stern looking—but she had an enthusiasm for her profession and life in general that could make her almost beautiful. Now she extended a hand to Jessica and then to Valiant.

“I did, did I? Will that was very clever of me. Was Dr. Darrolyn getting intense?”

“That’s an understatement,” Jessica agreed. “You don’t seem surprised.”

“I’m not. They haven’t been here even three full days, and Darrolyn’s already had Kesia on the verge of tears. Radzinsky and your father are barely speaking, and Hidalgo has accused the SFS of corrupting a potentially sentient species.”

“Kesia in tears?” Anders was appalled. He remembered how staunchly Kesia Guyen had stood up to his father when they’d been stranded. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

“Well, he all but promised to message the review board at our university saying she should be denied her doctorate on the grounds that she’s fallen into superstitious thinking rather than good science.”

“What a blackhole!” Jessica said. “I can see we’re going to have a lot of fun while
they’re
here.”

“Don’t worry,” Anders said. “You volunteered to help them out, so you can un-volunteer.” He smiled suddenly. “From what Dr. Emberly says, I’m sure it wouldn’t break Dad’s heart to find something else for you to do! The ones I feel sorry for are Chet and Christine. They’re not going to be able to duck out.”

“And to think I was disappointed that I didn’t have time to take enough of classes to qualify as a guide,” Jessica replied. “For today, though, I’m going to do my best. Time to march back into the fray. Thanks again, Anders, for getting me a breather.”

“Let me come with you,” he suggested.

Did Jessica blush? He couldn’t be sure.

“No. I need to be at least as tough as Stephanie,” she said. “She dealt with a lot of this sort of thing when she wasn’t much more than twelve.”

Dacey Emberly held up her sketch pad and showed them the quick drawing of Valiant she’d done. “There. That will justify your stop here. Jessica, you might consider taking Anders up on his offer if you need to do one-on-one interviews. He isn’t an anthropologist, but he knows the jargon. They can’t really send him off the way they could Chet or Christine without insulting his father, either.”

“I’ll think about it,” Jessica promised. She gave them a lazy wave and moved off into the throng.

Anders watched her go.

“You know,” he said to no one in particular, “in her own way, Jessica’s just as brave as Stephanie. I wonder why she doesn’t realize it?”

* * *

Dirt Grubber made certain Windswept was solidly asleep before he slipped outside to spend some time with his plants. If she awoke, she would know he was close, but he doubted she would. The day’s events had been enough to overwhelm even a tough youngling like her.

Once outside, Dirt Grubber reveled in the night’s coolness. The two-legs were now using some kind of heating thing to make the inside of their stone lair nearly as warm as summer. He supposed such devices were a good idea for two-legs, since they possessed no fur worth speaking of, but for a Person who was developing the beginnings of what would be a nice, thick winter coat, the interior heat could be a bit oppressive.

As he checked over his plants, patting the soil a bit higher to protect the stem of this one, nipping new growth off that one so the plant would not waste energy on leaves that would certainly be ruined by frost, Dirt Grubber sorted through his impressions of the large gathering to which Windswept had taken him that evening.

From the excitement and apprehension that had colored her mind-glow, he had known this was an important event. Therefore, although his immediate reaction to the crowded space had been to depart as soon as possible, he had given his two-leg his fullest support. It had not taken long for him to realize that he was the focus of a great deal of attention. When he considered who was present, this seemed reasonable.

Old Authority was there, along with several of his clan. Also present was Garbage Collector, as the People now called the father of Bleached Fur. This title was in memory of how Garbage Collector had gathered up the People’s leavings and stood guard over them, even in the face of a hungry whistling sucker. Garbage Collector had brought his clan, as well, and Dirt Grubber had been particularly pleased to see Plant Woman and Image Maker, whose mind-glows he had found to be very compatible with his own.

Then there were the group he had seen arrive on a flying thing similar to that which had taken Climbs Quickly, Death Fang’s Bane, and Shadowed Sunlight away. Many of these came and spoke with Windswept. He noticed she was careful to be very polite with them, but this was not the politeness of respect but that of being guarded.

Dirt Grubber could not read the mind-glows of all two-legs as easily as he could that of Windswept, but he would need to be far stupider than he was not to realize that one thing many of these two-legs had in common was an intense interest in the People. He had become accustomed to having two-legs stare at him when he went somewhere with Windswept. He had learned to be polite about the attention and, in turn, most of the two-legs were relatively good about keeping their distance. Tonight, however, was different. There was an intensity in the mind-glows of almost everyone who came near, as if—if they were given the opportunity—they would have counted his fingers and toes, checked the depth of his fur, fingered his ears.

That was uncomfortable. It was nothing, however, compared to the cold, hard assessment he had felt from a few. Reaching into his memory, Dirt Grubber compared what he was feeling to what Climbs Quickly had told him about his encounter with Speaks Falsely. There were some similarities, but the mind-glows were not the same. Speaks Falsely’s mind-glow had been colored by a willingness to do harm. Dirt Grubber had not felt that sort of willingness from any he had encountered that evening. But what some of these did have in common with Speaks Falsely was a sense that they were holding back, calculating. Pretending to have one interest when what they really wanted was something else.

People did not speak falsely. They could withhold information, but they did not say or think things they knew were not true, nor could one Person deceive another about what he truly desired. Two-legs
could
deceive one another, but it was hard for Dirt Grubber to wrap his mind around such twisted thinking.

He was also aware that he had not spent time with all the two-legs present. Windswept had spoken mostly with those who had first initiated contact. He had sensed a few malicious breezes from the minds of some who had kept their distance, but that was not unusual. He already knew that not all two-legs liked the People. Sometimes what he tasted from them almost felt like tension over territory or a particularly succulent bit of food. He thought they saw the People as competition.

Reluctantly, Dirt Grubber decided he must do his best to learn more about these new arrivals. From Windswept’s mind-glow, he could tell she expected to meet them again. For the good of the People, Dirt Grubber must try to make the most of those encounters.

Chapter Nine

The morning after the meet-and-greet, Anders felt tense. He might not be a treecat, but he was enough his politician mother’s son to feel uneasy about the hidden agendas he’d sensed the night before.

Sure, he’d expected some tension. However chastened his dad might be, he was still as protective of his permit as the mother of a newborn baby. What Anders hadn’t expected was how, well, political Dr. Radzinsky had been. He’d overheard her talking with Chief Ranger Shelton. From her questions, it was apparent that she had far more knowledge than he would have expected from an off-worlder about the implications treecat sentience could have for Sphinxian land ownership.

He didn’t want to make Stephanie edgy. Her messages were full of how demanding she was finding her classes. He didn’t doubt that she was doing great—Stephanie really was as smart as everyone thought she was—but she was working harder for those perfect grades than she ever had before. And she was
so
hard on herself when she did mess up. Weeks later, she was still beating herself up over some minor gaffe in forensics class.