Treecat Wars (7 page)

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.