Treecat Wars (8 page)

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.