Fire Season Read online

  The images that accompanied Left-Striped’s words gave Climbs Quickly a fair idea of the area into which the Damp Ground Clan had made their new home. As with all treecat nesting areas, it was well-supplied with the net-wood trees that made travel without touching the ground so easy. He noted that the Damp Ground Clan’s new nesting place also had exceptionally good overhead coverage, supplied in part by association with golden-leaf.

  Right-Striped said in response to Climbs Quickly’s unarticulated thought.

  Left-Striped added,

  Although the People had resolved to be cautious in their interactions with the two-legs, they were also learning that where the two-legs settled, interesting opportunities were to be found. Climbs Quickly himself had taken cluster stalk from their transparent plant places—an act justifiable for a scout, although it would be considered theft if a Person took such from another Person.

  However, even if the People would not steal directly from where the two-legs grew their food, it could not be ignored that often the two-legs created secondary food opportunities. Small ground-runners often came to browse at the edges of their planted fields. The two-legs’ practice of leaving out food for the animals they kept also drew scavengers. Some of the plants they grew also migrated outside the areas the two-legs had marked for their own. These were often quite tasty and very robust.

  So, although doubtless the elders of the Damp Ground Clan would have argued otherwise, Right-Striped and Left-Striped had been sent to scout the forests near to where the two-legs had staked a claim precisely because the two-legs were there.

  Climbs Quickly did not blame them, although he was growing a bit weary of how the People could fill their mouths with cluster stalk while their minds denied the value of those who had brought it.

  He bleeked amusement as he tasted Left-Striped’s—Right-Striped had drifted off into a doze—awareness of the irony.

  * * *

  When the next morning Death Fang’s Bane’s actions made clear that she and Shadowed Sunlight were heading off again, Climbs Quickly debated staying behind to continue visiting with Left-Striped and Right-Striped. He also thought his presence might reassure them that it was safe to remain in the gazebo. However, beneath the excitement in Death Fang’s Bane’s mind-glow was a sense of uneasiness. He could not read her thoughts, but he knew the taste of this particular emotion and knew it had much to do with her relationship with the People.

  Time and again, Climbs Quickly had sat with his two-leg, reassuring her as she answered question after question. From her gestures and a few words—as well as the taste of her mind-glow—he knew when the People were the subject. There was a special note that entered into her mind-glow during some of these discussions. It reminded Climbs Quickly somewhat of the feeling of stalking or scouting—as if she was being very, very careful, as a hunter took care not to break a twig lest the prey hear and flee. Or as if she was scouting some dangerous creature, like a death fang or snow hunter, and knew that a slip might mean disaster.

  For these reasons, although he would have enjoyed relaxing with these members of another clan—especially after the exertions of the previous day—he decided to join Death Fang’s Bane and Shadowed Sunlight when they departed that morning.

  This time, Climbs Quickly noted with amusement, there was no question as to who was operating the air car. Despite their traveling above the trees and at a high speed, Shadowed Sunlight slid down one of the transparent panels for Climbs Quickly without being asked, but Climbs Quickly did not enjoy the ride as much as he usually did. His thoughts were too full of the implications of change.

  * * *

  When Karl brought down the air car at the familiar SFS regional headquarters complex, Stephanie noticed that several vehicles were already parked in the visitors’ area.

  “Dr. Whittaker and his team must already be here,” she said, gathering Lionheart into her arms and hugging him. Surely Dad wouldn’t mind if she carried him just a short distance.

  “Ready?” Karl asked.

  “You bet,” Stephanie replied.

  Inside, they were immediately directed to a conference room off to one side of the building. The room was large—it doubled as a lecture hall—but today seemed quite crowded. It smelled strongly of coffee—the beverage favored by the hard-working SFS staff—but there were under-notes that promised other options. When Lionheart bleeked in delight and strained in the direction of the refreshment table set up to one side of the room, Stephanie suspected the presence of celery.

  “Little pig,” she whispered. “You had some just last night!”

  But she knew she’d give in. She suspected that Lionheart liked meetings as little as she did. She appreciated his company—and the support he gave her could go far beyond the comfort offered by a warm, furry body to hold.

  She set Lionheart on the long table that bisected the room. Frank Lethbridge, one of the two rangers who had been assigned to train her and Karl, was the first to intercept her, but others quickly followed.

  In addition to several representatives of the SFS, including Chief Ranger Gary Shelton himself, Dr. Sanura Hobbard was attending. Stephanie knew Dr. Hobbard all too well. At first she’d found the professor somewhat annoying, but now she had come to respect her devotion to careful and responsible study of other cultures. Eventually, they’d even come to a sort of compromise as to what Dr. Hobbard would and would not publish about the treecats.

  Even as Stephanie politely greeted those she knew, sharing with Karl a mixture of ribbing and congratulations for their heroics during the fire the day before, she was very aware of the large group that clustered at one end of the room, clearly waiting to be introduced.

  The group was dominated by an extremely tall, broad man. Somehow he gave Stephanie the impression of being made all of curves: the dome of his balding head, the arc of a budding gut, a round smoothness to his heavy, muscular limbs. This proved to be Dr. Bradford Whittaker himself.

  When they were introduced, Dr. Whittaker shook Stephanie’s hand. He gained a point in her estimation by neither patting nor poking Climbs Quickly, but instead offering the treecat a little bow by way of greeting.

  “This,” Dr. Whittaker said, “is my chief assistant, Dr. Langston Nez.”

  Dr. Nez proved to be shorter than average, built along planes instead of curves. His most noticeable features were untidy brown hair that stood up in spikes, as if he ran his hands through it frequently, and bushy eyebrows from under which green eyes—darker than Lionheart’s but no less alert—watched like animals from a forest.

  Dr. Whittaker went on. “This is our linguistics specialist, Kesia Guyen.”

  No “doctor” in front of this one’s name, Stephanie noticed. A graduate student, then, but certainly one who was done with classes and now working on her dissertation.

  Kesia Guyen had lovely rich chocolate-brown skin and wore her hair in swirling curls that framed a face that seemed to find seriousness difficult. She had a rounded figure with breasts that could do double-duty as platforms, and full hips. Her clothing showed a penchant for bright colors, sashes, and jewelry, but Stephanie didn’t think that this was a Trudy-like effort to show off, more as if Kesia found life colorful and didn’t mind showing it.

  “Delighted!” Kesia said when Stephanie said she was happy to meet her, “Enchanted! So very, very happy to meet you both.”

  She might have said more, but Dr. Whittaker continued.

  “This is Dr. Calida Emberly.” He
indicated a woman quite a bit older than the others, older even than himself, for she was easily in her mid-fifties. “She is our xenobiologist. Her first concentration was in zoology, but she also holds degrees in xenobotany.”

  Dr. Emberly extended a long-boned hand. “I’ve read several of your mother’s papers. I hope to get to chat with Dr. Harrington while we’re here.”

  Stephanie liked Dr. Emberly instantly. “I’m sure she’d be happy to meet you. She’s always glad to hear other people’s thoughts.”

  Dr. Emberly possessed a hawklike profile that made her seem very stern, but when she smiled, the hawk took wing. She wasn’t nearly as tall as Dr. Whittaker, but her slender, lithe build made her seem taller. Her hair was either silvered or platinum blond—Stephanie couldn’t be sure which—but she wore it long, in a thick braid intertwined with a contrasting violet silk cord. Stephanie admired this touch of vanity on a woman who otherwise might be dismissed as plain. It gave her character.

  I wonder if Dr. Whittaker waited to introduce her because, in a lot of ways, she probably outranks him, Stephanie thought. He seems like that sort.

  “Finally,” Dr. Whittaker said, “we have Virgil Iwamoto. He’s our lithics specialist. He’s also an expert on the latest in field methods.”

  Iwamoto was the youngest of the group, probably in his mid-twenties. His face showed a distinct Asian influence that expressed itself in brown, almond-shaped eyes and small, neat features framed by silky black hair. He wore a short, tidy beard and seemed anxious.

  “Pleased to meet you,” he said in a soft, pleasant voice.

  “Let me see,” Dr. Whittaker said with a curious smile. “There’s one other person I’d like you to meet.”

  He looked around, finding the one he sought at one end of the refreshments table, where he had apparently just filled a cup with coffee.

  “Finally, I’d like you and Karl to meet an unofficial but important member of our team,” Dr. Whittaker said, the words rolling out as if he was making a speech. “Over there, hiding behind Dr. Emberly, is my son, Anders Whittaker.”

  Anders turned and almost sheepishly toasted Stephanie and Karl with his coffee mug.

  “Hi,” he said. “I’ve read a lot about you both. Glad to meet you.”

  Stephanie knew she said something in reply. She could feel the words buzzing in her throat, but somehow she wanted to say something more than “Glad to meet you, too.”

  Anders Whittaker was, simply put, the most compelling young man Stephanie had ever met. It wasn’t just his dark blue eyes, large enough to lose yourself in, or the thick wheat-colored hair that he wore gathered in a neat ponytail at the base of his neck. It was the shape of his mouth, the way it quirked in a sideways smile that invited you to join in on some unspoken joke. It was the rose-and-ivory glow of his unexpectedly fair skin—his father was several shades darker. Anders was already tall, taking after his father in that, but where Dr. Whittaker seemed to be made of curves, Anders was lean and supple.

  Stephanie was saved from gaping stupidly by Chief Ranger Shelton saying, “If we could all grab drinks, then take seats, I’d like to get this gathering underway. Sadly, I have a meeting regarding yesterday’s fire that’s going to pull me away, but I’d like to get things started.”

  While all the predictable things were said—Dr. Whittaker holding forth on how very happy he was to be there and how proud he was to have been selected for this important, groundbreaking study, Dr. Hobbard and Chief Ranger Shelton responding in kind—Stephanie fought to keep her attention on what was being said. She wanted to move to where she could get a better look at Anders, see if he was maybe smiling one of those quirky smiles as the adults said all the things they already knew, but wanted to get on the record.

  After Chief Ranger Shelton left, the mood immediately became less formal. Chairs were pushed back. Several people rose to refill their drinks.

  Karl was one of these. “More cocoa, Steph?”

  “Uh, sure.” She blushed. That had really sounded polished, hadn’t it?

  “Bleek!” Lionheart said. The SFS staff had provided him with a stool so that he could sit next to Stephanie and still comfortably see over the table. When Stephanie had gotten her cocoa, she’d brought him some cubes of cheese, but she had no doubt what he was asking for now.

  “Not really a good idea,” she said.

  “Is he asking for celery?” said Dr. Emberly, the woman who had been introduced as the xenobiologist.

  Stephanie smiled ruefully. “He is. He’s known it was here since we walked into the room—heck, he probably knew as soon as we got into the building. From what we can tell, treecats have a wonderfully sharp sense of smell.”

  “Is it all right if I give him some?” asked Virgil Iwamoto.

  Stephanie considered. “Well, Lionheart had some celery just last night, so he shouldn’t have too much. Treecats are more carnivores than omnivores and…”

  She wished she hadn’t started in on this, but having done so, she pushed on, inelegant though the subject might be. She hoped Anders didn’t think she was being crass or crude.

  “…Well, it makes them constipated if they eat too much of it. Lionheart had some real problems when he first came to live with us, but Dad figured out the problem. Now I give Lionheart doses of what’s basically cod-liver oil a couple times a week. Since he likes fish, it isn’t too much trouble.”

  “Interesting,” said Dr. Emberly. “Extra fiber usually gives terrestrial animals gas. Eating it helps eliminate blockage. I wonder what the difference is in the metabolisms?”

  She looked as if she would very much like to be given a treecat to dissect, but since Stephanie had heard her father say similar things, she recognized scientific fervor when she heard it.

  Watching Lionheart make his messy way through the helping of celery sticks Iwamoto slid over to him broke the ice amazingly. Questions rained down from all sides. Karl—whose uncle by marriage, Scott MacDallan, had also been adopted by a treecat—helped answer them.

  “What else does Lionheart eat?”

  “Just about what the wild treecats do. We try to make certain he gets a healthy, balanced diet, but he does eat with the rest of us, so he’s developed rather esoteric tastes.”

  Karl added, “Fisher and Lionheart do have different preferences. Fisher really loves fish. Lionheart seems to prefer poultry or red meat.”

  “Will the treecats eat celery to the exclusion of everything else?” This was from Dr. Nez, the cultural anthropologist.

  “You mean, do they get addicted?” Stephanie asked back, hearing her voice sharpening.

  She’d been asked this before, and knew that there were some humans who thought that the “pet” treecats stayed with humans more for access to this delicacy than out of affection—like a drug addict hanging around a pusher.

  She went on before Dr. Nez could clarify his question. “No. They don’t get addicted—at least the treecats I’ve known don’t seem to be. They just like it a whole lot. It’s like my mom and chocolate. She can go without it, but offer her a slice of apple pie or a slice of chocolate torte and she’ll take the chocolate every time.”

  Ranger Lethbridge chuckled. “I’ll second that. I’d say there are some members of the SFS who are more addicted to coffee than any treecat is to celery, but that doesn’t mean I’d leave a bunch of celery unsupervised when Fisher and Scott come to call—not if I expect to find it left untouched.”

  There were more questions about diet, which segued pretty naturally into matters of food gathering and hunting. Stephanie and Karl could handle most of these questions without violating their sense of what was right. For the questions they didn’t choose to answer—Stephanie never gave away quite how often she and Lionheart went to visit Lionheart’s extended family—one of the SFS rangers could offer at least a partial answer.

  After the fiasco with Tennessee Bolgeo, there had been two treecats in need of care and rehabilitation before they could be returned to their clan. Stephanie an
d Karl had helped with that, but it hadn’t been too long before the treecats had returned to Lionheart’s clan. There had been another case when a human had done considerable harm to treecats. In that case, an entire clan had come close to being wiped out. The SFS had helped however they could, relocating the ’cats and even giving them food and tools.

  After they relocated the treecats, the SFS didn’t quite snoop, but they did take some long-range films. However, since the treecats lived in the shelter of the picketwood, satellite downlook was out for all but chance spottings. The microbugs that had been attached to ears or skin were meticulously groomed out of existence. Attempts to plant observation mini-cameras in known treecat colonies had ended with a series of mysterious accidents to expensive equipment.

  Or not so mysterious, Stephanie thought, once you realize that Lionheart and a couple of the others figured out what those cameras were and passed the information along.

  Eventually, the voice Stephanie had been longing to hear again without consciously realizing it spoke. His voice was clear, but there was a sense of hesitancy as well.

  “Lionheart was really badly hurt,” Anders said. “He lost one true-hand entirely. Even with his fur grown back, you can see the other scars. Could he go back to being a wild ’cat if he wanted?”

  Stephanie always hated this question because it implied that—like one of those birds who had a badly broken wing and so couldn’t be set free again—that Lionheart was a captive because of injuries he had taken protecting her.

  She felt Karl stiffen slightly where he sat next to her, his foot moving to press against hers in a reminder to keep her temper. This time, though, maybe because Anders had asked so gently, the question didn’t sting as it usually did.

  “I think Lionheart could,” Stephanie said. “He’d have to be careful. He doesn’t climb quite as fast or run as well as I’ve seen other treecats do, but he has adapted. The middle set of limbs are basically—as far as we can tell, anyhow—used for expanding options. Treecats can run like centaurs, but still have their hands free. Or they can manipulate things with two sets of hands while standing on their back legs. Or they can run all-out on all six limbs. Basically, Lionheart’s lost a few options, but he’s not as crippled as a human would be even if that human had lost only a couple of fingers.”