Fire Season-eARC (11 page)

With this reply, Climbs Quickly had to be content. He let Death Fang’s Bane know he was going out. She hugged him tight and made mouth sounds in which he caught “Right-Striped” and “Left-Striped.” Good, then. If she thought he was going to check on the twins, she would not worry.

Bleeking gentle reminder, he pointed toward her bed and was rewarded with a laugh—and a bright flicker in her mind-glow as well. She made more mouth sounds at him, none of which he understood, but the fussing tone was clear enough. She wanted him to go enjoy himself and not worry about her. She was fine.

The long summer nights were shortening, although the sky would hold an evening glow for a long while to come. Climbs Quickly scampered up the trunk of a nearby net-wood and worked his way through a route he had traveled many times before. Even as he kept alert for possible dangers—for although death fangs did not go up into the trees, a rotten branch could be as hazardous—he was aware of Death Fang’s Bane’s mind-glow. He knew when she stopped working and felt as she drifted off to sleep.

Eventually, Climbs Quickly came to the stand of blue point trees. Soon after, Sings Truly and Twig Weaver arrived. Both had brought carry nets with them. The seeds of the blue point tree were considered a delicacy among the People. Although it was early for many to be ripe, at this late stage the cones could be picked and stored. The seeds would continue ripening.

True-hands and hand-feet busy picking the cones, the three People fell into discussion. Twig Weaver offered to close himself from the discussion, but the siblings asked him to take part.

<
If you do not mind, that is,
> Climbs Quickly added. <
Your different experiences may give us some new wisdom.
>

Sings Truly, who as a memory singer had access to a huge volume of the shared experiences of the People, did not contradict her brother. Climbs Quickly had noticed that since she had become the clan’s senior memory singer she had been more, rather than less, likely to invite the insights of others.

Perhaps,
Climbs Quickly thought,
having seen the thoughts and stored memories of so many People, memories grown faint with distance and time, she has come to value the new more, rather than less.

That was an interesting thought, and he tucked it away for further consideration. For now, he needed to get what advice he could and then return to Death Fang’s Bane. Now, of all times, he did not wish to be away from her.

It was very easy to explain to the others the source of his confusion. Although Climbs Quickly was becoming convinced that the two-legs were capable of communicating complicated ideas with their mouth sounds and the markings they made, still he pitied them. Mouth sounds must come in sequence. It had taken him some time to realize that the same sounds in a different order did not mean the same thing. He despaired of ever really understanding them.

Mind-speech, however, took many forms. Although one could “talk,” framing thoughts in sequence, when an experience needed to be shared, there was no need to resort to this cumbersome form.

Now he showed Sings Truly and Twig Weaver what he had experienced from Death Fang’s Bane that evening, presenting not only the impulses he had read from her mind-glow but the larger context of her interaction with her parents. He was even able to include his own interpretations of some of the mouth noises. These were mostly names, but he felt that even this little bit would clarify that the two-legs were intelligently communicating, not bellowing as the lake builders did when warning each other across the water.

For all the complexity, this sharing took very little time. He felt Sings Truly and Twig Weaver considering, weighing against their own experiences—and in the case of Sings Truly, against the experiences of many others.

Sings Truly said, <
I think that because your first meeting with Death Fang’s Bane impressed you with her intelligence…
>

Twig Weaver did not so much interrupt as intersperse an image of how—despite his care—Climbs Quickly had found himself discovered by the young two-leg. Certainly, Death Fang’s Bane (although, of course, she had been given no name then) had been clever to figure out how to set a snare he could not detect although he (and others of the People) had always been able to step over and around those set by her elders…

Sings Truly’s thoughts went on, <
Because you have always thought her intelligent and resourceful, I think you often forget that she is very young. From what we can tell, she has not reached full maturity. Although her scent is close to that of an adult, there are differences. Indeed, when I look into the memories, I see that her scent now differs from her scent when you first met her. I think she is changing.
>

The thought startled Climbs Quickly. He was no memory singer, but he could summon some of his older memories. He compared them, tasted the memories that Sings Truly offered for his and Twig Weaver’s inspection. The evidence was interesting. He offered them samples of his experiences with Death Fang’s Bane over these last few days, choosing times when he had found her mind glow particularly confusing.

Twig Weaver said, <
I think what is happening is clear—although I do not fault you, since those who are closest do not always notice such things. Death Fang’s Bane is changing from a child into an adult. Her scent shows that certain events—such as her encounter with Bleached Fur—makes certain scents change more wildly. Perhaps two-legs are like those creatures with seasonal breeding patterns. These often become very irrational when the need to breed is upon them.
>

Climbs Quickly considered. Certainly the interactions of Death Fang’s Bane and those of her peer group—especially some of the more aggressive ones—made sense if these were not only the results of hierarchical competition, but also maneuvering to breed. Didn’t the female two-leg Death Fang’s Bane disliked the most have a male who followed her attentively?

<
You give me a great deal to consider,
> Climbs Quickly said, filling the thought with gratitude. <
Sings Truly is correct. I do more often think of Death Fang’s Bane as a long-time adult. Many of her actions of late make sense if I reconsider them as those of an almost-adult, testing her limits. Even her anger at her parents—who I know she loves and trusts—makes sense if she is not certain whether her impulses or theirs are wisest.
>

When Sings Truly replied, her mind-voice was shaded with the rueful notes of one who regularly tested established limits, sometimes limits that no one else even saw as limits until she pressed against them.

<
So Death Fang’s Bane will need more than comfort from you. I think she rejected the soothing you offered not because she did not need it, but because she needed to find out what was the right path even more. If you are to continue as her partner, you will also need to find new ways, permit her to err, even if those errors may cause her harm.
>

Twig Weaver—who alone among them was pair-bonded and whose partner, Water Dancer, was nearly as strong-willed and innovative in her own way as Sings Truly—flirted his tail in a chuckle.

<
As someday you may learn, permitting error is the way of any close partnership. However, you, Climbs Quickly, have challenges before you that none of the People has ever known. At least People can mind-speak, but for all the brightness of her mind-glow, Death Fang’s Bane is mute and nearly deaf. You are the elder and, in this, must be the wiser as well.
>

Chapter Five

“Over to the right,” said Ranger Jedrusinski, “you’ll see the nest of a mated pair of condor owls.”

Anders craned around—he was on the left side of the air van, in the backmost set of seats. His dad, sitting on the right, next to Ranger Jedrusinski, who was piloting, had the best view, but he didn’t pay much attention. Anders wasn’t surprised. Dad’s specialization was material remains. This specialization was sometimes called ethno-archeology, because efforts were made to draw connections between past cultures and present.

Dr. Nez who, despite his rank, had taken the other rearmost seat, specialized in living cultures, not things. To him, the other native life-forms on Sphinx were at least as important as the treecats themselves.

Now Dr. Nez grinned at Anders and pointed. “Look! Up there, near the top of that huge crown oak. Wow! That’s a messy nest. I wonder if the condor owls build heavy for insulation in the winters?”

Dr. Nez leaned back so Anders could see past him. Gratefully, Anders shifted so he could get a good look. He’d never seen a Terran oak tree, except in pictures. He wondered if the person who’d named this tree had either. He supposed that the general shape was about right, but he didn’t think that oak trees had those large arrowhead-shaped leaves. He didn’t think any Terran oak had ever reached 80 meters in height, either.

Anders wondered why the plants were so large here, especially given that the gravity was higher than Terran normal. He’d have thought all the plants would be short and squat. He’d seen how humans born on Sphinx, even with access to counter-grav units and various therapies, tended to develop stockier builds. When Karl had taken Anders back to base, they’d gotten to talking about Urako in comparison to Sphinx. Karl had mentioned in passing that he had to take all sorts of supplements to assure strong bone growth.

The condor owls had built their nest in the upper third of the tree, taking advantage of the combination of an area where the trunk was heavy enough to be stable, but the branches were lighter, allowing for good launching points.

Ranger Jedrusinski brought the van around so all the passengers could get a good look at the nest.

Maybe she’s figured out Dad isn’t really interested,
Anders thought. He moved so Dr. Nez could get a view from this angle.

Meanwhile, Ranger Jedrusinski was saying, “Despite the name given by early colonists on Sphinx, the condor owl is actually mammalian. It is covered with fine down, rather than feathers. Like most animals native to the planet, its structure is hexapedal. The front set of legs have become the wings, but it retains four strong legs, each of which has a very powerful set of talons.”

“Am I correct,” asked Dr. Emberly, the team xenobiologist, “in recalling that condor owls have been known to prey on treecats?”

“We’ve never witnessed such an event,” Ranger Jedrusinski replied, “but the secondary evidence is pretty strong. We’ve found treecat bones in condor owl waste. This, of course, could be a result of scavenging on carrion. However, treecats shown what appeared to be a condor owl shadow take cover immediately. Certainly, the condor owls themselves should be capable of preying upon a treecat. They have extraordinarily keen vision and enough intelligence to realize that the picketwood serves as a highway for all sorts of creatures—treecats among them.”

“But,” protested Virgil Iwamoto, the lithics—or stone tool—specialist of the team, “treecats make stone tools. Doesn’t that argue for an ability to defend themselves?”

“Treecat tool use,” Ranger Jedrusinski replied, “seems to involve close-range tools used primarily for manipulating their environment. We haven’t seen any evidence of bows and arrows, or even spear throwers. Unlike humans, treecats are excellently equipped by nature to hunt the creatures that are their usual prey. They show no ambition to take on creatures markedly larger than themselves, except in self-defense or defense of another of their kind.”

Or Stephanie,
Anders thought. He wondered what it would be like to find yourself being defended from a monster by a horde of treecats.

That morning, one of the other Forestry Service rangers had taken them to see a sort of “zoo” inhabited by native animals that, for one reason or another, needed care. Among these were captive hexapumas that were being prepared for release back into the wild. He didn’t think “monster” was too strong a word for a creature over five meters long—without the tail, which added another 250 or so centimeters—that weighed as much as a horse.

Ranger Jedrusinski was wheeling them away from the crown oak that held the condor owl’s nest. “At a meeting today, it was announced that a recently deserted treecat settlement had been located by SFS rangers inspecting the area after the Franchitti fire. We have just enough time to go by and look at it from the air.”

This
interested Dr. Whittaker.

“Is the settlement in a Forestry Service district or on private lands?” he asked.

Anders could swear his dad was already calculating contacting the land owners. If so, Ranger Jedrusinski’s response must have dashed his hopes for finagling a way closer to the treecats.

“Oh, it’s safely in a Forestry Service district,” she said, obviously thinking Dr. Whittaker had wanted to be reassured that the treecats were safe. “The fire was on nearby privately held lands and, unfortunately, fire is no respecter of human boundaries.”

“Ranger Jedrusinski,” Anders asked. “I’ve been wondering. Just what is a Forestry Service district? Are they public lands? And are the treecats only protected if they’re in a district?”

The ranger looked distinctly uncomfortable, but she didn’t dodge his question.

“Forestry Service districts are lands that are actually owned by the Crown. We simply administer them. Currently, our policy is to preserve them as relatively pristine territories. This hasn’t always made us popular with some local residents who feel that Crown lands should be exploited—they prefer words like ‘utilized’—for human profit. As for the treecats…I don’t think the Crown would like to hear of anyone mistreating
any
wildlife, but it’s certainly a lot harder for us to enforce such policies on private lands.”

Dr. Whittaker’s interest in questions of land ownership had vanished as soon as he learned he still had to deal with the SFS.

“Ranger Jedrusinski, will we have an opportunity to get out and take a closer look at the treecat colony site?”

“We’ll just look today,” Ranger Jedrusinski replied. “Maybe later. We’ll want to observe and see if the treecats have actually abandoned it. Sometimes they leave for short periods of time. It’s possible that the fire in that area led the inhabitants to temporarily relocate.”