Fire Season-eARC (6 page)

Between Dr. Whittaker waiting to hear if he had been selected for the Sphinx project and Counselor Whittaker waiting to hear if soon she would be Cabinet Minister Whittaker, the tension in their household had been thick enough to cut into bricks.

Very much the son of a politician
and
the son of an anthropologist, Anders had weathered the situation with skill. From the politician side, he’d learned to say the right things and not commit himself to any course too soon. From the anthropologist side, he’d learned to step back and observe, weighing the data with as little added emotion as possible.

So it was that Anders was more prepared than either of his parents when—miracle of miracles—both of them had found themselves with fascinating new professional opportunities and the topic of “What do we do with Anders?” had arisen.

Anders knew his mother would want him to stay on Urako. He loved his mom, but he also knew how much time he’d spend alone—and that much of the time he’d spend with his mother would be within the context of official functions. Compared to the lure of treecats and a chance to live on a barely settled alien world within the fascinating Star Kingdom of Manticore, well, even regular dinners with the president of Urako and all the perqs that came with high public office held no attraction.

Bradford Whittaker wasn’t exactly a warm and fuzzy parent—there was too much of the anthropologist in him for that. But he did believe in exposing his son to every possible experience, and he’d already taken Anders with him on trips to anthropological sites both on planet and in a few nearby systems. Given all of this, it wasn’t hard to convince the new cabinet minister that her son would be better off accompanying his father. What had surprised Anders was how enthusiastic Dr. Whittaker had been about taking Anders with him.

“Anders is interested in treecats,” he’d said. “I’m certain he’ll be a real asset to the team.”

Anders had glowed like a sun going nova. It wasn’t often his father approved of him within the context of the anthropology that was his first love. Even Mom had been won over.

“But you’ll write me every week,” she’d fussed as she’d helped Anders to pack. “And I’ll write, too. Send lots of pictures and make certain you don’t fall behind on your studies. University may seem impossibly far off to you, but you’re nearly sixteen and entrance exams will be on you before you realize it.”

There was a lot more of this. Anders let it flow over him. He knew it was just his mom making sure he knew he was important to her. He’d let her pack him extra socks and underwear without protest. On some atavistic maternal level Mom seemed convinced that a relatively newly settled planet like Sphinx would lack such basic items.

Unspoken was her concern that Dr. Whittaker would forget such things as clean underwear and regular meals once he was within reach of his new test subjects. He’d always been a bit obsessive. Now, with his entire professional reputation resting on this trip (as he repeatedly stated), Dr. Whittaker had taken to addressing his son as if he was simply an unusually young graduate assistant.

In many ways, this suited Anders just fine. It beat being “the kid.” Since the field season was going to be a long one, several members of the crew had brought family members. However, Anders was the only one who wasn’t another adult.

Doctor Calida Emberly (xenobiology and xenobotany) had brought her elderly mother, a painter, who was on partial retainer to the expedition as a scientific illustrator. Both Kesia Guyen (linguistics) and Virgil Iwamoto (lithics and field methods) had brought their spouses. In Iwamoto’s case, his was a very recent marriage, brought about in part by the impending departure of the expedition. Only Dr. Langston Nez, a newly minted Ph.D. in cultural anthropology who had been Dr. Whittaker’s senior assistant for many years, had traveled alone.

Anders had overhead Peony Rose Iwamoto gossiping to Dacey Emberly, saying that Dr. Nez’s long-standing relationship had broken up in large part because Nez preferred to continue working with Dr. Whittaker rather than seeking some prestigious position of his own. Apparently, Nez’s partner had said some really nasty things about Dr. Whittaker being grasping, ambitious, and self-absorbed.

Anders only wished he disagreed. He loved his dad, but if it hadn’t been for their shared fascination with treecats, these days he wasn’t sure they’d have much in common.

Sphinx!
Anders savored the thought as the passengers shuffled from the shuttle into the spaceport.
I’m really here! I wonder how long until I get to see a treecat in person? I wonder if it will be a “wild” or one of one of those who have adopted a human?

Unarticulated, even to himself, was the question, “Will I get to meet Stephanie Harrington and Lionheart?”

Anders’ fascination with Stephanie was almost as acute as his interest in treecats. It wasn’t because she was a girl nearly his own age—he was about eight T-months older—although his mother had teased him about that when she saw he had a special file for articles on Stephanie. It was because Stephanie Harrington had been the first person to make contact with treecats. Until Stephanie had figured out a way to trap an image, no one had even known treecats existed.

Then she’d nearly been killed saving a treecat from a hexapuma—or the treecat had been nearly killed saving her—that part of the story was always a bit unclear. Basically, as Anders had told his mother, Stephanie Harrington could have been a century-old double-butted near-baboon and if she’d done what she’d done, he’d still have been interested in meeting her.

And Lionheart.

Therefore, Anders was shocked and horrified when, after welcoming them to Sphinx, Dr. Hobbard told them that Stephanie had nearly been killed that day while going into the heart of a raging forest fire to rescue a pair a stranded treecats.

Chapter Three

Stephanie and Karl would have probably come in for a lot more grief over the risks they’d taken rescuing the two treecats if it hadn’t been for three things.

First, the imagery Karl had so thoughtfully taken had demonstrated how very careful they had been. Stephanie had been in full gear, not rushing in with no thought other than for saving the ’cats.

Second, again the images provided a neutral witness that without their intervention, Left-Striped and Right-Striped would have died in the blaze. Although doubtless many treecats died in fires set in the course of nature, once it had been confirmed that this fire had been caused by human negligence, it was very hard to persuasively argue that humans shouldn’t do something to save those endangered by it.

Third, the arrival of the team of out-of-system anthropologists on the very day of the fire had provided both Stephanie’s parents and the SFS with a way of reminding Stephanie that with great knowledge not only came great responsibility, but a liberal dose of boredom as well.

“Dr. Hobbard,” Marjorie Harrington said that evening over dinner, “commed me earlier to say that the off-world anthropology team was arriving today. She wondered if we could arrange for you to come and speak to them. I told her you were out on SFS business, but that we’d com her back to arrange a time.”

Stephanie had been about to protest that she couldn’t spare the time, that it would be days before Right-Striped could go without care, but a certain narrowing about both her mother and father’s eyes, as well as the slight grin twitching the corners of Karl’s usually serious mouth, told her that this was one battle lost before it was joined.

“Do they need time to settle in,” she asked, “or would tomorrow be good?”

Richard Harrington’s expression shifted to approving. Marjorie nodded.

“I asked. Apparently, Dr. Whittaker was disappointed that there weren’t treecats waiting to greet him and his team at the spaceport in Yawata.” She laughed at Stephanie’s involuntary bleat of protest. “I don’t mean that literally, Stephanie. It’s just that Dr. Whittaker is very enthusiastic. Dr. Hobbard says the anthropologists can meet with you any time—the sooner the better. However, she did her best to give you time to prepare by telling them you’d been out doing fire rescue today.”

“That’s nice of her,” Stephanie said.

Quickly, she weighed her options. If she said the fire had worn her out, she might buy some time to get to know Right-Striped and Left-Striped before they took off for wherever they lived. However, next time she wanted to help at a fire, that “tiredness” would certainly be remembered.

Anyhow, she wasn’t tired. She’d rather spend time with the treecats, but she was pretty excited about the anthropologists, too. These were
real
xenoanthropologists, not fakes like that horrible null, Tennessee Bolgeo.

“Tomorrow, then,” she answered, the words coming so swiftly on the heels of the others that only someone who knew her well—like her parents and Karl—would think them anything but impulsive. “As early as you want.”

Richard nodded. “Good. We’ll com Dr. Hobbard after dinner. Marjorie, did she say where this meeting was to be held?”

“Dr. Hobbard suggested the SFS ranger station near Twin Forks,” came the reply. “There’s just one problem. I have an appointment to be at the Tharch freehold to demonstrate some of the cooler-weather vegetable hybrids we’ve been developing. Sad as it is to admit, this glorious long summer is almost over, but since autumn also runs fifteen months, with the right cultivars we can take advantage of it…”

She paused and grinned. “Sorry. My enthusiasm running away with me. Short form. I’m booked all day tomorrow.”

Richard Harrington looked concerned. “I am, too. I have a small gap early, but I was going to use it to work with my newest patients. I suppose they’ll be all right, but if…”

Karl didn’t quite interrupt, but a shift in his body language stopped Richard in mid-phrase.

“I could fly Stephanie in,” Karl offered. “I could even get her back here. It’s no trouble. I’ve been considering anthropology rather than forestry—or maybe in addition to forestry—when I start college, so I’d really like to meet these people.”

Richard Harrington visibly relaxed. “That would be great, Karl, if it’s okay with your folks. You’ve been away all day already, out in a forest fire, and now staying away overnight. If you were my kid, I’d want to see you with my own eyes.”

That sadness Stephanie had noted was such a real part of Karl fleetingly passed over his face.

“Don’t worry, Dr. Richard,” he said, using the nickname he’d developed as a compromise between naturally good manners and the difficulty of having two Dr. Harringtons in the same household. “I’ll com. They’ll be glad enough to have a chance to chat. I’ll go home tomorrow.”

Have a chance to chat,
Stephanie thought, wishing that, like Lionheart, she could reach out and offer comfort that was more than just words.
Unlike with all those people who died in the Plague. People who are gone forever and that those who are left will never have a chance to talk to again.

*
 
*
 
*

Anders was relieved when Dr. Hobbard told them that Stephanie Harrington was unharmed. More excitingly, she had agreed to meet with them the next morning.

“I must warn you,” Dr. Hobbard said that evening when she met them for dinner, “to handle Stephanie Harrington with no less care and courtesy than you would any adult. She may be a girl of fourteen, but where treecats are concerned, she’s old as the hills.”

Anders could tell his father didn’t believe that anyone—especially a girl of fourteen—could hold back any information he was determined to get. It wasn’t until later, when he and his dad were back in their suite, that Anders realized to what extent Dr. Whittaker was prepared to go to get what he wanted.

“Anders,” Dr. Whittaker said, “the time has come for you to show yourself a part of our field team.”

He rubbed his hands together, and Anders was reminded of a coach he had once had, a man who had liked to proclaim himself his players’ “buddy” and “pal”—that is, right up until he was screaming at you for “letting down the side.”

The similarity went beyond attitude. Like that coach, Dr. Whittaker was a big man, both tall and broad. In earlier years, fieldwork had kept him trim, but lately most of his work had been in libraries and laboratories. This might be mentally arduous, but did not put the same demands on his body, making him fleshy if not quite fat. Over the last few years, Dr. Whittaker’s brown hair had been retreating from his forehead at an alarming rate, Whittaker family genetics defying a wide array of “cures,” both scientific and otherwise. The fact that genetic engineering had all but eliminated male pattern baldness only added to Dad’s frustration since, in his case, tinkering with the associated genes created a solution that was far worse than mere hair loss.

Anders distinctly hoped he’d been spared this particular gene. He had even checked with his doctor during a routine physical a few years ago and had been disproportionately relieved to learn that his scans showed no evidence of the baldness gene. More likely, he’d wind up with a thick head of hair like his maternal grandfather.

Surreptitiously comparing himself with his father, Anders thought that overall he hadn’t done too badly. He was showing promise of his father’s height and solid build, but his deep blue eyes and sandy-blond hair came from his mother. His features were also shaping into a masculine version of hers, a throwback to Scandinavian ancestors who had favored clean lines, rather than the blunter, more polyethnic mix that dominated in his father.

“Part of the field team?” Anders echoed.

“That’s right, my boy. You’ve shown yourself interested in the treecats, but have you considered that anthropology is more than studying interesting cultures? Sometimes you must also work with those who dominate the area.”

Anders had a sneaking suspicion where this was heading, but he’d long ago learned that it was politic to hear the other person out before jumping to conclusions. He also had a creepy feeling that he now knew why Dr. Whittaker had been so enthusiastic about taking him to Sphinx.

“Oh?”