Treecat Wars (25 page)

When Windswept touched the flying thing down, Dirt Grubber awoke. He felt very happy when he realized his plants were safe, that their destruction had been only a terrible dream.

He barely had a moment to enjoy his relief before his mind—reflexively searching the area as he always did when they arrived at a new place—touched that of another Person. The mind-glow Dirt Grubber encountered was dark and violent. If mind-glows had come in colors, this one would have been the purple-black of thunderheads.

<
Who? What is wrong? How can I help you?
> Dirt Grubber reached for the other Person and felt himself repelled by the force of the other’s anger.

He tapped the flying thing’s transparent side panel and Windswept let him free of the confined space. When he landed on the bare earth, he felt the brittleness of cinders beneath his feet. Without pause, he ran in the direction from which he tasted the other’s mind-glow. Before he reached it, he came upon the body of another Person.

Dirt Grubber stood aghast, sending forth his query once more, this time not relying upon words, but instead projecting a heartfelt desire to give whatever help this stranger required of him.

<
I am beyond help
.> Pain and desperation now tinted the purple anger with lightning streaks of dark green and deep indigo. <
My clanmate is dead. Our clan is doomed. There is nothing left for us but death
.
Keep away lest I number you among my enemies, Bright Water Person
.>

<
I am not of Bright Water
,> Dirt Grubber protested, but the other was gone, his mind closed against hearing. Nor could Dirt Grubber tell in what direction the other had fled. People could easily trade information—entire life histories could be shared in moments. However, such as sharing took willingness on both sides. This angry stranger desired a privacy so complete that it made a mockery of sharing.

Dirt Grubber heard Windswept’s feet pounding on the ashy ground. Bleached Fur followed her a few paces behind. In a moment, they would see the dead Person. Would they realize the cause of that one’s death? Would they realize that, in defiance of custom, tradition, and common sense, one Person had killed another?

If they did not, could he keep them from realizing? Could he somehow hide this horrible crime from the knowledge of the two-legs?

* * *

Anders raced to where Jessica crouched next to the cream and gray figure that lay so unnaturally still upon the ground.

“I wonder how long he’s been dead?” He asked. “Not long, I think. I mean there aren’t any—well, there aren’t any bugs crawling on him.”

Jessica started to touch the still form, then drew her hand back. “No. We’d better handle it as little as possible. We don’t know what killed it, but if it was disease, we might spread whatever it was to Valiant.”

Certainly the treecat had retreated a good distance from the body and seemed eager to stay away from it.

“Good point.” Anders, however, was his father’s son, and he couldn’t resist trying to figure out a little more. Picking up a stick, he gently lifted the corpse’s head. “I’m not sure this guy died from disease, Jess. Look. There and there. Those look like bite or claw marks to me. I hate to say it, but it seems to me that something ripped this poor guy’s throat out.”

“There’s not a lot of blood,” Jessica protested. “Sure, there’s some on his fur, but not much anywhere else. Maybe he caught a disease that caused itching or hives or something and those marks are from him trying to get at it. My little sister Melanie-Anne had to wear gloves all the time when she had reesels while we were living on Tasmania or she might’ve left scars. Or maybe something shot him with a poison spine. The problem with Sphinx is that we know too little about what lives here. Most of what’s been recorded is because those creatures interact in some way—usually a negative one—with humans. There are zillions of small animals, plants, birds, and insects we don’t know anything about.”

“You’ve got a point,” Anders agreed, lowering the corpse’s head and gently manipulating the torso with his stick. “It’s hard to tell with all that fur, but the poor guy does look skinny. Maybe you’re right. Maybe he’d been sick for a while and couldn’t eat. Maybe he left his clan or was chased out to avoid contagion. I guess the question is what we do with him?”

“We could bury him,” Jessica said. “That way if he was sick, the sickness won’t spread.”

“We could take him to Dr. Richard,” Anders countered. “He could probably find out the cause of death.”

“I’m not sure,” Jessica said. “Mom mentioned he’s crazy busy. The Harringtons are getting ready to go away to Manticore so they can have a holiday before Stephanie’s graduation. Anyhow, I hate the idea of the poor ’cat’s body being poked it. I mean, it’s okay for humans to do that to humans, but we don’t really know how the treecats feel about their dead. I’d hate to do something that would make Valiant uncomfortable. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but I can feel he’s pretty miserable.”

“I wonder if Valiant knew this guy?” Anders mused. “He seems pretty upset. How far can treecats communicate?”

“No idea. And this isn’t the time to start trying to figure that out. Whether or not Valiant knew this treecat isn’t important. What we need to figure out is what we should do that won’t make him more unhappy.”

“Can you ask Valiant what we should do?”

Jessica shook her head. “Nothing that complex. The best I can do is see how he reacts if we try something like burying the body. Valiant knows how to let me know not to do something, just like he knows how to encourage me if I’m doing something he likes.”

Anders sighed. “Still, I feel funny not knowing how this treecat died. What if there’s a plague? Shouldn’t someone know?”

Jessica shook her head again, this time so violently her curls bounced and covered her face. “Not necessarily. Anders, as much as people like your dad and the other xeno-anthropologists like to forget it, the treecats were dealing with issues like death and dying for a long time before humans came to this planet. Just because this is the first dead treecat either of us have seen doesn’t mean there haven’t been others.”

“I understand.” Anders frowned. “Okay. How about this? We see how Valiant reacts if we try to bury this guy. If he doesn’t mind, we do it. But before this fellow goes in the ground, I take some images. I won’t give them to my dad or anything like that. I’ll just have them on file. We’ll mark the coordinates here, too. That way if something happens—like disease breaking out—we can at least add information.”

Jessica considered for a long while, staring at Valiant as she did so. Anders wondered if she was trying to guess her companion’s reaction. Eventually, she nodded.

“Okay. But the images don’t go to your dad. Promise?”

“Not without your permission. Not to my dad, not to anyone else on the team, not to anyone at all without your permission.”

Jessica smiled at him. “Thanks. You know, I wonder if we should ask Stephanie?”

“I don’t think so. Steph’s pretty busy with getting ready for finals. Besides, what could even Stephanie tell from a bunch of images?”

Jessica turned toward the air car. “Well, one good thing about being out collecting plants. We have shovels. I’ll get them.”

“I’ll start taking images.”

“Stop if Valiant seems unhappy.”

“Right.”

But Valiant didn’t seem to care in the least when Anders started recording images.

When Jessica returned with the shovel and started digging a hole over where the grave would neither be obvious nor interfere with her mother’s test area, Valiant loped over and started digging with her.

“I guess he agrees,” Anders said. “Unless he just thinks you’re getting ready to plant another garden bed and he’s eager to help.”

“No, it’s not that,” Jessica replied. “I think he knows why I’m doing this. I can’t explain how, since it’s just a feeling, but I think I’m right. He’s helping and he’s eager we get this taken care of. I wonder if he was so worried because he thought we were just going to leave the body to rot out in the open.”

Anders finished with his images and came over to help with the digging. They didn’t need as large a hole as they would have for a human body, but the ground had been baked hard enough that even with the modified vibro blade cutting edge on the shovel, it was hard work.

Valiant wandered off once both humans were at work and returned as they were finishing up. He’d filled one of his larger carrying nets with the reddish autumn leaves from the picketwood trees. When the humans stepped back, he dropped most of these in to line the grave.

“Well, I guess he approves,” Jessica said. “If we lift the body on one of the shovels, we can disinfect the blade afterwards. Better than using our hands. We didn’t see any bugs, but there might be some.”

“I’ll do it,” Anders said. “You stay in tune with Valiant and make sure I’m not doing anything wrong.”

But the stout treecat didn’t do anything in the way of protest. Instead, he sprinkled the last of his picketwood leaves over the corpse, then began digging the dirt back into the grave. The two humans helped him. Before long, only a small mound of broken dirt remained to mark where a fellow creature had ended his life’s journey.

“I wonder if treecats pray?” Jessica said. “My family’s lived on so many planets, I don’t really have any set religion. Still, I don’t suppose it would hurt to be quiet for a moment.”

“Not at all,” Anders agreed.

They bent their heads but kept their thoughts to themselves. Anders wondered what Valiant made of this, but he figured that the treecat was enough in touch with Jessica’s emotions to sense that respect was intended.

When Jessica raised her head her hazel-green eyes were bright with tears, but she only shook back her curls and raised her chin as if defying Anders to comment.

“Come on,” she said. “We need to record those images for my mom and take samples. I want to be back in time to help cook dinner.”

* * *

“And what do you have to say about Ms. Harrington and Mr. Zivonik now, Harvey?” Mordecai Flouret inquired genially.

Smoke drifted from the barbecue grill between him and Harvey Gleason and the shouts of children splashing in the waves rolling in from Jason Bay competed with the curious, warbling cries of the wave-cresters circling overhead. The wave-cresters were the planet Manticore’s equivalent of Old Earth’s seagulls, and the silver and brown bird analogs were just as determined when it came to scavenging any tasty bit of garbage that came their way. Which was probably why they were keeping such an avid eye on Flouret’s grill at that very moment. He rather doubted they’d have any objection to snatching one of the sauce-coated chicken breasts if the chance came.

At the moment, though, he was more interested in Gleason’s response. They might be colleagues on the Landing University faculty, and their wives and children might like one another (which was the reason for this afternoon’s picnic), but there were times he wasn’t very fond of Gleason.

The other man was very good in his field, and LUM was fortunate to have him, especially this early in the process of developing its curriculum, but he was also full of a sense of his own importance, and he sometimes seemed to resent the fact that Flouret was the chairman of a fully established department. He’d tried to downplay his irritation at being required to make room for “runny nosed kids” (as he had rather injudiciously expressed himself on one occasion) into
his
forestry studies courses, but he hadn’t fooled anyone who knew him. And he had a well-developed capacity to cherish grudges for a long, long time, as well, but this time he surprised Flouret.

“Actually,” he said, “I’ve been very impressed with them. Both of them, to be honest, although given how young she is, I suppose its inevitable people are going to be even more impressed with her.”

He met Flouret’s gaze levelly as he made the admission, and the criminology professor found himself forced to reconsider a few prejudices of his own. Maybe Gleason had something rather closer to an open mind than he’d thought.

“Really?” he asked.

“She’s mastered every bit of the course material without breaking a sweat,” Gleason said. “And to be honest, she already knows more about Sphinx’s flora than ninety percent of my students know
after
they graduate. More holes on the Manticoran side of her knowledge, but that was only to be expected, and she’s worked hard to fill them. Despite—” he acknowledged dryly “—a certain suspicion on her part that she’s never going to need that particular body of knowledge and that a certain professor’s only insisting she learn it to be a pain. And Zivonik’s just as sharp as she is, in his own way. Not as quick, perhaps, but…steadier, I think. The two of them are a team, of course. You only have to glance at them to see that. But I think his job is to be the balance wheel while hers is to go rushing off to find the next challenge. They’re surprisingly formidable for such youngsters, when you come down to it.”

“That was my impression, too,” Flouret agreed. “I have to admit I’m a little surprised to hear you share it, though, Harvey.”

“I know.” Gleason’s eyes glinted with an unusual flicker of amusement. “Didn’t expect me to admit I did, either, did you?”

“Well, no,” Flouret admitted, using his tongs to turn the chicken breasts sizzling on the grill.

“Thought not.” Gleason took a sip from his bottle of beer, then shook his head. “I suppose I had it coming, too. But do me a favor and don’t rub it in
too
hard, all right?”

“I’ll try, Flouret promised with a grin. “It’ll be hard, you understand, but I
will
try.”

Chapter Thirteen

Keen Eyes did not try to speak to any member of his clan before he reached their current nesting place. Instead, he sat while the darkness passed, striving to gain mastery over his thoughts and emotions so that he would not give himself away when he was once again close to People. There was a remote chance Beautiful Mind had not felt her mate’s death. If so, he was not going to be the one to let her know that Red Cliff had gone further than merely out of range of their mind-voices. If she did know and somehow still kept her grasp on life, he did not wish her to know that Red Cliff’s death had been horribly unnatural, that his life had been ripped from him by the claws of another Person, that even his dead body had been rejected as anathema.