by David Weber
“Especially at this primitive level,” Doctor Hidalgo agreed. “Watching Valiant has been very interesting. I chose these gardens because they contain plants that are purely ornamental as well as some that are both ornamental and edible. While Valiant shows a preference for those that are edible, he doesn’t seem to be immune to beauty.
“Of course,” he added, sounding embarrassed, “some of my colleagues would say I’m being subjective.”
“How do the others in your group feel about the treecats?” Anders asked.
“They’re proving more difficult to convince,” Doctor Hidalgo said sadly. “I indicate the artifacts, and Dr. Radzinsky counters with examples of other creatures that make tools or elaborate dens. I mention the ornamentation, and Dr. Darrolyn asks if I see any evidence of written language—or even spoken language.”
He sighed, tore a small square of bread from his sandwich, squashed it into a pill, and swallowed it. “Then there’s the problem that we’re dealing with contaminated samples.”
“Contaminated?” Jessica asked.
For reply, Doctor Hidalgo pointed to where Valiant was carefully sliding some seeds into one of the sample bags.
“Where once there was a potentially pristine culture,” he said, “we now have one irrevocably contaminated by its contact with humans. I’m not blaming you, young lady. The SFS gave tools to treecats before you ever set foot on this planet. However, once the damage is done, it becomes more difficult to judge just how intelligent a species is. Take Valiant’s interest in gardening. There’s some evidence the treecats observed humans practicing agriculture and decided to imitate. That’s quite different from evolving the skill on their own.”
Jessica looked uncomfortable as Doctor Hidalgo went on.
“I, personally, would like to see two things. First, I’d like to see the treecats recognized as sentient. Then I would like to see some effort made to protect them in their uncontaminated state. Populations that haven’t had human contact should be kept from human contact. Populations that have had human contact—for example, the clans from which Valiant and Lionheart originated—should be relocated to areas where they can practice their indigenous lifestyles in a manner uncontaminated by human influence. Only in this way can they evolve into the people they were meant to be. Otherwise, they’ll become poor imitations of humanity.”
“You must be joking!” Jessica exclaimed. “Treecats are treecats. They could never become humans.”
“Precisely,” Doctor Hidalgo said. He pulled at one ear lobe and smiled sadly. “Earlier you mentioned the care you’d taken to make sure Valiant developed his thick winter coat. However, if something happened to interfere, would you let him freeze?”
“Never!”
“So you’d either keep him indoors—an unnatural state for a treecat—or you’d provide him with clothing of some sort. Even in Dr. Whitaker’s most careful excavations, we’ve seen no evidence the treecats need clothing other than their natural fur. Therefore, your desire to protect him would introduce an alien element into his life. If treecats do have some form of communication—something I believe is so, although Doctor Darrolyn differs with me—that idea would be spread further.”
Jessica looked stunned. It seemed to Anders that she was wilting where she sat. He knew how much care both Jessica and Stephanie took to make sure that their treecat partners visited not only with each other, but with their clans. What would happen if treecats were isolated on reservations for their own good? Would those treecats who had adopted humans become exiles?
Valiant set aside his sample bag and bleeked softly. Then he loped over to Jessica and snuggled his furry head into the wild mass of her hair. However, he neither snarled nor growled at Doctor Hidalgo, so Anders guessed that the treecat could tell the man meant him no harm.
No harm. Only imprisonment. Only isolation from his own people and those people sealed away in tidy little reservations where they can practice their folkways in peace. Anders swallowed hard. And you can bet that the lands “given” to treecats wouldn’t be the best. They’d be destroyed by the “kindness” of people like Doctor Hidalgo.
He remembered a section from the book Dr. Nez had given him for his birthday. There’d been an entire chapter on how less advanced cultures had been destroyed by forced assimilation into more advanced ones. But that same chapter had also offered up examples of how often well-intended efforts to protect those less advanced cultures had ended up confining, strangling, and ultimately destroying them just as thoroughly as assimilation possibly could have.
“I’m sorry, Anders,” Doctor Hidalgo said. “Did you say something?”
“No, sir.” Anders tried hard to sound normal. “Just thinking about some of the long-term implications.”
“Ah. A natural anthropologist, following in your father’s footsteps.”
Anders forced himself to grin, but inside he winced. He thought about Stephanie’s reports about how Lionheart was shedding. When Stephanie and Lionheart came home, would she put the ’cat in a sweater? He imagined the x-a’s reaction, how Hidalgo would be sorrowful about the contamination of culture, how some of the others would certainly sneer.
For the first time since Stephanie had left, he found himself wishing her return could somehow be delayed.
* * *
In addition to his usual scouting duties, Keen Eyes went out of his way to patrol along the sun-setting edge of the clan’s range where he had sensed Swimmer’s Scourge and Nimble Fingers of the Trees Enfolding Clan. Aware that this was a dangerous area, Keen Eyes requested that the other members of the Landless Clan keep back from it. He did not meet with any complaint, for he had shared Swimmers Scourge’s warning with the rest of the clan. Moreover, the loss of their home meant there were tasks enough to keep every set of true-hands and hand-feet busy every waking moment of the day.
Keen Eyes himself hunted when he could, setting traps and snares for small game. He was removing a tree-hopper from one of his snares when a mind-voice spoke.
Keen Eyes recognized Nimble Fingers of the Trees Enfolding Clan, but when he searched for the other’s mind-glow, he did not touch it. He wondered if Nimble Fingers had a mate, for one benefit of such a partnership was that both the mind-voice and ability to detect the mind-glows of others intensified. That would explain why Nimble Fingers could find him while he could find no trace of the other. He suspected Nimble Fingers was at extreme range, but, nonetheless, he took care to dampen his own mind-glow, uncomfortable that someone who was not a clan member or a friend would have such an advantage over him.
He replied politely.
Keen Eyes thought that perhaps Nimble Fingers did not completely agree. However, the way of the People, as contained in the oldest songs of the memory singers, was that the wisdom of the elders was to be listened to by the younger members. In this way, the entire clan could avoid errors made in the past.
Usually, Keen Eyes had no problem agreeing with this approach. A traditional way of teaching hunting was to let the youngling attempt a hunt or two without coaching. Only after the youngling had gone hungry from a pounce too soon or from not knowing a particular trick of the intended prey did the serious teaching begin, for only then did the youngling realize that there was something to value in past experience.
Lately, however, he had begun to wonder why the elders should have the final say when the problem was one in which they had no genuine experience to guide them. Of course there had been forest fires in the past, but the
se fires were among the first where the ability of the People to move into new ranges was complicated by the presence of the two-legs.
He heaved a gusty sigh but, as it was his own policy not to challenge the rights of the Trees Enfolding Clan lest they decide the time of toleration was ended, he could not protest.
Keen Eyes was very interested. Even the ability to share thoughts did not mean the People were immune to disagreement. When consensus could not be reached, that disagreement could sometimes become intense enough the mind healers stepped in. Healing always involved a certain amount of work on the mind of the victim as well as the body even for purely physical injury—moderating of pain, offering comfort and reassurance. Mind healers, however, specialized in touching actual minds, feeling where they had become twisted from the true and helping them return to understanding that the needs of others were as important as the needs of the individual.
Nimble Fingers’ reply overflowed with exhaustion.
Nimble Fingers’ mind-voice trailed off. On the whole, People were not very good at hiding things. They were simply too accustomed to shared mind-glows. Scouts and memory singers probably had the most teaching in that area, for they were the most likely to deal with People who did not share the same priorities.
Keen Eyes wondered what Nimble Fingers had been about to say. “What to do about the invaders?” Or something more mild, “What to do about those poor refugees?” He considered asking, but decided against it. On the whole, Nimble Fingers had been kind to him and, by extension, to the Landless Clan. Nothing would be gained by challenging him.
Instead, he said,
That told Keen Eyes quite a lot. If the People of Trees Enfolding were dealing with conflict within their own clan, it explained why the Landless Clan had been kept in their particular limbo, neither welcomed and helped, nor driven away.
His phrasing included the Landless Clan as well, and Keen Eyes was warmed. But Nimble Fingers’ next thought reminded him that the danger was far from ended—that, indeed, it intensified with every sun’s passing that brought them closer to the need to make a final decision.
Keen Eyes sent back a quick promise that he would, but as he shouldered the carry net with his catch and prepared to lope in the direction of home, he wondered just how long they could obey such warnings. In time, his clan must press to sun-setting…or die.
Chapter Ten
“Stephanie! Karl!”
They halted and turned in the direction of the shout. A young man, perhaps five years older than Karl, waved and came towards them, accompanied by a somewhat older, blond-haired, green-eyed woman. Stephanie recognized Allen Harper, one of Dean Charterman’s assistants. He was a grad student—in geology, she thought—and he was also from Sphinx, which was why Charterman had assigned him to show her and Karl around campus for their initial orientation. She had no idea who his companion might be, though.
“Are we catching you between classes?” Harper asked as the newcomers reached them, and Karl shook his head.
“We’re done till supper,” he said. “Just heading back to the dorm to get Lionheart back into the air-conditioning.”
“Just Lionheart, eh?” Harper laughed.
“Well, maybe me, too.” Karl wiped sweat from his forehead and smiled. “Blame me?”
“I’m from Sphinx, too, remember?” Harper shook his head. But I am glad I caught you. Dean Charterman asked me to introduce Ms. Adair to you.” He indicated the woman beside him. “Stephanie, Karl, this is Gwendolyn Adair. Ms. Adair, Stephanie Harrington and Karl Zivonik.”
“I’m so glad to finally meet both of you!” Ms. Adair smiled, holding out her hand first to Karl and then to Stephanie. “I’ve heard a great deal about you—and about Lionheart, of course.” She smiled at the treecat on Stephanie’s shoulder. “He’s even more impressive looking in person than he is on HD.”
Stephanie smiled back, but it was difficult. She’d felt a sharp spasm of something very like wariness the instant Ms. Adair had come within fifty meters, and she knew where it had come from. Now she reached up to touch Lionheart’s ears.
“I don’t know about impressive looking,” she said, “but he’s always been pretty impressive to me.”
“I imagine so, given the circumstances under which you met.” Adair shook her head. “I’ve been to Sphinx for visits, but I’ve never met a hexapuma in the wild, and I never want to, either.”
“It isn’t the sort of thing we encourage,” Karl acknowledged. “Bad for tourism if too many tourists get eaten, after all.”
Adair laughed, and it was Harper’s turn to shake his head.
“Karl has what he thinks is a sense of humor, Ms. Adair. Despite that, he’s really a very nice guy, once you get to know him.”
Karl only smiled unrepentantly.
“At any rate,” Harper went on, “the Dean wanted me to make sure you three got introduced to one another. Ms. Adair’s cousin is the Earl of Adair Hollow, one of the University’s more generous donors, and she’s been very active in supporting the University herself. She’s also one of the directors of the Adair Foundation.”
He looked at them expectantly, and Stephanie glanced at Karl to see if he’d recognized the name. She’d done her own research on the Adair Foundation after viewing Anders’ and Jessica’s accounts of their meetings with the “x-a’s,” and from everything she’d been able to discover, the Foundation was about as respectable and reputable as nonprofit organizations came. Its list of donors and patrons read like a Who’s Who of the Manticoran aristocracy—including the King—and it had a distinguished record of aggressively protecting the biodiversity of the Star Kingdom’s habitable planets.
She’d felt reassured as she read over its charter and viewed the catalog of its accomplishments. Yet despite that reassurance, she’d still felt…uneasy. She knew she tended to be protective, maybe even overly protective, where the treecats were concerned, but it wasn’t like Anders and Jessica to imagine things, especially with Valiant along to keep them straight. If they had their doubts about some of the x-a’s,
they probably had a reason, and there’d been no information on the Foundation’s site—or anywhere else in the public record—about how exactly it had decided which visiting xeno-anthropologists to sponsor to Sphinx.
The corner of Karl’s right eyelid dropped in what might have been the smallest of winks, and Stephanie suppressed a sudden smile. Yes, Karl had recognized the name. In fact, Stephanie was willing to bet he’d guessed who Ms. Adair was associated with the instant Harper had introduced her. That was probably what had prompted his remark about hexapumas and tourists.
“I’ve heard about the Foundation, Ms. Adair,” she said. “I’ve been messaging with a couple of our friends back on Sphinx about the expedition it sponsored.”
“Oh, I wish we could take the credit for that,” Adair said. She had a melodious contralto voice, and the gleam in those green eyes invited them to laugh with her. “Unfortunately, honesty compels me to admit that we only expedited it. I wish we’d been the ones who thought of it—and a lot sooner than this—but, well—”
She shrugged, her expression wry.
“Sooner than this?” Karl repeated, and Adair nodded.
“We’re dedicated to recognizing and protecting biodiversity. It’s what we do. Most people aren’t that worried about things like that just this moment, given three entire planets that are basically still empty of humans, but the Foundation figures it’s only a matter of time before humanity starts really extending its footprint here in the Manticore System. We’re already doing that on Manticore itself, you know, and it won’t be so many more years before the same thing begins happening on Sphinx. You would’ve thought that an organization worried about things like that would have been on its toes enough to immediately recognize what Stephanie’s discovery of the treecats meant—or might mean—for our declared mission, but frankly we were asleep at the switch. We should have sponsored a reputable xeno-anthropologist instead of letting that horrible Bolgeo person slip past us. For that matter, we should have insisted on vetting his credentials better, in which case that whole mess might not have happened.