A Beautiful Friendship-ARC

by David Weber

  The Star Kingdom had originally started subsidizing immigration in 1489, although it hadn’t been easy to attract new settlers at first, even with the subsidies. The Plague had first appeared in 1464 Post Diaspora, but its threat hadn’t been recognized until its first mutation, sixteen T-years later. When that happened, people had begun dying within T-months. Worse, the Plague virus had entered a period of rapid, frequent mutations, which had complicated the vaccine researchers’ task horribly. It had taken almost four more dreadful years, until 1484, to come up with a vaccine that worked, and by then the Manticore System’s population had been reduced to a level which threatened the colony’s very survival.

  That was when aided immigration was first proposed, bringing in a tide of new settlers over the next three T-years . . . until the Plague the doctors had thought they’d defeated mutated yet again. The new mutation had been even deadlier than the original, in many ways, and fatalities had been heaviest among the newest arrivals, who lacked the resistance the original population had gradually built up.

  Immigration (understandably, Stephanie thought) had fallen sharply as the heartbreaking procedure to create a new vaccine began all over again, and it had taken another nine T-years—until 1496—to find another effective treatment. In those nine T-years, well over half of the new immigrants had died, and it had taken several more years for immigration rates to slowly increase once more.

  The Hobbards had arrived in 1497, in the vanguard of that second wave of immigrants, because Jerome Hobbard was a city planner who specialized in designing entire human cities to fit into alien biospheres with a minimum of negative environmental impact. He’d been exactly the sort of specialist Manticore needed, and he’d been heavily recruited by the Ministry of Immigration. And while no one had been actively recruiting anthropologists, Landing University’s faculty had been just as devastated by the Plague as everyone else. Since Sanura Hobbard held a second doctorate in human anthropology, she’d ended up the chairwoman of a brand-new Anthropology Department and settled down to a satisfying academic career, even if it hadn’t been in her own primary nonhuman area of interest.

  Until Lionheart and I came along, anyway, Stephanie thought wryly. We even got her to come all the way out here to Sphinx, and I know how much she just loves that!

  Despite how much Stephanie had come to love Sphinx herself over the last couple of T-years, she understood why Hobbard didn’t much care for the planet. Sphinx was almost three times as far from its sun as Old Earth was from Sol, which explained its enormously long planetary year. It was also the reason why, even though the system primary was a bit warmer than Sol, Sphinx probably wouldn’t have been habitable at all if it hadn’t possessed an abnormally active carbon dioxide cycle, which boosted its surface temperature. Despite that, even summer on Sphinx was decidedly on the cool side, whereas Manticore’s average temperature was just as decidedly on the warm side for inhabitable planets. And Stephanie was sure Dr. Hobbard vastly preferred Manticore’s gravity, which was barely one percent higher than Old Earth’s. Hobbard didn’t have any of the genetic modifications Stephanie did, and even with the nanotechnology which helped her lungs cope with Sphinx’s air pressure and the personal belt-mounted counter-grav generator she always wore, she had to feel much heavier than she ought to feel.

  “I don’t suppose Lionheart’s done anything which might suggest that he’s keeping some sort of record of his experiences with you?” she asked now.

  “No, ma’am.” Stephanie shook her head gravely, and Hobbard smiled a bit crookedly.

  “Have you been able to decide whether or not he knows how to count?” she went on.

  “Not really,” Stephanie said, after considering the question for a moment. “It’s kind of hard to tell when we can’t talk to each other, you know. I think we’re making some progress in his learning to understand me when I talk to him, but I can’t even be positive about that. And even if we are, he can’t talk to me, no matter what we do. So I don’t know if he can actually count, but I do think he understands the difference between ‘some’ and ‘more.’ ”

  “Maybe something along the lines of ‘one, two, three, many,’ you mean?”

  “Something like that. Maybe,” Stephanie agreed, and Hobbard nodded with a broader, warmer smile.

  Stephanie smiled back, pleased there was an answer she’d felt comfortable giving. And the truth was, she wasn’t totally unwilling to share any information about the treecats. In fact, she wanted to share everything she safely could, but that was the problem. How did she decide what would actually help the treecats’ case, and how did she decide what might be dangerous to them? One thing she was determined upon though, and her parents agreed with her.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve made any more progress on locating the rest of Lionheart’s clan, have you?” Hobbard asked now, and Stephanie winced inside. That question was a perfect example of the sort of information she was afraid might endanger her new friends. A part of her—the part that liked Hobbard as a person and not the head of the Crown Commission on Treecats—wanted to tell the xeno-anthropologist, but . . .

  “I’m afraid there’s still not anything much I can say about that, Dr. Hobbard,” she replied. She was a little uncomfortable with that response, but it wasn’t actually a lie. She hadn’t said she didn’t know where the rest of Lionheart’s clan lived; she’d only said she couldn’t tell Dr. Hobbard where they lived. Which she couldn’t. Or wouldn’t, at any rate. She wasn’t telling anyone that if she could help it.

  “I see,” Hobbard replied, and Stephanie felt the very tips of Lionheart’s claws prick gently at her skin. If she’d worked out her signals with him as accurately as she thought she had, that meant he thought Dr. Hobbard didn’t really believe her, and she concentrated on looking as sincerely helpful—and as young—as she possibly could.

  Dr. Hobbard’s lips twitched in what might have been a tiny smile, and there was a gleam deep in those brown eyes. As far as Stephanie was concerned, that was all the proof she needed that Hobbard was perfectly well aware of the game they were playing. She was tempted—again—to be more forthcoming, but she suppressed the temptation. It wasn’t Hobbard she mistrusted in the first place. No, what worried her were the other people who would inevitably end up reading Hobbard’s reports. The xeno-anthropologist worked for the government, and that meant anything Stephanie told her would eventually end up part of the public record, where just anyone—including people who didn’t like treecats (the name “Franchitti” came to mind)—could get at it.

  “In that case,” Dr. Hobbard went on, “let’s talk about that carry net of his. We’ve been able to observe the clan that got displaced after that BioNeering accident, you know. We’re keeping our distance, as much as we can—they’re in a pretty distressed state right now, and we don’t want to make that worse. In fact, the Forestry Service’s refused to tell anyone—even me—exactly where that clan’s been relocated to. That’s a little frustrating, but overall, I have to say I think it’s a wise decision on Chief Ranger Shelton’s part.

  “In the meantime, though, I’ve been studying the video from the Forestry Service’s long-range cameras, watching them work, and it looks to me like there’s a very set pattern for the way they weave their nets. They aren’t all the same size, but as nearly as I can tell trying to scale from the images, the meshes of their nets are all the same size, regardless of how big or small the net itself is. And they seem to use exactly the same knots. But the nets they make don’t match the pattern of the one Lionheart was carrying when the two of you met the hexapuma. That’s one of the first real differentiating factors we’ve noticed between that clan and his—wherever his is.” She smiled again, faintly. “I don’t suppose you could try to communicate with him and ask him if he could either make some more nets for us himself or possibly go home to visit his own clan and bring us some we could study comparatively?”

  “I might be able to,” Stephanie said after a moment. “I can certainly try, anyw
ay.”

  “Thank you!” Hobbard said with a much broader smile, and Stephanie smiled back, a bit surprised herself to realize how much the prospect of being able to give the xeno-anthropologist something appealed to her.

  “Well, I guess that’s about it for today,” Hubbard said, glancing over the deplorably sparse notes on her minicomp. “Thank you, and please thank your mom for letting me visit this morning, too.”

  “Sure,” Stephanie said, climbing out of her chair to walk the xeno-anthropologist out to her waiting air car. And thank you, Dr. Hobbard, she added silently, for suggesting who else I should be talking to . . . even if you didn’t realize you were doing it.

  * * *

  “Yes?” the voice at the other end of the com link said.

  It wasn’t the voice Stephanie had expected, since it was a woman’s, not a man’s. It also sounded a bit . . . wary. Which, given the events of the last month and a half or so didn’t exactly surprise Stephanie. Assuming that the voice belonged to somebody who was friendly with the person she was actually trying to reach. anyway.

  “Excuse me,” she said, sounding as much like an adult as she could. “I’m trying to reach Dr. MacDallan.”

  “May I ask why?” The other voice definitely sounded wary now, Stephanie decided. Probably because its owner had been helping to fend off newsies and scientists. “I’m afraid he’s not available right this minute, anyway,” the woman at the other end of the link went on. “He’s been quite busy lately, as I’m sure you understand.”

  “Oh, believe me, I do understand,” Stephanie said feelingly. “In fact, that’s why I’m screening. My name is Stephanie Harrington, and I think Dr. MacDallan and I need to talk.”

  17

  “Are you two finally ready to knock off for lunch? Or should Karl and I go ahead and eat without you?” Irina Kisaevna demanded.

  Dr. Scott MacDallan looked up from the deep, green pool where his lure swam beguilingly along at the end of his fishing line, dancing its way seductively through the water in an effort to entice one of Sphinx’s leopard trout onto its hook.

  So far, he’d had precious little luck in that regard. In fact, his expensive rod, his painstakingly hand-tied lure, and all his decades of crafty experience had failed to catch a single fish. Which was particularly irritating for a confirmed fishing fanatic such as himself when the still-slightly-damp treecat currently sunning himself on a flat rock a few meters away had done quite well for himself. In fact, at that very moment, Irina was ready to plop Fisher’s cleaned and scaled fish—all five of them—into the skillet as lunch’s star attraction.

  “I’m sure it’s only a matter of a few more minutes—a very few more minutes—before I catch a veritable monster of the deeps to put Fisher’s miserable little fishies into proper perspective,” he replied, raising his voice to carry across the rush, chatter, and roar of the white-water cataract just upstream.

  “Sure you will,” Irina shot back. “I’m sure you’ll manage that around the time my personal invitation to high tea with the king arrives.”

  “Your lack of faith wounds me, woman!” MacDallan shook his head mournfully. “Betrayed! That’s what I am—betrayed by those closest to me!”

  “Well, Mr. Betrayed, if you want to go on fishing, that’s fine with me. But poke Fisher awake. It wouldn’t be fair for Karl and me to eat up all of his fish while he sleeps right through lunch.”

  MacDallan glowered at her, then laughed and conceded defeat. He reeled in his line and gathered up his tackle box, then crossed to the rock the treecat had turned into a comfortable snoozing spot.

  “Hey, Fisher,” he said softly, reaching down and gently stroking the soft, sun warmed, cream-colored belly fur. “Time to wake up, little guy.”

  The treecat named “Fisher” by his adopted human opened green eyes, blinked sleepily, then stretched and yawned.

  “Come on,” MacDallan said with a grin. “Certain parties are about to put your fish on to cook, and if you and I don’t get a move on, they aren’t saving any for us.”

  Fisher—he seldom thought of himself as “Swift Striker,” the name the People had given him, when he was among the two-legs—tasted the amusement in his two-leg’s mind-glow. He’d been working hard at understanding how the two-legs communicated, and it was obvious the mouth-sounds they made were the equivalent of the People’s mind-voices. But it was such a bizarre equivalent he was beginning to despair of the possibility of any Person ever truly wrapping his mind about it, though he had at least learned to recognize the sounds of the name his two-leg had given him. That didn’t mean he couldn’t understand his two-leg’s general meaning, though. There was enough contiguity through their bond for that . . . and since what his two leg was radiating right this moment was more than enough to remind him his middle felt excessively empty, he bleeked a laugh and rolled to his feet.

  “That’s right,” MacDallan said. “Go ahead. Rub it in. But you know, for us humans, fishing isn’t supposed to be a full contact sport.”

  He scooped the treecat up, draping him comfortably around the back of his neck like a thick, silken muffler, then picked up his tackle box again and waded carefully across the roaring rapids to join Irina on the far bank. He took his time, checking his footing with each stride, remembering the day, just over nineteen T-months ago, he and Fisher had met. He’d slipped and fallen in rapids much like these that day, and struck his head, then landed face down in the water with a concussion. If the treecat hadn’t been there, hadn’t swarmed down out of the tree from which he’d been watching the human fish, and used his carry net to hold MacDallan’s mouth and nose out of the water until he regained consciousness, he would have died that day.

  Not a bad way to make someone’s acquaintance, the doctor thought now, mouth quirking in a smile. Little hard on the skull, maybe, but it sure does tend to cement a friendship in a hurry.

  Actually, as Scott MacDallan knew better than anyone else on the planet of Sphinx, his relationship with Fisher was more than just a “friendship.” Even he didn’t know exactly how much more, yet he had direct, personal experience that the furry little arboreals were more intelligent—and more capable of sophisticated communication—than even their most ardent champions among the xeno-anthropologists and xeno-biologists were prepared to suggest.

  The problem was what to do about it.

  He waded clear of the water on the other side of the river, and Fisher sprang down from his shoulders. The treecat flowed across the rough ground, head up and ears pricked, and MacDallan heard another delighted “Bleek!” of pleasure as Fisher saw the skillet and the cleaned fillets of his catch.

  “Aren’t you just a little put out”—Irina held up her right hand, thumb and forefinger about two centimeters apart—“that he managed such a haul when you and all that fancy equipment you carry around didn’t manage to catch a thing?”

  “Not really,” he said. “Oh, it’s always a little frustrating if you don’t catch anything, but most fishermen will tell you the fishing itself is the real reward. When you actually hook one of the real monsters, when you spend half an hour fighting until you manage to land it, that’s great. But those are the high points. What really brings you back again and again is just spending the time out here—you and the river. That’s what it’s really all about.”

  Irina Kisaevna cocked her head, considering him sidelong, and knew he meant it. Not that she intended to let him off the hook that quickly. She and MacDallan had known one another ever since his arrival on Sphinx twelve T-years ago as a brand new doctor, fresh out of medical school and brimming with dedication. The assisted immigration policies had helped pay his way, but he’d come more because of the Star Kingdom’s desperate need for doctors than for any incentives its government might have offered.

  By the time he arrived, the researchers had finally broken the Plague’s back, but it had died hard, with periodic flare-ups which had required constant tweaking of the vaccines. The situation had still been pretty horrible, th
e need for trained doctors still acute, and he’d dived straight into it fearlessly, despite the fact that new immigrants, without the resistance the survivors had built up, were far more vulnerable to the Plague. Not that it had killed only the newcomers. In fact, Irina had met him because her husband had been one of the pandemic’s last native-born victims. MacDallan had done everything anyone could have done to save Stefan Kisaevna, but Stefan had been one of the patients who’d had an especially severe response to the Plague. Despite everything MacDallan could do, his own immune system had killed him, trying to fight off the disease.

  Irina had taken his death hard, but she’d seen a lot of death by then. It had never occurred to her for a moment to blame MacDallan, and as the weeks, and then the months, and finally the T-years had passed, she’d realized that what she’d come to feel for him was much too strong to call “friendship” any longer. Which was why the two of them were getting married in about six T-months. As far she was concerned, they could have tied the knot tomorrow, but he wanted his mother to be there for the wedding, and given the interstellar distances involved . . .

  She’d also discovered that for all his naturally warm, empathic personality, there was a darkness deep inside Scott MacDallan. A . . . melancholy, perhaps. He felt things, she thought. Felt them too deeply, sometimes. He cared—that was one of the things she loved about him, one of the things which had brought him to Sphinx in the first place—but sometimes he cared too much. Which was why he needed someone to give him a hard time, keep him focused on the here and now.

  That was her job, she’d decided. So—

  “Yeah, sure!” She rolled her eyes at him. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than stand up to my waist in ice-cold water for four or five hours at a time without hooking a single fish! I love nature!” She threw back her head and flung her arms wide. “Nothing I like more than freezing my behind off without catching a thing! Unless, maybe, it’s standing in the rain freezing my behind off without catching a thing.” She frowned thoughtfully, then nodded firmly. “Yes, now that I think about it, that’s probably even more fun. And if I could only get to cut a hole in the ice in the middle of a blizzard, then I’m sure—“