by David Weber
Here in the relative lowlands, even though the trees showed signs of damage from the fires that had raged so much more powerfully in the higher elevations, opportunities for hunting and foraging were more plentiful. Leaves were shading into yellow and red, but still bore traces of green. In some sheltered areas, trees were sending up shoots through the thick soil. More quick living plants were taking advantage of the damper weather and rich ash, and some of the grasses and shrubs were adorned with fat seeds. Although the People could not subsist wholly on a diet of leaves, seeds, and shoots, these would help to bulk up their bellies—and they attracted prey animals.
The difficulty did not come from the lowlands themselves. Rather it came from those People who had already claimed these lands as their own. Keen Eyes met up with the first of those one afternoon as he sat on a net-wood branch enjoying a small but plump bark-chewer he had caught.
Keen Eyes sniffed the air, but these People must be approaching from upwind, because he could not catch their scent. True, a mind-voice could call over a far greater distance than anyone could detect with certainty the mind-glow of another Person, but these People had obviously sensed his mind-glow and realized that it did not belong to someone they knew.
Relaxing over his meal, Keen Eyes had taken the obvious precautions, but he had not been actively searching for other People. Now he attempted to do so. Distantly, he sensed at least two People. The fuzzy quality of the contact indicated that they were attempting to mute their mind-glows, but one of the pair was upset enough that his anger came through strongly. Even as Keen Eyes sought to get a clearer reading, this one moved deliberately to take his mind-glow out of range.
Keen Eyes shaped his reply carefully.
The voice of the person with the less angry mind-glow shaped the answer.
Keen Eyes did not open his mind to them, but he did allow his sense of loss and sorrow to color his reply.
Nimble Fingers’ mind-voice shaped the reply.
Keen Eyes shared a mind picture of the lands surrounding his clan’s ravaged range. He showed them the barren land, how even where trees still stood so many were nothing more than blackened spires, the remaining limbs charred skeletons that would not hold even a small bark-chewer, much less to a robust Person.
Swimmer’s Scourge’s response came so quickly that Keen Eyes had the impression he had deliberately stopped his nephew from answering. At the same time, his faint awareness of Nimble Fingers’ mind-glow vanished, so that he suspected that the other had moved—or been moved—out of range.
Keen Eyes could not have hidden his grief, not even if he had tried.
With that, Keen Eyes could no longer sense the pair, even faintly. He sat perched in the net-wood tree for a long time, searching, but met only with silence.
* * *
The two weeks before Stephanie and Karl’s departure rapidly dwindled to days. Time and again, Stephanie considered backing out, considered making some excuse for not going. At one point, she was even so desperate that she thought about injuring herself so she couldn’t go. The problem with modern medicine, though, was that even “accidentally” forgetting to turn on her counter-grav unit so that she fell out of a tree wouldn’t have helped much. Even badly broken bones could be patched up pretty quickly.
So began the days of saying goodbye. Stephanie thought that she and Jessica had managed to get across to Lionheart what was going to happen. Certainly, the ’cat cooperated admirably with drills designed to get him used to the standard interstellar pet carrier they’d bought for him. She’d even demonstrated the emergency life support, so the noise wouldn’t bother him in the unlikely event she had to use it.
The first of the goodbye parties came when she and Lionheart visited Lionheart’s extended family where they were settling into winter quarters in the mountains northeast of the Harrington freehold. They went out as they often did, using her hang-glider rather than an air car. As a present, Stephanie had brought with her several bunches of celery. Lionheart loved the stuff, and his family did, too.
However, Stephanie was certain that it wasn’t just the celery that gave this visit the feeling of “event.” For one thing, most of the clan was there. Even the hunters who were often away or asleep were present and active. For another, Morgana took the post of honor and gave a speech.
Stephanie knew she’d have trouble explaining why she was sure that was what Morgana was doing. Certainly she didn’t hear anything. To someone who wasn’t inclined to think of treecats as smart, it probably looked like a lot of ’cats drowsing in the sun. Still, she felt certain. Maybe it was the way the kittens, usually as ebullient and active as their feline equivalents, sat attentively prick-eared, green eyes focused on Morgana. If they were holding still, something important must be going on.
However, party or not, long before dark Lionheart marched over to where Stephanie had stowed her hang-glider, pointedly reminding his human that they had a long flight home. She took the hint. Now was not the time to start taking dumb risks.
The next party came the following day and was held at the Harrington freehold.
“Don’t think we’re just making a fuss over you and Karl,” Marjorie Harrington teased. “Actually, this party is to celebrate Frank and Ainsley’s promotion to Senior Ranger. You can’t imagine how difficult it is to get both of them scheduled for the same day off. It’s just a coincidence that we managed for a few days before you were due to leave.”
Stephanie wasn’t fooled, but she was glad to have some of the focus away from her and Karl going off to Manticore. Frank Lethbridge and Ainsley Jedrusinski had been among the first rangers she’d gotten to know well. Frank had been her handgun and rifle instructor and had introduced Karl to her, and Ainsley was his frequent partner. Celebrating their promotion to the newly created rank of Senior Ranger seemed a very good excuse for a party indeed.
Since both Frank and Ainsley were longtime friends of Ka
rl’s family, that provided a natural excuse for all the Zivoniks to be invited, again, without too much emphasis on the departure of the probationary rangers. With them came Scott MacDallan and his wife, Irina Kisaevna, also as longtime friends of the guests of honor. Scott was the only other living human—other than Jessica and Stephanie—who had been adopted by a treecat.
Given that all of Stephanie’s friends had volunteered during the worst days of the forest fire, it made sense to include them, as well, and Anders came along with Dacey Emberly. So pretty much everyone who would have been at a going away party also ended up at this “promotion party.”
As was natural at a gathering of such size, people eventually broke into smaller groups. Irina, Marjorie, and Dacey sat in a cozy huddle around the high-ceilinged great room’s huge fireplace, discussing art while the antique ceiling fans’ blades turned lazily overhead and Richard stood with an elbow propped on the mantle and listened, interjecting an occasional comment of his own. Karl and Toby were out on the wide snow porch, its sliding sides open to the pleasant autumn breeze, organizing foot races for the younger Zivoniks. Jessica and Scott were in deep conversation, probably about living with treecats, as they tidied up the stone-flagged kitchen where hectares of the buffet dinner’s bowls and serving platters had been stacked to one side. The guests of honor had gathered around the pool table in the family room, just off the great room, cues in hand while they chatted with Christine and Chet about a new guide program the SFS was introducing to deal with the growing influx of tourists.
Coincidentally or not, Anders and Stephanie found themselves alone near the great room’s wide front windows, looking out at the mountainous trunks of the crown oaks. Even Lionheart had absented himself to visit with Valiant and Fisher.
“Want to go for a walk?” Stephanie asked.
“Sure.”
When they were out of direct sight of the party, Anders wrapped his hand tightly around Stephanie’s.
“It’s weird to think that in a few days we’re not going to be able to do this again,” he said after a long pause. He leaned and kissed her. “Or this. Or even talk to each other in real time.” He grimaced. “Messages and vids just aren’t the same, whatever anyone says.”
“I know.” Stephanie’s response came out a bit more emphatically than she’d intended as she recalled the months Anders had spent on Manticore. “Still,” she went on after a moment, “I think maybe it’s better for the transmission lag to be as great as it is. I mean, there’s no way anyone could possibly hold a conversation with a fifty-minute hole between every question and answer, and we both know it. But it was only, say, ten minutes each way, we might just try it, and think how miserable that would be!”
“Yeah, recorded messages are a lot smoother than that,” Anders agreed.
“And the delays would just make the separation more real.”
“So you’ll message?”
“I promise. I won’t let homework and all the rest get in the way.”
“Me either.”
More silence, though there was quite a bit of nonverbal communication to fill the space.
Eventually, Anders sighed and pulled back, though not before he’d carefully nested Stephanie’s head against his shoulder.
“Who was it who said that bit about parting being sweet sorrow?”
“Shakespeare.”
“I think he was cracked. I thought it the first time we went through this, and I’m sure of it now. Parting isn’t sweet at all. It’s just sad.”
Stephanie offered an explanation. “It’s sweet sorrow because you have someone to feel sad about. If you didn’t have anyone, then, well, it wouldn’t be sad, but it wouldn’t be sweet either. It would just be going different ways.”
“So this is sweet sorrow?” Anders asked, although the expression in his blue eyes when Stephanie moved to look up into his face left no doubt.
“It is,” she said. “Very sweet and very, very sad.”
* * *
Two days later, she was at the shuttleport. Her baggage had gone ahead, and she was hugging everyone who’d come to see them off—her folks, Jessica, Anders, Karl’s family—some of them more than once. Karl was doing the same. He even hugged Anders, who laughed and hugged him back.
“Take care of our girl, Karl,” Anders said. “Don’t let her intimidate all those Manticorans.”
“Promise,” Karl said. “And you be careful here. Remember, we won’t be around to rescue you.”
“I’ll remember.”
A recorded voice announced final boarding, and Anders gave Stephanie one more huge, bone-cracking hug.
“I guess we’ve got to go,” she said. “I’ll message. I’ll message everyone!”
“C’mon, Steph.” Karl’s tone was gruff. “We’ll be back before they get used to having us gone.”
“Right.” She grabbed Lionheart’s carrier, then darted back one more time to hug each of her parents. “See you when you come to Manticore for your holiday!”
Then she turned and almost ran to the shuttle.
* * *
Anders was glad he’d brought his own air car to the shuttleport. He didn’t really feel like being with anyone right now. He saw Jessica and Valiant go off with the Harringtons. Jessica looked as if she was crying. The treecat was reaching up over her shoulder to gently pat her cheek.
It’s going to feel weird for all of them, being without Stephanie. And it’s going to be weird for me to be here with all of her friends while she’s off on another planet. It’s all backwards and upside down from the way it was last time. And Steph and I have been so focused on what this means to us, I haven’t really thought about how it’s going to change things for everyone else.
He was still replaying the image of the shuttle’s port sealing behind Stephanie, of the final pale flash that might have been the wave of her hand, when he got back to the apartment building where Calida had rented their quarters.
Kesia Guyen tried to wave him down as he passed through the lobby, but he pretended not to see her. Normally, Kesia would be just the person to talk to about his bruised feelings, but right now he still wanted to be alone.
To his surprise—Kesia was normally good at picking up on nonverbal cues—she came trotting after him and caught up just before he reached the lifts.
“Hang on a minute!” she called, and Anders was forced to stop and turn around to face her. She took one look at his expression, then smiled gently and reached up to pat him on the shoulder. That smile was so sympathetic Anders felt his own expression waver uncertainly for a moment. Funny. He’d thought he was doing a better job of hiding his feelings than that.
“I know you probably have other things on your mind right now,” Kesia said, “but I thought you’d like to know about this. We got a com message from Manticore about four minutes ago, probably about the time you were parking the air car.”
“What kind of com message?” Anders asked, trying to figure out exactly how to describe her tone. She sounded both excited—almost jubilant—and irritated in equal measure.
“Your dad’s back,” she told him. “The university sent him back out in a fast charter.”
“Dad’s back?” He stared at her in shock, and she nodded.
“Just hit Manticore orbit a bit over two hours ago,” she confirmed.
Anders shook his head as if to clear it while he tried to process the completely unexpected news. Then it hit him. If Dr. Whitaker had been sent out here to collect the rest of the expedition’s personnel—if the university had chartered the courier boat in order to hustle everyone else home in disgrace as quickly as possible—then he might have just seen Stephanie for the very last time! He felt as if someone had punched a big icy hole through the spot where his stomach used to be.
“Hey!” Kesia reached up, grabbed him by both shoulders, and gave him a shake. “Lighten, Anders! Lighten! It’s good . . . mostly.”
“What do you mean ‘mostly’?” Anders demanded.
“W
ell, the good news is that the university’s excited enough about what we’ve already turned up that, despite any . . . minor irregularities, they’ve authorized your dad to seek a contract extension from the Star Kingdom. It’s open-ended as far as the university’s concerned!” Her eyes twinkled at the sudden leap of hope in Anders’. “And, the chancellor and the head of department—and your mom, on behalf of of the government—have all promised everything Governor Donaldson and Minister Vásquez asked for. So I think we’ve got a pretty good chance of getting the extension. Maybe in a single time block, maybe with a break over the winter while we return to Urako with our data.”
Anders nodded. All of that was good news . . . except, maybe, for that bit about going home “over the winter,” since Sphinx’s winter was over sixteen T-months long. But Kesia had said . . .
“So what’s the news that isn’t good?” he asked. And for that matter, he thought, if Dad’s been back more than two hours, why didn’t he com us quicker than this? It’s only a twenty-five-minute transmission delay, after all!
“It may be good, and it may be bad.” Kesia shrugged. “He says that when he logged into the system data net and commed Dr. Hobbard to tell her he was back, she told him there’s been a change of plans. She says some bigwig on Manticore—Morgo, Morrow, something like that; your dad wasn’t sure of the name—is sponsoring what he called ‘some tourists with an interest in xenoanthropology.’”
“Uh-oh.”
“Exactly.” Kesia actually chuckled. “Actually, once he calmed down a bit, he admitted they seem to be a little better than that. In fact, some of them have pretty good credentials. But your dad’s really ticked. He thinks it’s a violation of our contract’s exclusivity.”
“Well, it is,” Anders pointed out. “On the other hand, we’re probably luckier than we deserve to still have a contract. If we do, that is.”
“I think that was pretty much your dad’s conclusion, too,” Kesia said with a grin. “Apparently this Morrow or whoever he is is associated with something called the Adair Foundation. It’s some kind of nonprofit involved in preserving biodiversity that’s interested in treecats, and apparently it’s thinking about endowing a real xenoanthropology chair at Landing University. So the dean of Dr. Hobbard’s college asked her—told her, really—to make the foundation’s team welcome.”