Treecat Wars

by David Weber

  Each of these senior members had emerged from the shuttle in single file, as neatly spaced as if they were actors taking their places on stage. As soon as Dr. Darrolyn was clear, the remaining passengers came out in the more usual haphazard fashion. Occasionally, one or another would go over to join the group centered around Dr. Hobbard and Dr. Whitaker, but the shuttle held its usual quota of business travelers, families home for visits, and the like.

  One of these days, I’ll be waiting for Stephanie to come out, Anders thought. But not for at least two more months . . .

  Eventually, the young people were motioned over to join the group. Needless to say, Jessica and Valiant attracted considerable attention right off.

  Jessica handled the babble of questions with grace, becoming a trifle tart only when one of the assistants gushed, “Oh! He looks so soft! Can I pat him?”

  “Only if he can pat you,” Jessica snapped. “Seriously. Would you pat a chow-wolv when you first met it?”

  Chow-wolvs were native to Trebuchet where, Anders knew, Jessica had spent several years. They were also about the same size as treecats and equally fluffy.

  The assistant blinked. “No! They’re known to be vicious.”

  “Well,” Jessica said, “treecats aren’t vicious. However, it’s always a good idea to let any animal—even when it’s an herbivore—get to know you before you assume it’s pattable. There are quite a few animals here on Sphinx that would cheerfully take your arm off if they got the opportunity.”

  The assistant—one Gretta Grendelson—scowled. “I did ask.”

  Valiant patted Jessica gently on one cheek, then elongated himself from his position on her shoulder so he could sniff at Ms. Grendelson’s fingers. He bleeked and gave the woman’s hair a tug.

  Ms. Grendelson squealed but didn’t seem unduly upset—in fact, she seemed delighted.

  Dr. Radzinsky chuckled. “Well, now you’ve been patted by a treecat, Greta. That’s one for the records.”

  She turned to the woman from tourism. “It’s very kind of all of you to come welcome us, but I think we’d like to go to our hotel. We’re staying in Yawata Crossing for the first few days, but I believe we’ll then relocate to Twin Forks to be closer to Dr. Whitaker’s group.”

  “That sounds perfectly reasonable to me, Dr. Radzinsky. Please, come this way.” The woman from tourism motioned to Chet and Christine. “Come with us, if you would.”

  The groups started breaking up. Anders looked at Jessica, then twitched his head after the departing new arrivals.

  “Are you going with them?”

  Jessica was frowning. “No. I don’t think so. . . . I could, but I’m not needed for this stage. Later, when they do some of the longer landscape tours, I may go along. That’s what I was planning on, anyway. But now I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

  They’d turned and started walking to where the air cars were parked.

  “Why not?” Anders asked, and Jessica blinked as if she’d only then really become aware of him.

  “I’m sorry, Anders. You need a lift?”

  Anders shrugged. “I can ride with Dad and Dr. Nez, but they’ll probably want to talk about the new arrivals. I’d just as soon skip that.”

  “I can give you a ride back to Twin Forks.”

  “If I wouldn’t be in the way . . .”

  Jessica shook her head. “No. I’d be glad to have you.”

  Anders commed his dad, then they went along to Jessica’s faithful junker. Once they were aloft, Anders noticed the frown hadn’t left her face.

  “What’s wrong, Jess? I thought you were eager to be part of all of this.” And, he added silently, that you could really use the money.

  “I was,” Jessica admitted. “But Valiant . . . I’m not as good as Stephanie at filtering my reaction to his reactions . . . or at figuring out just what he’s reacting to, especially in a crowd like that.”

  Anders shrugged. “You haven’t had as much chance to practice. So what about Valiant?”

  “He didn’t like someone there—maybe several someones. My feeling is that he’d prefer to avoid at least some of them.”

  “What didn’t he like? Being patted?”

  “No. Despite my getting cranky, I think he liked that idiot Greta. He’s actually really good about patting. He even lets my little sisters comb him almost every night. Tiddles even put a bow around his neck yesterday, and he was nobly patient—although he took it off as soon as she fell asleep. No, it was more than that.”

  She piloted in silence for a while, then sighed. “I suppose what I should do is spend more time with them so Valiant can isolate whoever it is he doesn’t like, but ’cats aren’t like us. Because of the telempathy, I think it’s sort of uncomfortable—almost painful—for them to be around someone they don’t like.”

  “I remember Steph told me Lionheart would snarl and hiss when he sensed Bolgeo.”

  “Right. Not that there’s any reason to think we have another Bolgeo here. I suspect there are many types of people Valiant wouldn’t like—the hyper-ambitious or manipulative sorts, y’know?”

  “I think I do. You realize that group’s going to have a lot of that kind of personality? You’ve met my dad, so you know the type. Scientists working on the cutting edge of any field tend to be really competitive. Why not take it day by day?”

  Jessica nodded. “That’s what I’ll do. Hey, thanks for listening.”

  “Any time.” Anders grinned. “Any time at all.”

  * * *

  “So always remember that the most important thing whenever you first approach a potential crime scene,” Dr. Flouret said, standing in the middle of the holographic projection, “is to disturb nothing. The instant you begin interacting with evidence, you begin altering it.”

  The broad shouldered, blond-haired professor regarded his students sternly. He reminded Stephanie of a character she’d seen in an old HD which had been set in what its producers had fondly imagined Old Earth must have been like before the Diaspora. That character had been a professor, too, and he’d worn something called “glasses” to correct some sort of vision problem. He’d worn them low on his nose so that he could peer over their tops at his students, and she was pretty sure Dr. Flouret would have done exactly the same thing. But even if he was inclined to be a bit fussy, he was also one of the smartest people she’d ever met.

  He was an old friend of Dr. Hobbard’s, too, although Stephanie and Karl had been very careful to avoid even appearing to impose upon that friendship. Dr. Hobbard had told them they could turn to Dr. Flouret in case they had any serious problems, but neither of them was going to draw on what Karl had dubbed their “emergency hatch key” unless they really needed it. Not when it could have repercussions for Dr. Hobbard. Or for Dr. Flouret, for that matter.

  They’d spent the last couple of weeks studying the theory of criminal forensics and the tools—from DNA sniffers to old-fashioned meter sticks—available to the criminal investigator. There were more of those than Stephanie had ever realized, but Dr. Flouret had emphasized over and over again that the most important tools of all were the human eye and the human brain behind it. All of the detection and measuring devices in the universe were useless, he pointed out, unless someone was able to combine their output into an accurate reconstruction of what had happened. This was the first time they’d examined an actual “crime scene” (or its holographic reproduction, at least), however, and Stephanie cautioned herself sternly against her normal tendency to rush in and take charge. She’d been working on developing what her mother called “more mature interpersonal skills,” and she’d discovered that several of the students who were older than she was resented the way she tended to charge ahead when something caught her interest.

  “Bleek!” someone said in her ear, and that same someone’s whiskers tickled her cheek. One of the things Stephanie absolutely loved about Dr. Flouret was that, unlike any of their other professors here at the university, he actively encouraged her to bri
ng Lionheart to class. She wasn’t sure if that was as a favor to his friend Dr. Hobbard or because of his own fascination with treecats, but she deeply appreciated his attitude. And it was another reason she wasn’t going to charge brashly forward and step on other people’s toes—not when she was already receiving “special privileges” by being allowed to bring her “pet” to class with her!

  “Evidence must be collected so that it can be properly assessed and analyzed,” the professor continued. “And it must be collected and recorded in ways which can be reliably reproduced, not simply in the lab, but when the investigator’s conclusions are presented in an evidentiary format in court, as well. If an investigator is to present evidence convincingly, he must not only be certain of his own conclusions but be able to reproduce that evidence, to demonstrate the basis for his conclusions reliably, accurately, and in a fashion which educates the layman. All of those things are critical portions of what a forensic criminologist is and does, but it’s your responsibility to be as certain as humanly possible that the evidence you collect is accurate, honest, and unaltered. It’s your job to form conclusions, not to pass judgment, and you have a moral responsibility as well as a legal obligation to do so as impartially as you possibly can. So before you pass your sniffer over the first piece of evidence, before you take your first step into the crime scene, record every aspect of it from as many perspectives as possible in as much detail as possible. Know where every single piece of evidence comes from. Be able to place it in a detailed computer model of the scene, and be certain before you disturb any of it that at a later date you’ll be able to know and to demonstrate its physical relationship and proximity to every other piece of evidence you may examine.”

  His expression and his tone were very serious, and heads nodded among the students seated in the lecture hall around the holographic stage. He gazed at them for several seconds, looking over the tops of those “glasses” he wasn’t wearing, then nodded.

  “Very well,” he said, and glanced down at the “dead body” at his feet. “This is a re-creation of an actual crime scene. For obvious reasons, I’m not going to tell you what really happened here, or when, or even where. After all—” he raised his eyes, darting another look at the class, and Stephanie had the oddest sensation that he was looking directly at her “—we wouldn’t want any of you looking the case up to find out what the courts decided had happened.”

  A chorus of student chuckles answered him, and he smiled.

  “Now, Ms. Harrington,” he invited. “Suppose you join me here and give us all the benefit of your insightful observations.”

  * * *

  “I feel like an idiot,” Stephanie groused to Karl as they headed across the quadrangle towards their dormitory. “I should’ve realized that wasn’t blood!”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Karl said judiciously, with something which looked suspiciously like a grin. “It looked like blood to me.”

  “Well, it wasn’t,” Stephanie replied in a withering tone. She really, really didn’t like making public mistakes.

  “Seriously, Steph,” Karl said, his grin fading, “he was making a point. All of us have a tendency to jump to conclusions, especially when the evidence seems so clear. I don’t think anyone else in the class questioned whether or not it was blood, either. That was the whole point.”

  “Well, I wish he’d chosen someone else to make it,” she said feelingly.

  “I guess I can understand that. But I kinda think he was killing two birds with one stone, Steph.”

  “Oh, yeah?” She knew she sounded sour.

  “Yeah. I know you’ve been sort of hanging back in class to keep from getting up the noses of some of the other students, but you and Lionheart can’t really hide, whatever you do, you know. I think it was his way of making the point that anyone can make a mistake . . . and of letting you be the one to make it this time. Some of ’em are going to take it as proof you’re not as hot a hotshot as they think you think you are, but most of the others’re going to sympathize with you. Might just help out in the long run, you know.”

  Stephanie regarded him skeptically, but once she thought about it for a few moments, she had to admit he might have a point. Not that it made her feel a lot better about jumping to conclusions like that. Still, it was something to think about.

  * * *

  A few days after the Radzinsky group arrived, a formal meet-and-greet was held so that the visitors could be introduced to various important residents of the planet. Anders went as part of his dad’s expedition. Jessica and Valiant were there, as well, as were Chet and Christine. The “Double Cs” had tamed their flamboyant hairstyles in honor of their new job and looked very mature in their new guide uniforms.

  The meet-and-greet was about as much fun as Anders had always found such events—that is, not much fun at all, unless you happened to be an enthusiast on the particular reason for the gathering. Anders was interested in treecats, but not so much in the fine points of anthropology which were under discussion. Still, between his parents’ different jobs, he’d had a lot of experience with such events.

  Jessica, on the other hand, was clearly overwhelmed. Valiant—hand-feet on her shoulder, true-feet on a support built into the back of her dress—stared at the humans clustered around, his green eyes wide with what might be the beginnings of panic.

  Anders hurried over to Jessica’s side, making his way through the little crowd of onlookers who’d gathered to get a better look at a real, live treecat. Dr. Darrolyn, the linguistics expert, was asking Jessica questions. For all that his smile was warm and affable, there was something hammering about how he fired them off.

  “So, is Valiant communicating with you this moment?”

  “I can feel a bit of what he’s feeling,” Jessica admitted.

  “And that is?”

  “Well, there are a lot of people here. I think he’s a bit overwhelmed.”

  “But you have a large family, don’t you? Two adults, six children? Certainly Valiant is used to crowds?”

  “He knows my family—” Jessica began.

  “But the treecat must know a fair number of the people here?” Dr. Darrolyn cut her off.

  “He’s met Dr. Whitaker’s group, yes, but he doesn’t really know them well. And most of the rest of you are complete strangers.”

  “Are you certain you’re not projecting your own apprehensions on the animal?”

  Jessica stared at the linguist in shock. “Are you saying I’m lying?”

  Dr. Darrolyn smiled condescendingly, and his words took on a lecturing tone. “I’m saying that—in my field—we’ve learned that humans often project their own emotional landscape onto their animal companions. A man sees his dog wagging his tail and looking eager. He thinks, ‘My dog is happy to see me.’ This may be so, but only because the dog associates the man with food or outings. So what the man interprets as affection may only be a hope for some service the man supplies the dog.”

  Jessica’s eyes narrowed. “I am not projecting my reactions onto Valiant. I really can feel what he feels. He doesn’t—”

  She cut herself off, but Anders could guess that what she’d been about to say was something like, “And he doesn’t like you at all.” From the flicker in Dr. Darrolyn’s expression, he guessed the linguist had figured it out too.

  Anders inserted himself into the conversation. “Jessica, I hate to interrupt, but Dr. Emberly was wondering if you could spare her a moment.”

  He’d checked, and Calida Emberly was just visible on the far side of the room, talking quietly with her mother, who appeared to be sketching.

  “Sure,” Jessica said. She bobbed her head politely to Dr. Darrolyn. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  “I look forward to talking with you further,” Dr. Darrolyn said.

  Valiant’s “bleek” could have meant anything.

  “Thanks for rescuing me from those x-a’s,” Jessica said under cover of the room’s general noise level as they walked away.


  “X-a’s?”

  “Xenoanthropologists.” Jessica laughed. “It’s too much of a mouthful to say all the time.”

  “I like it,” Anders said. “It sounds vaguely like a curse, which is about how I feel about the whole profession right now.”

  “Me, too. Valiant, three. I’ll tell you more later.”

  As they approached Dr. Emberly, Anders said, “I brought Jessica and Valiant over like you asked.”

  Calida Emberly was not a pretty woman—in fact, she was actually pretty stern looking—but she had an enthusiasm for her profession and life in general that could make her almost beautiful. Now she extended a hand to Jessica and then to Valiant.

  “I did, did I? Will that was very clever of me. Was Dr. Darrolyn getting intense?”

  “That’s an understatement,” Jessica agreed. “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “I’m not. They haven’t been here even three full days, and Darrolyn’s already had Kesia on the verge of tears. Radzinsky and your father are barely speaking, and Hidalgo has accused the SFS of corrupting a potentially sentient species.”

  “Kesia in tears?” Anders was appalled. He remembered how staunchly Kesia Guyen had stood up to his father when they’d been stranded. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “Well, he all but promised to message the review board at our university saying she should be denied her doctorate on the grounds that she’s fallen into superstitious thinking rather than good science.”

  “What a blackhole!” Jessica said. “I can see we’re going to have a lot of fun while they’re here.”

  “Don’t worry,” Anders said. “You volunteered to help them out, so you can un-volunteer.” He smiled suddenly. “From what Dr. Emberly says, I’m sure it wouldn’t break Dad’s heart to find something else for you to do! The ones I feel sorry for are Chet and Christine. They’re not going to be able to duck out.”

  “And to think I was disappointed that I didn’t have time to take enough of classes to qualify as a guide,” Jessica replied. “For today, though, I’m going to do my best. Time to march back into the fray. Thanks again, Anders, for getting me a breather.”