by David Weber
Keen Eyes was about to reply when Bowl Shaper surprised him by speaking with great force.
Knot Binder shivered as if she felt the icy winds that Bowl Shaper had evoked in memory.
Keen Eyes stroked his whiskers with one true-hand. He had thought this part out with care but had deliberately withheld the details of his plan until he knew the clan would at least consider it.
he said.
* * *
“So what did your mom have to say?”
“Um?”
Stephanie looked up from her reader. She sat crosslegged on the bench under the shading branches of the Manticoran blue-tip tree, the reader in her lap. Lionheart stretched companionably beside her with his chin propped on her thigh, and she blinked.
“I asked what your mom had to say,” Karl repeated with a smile. Stephanie in “I’m studying hard” mode had about as much situational awareness as a rock, he reflected.
“Oh.” Stephanie blinked again, then grinned crookedly, recognizing his amusement. “Sorry. I was really locked in. She said she and Dad are having a wonderful time seeing all the sights. And they darn well should, too! This is the first vacation they’ve had since we got to Sphinx.”
“I know.” Karl nodded. “They’ve worked their butts off ever since you guys got here. I’m glad they’re having a good time. Wish you could be showing them around?”
“Show them what?” Stephanie snorted a laugh. “Aside from the meetings with the Adair Foundation, we haven’t been off campus more than twice! They’re making out better with the standard guide package and their uni-links than anything I could tell them.”
“You’re probably right,” Karl agreed, and looked back down at his own reader. Despite Stephanie’s laugh, there’d been at least a little bite in her response, and from the corner of his eye he watched Lionheart’s ears twitch. He’d learned to read the ’cat’s body language almost as well as he could read another human’s, and he could tell a lot about Stephanie’s mood by reading Lionheart’s. And just that moment, she obviously wished she could be touring Manticore with her parents. Unfortunately, it was exam week, and even Stephanie was finding herself pushed by the pressure. Both of them carried averages which would see them successfully complete their courses even if they blew the finals pretty badly, but neither of them was interested in just scraping by. Doing the best they could would have been a point of pride with them under any circumstances, but given Ranger Shelton’s decision to expend precious slots on a couple of kids, they had a special responsibility to do him proud.
Not that there’d ever been much chance Stephanie wouldn’t do just that, he reflected wryly.
“You want to go back over Dr. Flouret’s discussion questions again?” Stephanie asked, as if she’d been able to read his mind, and he chuckled.
“Couldn’t hurt,” he acknowledged. “But, truth to tell, I’m more concerned about Dr. Tibbetts.” He shook his head. “I know it’s going to be open-link to the library, but I’m not as good at searching precedents as you are, Steph!”
“You’re better than you think you are,” she scolded, and Lionheart bleeked emphatically, arching his spine and stretching luxuriantly.
Karl was always putting himself down where the purely academic side of their courses were concerned, she thought. He did do better when it came to fieldwork, true, but he was better than three quarters or more of their classmates when it came to the more sedentary portions of the curriculum, as well.
“Doing better than I think I am wouldn’t be all that hard,” he pointed out with a chuckle. “Don’t bite my head off, Steph! I don’t think I’m going to tank the exam, you know. But the truth is, you’re a lot more comfortable with jurisprudence than I am. And I’m not all that clear on why a ranger needs Jurisprudence 101, anyway. We’re not going to be judges or magistrates!”
“No,” she agreed. “But it does make sense for us to have at least a basic understanding of how it works. Right now, ranger field assignments are basically common sense and seat-of-the-pants, but it’s not going to be that way forever. That’s why Ranger Shelton’s trying to build up the supply of trained, professional rangers, and having at least some notion of what the courts are likely to do with anybody we end up dealing with in a . . . professional capacity, let’s say, isn’t going to hurt a thing.”
“Probably not,” he agreed. “But the truth is I’d rather take Dr. Gleason’s exam twice than take Dr. Tibbetts’ once! She always makes me think she’s going to throw me into jail somewhere if I screw up.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say!” Stephanie’s tone was severe, but her lips twitched. Dr. Emily Tibbetts—also known as Justice Tibbetts—was a senior member of the King’s Bench who taught introductory jurisprudence courses at LUM. She had a severe way about her, but Stephanie had caught something suspiciously like a twinkle in her brown eyes on more than one occasion. Besides, she’d not only decided Lionheart could accompany Stephanie to class, she obviously liked the treecat. More to the point, perhaps, Lionheart liked her. “Dr. Tibbetts is perfectly nice,” she continued. “And even if she weren’t, I promise I’d file a writ of habeas corpus as soon as her minions dragged you away.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You’re welcome. But, you know,” Stephanie went on more thoughtfully, “we could always pick Jeff’s brain. He took the same course last semester, and he’s taking Jurisprudence 102 this semester. If anyone we know knows the kinds of questions Dr. Tibbetts is likely to ask, it’s him.”
Karl raised an eyebrow at the suggestion. Jeff Harrison was one of their classmates in Dr. Flouret’s criminology course. A native of Manticore, not Sphinx, he obviously intended to pursue a law-enforcement career on the capital planet, and he was several years older than Karl, much less Stephanie. He was also ridiculously citified in Karl’s opinion, but he was fascinated by Lionheart and he’d become one of their Manticore-born friends.
Besides, Karl reminded himself, he might be hopeless in the bush, but you’re not that much better in a city, now are you?
“That might be a very good idea,” he said after a moment. “No way she’d use the same questions over again, but I really would feel better if I could talk it over with someone who’s already survived her course once!”
* * *
With Knot Binder providing direction, the Landless Clan set about building a net in which they could catch and hold another Person. This was not an easy task, for a Person’s claws were very sharp and could slash through just about anything, if given time. Nor was it a fast one. However, because they were small compared to enemies such as death fangs and snow hunters, People were also very patient, and Knot Binder’s assistants k
new careful preparation could mean the difference between living and dying.
Knot Binder supplied an exceptionally tough cord that combined the fibers of several different plants with the shed fur of People. This type of cord required so much time to make that, even with fire raging closer and closer, Knot Binder had insisted on bearing a coil of it away with her. Now she showed the others how to work it into a net with a noose closure, so that it could be pulled into a sort of bag.
As a final refinement, Wonder Touch—who was one of the clan’s healers and wise about plants and their properties—supplied a bitter-tasting paste with which the strands of the net could be coated.
Keen Eyes thanked her.
The next stage of Keen Eyes’ plan was more complicated. After conferring with the Landless Clan’s scouts and hunters, he had confirmed his own impressions. He was the scout who had gone most deeply into the territory held by Trees Enfolding Clan and the only member of the clan who had actually encountered a member of Trees Enfolding.
Well, other than poor Red Cliff, and he cannot help us now.
This likely meant the Trees Enfolding Clan was actively avoiding the area. It was not as if there was much incentive to go into the sun-rising parts of their range, given the poor pickings. In any case, with winter coming on, every spare adult would be involved in preparing whatever food the hunters and plant gatherers brought in.
Keen Eyes explained.
Keen Eyes replied.
Sour Belly sniffed as if he did not believe this was the case, but he did not ask for details. Keen Eyes did not volunteer them, either. He was committed to this course of action and though he thought he had some good ideas, he did not want Sour Belly’s nasty comments to undermine his confidence.
Keen Eyes responded promptly.
Anger flooded Hard Claw’s mind-glow, showing how dangerous his “happy” cooperation could be. Keen Eyes had suggested Hard Claw and Firm Biter because, like him, they were among the Landless Clan’s unbonded males. Now he wondered if he had been unwise.
Hard Claw replied. His mind-glow brightened, although not all the anger left it.
This time Keen Eyes was not even tempted to offer any further explanation.
Knot Binder fluffed her tail in a nervous fashion.
Keen Eyes admitted,
* * *
“We’re running out of time, Gwen,” Oswald Morrow pointed out a bit diffidently across the table. The two of them were dining in an expensive restaurant whose clientele were prepared to pay inflated prices in return for guaranteed privacy as they dined. “They’ve only got another week or so before they head back to Sphinx.”
“Really?” Gwendolyn Adair’s response dripped irony. “Do you know, Ozzie, I do believe I read something about that somewhere already!”
“I’m not the one joggling your elbow,” Morrow pointed out. “It’s Frampton. She’s getting impatient.”
Gwendolyn started to snap at him, then stopped. Angelique Frampton, Countess Frampton, was the granddaughter of a first shareholder whose son had improved upon his father’s originally fairly modest position through a lifetime of aggressive (some would have said unscrupulous) financial maneuvers. Over the course of his and Angelique’s lifetimes, the Framptons had moved into the uppermost ranks of the Star Kingdom’s wealthy, and as part of that climb, they’d acquired a huge portfolio of Sphinxian land options and leveraged it for all it was worth. At the moment, those land options were valued at “only” four or five hundred million dollars. Over the course of the next thirty to forty T-years, that value would at least triple, and the bankable value they already represented had been used as security for loans totaling just over a billion dollars. Those loans were critical to the Earldom of Frampton’s solvency, and their terms required full payment or refinancing within the next ten T-years. Repayment would be difficult or even impossible; refinancing would be a routine transaction . . . as long as the options’ value was maintained.
That would have been cause enough for Angelique to seek proactive means of protecting their worth, yet that was hardly her only motivation. Nor was the sizable stash of options in Gwendolyn’s portfolio her only motivation. True, both she and the countess stood to lose heavily in purely financial terms if they were invalidated or even simply declined in market value, although Frampton stood to lose far more. But the countess also possessed a vindictive streak at least a kilometer wide. Those were her land options. No stinking clutch of misbegotten, ratlike little aliens was going to take what was hers! She would probably survive financially if she lost the options, but her f
ortune would be brutally reduced . . . and she was just the sort of person to use what was left of it taking vengeance on whoever had allowed—or caused—that to happen.
On someone like Gwendolyn Adair, for example.
“I imagine she’s not the only one who’s feeling impatient,” Gwendolyn said after a moment, instead of biting Morrow’s head off, and he snorted.
“All of them are getting antsy, if that’s what you mean.” He shook his head. “For someone who’s only gotten off campus twice—aside from her visits to the Adair Foundation, anyway—Harrington and that little monster have attracted an awful lot of favorable press. Every time I think about that puff piece the Landing Observer did on her I want to throw up. Even Harvey’s in her corner now! He says she’s one of the best students he’s ever had, and the last time I talked to him, he went on forever about how smart her treecat is, too.”
“I know.” It was Gwendolyn’s turn to shake her head. “She’s more personable than I’d hoped, and she’s got those idiot friends of George’s eating out of her hand at the foundation.”
Stephanie and Karl had visited the Adair Foundation five times now—three times to meet with the foundation’s directors, who also happened to be its most generous donors. There wasn’t much doubt what sort of impression she’d made on them, unfortunately. Not that it had come as much of a surprise to Gwendolyn.
“It was your idea to invite her,” Morrow pointed out.
“Yes, it was. And if I hadn’t thought of it, someone else would have—probably George himself.”
Gwendolyn’s tone was acid. Her cousin George Lebedyenko took his position as Earl of Adair Hollow—and CEO of the Adair Foundation—seriously. Usually, she found that more useful than not, but there were times (and this looked like one of them) when his personal interest could become more of a hindrance than a help.
“The treecats are exactly what the foundation was set up to protect,” she continued. “That’s one reason Angelique sent you to me in the first place on this one, Ozzie. At least by issuing the invitation I was in a position to control how much contact young Stephanie actually had with them.”