Fire Season

by David Weber

  Jessica nodded. “You started this because I asked about how Lionheart would deal with a fire. Did you teach him how to use a fire shelter?”

  “We did,” Stephanie said. “It wasn’t easy, because he has a treecat’s ingrained caution regarding fire, but he’s smart. Once he saw the demonstration a few times, I think he figured out how useful such shelters could be.”

  “That reminds me,” Jessica said. “I wanted to ask about the last piece of equipment you were given, that drip torch. It sounded to me like the ranger was actually suggesting you might need to start a fire. That sounds crazy.”

  “It does,” Stephanie agreed, “but using fire to fight fire is an old technique and one that still has its place. Remember how I said that ‘fuel’ is one of the key elements in creating a fire-ready condition?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, if you eliminate fuel, you can eliminate one of the directions in which the fire can spread. Sometimes you can do that by soaking the fuel in advance of the fire. Sometimes firebreaks are built—either with tools or, if there’s time, using machinery. You cut away the trees, limbs, and snags, leaving nothing but bare dirt. When fire gets to the break it’s stopped. If the fire isn’t too fierce, sometimes even a line made with the side of a boot—as long as it clears the area down to bare dirt or rock—can create a large enough break.”

  Karl took over. “But there are times when it’s faster to burn the fuels up in advance of the fire. That works well with ‘light’ fuels like grass, leaves, pine needles, and dry slash. You make certain you have a fire line around them, then burn out the middle. When the main fire arrives, it finds bare earth where a meadow full of yummy dried grass would have been.”

  Jessica shuddered. “It sounds horrible, transforming a meadow into a burnt waste.”

  “The fire would have done it anyhow,” Stephanie said, “and this way the forest on the other side is protected.”

  “Mostly, these days,” Karl said, “fire is used for clearing a safe zone. That’s what that Franchitti idiot said he was doing when he started the fire a few weeks ago.”

  He glanced at the navigation screen and made a few adjustments.

  “We’re closing in on the southern side of the fire. I’m going to bring us down beneath the canopy now. Time to stop talking and start watching.”

  Stephanie nodded and turned her attention to the window. Lionheart climbed into her lap, equally intent.

  Yet even as Stephanie turned her attention to charting the spread of a tongue of the secondary fire, a sense that she was partaking in a deep betrayal filled her. She shouldn’t be here. She should be out there, searching for someone. For one someone. For Anders.

  There were times when being smart enough to know where duty lay distinctly sucked.

  Chapter Eleven

  Climbs Quickly sat in Death Fang’s Bane’s lap and watched with horrified fascination as fire devoured trees only a few body lengths away. He could sense that the three two-legs who rode in the vehicle with him were alert and watchful. Their certainty that they were all out of reach of the fire, that they could escape if the fire began to rage, made it possible for him to keep from panicking, although every bone in his body tingled with the urge to get away.

  The People did use fire, but rather than that making them careless, certain they could control its various moods, they were extremely careful. From the time they could scrabble about, kittens were taught that when a spark landed in their fur the worst thing they could do was panic and run. That created the wind that fed the fire. Instead, they should find a patch of bare earth and roll on it, smothering the fire before it could spread. Fortunately, the natural oils in a living Person’s coat meant a spark was more likely to smoulder, giving time for such measures.

  But no amount of rolling would smother the flames that now raged so close at hand. Climbs Quickly mused that he was much more tense than on the day when they had rescued Left-Striped and Right-Striped. Doubtless that was because on that day something had needed to be done, leaving no room for apprehension or fear.

  Perhaps it was thoughts of that day that caused Climbs Quickly to send his thoughts roving. He had no idea where they were in relation to anywhere else, for the manner in which the air car sped over the treetops robbed him of his usual tracking abilities. He didn’t think he was anywhere near where his own Bright Water Clan denned. Not only was there no hint of Sings Truly’s mind-voice, but he thought that Death Fang’s Bane—who had taken his clan as her own—would be more troubled.

  Even more troubled, he amended. Ever since she had awoken that morning, his two-leg had been nothing but a mounting bundle of conflicting emotional impulses. On the surface, she was the calm and rational person he had come to love and trust, but beneath that lay an emotional storm at least as hot and raging as the forest fire—but he hoped less destructive.

  All his life, Climbs Quickly had been told he possessed a very strong mind-voice. After he bonded with Death Fang’s Bane, that voice had become even stronger. Now, as he cast his thoughts through the surrounding area, seeking any who might be in distress, he came upon far more than he had sought. This time the voices were not calling, but rather were “overheard” as they spoke loudly to each other.

 

 

 

  A sense of violent protest.

  This and more, for the People’s language was not restricted to units of communication as Climbs Quickly was coming to suspect the mouth noises of the two-legs were. Wordless images were his to comprehend. He saw a clan of the People, new, he guessed, to this dwelling area, gathering themselves for flight, yet knowing that they might not be swift enough to escape the encroaching flames.

  He saw the reports of their scouts and from these pieced together the awareness that the greater fire had been thought to be no real threat since a branch of the much larger river provided a natural barrier.

  Therefore, although the clan had been making preparations to move out if danger threatened, there had been no immediate urgency.

  Having only been in this new location a short time, this clan had not yet had an opportunity to check the full length of the branch of the river they now trusted to keep them safe from the fire, nor had they considered how the picketwood they had used to cross the stream would also carry fire.

  Climbs Quickly shook his head slightly, as if the motion would help organize all this information. He could see what the scouts had seen and knew the danger these People were in. He also realized he knew what clan this must be. This must be the Damp Ground Clan, the same clan for which Right-Striped and Left-Striped had been scouting when that other fire had caught up to them. He reached for his friends’ mind-glows, but did not find them.

  Were they then dead or were they merely out of reach of even his powerful mind-voice? As young scouts, well-seasoned in the dangers of fire, they might have been chosen for some particularly dangerous mission.

  All of this had come to Climbs Quickly in a few breaths. Now he tried to think how best to alert Death Fang’s Bane. He had seen the air car loaded with what he knew were devices for fighting fire. They might be enough to slow this new blaze so that the Damp Ground Clan could make their escape.

  He must guide them to the endangered clan. He only hoped he was up to the challenge…and that they would arrive in time.

  * * *

  Stephanie focused hard on tracking the spreading western tongue of the South Fire against the SFS map, because if she didn’t, her mind wandered and she found herself wondering just what had happened to Anders. Where could the xenoanthropologists have gotten to? She didn’t like to consider the possibility that—as in the case of Tennessee Bolgeo—once again the SFS and Dr. Hobbard had been fooled into accepting fakes.

  There was only one problem with that theory: Lionh
eart. The treecat had never liked “Doctor” Bolgeo, even when he was at his most charming. His reaction to Dr. Whittaker’s group had been calm and accepting. He’d seemed to like Anders during the time they’d spent together. He hadn’t bristled at Dr. Whittaker or any of his crew.

  Stephanie hadn’t realized how much she had come to trust the treecat’s judgement until this moment. Now she’d have given almost anything to remember some incident of Lionheart demonstrating anger or disapproval, but there was nothing, and that meant…

  In her lap, Lionheart suddenly stiffened, shifting from his comfortable sitting position onto his hindmost pair of legs. Swiveling his flexible torso, he turned so he could meet her eyes with his own. Assured that he had her attention, he very carefully pointed along the line of the fire.

  “Bleek,” he said, then more urgently, “Bleek!”

  “Lionheart seems to be suggesting we move along the edge of the fire. Since that’s what we’re doing already, maybe he wants us to go faster.”

  Jessica leaned forward from the backseat, clearly fascinated. “Is this what he did when you rescued those treecats?”

  Karl sped up, nodded. “Pretty much, but that time he wanted us to change course. I wonder what he wants this time?”

  Lionheart had turned and was watching intently out the air car’s front window, his hand-feet braced against the dashboard.

  Stephanie shrugged. “I have no idea, but especially after last time, I figure we’d be idiots not to take him seriously.”

  Her uni-link signaled an incoming call. Although she was reluctant to take even a little of her attention from Lionheart and the call wasn’t from her parents—they had their own unique chimes—she glanced at the readout.

  “Chet Pontier!” she said, surprised, recognizing the name of one of the hang-gliding club members. “What could he want?”

  “Maybe he and Christine had a fight and he wants to ask you out,” Jessica said impishly. “Go on, answer it!”

  Blushing and looking sideways at Karl, though she had no idea why, Stephanie took the call.

  “Stephanie here.”

  Chet’s holo appeared floating above the tiny screen. “Hi, Steph. Listen, I don’t know if you’ve been listening to the reports, but the fire up north has gotten bad enough that they’ve expanded the call for volunteers. Christine and I qualify for the age cut-off, easily, and Toby wants to try. They said fifteen and up, and he’s just a few months shy. We wondered if there was anywhere in particular you thought we should go so we don’t get stuck pouring punch somewhere.”

  Stephanie considered. “They’ve posted more than one place where you can report?”

  “Yeah, they’re handing out kits in downtown Twin Forks, even.”

  “Don’t waste time going to Forestry Service headquarters,” Stephanie said. “When we were there really early this morning, they were already swamped. You’d probably do better at the Twin Forks general recruitment post. They’d be more likely to overlook Toby’s age, too.”

  “Thanks.” The tiny holo generated by Stephanie’s uni-com didn’t show much detail, but she could see Chet looked a little sheepish…Or was that embarrassed?

  “We all admired what you and Karl did during the last fire,” Chet said, “so, well, we wanted to ask your advice. Maybe we’ll see you on the fire lines.”

  Stephanie wanted to start reminding Chet that this was no time for heroics, but Lionheart was shifting nervously in her lap. She settled for “Good luck. Be careful!” and commed off.

  At their greater speed, they had probably missed some smaller details of the fire, but now they had arrived at the leading edge of this particular tongue. It wasn’t advancing very fast. The dominant wind was pushing it more to the west, conflicting with the earlier southern wind.

  Stephanie was not particularly surprised to see Lionheart now pointing for them to turn west, to go past this edge of the fire and into a zone that was, as yet, unburned. The key phrase here was “as yet.” If the wind whipped up, that area would certainly be more dangerous than their current location.

  “Lionheart wants us to go toward that island,” Stephanie said. “From the SFS map, that region should be mostly safe, at least for now. The Makara River will provide a natural firebreak.”

  “I can take the air car up if we run into trouble,” Karl said, changing their direction, but giving the fire a wide berth. “We’ve got to try something. Lionheart is really upset.”

  “Let’s go in a ways,” Jessica urged. “Like you said, we can always pull up. The fire here is mostly burning the lower reaches. It hasn’t gone up into the crown like it has in the northern fire.”

  Lionheart relaxed slightly after Karl made the turn, but he did not settle back into Stephanie’s lap. Instead, he continued to focus forward, suggesting occasional course corrections with motions of his remaining true hand. Eventually, he directed them to cross the southern branch of the Makara River to the island.

  Stephanie scanned the area below and saw something that filled her with dismay.

  “Damn! Look down near the eastern tip of the island. See where the picketwood crosses from the mainland to the island?”

  “You mean where the river branch gets narrow?” Jessica said.

  “That’s it.” Stephanie said a word she wasn’t supposed to use six times. “Given the wind direction, the fire’s going to hit right there. The picketwood will be as good a bridge for fire as it is for any of the local wildlife.”

  “One of the weaknesses of picketwood,” Karl agreed. “Your mom’s research shows it can seal off diseased sections within itself but it can’t do anything about fire. I wish it could create natural firebreaks that way, too, instead of actually helping the flames spread.”

  None of them felt any doubt that the fire would reach this point. Although they were farther from the actively burning areas, the air was thick with smoke. Karl was relying heavily on the air car’s navigation systems to help him avoid the trees. It was almost maddening to see him looking at the heads-up display, not through the windshield, as he steered.

  Stephanie leaned forward as if somehow that would help her see more clearly. She might have felt foolish but for the awareness that Jessica was doing the same thing.

  Occasionally, they saw shadowy forms moving through the smoke. Most were indistinct, but once or twice Stephanie could clearly make out one of the mid-sized herbivores the colonists lumped together under the name “near-deer.” Another time, more heartbreakingly, she saw a pair of near-otters pushing along. Bodies well-adapted to water struggled on land as they strove to reach the Makara River.

  “They don’t think this area’s going to stay safe much longer,” Jessica commented, her voice tight and choked. “I wish we could give them a ride.”

  “They’d just panic,” Karl said, but he also sounded miserable.

  When Lionheart “bleeked” loudly and pointed, at first Stephanie thought he was indicating another near-otter, which, for some reason had climbed up into a tree.

  No, she realized. That’s not a near-otter.

  “A treecat,” she gasped aloud, gesturing in unconscious imitation of Lionheart. As Jessica and Karl turned to look, forms within the smoke moved. They saw clearly furry masses staring down at them. “No! It’s not one treecat. There are at least four of them. They must be part of a clan, trying to escape the fire.”

  Karl set the air car to hover they could assess the situation. “Steph, a treecat clan is too large to fit in this car, even if we got out and walked. We can’t save a whole clan.”

  “Yes, we can,” Stephanie said defiantly. “The first step is to slow the fire.”

  * * *

  Anders was in mid-flight when he heard Dr. Calida say, “Does anyone else smell smoke?”

  There was something in her voice that made Anders stop in mid-step and edge his way back into the company. His dad was standing open-mouthed, staring at his own hand as if he couldn’t believe what he had been about to do. Everyone else had frozen
in place, then Dacey turned to look at the little field stove on which she had been doing all of their cooking.

  “It’s not from here,” she said, sniffing the air, “but I think you’re right, Calli. I do smell smoke—wood smoke.”

  Anders sniffed and caught the distinct scent of burning wood. At first his heart leapt. Maybe someone was coming to the rescue! Then reality struck. No rescuers would be burning anything, not in this dry season. This had to have another source.

  A quick check around their arboreal camp showed that none of their equipment was the source of the odor. Anders volunteered to climb up to where he could see above the immediate forest canopy. The rapidity with which everyone agreed that this would be a good idea was significant.

  We need to forget what Dad almost did, Anders thought as he puffed his way aloft. For now…But I’m not sure I’ll ever forget…or forgive.

  Without the long “tail” of his flagpole pulling him down, the climb went more easily, even with his counter-grav unit reset to save power. Anders wondered if he was finally getting used to the pull of the extra gravity—or at least was developing reflexes to compensate. He thought of Karl Zivonik’s broad shoulders and heavier build, how muscular and well-developed he was, especially for a young man of his age.

  I wonder, if I stayed here, would I get like that, or do you have to grow up in this sort of environment?

  Anders knew he was thinking like that to quiet the latent shaking in his muscles, his fear that when he went back down his dad would go after him again. Instead, he concentrated on finding and testing each hand- and foothold, all too aware of the price he’d pay if he fell. At last he was up where he could poke his head above the leafy boughs. What he saw was poor reward for his labors. Even as cooler breezes caressed his face, drying the accumulated sweat, he saw in the distance a pillar of white and gray smoke billowing upwards to the east.