by David Weber
Stephanie nodded. “So let’s do what we can to slow the fire’s approach and keep it from climbing into the crown. That little stream’s too narrow to do more than slow the fire, but it does give us a source of water. It’s also a logical place to start a fire line.”
“Agreed,” Karl said. “Let’s leave the car back west of the stream. It’s just a passenger vehicle—and a light one at that. We can’t use it to take down trees. I’m going to set my uni-link to send automatic updates to the SFS.”
“Won’t they notice we’ve stopped?”
Karl grinned. “Well, I’m not being precisely dishonest, but I’m programming to send messages that will show us checking out the extent of this particular tongue. I’m guessing that unless we flag something ‘urgent,’ our data is going into a computerized mapping program. They don’t have enough humans to process data by hand.”
“It’s not precisely dishonest,” Stephanie agreed. “Let’s get going.”
As she and Karl laid their plans, Stephanie had been peripherally aware of Jessica speaking in the backseat. Now the other girl interjected herself into the conversation.
“I called Chet and updated him on our location. A bit of good news. Since he knew he might get assigned to shuttle service, he’s piloting one of his family’s older ’trucks. It won’t be strong enough to take out trees either, but if we can convince the treecats to trust us, we’re going to be able to move a bunch all at once.”
“Diplomacy,” Stephanie said, getting out of the car and casting a worried glance over where Lionheart was now exchanging hisses and snarls with a couple of husky ’cats, “is going to be Lionheart’s job.”
And let’s hope, she thought as she unloaded her gear from the back to the air car, he can manage it without resorting to violence.
Unlike most humans, Stephanie Harrington knew all too well how dangerous treecats could be. She’d been in pretty bad shape when the furry mass of Lionheart’s clan had swarmed down from the treetops to take on the hexapuma that had attacked them both—drawn, she now suspected, by the scent of her blood from when she’d crashed her hang glider. However, she’d seen the aftermath, heard Frank and Ainsley talk about how badly shredded the corpse had been.
If this group decided to go after Lionheart, he wouldn’t have a chance—not one against many, not crippled as he was. She had her handgun with her, but could she shoot at a bunch of treecats, even to save Lionheart? She didn’t know and she really hoped she wouldn’t need to find out.
Leaving that train of thought behind , Stephanie slung the bladder bag over her shoulders, wearing it like a backpack over her fire-suit.
Such devices had been in use since the earliest days of mechanized firefighting, but this model had a great advantage over its predecessors. When those were empty, that was it, but this one contained a powerful miniature pump and a supply of tablets to recharge the chemical supply. All one needed to do was drop a feeder hose into a source of water and the pack would refill, feeding in the necessary chemicals. Once her own pack was on, Stephanie turned to help Jessica adjust hers.
“Remember what we told you about the fire triangle?” Stephanie asked Jessica.
Jessica nodded, moving next to Stephanie as she hurried toward the stream.
“Yes. Fires need heat, oxygen, and fuel or they can’t keep going.”
“Right,” Stephanie hefted her Pulaski. “That’s where this comes in.
“You help your mom with her garden, so use the skills you already have.” They were down by the stream now, and Stephanie demonstrated. “Trim away all these little shrubs and suckers. That’s what the fire will use first as fuel. If you come across something too thick, activate the vibroblade. Then use the hoe to pull the slash back a few meters. Clear away leaf matter, too. When you’re done with an area—say a couple of meters wide, activate the bladder bag and soak the ground. Soak the tree trunks for a couple of meters up their length.”
Jessica immediately fell to work. Her technique wasn’t SFS-approved, but it was good enough—and fast.
“I get what we’re doing,” she said, the radio in her suit carrying her voice in short bursts. “First we eliminate the fuel, then we soak the area so it’s cooler.”
“Right,” Stephanie said, from where she was working a few meters upstream. “The chemicals we’re mixing in also help keep the fire from processing fuel. If we get a chance, we’ll clear both sides of the stream, but one is enough for now.”
“But what about the tree trunks?” Jessica asked. “Aren’t they fuel?”
Karl’s voice joined the conversation. “This stuff we’re cutting away is what’s called ‘light fuel.’ It burns fast. Tree trunks are ‘heavy fuel.’ It takes the fire more time to get a hold of them. Sure, when they do, it’s a real pain, but if we can stop them from catching…”
“Like when you’re trying to get a fire started when you’re primitive camping or something,” Jessica said. “You can’t just put a match to a log and expect it to catch. You need tinder, then twigs…”
They worked together in easy cooperation. If it hadn’t been for the fire they could see burning closer with every minute, Stephanie thought they might even have enjoyed themselves. She’d connected her uni-link to the suit’s com system. Just as she was finishing trimming down a stand of saplings, Chet’s voice came into her ears.
“We’re close,” he said. “We’ve got a visual on Karl’s car. Should we land next to it?”
“Do it,” Stephanie said. “Are you suited up?”
“All of us,” Chet reassured her.
“I’ll meet you and show you where to go. Listen, the treecats are really edgy. I don’t know if Lionheart’s convinced them we’re on their side or not, but it’s best if you don’t go near them.”
“Got ya,” Chet said. “We’re coming in.”
Stephanie knew Karl and Jessica had heard Chet’s call, so, bending to grab a bunch of the saplings and haul them back out of the cleared zone, she hurried off to meet the new arrivals.
Looking ahead of her, she saw Lionheart and the treecats, apparently unchanged from before. Or were they?
The thrum of the approaching truck made everyone look up. Stephanie, fearing that what looked like a delicate situation was about to become unbalanced, hastened to meet it.
Lionheart, she thought, I wish I could ask you what’s going on…
* * *
Climbs Quickly had no doubt that out there was one snow hunter who—no matter that it had been quite young at the time—would never ever go near one of the People again, much less make the mistake of thinking one might serve nicely as the main course for lunch.
However, admirable as Nose Biter’s ferocity was in defense of self and kin, it was misdirected and just plain stupid now.
Climbs Quickly thought that if the smoke didn’t make smelling anything else impossible, that this Nose Biter would smell very much like Broken Tooth, a senior elder of his own Bright Water Clan and an individual so hide-bound that one needed to jump up and down on his head to make him see reasons for change.
Yet, to be fair, more of the People were like Broken Toot
h and Nose Biter than were like himself or Swift Striker or even his own sister, Sings Truly. They were capable, but change was not viewed as particularly good or even something to be sought. This was why the People had avoided the two-legs, although they had known of them from the moment the first of their shiny eggs had broken the sky and left the world forever transformed.
Indeed, had Climbs Quickly not been discovered—let himself be discovered—as some still hissed, the People still might be trying to hide from the inevitable. Two-legs had not landed like some strange migrating bird only to flap off and leave nothing but a bright feather and a tale for the memory singers to relate on a dull winter’s afternoon. The two-legs were here to stay—and were spreading like fan ears after a rain shower.
Two of Nose Biter’s confederates—possibly litter mates, for they shared a similar heavy build—had lumbered forward to flank him, standing between Climbs Quickly and the frightened members of the Damp Ground Clan.
Behind him, Climbs Quickly was aware that Death Fang’s Bane, Shadowed Sunlight, and Windswept had gotten out of the car and were taking equipment from the back. Death Fang’s Bane was talking in a low voice to Windswept. He felt her mind-glow, calm and steady, brighter somehow than the devouring fire. He also sensed her trust that he could handle these idiotic members of the Damp Ground Clan.
Climbs Quickly projected his mind-voice to address all who cared to listen.
There was noise from back near the narrow freshwater stream. Climbs Quickly glanced back to see that Death Fang’s Bane and her friends were using their tools to make a barrier near the stream, obviously hoping to slow the fire’s approach.
A general flush of embarrassed thought let him know that his guess had been close to what had happened—that there had been those members of the clan who had argued that with fire weather in the air, some needed to protect this new nesting place. Doubtless, after living over such a wet area as he glimpsed in their mental images of their former home, they had forgotten how dangerous scrub growth could be.
Climbs Quickly whooped aloud, nearly choking on the smoke as he laughed.
In the far distance, he heard the sound of an approaching air-vehicle. Doubtless Death Fang’s Bane had enlisted help. Although the two-legs did not have mind-speech, he had learned they used tools to throw their mouth voices over vast distances.
Already some of the members of the Damp Ground Clan were edging away, panic bright in the air. Climbs Quickly caught fragmented images as they murmured among themselves. The tale of Speaks Falsely and how he had stolen away many of the People and kept them in bondage had come to this place. Apparently, several members of this clan feared that all two-legs were the same.
Death Fang’s Bane was trotting up from the side of the stream, hurrying to meet the approaching vehicle. Climbs Quickly knew he only had a few breaths before the most panicked fled—and in fleeing might drive themselves into the very danger he had come here in the hope of avoiding.
Three other two-legs spilled out of the vehicle almost before it had landed. Climbs Quickly recognized them as members of the hang-gliding club. He was pleased and let the other People feel his pleasure, sending them an image of how these younglings caught the wind, mastering it as did birds.
Did that image tempt fate? Climbs Quickly wasn’t certain he believed such things, but it was at that very moment that the wind itself took a hand in the battle of wills.
The border Death Fang’s Bane and her friends had been making to hold back the approaching fire paralleled one edge of the net-wood grove which the Damp Ground Clan had adopted as their new home. Another edge was a wide meadow, thick with the high summer grasses, seasoned to golden brown with the coming of cooler nights and the reduced water in these dry days.
Climbs Quickly felt no doubt that this meadow was one reason the Damp Ground Clan had chosen this particular section of net-wood. Not only would the thick grass make excellent lining for winter nests, but the stubble fields would attract foraging burrow-runners and other little ground dwellers, making for better hunting. Lastly, the open area on this flank would be easy to watch over in the cold times, when hunger drove the great predators to take risks.
Already the edge of the meadow showed evidence of the beginning of the harvest, but although the People did eat some plants, their teeth were not well-adapted to cutting. Most such harvesting needed to be done with sharp-edged stones, a slow and wearisome labor. The border that had been cut was only about a body’s length—and that without the tail—not enough to stop fire.
And at that moment, upstream from where the two-legs worked so intently hacking away at the shrubs and branches and spreading their “pee,” a gust of wind hurled across the stream a branchlet live with sparks and blew those sparks into flame. It landed in a patch of dry grass at the far side of the meadow as gently as if it had been placed there and, like an exotic flower blooming, burst into flame.
Death Fang’s Bane shouted something, then began running directly toward where the meadow fire now raged.
* * *
While Anders and Dr. Calida went to mark a path to a stable island in the bog, Virgil and Kesia started lowering crucial equipment to the ground so it could be transferred to their new camp. Dacey Emberly prepared Langston Nez to be moved, easing him limb by limb onto a stretcher and tying him into place.
Only Dr. Whittaker continued to place his own priorities first. When Anders gently suggested that perhaps bedding was more important than artifacts, Dr. Whittaker shook his head with pity. He, for one, seemed to have forgotten how close he had come to hitting Anders. Anders wondered if he was going crazy.
“My boy,” Dad said kindly, “aren’t you the one who has been reassuring us that we’re going to be rescued any moment?”
Anders hadn’t, but he really didn’t think this was the time to mention that. He climbed over to where he could check the knots that held Langston’s stretcher—they were very firm, if somewhat elaborate, a heritage of what Dacey called her “macrame phase.” Then, with both Dacey and Virgil’s help, he began easing the stretcher toward the ground.
As Anders strained every muscle, he was aware of his father’s chattering, apparently completely unconcerned about a man who had been his closest assistant.
“Remember what we talked about on the trip here? It has
already been conclusively shown that the treecats use tools. That hasn’t been enough to prove to the narrow-minded plutocrats who have such influence here in the Star Kingdom that treecats are intelligent. What will convince them conclusively is proof that the treecats also practice art and possess philosophy and religion.”
As he spoke, Dr. Whittaker waved the broken pieces of a gourd scoop that had been one of his most recent finds. Although purely functional, it was etched around the edges with what were clearly images of the long, splayed picketwood leaves, fanning out realistically from a bough that began at the lower bowl of the scoop.
Anders thought the “art” wasn’t much more than what he’d done as a small child, but he had to agree that it clearly was meant to be representational, not random scratchings.
Langston was a few feet from the ground now. Kesia was raising her arms to steady the stretcher and guide it level.
“What’s wonderful about this piece,” Dr. Whittaker went on, wrapping it in what Anders recognized as his own spare shirt, “is that no one can argue that it was done under human influence. That makes it seminal.”
Langston was down now. Anders rolled his shoulders and began the slow climb down so he could help carry the stretcher.
“Anders!” Dr. Whittaker snapped. “Couldn’t you at a least help a little? Surely you could carry one of these bundles down. No need to go empty-handed.”
“Sorry, Dad,” Anders said without pausing. “If you’d been up and down these ladders as many times as I have, you’d know I need both hands.”
He got to the bottom and trudged over to join Kesia.
She spoke very softly. “Don’t think too hard of your dad. He’s suffering from what psychologists call ‘displacement.’ My grandmother went through something like it when my granddad died in an unexpected wreck. She couldn’t deal with the idea that something so horrible could come out of nowhere. Suddenly the health of her pet fur-button became the most important thing to her. Dr. Whittaker will probably snap out of this, uh, obsessive behavior when we’re back at base. Right now, he’s trying to convince himself that something good will come out of this.”