Chapter Six
Since he wasn’t taking part in the hang gliding, Anders arrived at Stephanie’s birthday party dressed for dinner. His dad had meditated on renting Anders a tuxedo, so he’d be in local fashion, but had decided against it.
“You have good dress clothes with you already. I know I protested when your mother insisted we pack an outfit, but she was right. You can’t prepare after the fact.”
Dr. Whittaker himself was dressed for a day in the field-part of his “I’m just dropping the boy off before getting back to work” routine.
Dr. Marjorie met them as they landed. After greetings were exchanged, she gestured in the direction of the sky, where brightly colored hang gliders could be seen darting and hovering like dragonflies.
“The hang-gliding party got off the ground a bit late,” she said. “A couple of the guests misunderstood and came dressed for dinner, then had to change.”
She looked at Anders and smiled. “You look wonderful. Is that traditional formal wear for your planet?”
Anders nodded. “My mom picked it out,” he said. “The color, too, I mean. We don’t all need to wear tunics in tan trimmed with green. It is pretty usual for the trousers to echo the trim, though.”
“I like the combination,” Dr. Marjorie said, leading the Whittakers from the landing pad to a shaded area mid-point between the house and the flying field, where stood a long table arrayed with a tasteful variety of finger foods. “I understand that at one point on Old Terra, men all wore black to formal occasions. They must have looked like a bunch of rusty old crows.”
She gestured toward the food. “Please, help yourselves. This is just a bridge to hold us until dinner. The rest of the dinner guests should show up fairly soon.”
Anders noticed that the spread featured a wide array of very interesting-looking fruits and vegetables. He picked up one that resembled a star fruit, except this one was a dark indigo blue, rather than the more usual golden-yellow.
“Is this your work?” he asked, remembering Dr. Marjorie was a specialist in plant genetics.
“It is,” she said, “a cross between a purple berry Richard noted the treecats eat and some Terran plants. It’s rather tart, but completely safe. As you may know, humans can eat a wide variety of the native plants on Sphinx. They don’t contain all the necessary nutrients, but if you know your foraging, you could survive for a while.”
“Rather as treecats can eat human food,” Dr. Whittaker said, “and sometimes thrive. Still, do you find yourself needing to give Lionheart supplements?”
“I think we would,” Dr. Marjorie said, “if he only ate human foods. However, Richard insists that Lionheart do some of his own foraging. Lionheart doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, he seems to enjoy hunting. Still, his attitude may be different when winter rolls around again.”
The conversation drifted to treecat eating habits in the wild. Dr. Marjorie didn’t claim to be an expert, but admitted that since early 1519, when Lionheart had come to live with them, she had both observed what he chose to eat (other than celery) and tried out various of her hybrids on him.
“He likes that purple star Anders noticed,” she commented. “Not as much as celery, but quite a bit.”
Eventually, the hang gliders began dropping out of the air one by one. Dr. Whittaker took this as his cue to get going, although it was obvious to Anders that he had really enjoyed talking with Dr. Marjorie.
After waving good-bye to his dad, Anders drifted over to where the hang gliders were coming in for landing.
Dr. Marjorie walked with him. “Stephanie’s glider is the one with the orange-and-black striped wings. We gave her one with that pattern after she smashed up her first Sphinx model and she’s kept the theme since. She calls them all the Flying Tiger and numbers them. Very methodical, our Steph.”
Stephanie seemed to be taking her time landing, so Anders took the opportunity to observe the other flyers. He found Karl beneath a cobalt-and-white glider coming in for a slightly clumsy landing on the far side of the field.
Already landed, closer to where Anders stood, was a dark-complexioned boy about Stephanie’s age, his silky, dark curls tousled by the wind, his bright brown eyes laughing as he struggled to get the wings of his yellow-and- brown glider stowed.
Another boy, a year or so older, swooped in next to him, neatly tucking his scarlet wings as if he was some sort of human hawk. Anders guessed that this boy had used counter-grav assist at the very end, but that didn’t make it any less a neat trick. The younger boy obviously agreed, calling out, “Nice landing, Chet! You’ve got to teach me that one.”
“You bet, Toby,” Chet said. “Look at Christine. She’s going to do me one better.”
He pointed up toward where a long-bodied, slimly built girl-either a genie like Stephanie or a newcomer to Sphinx-was sweeping through the sky, her steel-blue-and-white hang glider moving through an elegant swirling pattern as it descended.
Rather like one half of a DNA spiral, Anders thought. I wonder if two really good flyers could make that into a full pattern?
He had his answer in a moment. Another glider, this one patterned in shades of green that evoked a fanciful collage of springtime leaves, echoed Christine’s pattern. The pilot-a girl, obviously, from the curves in her coverall- never came in low enough to risk fouling Christine’s wings, but nonetheless managed to make Anders “see” the other glider’s earlier progress. The illusion was so vivid that he found himself rubbing his eyes, checking for a tracer.
Chet said enthusiastically to Toby, “Jessica was a super addition to the club. I’m glad she came today. Steph’s a great flyer, but a soloist by nature. Christine loves tandem work.”
Toby nodded wistful enthusiasm.
“Someday,” he said, his tone that of a young knight making a vow, “I’m going to be as good at the three of them combined!”
Christine touched ground and folded her wings, shrugging out of her harness so that she could rush over and offer Jessica a squeeze, squealing with excitement.
“That was so hexy! Like ballet or something. We’ve got to practice it more.”
Jessica shrugged out of her leaf-patterned glider and returned Christine’s hug. “I’d like that, but later. I don’t know about you, but I’m starved!”
As she spoke, Jessica tugged off a close-fitting cap that matched her coveralls, revealing exuberantly untidy masses of long, curly light auburn hair.
When Christine pulled off her cap, she immediately began to comb her much shorter white-blond hair into a style rather like a cockatoo’s crest. Her eyes proved to be ice-blue. The light hair and eyes made a marvelous contrast to the sandalwood hues of her complexion. Anders spent an enjoyable moment contemplating this delightful proof that female beauty could come in such contrasting packages.
“I’m starved, too,” Christine agreed. “I’m sure Stephanie’s folks will have laid out plenty of food, but we should wait for Stephanie, don’t you think? I mean, this is her party.”
“Absolutely,” Jessica agreed. “Only she and Trudy are still up. I think they’re having another go at the bulls- eye target.”
Trudy must be the owner of the pale pink polka-dotted glider. It had seemed to Anders’ untutored eye that she and Stephanie were competing for who would stay up longest. Then he realized the situation was more subtle. Both were aiming to land within a large target laid out in an open field. While Stephanie was apparently merely trying to hit center, Trudy was actually impeding Stephanie’s descent. Her moves were subtle, but Anders figured if he could tell, so could the rest of the club members.
“There they go again,” Toby said, his tone one of long-suffering. “I wonder why Trudy is even here. I mean, Stephanie can’t stand her.”
“The social mystery of the century,” Chet agreed in the tones of a veteran newsie. “It’s like the Monarchists inviting the Levelers to tea.”
At that moment, the pattern of dodge and feint above changed. Stephanie broke hard right. When Trudy moved to block her, Stephanie swirled higher, cut over Trudy to the left, then dove. If Chet’s dive had resembled
