various fire areas. We’re going to need people to man relief stations in the safety zones. Oh! And someone needs to take a van to the warehouse and bring out more of those emergency kits-the ones with a suit, shelter, and a Pulaski. Have them bring some bladder bags and drip torches, too, but be careful who gets those-especially the torches. Oh! If you find anyone with experience flying heavier vehicles, send them to Smitty. He’s coordinating the water drops.”
Geraldine hurried out, giving the three young people a quick, tight nod as she passed.
As was so often the case in times of crisis, momentarily, the room was empty.
Frank Lethbridge greeted them with a weary nod. “Thanks for coming so quickly. I’ve got a job picked out for you already.”
He indicated a holomap. “Here’s the head of the fire. It’s moving northwest, picking up speed as the winds rise. As you can see, although the lightning strike hit within a Forestry Service district, if it continues in that direction, it’s going to threaten Hayestown and the Painter settlement, as well as several smaller holdings. We’re hoping to use branches of the Weeping River as an anchor point from which to build a fire line.
“What I want you to do is go south. We’ve had a report that there was a second lightning strike down that way. The level of heat and smoke from the main fire is intense enough that it’s reducing our ability to tell how this secondary fire is spreading. However, we do have reports the wind is shifting from the original northwestern push, acquiring a southern dimension.”
Stephanie frowned. “You didn’t call us out at dawn just to put us away from where we’re needed, did you? If that’s the way it is, I’d like permission to go back to looking for the missing xenoanthropological crew.”
She knew she was being rude, but the food her mom had put out seemed to have filled her belly without giving her any strength. Worry washed through her like waves against a cliff, battering her normal composure to sand.
Lethbridge shook his head. “Stephanie, this is not make-work. You and Karl have shown yourselves capable both of being methodical and taking initiative when needed. Right now, we have ample strong backs. What we need are people who can take a look at forest conditions and decide how serious the situation is. Usually, I’d delegate a couple of rangers, but right now, with the main fire encroaching on so many human habitations we’re getting lots of volunteers and we need the rangers to brief and coordinate them.”
Karl cut in. “And that’s one job we can’t do. No one would take us seriously. Right, Frank? I mean, Ranger Lethbridge…”
“Right,” Lethbridge said. “But we do take you seriously. Can you handle this?” He gave a tired grin. “And ‘Frank’s’ okay as long as it’s just us…”
Stephanie nodded slowly. “But the xenoanthropologists…Yesterday their being missing was a major crisis with not only personal but political ramifications. Today they’re just being forgotten?”
Frank glanced at the hologram of the fire. Updated from satellite feed, it was a living map. For now, the fire showed as clouds of thick white and gray smoke, an angry red glow beneath. From her training, Stephanie knew how quickly that red might climb to the treetops. If the wind caught it, then what was already a wildfire would mutate into something far worse-a crown fire, spreading from treetop to treetop, capable of leaping both human-made control lines and natural barriers such as rivers.
Whatever Frank saw in that image, apparently it reassured him that he could spend a little more time explaining the situation to the probationary rangers and their friend.
“You’re not the only ones who are worried. We are, too. Last night, Chief Ranger Shelton had the spouses of two of the missing people in his office demanding a full-scale search be mounted. The woman was weeping and looking sick. The man was threatening lawsuits. Only Dr. Hobbard’s powers of persuasion are keeping them from taking the story to the newsies.”
Frank pressed his eyes closed, and Stephanie guessed that he’d been present for the unpleasant scene.
“By then, however, we knew the fire which had been reported that afternoon was turning nasty, so Chief Ranger Shelton decided that the search for the xenoanthropologists must be given lower priority. If Dr. Whittaker and his team are still alive-and I sincerely hope they are-the area where they went down is quite distant from that threatened by the fire. Basically, they’re safer wherever they are than we are right here. Right now many square kilometers of forest are threatened. That’s bad enough, but if the fire gets any further out of control, then hundreds of humans’ lives are at risk. When you weigh that against seven people, it’s a pretty cold equation.”
He paused and indicated the fire. “Are you going to follow orders, Probationary Ranger Harrington, or would you like to be released from duty?”
Heart beating strongly in her ears, Stephanie struggled against the impulse to pull out her treasured badge and throw it on the table. But that grand gesture would be far from grand. It would be a fit of temper, worthy of a child, not of a young woman who wanted to live up to the trust that badge-an emblem of a post Chief Ranger Shelton had created for her and Karl-implied.
Stephanie gave a smile that she hoped would show nothing of her inner turmoil and said. “That southern fire needs checking out. Can we have a kit for Jessica, too?”
Frank Lethbridge gave her a lopsided grin, one that revealed for the first time how much he had dreaded that Stephanie would elect to follow the prompts of her own considerable will.
“Absolutely. Report in as you find how the southern fire is spreading. You’ll have access to a version of the data here, so you’ll be able to see when we need updating. Otherwise, consider yourselves free agents. As I said, what we need is your capacity for taking initiative.”
When they collected a kit for Jessica, they were also issued bladder bags already loaded with a mixture of fire-retardant chemicals and water.
“I’m giving you,” Geraldine said, “a pair of drip torches. You know how to use the torch?”
Karl nodded. “We’ve had training.”
“Right. Just…be careful if you have to use them, okay?”
“We will.” Karl flashed a grin. “We have no desire to have the next big one called the Zivonik/Harrington fire.”
When they were back in the air car, Stephanie suggested they get into their fire-suits as they drove.
“If we need them,” she said, “it’s going to be when we don’t want to waste time getting into them.”
Karl immediately set the auto-pilot-they were in open space, speeding over the green canopy of a forest that did not yet know its danger-and pulled his suit on over his clothes. As Stephanie did the same, she glanced to the backseat to see if Jessica needed help. The other girl was doing fine, but Stephanie found herself feeling just a tiny bit jealous of the interesting way Jessica’s fire-suit emphasized her curvaceous figure.
On me, she thought, the darn thing just covers over what little curve I’ve got!
Lionheart bleeked in what Stephanie was certain was amusement.
Jessica looked up from where she had been fastening the ankle tabs on her suit. “What will we do with Lionheart if we need to go out?”
Stephanie stroked the treecat’s thick gray fur along his back, trying to hide her concern.
“I’ll try to convince him to stay in the air car, but the decision is going to be his. He’s not a pet or a child. He’s a person-a grown-up person. If I’m going to respect that, I’m going to need to allow him to make his own choices.”
“But what if he gets burned? We have these suits and goggles and respirators, but what about him?”
“Lionheart’s pretty smart about avoiding danger,” Stephanie said. “When Karl and I did our training classes, one of the things we learned to do was use a fire shelter.”
She held up a package not much larger than a folded man’s shirt. “Have you ever seen one of these?”
“No, I haven’t. How could something that small be a shelter?”
“It’s made of light thermwall material, so it folds down pretty tight. Like our fire-suits, the material is fire- resistant and protects against radiant heat. Okay, imagine the following situation. We’re out there taking a look at a tongue of a fire, judging how great a risk it offers.”
“Right.”
“The wind shifts-winds do that a lot during fires because the heat of the fire itself creates wind-suddenly, though you’d been standing ten meters from the fire, you realize a tongue of fire too wide for you to safely make it through, even in your suit, has cut you off from a safe point. Worse, you can see the flames are coming toward you. You rip open this packet and pull this tab. It opens up into a small tent. You crawl inside and seal it shut. The
