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.
‹ More helpers, › he said. ‹ Two-legs know that it takes many hands to slow a fire. Will you take advantage of the time they give you or will you act like kittens who tremble when a death wing’s shadow covers the moon?›
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.”
Anders bent to pick up the top of the stretcher, flexing from the knees as he raised it. His words, when he spoke, were gasped out around the effort.
“Maybe, but I’d like him a whole lot better if he’d just admitted he f…” He hesitated out of respect for Kesia, not that he hadn’t heard her use worse.
“That this is mostly his fault?” Kesia grunted as she picked up the other edge of the stretcher. “That he has behaved unconscionably? Believe me. He’s not going to be allowed to forget it.”
Anders wondered if this was a prediction or a threat-maybe a bit of both. For a moment gladness coursed through him. Then he realized what it would mean. If Dr. Whittaker was disgraced, then he’d lose the project. Anders hated the idea of Dr. Whittaker losing the project. That would mean leaving Sphinx and the treecats-and Stephanie, who was becoming a friend, and Karl and Jessica…
Worse, this would be the second time off-planet scientists-not that Tennessee Bolgeo had really been a scientist, but Anders had heard more than one person refer to him as “Dr. Bolgeo”-would have fallen short of the Star Kingdom’s high expectations. What would that mean for the treecats? At the very least, a delay in having their status as sentient creatures verified.
Anders and Kesia were alone now-except for the unconscious Langston Nez-and as they picked their way slowly along the trail he and Dr. Calida had marked, Anders spoke softly.
“Kesia, I know my dad has been a blackhole, but…You do realize that if this all blows up, the project is doomed. Dr. Calida is a xenobiologist with an interest in anthropology, but she couldn’t take over. You and Virgil are depending on the research you’ll do on this expedition to finish your degree work…And Langston…”
There was a long pause from where Kesia carried the back end of the stretcher, then she said, “You’re not saying we should defend Dr. Whittaker?”
“I’m saying,” Anders said, “that he’s behaved like a self-centered jerk-but like you said, that’s this ‘displacement’ thing. Not for one minute has he forgotten the treecats.”
“No. Just the humans.”
“Still, think about it?”
“I will.”
If hauling all the gear from where the van had sunk to land had been bad, hauling it back was three times
