Worlds of Honor

have been a terrific rate of speed. The hulk had finally smashed against a picket wood trunk too thick to snap off, about two meters above the forest floor. The metal frame had crumpled like fragile tissue paper around the picket wood, then slammed down to the forest floor at an insane, twisted angle, a complete ruin.

Scott swallowed hard.

How many people had died, inside?

The treecats uttered shrill, sharp sounds and raced away through the tangled, broken branches, making for the wreck. Scott caught Aleksandr's glance. He considered suggesting that Karl stay behind, then thought better. The Zivoniks were pioneering folk, farming a hundred klicks from their nearest neighbor. Sheltering the boy wouldn't do him any favors. Colonists needed tough hides. The look in Alek's eyes told him the same thoughts had gone through the farmer's mind, as well. Aleksandr nodded sharply, then broke trail through the ruin of debris and splintered trees. Young Karl said nothing and looked rather pale, but followed his father without pause. The medical pack Scott had strapped on before leaving the farmhouse felt useless, a superfluous gesture in the face of violent death.

They climbed over fallen limbs and shattered tree trunks until they reached the wreck, then Aleksandr said, 'Let's see how stable she is before we go looking for the hatch.'

Scott nodded. The big farmer studied the way she lay, looked at the broken tree limbs under the hull where she'd dug partway into the ground, then shoved at the battered airframe and hung his full weight from it. She was wedged in solid as a mountain, from the look of things. As they hunted across the twisted hull for the access hatch to the pilot's compartment, Scott dreaded the sight which awaited them. He found a vaguely familiar, battered logo on a badly dented section of hull, a stylized picket wood tree with its trunk formed from the double-helix spiral of a DNA molecule. The paint was so badly scraped, the name had been completely obliterated, leaving only about half of the double-helix tree. Aleksandr Zivonik noticed him peering at it and looked over his shoulder.

'That's a BioNeering company logo,' the farmer said quietly. 'They've got a research plant out here somewhere, but it's a long way from our farm.'

'I thought I recognized the logo, I just couldn't place it.'

Overhead, the treecats emitted a sharp whistling sound and jumped down onto the uptilted end of the wreck, scampering across the side to pause halfway down.

'Looks like they found the way in,' Karl said nervously. The boy was swallowing hard.

'I begin to suspect,' Scott said slowly, 'that the stray 'cat knew whoever was inside.' He couldn't imagine any other reason for the treecat to behave in such an agitated fashion, or for the 'cat to have been in such a wretched state. Had the stray adopted the pilot, perhaps, and been left behind when the air car took off for its cargo run? Just how long had the air car been down? It would take days to run that much weight off a treecat. The thought of Fisher struggling across miles of wilderness trying to reach him brought a thickness to his throat. Scott started to climb cautiously up the dented, twisted hull and found, not the hatchway, but the shattered windows of the pilot's compartment.

One look and Scott swallowed sharply. It was not difficult to determine where the blood all over the treecat's fur had come from. The pilot's compartment had been awash with it, before the spatters and puddles had dried to a rusty brown scum.

'The hatch is back here,' Aleksandr said off to Scott's right. 'The frame's bent pretty badly around it, but the latches popped under impact.' Bending metal shrieked in the unnatural stillness, a desecration that couldn't be avoided. Scott edged his way around to help pry it further open. The hatch shrieked in protest, but finally gave way. Scott ducked through first. The stench of decaying flesh gagged him. He paused to cough and wipe his mouth, then fumbled for a mask from his surgical kit to tie around his mouth and nose. Wordlessly, he handed masks to the Zivoniks. The control compartment was a fraction of its original size. Judging from the debris, there'd been three people inside when she'd impacted. Pilot and co-pilot, probably, maybe a company executive or an employee headed to or from that remote plant Alek had mentioned.

Aleksandr Zivonik spoke in a muted whisper through his mask. 'Must've come down during one of the big storms or we'd have heard the crash from the house. Sound travels a long way out here. We can't be more than two, three kilometers from the house, tops. How long you figure it's been?'

'At a guess, given the state of the bodies, they've been dead at least a week. And there were some pretty bad storms last week, which could've forced them down. I had to fly through a couple of real humdingers and I was just skirting the edges.'

How far could one frantic treecat run in a week's time, not pausing to eat or rest? Thoughts of Fisher brought his eyelids clenching down. The sound coming from the emaciated treecat got them open again. That sound was a feeble shadow of Fisher's familiar, comforting croon. The treecat huddled over what must have been the co- pilot, shaking and wheezing in a grief so sharp, Scott found himself blinking too rapidly and swallowing much too hard. The specter of death was always difficult to face, even for a physician who'd seen it strike many times before; witnessing this depth of grief from an alien creature for a lost human companion . . .

He turned aside, unable to hide the wetness in his eyes any other way.

A weight settled onto his shoulder and Fisher wrapped his tail around Scott's throat, crooning softly and rubbing his head against Scott's cheek. He clenched his fingers through his friend's thick fur and just stood there for a moment, trying to come to terms with powerful feelings which he knew from experience were no longer entirely his own. Aleksandr's voice reached him, speaking quietly into his wrist com.

'Twin Forks Tower, do you read?'

'Twin Forks, we read you, over.'

'Aleksandr Zivonik, here. Doc MacDallan's with me. We, uh, just found a wrecked air car, looks like it's been missing a few days.'

There was a brief pause, which Scott used to move closer to the grieving treecat. He hesitated, then stroked the thin 'cat gently. It quivered under his hand, but made no protest. Twin Forks Tower came back on.

'Cargo air car?'

'That's right.'

'Yeah, we got a report on a missing cargo carrier about six days ago. Its crash beacon must've malfunctioned, because we haven't been able to trace it and the aerial surveys haven't been able to find it, either. I've got a fix on you. Good God, what were they doing out there? That's five hundred klicks off their flight plan. No wonder we couldn't find them.'

'Well, they're found now. Looks like three bodies. Doc, you want to make the report?'

Scott cleared his throat, then keyed his own wrist com to the Twin Forks Tower's code. 'Scott MacDallan, here.'

'Wylie Bishop, Doc.'

Scott had seen him once or twice for minor ailments. 'We've got three confirmed casualties in the pilot's compartment. How many people were listed as missing?'

'Just the three. Conrad Warren, pilot, Arvin Erhardt, co-pilot, and Pol Rafferty, passenger. How'd you find that air car, Doc? According to the section maps, it must be three, maybe four kilometers from the Zivoniks' house, not what I'd call an easy stroll. Did the Zivoniks hear it come down?'

'No.' He had to clear his throat. 'I think the co-pilot must have been adopted by a treecat, because a half- starved treecat showed up at the Zivonik place today and led us back here.'

'A treecat?' The shock in Wylie Bishop's voice was unmistakable.

'Yeah. My treecat, Fisher, insisted I hike out here, I didn't know why until we found the wreckage.'

The com crackled sharply. 'Good God. That xenology team is going to want every detail. Doc, I've got Mayor Sapristos on, patching him through.'

'Scott?' The mayor of Twin Forks sounded weary. Nobody ever wanted a fatal air crash to strike their community and Sapristos was a good man who worked tirelessly to make Twin Forks and its outlying settlements safe, pleasant places in which to live, work, and raise a family. He took the deaths of anyone in his community very much to heart.

'Yes, Mayor?'

'Can you stand by at the wreck site? We've already got a recovery team airborne, headed your way. They'll be there in thirty minutes, at most.'

'Roger, we'll stay, and we'd appreciate a lift back to the Zivonik place. I left my air car there and the Zivoniks don't want to be out here on foot after dark.'