9
When Karl came to spend the night with the Harringtons the night before he and Stephanie were due to meet with Chief Ranger Shelton he was astonished at how exquisitely shy he felt.
It’s not as if I’ve never slept over here before. I mean, I have my own parking space in the garage, and a bedroom that’s had my clothes in the closet for years. And it’s not as if Steph and I haven’t been talking every night, as well as on and off during the day.
When Stephanie burst into the garage to greet him. Karl gathered her up in a hug, marveling all over again at how small she was.
I guess I never really noticed because her personality is so outsized, but she’s positively dainty!
Stephanie held up her face to be kissed, and Karl bent down. Lips met lips, warm and intimate. He felt all too aware of the potential for even more intimacy. Neither of the senior Harringtons’ vehicles were in the garage, and Stephanie was tugging him inside the house, saying something about how she’d made hot drinks, and built up the fire, and he was imagining holding her in his lap, sliding his hand up under her sweater when the incoming call beeped simultaneously on both their uni-links with the code that indicated the call was from Chief Shelton.
“Better get that,” Karl said, trying to feel grateful that he’d been stopped before he started something that he wasn’t certain he could stop. Or something like that.
Stephanie nodded and took the call.
“Hi, Chief Shelton. We’re still on for tomorrow’s meeting, I hope.”
Chief Shelton grinned. “That’s right. End of vacation for Karl, I fear. I screened you to find out if I was correct that tomorrow’s meeting was related to treecats.”
“That’s right,” Stephanie replied, puzzled. Chief Ranger Shelton rarely clarified things like that. He wasn’t perfect, but his secretary, Francine Samarina, was an organizational genius.
“Sanura Hobbard’s on planet, and since she’s in charge of the official investigation into treecat intelligence, I thought you might like to have her sit in.”
Stephanie moved her free hand out of sight of the pick-up in a thumbs-up gesture, then pointed at Karl and wobbled her hand in a “Thumbs-up? Thumbs-down?” gesture. Karl made a thumbs-up gesture, and Stephanie said, “That would be fine with us, sir. More than fine.”
“Very good. Your appointment is for 9:30. I’ll ask her to join us at 9:45. I have a couple of things to bring up with you first, shouldn’t take long. Just a few departmental things.”
Karl could have sworn the chief was trying not to smirk and fought down astonishment. Chief Shelton never smirked. It must be an artifact of the screening.
“Yes, sir!” he and Stephanie said together. And Karl added, “And thank you, sir,” although, for the life of him, he wasn’t exactly sure what they were in for.
Stephanie’s parents came home not long after, saving Karl from a renewed urge to investigate what Stephanie was wearing under her sweater, and what was under that. When Richard and Marjorie greeted him as they always did, warmly, like the son they hadn’t yet had, Karl felt conflicted.
Are they saying, “We trust you not to overstep?” Or are they saying, “Help yourself?” Or nothing at all? Just because Stephanie and I have changed our relationship in our eyes, it seems as if we’re just catching up to where everyone else figured we already were. Or something like that.
Whatever the case, although Karl permitted himself to give Stephanie a very warm goodnight kiss when they went upstairs, he didn’t go into her room and she didn’t come into his.
Which actually is weird, because before we were in and out of each other’s rooms all the time, though not when we were changing or whatever. Now it’s like we’re drawing borders or something. I created this new tension, I’m pretty sure, with my speech about age of consent and all that. If this keeps going on, I may lose my ability to concentrate on anything else before Stephanie’s birthday!
The next morning, Stephanie couldn’t resist cuddling up to Karl in the air car during the flight to the SFS headquarters, though she was careful to make sure they didn’t show up rumpled. Karl was wearing a fresh uniform, and she definitely didn’t want him to look anything but his best.
When they got inside, Francine greeted them cheerfully. “So very glad to have you both back, and Lionheart and Survivor, too. It’s been a little dull around here with only humans. I’ve buzzed the Chief, and he said to send you right in.”
Stephanie nodded and put a small package on Francine’s desk. “A souvenir, from Gryphon.”
Then, leaving Francine to unwrap the little box, they headed back to Chief Shelton’s office. Karl stepped back as always to let smaller Stephanie go in first. Chief Ranger Shelton hadn’t changed much in the last year, except for maybe looking more tired than usual. He waved them to the chairs across from his desk, glanced at the time, and began speaking without further delay.
“We have just a few minutes, so let me start with a question. Via the rumor mill, I have heard that the two of you are dating, going steady, have become a couple, whatever term you prefer. Is this correct?”
“Yes, sir,” from Karl, and “Gee, news sure does travel fast,” from Stephanie. The grin that accompanied this faded when she saw Shelton lean back and sigh.
“Okay, so that means I need to brief you on the SFS policy for couples serving together, since you’re both on staff. If we were on Manticore, you’d probably be congratulated, then put on different duty rosters so you wouldn’t find yourself on the same patrol. Here on Sphinx, especially in the SFS, the situation is different. As you both know all too well, we’re short-staffed. Many of our rangers quietly work extra hours without compensation, whether as volunteers or just making sure routine jobs in their patrol areas are taken care of, when routine gets pre-empted by an emergency. Often, they’re forced to stay away from home.
“Karl’s a good example. His legal address is still his parents’ in Thunder River, but he often stays with you Harringtons. Stephanie often rides along with him on patrol. Well and good. However, now that you’re a couple, and a young couple at that, there will be questions as to whether you’re paying attention to your jobs or maybe ‘canoodling’ instead.”
Thinking of how nice it had been to snuggle Karl on the way to headquarters that morning, Stephanie felt herself blush. She hoped it didn’t show. Karl shifted slightly, but his attention was on Shelton. Shelton paused, obviously to give them time to speak, but Stephanie decided to take her cue from Karl, and waited.
Shelton gave a slight smile, since he knew as well as anyone that restraint was not Stephanie’s first response to any problem. “My policy is to place my trust in my rangers first, and not to assume dereliction of duty until that dereliction is proven. That applies to any couple, married or not. Which means it applies to you.”
“Oh, thank you, sir!” Stephanie replied with a slight gasp.
“Don’t thank me until you’ve tried it. This doesn’t just mean refraining from inappropriate behavior while on duty, it means not bringing problems from home in with you to work. It means remembering the chain of command—and that the chain of command stops when you’re off duty. We’ve had relationships break up over the inability to do all of these things. Don’t make the mistake of believing I’m going easy on you. I’m making it harder, both for you to have a successful relationship and to do your job. Any questions?”
“Just one, sir,” Karl said. “How do you deal with accusations of inappropriate behavior, especially if there’s nothing to substantiate them other than someone’s word?”
“We keep careful track of such complaints, but you don’t need to worry about getting fired or penalized or yelled at just because someone says they saw you, say, making out in your cruiser. We check visual images for validity, and even if those are genuine, we’d ask you to explain. It might be you were off duty, for example.”
“But for that reason,” Stephanie said slowly, “we’d better be on our best behavior if we’re in an SFS vehicle or Karl’s in uniform.”
“Precisely. I see you’re putting your usual acute mental functions to work on this problem as you would with any other.” He glanced at his desk com. “And Francine has signaled that Sanura Hobbard has arrived, slightly early, as I would expect of her. If you feel we’ve concluded the matter of what’s considered seemly for serving SFS rangers who just happen to have the good sense to be in a relationship with someone who shares his or her interests and devotion to the goals of the service, then why don’t we add a chair to our little circle, and you two tell us what this meeting is about.”
Dr. Sanura Hobbard, the Chair of the Anthropology Department at Landing University, was a quietly attractive woman. Her brown hair was accented with auburn highlights, and her dark brown eyes were capable of looking intelligently interested while giving very little away. Way back when Lionheart had first entered her life, Stephanie had been inclined to think of Dr. Hobbard and the organization she represented as potential opponents, but as the years had unfurled and Stephanie had encountered real threats to the treecats, she had revised her opinion. Even so, today, facing the first time she was going to tell someone who wasn’t already an adoptee or a member of the inner circle what she suspected about what the treecats were capable of, her heart started racing.
Stretched out along the back of her chair, Lionheart placed his true-hand lightly on her shoulder and gave a muted version of what Stephanie thought of as his “soothing purr.” Having recently come to realize how she automatically reached up for Lionheart when she felt nervous, Stephanie gripped her teacup instead.
“So, did you like Gryphon?” Dr. Hobbard asked after greetings had been exchanged. “Not what happened there, obviously, but the planet.”
“I did like it, actually,” Stephanie said, “although I think their weather would drive any residents crazy after a while. Once you get used to Sphinx’s longer seasons, they’re almost boringly predictable—at least in the Tannerman Gulf area—but on Gryphon, it’s like they don’t seem to have seasons as much as they have wildly unpredictable weather systems.”
Dr. Hobbard laughed.
“I understand what you mean. I definitely prefer Sphinx or Manticore. How did the treecats do? Lionheart’s been off-planet before, but other than gravity and temperature, Sphinx and Manticore aren’t dissimilar. Gryphon would have been very different. Were they interested? Frightened? I can’t imagine apathy. Apathy and treecat just don’t seem to go together.”
Karl leaned forward, every line of his body telegraphing his eagerness.
“Survivor was definitely interested in learning about his environment—often by sticking things in his mouth. I was pretty nervous at first, but then I noticed that, at least when it came to food, he had a remarkable tendency to limit himself to things we’d already sampled, maybe not sampled raw and wriggling, but definitely he was watching what he ate.”
“Hmm…” Dr. Hobbard didn’t look dubious. She knew Karl too well to accuse him of doting on his “new pet.” Before they got too distracted by this new topic—or she chickened out—Stephanie thought they’d better dive into the topic they’d called this meeting to discuss.
“Listen,” she said, then paused, worried she’d sounded bossier than a sixteen year-old probationary ranger should when addressing a couple of adults who happened to be a university department chair and the head of the SFS. But neither Hobbard nor Shelton seemed in the least annoyed, so she swallowed hard and continued. “Karl and I have been noticing just how much more treecats are on people’s radar. Even as far back as our first visit to Manticore we had people asking us questions about them. I was even asked to give a talk for the Adair Foundation. The trial, though, especially since the treecats played a role in the whole thing, especially in saving us… Well, before long, it’s not going to just be a few people here on Sphinx who think treecats would make great pets or at least want to go on a ‘treecat watching’ tour.”
“So,” Karl picked up as they had rehearsed, “we want to tell you some things we’ve learned about treecats that we think might influence your willingness to speed up getting some legislation passed to protect them from abuse.”
Dr. Hobbard frowned slightly.
“Several xeno-anthropological study groups, including Dr. Whittaker’s and the one sponsored by the Adair Foundation, have been studying the treecats’ material culture,” she said. “No one disputes any longer that treecats are tool makers, as well as tool users. Their stone tools are knapped, not just conveniently found, and their textiles are far more than heaps of twigs and leaves. Even more crucial is their use of fire. Very few ‘animals’ use fire, and those that do use it don’t kindle their own fires, but adapt natural fires to their own uses.”
“Like hawks that pick up burning branches,” Stephanie said, “and use them to spread a fire, so that they can hunt the little animals as they flee from cover.”
Hobbard nodded.
“So, I think we can feel certain treecats will definitely be placed somewhere on the ‘sapient’ scale. The question, as people like Clifford Mulvaney and Gary Hidalgo make unfortunately clear, is where on that scale. You’re perfectly aware that the point that keeps coming up is the question of language. Other than a few noises, like that adorable, all-purpose ‘bleek,’ and a few shrieks and squeals, treecats are relatively silent. Many people—many human people—feel that the ability to communicate complex thoughts is a necessary part of being on the higher end of being sapient, intelligent, sentient…Whichever term you prefer.”
Dr. Hobbard did that on purpose, Stephanie thought. By showing how many words we have that provide slightly different variations of meaning for a single concept, she’s showing what, to some people, treecats are apparently missing.
“What if,” Stephanie began slowly, really wishing she could reach up and hold onto Lionheart without looking like a complete kid, “treecats don’t make a lot of sounds because they have other ways to communicate?”
“Are you thinking of scents or pheromones?” Dr. Hobbard asked. “Certainly, they use some of those. Even humans do, although we’re largely unconscious of that element in our own communication. However, thus far we haven’t had any evidence that treecats convey complex ideas via scent.”
Karl raised one hand in a “stop traffic” gesture.
“Can you give us a moment to present our case? Not that we don’t appreciate your input, but we want to explain how we came up with this theory. If we don’t present our case right, we’re just going to sound nuts.”
“Sorry.” Dr. Hobbard leaned back and laughed self-consciously. “I’ve been in so many discussions about where treecats should be placed on the sapiency scale that I forget myself. You two wouldn’t have asked to speak with Chief Shelton—and agreed to include me—if you didn’t think you had something new to offer.”
“We do,” Karl said. “And while we can’t do anything to keep you from writing up what we’re going to tell you as a paper for some journal or sharing it with one of your committees, we hope you’ll understand why we’ve held back on sharing such a key point. To be honest, that decision—to hold back—was Stephanie’s idea, originally, but all of us who have been adopted by treecats definitely agreed with her. We call it”—he grinned, despite his tension—“the Great Treecat Conspiracy. And we’re”—he waved one hand in a gesture that encompassed not just Stephanie, Lionheart, and Survivor, but all the other adopted pairs—“about to invite you and Chief Shelton to join it.”
Hobbard and Shelton looked at each other for a moment, then the Chief looked back at Karl, his expression speculative.
“Would it happen that Frank Lethbridge and Ainsley Jedrusinski are already members of this ‘conspiracy,’” he asked.
“In a way,” Karl admitted. “Neither of them’s formally joined it or asked any embarrassing questions, but I know they both suspect something more than we’re talking about publicly is cooking away in the background. Frank realizes that even more than Ainsley does, but I think you’ll understand why he had a bunch of reasons for keeping his mouth shut. The biggest one, frankly, is that he’s been protecting somebody. Not somebody who’s done anything wrong,” he added quickly. “Somebody whose family’s had enough problems over the years for being ‘different’ and really, really doesn’t want any more of them.”
“Okay, I can accept that at least tentatively.” Shelton nodded. “For that matter, I might as well admit I’ve had a few suspicions of my own.” He glanced at Hobbard. “Doctor?”
“I don’t know I’d go so far as saying I’d suspected there was an organized ‘conspiracy,’” she said. “But it’s been obvious to me from the beginning that you—all of you, but maybe especially Stephanie—have been…deflecting certain questions and speculation. Which, to be honest, was fine with me, in most ways, since I knew for a fact that anything Stephanie did was intended to protect the ’cats.” She smiled warmly at the younger woman. “Which is why I haven’t pushed harder and farther, young lady.”
“I know,” Stephanie said in a grateful tone.
“Well, in that case, why don’t you get started on this recruiting pitch of yours?” Chief Shelton invited, and Stephanie drew a deep breath.
“Chief Shelton, when I told you I couldn’t go to Manticore without Lionheart, I tried to make clear that I wasn’t being a brat who wouldn’t, but that I really couldn’t. You took me at my word and didn’t ask any questions, which I deeply appreciated. And my parents have pretty much done the same. So I figure you’ve already guessed at least parts of this. But the truth is that treecats are telempaths. When we say ‘adopted,’ we mean that literally, not like getting a pet from the shelter. Treecats can create bonds with other creatures, up to and including humans. We don’t know how or why they pick their candidates, although a life-and-death situation often seems to provide the impetus. But there doesn’t need to be a crisis. Survivor just picked Karl.”
Karl nodded and reached up unselfconsciously to pat Survivor.
“And Survivor was definitely the one who did the choosing,” he said, “and not because either of us were in any life-or-death situation. He’d had a bad time of it, sure, but by the time we bonded, he wasn’t particularly threatened. It was just like he somehow saw or felt something in me that matched up with something in him. There was no bonding ritual or dance, or even any choice on my part. It just happened, kinda between one breath and the next.”
Dr. Hobbard’s fingers twitched, as if she were eager to take notes, but she restrained herself.
“Do you resent this one-sided decision? Do you feel violated in any way?”
Karl laughed.
“Not one bit. I feel like we were two parts of a jigsaw puzzle that just slid into place, filling in a picture that had been there all along.”
“Amazing…” Dr. Hobbard sighed contentedly. “We’d certainly suspected the treecats’ telempathy, but having you confirm that they can create an emotional symbiosis beyond their own species is very useful. Do all the other treecat adoptees agree that the treecats are telempathic?”
“They do,” Karl confirmed. “In fact, one of the reasons just Stephanie and I asked to meet with Chief Shelton is so that he—now either of you—would have the opportunity to interview the other adoptees without our being present. We did tell all of them we were going to talk with you two, because they’ve all been part of keeping the secret we’re sharing, but we all agreed that beyond that we wouldn’t contaminate the sample any more than we have already.”
“Amazing,” Dr. Hobbard repeated. She clearly wanted to start speculating, but she had the good manners to press her lips together and gesture for them to continue their presentation.
“So our first point,” Stephanie went on, “is that we believe part of the treecats’ communication structure is based on telempathy. One reason they have mostly harmonious communities is probably because they can share emotions, really know what everyone else is feeling when it comes time to make decisions or settle disputes. Of course”—her expression darkened for a moment—“it’s not enough to completely prevent things like the war that almost got Survivor killed.”
“But,” Karl added, “we’re pretty sure their ability to communicate is more complicated than that. Based on observation, we think they also ‘talk’ to each other by speaking mind-to-mind. Basically, we think treecats are also telepathic. We can bore you to tears with examples, and we’ll be happy to. For now, I’ll just say that based on Occam’s razor, the simplest explanation for a lot of what we’ve witnessed—including how they seem to ‘spontaneously’ share labor or cooperate in other ways—is that they talk to each other without making any sound.”
“That all sounds reasonable and logical,” Chief Shelton said after a moment. “Obviously it’s all speculative at this point, though.” He paused as Karl and Stephanie looked at each other, then raised an eyebrow. “It is speculative, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Actually,” Karl said slowly, “we have an incident we’re pretty sure conclusively proves everything we’ve said so far. Unfortunately, it’s not something that could be demonstrated or replicated in a lab or a field study. At least, not under any circumstances we can think of.”
“Really?” Dr. Hobbard’s eyes narrowed.
“You remember the Stray?” Stephanie asked, looking back and forth between the older adults, and both of them nodded. Shelton’s expression was rather grimmer than Dr. Hobbard’s, but then he’d been directly involved in the BioNeering investigation. Her involvement with the treecats had begun later than that.
“Well, there was a reason Scott went out to the BioNeering site, and it wasn’t just because the Stray led him there. I know that’s what he told everyone, but the real reason was that the treecats showed him what was happening there.”
“Showed him?” Dr. Hobbard repeated sharply, and Chief Shelton sat forward in his chair, his eyes intent.
“It wasn’t just the Stray,” Stephanie said. “That evening, while he was still helping investigate the air car crash, Fisher and the Stray between them led him out into the woods, and there were dozens of other treecats waiting for them—around a campfire, no less. Scott thinks there were probably at least a couple of hundred of them—probably more—all adults, all in one spot.”
Shelton was frowning now, his eyes no longer just intent but afire with speculation. The Sphinx Forestry Service’s database on treecats and the population size of a typical clan remained woefully incomplete and fragmentary, but what they did have suggested that a single clan would have been extraordinarily hard-pressed to produce that many adults in one spot. Not if they’d left any of their adults home to protect their nesting site and their treekittens.
“You’re suggesting they came from more than one clan?” Dr. Hobbard put Shelton’s thoughts into words, and Stephanie nodded.
“We think it’s possible. Either that, or they thought what they were doing was important enough to bring virtually all the clan’s adults together in the woods in the middle of the night. What we know they did was communicate with him.”
“Communicate,” Dr. Hobbard repeated very carefully.
“They…for want of a better word, they projected images into his mind,” Stephanie said, hoping it didn’t sound as outrageous to Dr. Hobbard as she thought it might. “Images of things he’d never seen, of the damage at the BioNeering site, and the sounds of human voices arguing. That’s what took him out there in the first place. Him and Fisher and the Stray. He doesn’t know for certain, but he thinks the images were from the Stray, not from the clan at the crash site—that the other ’cats were basically relaying them to him from the Stray—and that suggests that they can communicate a heck of a lot more than just emotions with one another.”
Both Hobbard and Shelton were staring at her now, their eyes wide in astonishment, but their gazes switched back to Karl as he cleared his throat.
“The problem, of course, is that there’s no way to prove any of that. Given that no one’s ever been able to demonstrate telepathy in humans—and believe me, we’ve done our research on that since it happened—how are they going to detect it or measure it in treecats? And without the ability to do that, all we’d have would be Scott’s unsubstantiated testimony. The fact that he did go straight to what Ubel had been up to after his encounter with the ’cats seems like pretty strong corroborating evidence to Steph and me that they told him about it, but he’d already given the ‘I followed him there’ explanation. That means the true version could be dismissed as an after-the-fact fabrication to bolster our argument for how smart they are. And as someone like that poisonous pain in the butt Ford would point out, we’re prejudiced witnesses. It would be awfully easy for people who don’t know us to suggest we’re lying or paint us as lunatics. And especially if Scott claimed he ‘heard voices.’”
“Which is exactly why Dr. MacDallan never told anyone else about it…except probably Frank Lethbridge,” Shelton said.
“Pretty much, yes, sir,” Karl confirmed.
“And if they are telepathic,” Stephanie jumped back in, “it could explain not only the lack of verbalizations, but also why they seem even slower than the average animal to pick up human words. They have the concept of a noise indicating alarm, or a baby crying, or something like that. But they don’t use words for things or ideas, so they’re handicapped when it comes to picking up our words.”
“Amaz—” Dr. Hobbard began, then cut herself off with a grin. “I think I’ve been overusing that word,” she said, “but if you’re right about that—about the telepathy, I mean—the consequences could be staggering. How do they actually communicate information? Telepathically, yes, but as discrete bits, the way we do in spoken or written language? Or do they simply…share a gestalt? How big are their data packets? Would they even understand what syntax is?” She shook her head. “The only thing I’m sure of is that their mode of data sharing would have to be as different from ours as their means of communicating that data to one another is.”
“Survivor’s learned to at least recognize a few words,” Karl said, “but those are frequently repeated ones, like his own name. And I don’t think he considers ‘Survivor’ his ‘name.’ I think it’s more as if he thinks we humans have created a specialized cry of alarm, a sound that’s meant to alert specifically him.”
“And,” Stephanie said, “if you think about it, really, it makes more sense than not. Even if we weren’t dealing with the differences in ‘data sharing’ you just mentioned, Dr. Hobbard—and, to be honest, I hadn’t gone as far with that in my own thinking as you seem to have—’Karl’ sounds a whole lot like ‘car.’ ‘Steph’ like ‘step.’ If treecats don’t use words, why would they sort out those noises that are so nearly the same? Actually, while we humans are judging their level of sapience and basing that on factors that include their inability to talk, well, I wonder if they’re not doing the same thing when they look at us. Are they wondering why we’re so incredibly noisy and if that means we’re more like, say, tool-using prong bucks? Or maybe near-beavers, since we do build places to live.”
Chief Shelton nodded slowly and rubbed his hands together in satisfaction.
“I like it. As an explanation of what we think is going on, I like it. Telepathy would explain why on a planet chock-full of megafauna predators that would just love to munch on treecats, treecats have been able to survive, to develop communities, and to evolve a relatively complex technology. They can talk up a storm without alerting the local hexapuma or peak bear to where they are!”
“I do too,” Dr. Hobbard said. “And if we could prove that they’re telepathic, it would be very useful in eliminating the complaint that their lack of a spoken or written language invalidates placing them higher on the scale. However,” she grimaced, “as you just pointed out, Karl, there aren’t any objective, replicable tests for telempathy, much less telepathy!”
“I think we might at least come up with tests for the empathy part of the equation,” Stephanie said, “since we assume that the bond they made with us is telempathic. We already have a sense of the range of that bond and how sensitive it is, but I’m sure someone could argue that was all subjective. It would be better if you could come up with tests whose validity would satisfy you—and other xeno-anthropologists, of course—that we’re not just imagining all of it.”
“I’d love to design some tests,” Dr. Hobbard said, “even if not for immediate publication. It would be good to lay some foundations before someone makes a public move against placing them higher on the sapience scale. That way we don’t look as if we’ve created a theory on the spur of the moment to counter their arguments that the ’cats can’t be very high on the scale because they don’t communicate.”
“Sounds like excellent tactics to me,” Karl said. He gave Stephanie a sly grin. “If I hadn’t been adopted, and Stephanie had started shooting off her mouth about how her wonder ’cat was as smart as a human—and telepathic, to boot—well, I might’ve just thought she was too eager to keep the limelight she’d earned as the discoverer of a very interesting new species.”
Stephanie poked him with her elbow, but she also nodded to Dr. Hobbard.
“I agree,” she said. “But, listen, there’s a reason we didn’t tell you about this until now. We’ve been worried about the risk to the treecats if it looks like they’re about to be ruled the indigenous sapient species of Sphinx. There are a lot of people who hold land, or options on Crown Land, that actually belongs to the treecats, and we don’t expect them to like hearing any of this.” Her expression turned grim. “We don’t want to see something like the Amphors right here on Sphinx.”
“Do you really think that could happen?” Dr. Hobbard asked, but Stephanie noticed her tone was anxious, not skeptical.
“We don’t know,” Karl said. “But, as we see it, the most dangerous point isn’t after the decision to give treecats some official standing, but during the critical period when proofs are being established. If the treecats aren’t protected in advance, well, what happened on Barstool really might happen here, all over again.”
“Not,” Chief Ranger Sheldon growled, “on my watch! And that doesn’t go just for treecats, but for any attempt to wipe out a species, whether it be a wood rat or hexapuma. The one is annoying, the other is dangerous, but they belong to this world, they’re part of its ecosystem. We humans and our animals are the invasive species, and it’s our job to learn to work within the Sphinx biome, not to wipe out what seems inconvenient and then later try and fix what we’ve done when we figure out how stupid we were.”
Stephanie inhaled deeply in relief. She’d thought Chief Shelton would react this way, but it was one thing to hope, and another to have proof.
“First step,” Shelton went on, “is to get some protections in place. I’m sure we can get them protected species status, as a minimum. Governor Donaldson’s been worried about what might happen to them for a while now—I think some of those land speculators of yours have been leaning on a few of the Provisional Assembly’s members, Steph—so I’m confident we can get her on board. And I need to have a talk with Jase Stamford and Liddy Johansen, too.”
Stephanie stiffened slightly. Not because she had any doubt that Jason Stamford and Lydia Johansen, both members of the Provisional Assembly which constituted Sphinx’s local government, wouldn’t make good allies. Both of them had always been strong supporters of the SFS and its mission. But taking the question of the ’cats’ sapiency to the Assembly—making it that big a part of the debate already swirling around them—
“Don’t worry, Steph,” Shelton said, reading her mind as clearly as though he’d been telepathic. “I won’t have to share anything you and Karl have just told us to get them onboard. They’re completely in the ’cats’ corner already. And the ’cats aren’t the only thing they’re worried about. That’s why Jase drafted the Wildlife Protection Act in the first place.”
“We’ve heard about that…a bit.” Stephanie’s relief showed in her tone, but her eyes were still a bit worried. “I don’t know as much about it as I should, though.” She grimaced. “We were on Gryphon trying to not get murdered when he first proposed it, and we haven’t seen much about it in the feeds since.”
“That’s because it hasn’t gone a lot farther than that yet,” Shelton said more than a bit tartly. “Mostly because Lautenberg and Peabody and their crowd have been keeping it tied up in committee. They’re big proponents of maintaining the ‘limited government which has always been so much a part of our Sphinxian heritage.’” This time he looked more like he wanted to spit. “They’re really big on that ‘roughhewn frontiersman’ image, even if they were plenty willing to accept all the ‘government intrusion’ they could get during the Plague! Now that that’s over, though, they don’t want any more regulations than they can possibly avoid that might restrict anything they want to do on their own land. The truth is, I can’t disagree with them about that in a lot of ways.” He grimaced. “They ought to be free to make their own decisions on their land, and that’s exactly what they see the WPA taking away from them. It won’t, of course—aside from establishing things like protected species—but they regard even that as an intolerable ‘intrusion,’ which is why they’re doing everything they can to keep it from coming to the Assembly floor for a vote. In the long run, they can’t, and they know it, so in the meantime they’re trying to water down its enforcement provisions.”
Stephanie and Karl nodded. There were still a lot—way too many, in Stephanie’s opinion—of unsettled details where the SFS was concerned. Its mission definition had blurred during the Plague Years, when the survival demands of a human colony hovering on the brink of extinction had trumped every other consideration. Worse, it had never been formally chartered by the Crown. The vital need for something like it was obvious to everyone, so no one had objected when Governor Donaldson’s predecessor set it up, but it had always operated in something of a gray area, which was one reason its law enforcement powers were so limited.
The Wildlife Protection Act was supposed to rectify that. It would formally recognize the Sphinx Forestry Service as the paramount enforcement agency where all matters relating to the Sphinx biome were concerned, and it would spell out very specifically both the scope and limits of its mission and also the extent of its authority to shape natural resource management policies and to enforce existing policies and regulations. And, as she understood it, it would also just happen to significantly increase SFS’s budget and funding.
That would be a good thing.
“I think the Governor’s already more than a little irked over how long this has been delayed,” Shelton continued, “so I’m pretty sure I can get her to push the Judiciary Committee to move on it. Jase is pretty sure it will pass once he finally gets it to the floor, and it includes specific authority to create a list of protected species. If we put the ’cats on the list, it would put us in a position to act on their behalf when and if the need arises without ever opening the can of worms where the degree of their sapiency is concerned. And if we do that, it’ll give Sanura and her teams time to come up with the tests they’ll need and design documentation for them.”
They spent another quarter hour discussing possible approaches, then Dr. Hobbard announced that she had another appointment.
“I hate to cut this short,” she said as she pushed back her chair, “but I really do have to go. Stephanie, I understand exactly why you and your friends have been going slow on putting forward exorbitant claims about the treecats’ intelligence and how they communicate. Frankly, I think that was very wise of you, and I think it has to remain our policy going forward, until we are able to come up with some way to validate at least part of this in ways no one can ignore or sweep under the carpet. And I can’t tell you how glad I am that you decided to finally trust us. I understand your reluctance, especially in the early days when it was just you and Lionheart, and then Scott and Fisher. But you’re right that the ’cats need all the friends they can get. They’re attracting attention, and not all of that will be eco-friendly tours or people wanting pets. Humans are very territorial beasts, and it’s the job of the SFS and those of us who work with it to remind humanity that even if we’ve been on Sphinx for decades now, that isn’t an excuse to abuse its original inhabitants instead of using the planet in the most responsible possible fashion.”
She headed for the door. “Next meeting! Stay in touch!”
When Dr. Hobbard had left, Stephanie said, “Chief Shelton, what Sanura just said about reminding humanity made me think. We’ve heard good things about Moriah and Stephan Rosenquist.” The Rosenquists were the couple who’d taken over running the SFS Explorers while she and Karl were off-planet. “Would it be okay with you if we set up a meeting with them, just to touch base, maybe volunteer to do a presentation or two when we’re close to where there’s a club meeting?”
“That would be an excellent idea.” Shelton pulled up schedules on his desk display. “They’re in the Twin Forks area currently. I’ve sent you their contact information. You can have an hour on the payroll to meet up with them.”
“Thank you, sir,” Stephanie and Karl chorused.
Karl added, “And we’ll get out from underfoot. I’m sure Dr. Hobbard isn’t the only person who has more meetings today.”
Chief Shelton sighed. “You’re right there. I’ve a glorious forty minutes before my next one, so the four of you should scoot and let me get prepared.”