4
The comments to his follow-up article about Paschel’s accident were filled with anecdotes about an uptick in peculiar accidents. While Nosey had been happy enough to have such a strong reaction to what he’d thought about as a lightweight human interest piece, he was too conscious of his reputation to simply ride the wave without checking facts. Rumor had an amazing ability to blow events out of proportion.
One of the great things about his job as a courier was that he had a lot of air time during which he could set his air car on autopilot and do research. He started by downloading accident reports for the last three T-months, restricting his area of interest to Yawata Crossing, Twin Forks, and the surrounding holdings. Since not all accidents would be reported as such, he added police and SFS reports where officers and rangers had been called to assist. Inevitably, there was overlap, but this gave him an ample body of material to work with.
That done, he started culling. Out went obvious work-related accidents and traffic accidents, unless there was something a little different about them. He flagged those that—like Cordelia Schardt-Cordova’s encounter with the near-weasels—involved encounters with local wildlife. He wasn’t trying to get the SFS in trouble, but there was a perennial fascination with clashes between humans and wild animals. He also noted those incidents that had an odd element that made them that little bit more newsworthy.
As he went on his rounds, he also did some old-fashioned sniffing about for unreported incidents. Since one of his most reliable jobs was picking up medical samples to be taken to labs for testing, the subject of how everyone was doing came up almost without his needing to ask. Sometimes he heard more than he needed about some oldster’s high-gravity stressed heart or smoke-damaged lungs, but since he genuinely liked people, that wasn’t much of a trial. More than once, he eased his conscience about snooping by relaying what he’d been told or observed when he dropped off a sample, figuring the doctors would like having more information, rather than less. Most of those who had settled on Sphinx viewed themselves as hardy pioneers, and didn’t want to be seen as whining.
Eventually, he narrowed his list down. He found his next candidate in the Simpson family of Yawata Crossing. They had been among the few families to take advantage of the early round of assisted immigration, settling on Sphinx in 1495, a full year before the second-generation of the plague vaccine had been perfected.
The accident in question had happened to seventeen year-old Jake. It had been an unlikely accident for someone born on Sphinx, as Jake had been, and even less likely for someone who, like Jake, was considered a good all-round athlete. The improbability of the incident was what had prompted Nosey to try for an interview.
Happily, he knew the Simpsons fairly well. Sports news always did well, and on a planet that didn’t yet have the population to support professional teams, school sports were followed avidly. Since Jake played on several teams, as well as being a member of the hang-gliding club and showoff skimmer club, Nosey had featured him not long before in a series on exceptional athletes.
On his way over to the Simpsons’, Nosey reviewed the accident report. Jake had taken a spill while practicing at the Twin Fork’s skimmer park. He’d gone late, when he’d have the space mostly to himself. That made sense only if you didn’t know Jake. Jake was highly social. The likelihood he’d been completely alone didn’t fit, so Nosey guessed that Jake had probably been horsing around with someone—or more than some-one—else.
Next Nosey reviewed what he knew about skimmers. Like most kids, he’d played with a basic model as a kid, but that experience was as different from what athletes like Jake did as “Old Maid” or “Go Fish” were from a high-stakes poker game.
Skimmers were usually considered to have evolved from something called a “skateboard,” a narrow elongated oval platform fitted with wheels. In reality, skimmers bore about as much resemblance to these distant ancestors as an atlatl did to a rifle. About the only thing they had in common was their purpose: to carry the rider over the ground, with the only manipulation and steering coming from shifts in the rider’s weight and posture.
Skimmers were delta-form platforms that spread from a sharp point, just wide enough to accommodate the rider’s feet, one on each of the outward flaring panels or “wings.” Skimmers were equipped with compact maglev units that, in Nosey’s childhood model, had lifted the skimmer a maximum of twelve centimeters off surface level. Greater heights were possible, but not without substantially increasing the size of the unit and—especially—its power supply. And, of course, it could be used only on specialized tracks fitted with the necessary magnets. The basic tech had been around since literally before humanity left Old Earth and was about as mature as a technology got, and skimmer parks were common, but there was a vast difference between the standard skimmer park and the parks in which skimmer riders like Jake played.
Nosey was making certain his jargon was up-to-date when his air car pinged him that they were approaching the Simpson’s homestead. He tucked his notes away, checked his messenger bag to make certain that his little present for Jake (a particularly revolting confection made with dry ginger, sugar and salt, courtesy of the invaluable Eric Flint’s Red Letter Café) was inside, and parked.
He had hardly departed his air car when the house’s front door flew open and Jake emerged, riding his lift-chair with a cocky ease that made the medical aid seem like the latest sports accessory. Someone—Nosey suspected Jake himself—had used holographic flashing tape to give the chair racing stripes, and Jake spun the chair in place so that he was haloed in rainbows.
Really, Nosey thought, you’d never guess the kid is undergoing some really intensive therapy.
When Nosey had written his feature article on Jake, he’d struggled with how to describe him. Jake was capable of being both goofy and intensely focused, often with little time between. He was a warm person, except when he was being competitive.
Although Nosey hadn’t used the comparison, he’d privately decided that Jake reminded him of one of the more over-bred species of bird dogs. Silly, bouncy, and enthusiastic—until called to the job, then intent and almost frighteningly focused. The comparison had been helped along by Jake’s physical appearance: large brown eyes and a lean, muscular build. That Jake’s thick wavy hair was cream on top with a lower tier of sky blue—colors of the Twin Fork’s School district teams—did nothing to dispel the general impression.
If Jake had had a tail, it would have been wagging wildly as he soared his chair over to Nosey’s side.
“So terrific you’re here, man! I am six times six dying of boredom. I mean, I’ve been hurt before but usually they spray on the skin-coat, dose me with quick-heal, and bam!” Jake made a sort of “whooshing” gesture with both arms, then spun his chair again. “This time I’m not allowed out of this chair, not even to sleep! It reclines. I don’t even get a break to pee. I’m hooked up like a spacer getting ready to go into battle. It sucks. Absolutely sucks!”
He giggled at his own pun.
“But,” Nosey said, “the prognosis is good? I mean, you’re going to heal?”
“Am!” Jake assured him. “If I’m a good boy and stay in the chair, do my PT and take my meds. And, you know, I am. I’ve decided PT is my new favorite sport. I’m going to kill it, be the all-time champ. Seriously, my PT person says she’s using me as an example to others. I like that.”
“You’re a good idiot,” Nosey said fondly, reaching over to tousle the youth’s hair. During Jake’s effusion, they’d progressed from the parking pad to the house. Nosey thought they were going to go in the front door, but Jake swerved his chair around the side of the house, toward a secondary entrance.
“Game room! Pool table.” Jake explained. “I’m getting superior at making shots without violating my promise not to leave my chair. I’ll even spot you a couple of balls. Wanna play?”
Jake looked so much like a dog holding his favorite frisbee in his teeth that Nosey didn’t have the heart to admit that he hadn’t played pool since he was in college and that, even if Jake spotted him more than a few balls, he’d still lose.
“Sure, but I should say ‘hi’ to the rest of your family,” Nosey said, “let them know I’m here.”
“No problem! Vernon just made a bunch of some terrifying-looking cookies for his chem class. We’re all going to be subjected.”
And, indeed, when Vernon—age eight, white-blond, with bright blue eyes the color of his brother’s hair—came bouncing in with a plate of cookies, the rest of the Simpsons followed. The cookies did, indeed, look like a science experiment, being red on one side, blue on the other, bleeding into purple at the middle, but they tasted of butter and vanilla and weren’t too scorched. When the cookies had been eaten, the rest of the family swirled away as suddenly as they had appeared, leaving Nosey and Jake to their interview.
“So, Champ,” Nosey said, lining up a shot, “tell me how you nearly broke your back.”
“Wow! You make it sound so dramatic!”
“That’s my job,” Nosey grinned. “Anyhow, wasn’t it dramatic?”
“Not really. I was trying a newish sort of move. Uh, you know that skimmers can be tweaked, right?”
Nosey did, but if he got Jake talking about the finer parts of his hobby, he’d be more likely to forget if he had anything to hide.
“A little, I mean, it has something to do with modifying the limiters, right?”
Jake elevated his chair, tilted it at an angle, and made a shot that set off a ricochet that looked random right up until balls started falling into various pockets.
“Oh, I forgot to call that,” Jake said, chagrined. “Call this warm-up?”
“Sure. You were telling me about how you adapted your skimmer.”
“Right,” Jake focused along the length of his pool cue, as intense as if he was on the playing field. “Well, the stock limiters are pretty tame, probably because of the makers’ liability concerns, but competition skimmers routinely modify them, because we need more power and speed for the really high scores.”
“And the skimmer parks are okay with that?”
“Sure, as long as we tell ’em about it ahead of time and we sign the waivers. It’s not like it’s usually that risky, anyway, with all the safety regs.” He paused and glanced up at Nosey. “You know about the basic safety regs, right?”
“Not a lot,” Nosey confessed as he set up what should have been an easy shot, managed to scuff his cue on the green cloth cover of the table, and nearly hit himself in the face instead. To his credit, Jake didn’t laugh.
“Oh, bad luck, man. Try this.” The next few minutes were given over to a tutorial, but Jake was deeply interested in skimmers, and came back to the topic without Nosey needing to prompt. “So, yeah, safeguards. Okay, first there’s safety equipment you gotta wear—helmets, pads, gloves, and here on Sphinx, counter-grav.”
Nosey nodded understanding of that part, and Jake went on.
“Second, there’s power settings. Unless your tweaks are approved and you sign that waiver, the parks automatically shut you down if you try to run at anything above a pretty tame level.”
He paused again until Nosey nodded once more.
“Okay,” Jake resumed, “those’re the basic safety parameters. Actual operation’s pretty simple, at least at the basic level, too. You control attitude by shifting your balance, but you control altitude by adjusting the power. That’s one reason we wear the gloves. The power controls are built into them, and you’ve gotta learn to play ’em like a guitar if you want to compete at the highest level. There’s a lock on how high you can push the board that’s a factor of its power and the surface’s magnetic density, and the parks have to maintain a strong enough field to support the boards over the entire area of the court or the track. Can’t be any ‘blind spots’ where you’d lose lift, except for some really limited things like—oh, like a water jump.”
He raised an eyebrow at Nosey to be sure he was following, and Nosey nodded.
“Well, all that’s fine for kiddies, but it’s pretty tame, once you know what you’re doing. Takes the sport out of it. High-level skimming gets a lot more challenging, especially where the track shifts are involved.”
“Track shifts?” Nosey prompted.
“Changes in the base track,” Jake replied. “The layout and density of the mag field. You don’t really have to make it a big, boring circle, like they do for the kiddies, or even a contoured track with fixed features. You can lay it out more like an obstacle course. Make it a point-to-point race even on one of the flat baby rinks by shutting down parts of the track to make lanes that have to be followed. Or you can lay out an entirely new lane across any open ground—one with switches and shunts built in—for cross country races. And you can program a competitive track to shift the lanes on the fly.”
“They do that? Shift them ‘on the fly’?” Nosey asked.
“For the high-end competitions, sure.”
“Do the riders know when and how they’ll shift?”
“Nope.” Jake beamed. “That’s part of the fun. Your helmet display shows you the shifts ahead of time, but the warning interval gets shorter and shorter as the level of the competition goes up. Same thing for the cross-country races. The track comes in both big rolls and individually conformable tiles, you know?” Nosey nodded, and Jake shrugged. “Well, you can roll out a really complicated pattern—one that winds around all kinds of obstacles and crisscrosses all over the place—and the riders won’t know which part of it is currently live till they get there. Higher the ranking, shorter the warning.”
“And the faster you’re traveling, the less time you have to react, right?”
“Sure! But that’s all pretty flat and boring, almost as bad as the baby rinks, once you get used to it. The real competitions usually include that, but only as a launch point. Where they get really tricky is when they send you down different chutes.”
“Chutes?”
“The competitive courses. Not just obstacle courses, but ones with real challenge features. Could be pools, or ramps, or bowls, spirals, jump hazards—you know. Most parks have at least three or four chutes live at any one time, but here in Twin Forks, it’s usually only two. Well, they only have three total, so I guess that makes sense.” Jake’s expression drooped for a moment, then brightened with his usual enthusiasm. “In the unlimiteds, though, they don’t tell you which chutes are live, or how they’re configured till you actually run the course. You’ve gotta ride ’em cold, no prep or practice runs, and you don’t even know the order they’re coming up in—you’ve gotta ride the lanes to find out. And they usually reconfigure between heats.” Jake shrugged. “Not hard to do. The track units are built on smart tiles. Their shape at any given moment’s what their programming tells them to be, and they’re flexible enough for just about any conformation you want. It only takes a few minutes for a good control room tech to swap ’em around completely, and that way you can’t watch your competition running the course ahead of you, ’cause it’s a different course for each heat. Takes a lot longer, and a lot more people, to unroll one of the obstacle course tracks, but reconfigging the chutes in place is easy.”
“So you have to run the course and the chutes without knowing what they’re going to be till you get there, and the winner’s the guy who gets through fastest?”
“Usually.” Jake nodded. “But you get points for the variations you can pull off while you’re running the course, too. Once you’re in a chute, it’s not gonna change till you’re done, but since you don’t know what’s coming next, you can’t really plan your jumps and recovers ahead of time. You can either run ’em straight, as fast as you can, as you come through, or you can be more creative and improvise moves, find ways to cross back and hit the same feature two or three times, a different way on each pass. You can collect a lot of points if you manage really cool variations on the basic ‘just run the course’ approach because of the difficulty mods built into the scoring. Enough to put somebody with a slower overall time but really good on the aerobatics and conversions in the lead. That’s usually where we do the most tweaking to the power settings, because the more power you’re ready to burn, the faster and higher you can go. Course there are limits in everything, and even today, a board’s charge is only good for a couple of hours. But if you press the board, ride the ‘high’ effect, you get points for elevation, as well. Kills your power supply faster, which can be a downer for the longer courses, but the higher you push it, the more creative you can get on those variations. So if you’re really serious, you practice running the course just like you would in a competition, as fast and as hard—and as high—as you can, with as little warning about the track layout as possible.” He shrugged. “Works best if you can get to the park late enough there aren’t a lot of riders around. That’s when management will let you and a buddy play with the track and switch it around on each other.”
“So that’s what you were doing when you got hurt?”
“In one,” Jake agreed.
He went into some of the details involved in the course he’d been running—something about “vert ramps,” “six-meter bowls,” “aqueducts,” and “free jumps”—and Nosey’s thoughts wandered. He hadn’t been born on Sphinx. His family had moved to Sphinx from Nova Terra when he was fifteen T-years old, so Nosey definitely remembered what it was like to live on a planet where park management that allowed the sort of extreme course-modding Jake and his pals were doing, apparently without adult supervision, would have been severely reprimanded, probably even fined.
The frontier mentality of Sphinx was different. As long as Jake didn’t whine about his injuries or try to blame someone else for not protecting him from his own choices, then even extreme skimmer-riding fell into the category of acceptable risks.
Except something’s not right here, Nosey thought. They’re supposed to wear counter-grav units with the fall alert set to switch on automatically if they wipe out on one of those ramps or bowls. Some of the kids moan and complain about “training wheels,” but I’ve watched Jake perform before, and he always wears his. He might seem like an idiot, but he’s not. Far from it. In fact, according to the accident report, he was. So why didn’t it kick in? Did he just not set it on automatic? But that’s not like him, either. And if he did, what could’ve made him forget his basic safety procedures? And why is he dodging around saying who was there?
Because Jake did evade each of Nosey’s probes, as skillfully as he would have the ball in a game of dodge ’em. Even Nosey’s promise he wouldn’t put anything in his article, that he was just trying to give Jake a chance to get the full story off his chest, only merited a look of wide-eyed innocence from those big puppy eyes.
A girl? Was he showing off for a girl, maybe? Or did someone dare him? Well, I’ve got enough for a good story, and I won’t rat the kid out for not having his counter-grav unit set right. Even the accident report only says a “probable malfunction.”
But after Nosey left the Simpsons, promising to come back and visit soon, the problem still niggled at him. He decided that for his next article in the series on accidents, he was going to see if anyone else might have experienced a counter-grav unit malfunction. Now that would be a major story, wouldn’t it?
Humming to himself, Nosey programmed the air car to take him back to Twin Forks and started writing.
* * *
“I have a job for you two,” Chief Ranger Shelton announced, motioning for Stephanie and Karl to follow him into his office, then shutting the door.
Stephanie’s imagination raced. The last time he’d called them into his office for a private meeting like this he had wanted to send them to Manticore to attend that special accelerated training program for Forestry Service personnel. What might he have in mind this time? Perhaps a new group of xeno-anthropologists were due to arrive to study the treecats. Or maybe someone was up to something unethical out in the bush.
Stephanie sat in one of the two chairs facing the desk and felt Lionheart move to recline across the back. These chairs were new, and she found herself wondering if they’d been acquired because Shelton now had two rangers with treecats.
Or maybe Shelton had something more routine in mind, like going to do on-site confirmation checks on some new type of plant or animal that some enterprising settler wanted to claim a bounty on. That last wouldn’t be nearly as exciting, but it was valuable work. Shelton’s next words startled her back to the moment.
“Stephanie, do you remember how we first met?”
“You bet! My parents and I came to see you so you could tell me to my face that you wouldn’t be able to let me be a junior intern with the SFS.” Stephanie looked theatrically hurt. “Not a great day for me.”
“Well, great day or not,” Shelton said, “how do you feel about creating a program for other kids that will do for them what I couldn’t do for you?”
“You mean create a junior internship program?”
“Or at least lay the groundwork for it.” Shelton leaned back in his chair and emitted a gusty sigh. “Not much has changed for the SFS since you came in here, thirteen and a half T-years old, all big eyes and boatloads of determination. We still don’t have a large enough budget, sufficient numbers of rangers, or excess equipment. But one thing has changed. The population of Sphinx is rising, both resident and non-resident. Tourism, both of the holiday sort and of those who want to see if Sphinx will suit the needs of their particular business, is climbing. All of this puts considerable pressure on the SFS to keep everyone safe, even if only from their own stupidity.”
Stephanie, thinking about how Anders’s father, Dr. Bradford Whittaker, had nearly gotten his entire xeno-anthropological team killed, nodded understanding. She heard Karl give a nearly inaudible chuckle, and guessed he could list his own examples.
Shelton went on, “So what I’m proposing isn’t make-work. Never think that for a moment. In a way, it’s a covert operation. What I need you to do is design an educational program that will be presented not in the classroom but as club activities. Ostensibly, our audience is going to be kids, but we’re targeting the adults as well.” Shelton grinned slyly, obviously pleased with himself. “In my experience, there’s nothing like a kid when it comes to showing off new knowledge. We’ll start with something exotic to capture their attention, perhaps highlights on the more dangerous of Sphinx’s wildlife.”
“Hexapumas,” Stephanie said with growing interest, “peak bears, swamp sirens.”
“That would definitely capture attention,” Karl said. “Even out in the bush, most people don’t see those live. We could get images of them on the prowl.”
“We could.” Stephanie agreed happily. “I’m good at getting live images of wildlife. After the big predators, we could move onto flyers like albatrosses, mountain eagles, and condor owls.”
“And compare them with the Terran creatures they’re named after,” Karl said. “Then we encourage discussion—perhaps linked to a project like building computer models—of how and why a Terran mountain eagle wouldn’t be able to fly on Sphinx.”
“Which would let us educate about some of the hazards of living on a higher gravity planet,” Stephanie cut in, “without being—uh—dare I say ‘heavy handed’?”
Her pun scored the groans it deserved.
Shelton nodded. “We’re definitely on the same wavelength. If we promoted these talks as educational or cautionary, they’d pretty much be ignored except by the sort of kid who would be fascinated anyhow. If we make them a club event, give out badges for related activities, even prizes, then eventually have uniforms and contests, we’ll get the information out just the same, and everyone will have a lot more fun. Eventually, we can evolve a junior internship program like the one Stephanie asked for a few years ago, presenting it, quite honestly, as a gateway into the SFS.”
“Why choose us, sir?” Stephanie asked. “Karl and I did take those classes on Manticore, but neither of us are trained educators.”
“That’s precisely why I want you,” Shelton replied. “Teachers and parents will inevitably serve as club moderators, but you two are actual SFS rangers—probationary, in Stephanie’s case—but actual rangers with field experience, formal certification, badges, and some darn dramatic experiences behind you. It also helps that you’re both wildlife celebrities, courtesy of Lionheart and Survivor there.”
Karl said stiffly, “We’re not showing off the treecats, though, sir. You do understand that. Until their status is settled, drawing even more attention to them is not a good idea.”
Shelton raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. “I absolutely agree. But nothing changes that Stephanie is the treecat discoverer, that you’re both adoptees. That gives you a certain aura. I’m sure the ’cats could be convinced to stay out of the way. Lionheart was remarkably cooperative about that when Stephanie took him with her to Manticore.”
“Will the club activities be live or on the planetary data net?” Karl asked.
“Both,” Chief Ranger Shelton said. “Live performances will be in different locations, but all the sessions will be archived. I’d like to shift the live meeting among various locations, including—maybe especially—the urban areas, since that’s where new arrivals tend to gather. Actual locations can be worked out, but most SFS sub-headquarters have a meeting room.”
Stephanie found her enthusiasm mounting. She hadn’t forgotten her thirteen year-old self, how much the idea of being a junior intern had meant to her, how crushed she’d been when her family moved from Meyerdahl, robbing her of the chance to join that much-anticipated program. This wasn’t as exciting as fighting fires or as intellectually stimulating as talking college-level courses on another planet, but it was important, too. After all, she didn’t want to be known for the rest of her life mostly for something she’d done when she was eleven. Discovering the treecats had been special, but this could be, too.
“Thank you for believing I can handle this,” she said, and meant every word. She wondered if Shelton realized how much of an effort it had been for Stephanie to learn how to get along with people her own age. As an only child, and a smart one, she’d gravitated to adults. People her own age had to work twice or even three times as hard to prove themselves her equals.
I really was, she thought with amusement, a serious snob.
“Karl will be senior on this project,” Shelton said, “since he’s a full ranger. However, we can’t spare him from all his other duties, so a lot of the planning and research is going to fall to you, Stephanie. Perhaps you could ride along sometime when Karl’s on patrol or doing rounds, then you could use the air time to consult. You both will host the club meetings.”
Since Stephanie already rode along with Karl—as she was certain Shelton knew—this would be no hardship. In fact, since Karl’s family lived in Thunder River, over a thousand kilometers from Twin Forks, Karl stayed with the Harringtons often enough that one of the spare rooms had been pretty much turned over to him. Stephanie sighed happily at the idea of days and evenings spent cozily together, assembling the materials for their first several club meetings.
“Can we have the first meeting in Twin Forks?” she asked. “I’m sure we can recruit a bunch of younger kids to attend. Jessica Pheriss has a ton of sibs. The hang-gliding club has some younger members, too. It would be better if we didn’t recruit only through the schools or it will look too much like a school activity.”
“We’ll definitely use word of mouth,” Shelton said. “We won’t ignore the schools, but we won’t push too hard there. I’ll drop a hint into the ears of some of the more ecologically-minded instructors to make sure their students learn about the club—I was thinking we could call it the SFS Explorers—without realizing they’re being tipped off.”
The next quarter of an hour or so was spent working out logistics, including what their starting budget would be. The money wasn’t much, Stephanie realized, but she knew how strapped the SFS was for funds. Even being trusted with this relatively small amount made her feel very determined to make the project pay.
As they were rising to go, Karl halted in mid-step. “Sir, would it be all right with you if I contacted Nosey Jones and offered him an interview about the new club?”
Stephanie felt her mouth dropping open in surprise and clamped it shut. Nosey Jones? He was the enemy! She wouldn’t be surprised if his recent series of articles on accidents—which, although they never criticized the SFS directly, certainly led others to do so—weren’t part of the reason Chief Ranger Shelton was starting the program at this time.
“Good idea,” Shelton said. “Don’t let Nosey get away with thinking we’re being reactive. You could even hint that we’ve been planning this since a certain brown-eyed immigrant from Meyerdahl asked if we had a junior internship program like the one on her homeworld. Handled right, you might even make an ally of him, part of your informal recruiting drive.”
Karl nodded, but Stephanie doubted she’d ever think of Nosey Jones as anything other than a pest.
* * *
As Stephanie and Karl were leaving SFS headquarters, already deep in discussion, a tall young man, drop-dead gorgeous, with golden hair and eyes of such a dark blue that in some lights they seemed black, stepped from the shadows and moved to intercept him.
Despite herself, Stephanie felt her heart lurch, then beat faster, but with Lionheart’s purr thrumming against her back, she managed to summon what she hoped was a relaxed and easy smile.
“Hey, Steph,” said Anders Whittaker, “Karl. Lionheart. Survivor. I…” He paused, looking at a loss. Then he blurted out, “I was wondering if I could talk with Stephanie. Alone. I could give her a ride back to Twin Forks, I mean, if you two don’t have plans.”
Anders’s obvious discomfort surprised Stephanie. Anders’s mother was a politician on their homeworld of Urako. Normally he had the poise of someone far older than his sixteen, almost seventeen, years. Now, however, he looked nearly as uncertain as he had on the day, a few weeks back, when he’d told Stephanie that he’d fallen in love with Jessica.
For a fleeting moment, Stephanie wondered if Anders wanted to get back together. Maybe he was learning that it wasn’t much fun dating a girl who, between her family duties, school, and volunteering at the hospital was hardly ever available. Stephanie wondered if she wanted to get back together with Anders. He still made her heart race uncomfortably fast, but getting dumped had hurt.
Stephanie glanced up at Karl, who looked bemused.
“Whatever Steph wants,” he said. “She and I can meet up tomorrow. I have some work to do, then I was going to drop by the Schardt-Cordovas, see how Athos is doing, give him and Survivor a little face time. They’re both new to being adopted. I thought it might be good for them both.”
Almost unconsciously, Stephanie reached to feel what Lionheart thought. The treecat was not in the least upset, which meant Anders didn’t mean her any harm. As sometimes happened, she thought that through Lionheart she could feel something that might be what Anders was feeling: an uncertainty, confusion, pain?
“Sure, Anders,” she said, “I was just going to hang out with Karl until he was done with work, then ride home with him. As long as we stop for something to eat, I’m fine with hanging out with you instead.”
“I’ll buy you lunch or whatever,” Anders replied promptly. He then made a visible effort to relax, “I remember how regular feedings are key to a Happy Harrington.”
“Then, later,” Karl said with a wave. “Steph, I’ll call. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“I’ll message,” she agreed. “I have a bunch of ideas I don’t want to forget.”
“As if,” Karl said, and got into his air car.
Stephanie swallowed hard, then turned to Anders. “How about seafood? Maybe Yawata Bay Baskets?”
The place she’d named was right on the bay and renowned for enormous baskets of crisply fried, newly-caught Terran seafood, harvested from aquaculture net-tanks that prevented the contents from escaping into the wild. If you ordered the catch of the day, even the Jumbo wasn’t too expensive.
“Sounds great,” Anders replied. “I love their hushpuppies.”
They managed to make small talk on the way to Bay Baskets, an easy enough task, since Anders could ask why Shelton wanted to see her and Karl. Their orders—Jumbo Puffy Tempura Shrimp baskets for them both, with sesame-drenched seaweed crisps for Stephanie and coleslaw for Anders, along with a side of raw shrimp for Lionheart—came quickly. Stephanie wasn’t surprised when Anders suggested they eat in his car. He’d been very polite thus far, but he had asked if he could talk with her alone. He parked his air car at a spot overlooking the crashing waves against the rocks, watched a near-loon flap up with something wriggling in its beak, absently crunched into a shrimp, then the words started spilling out.
“I told you, didn’t I, that my mom has been making noises about wanting me to come back to Urako? Well, as of a week ago, she and Dad settled it. We’re both going back. Not immediately, but she wants us back in time for her re-election campaign. Dad couldn’t really complain. He’s been back briefly, but well…”
Stephanie nodded. Dr. Whittaker’s return had been to answer to a board about the disastrous results of his decision to go examine an abandoned treecat site—without telling the SFS, which would have forbidden him to do so. Although Stephanie herself had been known to advocate the creed “sometimes it’s better to ask forgiveness rather than permission,” she prided herself that she hardly ever did so for selfish reasons, and she really did try to put no one but herself at risk.
“Not exactly great for your mom’s image, right? I mean, your dad did end up officially censured.”
Anders snorted a laugh. “Honestly, Dad never has been, but she really loves him. It was hard for her to let him go, not just off-planet but out-system, but she did. And she let me go with him because…”
“I remember why,” Stephanie said, so Anders wouldn’t need to fill in the gap. Anders had come to Sphinx hoping to see treecats—and to meet Stephanie. Dr. Whittaker’s interest had been pure and fanatical xeno-anthropology, but Anders had been more idealistic. He’d loved the idea of a new species that just might be intelligent, and he’d romanticized Stephanie herself.
And then I pretty much threw myself at him, but he didn’t mind. Okay. We can take that all as read. Now to push for why he wanted to talk with me.
“So?” She dragged the single syllable into three, then bit into the largest of her remaining shrimp so she wouldn’t be tempted to steer the conversation. She still didn’t have the least idea what Anders was working his way towards, but she didn’t think it was going to be a suggestion they start dating again.
“So…Jessica,” Anders began, “so, she wants to go to med school. So, I think, why does she need to go to med school here in the Star Kingdom? Urako has been settled much longer. It didn’t have two waves of plague to set it back. Her grades are excellent. My mom sent me a test that I had to take to make sure I’d go back into my lessons at at least the level I was when I left. Jessica wanted to take the test, too, see how she measured up.”
“I bet Jess did well,” Stephanie said, realizing that all she felt at the confirmation that Anders wasn’t about to suggest they get back together was relief.
“She aced it,” Anders enthused. “I mean, I was even a little surprised because her family has moved around so much, but she told me—and a little tartly, too—that because her dad kept moving the family around she’d learned not to depend on anyone except herself.”
He visibly deflated at this, and moodily bit into another shrimp. Stephanie, remembering how Anders had thrown himself protectively between Jessica and an insane treecat, how he had admitted he wanted to protect her, knew that his ego must have been singed at this calm declaration of independence.
“Go on,” Stephanie prompted, taking a long pull on her iced spikethorn tea. “So Jessica did great on the test and then…”
“And I sent my mom the results, and I explained about Jessica, and about med school,” Anders said, letting the words stream out with hardly a breath between, “and how I thought she’d benefit from Urako’s educational system and how I thought her family could manage without her, because they were going to need to do so pretty soon because she’d need to go off-planet to get the advanced studies she needed and…”
He paused, focusing on his cooling hushpuppies, leaving Stephanie to fill in the next part in her head. And how you are in love with her and if you had to leave Sphinx and the Star Kingdom, maybe you could at least take Jessica, and…
“And?” Stephanie said mildly, although she had a pretty good idea now what was coming. What she wasn’t sure was what Anders wanted from her.
“And my mom was actually interested. Mom said if Jessica wanted her to, she could arrange something in the way of an exchange student program. She even sent me the documentation, so Jessica would have something to share with her parents.”
“And?”
“And Jessica shot me down. She said she wasn’t interested in leaving Sphinx, that she certainly couldn’t leave Valiant, and really maybe we should not even try dating because since I was definitely leaving, it would just make my leaving harder on both of us.”
“That sounds like Jessica,” Stephanie said diplomatically. “She’s pragmatic. Remember, it’s not like this is a new situation for her. She’s had to give up close friends before. Don’t take it personally.”
“But,”—and suddenly Stephanie felt sure that Anders was now reaching the key point, the reason he’d wanted to speak to Stephanie—“I couldn’t help but feel that if all things were equal, Jessica would have gone. But the one thing that wasn’t equal was Valiant. I mean, I think I’m being thrown over for a treecat!”
With a start, Stephanie realized that Anders’s instinct was right. Maybe Jessica would have been interested in trying out Urako, but there was no way she could take Valiant with her. Treecats had been discovered by humans in 1518. This was 1522. Four years was hardly any time as far as politics were concerned. Moreover, treecats weren’t relatively benign creatures like wood rats. They were dangerous carnivores, quite capable of killing an adult human. No way Urako would want one brought planetside, even a relatively mellow treecat like Valiant.
And then there was the bond. Anders understood more about treecats than most of those without the bond, but he didn’t understand on a gut level what it meant. It wasn’t that Jessica wouldn’t leave Valiant. She couldn’t, not without serious consequences to herself.
Well, this is awkward. When we were dating, Anders got a hint of the way Lionheart can feel my emotions, but I never let on more. I won’t now, not when Anders’s leaving, especially not with his dad’s interest in the ’cats and what they can do. Whoo-boy…I’d need to make sure Jessica isn’t suddenly feeling as if she’s acquired not a new buddy, but an alien ball and chain.
With complete sincerity, Stephanie said, “If you want me to talk to Jessica, make sure she’s really certain…”
“Would you, Steph? Really? That’s big of you. I was thinking, maybe you can get Jessica to leave Valiant with you or with Karl? Or maybe that Cordelia’s family could take him? I saw that she had a couple of sisters. It might be nice for the new ’cat, Athos, to have a resident friend.”
With an effort, Stephanie restrained herself from sighing. That wasn’t going to happen, but she couldn’t tell Anders that, not now, probably not ever.
“I’ll talk to Jessica,” she said. “I promise.”
But what I can’t promise is that I’ll make her change her mind. All I can hope is that I won’t find her angry and full of regret for a bond that happened in a moment and will last for life.