20
Old as he was, experienced as he was, Heart Stone felt like a kitten whose eyes had just opened as he tried to understand the actions of Life Shaper and her friends. First they had gone with great caution to Rich Dirt Grove, but they had not spoken with Musty. Instead, they had stalked him, taking up positions from which they were well-hidden, even from above. From this he had concluded that they were hiding from more than Musty.
Very well, he understood hiding, even if he did not understand why they were hiding, nor why they maintained their vigil for so long. He wished he could ask Climbs Quickly or one of the other People, in case this was some sort of game that the two-legs routinely played. However, as long as Life Shaper’s mind-glow remained as it was: focused, a little nervous, but not frightened, Heart Stone was content to wait, watch, and learn.
When the big flying thing arrived and disgorged the unpleasant two-legs whom he had encountered that night near the dirt heap, Heart Stone understood; Life Shaper’s two-legs were stalking these other, very unpleasant two-legs. He tensed, ready to join in the hunt when the moment came.
But even after the prey had arrived, there was no springing forth, no pouncing. Even though Climbs Quickly’s mind-glow remained calm, Heart Stone could tell that Sharp Sight and Plant Fancier were relying more on whatever Climbs Quickly was telling them than what they understood about the developing situation. This did not exactly reassure Heart Stone. He liked Climbs Quickly. Over these many hands of days during which they had become friends, he had learned to appreciate the scout’s sound judgment and insight. Even so, Heart Stone could not dismiss memories of the talented young scout who, despite his much admired skill, had been frequently scolded for taking undue risks.
Heart Stone knew where his responsibility rested, and concentrated on Life Shaper, waiting for any sign, no matter how small, that she needed him. He tasted as the odd blend of exhilaration and dread in her mind-glow soured into tense awareness, then anxiety. When Musty fell forward, his mind-glow cloudy with something other than natural sleep, Heart Stone felt Life Shaper’s mind-glow shift again, bright with a readiness to do something, even as she held her place.
Only when a pair of the prey two-legs lifted Musty and carried him toward the big flying thing did Life Shaper move stealthily from cover. She froze in place when Little, the leader of the enemy band, walked over to Musty’s nest structures, rattling the openings, and snorting in annoyance when none of them yielded to her. When Little moved to join her band near the flying thing, Life Shaper began to creep forth again, joining several others of her clan as they moved rapidly—although belatedly, to Heart Stone’s way of seeing things—toward where Musty was being bundled into the flying thing.
But since Life Shaper did not call for him, and the other three People kept their positions in the branches, Heart Stone kept his place as well. Then it happened. After an exchange of mouth noises between Little and Mends Things, the mind-glow of the biggest and meanest of Little’s followers—Kicker—reeked with a dangerous mixture of rage and panic. Kicker bellowed and suddenly there was a thunder barker in his hand. It was not the largest thunder barker Heart Stone had seen, but he had seen far smaller things of this sort make practice targets explode into flinders.
At their herd bull’s cry, the other two males reappeared, thunder barkers in their hands. That was bad, but worse came when Kicker pointed his thunder barker at Life Shaper.
Although she kept outwardly calm, Life Shaper’s absolute terror washed through their link and she dropped to the ground in supplication. Heart Stone had endured enough. He had lost Golden Eye, and this rampaging he-bull of a two-leg was threatening the one who had given him back his soul.
With a shrill cry of rage, Heart Stone leapt down from his arboreal perch onto the flat top of the flying thing. From there he launched himself so that he could smash into the thunder barker in Kicker’s hand, knocking it from its target. Then, with his true-hands, Heart Stone grabbed hold of Kicker’s shoulders, counterbalancing himself with his true-feet and tail. Even in this moment of extreme fear for his beloved, Heart Stone managed to keep all but the tips of his claws pulled in, although he longed to rake with his hand-feet and true-feet, disemboweling his prey. Instead, he extended his claws only enough to assure his hold. Then he grabbed hold with his hand-feet onto of the naked skin of the hand in which Kicker held the thunder barker, all too aware that although he’d pushed its angry mouth from Life Shaper, it might now be pressed into his own gut.
Heart Stone screamed a furious warning directly into the two-leg’s unprotected, furless face, causing Kicker to momentarily loosen his grip on the thunder barker. In that moment, Heart Stone ripped the thunder barker from Kicker’s grip. When it clattered to the ground, the aggression in Kicker’s mind-glow transformed into purest fear. With Heart Stone still clinging to his shoulder, he began to stumble away from Life Shaper, perhaps to seek refuge in the cavelike interior of the flying thing.
Heart Stone decided this would be fine. Kicker’s hand was streaming blood. If he was anything like most two-legs, he would want to stop the bleeding before doing anything else. Satisfied, Heart Stone released his hold, then sprang back to crouch in front of Life Shaper, hissing and spitting warning. He knew well he was at risk, for he had seen how the thunder barkers spat destruction from a distance, but he maintained his defensive stance and surveyed the roiling interactions of two-legs and People.
Thus far, none of the many thunder barkers had roared. The only blood he smelled was Kicker’s. The two-legs were making many and varied mouth noises, some of the sort Heart Stone suspected held meaning for the two-legs, many more the inarticulate sounds of rage, fear, and threat that seemed to be the same no matter what sort of creature made them.
Then a new sound entered the mix. Mouth noises—coming from Determined Defender, he realized, recognizing the other two-leg’s mind-glow. The Little and her remaining two-legs drooped and sagged like newly sprouted plants beneath the worst of the sun’s summer heat, and Heart Stone heard more mouth noises from Determined Defender. Nothing happened for a moment, but then it was the members of Little’s band—including the still oozing Kicker, who crept from the flying thing to join his clan—who laid down their thunder barkers and fell to the ground, facedown, limbs splayed, bodies offering surrender in a language that even one without mind-speech could understand.
The fear in Life Shaper’s mind-glow had spiked when Heart Stone attacked Kicker—fear for Heart Stone, far more acute than what she had felt for herself. Now this ebbed, and her mind-glow tasted of satisfaction, even happiness. She crouched down and patted Heart Stone, making many mouth noises, including “Athos,” the sound that she most frequently directed at him. Heart Stone had long wondered if this sound might mean “Come here” or “I have food,” but he was beginning to suspect that, for her, it was his name.
<I am Heart Stone,> he thought at her, although even if he had possessed a mind-voice, she would have been unable to understand. <And you have given shape to my life.>
If Cordelia had been frightened when Willinski leveled his gun at her, she was absolutely terrified when Athos dropped out of the trees and assaulted the thug. If the treecats started attacking as a group, Cordelia had no doubt that Dr. Orgeson would turn it to her advantage. But although Athos could be horribly dangerous—as dozens of near-weasels would never live to remember—he showed amazing restraint. When Willinski dropped his gun and backed into the air van, he was only dripping blood, not disemboweled, with his face ripped off, as Athos could have managed far more easily than simply disarming him.
As if Athos’s move had been a signal, the other three treecats plummeted from above, each hitting the roof of the air van with a solid thud, then crouching to attack. However, at that critical moment, Karl Zivonik had stepped out of the trees on the edge of the landing ground, shotgun at the ready, behind Orgeson and her men.
“Freeze!” Karl’s voice was always deep; this time it crackled with a hard, authoritative edge Cordelia had never imagined coming from him, and the two still-armed thugs’ heads whipped around in his direction. They took one glance at that rock-steady shotgun’s muzzle and froze.
“SFS.” Karl identified himself formally, as the law required, although he knew they’d recognized his uniform “Put down your weapons! Then facedown on the ground.” They hesitated, and the shotgun’s muzzle rose a centimeter or two.
“Now,” he said flatly, and suddenly they couldn’t move fast enough.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re here, Ranger!” Orgeson began. “My associates—”
“That ‘on the ground’ applies to you, too, Ma’am,” Karl said in that same flat tone. She looked at him for a moment longer, but something in his eye told her not to argue. She went to her knees, then lowered herself facedown.
“Good,” Karl said, and looked at Stephanie. “First things first. Probationary Ranger Harrington?”
“Yes, Sir!”
“They seem to be an awful lot of weapons lying around. Let’s get them collected. Over here behind me looks like a good place to stack them.”
“Yes, Sir!” Stephanie said, as formally as she possibly could.
She collected up all of the firearms, beginning by retrieving and holstering her own pistol and careful not to cross between Orgeson or any of her men and the muzzle of Karl’s shotgun. They made quite an armload, by the time she was done, and she piled them behind Karl.
“Now, you, with the injured hand,” Karl said. “How bad is it?”
Willinski held out the freely bleeding hand.
“I’ve seen worse.” Karl sounded remarkably unsympathetic, Cordelia noticed, but he looked at Jessica. “Ms. Pheriss, would you please take a look at this man’s hand. And”—he moved very cold brown eyes back to Willinski—“I advise you to be very, very cooperative when she does.”
“But—”
“I can put you in cuffs first, if you like,” Karl said coldly, and Willinski seemed to wilt inside his own skin. He nodded, and Karl twitched his head at Stephanie.
“Harrington, keep an eye on him.”
“Yes, Sir.” Stephanie drew her pistol again, careful to keep its muzzle aimed at the ground but ready in the unlikely event that Willinski tried something—or something else, at least—stupid.
“Now,” Karl turned his attention back to Orgeson while Jessica bent over Wilkinson and began slapping a pressure bandage onto his damaged hand. “You were saying?”
“Can I at least stand up, first?” she asked.
“You can. You other three, stay where you are.”
Orgeson stood up, brushing leaves and gravel from her skirt.
“Ranger, there’s been a tremendous misunderstanding here! I know what it must have looked like, but my associates and I were just attacked by that…that vicious creature!” she pointed an artfully trembling hand at Athos. “Then all of its friends just came swarming toward us!” She moved her pointing finger to Willinski’s bleeding hand. “You can see what the first one did. We were only trying to protect ourselves.”
Whatever else she might be, Stephanie thought, Lyric Orgeson was clearly a fast thinker. As cover stories went, that wasn’t half bad. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to work.
“I see,” Karl said. “And why would they do that? For that matter, how did you happen to be here for them to do that?”
“We came to see a colleague before going off-planet. He collapsed. We were taking him to the hospital when these young people—well-meaning, I’m sure—challenged us. Then that vicious beast, the one that looks like a treecat but must have the mange or be rabid or something, attacked my assistant.” She waved a hand at Willinski. “And then the other ones came jumping down from the trees. Thank goodness you got here when you did!”
“So that’s your story?”
“Well, of course it is!” Orgeson sounded indignant. “It’s the truth!”
“No,” Karl said as they all heard the sound of an incoming air car, “it isn’t. Unfortunately for you, we can prove it isn’t, too.”
Orgeson closed her mouth with an almost audible click, and her expression went blank as a Forestry Service cruiser came slicing in to land beside her van. The canopy slid back and Frank Lethbridge climbed down, slung an SFS equipment bag over one shoulder, and strolled unhurriedly across to stand beside Karl.
“Looks like you’ve got everything under control here, Karl,” he said.
“I don’t know why you’d say anything of the sort!” Orgeson said. “This young man clearly doesn’t understand what’s actually happening here, Ranger—?”
“Lethbridge,” Frank said in an amiable tone. “And I have to tell you, I misremember the last time Karl here misread a situation. Unless, of course, you’re stupid enough to think I just happened to be in the neighborhood watching the feeds from that camera right there”—he pointed at the concealed camera—“when this all went down?”
Orgeson’s jaw clenched, and Lethbridge snorted in amusement, then reached into the shoulder bag, pulled out a fistful of handcuffs, and offered them to Stephanie.
“Since you two seem to have the situation well in hand, Probationary Ranger Harrington, why don’t you do the honors? And if you’re through with Mr.—Willinski, is it?—Ms. Pheriss,” Frank smiled thinly at Willinski as the other man realized that Frank knew exactly who he was, “why don’t you check on Mr. Maye. Be sure to check his vitals, and you might want to draw a couple of blood samples. I’m sure the lab in Yawata Crossing will want to see if there’s anything in his bloodstream that might account for his sudden, inexplicable collapse.”
Stephanie’s lips twitched in amusement as she pulled Willinski’s hands behind him and slapped on the first set of handcuffs. She moved on to his fellow thugs before she approached Orgeson, and the older woman’s expression would have curdled fresh milk as the handcuffs clicked on her wrists.
“Lyric Orgeson,” Karl said then, lowering his shotgun at last and setting the safety, “you and your ‘associates’ are under arrest.”
“On what charge?” Orgeson demanded. “For defending ourselves against your murderous little creatures?! Any judge will laugh that out of court!”
“No, for right now we’ll settle for attempted kidnapping, criminal assault, and criminal coercion. There may be more later, of course.”
“Assault?” Orgeson glared at him. “The only person assaulted here was Mr. Willinski, by that vicious treecat!”
“Oh, no.” Karl shook his head with a knife-thin smile. “I’m talking about the formal complaint Mr. José Jones filed with the Forestry Service and Twin Forks constabulary three days ago. Oh, and the one Mr. Maye filed last week.”
“What…what are you talking about?” Orgeson sounded significantly less confident.
“I think you know perfectly well what I’m talking about, Dr. Orgeson. And before you point out that there weren’t any witnesses to your actual threats to Mr. Maye the night the Kempers and their friends surprised you, you might want to rethink that. Frank Câmara was here, and I don’t think he’s really the loyal sort. We have him on video slipping a euphoric into a minor’s drink—which may or may not have been on your orders, as part of your drug-testing program. Either way, I’m confident he’ll be happy to cut a deal to testify against you if the Yawata Crossing city attorney makes it worth his while.”
This time Orgeson only stared at him, and he smiled again, then waved at Lethbridge’s cruiser.
“Think you’ve got room for all of them in the back, Frank? Or should I go get my cruiser from the barn?”