Fire Season-eARC (21 page)

Anders forced a smile. He didn’t know when he’d last felt so tired, but for some reason the image of Stephanie Harrington kept coming to him. She’d saved Lionheart from the hexapuma
after
, not before, she’d broken her arm, seriously banged up her knee, and cracked a bunch of ribs when her hang glider had crashed in that storm. If Stephanie could do that, surely he could keep going when all he’d done was move some mud.

Inspired by this, he got Dr. Nez comfortable, then, leaving him under Dacey Emberly’s watch, he went to see what he could do to help with setting up camp. He found Dad—more or less clean now—arguing with Dr. Emberly.

“I think you’re overdoing it. Yes, we’re out of communication with base. Yes, we won’t be expected back until tomorrow—we were set to camp tonight, but eventually someone will come looking.”

“And where will they search?” came Dr. Emberly’s icy reply. “At various picketwood groves to the north—not here. I seem to recall you ‘overlooked’ telling them about your intention to stop here.”

Dad was temporarily silenced, then he said, “When they can’t find us, they’ll search for the air van. The crash beacon will bring them right to us.”

Anders—tired, fed-up, angry that Dad had taken time to change and get clean while others tried to help Langston, while poor old Dacey was sitting carefully over there so her counter-grav unit could be used to ease the injured man’s suffering—lost control. Forgetting everything he’d ever been taught about not embarrassing his parents in public, he exploded.

“Crash beacon! Crash beacon? There isn’t going to be any crash beacon. We didn’t crash. You landed us very neatly, right on the edge of a bog. The van sank very slowly. There was no crash to set the beacon off. No one is going to be able to find us because no one knows where to look—and it’s all your fault!”

Chapter Nine

“What do you mean, ‘they’re missing’?” Stephanie exclaimed.

Karl frowned. “I mean exactly what I said, Steph. You know Frank and Ainsley are both close friends of Uncle Scott. Well, they stopped by yesterday to update him on someone he’d treated for them—a hiker who slipped and broke a leg.”

I don’t care about any stupid hiker,
Stephanie thought.
Is Anders missing?

“Then Frank went on to say, ‘I wish there was some way we could ask everyone who leaves town to wear a tracking beacon. Chief Ranger Shelton hasn’t made an official announcement, but those off-planet anthropologists may have gone missing.’

“I came in then,” Karl went on. “I mean, this had to be Anders’ group, and I’ve gotten to like him. First I confirmed whether or not Anders was with his dad’s team. He was.”

A faint flicker of hope died in Stephanie’s breast. “Go on.”

“Then I got what details they’d give me—but I had to swear that I wouldn’t tell anyone but you. I think,” Karl grinned, “they knew you’d kill me if I didn’t tell you.”

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Go on, Karl, or I’ll do worse than kill you.”

“Okay. Here’s the short form. Four days ago, Dr. Whittaker logged that he and his crew—which included Anders and that older lady, the painter, Dacey Emberly—were going to view several picketwood groves north of Twin Forks, ones that, as far as anyone knows, have not been used by treecats. They were covering a wide region, since the idea was to lay in data about picketwood groves for later comparison to treecat dwellings.

“The trip was supposed to take two full days. That is, they would be back at their base on the evening of the second day. That evening, Peony Rose Iwamoto and Jon Qin—spouses of two of the crew members—commed Dr. Hobbard to ask if she knew where Dr. Whittaker’s crew was. Apparently, they’d tried to com the team and had not been able to make contact. These two were a little worried, but not panicked, since they weren’t certain how complete the Sphinx com-net is.”

“It bugs me,” Stephanie said, trying to sound normal, “how off-worlders seem to assume that because this is a colony planet, we’re primitive or something.”

“Yeah. Well, Dr. Hobbard said some stuff that calmed their worries, but she also got in touch with Chief Ranger Shelton. She went right to the top, because she didn’t want the newsies to get a hold of this and embarrass the Forestry Service.”

“Nice of her,” Stephanie said, but even her high opinion of Dr. Hobbard couldn’t stop a building sense of apprehension. “You say they were reported missing after only two days, but they’ve been missing four? What’s happened since?”

Karl raised a hand on which four fingers were extended, then folded down the first two. “Okay. Here’s the end of Day Two. Chief Ranger Shelton wouldn’t have been too worried, but he didn’t like the fact that the anthropologists hadn’t answered their uni-links. He himself went to the picketwood grove that should have been their last stop, but they weren’t there. There wasn’t any sign they’d been there.

“Without making a huge fuss, he couldn’t send search teams out—these areas were in different ecological zones, but still within a ‘night’ time zone, and sending out search parties would have raised the exact sort of fuss Dr. Hobbard hoped to avoid.”

Stephanie wanted to protest—after all, this was
Anders
they were talking about—but she forced herself to be rational.

“I suppose,” she said, “that Chief Ranger Shelton thought it was possible the anthropologists decided to go back to one of the other areas or something. Did they have camping gear with them?”

“They did. They planned to camp the one night rather than return to base.” Karl folded down his third finger. “On Day Three, Chief Ranger Shelton got a few tight-lipped rangers to check the various sites Dr. Whittaker had noted the team was going to inspect. They did. Again, there was no hint they’d ever been there. Seven people, even if trying for minimal impact, should have left something trained eyes could find.”

Karl folded down his fourth finger. “That takes us to today—Day Four. SFS is expanding the search now, checking along the flight path the anthropologists would have taken going out to the first site, then between the sites. They’re figuring that the air van must have gone down somewhere in there.”

“They think the van crashed?” Stephanie said. “No. That wouldn’t work. If the van crashed, then a beacon would have gone off immediately. I bet even the junker Jessica pilots has a crash beacon—and it’s really old model.”

Karl nodded. “I asked about that. Frank said they’re operating on the theory that the van didn’t crash. They’re figuring that the team landed it safely, but somehow did something to disable the van so they couldn’t take off again.”

“What would they do that would disable the van and its com-unit?” Stephanie protested. “And their uni-links?”

Karl grinned, but it was a tired grin. “‘You get your Sherlock Holmes badge,’ to quote what Frank said when I asked the same questions. No one knows what could have happened to the com-unit—although there has been speculation that the van suffered a complete electronics failure. However, we do have a solution to the Mystery of the Uni-Links.”

“Oh?”

“Both Peony Rose Iwamoto and John Qin had uni-links to match those being used by Dr. Whittaker’s crew. Chief Ranger Shelton had these checked over. Turns out that Dr. Whittaker’s crew is using units manufactured off-world. The operating system worked fine when it only needed to mesh with the local com-net. However, it’s all wrong for longer distances. Basically, it won’t link to the correct programs in the communication satellites. The crew had experienced a few minor problems already, but since they were mostly communicating with members of their own team who were local, maybe making a few calls to SFS personnel and Dr. Hobbard, they worked around them.”

“Let me guess,” Stephanie said. “The anthropologists probably figured the problem had nothing to do with their uni-links, but everything to do with the primitive systems on this colony world of ours. Right?”

Karl gave a rueful sigh. “I didn’t ask, but I bet you’re right. It would explain why the two family members didn’t think it completely odd when they couldn’t reach the team. Communications blackouts would have been a familiar problem.”

“If they’d been here just a little longer,” Stephanie said, “they would have realized something was wrong. Anders was starting to hang out with us.…All it would have taken was him trying to com his dad and not getting through and us telling him it wasn’t normal…”

“Irina’s always quoting some old poem about how the saddest words are ‘it might have been,’” Karl interrupted her. “Fact is, Dr. Whittaker took his crew out—and something happened. Since it’s unlikely that he went somewhere other than the areas he indicated—I mean, they wouldn’t be so stupid as to risk SFS goodwill by going to look for Lionheart’s clan or something—the search is concentrating on the region north of Twin Forks, up to the foothills of the Copperwall Mountains.”

Already considering herself part of the search, Stephanie called up a map on her uni-link.

“The search isn’t going to be easy,” she said, holding the uni-link out so Karl could look at the map with her. “There’s some rough terrain in there.”

“Yeah,” Karl agreed. “That’s actually why the anthropological team chose the area in the first place. Because of the rise and fall of the mountains there—and that large river—there are a lot of ecosystems represented in a relatively compact area. Problem is, while the map shows the area as a couple hundred square kilometers, when you take into account all the dips and rises, what the search parties need to deal with is actually closer to twice or three times as much area.”

“Including a river,” Stephanie said. She pulled up details on it. “Large and fast-moving. You don’t think they landed the van in the river somehow?”

Karl’s expression became grim. “I don’t think even the most absent-minded scientist could do that, but if they did, the end result isn’t worth thinking about. They’d be gone and no one would find them, not in a million years.”

*
 
*
 
*

Climbs Quickly tasted the spike of anxiety and fear in Death Fang’s Bane’s mind-glow as Shadowed Sunlight talked. He felt his usual bud of frustration since none of the mouth noises gave him any indication of what the problem was. Once or twice, he heard the sound “Anders”—a sound which he thought applied to the bright-haired young male his two-leg was so interested in. However, since she often made this noise lately, Climbs Quickly couldn’t be certain that Bleached Fur was involved in whatever the problem might be.

As he was trying to piece together what might be wrong, Death Fang’s Bane’s newest friend, Windswept—as Climbs Quickly had dubbed the girl, both in tribute to her physical appearance and the changeable surges of her bright mind-glow—came trotting over to join Shadowed Sunlight and Death Fang’s Bane. The wild-haired girl had visited Death Fang’s Bane quite a bit lately, as had a female Climbs Quickly was fairly certain was Windswept’s mother.

Although Windswept could not read mind-glows, the new arrival was apparently aware of the tension. She asked a question. In reply, both Death Fang’s Bane and Shadowed Sunlight began talking rapidly, their mouth noises overlapping each other in a manner that Climbs Quickly wondered if anyone ever found confusing. However, whatever was being said, one thing became clear: whatever was wrong was centered on Bleached Fur. Death Fang’s Bane’s mind-glow as she explained matters to Windswept became shaded with a level of dread that was distinctly unsettling.

Climbs Quickly was certain this feeling was rooted in something real, not in those wild surges of emotion that filled Death Fang’s Bane whenever the young man was near. For one thing, Shadowed Sunlight and Windswept were also both disturbed.

Climbs Quickly was not in the least surprised when Death Fang’s Bane turned to him. Most of her mouth noises as she spoke to him were incomprehensible, but he caught two he recognized: “Go” and “Anders.” These, combined with the urgency in her mind-glow, were all he needed to know.

They were going to do something about this “Anders” problem, and his two-leg wanted him along.

“Bleek!” Climbs Quickly replied, scampering ahead in the direction of Shadowed Sunlight’s air car. “Bleek! Bleek!”

*
 
*
 
*

For Anders, the days since the crash had been a blur of cascading emergencies. Once the crew had accepted that they couldn’t hope for rescue any earlier than two or three days from now, there had been a round of blame-slinging.

Anders knew his own angry explosion had triggered this, so he felt guilty when Dr. Whittaker diverted the issue by tossing around some blame of his own.

“And, why,” Dr. Whittaker said to the air in his best “professor questioning the class” tone, “aren’t our uni-links working?”

He glowered generally, but it was Virgil Iwamoto who wilted. As junior member of the crew, he had been responsible for assembling much of the gear.

“We did notice a few problems before,” he began hesitantly, “but they didn’t seem to matter much, since we’d have the on-vehicle unit.”

That
had been the wrong thing to say. Dr. Whittaker hadn’t been married for nearly twenty years to a politician without knowing that disapproval worked far more efficiently than anger in reigning in subordinates. He ignored the question of the vehicle and focused on the uni-links.

“You should have looked into having the problem fixed or substitute units purchased as soon as the problem first showed,” he stated in a manner that brooked no argument—and how could Virgil argue? What Dr. Whittaker said was correct.

Then came the question of where to set up their camp. They weren’t high enough in the Copperwall Mountains for peak bears to be a problem, but the highly adaptable hexapumas could not be ignored—especially since their only weapons were utilitarian vibro-blades and a single tranq rifle with only one clip of darts. That meant setting up camp in the trees, and
that
, as far as Dr. Whittaker was concerned, meant finding a location that would not contaminate his beloved site.

Again, arguing was useless. There was no overlooking the fact that when they were found, Dr. Whittaker was going to have a certain amount of fast-talking to do if the expedition’s relationship with the SFS was to be salvaged. Damage to the treecat site would only complicate matters.