Fire Season-eARC (33 page)

I’m hallucinating,
he thought.
That’s Karl’s car and that truck…It’s full of treecats?

The car was moving forward now, heading in their direction. Trusting Virgil and Kesia to deal with the swamp siren, Anders waved his hands over his head, then held both palms out, pushing back, trying to remember what Lionheart’s gesture for “stop” had been. Whether or not Anders had remembered it right, Karl caught on. The car stopped and doors flew open.

Meanwhile, from the bed of the truck came a boiling mass of treecats. Stephanie Harrington was with them, running hard. She was dressed in a fire-suit, but the headpiece was down and her short curly hair flew wild about her face. As she ran, she was ripping open the front of her suit, digging inside toward her shoulder, and emerging with a really lethal-looking handgun.

By this time, the swamp siren had succeeded in a combination of shredding and tossing that had effectively rid it of the encumbering bedroll. However, the sound of the arriving vehicles had distracted it. Lacking a turtle’s long neck, it had to turn partially around to see what was going on behind it.

“Stiff motion,” Dr. Calida was muttering, probably, Anders realized, into a recorder. “Could there be armoring under there? Note alteration of growths on head; from relatively tight knots, they’ve expanded, revealing multi-colored clusters.”

Anders shouted toward the shore. “Don’t come out here. Dad thought it was a meadow and landed our ’van, but it’s actually a bog. We’re on a pretty solid spot, but…”

He didn’t have the strength to explain that he worried that even taking the air car over the bog might disrupt their fragile island.

Stephanie called back. “Right! What
is
that thing?”

“All I know,” Anders said, talking as fast as he could in case Dr. Calida decided to go all zoological, “is that it thinks we’re edible and that it doesn’t like loud noises. Oh…And it has lots of teeth.”

“I see that.” Stephanie had been holding the handgun—which looked far too big for her—as if she’d like to get a shot off. “I’d try to hit it, but, well…”

Virgil cut in quickly. “If you don’t mind, I’ve heard you’re a killer shot, but we’re right on the other side of that thing…If you miss or it ducks…”

Stephanie nodded. “I know.”

Anders saw her cast around for an angle from which she could get a shot without endangering anyone. The bog stretched out on all sides, effectively hemming them in. Stephanie would need to run a fair distance and even then might not find a clear line of fire.

While talking to Stephanie, Anders had noticed who was with her. Karl was there, of course, and with him Toby. The truck had been piloted by Chet, who now hurried up, hand in hand with Christine. Jessica was there, too, but she hadn’t moved from the back of the truck. Neither had one of the treecats.

Meanwhile, the other treecats—Anders recognized Lionheart by virtue of his scars—were lining up along the edge of the bog. There were a lot of them. A whole clan, he guessed.

Behind him, Anders heard his father burrowing through the gear and realized to his embarrassment that Dr. Whittaker was searching for their best camera.

The center of the treecat line was a very fat and fluffy brown-and-white treecat. Despite the fact that she waddled when she moved, there was an enormous dignity to her that told anyone watching that she was a person of importance.

As far as Anders could see, the treecat leader made no gesture of direction, but at exactly the same moment all the adult treecats, as well as a few of the larger kittens, began to sing.

“Sing” might not have been the exactly right word for it. The sound was more like classic caterwauling. Anders didn’t just hear it with his ears, he felt it in his bones. His eardrums ached and he stretched his jaw to take off the pressure. Behind him, still sitting protectively by Dr. Nez, the treecat who had first warned them of the swamp siren added a shrill piping note to the chorus.

For chorus it was, a chorus evidently created to home in on the auditory sensitivity of the swamp siren and hit it where it hurt.

It doesn’t feel so good here, either,
Anders thought watching the swamp siren contract, pull back, and dive back beneath the murky surface of the bog,
but I think it just might be the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard.

From the satisfied reaction of “their” treecat, those gathered on the hummock had no doubt that the swamp siren was gone.

“I suppose,” Dr. Calida said a touch wistfully, “that they gave it the mother of all migraines.” She brightened. “Still, I did get some footage. What remarkable creatures!”

This last was said with a fond smile for the treecat who—just in case the humans hadn’t gotten the point—was now motioning toward the shore.

Anders bent heavily to help raise Langston’s stretcher, then he remembered.

“Stephanie! We’re out of juice for our counter-grav units. Can we sync with your vehicle’s broadcast power?”

“You bet!” came the welcome reply. “Go for it.”

So it was with light hands, as well as light hearts, that Anders and Virgil carried Langston Nez back to the shore. Stephanie hurried over to help.

“What’s the problem?” she asked.

Anders explained. “We think he got mud particles in his lungs, but by now he’s also dehydrated and weak from lack of nourishment. We’ve gotten a little water into him, but he hasn’t had anything to eat for five days.”

Stephanie nodded. “Slide him up into the bed of the truck next to Jessica and Valiant. The kit Dad set up for us is pretty good. We can at least get Dr. Nez on fluids. And we’ll go directly to Twin Forks and get him to a doctor.”

Karl came up. “I called. Uncle Scott’s at Twin Forks on stand-by in case there are any bad casualties from the fire. He said he’d drop everything when we got Dr. Nez there.”

“Great…” Anders felt himself tearing up and looked away so that Karl and Stephanie wouldn’t see. He saw Dr. Calida helping Dacey into the back of Karl’s air car. Kesia was nearby, her very useful overnight bag dangling from one arm, her head tilted back so she could look up into the picketwood where the treecats—now that the emergency was over—sat, staring down at her with equal interest.

“Where’s Dad?” Anders asked, even as he knew.

Dr. Whittaker remained alone out on the island in the middle of the bog, surrounded by his cases of artifacts. Now that the crisis was over, he seemed unaware that there were real living, breathing treecats within a few meters.

Seeing Anders turn his way Dad bellowed, “Well, aren’t you going to help me with this? Certainly you can’t complain anymore now that we have counter-grav.”

Anders exchanged a glance with Virgil, then called, “We’re on our way.”

“We’ll help,” Chet said, his words clearly including all the rescuers.

“We will,” Stephanie said and something in her brown eyes made Anders realize that she’d guessed at least part of what he’d gone through—and pitied him.

Chapter Fifteen

A full day and a half had passed since Stephanie and her friends had rescued both the treecats and the Whittaker party. They’d gotten Langston Nez to Scott MacDallan, then reported in. The focus on fighting the fires had kept almost everything from being resolved. In fact, about the only thing Stephanie was sure of was that she and Karl weren’t being ousted from the SFS.

Now, an assortment of interested parties were gathering at the Harrington residence to catch up on the details and deal with a few unresolved points.

“Langston Nez is dehydrated and suffering from malnutrition,” Scott MacDallan said as he, Fisher, Irina, and Karl joined those already in the Harringtons’ large living room. “However, we were able to siphon out the garbage in his lungs. The level of immunization before his arrival kept pneumonia from setting in. If he wishes, he should be able to do deskwork in about a week. I’d say he could be cleared for light field work within two.”

Stephanie sighed in relief. Somehow a lot of the shine of their rescue of Dr. Whittaker and his associates would have diminished if Dr. Nez hadn’t made it—and, if there had been a fatality, it would have been nearly impossible for Dr. Whittaker to retain his role as Crown consultant.

She looked over at Dr. Hobbard, who had brought out Dr. Emberly, Dacey Emberly, and, best of all, Anders. The other members of the expedition had also been invited, but Kesia and Virgil were both making up time with their spouses, and Dr. Whittaker…

“Dr. Hobbard,” Stephanie said, “what’s going to happen with Dr. Whittaker? Do you know?”

Dr. Hobbard looked thoughtful. “Right before coming out here, I had a quick meeting with Chief Ranger Shelton. We’re all in a tough position.”

She looked apologetically at the Emberlys and Anders. “May I speak frankly?”

“Do,” Anders said before the two adults could. “You can’t possibly say anything worse about my dad than I’m already thinking.”

Anders had been widely praised by almost every member of the expedition for how he had kept a clear head when almost everyone else was flustered. Kesia Guyen had gone as far as to say that without him and Dr. Nez, they likely wouldn’t have made it.

For someone who was being lauded as a hero, Anders didn’t look very happy. In fact, he looked so miserable that Stephanie had to fight back an impulse to go over and wrap her arms around him.

She fought back a blush. Anders might get the wrong idea—or, worse, the right one. And what would she do if he pushed her away?

Lionheart, however, had no such qualms. He leapt lightly up next to the young man and patted him reassuringly on the arm. Stephanie knew Lionheart had turned on his best soothing rumble. Anders visibly relaxed.

At this latest display of treecat/human interaction, Dr. Hobbard looked as if she wanted to stop and take notes, but she continued speaking with only the slightest pause.

“Our first impulse was to ask Dr. Whittaker to leave. However, he and his team arrived with enough fanfare that we couldn’t do that without publicizing a reason. If the truth came out, both the reputations of the Forestry Service and of Landing University would suffer. We could try and hold back the full story, but enough people were involved that it’s likely the truth would leak out.”

“I believe,” Dr. Emberly said, “you could count on the members of the expedition to keep quiet. I know that Kesia has spoken to John and he’s agreed to drop the lawsuit he was contemplating. Peony Rose and Virgil have too much resting on their association with Dr. Whittaker to want to make trouble. Mother and I…Well, we came through intact, and I’ve been credited with the discovery of a new species. It’s already beginning to seem like a wonderful adventure.”

She smiled with satisfaction. The informal name “Sphinxian swamp siren” was already in use among the few informed parties. Remembering how good she had felt when her term “treecat” had been accepted, Stephanie understood the smile.

“It’s good to know the newsies won’t get much from you,” Dr. Hobbard said. “As to Dr. Whittaker…His behavior was not the best. However, he didn’t do anything that harmed any Sphinxian native. There was some discussion of asking him to leave, of putting Dr. Nez in charge, but Dr. Nez lacks Dr. Whittaker’s academic reputation. So a compromise has been suggested. Dr. Whittaker will be permitted to remain, but only if he and possibly the members of his expedition agree to carry tracking beacons with them whenever they leave their residence.”

“I think I could agree to that,” Dr. Emberly said, glancing at her mother.

Dacey nodded. “As long as I’m not tracked when I’m at home, I’m fine. Actually, after what we’ve been through, I’d be happy to know I could be found.”

Anders nodded agreement. “I don’t think I ever realized just how big a planet could be until after we went down and I started thinking about how hard it would be for even an intensive search to find us.”

Dr. Hobbard nodded. “That’s good. Hopefully, the rest of your associates will feel the same way. Meanwhile, when we have time, we’re going to come up with a variation on events that will be close enough to reality to work. Stephanie, just how many of your friends know how Dr. Whittaker’s group ended up in the wrong place?”

“Just me and Karl,” Stephanie said. “Anders told us later.”

“Good. Right now the planned cover story is something like this. Dr. Whittaker and his group were heading out for their assigned locations but decided to divert to take some pictures of the site for comparison. They landed in the bog and the rest is history.”

“That should work,” Dr. Emberly agreed. “It’s close enough to the truth. The only thing it leaves out is that Dr. Whittaker intended to do a bit more than take a few pictures. If you leak out the fact that he was enough of a rube to land on a bog, that we didn’t even have the right uni-link programs, well, we’ll come across as laughable, but not willfully arrogant.”

“Which Dad was,” Anders said. He turned to face Dr. Hobbard. “I mean, how do you deal with that?”

“We deal with it,” Dr. Hobbard said, “by adding a few members to your team. The Forestry Service is still stretched thin with fire watch, but I think a couple of probationary rangers would be happy to help with the first couple of shifts.”

Stephanie felt herself flushing with excitement. Spend days with Anders? Watch anthropologists and how they studied cultures. Do a lot of camping?

“I’d love it!” she said.

“Me, too,” Karl agreed. “I’ll need to talk with my folks, though.”

Stephanie glanced at her parents. “Uh, me too.”

But, judging from their expressions, Dr. Hobbard had already spoken with the Harringtons and they were open to the idea.

“Calida, I want to ask you about that swamp siren,” Dr. Hobbard said. “Why do you think the treecats would choose to live near something so horrible? It’s evident they knew it was there.”

“Well,” Dr. Emberly said, “I’d guess they didn’t have much choice, not if they wanted to take advantage of the bog. There’s plenty of advantage to such a location: rich soil that grows a wide variety of edible plants, fishing, good hunting. So, I figure they simply avoided the deeper areas where the swamp siren lived.”