A Beautiful Friendship-ARC (18 page)

He was starting to get into waters Stephanie still understood only imperfectly, but she knew where he was headed. In order to encourage immigration following the Plague’s dreadful death toll, the new Manticoran Parliament had offered land credits to people who would move to Manticore or Sphinx from another star system. The land they’d offered was equal in value to the cost of a starship ticket to the Star Kingdom, and they’d offered bonuses for people with special skills, like her own parents. Those who could afford to buy their tickets on their own received their full land credit when they arrived, and those who could afford part of the price of their tickets received a land credit equal to the amount of their tickets which they’d been able to pay. Those who couldn’t afford tickets at all without the government’s help were known as “zero-balancers,” because they’d arrived having expended their full land credit simply getting there.

Her own parents had been able to pay almost the full cost of their passage. They’d used a little more of their land credit to finance the construction of their home and invest in the equipment their professions required, but they’d still had a comfortable balance, which they’d taken in the land that made up their freehold. They weren’t like some of what were already being called the “second-wave aristocrats”—people who’d not only been able to pay for their tickets but to buy huge chunks of additional land on arrival—but they had solid “yeoman” status, which meant they’d received the right to vote one Manticoran year (roughly twenty-one T-months) after their arrival. Zero-balancers, however, wouldn’t receive the franchise until they’d become well enough established to pay taxes for five consecutive Manticoran years. Which meant that at the moment perhaps as much as forty or even fifty percent of the total population of Sphinx was nonvoting and had no voice in the policies of their planetary or system governments.

“I don’t know how the first-wave colonists are going to feel about all this, especially if it turns out there are even more treecats out there than anyone thinks at this point,” her father continued. “What I do know is that right this minute, if it’s left solely up to the local government to decide what happens, what kind of long-term policy is set where the treecats are concerned, we’re talking about a relatively small number of people. It wouldn’t take a lot of them deciding to get together to push policy in the direction they want it to go. That’s why it’s so important we get off on the right foot with them from the very beginning.”

15

“Do I really have to go, Dad?” Stephanie asked somberly, and Richard Harrington turned to look at her thoughtfully.

“You don’t want to? I thought you sounded pretty enthusiastic when Mayor Sapristos first suggested the idea.”

“Yeah, but that was then, and . . .”

Stephanie’s voice trailed off, and Lionheart made a soft, distressed sound from her shoulder. She reached up to touch his ears, radiating apology for the bleakness of her mood, but she couldn’t help it. It was less than three T-weeks since Arvid Ehrhardt’s body had been found in a crashed air car. That would have been bad enough, but then had come the shattering news that it hadn’t been an accident. That Ehrhardt had been murdered . . . by the same person who had done her best to kill off an entire group of treecats just to cover up some stupid mistake! The Forestry Service and the Crown investigators had finally released their preliminary report yesterday, and it was even worse than she’d thought it was.

In fact, it made her physically sick to her stomach just thinking about it. It would have been horrible enough if the treecats really were “only animals.” Only they weren’t. She
knew
that, but how did she make everyone
else
understand it? At the moment, she didn’t seem to be able to work up a whole lot of enthusiasm even for hang gliding.

“I’m not going to try to make you do something you don’t want to,” her father said. “You’re fourteen now, and that’s certainly old enough to make your own mind up about something like this. I would like to point out two things, though. First, you told Mayor Sapristos you’d be there, and you’re one of the people he was counting on as a flight leader. Second, you don’t spend a lot of time with other kids your age to begin with. This would be an opportunity for you to do that . . . and also for Lionheart to spend some time ‘in public.’ ” He met her eyes levelly. “After what’s happened, getting him out where he can make a good impression on other people probably won’t hurt when everyone starts debating how the government and the Forestry Service should respond to it.”

Stephanie nodded, although the truth was that the reason she didn’t “spend a lot of time” with other kids her age was because she didn’t get along very well with most of them. Especially not with two or three whose names came readily to mind. On the other hand, her father had a point. In fact, a pretty good one, she admitted grudgingly.

“All right, Dad. You’re right. Let me go get my glider.”

* * *

“And don’t get into trouble,” Richard Harrington said sternly as Stephanie climbed out of the air car and opened the cargo compartment to get at her hang glider.

“Get into trouble?
Me?
” Stephanie looked up with her very best wide-eyed “butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth” look. Lionheart did his best to radiate the same total innocence as he sat on her shoulder, but her father wasn’t fooled.

“Yes, you.
Both
of you, as a matter of fact.” He shook his head, then waved an index finger under Lionheart’s nose. “I realize you’re actually a moderating influence on this young terror, but I don’t have the liveliest faith in either of you when it comes to finding trouble to get into. I haven’t forgotten the way you two
met
, you know!”

Despite her intention to maintain the image of dutiful daughter meekly absorbing parental decrees, Stephanie rolled her eyes. By her current estimate, she’d be forty-two before her parents stopped using that particular phrase. Fortunately, her father only snorted in amusement when he saw her expression. Then his own expression sobered.

“Seriously, Steph,” he said, resting one hand on the shoulder not occupied by Lionheart. “Remember people are watching you and Lionheart and don’t—”

“And don’t forget they still haven’t made their minds up about whether or not treecats are ‘safe,’ ” Stephanie finished for him, and nodded. “I understand, Dad. And so does Lionheart.”

“I know you do,” her father said. “But just remember that that’s even more important than usual. Whether or not you’re going to be allowed to take Lionheart all the places you want to take him is going to depend mostly on how other human beings—and especially
adult
human beings, I’m afraid—regard him. If they decide he’s just some kind of a pet, or even worse that he’s some kind of
dangerous
pet, there’s no telling what kind of restrictions the two of you could end up facing. Not to mention what it could mean for getting treecats genuinely accepted as a sentient species. Clear?”

“Clear,” Stephanie replied in a considerably more serious tone, and he gave her a smile.

“Good! In that case,” he climbed back into the air car and waved in the general direction of the people on the far side of the grassy field, “have fun.”

* * *

The truth was, Stephanie reflected as the Harrington air car lifted away and she and Lionheart started across the field towards the others, that even though she was genuinely looking forward to showing off her new hang-glider, she
wasn’t
looking forward to this little effort, after all. Or not to the guest list, at least.
All
the other invitees weren’t that bad, but there were some, like Trudy Franchitti and Stan Chang
. . .

Unfortunately, there was no way to back out of it without its looking like that was exactly what she’d done. And Dad was right about all the reasons it was important to win acceptance for Lionheart. So when Mayor Sapristos invited her to join the flying club being organized by the graduates of the hang-gliding lessons he and Dr. Harrington had been teaching for the last T-year or so, she’d agreed with the proviso that she’d like to bring Lionheart along. To his credit, Mr. Sapristos hadn’t even hesitated, although Stephanie wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d really wished she hadn’t brought the treecat up.

“Well,” she told Lionheart quietly as they approached the others, “I guess we’re about to find out whether it was a good idea or not, aren’t we?”

“Bleek,” Lionheart replied, equally quietly, and she chuckled as she reached up to rub his ears.

* * *

Climbs Quickly wasn’t certain exactly why he and his two-leg were here, and that made him feel fidgety inside. She was carrying her folding flying thing over her free shoulder, but that didn’t worry him any longer. It
had
made him more than a little nervous, whether or not he’d wanted to admit it, the first time she’d taken her flying with him. The last time she’d gone flying before that—without benefit of her parents’ bigger, metal flying thing, at least—hadn’t worked out all that well, after all.

Yet any concern he might have cherished had long since disappeared, and it was obvious her earlier, disastrous flight wasn’t causing
her
any qualms. Which was interesting, because she definitely did have qualms about
something
. He knew where the darkness he’d tasted within her mind-glow for the last few hands of days had come from, and a fresh wave of grief flowed through him, as well, as he thought about what had happened to Bright Heart Clan. Yet that had become a familiar taste, and this sense of . . . trepidation was different. Sharper and more distinct. From the frustratingly fragmented echoes of thought filtering through her mind-glow to him, a lot of it was bound up somehow with the other younglings waiting for them. For some reason, she clearly felt it was important for both of them to win those others’ acceptance . . . despite which, she seemed to have profound reservations about her ability to do so. That puzzled him, and he felt his ears pricking as he reached out to sample
their
mind-glows.

He couldn’t taste them as completely as he could
his
two-leg’s mind-glow. But what he could taste was . . . different. Just as bright as hers, in many ways, but not as strong. Not as . . . powerful. Or was the concept he was truly reaching for “focused”? He couldn’t have described it any more clearly than that even to another of the People, but the difference was as pronounced as it was subtle. Yet even as he thought that, he tasted a sudden swirl in his two-leg’s emotions and their normal brilliance took on a distinctly muddy tinge. If “focus”
was
the right concept, it was as if her mind-glow was becoming
un
focused, for some reason.

Why are we here, I wonder, if she dislikes these other younglings so much? But, no, that is not exactly it, either. She is . . . uncomfortable with them
. Climbs Quickly considered that as the two of them approached the others.
It is more than just discomfort
, he decided
. She is
uncertain
Even afraid, perhaps?

The thought surprised him. One thing his two-leg very seldom was was uncertain. In fact, Climbs Quickly had come to the conclusion that while she might occasionally be
wrong
, she would
never
be uncertain. In that respect, at least, she was still very, very young, which he actually found rather endearing, all things considered. In this case, though, there was no other way to describe what she felt. Which confused him more than a little. It was almost as if she doubted her ability to function with these other younglings, and that was silly. She was clearly more capable than they, and from the taste of their mind-glows,
they
realized she was, as well. In fact, there was more than a little resentment from some of them. Well, that wasn’t unheard of among the People, either, especially among the young, but—

But she is mind-blind
, he thought suddenly. He’d known that all along, and he’d thought he’d considered its implications Now he realized he hadn’t really come close to truly considering them.
She cannot taste their mind-glows, which means she must fumble towards understanding them like one trying to run along a cross-branch when he cannot even see the sun, far less where he is going
. The sheer bizarreness of that inability made him abruptly and jarringly aware of the differences between the People and the two-legs in an entirely new way.
How do the poor things manage even to
survive,
much less grow up?

He understood now—partly, at least—why his two-leg’s father had seemed so concerned before he sent them off. Just as the People had been worried, even frightened, by the two-legs, the two-legs might be worried about the People. The idea seemed ridiculous, given the difference in their sizes and the many marvelous tools the two-legs had developed, yet as he considered what the People had done to the death fang he’d fought, he could see how these poor clawless, fangless two-legs might be excused for feeling at least a little nervous. And if his two-leg got into a quarrel with one of these other younglings—a distinct possibility, judging from the taste of their mind-glows and hers, he thought glumly—they might well be worried about what could happen if
he
took a hand in it. Not that Climbs Quickly would ever dream of harming one of them . . . unless he actually
threatened
Climbs Quickly’s two-leg, that was.

Still, he wasn’t tasting any special fear from the younglings—yet, at least. The older two-leg who was obviously in charge didn’t taste
fearful
, either, although there was a tart, sharp-tasting edge of wariness in his mind-glow. What Climbs Quickly tasted most clearly from the younglings, however, was a confused, bubbling mixture of curiosity, fascination, envy, desire, jealousy, and wonder. The stew of emotions was impossible for him to sort out, yet there seemed to be nothing immediately threatening about it, and he reminded himself to be on his best behavior.

* * *

“Stephanie! Glad you could make it!” Mr. Sapristos said.

“Thank you, sir,” Stephanie replied. “Sorry I haven’t been around for classes lately. But what with everybody who wants to ask questions about Lionheart and everything, especially in the last couple of weeks . . .”