A Beautiful Friendship-ARC (20 page)

“
You
seem to have found them,” Trudy observed with what sounded remarkably like a hint of petulance.

“Maybe.” Stephanie shrugged. “On the other hand, like I already said, it was sheer luck I met Lionheart here the first time. And the
second
time . . . well, let’s just say I’d recommend a less traumatic way of making friends with somebody.”

“Yeah, we’ve
all
heard about you and the hexapuma.” Trudy rolled her eyes. “My dad says anybody who really ends up face-to-face with a hexapuma’s gonna get eaten.”

“He said that, did he?” It was Stephanie’s turn to cock her head, and she realized her own tone had become cooler.

This wasn’t the first time she’d heard similar remarks, although it was the first time someone had said them directly to her . . . and deliberately implied that it hadn’t really happened. It was the first time they’d come from someone her own age, too, and she was surprised by how much more infuriating that made it. Why in the world was she letting
Trudy Franchitti
, of all people, get to her?

“He’s hunted hexapuma, you know,” Trudy said, and if Stephanie’s tone had cooled, Trudy’s had sharpened. “
He
says anybody a hexapuma catches on the ground without a gun or something is dead meat.”

There was a certain undeniable relish in the way he Trudy said the last two words, and Stephanie made herself pause before she fired back at the other girl.

She supposed she couldn’t blame people for being astonished by her survival. For that matter,
she
was still astonished by it, and she knew Lionheart and the other treecats were the only reason she was alive today. Still, she wasn’t accustomed to people doubting her honesty. Besides, the Forestry Service had been out and photographed the carcass exactly where her parents had told them they’d find it. So just how did Ms. Trudy Franchitti think that hexapuma had ended up dead?

“Well,
I
didn’t have a gun,” she said after a moment. “Guess I was lucky Lionheart and his friends came along when I needed them, wasn’t I?”

“I guess,” Trudy said a bit snippily, then shook herself. “But that’s my point. If they ‘came along’ for you, then why shouldn’t they come along for somebody else?”

“Like you?” Stephanie could have bitten her tongue as soon as the two-word question was out of her mouth, but it was too late, and Trudy’s blue eyes flashed.

“I don’t see why
not
. I mean, I’ve made lots of pets. I’ve got two chipmunks and a near-otter right now!”

Stephanie’s jaw muscles tightened. It was moments like this when she was convinced Trudy was really only about nine T-years old, whatever her birth certificate (or physical assets) might claim. She knew all about that near-otter of Trudy’s, and if she could have figured out a way to liberate the poor creature, she’d have done it in a heartbeat. And she also knew Trudy hadn’t captured the beast in the first place; that had been her older brother, Ralph, who ranked even lower on the intellectual food chain than she did.

Hard as it was at this moment to believe that
anyone
could plumb such deep and dark ocean depths.

“Lionheart isn’t a
pet
, Trudy,” she said as calmly as she could.

She began collapsing her glider, hoping Trudy would take the hint and go elsewhere. She didn’t expect to be that lucky, though, and her heart sank as she realized most of the others had landed by now and quite a few of them seemed to be gathering around her and Trudy. Stan Chang, Becky Morowitz, and Frank Câmara had ranged themselves behind Trudy, which was hardly surprising, given Stan’s attitude where Trudy was concerned and the fact that all four of them were buddies. Chet Pontier and Christine Schroeder were trying to pretend they weren’t eavesdropping on the conversation, as well, but they weren’t very good actors. Worse, at least some of the spectators seemed to be edging closer to listen in as well.

“Oh, sure, we
all
know he isn’t a
pet
,” Trudy said, rolling her eyes much more dramatically than before. “He just
looks
like a pet, right?”

Walk away, Stephanie
, a little voice which sounded remarkably like her mother’s said in the back of Stephanie’s brain.
Walk away. The last thing you need is to get into this kind of a discussion with a mental featherweight like Trudy
.

“Really?” she heard herself say instead, glancing up from the glider she was folding in upon itself. “That’s what he looks like to you, is it?”

“Of course it is!” Trudy grimaced. “
My
dad was
born
on Sphinx, you know, just like me. We’ve been here
forever
. . . unlike some people. And
he
says it’s ridiculous to think anything as small as
that
”—she jabbed her hand in Lionheart’s direction—“has enough body mass to support a real
brain
. Everybody knows
that
.”

“Then I suggest your dad point that out to all of the xeno-biologists and xeno-anthropologists who’re lining up to meet Lionheart,” Stephanie replied. “I don’t think most of them share his opinion.”

“Are you calling my father
stupid
?” Trudy demanded with one of those dazzling shifts of subject Stephanie had never understood. “Is that what you’re saying? That my father doesn’t know what he’s talking about?”

“No, I’m not calling your father stupid,” Stephanie said. After all, her parents had always taught her to be polite. “I’m just saying he hasn’t had the opportunity to actually meet Lionheart. If he’s relying on what other people have told him, they might’ve gotten some of it mixed up.”

“They certainly did
not
!” Trudy snapped. “We’ve talked to the rangers, too, you know. And if they’re so smart, why did so many of them get killed last month? Didn’t sound very ‘
smart
’ to me!”

A flash of pure, distilled rage went through Stephanie. She felt it singing in her blood, quivering in her muscles.

“It wasn’t the
treecats
who weren’t smart, Trudy,” she heard herself say. “It was humans. It was that Dr. Ubel and her
stupid
experiment! If she’d had—”

Stephanie chopped herself off, shaking her head sharply, and Trudy sneered.

“If she’d had as many brains as
you
do? Is
that
what you were going to say?” she demanded, and laughed scornfully. “You
do
think you’re such hot stuff, don’t you? You think everybody thinks you’re so
special
, you and ‘
Lionheart
.’ Well you’re not. My dad says he’ll be happy to get me a treecat of my
own
if I want one!”

“And just how does he plan to accomplish that?” Stephanie demanded, turning on Trudy with a fierce frown. The anger Trudy had already managed to fan roared suddenly higher, fanned into a furnace by the suggestion of a threat to the treecats.

“Wouldn’t you like to
know
?” Trudy shot back with a nasty smile. “Let’s just say he and Ralph have been hunting here on Sphinx longer than your entire
family’s
been on Sphinx.”

“And never even
saw
a treecat in all that time, did they?” Stephanie fired back with a sweet smile that was even nastier than Trudy’s. “Doesn’t say much for their tracking skills, does it?”

“They’ll find them now that they know what to look for!” Trudy’s eyes glittered. “Now that
you’ve
found them, I’m sure other people can, don’t you think?”

A torrent of pure, white fury boiled up inside Stephanie, and she felt her right hand balling into a serviceable fist. The possibility that someone who wanted to hurt the treecats might follow up her own experience, figure out where to find them from some clue
she
provided, was her worst nightmare.

“After all,” Trudy continued, not even trying to hide her pleasure at having provoked Stephanie’s anger, “a real hunter knows how to find any dumb animal he’s hunting for. I guess the trick would be figuring out how to bring one back alive instead of just shooting or poisoning it. But practice makes perfect, and I’m sure they’ll get it right . . . eventually.”

* * *

Climbs Quickly tasted the red-fanged fury as it boiled up in his two-leg’s mind-glow. His inability to make any sense out of the mouth-sounds going back and forth was maddening, but he didn’t have to be able to understand the sounds to realize from the echoes that at least part of them concerned him, somehow. Or that much of his two-leg’s anger stemmed from her desire to protect him. Yet there was more to it, as well, and he didn’t have to understand
everything
to know at least generally what was going on.

The People were no strangers to the sudden, often irrational anger to which younglings of a certain age were prone. In fact, it was almost reassuring to discover the same thing happened among two-legs. It made them seem less alien and strange, somehow. Of course, two-legs were mind-blind, and he realized now that that could be an advantage, as well as a weakness. It wasn’t unheard of for two of the People in a confrontation like this one to find themselves trapped in the other Person’s mind-glow. Fury could feed on fury, and being able to taste the feelings behind someone else’s anger often only made one’s own, answering anger even worse. When that happened among the People the result was almost always ugly, sometimes even deadly, unless someone else (usually one of the clan’s memory singers) managed to separate them first.

That
wasn’t likely to happen to the two-legs, at least, although they obviously didn’t need to be able to taste each other to recognize anger. Worse, because they were mind-blind, neither of the younglings in this confrontation were even trying to mute the waves of anger they were projecting, which meant Climbs Quickly found himself taking the brunt of
both
two-legs’ wrath.

He felt his own fury trying to rouse in response, beating against his control. It was even harder to keep it leashed, he discovered, because all of the poisonous passion pouring out of the other two-leg was directed not at him, but at his two-leg. He felt his claws creeping out of their sheaths in an instinctive reaction to protect her, yet he knew that was the last thing he needed to be doing at this moment. It wasn’t as if the other two-leg truly meant to physically attack—or not yet, at least—but he wasn’t at all certain
his
two-leg wasn’t about to attack the other one. In fact, he could taste something welling up within her which was very like what happened when People got trapped in one another’s mind-glows.

Climbs Quickly was no memory singer, but he’d seen Sings Truly and Song Spinner separate younglings and even the occasional adult scout or hunter. He knew how they did it; it was simply something he’d never attempted himself, and he found himself wishing he’d been able to practice ahead of time.

No doubt Sings Truly felt the same way the first time it happened to her
, he thought, and flung himself into the fray.

* * *

Stephanie knew the instant Lionheart took a hand.

She didn’t know exactly what he was doing, far less how he was doing it, but she knew
she
wasn’t responsible for the sudden break in the rising tide of her fury.

She’d always known she had a dangerous temper. Although it didn’t get away from her all that often—or
she
didn’t think it did, at least; her mom seemed to have a somewhat different view—she’d figured out long ago that it was likely to get her into a great deal of trouble someday. Someday, she realized suddenly, like today.

Except that something new had been added. It was like . . . like a sheet of bulletproof glass pushed between her and her own wrath. It wasn’t that she was any less angry. It was just that . . . just that she was suddenly able to stand back from that anger. To
feel
it without being
driven
by it. She’d never imagined anything like it, but whatever Lionheart was doing, and however he was doing it, she felt a sudden surge of gratitude.

She also felt the tip of his tail sweep forward and wrap itself around her throat. It was a
protective
gesture, she realized, and also a comforting one. One that helped her more than she would have imagined was possible as she made her fist unclench and drew a deep breath, then looked Trudy square in the eye.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Trudy,” she heard herself say in a suddenly calm tone. “Of course, the fact that you do probably explains why no treecat in his right mind is going to have anything to do with you. And while I’m sure your father and Ralph are great hunters, believe me, they’re not going to be catching any treecats who don’t decide to be caught. I don’t imagine the treecats are going to be much happier about the thought of ending up with them than they’d be about the thought of ending up with
you
, either, so don’t hold your breath waiting for it to happen. In the meantime, I’ve got better things to do with my time than stand here and listen to you being stupid.”

She smiled, rather enjoying the way Trudy’s jaw dropped. She’d never realized it could actually be more satisfying to watch the other person being reduced to gobbling incoherence than to simply punch the idiot out, and she filed the thought away for future consideration.

“You—you—!” Trudy spluttered, and Stephanie shook her head.

“Mighty impressive vocabulary you’ve got there, Trudy. Do you practice it in front of the mirror, or does it come naturally?” she asked dryly, then bent to gather up her hang glider.

“Think you’re such a smart ass, don’t you?” another voice asked harshly, and Stephanie looked up, less surprised than she might have been to see Stan Chang glaring at her. “You and your damn treecat.”

“I didn’t pick this fight, Stan,” she said, still leaning on that plate of bulletproof glass. “Trudy did. If she doesn’t like the way it’s turning out, maybe she shouldn’t have.”

“Listen, you—!” Stan began, stepping forward and half-raising one fist.

Stephanie straightened and turned to face him. She raised her eyebrows, cocking her head ever so slightly, and Stan paused. At a hundred and eighty centimeters, he was a good forty-five centimeters taller than she was, and broadshouldered and muscular, to boot. Yet there was something about her expression. She didn’t look angry, and she certainly didn’t look
frightened
by him. In fact, she looked . . . calm. Almost
amused
, and she smiled ever so slightly as she shook her head.