A Beautiful Friendship-ARC (29 page)

“So you were speaking from personal experience about people talking about ‘genies’ sinister powers,’ ” Marjorie Harrington said gently, her eyes soft with sympathy.

“Oh, yes.” MacDallan smiled at her, and this time the expression was a little more natural looking. “And, to be honest, I’d just as soon not hear them talking about it again where my family or I are concerned. Which is one reason I’ve kept my mouth very firmly shut about what
really
happened when the Stray turned up.”

“But you trust us enough to tell us about it?” Marjorie asked in that same gentle voice.

“Well,” MacDallan reached up and stroked Fisher. “As far as I can see, you come pretty highly recommended.”

“So do you, Dr. MacDallan,” Stephanie said with a smile of her own, and pointed at Lionheart, who had leaned forward to mimic Fisher, pressing against the side of her neck and purring.

“Go ahead and tell them, Scott,” Irina said quietly, still holding the hand that wasn’t stroking Fisher.

“All right.”

He let his gaze circle his hosts’ faces and settled himself visibly in the chair.

“After the Stray and Fisher led me to Erhardt’s air car, I called the Twin Forks tower to get a search and rescue crew out to recover the bodies. Since I was already on site, Wylie Bishop—he had the tower watch that day—asked me to go ahead and conduct the field autopsies. It wasn’t very pleasant.

“I’d completed my preliminary exams before the accident investigation guys had finished with the air car, though, and Fisher wanted me to head off into the woods for some reason. I wasn’t real crazy about that, since it was already after dark and that was hexapuma country, but he was insistent. So I went with him. And when I did, he and the Stray led me right to a tiny campfire completely surrounded by treecats.”

He was watching Stephanie as he spoke, and he saw her eyes when he mentioned the campfire. Clearly the fact that the treecats were fire-users as well as tool-users was no surprise to her, although he knew she’d never mentioned anything of the sort to Sanura Hobbard or the other scientists. He nodded to her slightly, putting down another plus mark on his mental ledger under the heading of “Harrington, Stephanie, Good Things about.”

“I didn’t know what they had in mind at first,” he continued, “but it didn’t take them long to show me. One of them, a female from her coloring and markings, I think, was obviously in charge, and she obviously wanted something from me. I didn’t know what, but then she looked into my eyes and—”

20

“Hi, Scott,” Richard Harrington said cheerfully. “Didn’t expect to hear from you again quite so soon.”

Dr. MacDallan grinned from the com screen. He and Irina had ended up spending two nights, not one, as the Harringtons’ guests. The weather had been partly to blame, but the real reason had been that they’d simply discovered how much they liked the Harrington family. Besides, Fisher and Lionheart had clearly taken a real shine to each other, and Stephanie had wanted to take Fisher home to meet Lionheart’s clan. From Fisher’s response when he got back to the freehold with Stephanie and Lionheart, the visit had been a great success.

Of course, that
might
have been because he’d gotten to go hang gliding for the first time in his life, too.

On the other hand, MacDallan hadn’t realized Stephanie was traveling back and forth between the freehold and the treecats’ central range by herself. When he did figure that out, he was horrified. The fact that she was making the trip by air mollified his concerns a little, but still
. . .

Which, after all, was the reason he’d screened this morning.

“Well, I hadn’t really expected to be screening you this soon, either,” he said, “but I’ve been thinking about something. I hope I’m not going to be . . . intruding on anything, but the truth is I’m a little worried about the way Stephanie’s getting back and forth to the treecats.”

“I could be happier myself,” Richard said, his expression sobering. “I think it’s probably the best compromise when it comes to keeping their location secret, though. And, trust me, the counter-grav unit I put into
this
glider would keep her up at three hundred meters for the better part of sixteen hours without a bit of airfoil lift! If she runs into any kind of trouble, she knows she’s supposed to go straight up, com us, and then
stay
there until one of us comes and collects her.” He shrugged. “I can’t say I’m delighted with the arrangement, but we can’t keep her wrapped up in cotton forever, and this whole situation with Lionheart’s making that even truer than it would have been otherwise.”

“I agree,” MacDallan said. “For that matter, Halakon’s only been settled for about three hundred years. We’re probably still closer to a ‘frontier mentality’ where I come from than you folks on Meyerdahl were. And from what I’ve seen of Stephanie, that’s one capable kid you’ve got there. But I’m still worried. The best equipment in the world malfunctions occasionally, and I’ve always been a big believer in the belt-and-suspenders approach.”

“Meaning what?” Richard asked in a slightly puzzled tone.

“Well, what I’m thinking is that if she goes down in the bush again, it might be a good idea for her to have something just a bit better than a vibro blade if a hexapuma or a peak bear comes calling.”

* * *

“I don’t know, Richard.”

Marjorie Harrington and her husband stood facing each other across the kitchen’s central island. She was chopping carrots and shredding lettuce for a salad while Richard carefully seasoned the steaks waiting to go onto the broiler. Stephanie was keeping careful watch on the baking potatoes . . . and trying (unsuccessfully) to conceal her intense interest in their conversation.

Now Marjorie glanced in her daughter’s direction and found herself wishing this particular conversation wasn’t being listened to by that particular set of ears. More than one other conversation had fallen into that category in the past, though, and they’d survived those. She imagined they’d survive this one, and given how deeply it concerned Stephanie, she deserved to hear it.

“To be honest, I don’t much like the idea myself,” Richard said, then shrugged. “Still, he’s got a point. More than one, really. And I think you and I might’ve considered it ourselves if we hadn’t grown up on Meyerdahl.”

“I know Meyerdahl wasn’t still some rough, wild-frontier colony planet,” Marjorie said just a bit tartly. “The planetary constitution did guarantee the right of self-defense, though, you know!”

“Of course it did. It just wasn’t something that came up all that often—at least where anything besides our fellow humans was concerned.”

Marjorie nodded. That nod looked unwilling, but her expression was thoughtful.

“Would it really be practical, though?” she asked. “Stephanie’s never going to be all that big, you know. Tall, I mean,” she added, turning to smile at her daughter before Stephanie could take umbrage.

“Scott seems to’ve factored that into his calculations,” Richards said. “I think that’s one reason he wants her to learn to handle a rifle, too. In fact, he’s suggested—and I think it would be a good idea—that you and I learn, too. Neither of us has spent any time traipsing around the bush yet, but that’s certain to change eventually. And when it does, it’s always possible
we
could run into a hexapuma, you know.”

Marjorie made a small face, but she also nodded.

“What he’s really thinking about, though, is that if she’s gliding back and forth, what she’d probably really need is something she can carry fairly easily. Something powerful enough to at least . . . discourage the biggest predators while she sits in a tree or something and coms for help. He says what he had in mind would be something like, oh, a ten or eleven-millimeter handgun.”

“Ten or eleven-millimeter!” Marjorie looked at him. “A gun that size would be as long as
she
is, Richard!”

“Not quite,” he disagreed with a smile. “Close, I’ll grant you, but she could probably keep the muzzle from dragging if she carried it in a shoulder holster instead of on her belt.”

“Very funny.” Marjorie’s tone was deflating, but the corners of her own mouth twitched in an unwilling half-smile.

“Look,” Richard said, “this isn’t my area of expertise, so I’m sort of having to take Scott’s word for it. He says one of the friends he mentioned to us—Frank Lethbridge—is a Forestry Service and law enforcement-certified firearms instructor. He says Lethbridge has already volunteered to teach her, and as Scott points out, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for her to be making friends—gathering allies, if you like—in the Forestry Service. Lethbridge’s willing to train you and me, too, and he’s talking about rifles all around, as well as handguns if we want to learn those, as well. As far as a handgun for Steph is concerned, Scott says Lethbridge would probably be the best person to ask for recommendations. He says Lethbridge is a pretty good gunsmith, too. Apparently he’s the one who customized Scott’s own pistol for him.”

“I don’t know,” Marjorie repeated. “I mean, it all sounds perfectly logical, but . . . she’s my little girl!” She looked at Stephanie again. “Sorry, honey, but there it is. You
are
my little girl. I know you’re growing up fast, but there’s still a part of me that
worries
about you. And something like this—”

She shook her head, and Richard touched her lightly on the shoulder.

“I know exactly what you’re saying,” he said, “and I’m pretty sure Stephanie understands, too.” He smiled at their daughter, who was wise enough to recognize that this was not a time to insist she was all grown up. “For that matter, I think Scott was a bit hesitant about . . . pushing the idea. But you saw how he and Stephanie got on. He’s genuinely worried about her, and to be honest, he’s right. I think we’ve been guilty of a serious blindspot in not considering this ourselves, Marge. Especially after we already almost lost her to a hexapuma once.”

His voice was much more somber with the final sentence, and Marjorie’s facial muscles tightened as she remembered that terrible night.

“Scott says Irina’s nephew, Karl, would be willing to help, too,” he continued. “He’s about fifteen, only a year or so older than Steph is. Scott thinks—and I think he’s right about this, too—that having someone closer to her own age involved would probably help. Besides,” he grinned, “I gather young Karl thinks Fisher is a marvelous invention. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if part of what he has in mind is, um,
inveigling
our Stephanie into eventually introducing him to the rest of Lionheart’s family.”

“Oh, I
see
,” Marjorie murmured with a smile of her own.

“Anyway, that’s what he called about,” Richard said.

Marjorie nodded, then frowned in pensive silence while her flashing knife finished sectioning carrots and slicing tomato wedges. She paused to hand a celery stalk to Lionheart before she began cutting the rest of the head of celery into neat lengths. In fact, she cut considerably more than even two humans and a treecat were likely to polish off. Finally, though, she finished the celery, inhaled deeply, turned to face Stephanie, and put her hands on her hips.

“I suppose you think this would be a
marvelous
idea, don’t you?” Her tone was severe, yet she also smiled—slightly, and reluctantly, but smiled.

“I don’t know if I’d say it was a ‘marvelous’ idea,” Stephanie replied cautiously. “I do think it makes sense, though. And I
would
like to learn to shoot. For that matter, you know you and Dad promised I could start the junior marksmanship program in Twin Forks next year.”

“We promised you you could do that when you turned
fifteen
,” her mother corrected gently but firmly, and Stephanie wiggled slightly. “Still,” her mother continued, “you’re right that we did agree you could learn to shoot, at least eventually. And even though I’m not real crazy about the thought of killing anything myself, I have to say Scott probably does have a point about you and me learning to shoot, too, Richard,” she admitted, glancing at her husband.

Stephanie contented herself with a gravely thoughtful expression experience, having taught herself this would not be a moment to rush in enthusiastically.

“If—and I said
if
, Stephanie—we agree to this, I want your word you’ll do
exactly
what Ranger Lethbridge tells you to do. I know you probably would anyway, but we’re talking about weapons powerful enough to stop a hexapuma. Those aren’t toys, and if they can stop hexapumas, they can do a lot of damage to anything
else
they hit . . . and it won’t make any difference to the target if what they hit gets hit on purpose or by accident.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Stephanie replied very soberly.

“All right.” Her mother drew another deep breath. “Your father and I will think about this. I promise we’ll make our minds up as quickly as possible, and we’ll be as fair about it as we can. But I expect you to accept our decision, whatever it is. Deal?”

“Deal,” Stephanie said firmly.

She managed to keep any glee out of her voice or her expression, but she knew that tone. It might not already be in the bag, but it was looking good, she thought. Looking very good.

* * *

“All
right!
” Karl Zivonik said, peering through the spotting scope at the target. “Five for five in the ten-ring with that group, Steph! Looks like one big hole from here. Good shooting!”

Stephanie grinned hugely, then made sure the bolt had locked back the way it was supposed to, laid the rifle in the rack with its muzzle pointed downrange the way she’d been taught, and removed her ear protectors. The old-fashioned, muff-style protectors covered her entire ear (which was why Frank Lethbridge liked them so much) but were fitted with microphones which let her hear normal sounds even though they protected her hearing from the high-decibel sound of gunshots. Despite that, she still didn’t like the way they seemed to . . . close in on her. Of course, if there’d been anyone else on the shooting line, she would have left them in place anyway. The one time she’d started to take them off when she hadn’t noticed another shooter’s arrival, Ranger Lethbridge had peeled a strip right off her. She’d wanted to die on the spot as he relentlessly dissected the earthworm-level IQ involved in doing something like that. Even more effectively, he’d banned her from the range for two full days.