A Beautiful Friendship-ARC (37 page)

One moment, the female treecat she’d christened “Morgana”—the one she suspected might well be Lionheart’s sister—had been staring into her eyes, almost vibrating with the intensity of her effort to make Stephanie understand whatever was of such concern to all the treecats. The next, Morgana and Lionheart had whipped around to stare at one another. And then, abruptly, Morgana leapt out of Stephanie’s lap to crouch on the limb beside her.

“What is it? What’s happening?” Stephanie asked sharply, looking back and forth between the two treecats.

They paid her absolutely no attention for several seconds. Not rudely, but because they were so obviously concentrating on something else. Then Lionheart looked back up at her, his huge green eyes as dark and almost . . . pleading as she had ever seen them. His remaining true-hand reached out and the slender, wiry fingers closed warmly around the little finger of her own right hand and tugged.

“Bleek,” he said urgently. “
Bleek!
”

She looked down at him, trying to understand, and two more true-hands closed on the thumb and index finger of her left hand.

“
Bleek!
” Morgana seconded Lionheart. “Bleek!
Bleek!
”

They were both tugging her in the same direction, and she looked back and forth between them a moment longer, then nodded.

“All right, I’m coming!” she told them and activated her belt counter-grav unit and slid off the branch upon which she’d been sitting.

* * *

Climbs Quickly and Sings Clearly had become accustomed to the two-legs’ marvelous tools, including the one which allowed Death Fang’s Bane to apparently fly. They’d realized some time ago that the humming device on the two-leg youngling’s belt didn’t actually let her
fly
, since she seemed unable to move swiftly or control her direction without her personal flying thing, but it did allow her to float to the highest of branches. And because they realized that they were unsurprised when she pushed off the limb and started drifting gradually towards the ground so far below. Instead of panicking, they simply wrapped their arms and mid-limbs around her forearms and floated down with her.

Under most circumstances, both of them would have been bleeking madly in delight. Indeed, Death Fang’s Bane sometimes gave armloads of kittens similar flights, and the entire clan enjoyed them immensely. This time, however, they were too worried—too well aware of Water Dancer’s distant distress and the rising anxiety level of the rest of Bright Water’s adults.

<
What do you intend, Sings Truly?
> Broken Tooth demanded as Death Fang’s Bane’s feet touched the ground.

<
Precisely what you
think
I intend
,> Sings Truly replied tartly.

<
No
,> Broken Tooth said firmly, sitting down on his haunches and folding both his arms and his mid-limbs. <
Not
this
time, Senior Memory Singer. There is no need—and no justification—for taking yourself or any of the other memory singers into what may be danger
.>

Sings Truly stiffened angrily, but her brother quickly touched her on one shoulder. She looked at him, and he twitched his ears, his mind-glow radiating mingled understanding, sympathy, and amusement.

<
Broken Tooth has a point, Sister
,> Climbs Quickly told her. <
I think none of the clan will question
this
rescue mission. There is no need for you to lead them all to save your impetuous brother from his own folly this time! Besides,
> his amusement perked higher, <
given what happened the
last
time you led a rescue, they are probably terrified of what you might bring back from this one!
>

<
I would not put it quite that way myself
,> Broken Tooth said. <
On the other hand, I would not argue with the way
Climbs Quickly
has put it, Sings Truly. More, you know he is right. That
we
are right.
>

<
Do not expect me to be pleased about it simply because you are right!
> she told Broken Tooth and her brother in a fulminating tone.

<
None of us are foolish enough to expect anything
that
reasonable,
> Climbs Quickly assured her. <
We know you too well
.>

<
I am glad
one
of us thinks you are humorous, Brother
,> she said ominously, and he bleeked a half-laugh. <
But I will not argue. Only go—all of you! And be cautious!
>

26

Stephanie hurried through the forest, surrounded and accompanied by a flowing tide of gray and cream-colored treecats. She was half-tempted to use her counter-grav to join them on the picketwood branches along which they flowed, but treecats could fit through spaces and squirm around obstacles even a relatively small, frustratingly flat-chested fourteen-year-old human would have found impassable.

The forest floor was considerably more than ankle-deep in dead leaves and leaf mold, but it was clear of undergrowth, thanks to how little sunlight managed to penetrate the towering tree canopy, so the going was relatively easy. And at least, unlike most human interlopers into the Sphinxian bush, she didn’t have to worry about things like hexapumas. Not with an entire clan of treecats filtering through the trees above her! Of course
. . .

She paused for a moment to catch her breath and reached down, almost reflexively to pat the handgun at her hip. So far, she’d never even come close to needing that gun, and the truth was that she didn’t expect to, not with the treecats to keep an eye on her. If she did run into another hexapuma, though, at least she might not have to get close enough to stick it with a vibro blade!

She grinned at the thought and, having caught her breath again, went jogging off with the treecats once more.

* * *

<
Water Dancer!
> Climbs Quickly called. <
We come—where are you? And where is Twig Weaver?
>

Although Climbs Quickly was only a male, his mind-voice had grown so much stronger since his bonding to Death Fang’s Bane that Water Dancer heard him easily.

<
Up here, Climbs Quickly!
> she called back. <
Above the green-needle
.>

Climbs Quickly turned, looking in the indicated direction, and spotted a small, distant brown and white shape on the high branch of a golden-leaf above what a human would have called a near-pine. Water Dancer was slender and delicate, even for a female, and normally presented a picture of gracefulness. Now, though, she was tense, frightened. Even without tasting her mind-glow, Climbs Quickly would have realized that simply from how rigidly she crouched on the branch.

<
Is Twig Weaver there with you?
> he asked.

<
Yes! Oh, yes! But come—I cannot get him to wake!
>

Climbs Quickly looked at Broken Tooth, who stood on his right side, then at Short Tail, on the other side, and saw their tense confusion mirroring his own. Then the three of them were moving again, climbing to the topmost branch of their net-wood tree and following it to Water Dancer’s tree, then leaping across to the far taller golden-leaf and swarming quickly up to join her.

It didn’t take them long to reach her, and her anxiety and fear for her mate became steadily more obvious to them as they approached her. Then they were at her side, and she raised one slightly trembling true-hand and pointed.

<
There
.>

Her mind-voice was almost a whimper, and Climbs Quickly felt the fur rising along his spine, felt his tighly furled tail flattening out, as his eyes followed her gesture and he saw Twig Weaver.

Water Dancer’s mate was one of Bright Water’s most skilled hunters. Indeed, he took his name from the cleverness with which he wove branches and twigs together to create hiding spots from which he might pounce upon smaller game as it wandered carelessly past. But this time it was Twig Weaver who had been entrapped within someone else’s weaving.

For a moment, Climbs Quickly thought someone had constructed a prison out of tree branches. That was what it looked like, at any rate. But then he realized it wasn’t the case. The bars of the cage which had enclosed Twig Weaver
looked
like branches, yet they weren’t. And as his nostrils flared, he caught the scent of cluster stalk . . . and something else.

<
Cluster stalk?!
> Broken Tooth said beside him. The elder’s sense of smell had begun to decline with age, but he’d caught Climbs Quickly’s recognition of the scent from the younger treecat’s mind-glow. <
What is
cluster stalk
doing up here in the treetops?
>

<
An excellent question
,> Climbs Quickly agreed grimly. <
And one it would seem Twig Weaver might have asked himself before rushing to investigate
.>

<
Bait in a trap, you think?
> Short Tail said, and Climbs Quickly gave a two-leg nod.

<
That is exactly what I think
,> he replied, and tasted Short Tail’s and Broken Tooth’s understanding. The People were no strangers to traps for small prey animals, and they had been known to use bait in their time. But until now, no one had ever set traps for
them
.

<
This is a two-leg thing
,> Climbs Quickly continued. <
I do not catch any two-leg scent on it, which is strange, yet I am certain of that
.>

Short Tail started forward, but Climbs Quickly reached out and stopped him.

<
Carefully, Short Tail! I do not catch any two-leg scent from it, but there is something besides the cluster stalk. Something I do not care for. Go no closer
.>

<
But we must go and help Twig Weaver
,> Short Tail argued.

<
Indeed we must, but with caution
,> Climbs Quickly responded. <
Taste carefully. Do you not taste his mind-glow?
>

<
From
here?> Short Tail snorted mentally. <
I am no memory singer, Climbs Quickly!
>

<
Neither am I
,> Climbs Quickly said. <
But I do taste Twig Weaver’s mind-glow. Perhaps I have become more sensitive to that, as well, because of my bond with Death Fang’s Bane. At any rate, he is alive, only asleep. So I think we need not rush forward and perhaps see more of us blunder into the same sort of trap
.>

<
I will take your word for the fact that he is only asleep
,> Short Tail said. <
As for your ability to taste his mind-glow, perhaps that is because you are getting more cluster stalk than any of the rest of us!
> There was a definite sparkle of laughter in that last sentence, tinged with relief that Twig Weaver was alive. But then the older scout’s mind-voice sobered. <
Still, we cannot simply leave him there
.>

<
No, we cannot,
> Climbs Quickly agreed. <
But this is a two-leg thing. So perhaps it is fortunate we have a two-leg of our own to deal with it.
>

* * *

Stephanie leaned against the crown oak’s mighty trunk. As tall as an Old Earth sequoia (and even more massive, due to Sphinx’s higher gravity), it towered over the lower growing picketwood like a titan, and she peered up at the massive branch a good fifty meters above her—five meters higher than the tallest branch of the surrounding picketwood but little more than halfway to the top of the crown oak—at Lionheart and the others. It was hard to make out details at such a distance, but they were obviously conferring with one another about something, and she wondered—again—what this was all about.

After a few minutes, Lionheart came swarming down the tree towards her. She held up her arms when he was within a couple of meters of the ground, and he launched himself into them, pressing close against her as she hugged him.

“Okay,” she told him. “I’m here. Now what’s this all about?”

“Bleek,” Lionheart said, then raised his remaining true-hand and pointed up at the high perch from which he had descended.

“You know,” she said, “this belt unit doesn’t have anywhere near the power pack our glider does.” She studied the branch in question, then shrugged. “Still, the charge looks pretty good so far. Okay, I’m coming.”

* * *

Climbs Quickly moved around to the pads on his person’s shoulder and back, clinging close as she adjusted the device on her belt and their weight seemed to magically disappear. When they weighed as little as one of the rotating gold-leaf seedpods that filled the air of leaf-turning season with flashing golden light, Death Fang’s Bane reached out to the tree trunk and sent them bobbing up it at a speed few of the People could have matched.

They reached the limb where Broken Tooth and Short Tail waited, and she crouched on one knee beside the other two People while she adjusted a knob on her belt device. Their weight crept back up again, although not to anything approaching what it should have been, and Climbs Quickly pressed his nose against her ear, then pointed.

* * *

Stephanie Harrington followed Lionheart’s pointing finger. For a moment, she didn’t realize what she was seeing. Then she did, and said a word her parents would not have approved of.

The cream and gray shape of the treecat lay crumpled on its side in a small cage of some sort. She had no idea how it had gotten here, but she could tell it was a fairly sophisticated piece of engineering. It looked like it had articulated legs, ending in sharp, spurlike claws which were sunk into the limb’s surface. It was a bit hard to make out the details, since whoever had left it here had very carefully camouflaged it, but it looked to her as if it might have its own much smaller built-in counter-grav unit, as well.

She looked up at the canopy above and instantly realized how the trapper, whoever she was, intended to retrieve his captive. The problem was what she did about it.

She started to hurry forward to rescue the treecat, then made herself stop. She didn’t know enough about that trap. How had the treecat been rendered unconscious? Could the trap do the same thing to her if she got too close? What kind of security devices might be built into it? Could the person who had put it here be ruthless enough to include a self-destruct device, something that would blow up a trap and any treecat in it if someone tampered with it? And was there an alarm of some sort on it? Something which would tell the trapper her trap had been discovered if Stephanie tried to open it?