They’d let Stephanie know-gently and in small increments-that she had advantages most people did not. For one, although they’d tried to hide this from her lest she get either lazy or smug, Stephanie knew her IQ scored nearly off the charts. Karl’s statement that she always got perfect scores on everything was only a slight exaggeration.
For another, Stephanie was a “genie,”-her genetic mutations making her stronger and tougher than average. She paid for these advantages with a higher than usual metabolism, but given that Mom and Dad always made certain there was ample interesting stuff to eat-they shared her metabolism, after all-she never suffered for this. What she did suffer from was the flashes of hot temper that came with the package. She simply didn’t get along easily with most people-especially people her own age. They seemed dumb, fascinated with things she wasn’t in the least interested in.
Karl Zivonik-who was over a T-year and a half older than her-was the closest Stephanie had to a friend her own age, the first she had made since her family emigrated to Sphinx from Meyerdahl a bit over four T-years ago. Even Karl was more like a big brother than a friend, watching over her, scolding her, teasing her, practicing target shooting with her, and, well, letting her fly his car, even though it was against the rules.
However, despite the amount of time they spent together, Stephanie still felt there was a lot she didn’t know about Karl. At times he’d fall into a brooding silence or snap at something she didn’t think was all that bad. From Karl’s aunt, Irina Kisaevna, Stephanie had learned that much of Karl’s family and many of his friends had died during the Plague. Stephanie guessed that probably had something to do with his moods, but she sensed there was more. Occasionally, someone named “Sumiko” would get mentioned-usually by one of Karl’s host of younger siblings-and there would be this uncomfortable quiet.
Anyhow, despite the amount of time she’d been spending with Karl, Stephanie’s best friend was Lionheart.
I mean, look at him, now, she thought affectionately, glancing into the rearview mirror to do so, hanging out the window like some cross between a gray-and-cream floppy toy and a six-legged weasel. No one would ever guess how smart he is…
At long last, Stephanie answered Karl’s question, “I don’t want just a learner’s permit. You know as well as I do that you can qualify for a provisional license at fifteen.”
“At need,” Karl said. “You can get a provisional license ‘at need.’”
“My family does live pretty far from Twin Forks,” Stephanie was beginning, when an overwhelming sensation of alarm surged into her from Lionheart. The strong wave of emotion was far stronger than the normally faint, elusive sensations she received, yet its very strength made it hard to define: apprehension, anxiety, yet somewhat removed.
“Bleek!” Lionheart spilled the meter and a half of his furry length over into the front seat, landing in Karl’s lap, rather than Stephanie’s as would have been his more usual choice. “Bleek!”
Showing Lionheart understands more about operating machinery than most would grant a treecat, Stephanie thought, but the thought was fleeting. Lionheart was pointing off to the southwest. Every line of his body was tight with urgency.
Stephanie immediately shifted course. Karl didn’t protest.
“What’s bothering Lionheart?” he said, stroking the thick gray fur along the treecat’s spine in a effort to soothe him.
“I don’t know,” Stephanie admitted, “but whatever it is is over that way. Let’s go find out!”
Pleased when the clear side panel was opened, Climbs Quickly immediately poked his head out the opening. Again, he was reminded that the air car moved more quickly than did the folding flying thing. His fur flattened against his face and his inner eyelids dropped into place. Even so, this was an infinitely better experience.
During the seasons he had lived with Death Fang’s Bane and her parents, he had come to the conclusion that two-legs and the People did not use their senses in the same fashion. Two-legs were so sight-oriented that, as in this wonderful fast-traveling vehicle, they would actually eliminate signals from scent or sound. Taste-except when eating-did not enter into their experience of the world. The importance of touch was harder for him to judge.
By contrast, the People relied on the triad of sight, scent, and hearing about equivalently. As hunters-especially when moving through the treetops-they were very aware of the usefulness of touch, including signals carried by vibration. He had no idea how two-legs managed without whiskers! Taste was also important, especially in how it could add dimension to the sense of smell. And in the pleasure it brought to food…
At this speed, Climbs Quickly found himself relying primarily on scent for his assessment. He caught a variety of tantalizing odors: bark-chewer mingled with the sap of the golden-leaf it had been sampling; the tangy scent of purple thorn; the musky perfume of tongue-leaf in summer flower. At one point his fur bristled when an upward eddy brought him the rank odor of death fang, liberally associated with the blood of some unlucky ground runner.
Climbs Quickly wondered how the two-legs could think they knew anything of a world most of them merely saw as they passed over faster than a winter wind, glimpsing what lay below only as a blur of green and brown. Perhaps the two-legs had senses he couldn’t guess at, just as most of them had no idea how the People used mind-speech.
In any case, today, Death Fang’s Bane and Shadowed Sunlight were traveling below the canopy-and not at too great a speed. Climbs Quickly, for one, was going to make the most of it.
Drawing in a luxuriously deep breath of the warm late-summer air, Climbs Quickly caught a new scent, one that shocked and appalled him as even that of the death fang had not…The scent of smoke and, behind it, the hot, brain-snapping odor of freshly burning fire.
Arboreal as they were, the People were all too aware of the danger brought by forest fire. It offered a danger to them greater than any death fang or snow hunter. Those could be escaped by flight into the upper branches or even-with cooperation-fought and killed, although rarely without injury, as his own scars attested. However, even the greatest cooperation could not fight a forest fire. The best the united strength of an entire clan could hope to achieve was to forestall the fire’s spread while the weak and young got away.
Climbs Quickly shivered inside his skin and breathed in the scent again. It was hard to pinpoint where it was coming from with so many conflicting winds, but he was a trained scout.
The course on which Death Fang’s Bane was taking the vehicle was erratic, but it did not seem to be going in the direction of the smoke and fire. For a moment, Climbs Quickly almost gave in to the impulse to ignore what he had smelled. After all, he was far away and this was nowhere near the range of his own Bright Water Clan.
However, his own natural curiosity had not been dulled by his seasons with the two-legs. Moreover, the songs of the memory singers-of whom his own sister was one-provided a connection to clans that would never meet, even if that connection was attenuated by distance.
Usually, Climbs Quickly’s first impulse would have been to get Death Fang’s Bane’s attention, but he knew that not only was she responsible for the vehicle’s movement, she was not handling this chore with her usual ease. Therefore, although his alarm was growing as the scent of smoke became more intense, he leapt over the seat and into Shadowed Sunlight’s lap.
“Bleek!” he said, pointing in the direction in which the smell of smoke was strongest. “Bleek! Bleek!”
His faith in these two-legs had not been misplaced. Almost immediately, he felt the vehicle change direction. Nor was the impulse entirely that of Death Fang’s Bane. Shadowed Sunlight’s mind-glow was less easy for Climbs Quickly to read, but he could feel in it acceptance that he had some reason for his urgency-even if the reason was as of yet a mystery.