‹ So that is what Mother was trying to say! Elders should learn to explain things more clearly! I see now why she depicted herself as moving, but I could sense no effort. Now that I have a clearer image, I will be there shortly.›
He fell silent, but they were aware of his faint mind-glow growing stronger. Now that he had a sense of the direction from which Left-Striped was coming, Climbs Quickly turned to Death Fang’s Bane.
“Bleek!” he said, then pointed, making at the same time a motion similar to that of hands on the stick of the air car. He felt her flash of delight and amusement, then heard her making mouth noises to Shadowed Sunlight and the boy who drove the larger flying thing. The two vehicles turned almost as one.
‹ Useful,› commented Nose Biter grudgingly. ‹ Can you always get her to obey so easily?›
‹ It has taken time,› Climbs Quickly admitted, ‹ but once I felt certain that the mouth noises substitute for mind-voices, I knew we had to find a compromise. Their mind-glow is strong, perhaps as strong as that of memory singers, but largely they are mute. My throat cannot shape their noises. Even if it could, all but a very few seem capricious. Even names are difficult. The one who works the smaller vehicle and the vehicle itself are called by similar sounds. For a long time, I thought maybe they were the same.›
Nose Biter seemed interested and the discussion might have continued, but at that very moment Left-Striped came rocketing down from an overhanging branch, landing with studied skill first on the raised front part of the vehicle, then jumping down amid the members of his clan.
Climbs Quickly could hear Death Fang’s Bane explaining the situation to her friend, whose cries of surprise when Left-Striped thumped down over his head had been loud enough to carry through the closed clear sides. However, he gave most of his attention to the excited and anxious Left-Striped.
‹ As requested, my twin and I went back to our prior denning place to see if the fire had reached it. We arrived to find that although the fire was not there, the grove was not as we had expected. We had expected to find ground-runners and other creatures taking shelter from the fire near where there was water-even if in this dry season there is not much. What we found was a cluster of two-legs.
‹ They were not behaving at all normally. Instead of moving about as they usually do, these were sitting out in the middle of the bog.›
Climbs Quickly wondered at the surge of horror that went through the members of the Damp Ground Clan, but he did not wish to interrupt. If it was important, Left-Striped would explain.
‹ We found evidence that for some days before they had been dwelling-I don’t ask you to believe this, you can see if for yourself-in the rock trees. One of them was very weak. The others moved slowly as if burdened. Their scent was wrong, as if they had been eating bad foods. We guessed that when these two-legs smelled the smoke, they moved out of the trees, but, perhaps because of their injured one, they could not go far. Ignorant of the danger, they thought the bog would protect them best from fire.›
Again the shared sensation of horror.
‹ My brother stayed to watch over them, while I came back to inform you so you could decide which way the clan should go. I had not hoped to find two-legs so quickly, but I will admit, finding such would have been my next goal. These lost ones need help.›
‹ I agree,› said a rather fat and elderly female who Climbs Quickly now knew was Brilliant Images, the senior memory singer of the Damp Ground Clan. ‹ We have been helped by these two-legs. We shall help these others. In that way, all debts will be even. We must move swiftly. I can just touch the edges of Right-Striped’s mind-glow and I feel an urgency there.›
Climbs Quickly was grateful, but still confused. ‹ You of the Damp Ground Clan react as if your former nesting place is a place of danger. How could that be?›
‹ Not the net-wood,› Left-Striped explained. ‹ The bog. In it dwells a whistling sucker-a great mother. In this dry turning, she had not yet kitted, so there is just the one. We know to avoid her, but these two-legs have landed themselves directly within her favorite hunting grounds.›
Chapter Fourteen
Stephanie was as startled as any of them when a treecat landed on the cab of the air truck, but when he bounced down and the collective green-eyed gaze of the treecats turned to him, she knew he was no stranger to the clan.
“I think he’s giving a report,” she said. “I can’t tell what he’s saying, but Lionheart is really intent. Funny…This ’cat looks sort of familiar. Karl, I’m going to send you a picture via my uni-link.”
Karl’s voice came back promptly. “I still have trouble telling them apart, but I think that’s Left-Striped. His pattern is atypical.”
Toby’s voice followed. “Karl just showed me pictures he took and I agree. It’s the same ’cat, I’m sure of it.”
“Interesting,” Stephanie said. “Lionheart just turned to me. He’s motioning that we should speed up. All of the other ’cats are hunkering down, so they’re clearly waiting for it. Also, a fat and fluffy female is giving me the evil eye and pointing. I think she’s helping with navigation.”
“Any change in direction?” Chet asked. Stephanie could see Christine’s face pressed to the rear window of the trunk cab, looking back in fascination at the passengers, all of whom were now facing front, bodies held low, evidently so that the side of the truck would cut any wind.
“Direction continues south,” Stephanie reported, “but I think she’s going to want us to cross the river to the south again.”
“South,” Christine said, “as in toward the fire?”
“The fire hasn’t gotten this far west yet,” Karl said. “We’re still safe.”
Stephanie was glad to hear this. She would have gone into the heart of the fire if that was what was needed, but could she have risked a clan of treecats and her human friends?
She said, “I’ll keep an eye on the ’cats and let you know if they start to panic. Otherwise, let’s go as fast as we can while staying beneath the tree line. This is not the time to get seen by anybody tracing the course of the southern fire.”
“Seen with a truckload of treecats?” Chet laughed loudly. “I don’t think so…Karl, take point. Remember, my truck needs more clearance than your runabout.”
“Gottcha,” Karl said. “Let’s burn atoms.”
Anders was tinkering with some odds and ends from the cooking kit when the creature Dr. Calida had dubbed the Sphinxian swamp siren made its next move. Although the swamp siren had remained beneath its cloak of water weed and murky water, Anders felt certain that not only was it still there, but that it was studying them.
It might not be smart, not like a treecat is smart, but it’s a predator, and predators need to learn how to stalk or they won’t get very many meals. This one is stalking us. I’m sure of it.
Turned out the swamp siren wasn’t just stalking, it was doing some pretty good thinking, too. Somehow-maybe because the device was so strange-it had made the connection between those rods set in neat ranks around the hummock where its prospective dinner (including a tasty treecat) now huddled. When it moved, it slid down under the muddy water, working under and around the tussocks and hummocks, keeping its hearing receptors under the water so that the annoying high-pitched whine was muffled.
When the swamp siren lashed out, it brought one flipper into contact with the closest rod. Had it watched when they set the things up? Had it noticed the device didn’t work unless the rods were anchored correctly? Or did it just slap at something that annoyed it the way a human swats at a fly? Anders would always wonder.
But he was also ready. He noticed when the swamp siren had started moving because the sodden area to which it had retreated looked flatter. The water weed moved sluggishly, not in the ripples that indicated the swamp siren in motion, but as if the muddy liquid had been stirred.