He and Death Fang’s Bane had accompanied Eye of Memory on several expeditions, and so he had already guessed where she would be most likely to perch while capturing this image. When Death Fang’s Bane turned and looked at the tallest of the golden-leafs, he had known he had guessed correctly, and it felt good to climb swiftly up the enormous tree. Well, of course it did! Had not his clan named him Climbs Quickly because climbing was one of the things he most enjoyed in all the world?
He reached a wide fork in one of the branches and paused, looking back down the way he had come. This would do well for Eye of Memory, he decided. The branch was broad enough to give her a comfortable place to sit or stand and shaded from too much direct sunlight, and the entire waterfall was clearly visible. He had detected no sign of any danger, and so he scurried out to the end of the branch, sat up high on his true-feet, and waved his true-hand at Death Fang’s Bane.
He could not make her hear his mind-voice, but he knew she would be watching him through the far-seeing thing she carried at her belt, and he felt her understanding as he beckoned to her and the other two-legs. She waved back, and he settled down on his bright, breezy perch, waiting.
* * *
“How long do you think she’ll paint this time?” Anders asked, grinning at Stephanie as they sat on their own branch, twenty meters below Dacey’s, and leaned back against the crown oak’s enormous trunk sharing the thermos of lemonade Marjorie Harrington had sent along.
“Until she runs out of light, probably,” Stephanie replied with an answering grin. She’d become very fond of Dacey Emberly, but having a mother who was also a painter had taught her a thing or two about the breed.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Anders agreed.
He looked around, thoroughly enjoying the sunlight and the cool breeze singing through the crown oak’s leaves. He might not have felt quite so happy about perching so many meters above the ground if he hadn’t had his own counter-grav, but he’d gotten accustomed to climbing trees here on Sphinx. Stephanie and Lionheart seemed to spend at least a third of their time in the treetops, after all!
The thought of the treecat drew his attention to where Lionheart clung to a branch just above Dacey, gazing intently over her shoulder as she worked. He knew Lionheart seemed to love watching Dacey paint, and he wondered how focused he was at the moment on Dacey’s emotions instead of Stephanie’s. Could he be distracted from his person’s emotions, or was the link between them—whatever it was and however it worked—always in the forefront of his attention? It was a question which had occupied Anders more than once, but in a lot of ways, he was grateful, since no one objected when he and Stephanie went off on a hike together, even without Karl. Apparently they assumed that Lionheart made an adequate chaperone.
And I guess he does, Anders thought ruefully. Even if Stephanie flat-out invited me to…well…to do more than we’ve been doing, I don’t think I’d try. I saw the records of what Lionheart and his family did to the hexapuma. I don’t really want him to decide I was offering his human some sort of threat.
Today, however, Stephanie seemed to have something on her mind other than their usual explorations of the local wildlife and each other. He hadn’t been able to put his finger on what that something else might be, but several times he’d thought her usual smile seemed a little more forced than usual. Now she looked at him for several moments, smile fading. Then she reached to hold his hand, and Anders didn’t need to be a telepath—not even a telempath—to know she was looking for comfort, not inviting a snuggle.
His eyebrows furrowed as he searched for a way to ask what was wrong without implying that she was acting particularly weird, but he didn’t have to.
“Anders,” she asked, “how did you feel when you realized you had a chance to go to Sphinx?”
Anders was surprised. They’d talked about this before when comparing notes on their various trips to other planets and it hadn’t seemed to worry her any then. Why should it be worrying her now? Unless….
Guessing this was a lead to some other topic, he answered honestly.
“Pretty happy, really. I’d already gotten interested in treecats, you know. Here was my chance to see them—not in recordings, not some captive being brought around as a display—but where they lived. I was really excited.”
“You weren’t nervous about going to a strange place?”
“Not really. I mean, it wasn’t like I was going alone. Yeah, Dad can be pretty obsessive, but if I got in trouble he’d be around. Anyway, despite my mom’s impression that a colony world was going to be pretty backward, I knew Sphinx was cutting edge in a lot of ways.”
“Manticore is even more cutting edge,” Stephanie said. “I haven’t been there since we stopped over on the way to Sphinx. I was only ten and fresh from Meyerdahl, so it didn’t seem too much to me then. Now I know lots of people on Manticore think people from Sphinx are complete rubes.”
“Some of them probably do,” Anders replied. “I don’t remember anyone actually saying anything like that to me, but most of the people I talked to knew I was a visitor. They probably wouldn’t have talked down about their neighbors to a stranger.” He smiled slightly. “I don’t think most of them think that way, though.”
“No?” Stephanie looked away for a moment. “I sort of felt that way when we first got here, you know. Until Lionheart and I met, anyway. So I guess it wouldn’t be too surprising if somebody on Manticore felt that way. Or if…if they might, I don’t know, look down on somebody from Sphinx if they were to run into them wandering around Landing or something.”
The meaning behind her somewhat jumbled words registered on Anders suddenly.
“You’ve got a chance to go to Manticore? That’s really cool, Steph. I enjoyed my visit a lot—except for the fact that you were on a different planet, that is. I think you’ll really enjoy it! What is it? Some sort of educational field trip? A competition, maybe?”
“You might say so,” Stephanie agreed. She took a deep breath, and then, the words spilling out of her in a torrent, she told Anders about her and Karl’s meeting with Chief Ranger Shelton.
Anders listened first in delight, then—as he realized just how long Stephanie would be gone—with increasing dismay. He fought to hide his reaction. He was sure Stephanie didn’t guess how he felt, but he was pretty sure that if Lionheart was paying attention to them instead of Dacey, he wasn’t fooled at all.
Stephanie ended her account on a sort of choking note, like she was swallowing back a little sob. She’d told the last part to some point on the tree limb near her right foot. Now Anders reached and tilted back her head so he could see her face. To his amazement—Stephanie was a queen of self-control—her brown eyes were swimming with unshed tears.
He thought she might pull away, but instead she flung her arms around him and squeezed him with a bone crushing intensity that demonstrated that, for once, she’d forgotten her own strength. Anders tried not to show he was gasping for breath, but hugged her back as hard as he could.
“Oh, Anders! Anders! What am I going to do? I thought that maybe Mom or Dad would be against it, but as far as I can tell, if I want to go they’re going to let me. But you only just got back from there! And…and we don’t know yet how long you’re even going to be here in the Star Kingdom at all! How can I tell them I don’t want to go because I don’t want to leave you?!”