Fire Season-eARC (26 page)

Stephanie hadn’t realized how much she had come to trust the treecat’s judgement until this moment. Now she’d have given almost anything to remember some incident of Lionheart demonstrating anger or disapproval, but there was nothing, and that meant…

In her lap, Lionheart suddenly stiffened, shifting from his comfortable sitting position onto his hindmost pair of legs. Swiveling his flexible torso, he turned so he could meet her eyes with his own. Assured that he had her attention, he very carefully pointed along the line of the fire.

“Bleek,” he said, then more urgently, “Bleek!”

“Lionheart seems to be suggesting we move along the edge of the fire. Since that’s what we’re doing already, maybe he wants us to go faster.”

Jessica leaned forward from the backseat, clearly fascinated. “Is this what he did when you rescued those treecats?”

Karl sped up, nodded. “Pretty much, but that time he wanted us to change course. I wonder what he wants this time?”

Lionheart had turned and was watching intently out the air car’s front window, his hand-feet braced against the dashboard.

Stephanie shrugged. “I have no idea, but especially after last time, I figure we’d be idiots not to take him seriously.”

Her uni-link signaled an incoming call. Although she was reluctant to take even a little of her attention from Lionheart and the call wasn’t from her parents—they had their own unique chimes—she glanced at the readout.

“Chet Pontier!” she said, surprised, recognizing the name of one of the hang-gliding club members. “What could he want?”

“Maybe he and Christine had a fight and he wants to ask you out,” Jessica said impishly. “Go on, answer it!”

Blushing and looking sideways at Karl, though she had no idea why, Stephanie took the call.

“Stephanie here.”

Chet’s holo appeared floating above the tiny screen. “Hi, Steph. Listen, I don’t know if you’ve been listening to the reports, but the fire up north has gotten bad enough that they’ve expanded the call for volunteers. Christine and I qualify for the age cut-off, easily, and Toby wants to try. They said fifteen and up, and he’s just a few months shy. We wondered if there was anywhere in particular you thought we should go so we don’t get stuck pouring punch somewhere.”

Stephanie considered. “They’ve posted more than one place where you can report?”

“Yeah, they’re handing out kits in downtown Twin Forks, even.”

“Don’t waste time going to Forestry Service headquarters,” Stephanie said. “When we were there really early this morning, they were already swamped. You’d probably do better at the Twin Forks general recruitment post. They’d be more likely to overlook Toby’s age, too.”

“Thanks.” The tiny holo generated by Stephanie’s uni-com didn’t show much detail, but she could see Chet looked a little sheepish…Or was that embarrassed?

“We all admired what you and Karl did during the last fire,” Chet said, “so, well, we wanted to ask your advice. Maybe we’ll see you on the fire lines.”

Stephanie wanted to start reminding Chet that this was no time for heroics, but Lionheart was shifting nervously in her lap. She settled for “Good luck. Be careful!” and commed off.

At their greater speed, they had probably missed some smaller details of the fire, but now they had arrived at the leading edge of this particular tongue. It wasn’t advancing very fast. The dominant wind was pushing it more to the west, conflicting with the earlier southern wind.

Stephanie was not particularly surprised to see Lionheart now pointing for them to turn west, to go past this edge of the fire and into a zone that was, as yet, unburned. The key phrase here was “as yet.” If the wind whipped up, that area would certainly be more dangerous than their current location.

“Lionheart wants us to go toward that island,” Stephanie said. “From the SFS map, that region should be mostly safe, at least for now. The Makara River will provide a natural firebreak.”

“I can take the air car up if we run into trouble,” Karl said, changing their direction, but giving the fire a wide berth. “We’ve got to try something. Lionheart is really upset.”

“Let’s go in a ways,” Jessica urged. “Like you said, we can always pull up. The fire here is mostly burning the lower reaches. It hasn’t gone up into the crown like it has in the northern fire.”

Lionheart relaxed slightly after Karl made the turn, but he did not settle back into Stephanie’s lap. Instead, he continued to focus forward, suggesting occasional course corrections with motions of his remaining true hand. Eventually, he directed them to cross the southern branch of the Makara River to the island.

Stephanie scanned the area below and saw something that filled her with dismay.

“Damn! Look down near the eastern tip of the island. See where the picketwood crosses from the mainland to the island?”

“You mean where the river branch gets narrow?” Jessica said.

“That’s it.” Stephanie said a word she wasn’t supposed to use six times. “Given the wind direction, the fire’s going to hit right there. The picketwood will be as good a bridge for fire as it is for any of the local wildlife.”

“One of the weaknesses of picketwood,” Karl agreed. “Your mom’s research shows it can seal off diseased sections within itself but it can’t do anything about fire. I wish it could create natural firebreaks that way, too, instead of actually helping the flames spread.”

None of them felt any doubt that the fire would reach this point. Although they were farther from the actively burning areas, the air was thick with smoke. Karl was relying heavily on the air car’s navigation systems to help him avoid the trees. It was almost maddening to see him looking at the heads-up display, not through the windshield, as he steered.

Stephanie leaned forward as if somehow that would help her see more clearly. She might have felt foolish but for the awareness that Jessica was doing the same thing.

Occasionally, they saw shadowy forms moving through the smoke. Most were indistinct, but once or twice Stephanie could clearly make out one of the mid-sized herbivores the colonists lumped together under the name “near-deer.” Another time, more heartbreakingly, she saw a pair of near-otters pushing along. Bodies well-adapted to water struggled on land as they strove to reach the Makara River.

“They don’t think this area’s going to stay safe much longer,” Jessica commented, her voice tight and choked. “I wish we could give them a ride.”

“They’d just panic,” Karl said, but he also sounded miserable.

When Lionheart “bleeked” loudly and pointed, at first Stephanie thought he was indicating another near-otter, which, for some reason had climbed up into a tree.

No,
she realized.
That’s not a near-otter.

“A treecat,” she gasped aloud, gesturing in unconscious imitation of Lionheart. As Jessica and Karl turned to look, forms within the smoke moved. They saw clearly furry masses staring down at them. “No! It’s not one treecat. There are at least four of them. They must be part of a clan, trying to escape the fire.”

Karl set the air car to hover they could assess the situation. “Steph, a treecat clan is too large to fit in this car, even if we got out and walked. We can’t save a whole clan.”

“Yes, we can,” Stephanie said defiantly. “The first step is to slow the fire.”

*
 
*
 
*

Anders was in mid-flight when he heard Dr. Calida say, “Does anyone else smell smoke?”

There was something in her voice that made Anders stop in mid-step and edge his way back into the company. His dad was standing open-mouthed, staring at his own hand as if he couldn’t believe what he had been about to do. Everyone else had frozen in place, then Dacey turned to look at the little field stove on which she had been doing all of their cooking.

“It’s not from here,” she said, sniffing the air, “but I think you’re right, Calli. I do smell smoke—wood smoke.”

Anders sniffed and caught the distinct scent of burning wood. At first his heart leapt. Maybe someone was coming to the rescue! Then reality struck. No rescuers would be burning anything, not in this dry season. This had to have another source.

A quick check around their arboreal camp showed that none of their equipment was the source of the odor. Anders volunteered to climb up to where he could see above the immediate forest canopy. The rapidity with which everyone agreed that this would be a good idea was significant.

We need to forget what Dad almost did,
Anders thought as he puffed his way aloft.
For now…But I’m not sure I’ll ever forget…or forgive.

Without the long “tail” of his flagpole pulling him down, the climb went more easily, even with his counter-grav unit reset to save power. Anders wondered if he was finally getting used to the pull of the extra gravity—or at least was developing reflexes to compensate. He thought of Karl Zivonik’s broad shoulders and heavier build, how muscular and well-developed he was, especially for a young man of his age.

I wonder, if I stayed here, would I get like that, or do you have to grow up in this sort of environment?

Anders knew he was thinking like that to quiet the latent shaking in his muscles, his fear that when he went back down his dad would go after him again. Instead, he concentrated on finding and testing each hand- and foothold, all too aware of the price he’d pay if he fell. At last he was up where he could poke his head above the leafy boughs. What he saw was poor reward for his labors. Even as cooler breezes caressed his face, drying the accumulated sweat, he saw in the distance a pillar of white and gray smoke billowing upwards to the east.

At first, the smoke looked self-contained and quite small. Then Anders’ perspective adjusted and he realized that the plumes of smoke were enormous. Beneath them, he glimpsed a reddish-orange glow. Belatedly, Anders recalled that he’d been sent aloft with a pair of high-powered binoculars. With these, he was able to pick out more detail. He realized that this fire was only one of two—a much larger one was burning to the north.

Although Anders was aware of voices shouting up at him from below, he did not reply. He was too high up to shout with anything like clarity and he certainly wasn’t making this climb again. Dismissing the northern fire—which, despite its size, posed no threat to their group—he focused again on the one to the east.

His initial impression had been that the plumes of smoke were going straight up, but now he realized that this had been an illusion created by their vast size and his own position relative to them. As he studied them more carefully, he was able to guess at wind direction.

He swallowed hard. There was no doubt about it. Although the main body of the fire was still a good distance away, the conflagration could eventually head in their direction. The main push of wind was from the south, but a secondary current was slowly shoving the fire west.

“I’m coming down,” Anders called. “Wait a minute.”

When he reached the location of their camp, he reported what he’d seen, ending, “I think we’re safe for now, but we should get ready to evacuate.”

As he fully expected, his announcement caused considerable debate. Virgil was ordered up the tree to take a look at the fire himself, since Dr. Whittaker felt “we cannot plan solely on data supplied by a boy my son’s age.” Anders guessed that maybe he deserved that, since he really hadn’t been able to evaluate distances or provide any idea how rapidly the front of the fire might be progressing in their direction—but in light of their recent conflict the words stung.

Virgil’s scouting expedition didn’t provide much more information, but he did second Anders’ recommendation that they should prepare to evacuate if necessary.

“If necessary” was said with an uneasy glance toward the comatose form of Langston Nez. This morning the sick man had seemed a little…Anders wasn’t sure if “better” or “stronger” was the right word, but both Dacey and Kesia agreed that Langston was swallowing more readily and that his bladder was beginning to function. Kesia cheerfully admitted to having rigged a sort of diaper for him from a couple other items out of her supply of clothing.

However, swallowing and peeing did not translate into “up and ready to go.” Therefore, any plans for evacuation had to include how they would move Langston—plans that would doubtless mean exhausting more of their nearly depleted stock of power packs for the counter-grav units.

Making matters worse was the fact that Dr. Whittaker was reluctant to leave behind any of his precious artifacts. Never mind that Dr. Calida had pointed out none too gently that treecats were hardly an endangered species and that doubtless other such items could be gathered in the future. Dr. Whittaker’s attachment to these bits of stone and fragments of basketry ranged on the fanatical.

“Don’t you understand?” he urged, cupping a particularly fine flint point in the palm of one broad hand. “As the SFS actions following the Ubel disaster demonstrate, they are perfectly willing to contaminate treecat culture with material from our own. These represent uncontaminated specimens—gathered without the treecats’ knowledge. The history of anthropology is full of situations where a people under examination told the anthropologists what they wanted to hear and so distorted and contaminated the study sample.”

“Bradford,” Dr. Calida said, speaking so gently that Anders knew she distrusted his father’s mental stability, “I don’t think the situations are comparable. The treecats are not going to invent technologies simply because they think you might like to study them. Even if they do, well, I would think that level of adaptability would be proof of their intelligence that no one could doubt.”

“Yeah,” quipped Kesia. “If one of those furry little critters showed up right now with a heap of packs for the counter-grav units, I’d be thrilled, even if the packs were made from leaves and berries.”

“As long as they worked,” Virgil agreed with a grin, then swallowed hard when he saw Dr. Whittaker glowering at him. “What I mean is we wouldn’t want a cargo cult situation, where the locals were making facsimiles of what was then high-tech equipment like airplanes, in an attempt to bring the benefits of that technology to them.”