“I imagine so, given the circumstances under which you met.” Adair shook her head. “I’ve been to Sphinx for visits, but I’ve never met a hexapuma in the wild, and I never want to, either.”
“It isn’t the sort of thing we encourage,” Karl acknowledged. “Bad for tourism if too many tourists get eaten, after all.”
Adair laughed, and it was Harper’s turn to shake his head.
“Karl has what he thinks is a sense of humor, Ms. Adair. Despite that, he’s really a very nice guy, once you get to know him.”
Karl only smiled unrepentantly.
“At any rate,” Harper went on, “the Dean wanted me to make sure you three got introduced to one another. Ms. Adair’s cousin is the Earl of Adair Hollow, one of the University’s more generous donors, and she’s been very active in supporting the University herself. She’s also one of the directors of the Adair Foundation.”
He looked at them expectantly, and Stephanie glanced at Karl to see if he’d recognized the name. She’d done her own research on the Adair Foundation after viewing Anders’ and Jessica’s accounts of their meetings with the “x-a’s,” and from everything she’d been able to discover, the Foundation was about as respectable and reputable as nonprofit organizations came. Its list of donors and patrons read like a Who’s Who of the Manticoran aristocracy—including the King—and it had a distinguished record of aggressively protecting the biodiversity of the Star Kingdom’s habitable planets.
She’d felt reassured as she read over its charter and viewed the catalog of its accomplishments. Yet despite that reassurance, she’d still felt…uneasy. She knew she tended to be protective, maybe even overly protective, where the treecats were concerned, but it wasn’t like Anders and Jessica to imagine things, especially with Valiant along to keep them straight. If they had their doubts about some of the x-a’s, they probably had a reason, and there’d been no information on the Foundation’s site—or anywhere else in the public record—about how exactly it had decided which visiting xeno-anthropologists to sponsor to Sphinx.
The corner of Karl’s right eyelid dropped in what might have been the smallest of winks, and Stephanie suppressed a sudden smile. Yes, Karl had recognized the name. In fact, Stephanie was willing to bet he’d guessed who Ms. Adair was associated with the instant Harper had introduced her. That was probably what had prompted his remark about hexapumas and tourists.
“I’ve heard about the Foundation, Ms. Adair,” she said. “I’ve been messaging with a couple of our friends back on Sphinx about the expedition it sponsored.”
“Oh, I wish we could take the credit for that,” Adair said. She had a melodious contralto voice, and the gleam in those green eyes invited them to laugh with her. “Unfortunately, honesty compels me to admit that we only expedited it. I wish we’d been the ones who thought of it—and a lot sooner than this—but, well—”
She shrugged, her expression wry.
“Sooner than this?” Karl repeated, and Adair nodded.
“We’re dedicated to recognizing and protecting biodiversity. It’s what we do. Most people aren’t that worried about things like that just this moment, given three entire planets that are basically still empty of humans, but the Foundation figures it’s only a matter of time before humanity starts really extending its footprint here in the Manticore System. We’re already doing that on Manticore itself, you know, and it won’t be so many more years before the same thing begins happening on Sphinx. You would’ve thought that an organization worried about things like that would have been on its toes enough to immediately recognize what Stephanie’s discovery of the treecats meant—or might mean—for our declared mission, but frankly we were asleep at the switch. We should have sponsored a reputable xeno-anthropologist instead of letting that horrible Bolgeo person slip past us. For that matter, we should have insisted on vetting his credentials better, in which case that whole mess might not have happened.
“But we were too focused on what we were doing here on Manticore, I suppose. And by the time we realized just how bad a choice ‘Doctor’ Bolgeo had been, the Interior Ministry and Governor Donaldson had written a contract with a reputable, properly credentialed team from Urako. We decided the situation was properly in hand, but then there was that whole incident this past year’s fire season. To be honest, we began to feel…concerned over the future of the Whitaker expedition, and until the status of Dr. Whitaker’s contract was fully resolved the entire treecat situation was in limbo.
“Frankly, we’ve let some other people steal a march on us. By the time we started to worry, the Star Kingdom Chamber of Commerce, the Scientific Association of Manticore, the Royal Institute, and at least three or four other private and public organizations had already come to the conclusion that we needed to broaden and deepen the scope of our study of the treecats. In fact, they’d begun raising funds to bring in additional xeno-anthropologists before we ever got involved. We’re a stakeholder ourselves, of course, but our financial participation is relatively minor. Our biggest real contribution has been to facilitate the arrangements and to work with the University and the Ministry to assist in vetting Dr. Radzinsky’s entire team’s credentials and background, planning travel arrangements, and, to be honest, opening a few doors for them here in the Star Kingdom and integrating them into a noncompetitive relationship with Dr. Whitaker and his team.”
“I can only assume you’ve never met Dr. Whitaker,” Karl said dryly. Adair cocked an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged. “He’s actually a really nice guy in a lot of ways,” he said. “But where academic discovery’s concerned, he’s about as ‘noncompetitive’ as a pair of starving hexapumas with a single range bunny.”
“Oh, he’s not that bad, Karl!” Stephanie protested with a laugh, and Adair chuckled appreciatively.
“Trust me, even if he is, he won’t be the first academic I’ve met who feels that way. No offense, Allen,” she added with a glance at Dean Charterman’s assistant.
“You do realize I spend virtually all of my time here on this campus, don’t you?” Harper responded. “Trust me, I’ve had the range bunny’s perspective on scholarly hexapumas just like Dr. Whitaker at quite a few faculty get-togethers.”
“Exactly.” Adair turned back to Stephanie. “The truth is, one of the main reasons the Foundation got involved—even at this late date—was to try to…smooth out some of the bumps where academic egos were involved. Obviously, we believe there’s no such thing as too much knowledge about the treecats. That goes without saying. And the more people we have looking, the more perspectives we have, the more we’re likely to learn. But at the same time, we have to limit our intrusiveness. Whatever else may be true of the treecats, they’re the original owners of Sphinx, and we owe them a certain courtesy when we come visit. More to the point, we want to avoid contaminating the culture or over stressing their society. The last thing we need to do is to be crashing in with competing teams of scientists who might—with the best possible intentions—do a great deal of damage to the treecats out of pure ignorance simply because we haven’t had enough time to learn some critical truth about them.”
Her expression was far graver now, and Stephanie felt herself nodding in response.
“Bringing in those additional perspectives and viewpoints is important, but it was equally important to us to have everyone…under one roof, I suppose. And with enough direct Forestry Service involvement to preclude another Bolgeo slipping by us.”
“I see what you mean,” Stephanie said. “And I certainly agree that the last thing Lionheart or his family needs is to have hordes of strangers tromping all over their territories! I’d really prefer not to have brought in still more scientists, to be honest, but I do see your point, and I appreciate the way you’re trying to look out for the ’cats.”