“Anyhow, one day Stephanie came into Twin Forks with her folks, and they made the usual attempt to get Stephanie to play with some kids her own age. When she found out that the game was dressing chipmunks up in bandannas and hats, she went ballistic. She punched out a couple of kids, gave Trudy a bloody nose, and basically made herself really unpopular.”
Anders found himself laughing uncontrollably. He’d seen images of young Stephanie Harrington from long before he’d met her. Marjorie and Richard Harrington were very proud of their only child and numerous holos of her were displayed around their house. He had no trouble imagining the cute little urchin in those images walloping a bunch of kids because they’d dressed up their pets.
“Oh, boy. Great way to make friends and influence people!”
“For sure.” Jessica shared his laughter. “When I got to know Stephanie, I asked her if that had really happened. She admitted it had—and admitted that it had happened more than once before her folks gave up on making her socialize in anything but an organized group like the hang-gliding club.”
“I guess Trudy wouldn’t have wanted to admit that her gang got repeatedly assaulted,” Anders guessed. “Once makes Stephanie sound mean and out of control, but more than once—Well, it doesn’t exactly make Stephanie sound much better, but it makes Trudy and her friends sound like the limpest sort of lettuce leaves.”
“That’s what I think, too,” Jessica agreed. “I think Lionheart brings out the best in Stephanie—and there’s a lot of good there. She’s admitted that she finds it easier to hang on to her temper these days.”
“Does Valiant help you?” he asked, and Jessica considered.
“Not with my temper. I don’t really have one, like Stephanie does, I mean. I get cold mad, not hot mad. But Valiant does help me, I think. My family’s moved so many times that I’m good at making friends, but inside I’m really shy. Valiant is so confident I’m worth knowing that, these days, I find it easier to talk to people about big things, not just make small talk.”
“You mean you wouldn’t have talked like this about Stephanie before?”
“I might have,” Jessica said. “I mean, I know you care a lot about her and so do I. It’s not like I’m trashing her. I figure she’s probably told you some of this already.”
“She did tell me she has a temper,” Anders admitted. “But she didn’t tell me about giving Trudy a bloody nose.”
“Oops!” Jessica giggled. “Still, I don’t think she’d mind your knowing. It’s not as if Trudy ever fooled you about the sort of manipulative bitch she really is. Trudy thinks there’s not a guy on the planet—maybe even in the whole system—who can resist her.”
“But she dates a doper like Stan Chang.” Anders shook his head. “I just don’t get it.”
“Figuring out other people’s relationships,” Jessica declared, “is impossible. I’m not sure anyone will ever construct a formula that will precisely explain why certain people fall for each other.”
Valiant reached over and patted her, so Anders knew she must be thinking about something specific, but before he could ask, she shifted the conversation, talking about how her parents had met—an unlikely courtship if ever there’d been one.
From there it was natural that they talked about her little brothers and sisters, about how much the whole family liked Sphinx. Anders wondered if Jessica thought talking about Stephanie might make him feel bad, if she was trying to save him pain. Even so, Stephanie’s name kept coming up. It was impossible not to talk about her since she’d become so deeply entwined in both of their lives since they’d each come to Sphinx.
Eventually, Jessica glanced at the navigation readout on the HUD.
“We’re getting close. I’m going to slow us down so I can be sure we don’t pass over the right areas. Mom’s trying to collect data on precisely the same plants, along with doing a more general study.”
“Right,” Anders said. “Bring us down, Captain. It’s time we went a’hunting the infant forms of Sphinxian super-gigantic plants.”
Jessica’s giggle wasn’t Stephanie’s but it sounded pretty good. It cut through the loneliness, reminding Anders that—no matter how far away his girl might be—he still had friends.
* * *
Keen Eyes raced through the netwood trees. Knowing how acutely aware of each other bonded pairs were, he’d set his course in the direction indicated by Beautiful Mind’s pointing finger. However, he kept his attention sharp for any other signs the Person he sought had come this way. He found precious few: fresh claw marks in the bark where Red Cliff had apparently leapt too far and had to grip in, a bit of shredded leaf, a patch of matted feathers. This last looked as if the hunter had sprung after a potential bit of prey and missed.
All of these worried Keen Eyes. They indicated haste and carelessness, neither of which boded well for the Person he pursued. Then, too, though he called repeatedly after his friend, there was no reply, not even the faintest flicker of a mind-glow. True, Red Cliff could be out of range. Since the fires, there were fewer People to relay messages than there would have been in the past. Nonetheless, Keen Eyes’ heart hammered hard in apprehension.
Keen Eyes knew when he crossed into the heart of the Trees Enfolding Clan’s range. He’d known he had been in what a stiff-tail like Swimmer’s Scourge would call that clan’s territory practically from the start. Now, however, there could be no claiming ignorance. He’d passed—and avoided—snares set for bark-chewers along the limbs of the netwood. He’d seen pads made from leaves and branches set in convenient areas where a hunter might wait in stillness for prey animals to become convinced the forest was still and safe. He’d seen the spring, its tiny natural basin sculpted into a perfect pool. These, and a dozen other reworkings of the landscape, told him that People lived here.
Still his calls, kept as tight and directed as possible in the hope that he could avoid the attention of the Trees Enfolding Clan, met with no answer. Only a passionate desire to find Red Cliff and convince him to go home to his mate and kittens kept Keen Eyes searching. He was about to give up when he smelled blood—not prey blood, but Person blood—and mingled with that horrid reek was the odor of fear.
Without considering the consequences, Keen Eyes bounded towards the scent. Even if it wasn’t Red Cliff, to bleed so heavily a Person must be in danger. Any Person, no matter the clan, would come to offer aid. But when he burst into the clearing at the heart of a cluster of netwood trees, Keen Eyes found no Person, only a patch of earth soaked with blood and ornamented with tufts of fur. This close to the source, Keen Eyes could have no doubt whose blood it was: Red Cliff’s.
Red Cliff was sorely wounded or—more likely—dead. Intent on keeping hope alive, Keen Eyes sought for any trace of Red Cliff’s mind-glow, but found nothing. He reminded himself that this did not necessarily mean the other Person was dead. The range over which People could sense each other’s mind-glows was much smaller than that over which they could speak. However, this did mean one of two things. Either Red Cliff was dead or so close to dead that his mind-glow had all but vanished. Or Red Cliff had managed to escape, despite his wounds.
Keen Eyes sniffed the air, examining his surroundings carefully with the acute vision and sense for detail that had won him his adult name. Mingled in with Red Cliff’s own scent he found that of another Person. It was not a familiar scent in the sense that Keen Eyes had met the Person to whom it belonged face-to-face, but it was familiar in that he had encountered traces of it before. It belonged to someone who regularly hunted in this area, so probably a Person belonging to Trees Enfolding Clan.