“First, Turner and Fitzpatrick are going to do that anyway. Second, anybody with half a brain who’s actually listened to how Harrington and Lionheart met ought to realize treecats can be dangerous. Third, dangerous aborigines need to be isolated, both to protect them from corruption—not to mention the sorts of reactions that interaction with the threats and challenges of a high-tech society are likely to provoke—and to protect innocent bystanders from injury if something triggers their fight-or-flight mechanism. And fourth, Ozzie, who ever said Harrington and her little friend were actually going to get to the next meeting?”
Morrow had opened his mouth to reply. Now he shut it very slowly, eyes narrowed in speculation at her across the table, and her knife-sharp smile was cold.
Chapter Fourteen
Hard Claw and Firm Biter helped Keen Eyes position the net trap where any Person trying to reach Keen Eyes must trigger it. Then they retired to the agreed-upon distance. Keen Eyes concentrated on Nimble Fingers, focusing on the sense of the other Person he had gained during their brief encounters. Then he shaped his mind-voice into notes of anger and pain. He let himself remember Red Cliff as he had been when they had last met, half-mad with grief over his beloved Beautiful Mind, weak in body because he kept insisting that his share of the food be given to either his mate or their kittens.
Keen Eyes shaped the images into mockery. <I suspect whoever slew Red Cliff thinks himself a hero, protecting the home territory. What sort of hero gives death when comfort is needed?>
Making his memories into a coherent mind-voice image was painful in and of itself. Keen Eyes let that pain intensify the message. He showed the listener where he was, how he sat within Trees Enfolding’s own territory.
At first, Keen Eyes thought his plan to lure Nimble Fingers to him had failed. He let his despair come forth to color his mind-voice. Perhaps this last was what made Nimble Fingers finally hear.
Nimble Fingers spoke to Keen Eyes, mind to mind.
<What do you mean by this insult?> Nimble Fingers said indignantly. <If your clan brother is dead, we did not have anything to do with it. If this Red Cliff was as weak as you say, perhaps he fell victim to a young death fang or a flock of death-wings.>
In reply, Keen Eyes sent a detailed image of Red Cliff’s body as he had found it, claw-slashed and bloodied but with no indication that any part of it had been eaten, as surely would have been the case if the killer had been either of the fearsome predators suggested. He focused on showing how those wounds were very like those made by a Person’s claws.
Nimble Fingers’ reply was not so much a statement as a sense of uncertainty, a hint that perhaps Keen Eyes was not providing the full tale.
As he shaped his own reply, Keen Eyes also sensed the first hints of the other’s mind-glow. In it he tasted no indication that Nimble Fingers had yet called for help from others in his clan. Whether this was because Nimble Fingers was young and impulsive or because what Keen Eyes had accused Trees Enfolding of having done made him uncertain, Keen Eyes could not be sure.
Keen Eyes kept projecting his own anger and grief, his certainty that his clan mate had been slain by another Person and that the killer belonged to Nimble Fingers’ own clan. He kept his mind-voice narrowly focused, so that what he said would be heard only by Nimble Fingers. He sought to disorient Nimble Fingers, so the younger ’cat would hurtle forward, leaping from point to point without thinking very hard about what he might meet at the end.
Keen Eyes knew his own mind-glow would reflect his current state of mind. To the approaching Nimble Fingers, Keen Eyes would be a vibrant emotional storm in which his current intense anger and grief would dominate less immediate emotions. Keen Eyes knew his own excitement that his plan seemed to be working would blend into the storm. In such a situation, excitement and tension were only natural. Indeed, he had to fight not to attack when Nimble Fingers at last burst from the cover of the sheltering trees. Instead, Keen Eyes shifted his position so that when Nimble Fingers took his next leap he would land squarely in the trap prepared for him.
Nimble Fingers leapt. The spread net snapped shut into a ball with Nimble Fingers caught on the inside.
Before Nimble Fingers could call for assistance from his clan, Keen Eyes bombarded him with a shout of command.
<Hold and listen!>
With the swiftness of thought, Keen Eyes hammered into Nimble Fingers the one part of his discovery of Red Cliff that he had withheld to this moment—how when he had found his murdered friend’s body he had been taunted from afar by Swimmer’s Scourge. Keen Eyes had considered sharing this memory from the start, but he had chosen not to because he had worried that rather than racing forward in indignant defense of his uncle, Nimble Fingers might have chosen to confront Swimmer’s Scourge.
Now the memory, perfect in every detail, hit Nimble Fingers like a blow. He stopped struggling against the tightly knotted mesh and hung limp.
<Swimmer’s Scourge said that to you?> The statement held no doubt as to the accuracy of Keen Eyes’ reporting of the event, only shock and pain that a Person Nimble Fingers thought he knew so well could be capable of such cruelty. <I knew Swimmer’s Scourge was ferocious beyond measure in his desire to protect our clan’s territory. He has said that the fire’s invasion was enough for us to bear. He would not tolerate another invasion. Yet…that he could kill your Red Cliff and then brag of it to you—return to the clan and reveal nothing….>
<He said nothing to the members of Trees Enfolding?>
<Nothing. Of course we could all tell he was overwrought and excited, but so have we all been. There has been much argument in the clan of late. There are two factions regarding where we should locate our winter central nesting place. There are those who believe we should let your clan pass through our lands, and others who believe with equal certainty that we should chase you from where you currently den. There are many other, smaller, arguments, as well, so that our memory singers and mind healers are worn out trying to mediate them.>
Nimble Fingers could easily have shared all the details of these clan quarrels fully with Keen Eyes. However, he clearly felt he had no reason to trust the other. Nonetheless, although Nimble Fingers could conceal details, he could not conceal the confusion and pain that now dominated his mind-glow.
Keen Eyes carefully tasted that mind-glow, but he saw no indication that Nimble Fingers was about to call for help. Soon, however, Nimble Fingers would get over his initial shock and call for someone—perhaps the senior memory singer. Therefore, Keen Eyes could not delay his next move, no matter how much sympathy he felt for the younger Person’s confusion.
<If Swimmer’s Scourge did not tell your clan what he did,> Keen Eyes said, abating some of his anger and replacing it with a thoughtfulness that came easily because it was more natural to him, <then perhaps I should tell them. Perhaps Swimmer’s Scourge doubts that the rest of the Trees Enfolding clan would agree that he took the right course in killing Red Cliff. Perhaps he feels ashamed at how he added to my pain at the death of my clan mate through the cruelty of his taunts. Perhaps Trees Enfolding clan needs to hear this.>
<No! Don’t…It would…I told you, we are already….>
The younger Person’s thoughts muddled into frantic incoherence. Keen Eyes hurried to offer a compromise.