* * *
“Hi, Dr. Richard,” Anders said when Stephanie’s dad opened the door to the big, rambling stone house. “Is Stephanie ready?”
“Good morning to you, Anders,” Dr. Harrington replied. “Steph ran upstairs to get something. Can I offer you some coffee?”
“Dacey and I already had some,” Anderson said, “but I could use a bit more. Were you up all night again?”
The veterinarian nodded as he led the way to the kitchen. “Saleem called from the clinic. We have two nipper-hoppers with some sort of respiratory infection and one went into crisis. Probably reaction to the antibiotic. I didn’t have to fly in—Saleem’s a good vet himself—but we were in consultation until we pulled the patient through.”
“You did then?” Anders accepted the large mug of steaming hot coffee and sipped it gratefully. Stephanie preferred sweets, but he liked a bit of bitter. “Congratulations!”
“Thanks. I think they’ll both make it, but sometimes I long for the days when my practice consisted of dogs and cats, and remedies tested by centuries of care.”
Anders grinned. He knew Dr. Harrington was being melodramatic. The truth was that he was a trained xeno-veterinarian who’d treated a lot of non-Terrestrial creatures even back on Meyerdahl.
He heard the sound of Stephanie spilling down the stairs at her usual breakneck pace. A moment later she burst into the kitchen, Lionheart loping with sinuous grace beside her, her travel pack swinging from one hand.
“Sorry, Anders. I realized I’d forgotten to bring those extra nets I have for your dad.”
As always, Anders found his heart giving a joyful leap when he saw Stephanie Harrington. He knew she didn’t think much of her looks. She thought she was too short, that her hair was too curly and too boringly brown. He knew—more from watching Stephanie’s reactions than because she’d actually admitted it—that she envied girls with more curvaceous figures like Jessica or Trudy. He’d tried and tried to tell Stephanie that curvy figures were all right, but how to explain to a girl that she reminded you of an eagle lofting on a breeze or a deer leaping with lithe grace? It just didn’t come out like you meant it to, especially when the girl’s dad was a vet and she tended to think of animals from a very practical perspective.
“Dad will be really pleased to have those nets,” Anders assured her without adding “if he’s allowed to come back to Sphinx.” That was something he and Stephanie had decided by unspoken agreement not to discuss. “He never gets tired of comparing one physical artifact to another,” Anders went on, “even if they all look pretty much the same to most of us.”
“Great!” Stephanie said, turning to give her dad a quick hug. “I’ll be back for dinner. Remind Mom not to tell Jessica, okay? I want to do it myself.”
“Right,” Dr. Harrington said. “I will.”
Anders thought this last exchange was very odd. Over the last six months, Stephanie and Jessica had gotten so close that sometimes he was just a little bit jealous. He guessed their closeness had to do with the fact that both had been adopted by treecats, but maybe it was just that they were girls. Either way—even though they didn’t spend all that much time giggling over clothes or hairstyles—there were times he felt distinctly left out. What wouldn’t Stephanie tell the other girl?
Maybe it’s near Jess’ birthday or something, he thought, and Stephanie is present shopping. He resolved to ask later. Jessica Pheriss had become his friend, too, and he wouldn’t want to miss her birthday.
“Can I help with any of that junk?” he asked Stephanie as they headed towards where he’d parked the rented air car.
“I’ve got it,” she assured him. “It’s less awkward than it looks, really.”
Anders didn’t protest. He’d gotten used to the fact that, tiny as she was, Stephanie was a lot stronger than he was. She moved easily in Sphinx’s 1.35 gravity without needing the counter-grav unit that Anders wore day and night, sleeping and waking. He supposed it didn’t bother him because Stephanie would be the first to remind him that she hadn’t done anything to earn that extra strength. The Harringtons were all genies—genetically modified humans. Their home planet of Meyerdahl had cultivated several variations, all meant to help humans deal with environments for which the unaugmented human form was not intended. Anders didn’t know the full extent of those modifications, but he did know that Stephanie was strong and tough. She healed well, too. He didn’t know if Stephanie’s intelligence—she was scary smart—was a result of genetic modifications, too, or just good luck. After all, both her parents were obviously smart.
There were drawbacks to Stephanie’s mutations, of course. The most obvious was that she had a huge appetite. Most of the time that meant she simply munched away without putting on an extra ounce, but there had been that time they’d been hiking and the extra food bars they’d brought along had been ruined when a pack fell into a stream. If Lionheart hadn’t come up with some peculiar looking nuts, Stephanie would have suffered.
Anders knew from personal experience that it was a good thing humans could eat a lot of what grew on Sphinx. Of course, if humans only ate foods native to Sphinx, they would eventually suffer from dietary deficiencies. But the compatibility meant that the planet—despite its high gravity and relatively cool climate—was actually pretty friendly to humans. Friendly, that was, until something surged out of a bog and tried to eat you….
Anders grinned at the memory. Adventure was definitely more fun afterwards than when it was happening.
The air car was empty when they got to it, but Anders wasn’t surprised.
“Dacey?” he called.
“Up here, just a sec. I saw something I wanted to sketch.”
He and Stephanie looked up in time to see a tall, skinny, older woman drifting from the lower boughs of one of the many crown oaks that ornamented the area surrounding the Harringtons’ house. She adjusted her counter-grav unit just shy of the ground and came to a light landing that spoke of a lot of experience using the device.
“Good morning, Stephanie,” Dacey Emberly said cheerfully. “I hope your parents don’t mind, but the light drifting down through the leaves—especially with the leaves turning that particular golden shade—was too much for me.”
Stephanie grinned and stowed her pack in the air car. Lionheart leapt up and in, settling into one of the window seats and bleeking to have the window opened a crack so he could sniff out. Anders moved into the driver’s seat and complied with the treecat’s request.
“The autumn color’s too much for Mom, too,” Stephanie said. “This is only our second real autumn here on Sphinx, and we got here late last autumn, just as winter was coming on. Mom’s making sketches or taking images every free moment. She wants to fill out her series of season paintings.”
“I know,” Dacey agreed. “And I understand, too. We’ve been here for nearly a full T-year, and as far as I’m concerned, Sphinx exists in a sort of eternal late summer, though the color shifts in the trees these last couple of T-months are making me believe in autumn.”
“If you’re still here,” Stephanie laughed, “I can tell you, you’ll seriously believe in winter. Take my word for that!”
The flight to the waterfall she’d described to Dacey was filled with conversation comparing Sphinx and Meyerdahl to Urako and to several planets Dacey had lived on during her long life. Eventually, Anders brought the air car down into the clearing Stephanie indicated and they piled out.