<We will meet again, Dirt Grubber,> Nimble Fingers assured him. <A friendship like ours will not fade with distance or time.>
Next the members of Trees Enfolding came for Swimmer’s Scourge. Swimmer’s Scourge was left bound, for Pleasant Singer had decreed that he was dangerous to himself and others until he was calmer. Then he, too, was lifted onto a litter and born away. As soon as Swimmer’s Scourge was outside of immediate mind-glow range, Dirt Grubber felt a tension he had not known had crept into himself fading away.
He shivered. Who would have thought that Swimmer’s Scourge had a weapon more dangerous than sharp fangs or six sets of claws? Dirt Grubber, himself, had always pitied the two-legs for their mind-blindness. Now he understood more fully that sharing minds could be dangerous, as well.
When the last of Trees Enfolding had left, Dirt Grubber came and tapped the two-legs’ shoulders and pointed back to where they had left the flying thing.
“Bleek!” he said, wishing he could share with them all these complications. “Bleek! Bleek!”
* * *
“They’re talking,” Jessica said. “I can’t tell what about, but they’re talking, not arguing.” She shivered violently. “Stars! I’m freezing.”
“Shock,” Anders said, moving over to her. “Here. Let me put my arms around you.”
Jessica gave a wan smile. “Share body heat? Okay. I mean, you’ve got to be pretty cold without your jacket. Even if you could get it back, it’s seriously ruined.”
Anders settled so that Jessica could nestle against him, then wrapped his arms tightly around her. She fitted very well, there. He put his chin on top of her head, careful to avoid any of the places the treecat had gored her. After a few minutes, he thought she’d stopped shivering, but his own heart was beating so fast he couldn’t be sure.
“Feeling better?”
“Uh-huh.” Jessica’s voice was distant and dreamy. “I’ve decided I’m going to be a doctor.”
“What?”
“A doctor. Lately, I seem to be spending all my time patching people up. If I’m going to keep doing that, I’d better know more. I want to be a human doctor, though, not a vet. Maybe I’ll have a side specialization in treecats. They’re people, too, right?”
She giggled, and Anders heard the shrill note that said better than any words that Jessica was still on the edge of hysteria. No wonder. She’d been under a lot of pressure lately. He’d been shocked by the dead treecats, but it would be different for her. She would have felt Valiant’s reaction, as well as her own. Her mother covering for Marjorie Harrington had put more responsibility on Jessica, too.
And then….
Anders realized all at once what the other factor just might be. At least it was a factor in his own wildly beating heart. His voice suddenly thick and rough, he managed to get the words out.
“I don’t know what I want to be,” he said. “But I know what I want to do. Jessica…I…I want to protect you.”
“Protect me?”
Anders felt her tense and quickly explained. “Not because you’re weak, Jessica Pheriss, but because you’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. You’re always there for everyone else. I want you to know always there’s someone there for you.”
Her tension didn’t ease. “Valiant! I have Valiant.”
“Hush, girl. Of course you do. But he’s also someone else you need to look out for, protect him from blackholes like the x-a’s, deal with spite and envy. Besides, just because you have Valiant, are you saying you don’t need anyone else?”
Jessica said nothing, but her silence was a listening one, so he went on, words tumbling over each other.
“Jess, darling, I’ve been falling in love with you for weeks now, but I didn’t want to admit it. When I saw that treecat tearing into you, I felt something I’ve never felt before. I had to protect you. Your safety meant more to me than my own. That’s what gave me the courage to get in there and grab that thing, even with blood all over the place and knowing he could shred me, too. I had to because you mean more to me than anybody I’ve ever met.”
One word, hardly more than a whisper. “Stephanie?”
Anders tightened his hold. “I know. I—Stephanie is great, but ‘us,’ that was her idea and I…I was swept up. I mean, after treecats, the thing on Sphinx I wanted to see most of all was the person who’d discovered them.”
“Thing?” Another tense giggle.
“Yeah…I mean, I knew Stephanie Harrington was a person, but she was a thing, too. The discoverer. First contact with aliens. Brilliant, creative, pretty in a cute way. Then she liked me. Really liked me.” He let out a gusty sigh and Jessica’s curls danced. “Steph told me she thought I was something special from the first moment she saw me.”
“Yeah…She told me that, too. She was floored. In love at a breath.”
“Aw, Jess, don’t you get it? Love at first sight is wonderful and romantic, but it also means you’re in love with an impression, an idea, an appearance.”
“Fate?”
“You mean, do I believe in fate?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I don’t know…I mean, I could say that it was fated I meet you, too. Fated we’d be put through stuff like this that would mean I’d get to know you as someone who otherwise wouldn’t step out of Stephanie’s shadow. Stephanie, well she sort of claimed me. I’m not saying I didn’t like being claimed or her. I did. I do. I think I always will…but Steph isn’t…she isn’t you, Jessica.”
They sat quietly. The treecats were moving now. Some had vanished back into the thick green canopy. A couple of hefty males were bringing the stretcher and loading Guide onto it.
Jessica spoke very quietly. “I didn’t exactly envy Stephanie, but I thought she was really lucky. I thought she was luckier than she knew…When she went off to Manticore, oh! I had such thoughts. I tried not to show them, though.”
“You mean…you liked me, too?”
“Idiot! Of course, I did. But I’m not the sort of person to poach my best friend’s boyfriend. And I’m going to be a doctor.”
Anders blinked, but he thought he understood. Jessica had mentioned how her mother had settled down with her father—though “unsettled down” might be a better way to put it—fairly young. He hoped she wasn’t so much rejecting him as offering terms.
“Okay. You be a doctor,” he said. “I’ll figure out something that will let me be the doctor’s boyfriend. I’m good with people. Maybe I can be a receptionist.”
She giggled. Anders relaxed a little, but he didn’t loosen his hold on her.
“You’re going to need to stay in the Star Kingdom because of Valiant, right?”
Jessica shrugged. “No one’s made rules, yet. Remember, Lionheart’s the first treecat ever to leave the planet even temporarily.”
“Still….” Anders’ thoughts twisted through all sorts of complications. One loomed in front of the others. “I’m going to have to tell Stephanie. And I’m not going to be a coward and do it in a message. I’ve got to do it face to face.”
The treecats had carried both Guide and the Attack Cat away. Valiant had stayed, nose to nose with a female who radiated authority. Now she turned away and Valiant loped over to them.
“Bleek!” he said, patting them both on the shoulder and pointing back toward the air car. “Bleek! Bleek!
* * *
When they were back at Jessica’s air car, she made no fuss about letting Anders pilot.
Instead, she leaned back in the passenger seat with Valiant thrumming in her lap.
“The question is,” Anders said, “where do we take you?”
“It’s got to be Scott again,” Jessica said. “If I go to the clinic in Twin Forks, I’m going to have to come up with some explanation. Or I could skip seeing a doctor. I think I’m pretty well patched up.”
“No!” Anders said. “That’s out of the question. What will we tell your parents?”