Beginnings: Worlds of Honor 6, page 35
part #6 of Worlds of Honor Series
Sharp Nose glanced at him dubiously, then turned his attention back to the two-leg and reached out to touch her mind-glow. His ears rose slowly as the sheer strength of it washed over him, so powerful it was almost painful to sample it too closely. Yet Laughs Brightly was correct, he realized. That youngling was almost as well aware of the trees and mountainside about her as any scout.
he said to Laughs Brightly after a moment in a tone of profound respect.
Sharp Nose blinked in surprise, then looked back at the young two-leg. He had never really thought about it, but even if he had, it would probably not have occurred to him to think such a thing. Every kitten of Bright Water Clan grew up with the memory songs of Death Fang’s Bane, of the bright, fearless taste of her mind-glow and the depth and richness of her bond with Climbs Quickly. It was one of the glories—and the deepest tragedies—of the clan, for with Death Fang’s Bane’s passing, Climbs Quickly had followed that glorious mind-glow into the darkness with her. She had lived a long life for a two-leg, but none of the People had realized then how short two-legs’ lives truly were.
Yet now, as he sampled that approaching mind-glow more cautiously, he realized Laughs Brightly might actually be correct. It was as if the sun itself had come down below the golden-leaf and green-needle branches, blinding any eye that looked too closely upon it. Sharp Nose had never felt the least temptation to bond with one of the two-legs, even of Death Fang’s Bane Clan, which was honored and loved by every clan of the People. Yet if he had ever felt the desire to reach out to that glory, bind himself to it forever, this mind-glow would have drawn him as a flame drew the night-flyers.
Sharp Nose twitched the tip of his tail in slow agreement, considering what his brother had said. Death Fang’s Bane’s mind-glow burned bright still in Bright Water Clan’s memory songs, but this had been her world. Though she had left it upon occasion—and Climbs Quickly had accompanied her when she did, returning with mind songs of the two-legs’ other worlds—she had always returned, for it had been the treasure for which her heart had hungered. Yet not all of her descendents had shared that heart hunger. Still . . .
He looked at Laughs Brightly speculatively, and the older treecat turned his head to return his regard, ears cocked as he tasted his brother’s question.
Sharp Nose admitted.
It was true that he and Laughs Brightly were directly descended from Climbs Quickly, Sharp Nose reflected, yet that was true of many of Bright Water’s People after so many turnings. And he did not think that was the sole answer. All of the scouts and hunters of Bright Water Clan kept watch over Death Fang’s Bane Clan. Even those to whom no Person ever bonded were . . . family, to be cherished and guarded when they ventured into the clan’s range, and Dances on Clouds was no exception. Although none of the People had bonded with her, many had shared the soaring flights which had earned her her name among them. Like Death Fang’s Bane herself, she was one with the wind, never happier than when she launched herself into flight and gave herself to it with all her heart and mind. Who could share that wondrous moment with her, taste her joy and delight, and not take her to his own heart?
Yet there was a dark side, as well, and Laughs Brightly had placed his true-hand squarely upon it. The shortness of their lives had always made Death Fang’s Bane’s children even more to be cherished, for their natural span was less than half that of one of the People, and in the memory songs it often seemed as if they were gone almost before they had arrived. That lent an added poignancy to guarding them when they walked the clan’s range, yet for all the care with which the clan kept watch over “their” two-legs, he did not think any of the others could have tasted what Laughs Brightly tasted now. Or thought he tasted, at any rate.
Laughs Brightly broke off, and Sharp Nose’s eyes narrowed as he caught the fringes of what his brother had left unsaid.
* * *
Honor wasn’t sure what had drawn her attention to the treecats initially.
Their cream-and-gray coats provided excellent natural camouflage, and like all of their species, this pair was capable of holding still with the absolute, motionless patience of a predator. She’d considered addressing them as a matter of courtesy, after she’d noticed them watching her. There were those—including many people born right here on Sphinx, who should have known better—who continued to doubt the level of treecat intelligence, but Honor wasn’t one of them. She’d read Stephanie Harrington’s journal, and the diaries of a dozen other Harringtons who’d been adopted over the last three T-centuries. There was no question in her mind that ’cats were at least as smart as, if not smarter than, the majority of humans she’d ever met. At least some of them clearly understood Standard English far better than most people believed, and as far as she was concerned, that was the crowning proof of their intelligence. Stephanie Harrington’s journal had made it clear how frustrating she and Lionheart had both found their inability to communicate fully, and Stephanie’s hypothesis—that the ’cats had to be functional telepaths among their own kind—only made the fact that they had ultimately made the leap to comprehending a spoken language even more impressive.
But she couldn’t be certain these two would have understood her, and they’d kept their distance, which meant they might have considered it rudeness, not courtesy, if she’d intruded upon them. Besides, these were their woods even more than they were hers. The Harrington Freehold was one of the minority of original freeholds which had been maintained completely intact, passed from generation to generation without a break ever since it was first granted to Richard and Marjorie Harrington all those T-years ago, but the ‘cats had been here even before them. If they were gracious enough to share with the Harringtons, then they had every right to be the ones who initiated any contact.
There’d been a few times, especially when she’d been younger, when Honor had rather wistfully considered the possibility that she might be adopted by one of them. No one knew exactly what drew a ’cat to a human—or to a particular human—although more members of Honor’s family had been adopted than of any other family on Sphinx. Whatever it was, though, humans didn’t choose ‘cats; ‘cats chose them, and their standards were obviously picky.
The truth was that Honor had been surprised that any treecats ever bonded with humans when she’d discovered how long the ’cats lived in the wild. Humans had been slow to realize a treecat could reach well over a hundred and fifty T-years, and none of them had realized at first that bonded treecats virtually never survived their human partners’ deaths. The thought of all the ’cats who had chosen humans, even after they knew how short-lived those humans were, how much of their own lives they would sacrifice, still brought tears to her eyes, and she wondered what could possibly have been strong enough to lead them to it.
At least prolong’s changing that at last, she thought now. I wonder if the ’cats have realized it, though? Daddy’s only first-generation prolong, after all; have enough of us lived long enough for them even to notice the difference? Have they figured out that now the humans are going to be outliving them, instead? And if they have, how will that change their attitude towards adopting?
She didn’t have the least idea how to answer those questions, and they didn’t much matter in her case, anyway. She’d had more contact with them than the vast majority of humans could ever hope to, and none of them had chosen her. They obviously liked her, and she could pick out at least a dozen of them—especially the ones who had gone hang-gliding with her—from their relatives, yet none of them had ever looked into her eyes the way Lionheart had looked into Stephanie’s.
Just as well, she told herself now, standing still and watching the treecats flow away through the trees. Treecats belong here, on Sphinx. It wouldn’t be fair to take one of them off-world, and I don’t know if one of them could even stand being separated from all the rest of his clan for T-years on end. Even if he could, how could I justify asking him to, anyway? Besides, if there’s one thing guaranteed to screw up my plans, it would be a treecat!
The Navy’s official policy ever since Queen Adrienne had been that humans who were adopted by treecats were allowed to take those treecats with them aboard ship and at their duty stations. But Honor suspected the Navy was probably less than delighted at the prospect of dealing with a bonded pair, whatever the Regulations might say, which was an excellent reason for someone hoping for an appointment to the Academy not to add that to her baggage. It would be harder for the daughter of a yeoman to secure one of the precious appointments, anyway, although being the daughter of a yeoman named Commander Alfred Harrington probably wouldn’t hurt. It might not help enough to get a treecat past the selection board, though, whatever official policy might be. Besides, she knew the Navy’s practice where adoptions were concerned was to direct the human partner’s career track into one which would keep her and her companion right here in the Manticore Binary System, on one of the space stations or on dirtside duty, where they could return readily to Sphinx at need. That might not be what the Regs stipulated, but that didn’t change the policy. Nor should it, really. Honor might long for the Navy, but she was Sphinxian to the bone and she was a Harrington. The drive to protect treecats was in her DNA, so how could she possibly object to a policy that kept them safe and close to home, where they belonged?
Still, the discovery of that policy was the reason she’d abandoned any thought of ’cat adoption by the time she was eleven. Even if the opportunity had offered, she would have had to refuse it if she ever hoped to command one of His Majesty’s starships and deploy to the distant stars she longed to see. The odds were monumentally against her ever securing that sort of command even without the encumbrance of a ’cat, and she knew it, because there weren’t that many commands to go around and the families with influence tended to monopolize the best ones. But if she was going to dream of a Navy career, she might as well dream of the one for which she truly hungered.
She waited until the last flicker of moving ’cat had vanished into the gentle stir of breeze-touched leaves, then drew a deep breath. The cool mist of Jessica Falls drifted to her under the trees, caressing her cheek almost like a farewell from the treecats, and she felt it in her lungs like some cleansing elixir. She stood a moment longer, gazing up at the falls’ plunge down the ninety-meter cliff, letting the unending, rumbling thunder and the splash and gurgle of the rapids soak into her bones, then turned and headed downstream for the near-beaver dam and the mountain tulips she’d come to collect.
* * *
Sharp Nose flicked his tail in agreement, and the two of them flowed onward through the net-wood. Fallen leaves drifted on the surface of the lake below them. There were more of them than there would normally have been at this time of year, another sign of the season’s dryness, and some of the branches about them showed signs of death and brittleness.
* * *
Honor grimaced as she passed a red spruce, more than half of whose scaled, blue-green leaves had turned brown and yellow. She’d seen more and more of those, and she’d made a mental note to com the Forestry Service about it. There was plenty of sign of bark beetles and flat case borers, which was only to be expected, she supposed, after such a dry summer. The rock martins and hill swallows which would normally have preyed on them hatched far fewer fledglings in years like this one. Reproduction rates for both species of bird analogue were tied to a whole host of environmental and climatic factors, and they were always lower in particularly dry seasons. Probably because the insect species upon which they usually subsisted were likely to be in shorter supply, she thought. Unfortunately, whatever might have been the case elsewhere on Haley’s Land, there seemed to be plenty of moisture along Rock Aspen Creek, and the insect population here was doing just fine. In fact, it had gotten considerably worse since her last visit, and she was seeing plenty of evidence of leaf cutter ants and leaf shearers, too.
