DECEPTION ON GRYPHON
“Hey, if you kids are free tomorrow, I’d love to take you out and show you some of the outback.” Gill Votano’s tone was light, his expression casual, but Stephanie Harrington immediately felt uneasy. She shifted, tugging one of her brown curls. She’d been trying to grow her hair out, and found herself constantly fussing with the new length.
“Can we bring the ’cats?” she asked, gesturing to where Lionheart and Survivor were busily—and messily—devouring a Gryphon sea bass. Sea bass was one of the local species safe for both human and treecat consumption, and Eureka Base had been established on the coast of the Calypso Sea, one of Gryphon’s larger seas. She and Karl had spent the last couple of hours fishing, much to the ’cats’ approval.
Most of the time treecats were hard to tell apart unless you knew them well, but Survivor’s cream and grey fur was still growing back from where it had been shaved around his neck, portions of his back and belly, and a patch on one side of his face. This gave him either a moth-eaten look (as Stephanie put it) or as if he was equal parts fluff and thick velvet (Karl’s description). Lionheart had long ago recovered from the wounds he had received when he’d saved Stephanie from the hexapuma, but no one could miss that his right front limb had been amputated at the shoulder, as a result of his injuries.
“Absolutely!” Gill assured her. “The furballs must be tired of hanging around Eureka. There’re lots of big rocks for them to bounce on where we’re going. They’ll love the hoodoos! It’ll almost be like being back in the forests of Sphinx.”
“Hoodoos?”
Karl Zivonik looked up from baiting a fishhook. Where Stephanie was small and, at sixteen, not likely to get much taller, he was a good 185 centimeters. Life on high-gravity Sphinx had packed muscle on him, which, along with his dark hair and eyes, made him an impressive figure for a young man.
“Sorry! Geologist-speak.” Gill chuckled. “Hoodoos are tall, thin rock spires. Tent rocks, fairy rocks, earth pyramids—” He shrugged. “All pretty much the same thing: a column of softer rock that supports harder stone, like a cap that protects the column from the elements. They can be pretty spectacular.”
“Sounds like fun,” Stephanie said, and Karl nodded.
“We’ll need to check with Stephanie’s folks,” he said. “But I don’t think they’ll have a problem. After all, one of the reasons they brought us along with them to Gryphon was that everyone figured a visit would be educational. Going out into the field with a geologist surely qualifies as an educational outing.”
Gill grinned widely, but something in the way he pushed his left hand through his thick blond curls reinforced Stephanie’s feeling that underneath his bluff, hardy manner, he was tense. “Sure, ask the folks. Absolutely! But, listen, could you keep this little jaunt to ourselves, otherwise?”
Stephanie stiffened. “Why?”
Gill winked. “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Promise.”
But he never did tell them. The next morning, while Stephanie and Karl were eating breakfast, a neighbor dropped by to tell them that Gill Votano had committed suicide the night before.
Eureka Base was a small community where there was no keeping secrets. In this case, the bearer of bad news was Daryl Schonenbaum, an oceanographer who was working closely with Marjorie and Richard Harrington.
“Apparently, Gill shot himself sometime in the night,” Daryl said, turning the heathered tweed cap he wore on land or at sea restlessly between his hands. “His lab partner, Lorra Rundle, found his body when she went by the lab to grab something before a breakfast meeting related to today’s conference. Gill had left a very short note, but a holocube of his estranged wife and two young children was close at hand.”
Daryl looked uncomfortable, but not particularly sad or upset. He was a relative newcomer to Eureka Base. His specialization was ocean botany, while Gill Votano’s had been mineralogy, so even in the relatively small community of Eureka Base, he and Gill Votano had probably only met in passing.
The reason for Daryl’s discomfort came clear with his next words. “Gill had told Lorra he planned to take Stephanie and Karl out today to see some of the more spectacular hoodoos and painted rocks. She thought . . .”
He paused, obviously uncertain how to continue. Marjorie Harrington came to his rescue. Like her daughter, she had curly brown hair, but her eyes were closer to hazel, rather than Stephanie’s dark brown. Those Stephanie got from her father, who was darker complected than either wife or daughter, though his hair was starting to show silver.
Marjorie forced a reassuring smile. “I’m guessing that Liz Freeth thought we needed to know before Stephanie and Karl went to meet Gill and stumbled on something unpleasant. Thank you for agreeing to be the bearer of unsettling news.”
Daryl’s smile, bright against tanned skin, was relieved. “Liz would have come herself, but between Gill’s suicide and the conference today, she doesn’t know if she’s coming or going.”
Liz Freeth was the administrator for Eureka Base. She was a round-bodied, energetic woman who treated her various charges—highly educated scientists, almost to a one—as if they were newly hatched chicks and she the mother hen. Based on what Stephanie had seen of most research scientists (her parents excepted) she thought that was a very wise attitude indeed.
“The conference is going on as planned, then?” Richard Harrington asked.
“Since contingents are coming in from Gryphon’s other research bases,” Daryl said, his tone apologetic, “we did think . . . Of course, if the kids are too upset . . .”
He trailed off again.
Stephanie spoke up. “I’m okay. I mean, I’m shocked and all, but it’s not as if you guys’ missing the conference is going to change that.”
Daryl clearly felt he’d done his part and was eager to go. “I’ll just leave you people to talk. Com if you decide you can’t make the conference or if you’ll be late or something.”
He hurried off.
Richard Harrington turned to his daughter and Karl. “That was nice of you, Stephanie, but if you want us to stay, you and Karl are our first responsibility. The terraforming discussions are important, but there’s nothing time critical on the agenda. Certainly nothing so urgent that our missing some or all of today’s meetings will matter.”
Stephanie shook her head. “That’s true, in the big picture, I mean, but not in the smaller one. You and Mom were invited here to Gryphon as Crown consultants. That’s a big deal. You need to live up to the honor.”
Karl cleared his throat. Although he was not the Harringtons’ son, he had known them for two years now and frequently stayed at their house, since his own family home in Thunder River was inconveniently far from the SFS headquarters in Twin Forks. As a result, Marjorie and Richard treated Karl as if he was the son they longed for, but had not yet gotten around to producing.
“Yes, Karl?” Marjorie asked.
“There’s another thing, too,” Karl said. “We’re here on Gryphon for a limited time. From what I understand, this conference was deliberately planned for the mid-point of your visit, so you’d have a chance to see something of Gryphon first, but so you could act based on what the conference came up with. If you miss the meetings, then everything will be off schedule.”
Marjorie nodded. “That’s true, but I agree with Richard. You two are our first responsibility.”
Stephanie fought not to roll her eyes. She was sixteen, after all, not a little kid. Karl was a legal adult, recently promoted to the rank of ranger in the Sphinxian Forest Service.
“Mom, it’s not like you’re leaving for days, just tied up in meetings for the rest of today. If I need you, I can reach you. Anyhow, I have Lionheart.”
Richard looked at Marjorie. Unspoken was the fact that Stephanie—who had been rather hot-headed as a child—had clearly benefited from her treecat’s companionship. Most people might think that was because of the great responsibility that had been thrust upon Stephanie ever since she had discovered the treecats and Lionheart had adopted her. However, the senior Harringtons were among the few people who knew the treecat’s influence actually provided a moderating effect on Stephanie’s temper.
No one watching Lionheart and Survivor—both currently busily involved in rolling an assortment of small items off the countertop, clearly delighted by how high they bounced in Gryphon’s lower gravity (at least as compared to that of Sphinx)—would have realized how protective the fluffy, long-bodied, feline-analog creatures could be. That the protectiveness extended to helping with emotional distress, not just in case of physical threat, was definitely a selling point with Stephanie’s parents.
“She will have Lionheart,” Richard said, “and Karl, and Survivor. And we’ll be within easy com contact.”
Stephanie did roll her eyes then. “And Karl will have Survivor, and me, and Lionheart. Go on! If you delay much longer, I’m going to figure you’re actually looking for an excuse to play hooky.”
After Richard and Marjorie left, Stephanie looked at Karl. “I don’t believe Gill’s death was suicide.”
“You don’t?” Karl said. “Well, neither do I. You want to offer your thoughts first, or should I tell you mine?”
Stephanie took a deep breath. “You start.”
Karl grinned at her. Although he was now officially a ranger, while Stephanie remained a probationary ranger, Karl never treated Stephanie as anything but an equal. If Stephanie had appreciated that when she was fourteen and they’d first met, she appreciated it even more now. She’d been so worried he’d pull rank on her.
“First,” Karl said, ticking the point off on one finger, “why would Gill ask us to go on a trip with him today if he was so depressed he was about to kill himself?”
Stephanie nodded. “I thought about mentioning that to Liz Freeth, but I figured her answer would be that he was trying to distract himself from whatever was bothering him. Heck, she might even say that he’d asked us to go with him as sort of surrogates for his own kids, even though they’re a lot younger than us—because he was missing his family.”
“Then he got overwhelmed because he was going out with us instead of them and shot himself,” Karl shook his head. “I just don’t see it. Remember, Gill was going to share a secret with us. I’m sure of that. I have trouble imagining that he’d kill himself without telling someone about that secret and, at least from what we were told, the note he left was too short to have passed anything on.”
“Yeah,” Stephanie agreed. “I know Daryl said Gill got overwhelmed, thinking about his wife and kids, but I’m not happy with that. Why would he shoot himself in the lab? Why not in his quarters?”
“Someone might hear the shot?” Karl offered, but Stephanie knew he was only playing devil’s advocate. “I suppose we could find out if Gill had a recent message from home.”
Stephanie rubbed the tip of her nose. “Even if we find out there was one, I’m not going to believe he killed himself.”
Karl took a deep breath. “Because of how Survivor and Lionheart reacted yesterday, right?”
Stephanie nodded. “That’s it. Lionheart may have looked as if he had nothing on his mind but making sure he got more than his fair share of that sea bass, but he was prickling all over with an awareness that Gill’s emotions didn’t match all that bluff and hearty, ‘Let’s go for a field trip, kids!’ Thing is, Lionheart wasn’t upset—not like he was by that horrible Tennessee Bolgeo. He just knew Gill’s outside and inside didn’t match.”
“Yeah,” Karl tilted his head to one side, seeking words for an experience that remained new to him. “I’m not as certain as you are about how Survivor felt, but I could tell he was reacting to Gill in a way that didn’t fit the mood Gill was showing us.”
“I bet,” Stephanie said, voicing a point she’d often discussed with Karl—and with the other three treecat adoptees, Scott, Jessica, and Cordelia, “that treecats don’t lie nearly as much as humans do.”
“That’s why Lionheart adopted you,” Karl said, deadpan, though his dark eyes twinkled. “You don’t lie either. You just don’t tell the whole truth.”
Stephanie gave him a haughty look. “I simply believe there are times when it’s easier to beg forgiveness rather than ask permission. Which brings us to the question: Do we tell Liz what we suspect?”
Karl considered, then shook his head. “I don’t think we can. Most of the points we’ve made could be countered pretty easily with other arguments. Even if we were at home, I’d hesitate to try and explain about the ’cats reaction—though I think I’d tell Chief Ranger Shelton. He’s seen enough by now that he’d at least take it into consideration. Asking Liz Freeth—who’s already upset because she’s lost one of her flock, and who has to deal with a community that’s in shock, and a bunch of people arriving for a conference—asking her to accept treecat voodoo is too much.”
“Yeah,” Stephanie said. “Especially since if Gill didn’t commit suicide, then there’s only one alternative.”
Karl took a deep breath and spoke the words aloud. “He was murdered.”
Climbs Quickly was pleased when Death Fang’s Bane and Shining Sunlight decided to go outside. There wasn’t anything wrong with the nesting place they’d been staying in since their arrival at this new place, but outside was much more interesting. Then there was the additional pleasure of running about feeling as if he had grown invisible extra legs, jumping higher and running more swiftly. That almost made up for the lack of proper trees.
When they had first arrived, Climbs Quickly had thought this place might be a different region of the Hot Lands he had visited with Death Fang’s Bane and Shining Sunlight a short time before. The extraordinary lightness was the same, though this place was not nearly as hot. That, however, could be a result of a turning of the seasons. However, the thing that made Climbs Quickly think that they had come to another place entirely was that the pattern of lights in the sky was different.
When they had been in the Hot Lands, he had noticed the difference quickly. As a scout he had learned many and varied light patterns, as well as how those patterns changed with the seasons. When he had studied the skies in the Hot Places, he’d found the patterns completely different. Here they were different again. Most telling was the moon that loomed large in the sky. It was far larger and brighter than either of the moons at home. Indeed, there was nothing like it in either the skies of home or of the Hot Place.
<They are walking to the Bitter Waters,> Keen Eyes sent happily. <I wonder if we could catch one of those big swimmers like we ate yesterday ourselves, rather than having the two-legs pull them up on their lines. That would be something to brag about to Swift Striker!>
Climbs Quickly agreed. <I was thinking that, if we stop at one of the fishing places, maybe we should show the two-legs that we want to try using the lines ourselves. I have watched. Using a line does not seem that difficult. The two-legs just sit there with the lines in the water, and the swimmers do the work.>
Keen Eyes bleeked laughter. <That would leave you out, then. You and sitting still are like the sun and the moons, never in the same place at the same time!>
They had come to where salty water splashed long fingers up through sand and gravel, bringing with it all manner of interesting things. Climbs Quickly bounded down from his perch on Death Fang’s Bane’s shoulder, with Keen Eyes a breath behind. Together they chased little creatures with many legs through water and foam.
Keen Eyes caught one and sat up on his haunches to study it. <These have an entire hand more legs than the shelled-swimmers at home.> He popped it into his mouth and crunched down. <They taste a little sharper, but not bad. A little like the stinky cheese Healer likes.>
Seeing Keen Eyes eat the ten-legged creature, Shining Sunlight made a mouth noise the two People knew meant he was exasperated but, since Shining Sunlight didn’t react as if he thought Keen Eyes had just poisoned himself, neither paid him much attention.
<Shining Sunlight may have a point,> Climbs Quickly said, when Keen Eyes next caught a small fish and began examining it. <Maybe you should not eat everything you can get your hands on. We know this isn’t home. Here there is no Memory Singer to share with us what is safe to eat and what may be dangerous.>
<I am no new-weaned kitten,> Keen Eyes responded with a haughty flip of his sodden tail. <Why do you think I am examining these so carefully? I am trying to see if these are among the foods the two-legs have been serving us. Surely you remember how there was an entire bowl of those hard-shelled scuttlers the other night? They had been heated in the steam-maker, but that should not change how wholesome they are.>
Climbs Quickly gave a meditative scratch to the fur along his chin. <I wish I was sure of that. At home there are roots that are not safe to eat unless they have been heated beneath the coals of a fire. True, the raw ones will not kill you, but they will give you a mighty bellyache.>
<My belly is fine,> Keen Eyes insisted, but he did drop the fish. <What do you think of our two-legs’ moods? They have eaten only safe food but, from their mind-glows, you would think they had eaten something that disagrees with them badly.>
Climbs Quickly wrinkled his nose as if smelling something rotten. <The ache started when that two-leg came calling this morning. From almost his first mouth noises, the two-legs all became quite serious. Before that, the elders had been somewhat distracted, the young pair feeling some anticipation. Whatever the visitor said shocked them all. The elders then began to worry.>
<The young, too,> Keen Eyes added, <but the worries had different flavors. The elders were worrying about how the shock would affect the younglings. The younglings were worrying because they were adding something they knew to something they had just learned. Beyond that, I am lost.>
Climbs Quickly bounced back as a long finger of salty water dug the sand out from under his feet and tried to drag him under. <Perhaps they will do something that will give us an idea what so worries them. One thing about these two. They are not among those who worry, then do not act.>
<That is true,> Keen Eyes agreed. <If they were, my clan would likely be dead. Let us hope that this time less-grave matters have caught their attention.>
As they walked along the beach, Stephanie tried not to let Gill’s death completely overshadow what had, to that point, been a very pleasant holiday.
Gryphon was quite different from Sphinx, the planet on which Karl had been born and on which Stephanie had lived since she was ten. For one thing, Gryphon would require quite a lot more terraforming than Sphinx. Unlike Sphinx and Manticore, the Star Kingdom of Manticore’s capital planet, Gryphon orbited Manticore-B, the second star of the Manticore Binary System, and its planetary biochemistry differed from that of its sister planets in several small but significant ways. A lot more of its flora and fauna was inedible by humans. For the most part, that just meant it was indigestible, but some of it was mildly or even fatally poisonous, and the survey teams had barely scratched the planetary surface in too many ways.
That was, in fact, the reason they were here. The Star Kingdom had finally gotten around to establishing the study bases which would map out the planetary terraforming strategy, and Marjorie Harrington was generally acknowledged as one of Manticore’s top two or three plant geneticists. She was here only as a temporary consultant, but the full-time scientific staff was clearly eager for her input.
The decades-long Plague Years the Star Kingdom had just survived explained a lot of the delay in the process, but the truth was that no one had felt a great sense of urgency because Gryphon was also just less desirable planetary real estate. Its orbital radius was almost the same as that of Manticore, but Manticore-B was cooler than Manticore-A, so its average temperature was quite a bit lower than the capital planet’s. It was warmer than that of Sphinx, whose orbit was almost twice as far from Manticore-A, but it also had the greatest axial tilt of any of the Star Kingdom’s three habitable planets. Coupled with its limited hydrosphere—barely half its surface was covered in water—that produced a dry “continental” climate with extreme seasonal changes between its icy winters and summers that were scorching hot, relatively speaking.
Where Sphinx was a heavy-grav planet, with a gravity of 1.35, Gryphon’s gravity was, at 1.05 G, just slightly over Terran normal. Where Sphinx was heavily forested, Gryphon’s extreme weather patterns were not conducive to large stands of timber. And whereas Gryphon’s seas were scattered and shallow, Sphinx’s oceans were broad, deep, and cold, like the Tannerman Ocean. The Tannerman bordered the Harrington Claim, but Stephanie was a hang glider, not a sailor. She and Lionheart had spent at least some time on the Harrington freehold’s beaches, but Sphinxian oceans were colder than most humans would choose to swim in. Karl, on the other hand, had never lived near anything larger than a lake, and Survivor’s clan had come from high in the mountains. Although both had seen large bodies of open water, neither had ever lived close to an ocean, so Eureka Base’s shoreline was a source of fascination for humans and treecats alike.
“We’re lucky,” Stephanie said, watching as Lionheart and Survivor darted in and out of the surf zone chasing the tiny deca-crabs and foam-fish revealed by the rising and falling waves, “that treecat fur does a pretty good job shedding water. Even so, I wonder if we should try to rig some sort of swimsuit for them, to keep all that fluff from getting coated with salt water.”
“Maybe after we figure out how to prove Gill Votano was murdered,” Karl said, a faint note of reproof in his voice. “Even if you can treat the whole thing as an intellectual puzzle, I don’t think I can. I just might be the closest thing to a duly constituted law officer here on Eureka Base.”
Stephanie understood. Forest rangers were classified as law officers—a necessity especially on Sphinx and Gryphon where there was lots of land and relatively few people. Among the courses she and Karl had taken a few months ago on Manticore as part of a special accelerated training program for Forestry Service personnel had been one on forensics and criminology.
“You may well be,” she said. “Liz probably has some judicial powers to let her mediate disputes, but I doubt there’s a full-time law officer assigned to Eureka Base. There would be too little to keep one busy.”
“Even the medical doctor is part-time,” Karl added. “Most of the time, Jorge Prakel is as involved in research as the rest of them. He doctors when needed.”
“You know,” Stephanie mused. “I bet Liz called Jorge in to act as medical examiner. I wish we could have seen the body.” She stopped, thinking about what it would be like to see the corpse of someone who, only a few hours before, had been enthusiastically suggesting they take a field trip. “Let me rephrase that . . . I wish we could’ve seen the evidence. We might’ve noticed something Dr. Prakel would have missed.”
“Too late for that,” Karl said. “I’m sure the body’s been moved, probably to one of the cold storage lockers they use for larger specimens. They might’ve taken some photos, just because, but asking if we could see them would seem ghoulish.”
“I agree,” Stephanie said. “Anyhow, whether or not you’re senior law officer here isn’t the reason we need to look into this. If murder has been committed, then it’s our moral responsibility, not just your job, to do something. Right? Maybe we can find something that’ll convince Liz to open up the case.”
Stephanie halted in mid-step, not even noticing when a wave reached up a long tendril and soaked her foot.
“Steph?”
“I just realized, there’s another reason we can’t tell anyone. Until we know who the murderer is, we’re risking telling the wrong person.”
Karl swallowed hard. Clearly, like Stephanie herself, he’d been thinking of Liz Freeth as an ally, but what if she was somehow involved? Maybe that was why Gill Votano had wanted to confide in someone from outside Gryphon’s tightly intertwined community.
“You’ve got a very good point, there, Steph. Okay. Where to start? There’s the classic triad: means, opportunity, and motive. Means won’t take us anywhere. Gill was shot, apparently with his own gun.”
Stephanie took up the next element. “Opportunity isn’t going to take us anywhere, either, but for the opposite reason—there’re just too many possibilities. Practically anyone could’ve gone to meet Gill in his lab and not been seen, especially at that hour. When the weather is good—like it is now—everyone who can is working outside during the day. That means they’re sleeping really soundly at night.”
Karl scooped up a flat, rounded stone and skipped it across the waves. “Yeah. There’s plenty of time when the weather turns nasty to do analysis and other sorts of indoor work. If Gill’s lab partner hadn’t gone by the lab when she did, his body might not have been found until we started asking why Gill hadn’t shown up for our field trip.”
“And we’d have waited to ask,” Stephanie added, picking up a stone and topping Karl’s skip by one, “since he asked us to keep quiet about it. Say, do you think Gill’s lab partner might have killed him? I remember from criminology that it’s always important to suspect the person who finds the body, because that’s the one person who has an ironclad alibi for why he or she left evidence at the crime scene.”
“We certainly won’t discount her,” Karl said. “However, Lorra Rundle had a very good reason for going by the lab before breakfast. She’s participating in that big conference your folks are attending today. She went by to pick up some samples she wanted to have with her.”
“I don’t want it to be Lorra,” Stephanie admitted. “She’s Liz’s partner. The two of them have gone out of their way to make us welcome.”
“I know,” Karl said, “but we can’t let who we do and don’t like color our investigation. We can’t even let who the ’cats do and don’t like influence us too much. They might not like someone for an entirely unconnected reason.”
“Yeah,” Stephanie agreed. “Not everyone here is exactly thrilled about my parents being invited to consult on how Gryphon’s native plant and animal life might be modified to better suit human nutritional needs.”
She looked disgusted and Karl knuckled her gently on the skull. “Well, it’s not all that hard to understand, really, is it? I mean, for some of them, calling your folks in was like saying their own scientific teams are incompetent.”
“That’s blackhole thinking,” Stephanie said. “My folks are talking as much about how some of their attempts have failed as about their successes. But so many humans are blackholes . . .”
Karl interrupted her. “Can we take the rant as written? I know your low opinion of the majority of the human race. Here’s an idea I want to run by you. Because Gill wanted to take us out in the field with him, I’m guessing that his secret is going to be related to something he would have shown us.”
“Why not to something else?” Stephanie shot back. “Maybe he’d discovered Lorra was fooling around with Ingo and wanted us to be the ones to tell Liz, because we don’t live here full time.” She knew she was being contrary, but she resented, just a little, how focused Karl was being.
She shuddered. Wasn’t Karl at all nervous? Didn’t he remember how horrible it had been back on Manticore when those hired thugs had tried to kidnap Lionheart? Stephanie hadn’t been in the least scared at the time—adrenaline had kept her focused, but she still woke from nightmares of how it had felt to have someone’s kneecap crack under the force of her kick. Sometimes the face of the thug attacking her had been that of Tennessee Bolgeo, who just might have killed her, for no better reason than greed. Other times the face wasn’t human at all, but was dominated by the snarling fangs of the hexapuma who’d nearly killed both her and Lionheart years before.
Stephanie shivered again and wished, almost, that Lionheart would come and wrap his tail around her and bleek reassurance. But Lionheart’s tail is currently very soggy. Anyhow, Steph, haven’t you felt lately that Lionheart thinks you need to deal with these things? Comfort isn’t at all a good thing if it keeps you from coping with your fears.
But if Lionheart was making Stephanie tough it out, Karl hadn’t been as focused on the problem as Stephanie had thought. “Chilled, Steph?” he asked, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “It’s not cold compared to Sphinx, but it’s not exactly hot. Those ocean breezes can be brisk.”
“I’m okay,” Stephanie said, enjoying the snuggle, then determinedly ducking free. “I got distracted. When you think about it, the killer has got to be someone who knew Gill well. I mean, Gill was shot at close range. That’s creepy.”
“Remember what we learned in criminology,” Karl said. “Murder victims usually know their killers. Once we figure out what Gill’s secret might have been, we should keep that in mind when narrowing the field.”
“Go back to what you were saying about why Gill’s secret is probably related to something he would have shown us.” Stephanie thought she knew—she was far from dumb; in fact, she knew that by objective measures, she was brilliant. But she wanted to see how Karl’s thoughts matched up with her own.
“Sure,” Karl said, “but make me feel better and put on my jacket over yours. I’ve got a sweatshirt on underneath.”
“Fine,” she said, gratefully slipping into the roomy softness. “Now, talk.”
“Mostly, it’s how he said he’d tell us tomorrow,” Karl admitted, “but also I think it was his insistence on taking us out with him. He’d chatted with us before, even showed us some holo images, but this field trip was new. I think he wanted us to see something, so we could—I don’t know—testify? Images are so easily falsified. He might have wanted human witnesses unassociated with the local community. Those aren’t easy to come by.”
“You have a point,” Stephanie agreed, “a good one. I wonder how we figure out where he’d have taken us?”
Karl considered. “We might be able pull something off the nav comp of the vehicles he most typically used. There’s a general vehicle pool, but people tend to be assigned the same vehicles.”
Stephanie’s brown eyes flashed with excitement. “I remember Liz telling us that doing that made it easier for her to know who to blame for damage. Good thinking. Let’s leave a message for my folks that we’re going to take a drive to clear our heads, then go do some snooping.”
At that hour, the vehicle bay was pretty much deserted; the crews who were going out into the field for the day had already left, and the people who had flown in for the conference had settled in various meeting rooms. A tech greeted them cheerily from under a battered-looking air truck where he was tinkering with something.
“You know where everything is?” he called.
“Sure, Kwei,” Stephanie called back. “We’re just going to take a drive.”
“Okay. Your parents’ assigned air car’s in stall forty. You have the keys?”
Stephanie fished the fob out of her pocket and waved it at him.
“Works,” he said. “Sign yourselves out on the terminal, would you? I’ve just about tracked where the break in this line is and I don’t want to lose my place.”
“No problem,” Karl said, tapping his uni-link. After they’d signed out their car, Karl and Stephanie took advantage of the connection and downloaded whatever they could find regarding Gill Votano’s recent activity.
“Gill hadn’t registered a flight plan yet,” Karl reported as they walked deeper into the garage, “but it looks as if he usually used Air Van 37. It’s listed as still in its slot. Let’s see what it can tell us.”
Thirty-seven was in its assigned place. The rather battered-looking van had clearly been used hard, judging from the scratches and scrapes. Of course, it was a work vehicle, not someone’s personal air car. It was bound to pick up dings and scratches out in the field, but one long scrape down its right side was deeper than any of the others. Its passenger area was unlocked, but the cargo bay, which held a variety of gear ranging from mundanities like shovels and picks, to some sleek devices that would have seemed perfectly at home on the bridge of a starship, was locked tight.
“Forgiveness not permission,” Stephanie said, leaning into the cab. “I’m going to have that put on my coat of arms when I’m knighted.”
Karl snorted, not deigning to reply to such a silly comment. Instead, he hooked his uni-link so he could download information from the van’s nav comp. “You could be doing something useful, like making sure Kwei isn’t wondering why we’re over here. Or go fill the water bottles or fetch us lemonade, like a good little girl.”
“Lionheart and Survivor are playing lava tag by jumping between the roofs of the vehicles,” Stephanie retorted. “If Kwei isn’t noticing that, he’s not noticing us. You know the ’cats’ll sense anyone new coming in long before we do. And our car is good to go. We can grab lemonade from the house on our way out. I’m going to stay close and make sure you don’t screw something up.”
Karl raised dark eyebrows in an “as if” expression, but his gaze was focused on the readout on his uni-link. He frowned, then made a startled exclamation.
“What!” Stephanie hissed, hand reaching automatically for the sidearm she wasn’t wearing.
Karl grinned at her. “Nothing! Wanted to make you jump. Download’s done. Let’s get the ’cats out of here before someone complains about scratches on their paint.”
“Pig,” Stephanie said. “Just for that, I’m driving.”
“No problem,” Karl said. “After all, you had a great teacher. Me!”
Stephanie laughed. “I walked right into that one.”
When Stephanie pulled the air car to a stop in front of the Harrington’s borrowed house, Karl looked up from his uni-link. “Hey, I wasn’t serious about the lemonade. The water bottles are full. Let’s go. I’ve found some interesting stuff.”
Stephanie rubbed her chin. “I’m not stopping for lemonade. Well, not only lemonade. If we were at home and going into the bush, we’d be armed. Just because we’re on another planet, I don’t think we should be less careful.”
Karl opened his mouth as if he’d been about to remind her that Gryphon didn’t have the plethora of megafauna that blessed Sphinx, then he stopped, shut his mouth and nodded. “Yeah. Given what we’re tracking, that’s a good idea.”
A few minutes later, they left the house, burdened not only with lemonade but with a sizeable picnic—and with handguns concealed beneath light jackets. They’d also taken time to put on their SFS ranger utility belts. Both were equipped with useful items like lights, vibro-knives, canteens, and compasses. Since Karl was an official ranger, his belt included some more expensive items that Stephanie’s lacked.
Returning to the air car, they found Erina Wether—affectionately known to all of Eureka Base as “Stormy Wether”—sitting on the curb, looking up at the car’s roof.
Stormy was a grandmotherly older woman whose silvery hair was cut in a close cap that darkened to grey where it brushed the mid-point of her ears. Her slender brows were also dark, accenting lines that could be stern, but were more often cheerful. At this moment, her expression was quizzical as she leaned back, head tilted, looking to where Survivor and Lionheart were staring down at her from the car’s roof.
Stormy waved and got to her feet as Stephanie and Karl approached. “When I saw the ’car, I thought Richard and Marjorie might be between sessions. I have some climate figures they asked me to put together for them.”
“Sorry, Stormy,” Stephanie said. “When I texted Mom earlier, she said they were going straight from the morning sessions to a lunch meeting, then on a lab tour before the afternoon sessions, then from there to a consultation over dinner. They invited us to join them for lunch, but . . .”
Stephanie trailed off, not wanting to be rude. Stormy’s eyes twinkled and she laughed.
“. . . But a meal where every bite you eat is assessed for its nutritional value, possible ease of being genetically adapted, and a dozen other related items isn’t very appetizing,” Stormy finished for her. She gestured to the basket Karl held. “So you’re going on a picnic?”
“We wanted to get out for a bit,” Karl said. “We checked the weather for the next few hours. Looks as if it’s safe enough to go for a flight. Any updates?”
Stormy shook her head. “Summer on Gryphon can be so nice that it fools you into thinking you’re on Manticore, at least if you’re near one of the seas. Still, it’s never good to get careless. Thermal build-up can create unpredictable winds, and winds . . .”
She raised and lowered her shoulders in an elaborate shrug, more eloquent than any words. “Remember to keep an eye on the tides, too! They shift rapidly here. What was apparently solid ground can be underwater while you’re napping on your beach towel.”
Stephanie nodded. Egg, Gryphon’s single moon, was quite a bit larger than Old Earth’s Luna. In fact, it very nearly classified as a twin planet, and its sheer size meant Gryphon’s shallow seas experienced very powerful tides.
“We’ll be careful,” she promised. The ’cats had flowed down into the air car’s back seat and had each claimed a window. Their impatience to be moving was palpable.
Stormy smiled. “Have a nice picnic. If you haven’t seen them already, the rock lilies up near Sunset Bluffs are lovely . . .”
With a wave, she went trotting off down the street.
“People here are so nice,” Karl said wistfully.
“I know,” Stephanie said, getting in on the driver’s side, “but like you reminded me not too long ago, one of them’s a cold-hearted killer.”
<That two-leg female,> Keen Eyes said slowly, <the taste of her mind-glow is off. You have more experience than I do. What is it?>
Climbs Quickly considered. <On the outside, she is full of smiles and laughter, but her insides are as grey and roiling as storm clouds.>
Keen Eyes scratched at his belly with his left hand-foot. <I wonder if whatever has Death Fang’s Bane and Shining Sunlight so unsettled has unsettled her as well? Elders will dampen their mind glows lest they upset the kittens. This two-leg female has a grey pelt. Doesn’t that usually indicate age?>
<It can,> Climbs Quickly agreed. <Though often they stain them dark, as if they would hide how many rings their tails bear. But, yes, you are right. This two-leg is an elder. Likely she seeks not to upset the younglings.>
<I wonder what happened?> Keen Eyes said. <I wish our two-legs could mind-speak like People, not rely on those confusing mouth noises.>
Climbs Quickly bleeked laughter and moved to where he could better see out the clear side of the flying thing as Death Fang’s Bane made it rise and speed away from the two-legs’ settlement.
<Take it from me. This is not the last time you will wish that!>
Stephanie drove the air car low, staying close to the sea until they were out of direct line of sight from Eureka Base. Even when she turned inland, seeking one of the passes through the Shenin Mountains, she kept low. If anyone was watching them—and although she had no reason to think this was the case, why take risks?—they might wonder why Karl and Stephanie had chosen to picnic in the arid outback when there was so much delightful coastline to explore.
“It’s not as if the vehicle can’t be tracked,” she commented, “but why make it easy for anyone to start wondering?”
Karl nodded. “When we’re clear of the pass, let’s set down so I can show you the map I’ve put together on my uni-link.”
“Why not use the ’car’s HUD?” Stephanie asked, then answered her own question, “Because, you don’t want me distracted. Fair enough. ‘Calm’ conditions on Gryphon can still be gusty. According to the maps, there’s a perfect spot about five minutes ahead. It even has a small spring. We can break out some of the lunch stuff while we’re at it. Lionheart has been poking the back of my neck for the last half-hour. I think he smells the celery.”
While they were noshing on slabs of dense bread topped with soft cheese, sweet-tart sting-fruit, and bullet-shaped “nuts” that tasted like pecans, but were actually the dried fruit of a Gryphon kelp, Karl pulled up a tri-d schematic on his uni-link.
“Back when Gill was showing us holos of some of the more fantastically shaped rock formations he’d seen the in outback,” Karl said, “I asked for copies of some of the cooler ones. They’re tagged with information regarding the location where they were taken. I cross-referenced that with the locations Gill mentioned in his published reports. They’re all from basically the same region.”
“But?” Stephanie bounced. “Give!”
“But when I triaged the information we downloaded regarding where Gill had been taking Air Van 37 so that it would omit Gill’s usual work area, I came up with a substantial number of trips to a completely different section. I then ran that back against any mention at all in his reports—even minor ones, like a site visit. Guess what?”
“There’s no mention of his doing any official work there.”
“Super Genius Stephanie lives up to her reputation yet again,” Karl said, dodging her punch and reaching for a sting-fruit. “Interested in taking a look at what’s in that area?”
“Absolutely,” Stephanie said, downing the last of her bread and cheese in a manner that would have made her mother wince. “Give me the coordinates.”
Their destination proved to be a wide valley sharply cut from various colors of rock, as if Nature had spilled her paint box over a sculpture garden. Starkly beautiful reddish-orange sandstone predominated, but there was plenty of dark grey, muted green, honey yellow, and shimmering white. There were slender columns, massive arches, and pylons pierced with irregular windows. Hulking mesas towered like giant’s furniture, dominating their surroundings.
“I bet anything that this is where Gill was going to take us,” Stephanie said, her voice reverent. “Remember what he said about lots of big rocks for the ’cats to bounce on, almost like a forest? Check out over there.”
Karl looked along the line of her pointing finger toward an assortment of striated columns. “I think you’re right. Those are Gill’s ‘hoodoos,’ for sure. Shall we go take a closer look?”
Stephanie maneuvered the air car with care. “This would be an interesting place to hang glide. The wind moving through the rocks creates really erratic air currents. The thermals are unpredictable, too. That ‘forest’ would make an interesting obstacle course.”
“Maybe someday,” Karl said, glancing between his uni-link and their surroundings. “Veer a little to the left and set us down in the shadow of that hoodoo that looks like a robed monk. That’s about as close as I can get to where Gill went.”
“You found it in one,” Stephanie said, as she parked. “See that mark on the rock? Looks like a pretty good match for that deep scrape on Old 37, doesn’t it? I’d say he parked here, more than once, probably.”
“Shall we get out and scout around?” Karl suggested.
The way he was undoing his seatbelt and opening the door on his side of the air car made clear the suggestion was rhetorical. Stephanie locked the car’s starter and followed suit. A moment later, she felt the solid thump at her back that meant Lionheart had assumed his customary perch with his hand-feet resting on her shoulder, and his true-feet resting on the brace built into the back of her jacket. This left his true-hand free for action—or for patting his human on the top of her head, which is what he did.
Survivor was riding Karl. The treecats were always careful in an unfamiliar area. Gryphon, with its lack of trees, was stranger than most places they’d been. Although the treecats had superlatively hard claws and very sharp fangs, their basic tactic involved getting above any problem, then dropping down where the pointy bits would do the most good. On heavily forested Sphinx, this was so easy as to be automatic, but Gryphon was becoming a study in caution.
“What are we looking for?” Stephanie wondered aloud.
“No idea,” Karl admitted. “If we’d had time, I’d have dug through any news feed related to Gryphon to see if there was anything significant, like a lost experimental satellite or missing person. If we don’t find anything in, say, an hour, we can go back to the car, finish the lemonade and cookies, and see what we can find in the news archives.”
“Deal,” Stephanie said. “Do we stay together or spread out?”
“Spread out,” Karl said. “We’ve both got our links. Remember, Gryphon might not have hexapumas and peak bears, but it does have rock leopards and a whole variety of little nasties with big poisons.”
Stephanie lifted one foot to show that she had—as Karl knew perfectly well—exchanged her sodden walking shoes for heavy boots during their stop at the house. She took a pair of light but strong gloves from her pocket and slid them on for protection in case she had to grab a sharp bit of rock.
“Should we try to lock the ’cats in the car?” she said, knowing that was perfectly impossible unless the treecats cooperated.
“Give them the choice,” Karl said, “but I have the distinct impression that Survivor wants to go exploring.”
<If I was not seeing this with my own eyes,> Climbs Quickly exclaimed, <I would not believe a land could look like this!>
Keen Eyes, beating his tail back and forth so vigorously that Shining Sunlight reached back and held it still, percolated with excitement. <I know! Look at those rocks! They are rocks, are they not? They smell of stone and dust, so they must be, but what amazing shapes! Do you think the winds cut them?>
<Wind or water,> Climbs Quickly speculated. <This area is dry now, but maybe there is a wet season or a snow season. We are like kittens born in summer who cannot believe that snow is real, even though they see it in the Memory Singer’s images. A hand or so of days is not enough to know a place.>
<I wonder what makes the rocks such colors?> Keen Eyes marveled. <Those reds are as the sky at sunset. The yellow makes the foliage of golden leaf dim and fragile by comparison.>
<And no leaves I know have such amazing stripes,> Climbs Quickly agreed. <That rock trunk over there is banded like the tail of an elder of impossible age—if an elder’s tail rings could be red and orange and pink and yellow. Even though we bring the memories home with us, the People will wonder if we somehow mistook dreams for reality.>
<Seeing is not enough,> Keen Eyes stated, leaping down from his perch on Shining Sunlight. <A scout must touch and smell, hear—even taste.>
<Do not eat anything!> Climbs Quickly warned, wondering at his friend’s fascination for learning through putting everything in his mouth.
<I am not an idiot kitten,> Keen Eyes replied, exasperated. <I know that the littler the biter, the more likely a hidden sting. How else can they keep from getting eaten? But sometimes one can tell what a rock is made of by a little lick—whether there is salt or chalk, iron or copper. That is all I meant.>
Climbs Quickly could taste the sincerity in Keen Eyes’ mind-glow and was reassured. He did his best to reassure Death Fang’s Bane that while he and Keen Eyes did indeed want to explore, they would take care and not go too far. He could not be sure she understood, but—perhaps because her own mind-glow was bright with curiosity—she did not fuss.
Although the two-legs were obviously delighted with their surroundings—pausing to exclaim over an enormous rock formation where a large rock seemed to balance on a narrow trunk or where a flat wall was pierced by holes, as the two-legs pierced the walls of their nests—they were also clearly scouting. They studied the ground, looking for tracks, examining any place where the rocks split into crannies, pockets, or narrow passages.
Keen Eyes, veering off to look at a cluster of scrubby plants with fat, spongy leaves, called to Climbs Quickly. <Here and there, I catch a bit of what smells like two-leg scent. It is several days old, but strong here, where the plants give it something to cling to.>
<I have caught such a time or two myself,> Climbs Quickly agreed. <I admit, I did not consider that it might be important. Now that I think on it, perhaps our two-legs are seeking traces of another of their kind.>
<I wonder if someone is lost?> Keen Eyes said. <That would explain the concern we have tasted.>
<The two-legs did not send out scouts,> Climbs Quickly replied, <but perhaps the missing one is only late, not gone long enough to risk shaming him or her by sending out searchers. Humans do have pride in that manner. I am sure of it.>
<I think we should help search, then,> Keen Eyes stated, his mind-glow warm with happiness that he might be able to relieve their friends of anxiety. <We will be better at this than they are.>
Climbs Quickly bleeked agreement. The scent they traced was faint, for the wind-scoured stone did not hold scent. After a time, Climbs Quickly caught a stronger patch, and his excitement brought Keen Eyes to join him.
<Found something?>
<Sniff for yourself.>
Keen Eyes did. <Two-leg scent. Let me think . . . This is the Worried Male, isn’t it? The one who was hiding something when he spoke with Death Fang’s Bane and Shining Sunlight last night.>
<That is who I smelled, too,> Climbs Quickly agreed. <He must have been working here recently, but there is no sign of what he was doing, no digging or cutting.>
<Maybe he was using one of those tools the two-legs have, like the image-maker or the voice-carrier,> Keen Eyes suggested. Then he lived up to his name, seeing something Climbs Quickly had missed. <Look! He was digging, but he was careful to hide the signs of his working.>
Impulsively, Keen Eyes bounded forward, trying to fit his claws around the edge of a concealing slab of stone to pull it free. Climbs Quickly joined him but, although they pulled together, the stone slab remained firmly in place.
<Let us get Death Fang’s Bane and Shining Sunlight,> Climbs Quickly said. <Even if they cannot lift it, they could use one of their make-it-lighter things to move it easily.>
<Good thought,> Keen Eyes agreed.
When Lionheart came racing up, his leaf-green eyes wide with excitement, Stephanie didn’t need a shared language to know he’d found something he wanted to show her. Nor was she surprised when her uni-link chimed a moment later and Karl’s voice said, “Steph, you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she replied, laughing. “Let me guess. Survivor just charged up to you, and wants to show you something.”
“That’s it. Since I don’t think you’ve suddenly become clairvoyant, I’m guessing that Lionheart did the same.”
“And now that we’re reassured neither of us are injured or something,” Stephanie said, “shall we find out what they think is so important?”
“Meet you wherever,” Karl agreed.
Stephanie thought Lionheart was excited rather than frightened but, nonetheless, she gave a quick check where her handgun nestled in its shoulder holster, making sure the deadly thing was ready. During an emergency was not the time to find out you’d left your gun in the air car or forgotten to reload. Stephanie never did either of these things, but double-checking was one reason why she didn’t.
The place to which Lionheart guided her proved to be a massive, elegantly striped red and gold sandstone mesa that dominated the surrounding area. The base of the mesa was deep in pale gold sand, muffling footsteps and making walking difficult. When Karl and Survivor joined them, the two pairs met up near where the striped overhang had sluffed off several slabs of stone, which now lay piled like irregularly shaped pillows against the base of the mesa.
“Pretty,” Karl said, and might have said more, but Survivor and Lionheart had rushed, twin flows of cream and grey against the golden sand, to tug at one of the stone slabs.
“Right!” Stephanie said, pushing her way in. “If you want us to take a look, you’re going to have to move over.”
“Stephanie,” Karl reminded. “Spiders, snakes, scorpions, and other nasty things not necessarily beginning with ‘s,’ remember?”
Stephanie held up a gloved hand. “I’m guessing the ’cats wouldn’t let me get close if they smelled something nasty but, you’re right. This isn’t Sphinx. They might not know what’s nasty. I promise not to stick my hand in anywhere—even if I could, which I can’t. There isn’t any obvious crack or crevice here, but I think I see why the ’cats are so worked up. It’s hard to see unless you’re right on top of it, but this rock shows scraping marks, like it’s been moved.”
“Recently,” Karl agreed, kneeling down next to her to take a closer look. “Definitely not when it dropped off the main rock face. Do you think we can move the slab?”
Stephanie gave an experimental tug. “Possibly with both of us, but let’s use counter-grav. If this is part of Gill’s secret, that’s what he would have had to do. He couldn’t have possibly moved it by himself.”
Karl unbuckled his SFS-issue utility belt. It incorporated a personal counter-gravity unit which was useful only too often on high-gravity Sphinx, and it was specifically designed to adhere to heavy objects that needed moving.
Inspecting the slight wear marks on the various pieces of stone, they estimated the best place to anchor the unit, then both stepped back while Karl operated the unit remotely. When no drowsy desert-dweller surged forth to protest this invasion of its space, Stephanie went forward to help guide the stone slab to one side and lean it against the cliff face.
“A cave!” she exclaimed, once she had a clear look. “Or a big crevice, at least. I think we could both get in there.” She removed a small light unit from her belt and flicked it on, shining it up and down the sides of the crevice so they could get a better look. The crevice was high enough that she could walk in without ducking and even tall Karl would only need to bend a little.
“Check ahead,” Karl suggested, “and see if it opens out.”
Stephanie nodded, then glanced over at Lionheart. The treecat was sniffing at the edges of the crevice, his long whiskers curling forward. Interested, then, but not apprehensive. When Stephanie began to edge her way in, Lionheart immediately joined her, taking point. Knowing that treecats saw very well in low light, Stephanie kept her beam close, making sure she didn’t trip over something hidden in the thick sand.
“Oh! Here’s something interesting,” she called back to Karl. “No footprints for the first ten meters or so, but now I’m seeing some. The sand is soft, so the prints don’t have much shape, but they’re about the right size to be Gill’s.”
“Only him?” Karl asked, his voice echoing slightly against the enclosing wall.
“I think so,” Stephanie said. She stopped and used her uni-link to take some pictures, then continued forward, avoiding the prints when she could.
Now that they were certain the crevice went somewhere, Karl came after, inspecting the walls and floor with his light. The treecats climbed along the walls themselves, where rough surfaces provided ample purchase for powerful treecat muscles and sharp claws.
“Another thing,” Karl commented. “This crevice is natural, but it’s been expanded here and there, so someone human-sized could get through. The upper walls are pretty rough, but you can see where the lower areas were cut.”
“More and more interesting,” Stephanie said.
They had advanced a hundred and seventy meters or so from the entrance when Stephanie felt the air move and freshen. “There’s a slight draft,” she said. “We’re probably coming to an opening. I see light ahead.”
A dozen or so strides later, Stephanie found herself in an open area formed where the striped sandstone met another type of rock. This second rock was a pale moss-green, with a smooth, glossy surface and veined with something almost black. Where the light hit it, the green rock shimmered from tiny flecks of mica caught in its matrix. High above, through a narrow slot, Stephanie could glimpse the sky but, otherwise, the rock walls closed in, pinching at the ends to form an eye-shaped canyon about twenty meters wide and three times that long. No plants grew here, nor did any of Gryphon’s insect or lizard analogs scamper for a hiding place, giving Stephanie the sense that she’d entered a sanctuary dedicated to some strange desert religion.
Turning slowly to inspect her surroundings, Stephanie speculated aloud. “Sandstone’s pretty soft—as rock goes. This green rock looks igneous, not sedimentary, though. It’s much harder, anyway. I’m guessing that, over time, wind and water action eroded the sandstone, creating this pocket. From above, it must be nearly invisible, unless someone came right to the edge and looked down. Even then, they’d mostly see shadows.”
“I see your geology units weren’t wasted,” Karl teased. “Y’know, even with counter-grav, it would be a pain getting any equipment down here through that slot—not to mention pretty hard to hide what you were doing or that you’d left an air car up there. Let’s look around and see if we can find what brought Gill here.”
“I don’t think we need to do much searching,” Stephanie said, pointing with her light to where Lionheart and Survivor were bouncing up and down in front of a segment of the green rock. “Our scouts have already found it.”
Beneath the pleased gazes of two pairs of leaf-green eyes, the humans inspected an area where the moss green rock had been carefully cut away to reveal a vein of a dark blue, slightly crystallized mineral.
Karl grunted in satisfaction. “Looks as if someone other than wind and water were excavating here. So, Miss Geology, do you recognize this mineral?”
“Other than that it isn’t any of the common ones we learned about in our geology unit,” Stephanie replied, “I don’t. You?”
Karl shook his head, angling his uni-link to take some pictures. “Still, I’m willing to bet that if an expert like Gill Votano was interested in whatever it is, it’s probably something rare.”
“Rare enough to get him killed?” Stephanie asked, but that wasn’t really a question. Gill had been hiding something. Secrets, even those kept for the best reasons, could be deadly, something she knew all too well.
Karl straightened. “We’ll take a sample, then go back and check these images against one of the larger databases. Once we know what this mineral is, we’ll have a better idea of its value. After that, we should have what we need to convince Liz to take a second look at Gill’s ‘suicide.’”
The two People could taste the satisfaction pouring off their two-legs like water during ice melt time. They reveled in it as they led the way back through the tunnel in the striped red rock, already anticipating clusterstalk and sweet, cold water.
<We helped them,> Keen Eyes commented with a satisfied flick of his tail.
<We certainly did,> Climbs Quickly agreed. <Death Fang’s Bane and Shining Sunlight are very good scouts for two-legs, especially Shining Sunlight, but this barren land is as new to them as it is to us. I am astonished how a place without many growing things can hide so much. Even though the two-legs set their flying thing down near that big, striped rock, they would certainly have missed the hole, covered as it was.>
<I wonder why Worried Male went to so much trouble to hide a section of rock?> Keen Eyes asked. <Even though the area the tunnel led into was sheltered, I cannot believe he meant to nest there.>
<What two-legs value still mystifies me,> Climbs Quickly admitted. <But that second piece of rock, the one Shining Sunlight was so careful to cut a piece from, that was crucial.>
<Maybe . . . > Keen Eyes stopped in mid-thought and mid-motion, poised as if he’d become part of the stone wall. <I taste a two-leg’s mind-glow. Distant but familiar . . . >
Climbs Quickly suspected, although he would never rub his friend’s nose in it, that he was better at tasting the varied elements of mind-glows. <It is the female who was watching us before we left the central nesting place. She is very worried and maybe angry. I cannot tell what troubles her, though.>
<Could it be because our two-legs have seemingly vanished? They are younglings among their kind.>
<I am not certain,> Climbs Quickly said. <This tastes more like worry for self than worry for another. And it does not taste like the anger an adult feels at a wayward kitten, either. I know Death Fang’s Bane does not wish me to attack two-legs unless they attack first. Sometimes though . . . A warning bite, not piercing the skin. How could that hurt?>
Keen Eyes’ mind-glow made quite clear that he knew why it could hurt, but he understood his friend’s frustration. Not long ago, in the Hot Lands, Climbs Quickly, Death Fang’s Bane, and Shining Sunlight had fought off some two-legs who had intended to capture Climbs Quickly. This was not the first time Climbs Quickly had been forced to deal with two-legs whose outer smiles hid far darker natures within.
<We will warn our two-legs,> Keen Eyes said, and leapt down to press his true-hands against Death Fang’s Bane’s leg. They had used such gestures before to slow the younglings when there was something dangerous near, so Death Fang’s Bane stopped immediately. Shining Sunlight would have crashed into her if he had not sensed Keen Eyes’ changed mood.
Climbs Quickly, for his part, leapt to Death Fang’s Bane’s shoulder. Patting her cheek so she would look at him, he slowly moved his head from side to side in the motion that meant “No” among the two-legs. Then softly, not as threat, but as emphasis, he hissed.
“Something’s wrong up ahead,” Stephanie said softly.
Karl’s reply was to nod, reach for his handgun, then stop. “We can’t shoot here. Remember those slabs under the cliff? We might trigger another rockslide.”
“But do we just march into the hexapuma’s den?” Stephanie asked. “I suppose we could retreat, climb up to the slot in the rock back in the canyon.”
Karl shook his head, not so much in negation as in concern. “If they know about this crevice—which was so carefully hidden—then they know about that one. I’d have it covered.”
“I wish the ’cats could tell us who’s out there,” Stephanie fretted. “But, even if they could, that wouldn’t help much. Hate to do it, but we’d better com for help.”
She activated her uni-link, touched the emergency override that would reach both her parents. The override was restricted for really, really bad emergencies—“Like drowning” her dad had said.
We’re not drowning, but if there’s a murderer out there, I think this qualifies. If it’s a false alarm, I’ll apologize later.
Stephanie counted seconds, betting that either her mom or dad would pick up in less than five seconds. Five stretched to ten. Stephanie examined the uni-link more closely.
“The signal isn’t going out!” she said, the softness of her voice not concealing her shock.
Karl didn’t ask dumb questions, only tabbed his own link. “Mine either. Either this rock is blocking the signal or—more likely—whoever is out there brought a high-powered jammer.”
Stephanie nodded and let her wrist drop to her side. The jamming confirmed that whoever was out there was not a friend.
“We’ve estimated that treecats can sense to about two hundred meters in areas without a lot of conflicting signals,” Karl continued. “Shame we don’t have low-light gear with us. It would make getting closer undetected easier.”
Stephanie forced a grin, dipped a hand into an inner pocket, and passed Karl a set of lightweight goggles, chuckling deep in her throat at the soft sound of surprise he made. “Well, we were going after a geologist’s trail,” she said, “and geologists study rocks, and rocks are often best studied underground. These aren’t military grade, but they’re pretty good. Mom and Dad brought them for late night botanizing and animal spotting.”
“Forgiveness not permission, again,” Karl said, gently cuffing her curls. “Good thinking, Steph.”
Together they moved forward, keeping to the edges of the tunnel. The ’cats dropped down to ride on their human’s shoulders, tense and alert. The low light gear made possible a stealthy approach, but Stephanie knew that eventually one or more of them would be visible from the crevice’s mouth. Stephanie was framing her argument why she should be the one to rush out first when she heard a hiss, joined quickly by another, then another. Something cool flavored the air with a not unpleasant tang.
She barely had time to think “Gas!” before her head was swimming, and she stumbled. Behind her, Karl coughed. Stephanie thumbed at her uni-link, hoping it would not be completely useless.
She fell, Climbs Quickly falling with her, thrust out her hands to cushion the fall, met golden sand, then darkness.
The inside of Climbs Quickly’s head felt like raw egg. His eyes burned with dryness, as if he had not blinked for far too long. His guts felt tied in knots. His ears would not twitch, and his tail hung like a rope behind him. Seeking the brightness that was Death Fang’s Bane, he found it curiously muted, as if she slept without dreams, without even a sleeper’s awareness of her body. Her breathing was shallow and uneven.
Questing out, Climbs Quickly found the equally muted mind glows of Keen Eyes and Shining Sunlight. Another mind glow, this one crisp and unimpaired, warbled a song of dark triumph from a short distance away. Warned by that heartless glee, Climbs Quickly stopped trying to move, concentrating instead on his vision. People had two sets of eyelids. Although the outermost of his remained partly open, the other had protected his eyes from damage. Concentrating with all his might, Climbs Quickly sought to move only the inner lids in a slow blink to clear his clouded vision.
The effort seemed to help his other senses as well. His nose told him that he was in the back portion of the flying thing that they had ridden in earlier. Tantalizingly, he could even catch the faint scent of clusterstalk, though his tormented belly warned him against trying to eat. His nose also told him who the clear mind-glow belonged to: the silver-pelted female two-legs he now tagged as Poisoner.
Having ascertained where he was and that there was little useful he could do, Climbs Quickly concentrated on getting control of his body. Knowing that the two-legs needed to give at least some attention to guiding the flying things, he risked wriggling each of his fingers and toes, starting with his true-feet and moving forward to his remaining true-hand. Next, he slowly worked each joint of his tail. He was considering whether he should try to move his legs when he became aware that Keen Eyes’ mind-glow had brightened.
Shaping images with great care, Climbs Quickly shared what he had learned with his friend. Perhaps because he had slept somewhat longer, Keen Eyes grasped the situation well.
<I cannot move with any speed,> Keen Eyes complained. <And my mouth is dry as dust. Even if we attacked Poisoner, we could not operate the flying thing. What should we do?>
<Poisoner is taking us somewhere in particular,> Climbs Quickly replied. <If we have misread her and she takes us safely to Healer and Plant Minder, then all is well and good. However, if she means harm—as we both suspect she does—then she will need to set the flying thing down before she acts. We will bide our time until then.>
How much time passed before Poisoner brought the flying thing to rest, Climbs Quickly could not judge. Strength returned to him in increments, but even small exertions caused his mind to swim and his vision to dance. Nonetheless, when he heard Poisoner’s footsteps crisp and purposeful against gravel, he readied himself to fight if he felt harm coming to Death Fang’s Bane or Shining Sunlight.
Although Poisoner’s mood grew, if anything, darker and more twisty, she moved with care, even gentleness, as she began to take items out of the flying thing. First came a thick blanket that the two-legs sat on when eating outside. This she spread on an area where the gravel gave way to sand. Next came the basket holding the remnants of the earlier meal. Then she lifted out Keen Eyes, who disciplined himself to limp stillness with admirable courage. He was set near one edge of the blanket. Shining Sunlight was moved next, this time with the help of a making-lighter thing. He was positioned on the blanket, then Keen Eyes was moved, as if he cuddled up to him in sleep.
As Climbs Quickly himself and then Death Fang’s Bane were moved into a similar pose, Climbs Quickly began to understand what Poisoner intended. Dying as a result of attack was something the two-legs would investigate, but death as a result of accident—perhaps from bad food or an attack by some of the little biters of which this sandy land had so many . . . Would the two-legs look for another cause?
When Poisoner finished her work, she brought out a container about the size of the food basket, and shook the contents into the rocks a short distance from the blanket. She looked down at the apparently sleeping foursome and made a series of mouth noises, then turned away and tapped the wrist thing that seemed to control so many of the two-legs’ marvels. A short time later, another flying thing swooped down to land beside the one in which they had arrived. There was no one in the second one, and Poisoner climbed inside. Then it rose into the air and lifted beyond Climbs Quickly’s vision.
<I am watching,> Keen Eyes said, sensing Climbs Quickly’s puzzlement. <She is leaving . . . Now the size of a rock-squirrel, now of a beetle, now a dot. Gone. Can you stand?>
Climbs Quickly tried and was pleased to find his careful exercising of his limbs had done a great deal of good. He was unsteady, but could stand and even walk, although there was a wobble to his gait. Death Fang’s Bane and Shining Sunlight continued unmoving, but he tasted how the emptiness of their sleep had begun to invite dreams.
<We must guard those two,> he said to Keen Eyes. <They are not going to wake for some time and when they do, they will be weak as newborn kittens. Somehow, I do not think Poisoner brought us to this place so we could admire the flowers or the rich red of this rock.>
Mind-glow alive with agreement, Keen Eyes wobbled over to the basket that held food. <There is water here and clusterstalk, both. We will get stronger faster if we refresh ourselves.>
Climbs Quickly consulted his stomach and found that it agreed with Keen Eyes’ assessment. <Bring the food. I want to keep watch—especially near where Poisoner shook out that box. I wonder what seeds she may have planted?>
Keeping careful watch, they consumed not only the water and clusterstalk, but also a large portion of some sort of meat. Yet neither was so distracted that they missed motion among the flower-shadowed rocks. A horrid creeping thing about as long as one of Climbs Quickly’s own limbs emerged, moving sinuously through the sand. It had three limbs in front, like elongated, jointless fingers that dragged a thicker, wriggling after part.
<Not good!> Keen Eyes stiffened, arching his back and hissing. <We were warned to avoid those when we first arrived!>
<Doubtless,> Climbs Quickly replied with a dry bleek of laughter, <they feared you would try to eat one.>
He cast about, looking for a way to stop the creeping horror without touching it directly. It was difficult to attack something if you did not know what parts were dangerous. Keen Eyes shared Climbs Quickly’s concern. Grabbing the narrow container which had held water, he lifted it up and drove it down onto the creeping thing's purple hide. Had the surface been honest rock or packed dirt, the creature would have been squashed, but it merely sank more deeply into the sand and began to wriggle itself free.
Climbs Quickly dug through the gravel until he found a sharp-edged stone. Gripping this in his more powerful hand-feet, he brought it down hard on the thing, where the three “fingers” joined the larger hind part. The purple stuff proved to be a hard outer shell, while the interior of the thing was like tough leather, but Climbs Quickly managed to half-cut, half-tear the thing into parts. Like the most persistent—and most stupid—of the biters at home, the monstrosity continued to move for a time before dying. Inspection revealed that its underside held not only tiny whiskers that served it as legs, but a series of lipless mouths that oozed a milky liquid only slightly lighter than its shell. The mouths on what Climbs Quickly found himself thinking of as the “arm” were larger, ringed with jagged serrations that surely served at least as well as teeth.
<Nasty!> Keen Eyes said. <I somehow doubt that is the last of them. Could we get the two-legs safely into their flying thing? They’re vulnerable here on the ground, especially with their naked skin.>
<Even if we both dragged,> Climbs Quickly said, <I do not think we could move Death Fang’s Bane—much less Shining Sunlight. Everything may be lighter here, but I think our two-legs would still be beyond us. We will need to defend them until whatever Poisoner gave them wears off.>
<Now that we know the creeping biters keep their mouths below,> Keen Eyes said, <fighting them will be easier. Still, I do not think we should touch them. There are both plants and animals that wear poison on their skins.>
<This place has plenty of rocks,> Climbs Quickly replied with a grand gesture. <Help yourself.>
At first the creeping biters came in ones, then ones and twos. These the pair handled easily. Unlike two-legs, they did not need to look around for each to know where the other stood. They knew, even as they knew when one set of eyes spotted a newly emerging threat. As long as the creeping biters came in small groups, Climbs Quickly and Keen Eyes worked as a team, one pinning the creeping biter, the other cutting it into parts, preferably where the three fingers met the “arm.”
Too soon, though, whether angered by the smell of their dying kindred or driven by some other impulse, the creeping biters surged from their rocky shelter in larger groups. The People’s fur gave them some protection, for the creeping biters did not seem to understand that thick fur was not the same as skin and wore themselves out streaking the People with sticky goo. This was fine until a creeping biter, whether by luck or design, squeezed a long rope of purple goo where Keen Eyes’ fur was still thin.
He wailed in pain, shrieking as it ate into his skin. Climbs Quickly caught an echo of his friend’s agony, as did Shining Sunlight. Shining Sunlight was wrenched from the torpor that had claimed him. Like some sort of warrior tree come to sudden life, the towering two-legs lurched to his feet. Enraged, he grabbed the monstrosity off Keen Eyes and flung it away. Then, analyzing the situation with admirable swiftness, he reached for his thunder barker and smashed the approaching wave of creeping biters with well-aimed shots.
Death Fang’s Bane rolled to her knees, then staggered over to the flying thing. Not for nothing was she the daughter of the one the People revered as Healer. She tore through the box of healing supplies, seizing first water to wash away the slime, then a spray that numbed the pain between one screech and another.
Roiling away from the sound—or perhaps the vibration—of the thunder barker, the remaining creeping biters fled for the shelter of the rocks, leaving behind them a sandy stretch smeared with purple goo.
Climbs Quickly continued to keep watch, even as Death Fang’s Bane cleaned the worst of the burning guck from his coat. Still shivering from little jolts of pain, Keen Eyes watched the other flank.
<The creeping biter hit a place where I had gotten scratched and the skin was raw,> he explained apologetically. <It felt like mingled salt and bitter fruit juice.>
Death Fang’s Bane and Shining Sunlight—both still far from steady on their feet—bundled the blanket and the rest of their gear into the flying thing, giving each item many careful shakes first. Then they called for the two People to join them.
How Death Fang’s Bane brought them safely back would forever be a mystery to Climbs Quickly, for as soon as all were inside and the flying thing in the air, he and Keen Eyes collapsed in a fatigue nearly as deep as death.
“We have evidence,” Stephanie announced as soon as Richard and Marjorie Harrington returned from their final meeting of the day, “that Gill Votano was murdered and by whom. Can you help us?”
“You’re kidding!” Richard exclaimed, then looked at them and shook his head. “You’re not.” He dropped his data case and other gear onto the nearest table. “Give us a quick briefing.”
“First,” Karl said, “can you call Liz Freeth here? We don’t want to waste time repeating ourselves. Tell her you’re worried because we haven’t come in yet. That’s important. We don’t want it known we’re back.”
Once upon a time, the senior Harringtons might have argued or asked for details but, in the last few years, they’d learned to trust Stephanie and Karl’s judgement. Liz Freeth wasn’t thrilled to be called out this late, nonetheless, true to her “mother hen” nature, she arrived, clucking with concern.
She was astonished to see the “missing” pair seated side by side on the sofa. “What?”
“We have something tough to tell you,” Karl said. “Let me check something with you. Who’s the senior law enforcement officer on Gryphon?”
“We don’t have one,” Liz said. “When there’s trouble one of the on-planet administrators can’t handle, we restrain the troublemakers, com Manticore, and someone is sent out.”
“That means I’m the senior officer,” Karl said. “In my role as such, I would ask you to please do two things. One, can you make sure Erina Wether doesn’t leave Eureka Base?”
Liz blinked, but she hadn’t managed to excel in her job without having a certain amount of flexibility. “I don’t have police officers or anything like that to call on, but I can com Lorra and ask her to keep an eye on Stormy’s house—if she’s there.”
Stephanie smiled tightly. “She is. We have the ’cats keeping watch. They’re good guards, but they couldn’t stop Stormy if she got in a vehicle.”
Liz shook her head and commed her partner. “Now, tell me what this is about.”
Karl grinned. “Listening to that was the second thing I was going to ask you to do. Tea? Cocoa? Coffee? Sit down. It’s a long story.”
They started at the beginning. Fatigue dropped off the older Harringtons as they listened, helped by the refreshments Stephanie handed around. Liz accepted tea, but she was so focused that it grew cold in her hands.
“As soon as I realized we were being gassed,” Stephanie concluded, “I set my uni-link on both audio and visual record. I have the whole file saved, but here’s a short montage of the key bits that Karl put together on the way home, after we’d both taken a stimshot from the medkit in the air car. We left the car, by the way, hidden on the outskirts, then came in on foot.”
“Stormy Wether,” Marjorie breathed in disbelief. “But she’s so nice!”
Karl shook his head. “Not so nice. Look here, right before she leaves us.”
The holo-image wasn’t great, but there was no doubt who was speaking. “I wish I could’ve worked it so I could make it look as if you’d snacked on something poisonous. That would be more certain. Still, the billipedes should provide a more convincing accident. I’ll think of you when I’m living in style somewhere far, far away from here.”
“But why?” Liz said. “I don’t doubt you, but why?”
Stephanie keyed up the holos they’d taken of Gill’s hidden excavation. Karl presented the mineral sample. “It’s about this rock. Do you have any idea what it is?”
“None,” Liz said, “but Lorra should be able to tell us. First, though, Karl, you and I need to arrest Stormy and get her safely locked down. I think we should take Jorge Prakel into custody as well.”
“Why?” Karl asked, as he rose to his feet, checking his belt for restraints and that his gun was in place.
“Because Stormy and Jorge have an ‘understanding.’ I suspect he provided the knock-out gas and maybe even served as back up. For all I know, he overlooked a few things about Gill Votano’s wounds in his medical examiner’s report, too.” She smiled thinly. “I do watch over my flock, I do. I dearly failed one here, but thanks to you, justice will be done.”
Jorge Prakel broke as soon as Liz and Karl showed up at his residence and confronted him. In return for a recommendation of leniency, he admitted to helping Stormy by providing the knock-out gas, acting as back-up guard, and overlooking anything that would get in the way of Gill Votano’s death being accepted as suicide. He claimed that he’d had no idea that Stormy intended to kill Karl and Stephanie. The gas had actually been set in place for Gill, but when Stormy had realized that Gill meant to confide in the off-worlders, she’d upped her timetable regarding him.
“And for all we know,” Richard Harrington said judiciously the next evening, when the Harrington party dined with Liz and Lorra at their comfortable house, “Jorge was telling the truth. The knockout gas was effective but unlikely to cause any problems other than a walloping hangover. He couldn’t have known that the treecats metabolize differently and would come around more quickly.”
Left unsaid was, And how smart they are. Suspicions of treecat intelligence would remain a jealously guarded secret as long as the treecats’ legal status remained a matter of debate.
Liz nodded. “Stormy is still refusing to give a statement but, from Gill’s papers and Lorra’s analysis, we can piece together what must have happened. Lorra, tell them what you found out.”
Lorra Rundle didn’t seem to share anything with her partner other than the first letter of their names. Where Liz was short, fair, and round-figured. Lorra was tall, dark, and lean, with some of the manic energy of a ferret.
“Warshawskium,” Lorra said, tossing the sample back and forth between her hands. “That’s what. It’s a rare earth, very valuable. It’s used in every gravitic engineering application. It can be produced artificially, but the process is complicated and expensive. It’s a lot cheaper and more efficient to extract the naturally occurring rare earth from the host mineral. Most people wouldn’t recognize it, but Stormy was a rock hound, always talking about how someday she’d strike it rich. Thing is, while skoldian may contain warshawskium, it doesn’t always. I’m guessing Stormy asked Gill to test it for her. Then she told him to keep quiet, because she was going to make them both very rich.”
“That particular parcel of land,” Liz put in, “is the property of an absentee landlord who, like most of those who own land on Gryphon, would be just as happy to sell it off. I’ve found a few preliminary queries in Stormy’s files. My guess is that Stormy planned to buy the land, then resell it—after revealing the value of the minerals and jacking up the price accordingly.”
“I wonder what happened with Gill?” Karl said. “Did she just not want to cut him in?”
“Either that or he started feeling guilty about stealing from the landowner. He had a conscience. That’s one reason his wife left him. He wasn’t ambitious enough to bend his reports to make himself look better.”
“Poor guy,” Stephanie sighed. “At least his kids won’t be saddled with the guilt that he killed himself over them. That’s something.”
“That’s a lot,” Liz said. “You two have done very well. A murderer is no longer free. You may have even saved Jorge’s life, too. Stormy has demonstrated a definite desire to leave no witnesses. Jorge might have been the next person to have an ‘accident,’ although, I suspect, not here on Gryphon.”
“This certainly has been an educational trip,” Marjorie added with a laugh. “Karl’s proven himself as a reliable law officer, and one probationary ranger will surely have positive notes added to her record.”
“It’s been educational in lots of ways,” Stephanie agreed somberly. “But even though Karl and I did our part, we’re not the heroes of the day. That award goes to Lionheart and Survivor. Not only did they find the hidden crevice, but if they hadn’t saved us, none of this would have come out and you’d be planning a couple of funerals, not dreaming of promotions.”
The six humans raised their glasses to two treecats who paused in their systematic shredding of celery and sea bass to blink two pairs of leaf-green eyes.
“Bleek!” the ’cats acknowledged in unison. “Bleek! Bleek! Bleek!”