Fire Season

Chapter Eight

When getting ready for the expedition to the abandoned treecat site, Anders made certain to pack his reader as well as several changes of socks. He had gone on some of his dad’s field trips before and usually he was allowed to help, but none of those trips had ever been as important as this one. For all he knew, his assisting might be considered a contamination of data or something.

But maybe not, he thought. Dacey Emberly is coming along, but then she’s on the books as an official scientific illustrator. Poor Peony Rose…I know she was counting on helping Virgil on this project, but her morning sickness is pretty bad.

He grinned, remembering the look of astonishment and delight that had lit Virgil Iwamoto’s bearded features when he’d announced to the team over dinner just a few nights ago that his wife’s recent bouts of illness were not some form of flu, as everyone had expected, but were because she was pregnant.

“Peony Rose didn’t renew her implant after we were married,” Virgil had explained shyly, “because we planned on starting a family. The med-tech told her that it would probably take months before her cycles re-established, especially with the stress of travel, but it seems her body had other ideas.”

Congratulations had gone around, but later Anders had heard his father grumbling that Peony Rose really could have chosen a better time, since he’d planned to make her a crew chief. Now, if they got permission to excavate a site, he’d probably need to hire someone local. Virgil couldn’t be expected to handle the lithics analysis-so crucial at this early stage when stone tools would be one of the most important means of judging the complexity of treecat culture-and also coordinate the laborers Dr. Whittaker hoped to hire.

Dad’s thinking weeks ahead, of course, Anders thought, but that’s like him. This project means more to him than anything.

John Qin, Kesia Guyen’s husband, hadn’t been coming on these jaunts. His interest in treecats was mostly because she was interested. His passion was interstellar trade. He’d been taking meeting after meeting since their arrival, trying both to get an idea of what the colonists of Sphinx needed and what the Star Kingdom would allow to be imported.

So it was a group of seven who got into the air van early that morning: Dr. Whittaker, Dr. Nez, Dr. Emberly, Dacey Emberly, Kesia Guyen, and Virgil Iwamoto. Since the ostensible reason for the trip was to visit a variety of picketwood groves north of Twin Forks, they had loaded up with ladders, slings, and other gear related to arboreal investigation.

Counter-grav units were great for getting up and down, but none of the crew was particularly skilled in doing work while floating in mid-air. Besides, such activities did put a drain on the power sources. While those could be charged from the air-van, the broadcast power didn’t reach if one went out of range.

In addition to this gear, they’d packed a lot more field gear-including a selection of envelopes and boxes into which smaller samples could be put. This told Anders that, even if Dr. Whittaker said that most of their work would be in the nature of a photographic survey, he wasn’t about to risk losing some choice artifact.

So what happens if the site isn’t really abandoned? Anders thought. What if what the treecats have done is more like moving to winter quarters after summering somewhere else? When Mom and Dad close our cabin in the mountains for the winter, we leave all sorts of stuff behind. If someone took that, we’d figure they were stealing. Why shouldn’t the treecats feel the same?

Anders wanted to ask his dad about this ethical fine point, but he knew that Dr. Whittaker would simply brush it off by denying that he intended to take anything, so why did it matter? Dad knew perfectly well that once they were in the field, Anders wouldn’t embarrass him in front of his crew. Not embarrassing either of his parents-especially his mother, who, as a politician, lived in the public eye-was something Anders had been trained in since he started to walk and talk.

I’ll ask Dr. Nez, Anders thought. He likes questions like that. I guess that’s why he’s a cultural anthropologist, rather than an ethno-archeologist like Dad.

Dr. Whittaker chose to fly them himself. He departed in the direction of the first stand of picketwood they were scheduled to investigate, then, when they were far from any of the settlements, he dipped down below the tree line, punched up the map program, and entered the coordinates for the abandoned treecat settlement which Ranger Jedrusinski had shown them.

This looped them around back south, all the way to the south side of the Makara River, hundreds of kilometers from their assigned locations.

Even with the need to navigate around the trees, they made good time. As in many first-growth forests, the under story was relatively clear. Fire activity cleared away the snags, dead grasses, leaves, shrubs, and other low-level detritus, scarring the trunks of the more massive trees, but often stimulating growth. More flammable trees-like the near-pines from which Stephanie and Karl had rescued Right-Striped and Left-Striped-actually needed fire activity to clear away weaker trees and break the hulls on their seeds.

Still, Anders thought, looking up at the sky when the air-van passed through a small clearing, I’m glad to see it’s a nice day, not a trace of storm clouds in the sky.

Dr. Whittaker took them up a little higher when they arrived near the site so they could make certain no one else was around, but he was careful to stay below the elevation of some nearby crown oaks. These provided them with sufficient cover to survey the picketwood grove and its surroundings, since picketwood averaged between thirty-five and forty-five meters in height, while crown oak regularly reached eighty meters.

“There’s a nice landing spot over there,” Dr. Whittaker said. “Level and still relatively green, but far enough from the picketwood that our landing won’t hurt valuable artifacts.”

Dr. Calida Emberly had pulled out a pair of binoculars and was surveying the area. “I don’t see any signs of use,” she began. “Maybe we should take a closer look before landing.”

Dr. Whittaker shrugged. “Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth. You know, the Forestry Service’s fanatical interest in fire watch and control has gotten me thinking. How do treecats deal with forest fire? They certainly haven’t survived by waiting for Stephanie Harrington to come rescue them from burning trees.”

He laughed at his joke, politely echoed by Guyen and Iwamoto.

“Seriously,” Dad continued. “I think one of the ways we can judge whether or not treecats are intelligent would be to look for evidence of fire control features near their dwelling areas: cleared areas like this one could be just such evidence.”

On that triumphant note, he brought the air van down. The surface underfoot was thick with a springy vegetation. Dr. Emberly bent to clip a sample.

“It reminds me of wild portulaca,” she said. “I wonder if this also has a mat structure?”

Despite her silver-gray hair, her excitement made her seem girlish. Anders remembered how many new discoveries awaited science on Sphinx. Marjorie Harrington had mentioned that probably fewer than fifty percent of the plants had been typed: “And most of those we have identified fall into broad categories,” she’d said. “It will be decades, maybe centuries before we recognize sub-species and the environmental cues they evolved in response to.”

“Is that really important?” Anders had asked, not to challenge, but because he’d never really thought about plants.

“Absolutely!” Dr. Marjorie had responded. “We can learn about the life-cycle of the planet that way, anticipate, perhaps, seasonal variations and prepare for them. It’s all too usual for new arrivals to a planet to assume that what they see when they first arrive is ‘normal,’ but it’s just as likely that landfall might have been made during a time of drought or flooding. Plants can tell us far more.”

She’d had a lot more to say, but most of it had gone right over Anders’ head. What he had come away from that talk with was a realization that-despite mobile humanity’s tendency to give preference to creatures that move-the vegetative world was a whole lot more than backdrop.

Dr. Emberly was tugging at the edge of one of her “portulacas.”

“Look, Anders. They do form a mat, a pretty thick one. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that these ‘plants’ are actually one plant. In a heavily forested environment like this one, there would be a real survival advantage to being able to stretch.”

“Like picketwood,” Anders said, “only this does it sideways more than up and down.”

“Interesting comparison,” Dr. Emberly said, taking a note. “I must check if Dr. Harrington has written anything about that.”

Bradford Whittaker’s voice bellowed across the open area. “Dr. Emberly! I’ve located some bones. I’d like your opinion regarding their source.”

Dr. Emberly, who, after all, was a xenozoologist as well as a xenobotanist, hurried to go look.

Dr. Nez called to Anders. “I’m going to walk around the immediate area. Want to join me?”

Anders hurried over, happy to be needed. “What are we looking for?”

Langston Nez made a sweeping gesture with one arm. “I want to see if we can work out just how much of this grove the treecats were actively using. Your father’s thought about fire-control features is an interesting one. If the treecats are intelligent-as most of us think they are-then they should have done something.”

“What can they do?” Anders asked. “They don’t have machines to pump water or anything. They certainly can’t fly in trained crews or dump hundreds of gallons of water mixed with fire suppressant chemicals.”

“I can tell you’ve been listening to the SFS rangers,” Dr. Nez said with a chuckle.

“Well, fire control is their favorite topic these days,” Anders said. “I heard that Chief Ranger Shelton was preparing an educational broadcast about the costs of fighting even a smallish fire like the Franchitti fire. He’s hoping that those who can’t be convinced to value the wild lands for themselves will think of fire control as a way to prevent a tax increase.”

“It’s a good approach,” Dr. Nez said. “As an anthropologist, I have to agree that more people are motivated by self-interest than by altruism.”

Thinking of his dad, Anders silently agreed.

They spent the next couple of hours working on their range estimate. As they did so, they listened to the chatter on their private uni-link channel. The bones Dr. Whittaker had found proved to be fish bones, lots of them. Anders knew that his dad-despite his claims to the contrary-would be taking samples. Well, hopefully the treecats didn’t think fish bones were sacred or something.

Virgil Iwamoto had found a couple of areas where lithics scatter indicated the treecats had been in the habit of making their stone tools. These “workshops” had him almost unreasonably excited.

“It proves the treecats didn’t just whack off a chunk of stone as needed for a job. These areas indicate that they probably had specialists, perhaps older ’cats, past their best hunting days, who continued to contribute to the community in this fashion.”

“And if they have one type of specialist,” Dr. Nez added, “they might have others. Weavers, perhaps? We know they make nets. I wonder if we can find evidence of a weaving ‘shop.’”

“I saw some lace willow near where we left the van,” Dr. Emberly supplied. “We should check to see if there’s evidence of a workshop near there. Of course, they could have chosen to move their materials elsewhere.”

“Still,” Dr. Nez replied, “it’s a logical place to check. Thanks for the information. Anders and I will go take a look.”

He reset his uni-link to “listen” mode and frowned. “Lace willow. Why does that bother me? Well, let’s go and take a look.”

Anders had been reading about local plants in the SFS guide Stephanie had given him out of self-defense, after he’d gone hiking with Stephanie, Karl, Jessica, and Toby, and had learned that even Jessica-who was relatively new to the planet-knew more than he did about common plant types.

“Lace willow lives mostly near waterways or marshy areas,” Anders recited. “It is relatively low-growing and bushy-at least for Sphinx, where really huge seems to be the size of most plants. It’s interesting because its leaves are pierced as an insect trapping mechanism.”

Dr. Nez started trotting.

“Waterways and marshy areas,” he repeated. “Open green spaces on a planet that has been experiencing drought. Fish bones…”

He started running. Anders, catching his urgency even before he figured out the reason why, pounded alongside him. They were closer than the rest of the team to where the air van had been parked, which was doubtless why Dr. Nez didn’t immediately call for assistance. The other reason, Anders intuitively knew, was Dr. Whittaker himself. Dr. Whittaker was in the midst of grand discoveries and would not want to be interrupted for anything other than a full-blown emergency.

They reached the bouncy area covered with what Dr. Emberly had informally dubbed “mat-portulaca.” Was it Anders’ imagination, or did his feet sink just a little as he ran?

Arriving at the van, they saw disaster in progress. The air van had sunk into the ground. Already the lower portions of the doors were covered. Anders could see the ooze moving up even as he watched.

“He parked on a bog,” Dr. Nez said, his tone as fierce as any profanity. “On a bog!”

He activated his uni-link. “We’ve got a problem here. The van is sinking, seems we accidentally parked on wetlands. Dr. Whittaker, I think you’d better call for help.”

There was a longer pause than absolutely necessary, then Dr. Whittaker’s voice came back. “Sinking? How deep is it?”

Anders could imagine the course of his father’s thoughts. Did they need to call for help? Maybe they could get the van out themselves. If they called for help, then the Forestry Service and Dr. Hobbard would know they’d been bending the rules.

“The bottoms of the doors are covered,” Dr. Nez shot back. “That means all the heavier parts are already under. I know we brought rope, but it’s a lot to expect seven people to pull out a vehicle.”

“Get inside and see if the engine will still run,” Dr. Whittaker snapped. “We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Dr. Nez rolled his eyes. “It’s worth my job if I make the call, Anders, but if you do…”

He trailed off, not asking, and began picking his way over the ground nearer to the van.

Anders watched Dr. Nez’s progress while he activated his uni-link, trying to think of a solution that wouldn’t be directly disobedient to his father, yet would get them help. He agreed with Dr. Nez. There was no way seven people-one of them an old lady-were going to pull the van out of the bog.

Stephanie! he thought. I’ll call Stephanie, tell her what’s going on, and she’ll call the SFS. Even if they get here too late to save the van, we’re going to need a ride out.

Keeping an eye on Dr. Nez, who was using a branch as a makeshift crowbar in an attempt to force the van’s door, Anders requested the uni-link connect him with Stephanie Harrington.

“Cannot connect at this time,” the device replied. “Unable to sync with planetary net.”

“Huh?” Anders tried again, this time hand-keying in the information. The response was the same. He spoke into the device again. “Get me SFS headquarters.”

“Cannot connect at this time,” came the reply. “Unable to sync with planetary net.”

The chatter of excited voices told Anders that others were coming. Glancing over, he saw Virgil Iwamoto and his dad in the lead. Kesia Guyen and Dr. Emberly weren’t far behind. Dacey Emberly, a sketch pad still held in one hand, was looking anxiously after.

Dr. Whittaker thundered up. “Did you get the door open?”

“Electronic lock is jammed,” Dr. Nez said, his voice tight with effort. “I think the sensor is blocked. The override is on the inside.”

He didn’t ask if Dr. Whittaker had called for help. Anders wondered how much he had overheard of Anders’ attempts to use the uni-link.

Dr. Whittaker assessed the situation. “You’re not going to manage to pry it open,” he said. “Anders, run fast and grab a stone or something else hard. Maybe we can break a window.”

Virgil said, “I have a rock hammer with me.”

Anders dropped back a few paces to give the others room. Dr. Emberly had her uni-link out. Clearly, she’d assessed the situation for herself and didn’t fear Dr. Whittaker’s wrath. Anders felt relieved-until he saw a puzzled expression spread over her hawk-nosed countenance and her fingers move to input a command.

“Not working?” he asked softly. “Mine wouldn’t either. It’s strange. These should be fine. Dad ordered new models for the whole expedition.”

Behind them, there was a sound of breaking crystoplast.

“Got it!” Virgil crowed.

Anders looked. Virgil had bashed a hole through one of the large front windows and was now enlarging the opening with his hammer.

“Bradford!” Dr. Emberly called, her lack of formality a sign of her urgency-while working, Dr. Whittaker always insisted on titles. “My uni-link isn’t working.”

“Mine either,” said Kesia Guyen, her tone slightly embarrassed, as if hoping she wasn’t going to get yelled at for violating the tacit communication ban.

Dr. Whittaker frowned. “We’ll use the com unit in the van. Are you through yet, Virgil?”

Iwamoto pulled back. “I’ve got a good-sized hole.”

“Fine. Let me through. I’ll call for aid. I’m sure…”

What Dad was sure of, he didn’t say, but Anders would have bet the entirety of the tuition fund his grandparents had set up for him that it had something to do with what his mom called “spin control”-putting the best slant on a bad situation.

Dr. Whittaker was not a small man. When he set his bulk on the front of the van, what they all should have expected happened. The front of the van tilted forward, the nose of the craft vanishing beneath the wet ground within moments, the hole in the front window sliding under almost before Dr. Whittaker could pull himself free.

“Marshes,” Dr. Emberly said, her tone acid, “often contain air pockets as well as damp soil and water. I’m guessing that when a great deal of weight was suddenly added, the nose encountered one of those. Take care…”

The van had stopped sliding forward as soon as Dr. Whittaker jumped back and now resumed its slower sinking, nose down. Com unit down. There would be no calling for help that way.

“Virgil, give me the hammer,” Dr. Nez said. “We’ve got to smash one of the rear windows and pull out some of the luggage and food. It may take a while for rescue to reach us.”

Virgil nodded, but he didn’t release his tool. Instead, he bashed at the rear window with all of his strength. The words that slipped from his lips revealed the reason for the violence of his attack at the innocent piece of crystoplast.

“Peony Rose is going to worry,” he said, in a staccato cadence. “Has everyone tried their uni-links?”

Everyone had, even old Dacey Emberly, who had remained back by the picketwood. The failure of the uni-links was a mystery to be delved into later. Right now, they had to get out as many supplies as possible.

Dr. Whittaker had learned the hard way that his bulk was of no advantage in this situation. Dr. Nez moved up and almost pushed Virgil to one side.

“I’ll go in,” he said. “I’m smaller than you. Give me a boost.”

Kesia Guyen worked her way forward.

“I’m smaller,” she said, her voice tight.

Dr. Nez already had his head through the hole in the crystoplast, but his voice came back clearly as he pulled himself into the van. “Shorter, maybe. We can argue later on who weighs more. Anyhow, you and Virgil have people waiting for you…”

“That doesn’t matter,” Kesia said, her voice rising, then breaking. “We don’t need tents or anything. Its not worth the risk!”

“Really,” Dr. Nez was handing out packages as fast as he could. “How long before rescue comes? We’re going to need water purification at least, a med kit. Dacey’s medications…”

Anders joined the line relaying materials back. Dacey had come out to join them. Now her voice, suddenly quavery and old as it had never been before, said, “I think the van’s sinking faster! Langston, you’ve got to get out of there!”

Virgil Iwamoto clearly agreed with her assessment, because the next time Langston Nez’s hands emerged through the hole with a package, he grabbed him by the wrists.

“Somebody,” Virgil shouted, “help me get a hold on him!”

“It’s sinking!” came Dacey’s shrill scream. “Oh, bright stars! It’s sinking!”

Dr. Whittaker shoved forward, almost knocking Kesia Guyen onto her round rump, and joined Virgil. There wasn’t much room, but both men managed to get a hold on Langston Nez and hauled with all their might. However, even as they did so, the bog gasped and gulped, taking into itself the huge bulk of the van as if it was nothing more than a bug.

Anders stood transfixed in horror as Dad and Virgil were pulled forward by the suction, falling to their knees as they strove to keep their hold on the man who had just been buried alive.

Behind him, someone was sobbing-Kesia, from the sound. Anders flung himself forward and began scrabbling like a dog in the mud, throwing out great gobs of the wet, sticky stuff in an effort to break the sucking hold. On the other side of where Dad and Virgil maintained their life-and-death grip, he saw Calida Emberly also digging, her silver hair streaked with mud. Then Kesia Guyen-still sobbing-joined them in their efforts.

Water that reeked of rotting vegetation seeped down Anders’ sleeves. Gritty mud sanded his fingers raw, but Anders kept digging. Was it his imagination or was the sucking pull weakening?

Slowly, horribly slowly, first Dad, then Virgil began to rock back on their heels. For an agonizing moment, Anders thought that meant they had lost their hold on Dr. Nez. He began to dig more frantically, slime and filth splashing into his face. If they’d given up, he wasn’t going to. He’d dig to the planet’s core if he had to, if that was the only way to bring Dr. Nez up from this sudden grave.

Feeling himself tiring, Anders fueled his frantic digging with memories of Dr. Nez-no, Langston, at this moment only the human being called Langston-and his many kindnesses, not just on this trip but over the years when he’d been Dad’s assistant. They weren’t going to leave him here, a body in the mud of an alien world. They weren’t! They weren’t!

Then Virgil gasped. “He’s coming up. We’ve got him!”

Dr. Whittaker said nothing, only grunted with effort, straining to get his feet under him so he could use his full strength and height to pull the buried man free of the grasping muck. He flung himself upwards, bringing Langston Nez, sleek with mud, hanging like a dead man, into the air and light.

“Is he breathing?” Dacey asked.

Exhausted by their efforts, Dad and Virgil had fallen to their knees. Anders half-rolled, half-crawled to look at Langston Nez. Wiping his hands on the seat of his trousers, he cleared mud from the drowned man’s nose and mouth, then held his ear low against lips and chest. He’d taken life-saving only the term before. Now he went through the check routine.

“He’s breathing,” he said. The ground beneath him shuddered. “But we’ve got to get out of here or we’re down going after the van!”

“You and I will carry Langston,” Dr. Emberly said. “Mother, help Kesia get the supplies that haven’t already been relayed to solid ground. It may be enough for Virgil and Bradford to move themselves.”

Anders obeyed. Dr. Emberly was about his own height. When she took Langston’s feet, Anders raised the mud-covered man’s head and shoulders. The unconscious man might not be overly tall, but covered with mud and soaking wet, he was astonishingly heavy.

Dr. Emberly reached and checked the controls on Dr. Nez’s counter-grav unit.

“Ruined,” she said. “These are basic units, not meant to be sunk in the mud.

She stripped off her own unit and wrapped it around Dr. Nez, then adjusted the dial. “Go! He’s light enough for one person to move now. I’ll get myself back to shore.”

Anders obeyed, but remembering how he had felt the couple of times he’d tried to move around Sphinx’s 1.35 gravity without his unit, he could only admire the older woman for her tenacity.

Eventually, they got themselves and their gear to what they now all thought of as “shore.” Kesia located a freshwater spring near the lace willows, and brought back water. With this, Anders carefully cleared Langston’s mouth and nose, periodically turning him and thumping him gently on the back in the hope that he would cough up any mud that had lodged in his lungs. However, although Dr. Nez’s heart beat and he was breathing, that breath came shallow and rasping.

In the background, Anders heard someone say something about “oxygen starvation” and “brain damage,” but he wasn’t giving up. Dr. Emberly reclaimed her counter-grav belt and went to assist in setting up camp. Dacey Emberly came over to join Anders.

“I’m going to give Langston my belt,” she said softly, “but don’t tell Calida. She’ll worry. My heart isn’t what it used to be, but I’m sure I’ll be fine if I sit quietly. That poor man doesn’t need to fight the gravity along with everything else.”

Anders forced a smile. He didn’t know when he’d last felt so tired, but for some reason the image of Stephanie Harrington kept coming to him. She’d saved Lionheart from the hexapuma after, not before, she’d broken her arm, seriously banged up her knee, and cracked a bunch of ribs when her hang glider had crashed in that storm. If Stephanie could do that, surely he could keep going when all he’d done was move some mud.

Inspired by this, he got Dr. Nez comfortable, then, leaving him under Dacey Emberly’s watch, he went to see what he could do to help with setting up camp. He found Dad-more or less clean now-arguing with Dr. Emberly.

“I think you’re overdoing it. Yes, we’re out of communication with base. Yes, we won’t be expected back until tomorrow-we were set to camp tonight, but eventually someone will come looking.”

“And where will they search?” came Dr. Emberly’s icy reply. “At various picketwood groves to the north-not here. I seem to recall you ‘overlooked’ telling them about your intention to stop here.”

Dad was temporarily silenced, then he said, “When they can’t find us, they’ll search for the air van. The crash beacon will bring them right to us.”

Anders-tired, fed-up, angry that Dad had taken time to change and get clean while others tried to help Langston, while poor old Dacey was sitting carefully over there so her counter-grav unit could be used to ease the injured man’s suffering-lost control. Forgetting everything he’d ever been taught about not embarrassing his parents in public, he exploded.

“Crash beacon! Crash beacon? There isn’t going to be any crash beacon. We didn’t crash. You landed us very neatly, right on the edge of a bog. The van sank very slowly. There was no crash to set the beacon off. No one is going to be able to find us because no one knows where to look-and it’s all your fault!”