Fire Season sk-2

by David Weber

  Stephanie’s wild excitement over getting her provisional license (rather than the dreaded learner’s permit) was somewhat dampened when it became clear that Mom and Dad planned to let matters go on much as before. The Harringtons owned three vehicles. One was Dad’s Vet Van-equipped not only with a portable lab, but with what amounted to a complete surgery. Mom had recently traded in her sedan for another tailored van, this one equipped with racks to hold plants of various sizes and shapes. Stephanie had hoped the family air car would be hers to use.

  Stephanie had, in moments of fantasy, even imagined that her birthday gift would include an air car of her very own. She’d known that was unlikely, but both Chet and Trudy had cars of their own, and they didn’t even live as far away from Twin Forks as the Harringtons did. She’d felt a slight letdown when, a few days after she had passed the air car license test, no car materialized.

  A couple days after she got her license, Dad had said at breakfast, “I’m actually available to coach at hang-glider practice today. I don’t think you have Forestry Service duty, either. So, if I don’t have any emergency calls, we should have a nice relaxed time.”

  “I don’t have ranger duty,” Stephanie replied, “but SFS is really stretched thin with fire-watch. I was thinking if I could get out to the ranger station, I could free someone up. Maybe I should take the car and fly over after practice?”

  Richard Harrington flashed a quick grin that told Stephanie without words that he saw through her ruse.

  “I don’t think so. You tend to get carried away when you get involved with your SFS work. Remember, legally, your license is only good when conditions are visually safe: dawn to dusk, and no bad weather.”

  Stephanie knew better than to try to get around Dad when he had that look. Better to wait and see what other approaches she could come up with.

  Dynamics within the hang-gliding club had changed in the couple of days since Stephanie’s birthday party. Trudy had been heard to say quite loudly-obviously not caring that Dad was close enough to hear-that the only reason she’d gone to that boring party was that her folks hadn’t wanted to offend the doctors Harrington.

  “They’re so necessary, you know,” she drawled to Becky Morowitz. “I mean, vets and botanists…We must be polite.”

  Stephanie had felt Lionheart pressing against her leg, offering support if needed, but she was surprised at how little Trudy’s comments bothered her.

  Anders told us when he went hiking the other day that he had thought Trudy was a complete zip. I knew he wasn’t dumb enough to get blinded by her physical charms. I wish he hang glided…I bet he’d look like an angel against the sky.

  Another change was that Jessica Pheriss was definitely “out” of the Trudy circle. She came in for more than a few catty comments, mostly about her clothes. Stephanie had never noticed before, but Jessica did seem to have a more limited wardrobe than the rest of them.

  I guess if I even noticed, I thought she didn’t choose to vary what she wore for hang gliding-and most of the time, I’ve seen her in her flight coveralls anyhow.

  To say Jessica was indifferent to the teasing would have been wrong. Her cheeks burned when Frank Camara made a particularly nasty comment about how Jessica had to wash her panties each night or go without-and implying that he had first-hand knowledge to confirm.

  However, Jessica ignored the comments and went on chatting with Christine and Chet-who were, now that Stephanie bothered to notice, definitely on the way to being a “couple”-as if someone else was being grilled.

  I wonder, Stephanie thought as she adjusted her counter-grav and spread her wings to take advantage of a rising air-current, who the zip really is-all the rest of them or me for being so deliberately blind?

  “Bleek,” said Lionheart softly from his new harness, but whether his comment was in reaction to her thoughtful mood or in anticipation of the coming flight, Stephanie couldn’t know. The warmth that came through their link made her pretty sure she was being teased.

  Later on, Richard Harrington came trotting across the field to where Stephanie and the other members of the Blue Team were discussing their strategies for the obstacle course relay race that would end the day.

  “Steph, I just got a call. The Lins’ herd is showing signs of something nasty. I can’t wait. I hate to pull you from practice, but Mayor Sapristos says he has a meeting this evening, and your mother is hours away working on planting a field of that new range-barley hybrid she’s been working on.”

  Stephanie knew her dad already had the Vet Van with him-he never went much of anywhere without it, which was why she’d thought her using the family air car wasn’t unreasonable. However, this was not the time to try and score points.

  Dad was really worried. The Lins’ herd was crucial to the future of Sphinx’s dairy industry. On such a heavily forested planet, grazers didn’t flourish-there simply wasn’t enough open land. The Lins’ capri-cows were a new strain of browsers, based largely on goats, but with genes that enabled them to give creamy milk that didn’t pick up the flavors of the strong-tasting leaves of the native plants.

  Immediately, Stephanie started shrugging out of her glider, but before she could get more than a few straps undone, Jessica Pheriss cut in.

  “Dr. Harrington,” Jessica said very politely, “I have my folks’ car. I’m supposed to do some grocery shopping after practice, but if you don’t mind my doing that, then dropping the stuff off, I could take Stephanie back.”

  “Your parents won’t mind?” Richard said.

  “I’ll call,” Jessica said, taking out a uni-link that Stephanie-with her new insights into Jessica’s probable economic level-realized was an older, refurbished model. “Right away.”

  In less time than it would have taken Stephanie to stow her glider, Jessica had confirmed that it was fine if she took Stephanie home-as long as she dropped off the groceries first. Richard Harrington thanked her and, after giving Stephanie an abstracted kiss on the forehead, hurried off to do his best for the Lins’ capri-cows.

  The Blue Team lost the relay race by a few points. However, Stephanie didn’t feel too bad about it. Trudy and Stan had pulled a few moves that were definitely outside of the rule book. To Stephanie, at least, that made their victory pretty hollow. From the look on Mayor Sapristos’ face as he did his post-game analysis, he agreed, but didn’t feel he had enough evidence to register a complaint.

  “I’m parked over there,” Jessica said when they’d finished going over the game with their teammates. She indicated a strip off to one side, partially sheltered by some particularly thick spike-thorn bushes.

  When they reached the vehicle, Stephanie guessed that Jessica had chosen the parking space deliberately, so as not to draw attention to the air car. It wasn’t a wreck. In fact, when Jessica started it up, the engine caught smoothly. But even an effort at a plaid pattern couldn’t disguise that the seats were patched with fabric-tape. And nothing would ever hide that it was definitely an older model.

  Jessica fitted their two hang gliders into the trunk with an ease that spoke of lots of similar experience.

  “We’ll stow the groceries in the backseat,” she said. There was a forced casualness to her words that told Stephanie she was embarrassed.

  “You’re lucky to be allowed to fly the family car,” Stephanie said as she got in on the passenger side. “I know I only got my provisional license a couple of days ago, but nothing’s changed at home.”

  Jessica brought them around smoothly. Stephanie had always figured they were close in age, but now she wondered if Jessica was actually a bit older.

  “You’re a really good pilot,” she said. “I mean, you fly like you’ve been doing this for years.”

  Jessica laughed, but there was something painful underneath the sound. “I have been. Trebuchet, the last system we lived in, had a much lower age requirement. My folks both work and I had to do a lot of the routine piloting, like today. Then my mom got me a job where she was working. Trebuchet is
known for a remarkable number of plants with proven medicinal properties. However, some of them have to be harvested by hand. They’re just too fragile for anything else. I went to some really out-of-the way places on that job.”

  “By yourself?” Stephanie asked.

  “Oh, no!” Jessica laughed. “I took a couple of my younger brothers and sisters. They could help with the picking, but they weren’t old enough to pilot.”

  She sighed as she brought them down by a big warehouse Stephanie had seen but never been in. It didn’t look in the least like a grocery store. When they went inside, she realized it wasn’t. Instead, it was a storehouse for damaged goods. Jessica’s mother had apparently already done most of the purchasing over the net, but Jessica negotiated for a couple of boxes of ice-potatoes that were going brown around the edges.

  Stephanie frowned to herself as she helped load the groceries into the car. She’d seen her mother throw out vegetables in a lot better condition than these, but then the Harringtons did have extensive greenhouses. Maybe she was a bit spoiled by all that bounty.

  “Mom’s going to be thrilled with these,” Jessica said as she loaded the boxes of ice-potatoes. “We’ve planted near-lettuce. The house we’re renting has a good stand of near-pine with the nuts coming on, but we haven’t been here long enough to get anything like ice-potatoes in.”

  Stephanie tried to think of something to say, but she simply was too honest to rejoice in partially-rotted vegetables. As she got into the air car, she finally found what she hoped was a safe comment.

  “How will you cook them?”

  “Mashed,” Jessica said, as she set the car to rise and entered in navigation coordinates. “We’ll cut out the bad parts first, of course. Mom uses almond oil instead of butter to bring out the natural nutty taste of the ice-potatoes themselves.”

  “We use sesame oil for the same reason,” Stephanie said. She wanted to be a good guest-after all, Jessica was doing her a favor-but she really didn’t know what was polite to say. “Were you born in the Trebuchet system?”

  Jessica shook her head, sending ripples through her masses of curly light-auburn hair. “No, in the van Mook system. But we didn’t stay there long. We moved to the Sankar, Tasmania, and Madeleine systems. And we moved a lot on the planets, too. My dad…”

  She paused, then sighed. “You might as well hear it from me. Trudy’s sure to bring it up one way or another. My dad is what might be politely called a drifter. He’s not a bad man. He doesn’t get drunk or stoned or anything-at least not more than most people. But he’s a dreamer. There’s always something better over the next hill, on the next planet, in the next system.”

  “And your mom?” Stephanie asked.

  “She’s…Well, I think at first she wasn’t much different from dad except that she was interested in different things in these new places. She really loves plants-animals, too, but plants are her thing. She always hates leaving her gardens, but she comforts herself with the idea that she’s leaving something beautiful behind her. And, then, she’s also lured by the idea of what new thing she’ll find.”

  “I should have known that,” Stephanie said, “from the way she chooses to cook ice-potatoes. Lots of recipes are for how to make them taste more like Terran spuds. She appreciates the difference. But you said ‘at first.’ What changed?”

  “Us,” Jessica said. “Me and my siblings. I’m the oldest of seven.”

  “Wow…” Stephanie said. “I think that’s even bigger than Karl’s family. And your family keeps moving at that size? I’d think liner fees would be prohibitive.”

  “They are,” Jessica agreed, “but Dad’s learned a lot as a drifter. He’s a real jack-of-all-trades and often gets a job aboard-nothing involving engines or anything, but as a steward or porter. Mom is always in demand on liners because she’s a wizard with hydroponics. I even had a job on our last trip, assistant in the kiddie entertainment lounge. I think I’m going to swear off kids…”

  She laughed when she said this, but Stephanie didn’t doubt there was a grain of truth in the words. She remembered the entertainment lounges on the liner her family had taken from Meyerdahl to Sphinx. The relentless cheerfulness had driven her to their family’s cabin where at least she could read in peace. The adult lounges had almost been worse. No one seemed to value quiet or conversation.

  Jessica went on. “When Mom heard about the incentives for settlers who would come to Sphinx, she talked my dad into coming here. We’re zero-balancers, so we don’t own any land or anything. In fact, the house we’re renting is owned by the Franchittis. That’s how I met Trudy. She was really nice at first, even loaned me a hang-gliding rig she wasn’t using when she learned I knew how to glide. But lately…I don’t like Stan. I think he’s a bad influence, not just on Trudy, but on the planet. I don’t like even breathing the same air as him.”

  Stephanie nodded. “Stan’s come to practice high more than once. I don’t know why Mayor Sapristos doesn’t call him on it.”

  “Because,” Jessica said with a cynicism that told Stephanie volumes about her life, “Stan is connected. Not only is his family friends with the Franchittis, but they have connections back on Manticore. If my dad smokes a little too much wonder weed and is late to work, then he gets his pay docked, but if Stan takes something a whole lot stronger, he’s going to have to crash his glider before Mayor Sapristos does anything. Part of being mayor is knowing how people expect to be treated.”

  Stephanie wanted to disagree. After all, she liked Mayor Sapristos and he was one of her dad’s closer friends. But she couldn’t. In the four T-years she’d been living on Sphinx, she’d learned a lot about the social and political hierarchy. It would be nice if a relatively newly opened colony world was egalitarian, but so far as she could tell the truth was that such environments attracted the ambitious, and the ambitious often wanted recognition and power as much or more than they wanted new lands or a chance to discover.

  “There’s my house,” Jessica said, pointing and bringing the air car in for a smooth landing. “And my mom coming out to meet us with some of the kids.”

  Ms. Pherris proved to be a very nice lady. She invited Stephanie and Climbs Quickly in for a tumbler of a sweet-tart punch made with the flowers of a plant related to spike thorn. Stephanie loved it, but Climbs Quickly clearly would have preferred something else.

  “I checked, and both flowers and fruit were listed as edible,” Ms. Pheriss said, “but too sour to be really enjoyable. Well, that sort of thing is a challenge to me and we have hedges of the stuff on the property.”

  On the way home, Stephanie tapped out a quick message to her mom and dad, asking if Jessica could stay for dinner.

  “She has a full license, so she’ll have no problem getting home.”

  The reply was almost instantaneous. “Definitely!”

  Dad didn’t make it back for dinner. The situation with the Lins’ capri-cows was still critical, so he was planning to camp out in the Vet Van while waiting to learn whether the medications he had given had worked.

  Over dinner, Stephanie encouraged Jessica to talk about her mother’s interest in plants. As Stephanie had hoped, Marjorie Harrington, who had frequently bemoaned the fact that she had trouble getting assistants who were not either overqualified (and thus tried to run the show for her) or underqualified (and so ruined delicate experiments) was immediately interested.

  “You say she’s working, though,” Mom said.

  Jessica nodded. “In child care. The advantage is she doesn’t need to pay to leave the little ones anywhere. The job lets her keep them with her. That’s useful, since Nathan is still nursing.”

  Mom looked thoughtful, and by the time Jessica had to leave-“I usually try to be home to help wash up the kids and stuff some of them to bed”-a plan was clearly in the works.

  After seeing Jessica off, Stephanie went into the kitchen to help clean up.

  “Thanks for letting Jessica come at such short notice, Mom.”

 
Marjorie hugged her. “I’m proud of you for taking initiative.”

  Stephanie grinned. “I guess not all the kids here are total losses. Jessica is interesting. I bet she’d be almost up to my study levels if her family hadn’t had to move so much.”

  Quickly, hoping she wasn’t betraying a confidence, Stephanie shared what Jessica had told her about her father and the Pheriss family’s many moves.

  “Mom,” she concluded, “even if things don’t work out when you interview Ms. Pheriss, I was wondering. Jessica was really glad today to buy some ice potatoes you would have tossed on the compost. Could we, I mean, when you cull the greenhouse, could I take some of the stuff over to the Pheriss house?”

  Marjorie Harrington nodded, but her expression was serious.

  “Charity is a difficult matter, Steph. Sometimes it backfires-like my trying to be nice to that horrible Trudy.”

  Stephanie nodded. “I understand. We might hurt the Pheriss’ feelings. Still, sometimes good comes out of even that sort of thing. I mean, if Trudy hadn’t come to the party and been such a know-it-all, I might not have found out that Jessica had a mind of her own. Even if she’d been friendly at the party, I would have thought it was just because she was a guest, but when she spoke out that way…”

  “Good point. We won’t know unless we try, but let’s be cautious about how we go about it. It will be easy enough if Ms. Pherris works out as an assistant. I can just tell her to help herself-that there’s too much for three humans and one treecat.”

  “Bleek!” protested Lionheart, although his comment could have been because Stephanie was pulling a casserole dish away before he’d completely scoured the cheese and meat sauce off the ceramic.

  “Well, then,” Stephanie said. “I’ll just have to hope Ms. Pheriss is qualified.”

  Snuggled under the covers that night, listening to the night noises through the open window, Stephanie watched Lionheart scamper out. She hoped he wasn’t too lonely for other treecats. Now that she was making human friends, it seemed even more important that her best friend not be deprived of similar companionship.