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"Come here," Fuzzy Britches called again, speaking in the patois peculiar to the cat species.
The bobcat bounded up the trunk of the tree and out onto the branch where Fuzzy Britches rested.
"Go away, little cat. This territory mine!"
"Yours," Fuzzy Britches agreed, eyeing the larger animal carefully.
"Why you here?"
"Talk to you. You talk to other cats." He bounced on his branch, upsetting the birds into chirping
again, fearfully this time. The bobcat flicked its ears toward the sound.
"My food. You go away."
"No. Leave birds alone. They eat bugs. Help the forest."
The feral cat could make no sense of this, but Fuzzy Britches was patient. He talked earnestly,
explaining his ideas to the wildcat. Finally, at mid-morning, they left together.
***
Masters' hand went automatically to the weapon belted at his waist, but he took no other action
other than to calm Conan who had bared his teeth. The dog calmed, especially when he noticed Fuzzy
Britches standing unconcernedly by the larger cat.
"Friend," Fuzzy Britches said. "I tell him to come see humans and dogs. Give him Enclave collar. No
fleas then and he not eat birds anymore. I tell him we come back again, make it where his mate not have
so many kittens. Tell him he help humans, we help him."
Conan advanced and cautiously sniffed noses with the cat, then returned to Masters' side. He had
seen stranger things in the wilds during his lifetime.
Masters removed his hand from the butt of his weapon, and the big cat lowered his ears. He
walked warily around the camp, sniffing at the tents, then accepted a food bar from the ranger. It had
long since been ranger policy not to bother the feral animals unless threatened, and never to stay in one
place long. Enhanced animals were still just as territorial as their forebears. Anytime humans camped too
long in one place they could expect retribution. He was amazed that Jamie's pet had talked the wildcat
into coming into camp. He called the Enclave to have their supporting floater make a special trip. He had
to repeat his request twice when he asked for Enclave collars to be brought out. When they arrived, he
used his body computer to modify them so that they could not be used to gain entrance to the Enclave,
but otherwise left their properties intact.
Later that day, Kristi and her patrol returned to camp, bringing two feral dogs with them,
accompanied by Woggly and Lady. The dogs were large, as most feral dogs were, representing a cross
between dogs, wolves, and coyotes, essentially a new species. They, too accepted a collar, and were
told of a bobcat in the area who would
be wearing one.
Woggly cavorted happily with them, glad that he had gotten Fuzzy Britches' instructions right.
"We're returning to the Enclave tomorrow," Masters told his rangers that night.
"This is something new. In all the years I've spent in the wilds, I've never seen this happen before.
Feral animals have never accepted friendship from us; at best, we've just avoided each other. And I ve
never seen canines and felines making friends in the wild." He shook his head, wondering what else could
possibly happen in the presence of Jamie and Fuzzy Britches. By now, he wouldn t be surprised to see
Tiger becoming vegetarians or some other equally ridiculous phenomena.
"Maybe we never had our own pets try to work out a truce," Kristi said.
"It has been tried, but never succeeded, at least not for long. There was just too much antagonism
between the feral animals and humans. Sooner or later some dumb, prejudiced human would spoil the
rapprochement."
Kristi stretched out and propped her head in Masters' lap. Fuzzy Britches jumped onto her belly
and stretched out to his full length, purring happily while chin-bumping her breasts. "Maybe they just
never had a cat around like Fuzzy Britches."
"Fuzzy Britches smart," Woggly said. "Still a cat, though. Cats not play fair. Climb trees."
***
Kristi ushered Masters into the apartment after they had made their report to Whitmire. Jamie and
Jeannie rushed to hug her. She kept an arm around the ranger captain's waist as she accepted the hugs,
then pushed him forward. "Look what I brought home with me," She said smugly, eyeing Jeannie. "A
brand new play-pretty."
Masters was old enough and Jeannie young enough that they both managed to blush. Jeannie
recovered first. "If we're going to play," She said, "You better go get washed first. Don't forget to do
behind your ears."
Masters wondered what he had let himself in for, but he was not unhappy about it. It had been a
long time since he had taken on a family. His only question now was whether he could hold up his end of
it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
"Fuzzy Britches was the key to the whole thing," Jamie explained to Whitmire two weeks later. He
had asked Masters to come with him, to lend support to his arguments. "Some of his remarks that didn t
make sense out of context started sounding better once I started thinking about them. He kept mentioning
that 'the pets would take care of humans' and that he wanted to talk to some feral animals. Well, Troy
has told you all about that." He glanced at the white haired man sitting beside him. Having Masters in the
family would make his plan safer, even if he still didn't like what he was proposing.
"So he has. Troy, are you for it?"
"I think it's worth a try," the ranger said.
"Certainly, nothing else is working. The outside ecology just keeps getting worse. At the very least,
returning some humans and their pets to the wilds, and trying to draw the feral animals into cooperation
with us will provide a base for our continued existence, even if the Enclaves ultimately fail."
"That's what I think, too," Jamie said. "Not that I'm going to like the idea of living in the wilds, but I
don't see anything else working. At the least, we can start small, and go on from there. We can help the
feral animals control their population in our own area and work from there. It they cooperate, maybe
some of the other Enclaves will try it. Jeannie and Kristi are willing. Our kids will grow up with the feral
animals. If we treat them as equals, like we do our pets, maybe someday we can get the ecology
balanced again, and go from there. They might even help us if we want to go into space again, but that's
for a long time in the future."
"Maybe not so long," Whitmire said. "We've reached a compromise with Moon City. We'll retain
the ship that's already built, and let them have the one still under construction. They can use it to sterilize
and re-equip the Altairian generation ship. It's big enough to take most of their population, or if they don't
want to try that, they can use it for more exploration. In the meantime, they will build us several other [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]