Free Fire Season-eARC by David Weber, Jane Lindskold Page A

Ranger Shelton responding in kind—Stephanie fought to keep her attention on what was being said. She wanted to move to where she could get a better look at Anders, see if he was maybe smiling one of those quirky smiles as the adults said all the things they already knew, but wanted to get on the record.
    After Chief Ranger Shelton left, the mood immediately became less formal. Chairs were pushed back. Several people rose to refill their drinks.
    Karl was one of these. “More cocoa, Steph?”
    “Uh, sure.” She blushed. That had really sounded polished, hadn’t it?
    “Bleek!” Lionheart said. The SFS staff had provided him with a stool so that he could sit next to Stephanie and still comfortably see over the table. When Stephanie had gotten her cocoa, she’d brought him some cubes of cheese, but she had no doubt what he was asking for now.
    “Not really a good idea,” she said.
    “Is he asking for celery?” said Dr. Emberly, the woman who had been introduced as the xenobiologist.
    Stephanie smiled ruefully. “He is. He’s known it was here since we walked into the room—heck, he probably knew as soon as we got into the building. From what we can tell, treecats have a wonderfully sharp sense of smell.”
    “Is it all right if I give him some?” asked Virgil Iwamoto.
    Stephanie considered. “Well, Lionheart had some celery just last night, so he shouldn’t have too much. Treecats are more carnivores than omnivores and…”
    She wished she hadn’t started in on this, but having done so, she pushed on, inelegant though the subject might be. She hoped Anders didn’t think she was being crass or crude.
    “…Well, it makes them constipated if they eat too much of it. Lionheart had some real problems when he first came to live with us, but Dad figured out the problem. Now I give Lionheart doses of what’s basically cod-liver oil a couple times a week. Since he likes fish, it isn’t too much trouble.”
    “Interesting,” said Dr. Emberly. “Extra fiber usually gives terrestrial animals gas. Eating it helps eliminate blockage. I wonder what the difference is in the metabolisms?”
    She looked as if she would very much like to be given a treecat to dissect, but since Stephanie had heard her father say similar things, she recognized scientific fervor when she heard it.
    Watching Lionheart make his messy way through the helping of celery sticks Iwamoto slid over to him broke the ice amazingly. Questions rained down from all sides. Karl—whose uncle by marriage, Scott MacDallan, had also been adopted by a treecat—helped answer them.
    “What else does Lionheart eat?”
    “Just about what the wild treecats do. We try to make certain he gets a healthy, balanced diet, but he does eat with the rest of us, so he’s developed rather esoteric tastes.”
    Karl added, “Fisher and Lionheart do have different preferences. Fisher really loves fish. Lionheart seems to prefer poultry or red meat.”
    “Will the treecats eat celery to the exclusion of everything else?” This was from Dr. Nez, the cultural anthropologist.
    “You mean, do they get addicted?” Stephanie asked back, hearing her voice sharpening.
    She’d been asked this before, and knew that there were some humans who thought that the “pet” treecats stayed with humans more for access to this delicacy than out of affection—like a drug addict hanging around a pusher.
    She went on before Dr. Nez could clarify his question. “No. They don’t get addicted—at least the treecats I’ve known don’t seem to be. They just like it a whole lot. It’s like my mom and chocolate. She can go without it, but offer her a slice of apple pie or a slice of chocolate torte and she’ll take the chocolate every time.”
    Ranger Lethbridge chuckled. “I’ll second that. I’d say there are some members of the SFS who are more addicted to coffee than any treecat is to celery, but that doesn’t mean I’d leave a bunch of celery unsupervised when Fisher and Scott