Free Treecat Wars by David Weber Page A

and she got left behind, but at least we could still message each other and get a reply back the same day! I figured that felt pretty darn bad anyway, but now that the shoe’s on the other foot, I know she felt even worse watching me go than I felt going , and I was so busy feeling sorry for myself I never realized it. Now that I’m the one being left, well, I can say it doesn’t feel good. In fact, it feels worse than being the one doing the leaving. The leaver has something to do; the left just gets to build life around the hole where the other person should be. And what are we going to do when I have to leave and we both know I won’t be coming back? There won’t be any same-day messages then!
    Stephanie was being really sweet, Anders had to admit that. Even though she must be up to her ear in plans—he knew there’d been a shopping expedition all the way to Yawata Crossing for stuff that couldn’t be found in little Twin Forks—still she never chattered about how excited she was. Even better, the holiday Stephanie’s parents had let her have from her studies meant they still had time to meet every day, even with preparations for departure.
    Today they were linking up in Twin Forks where they planned to join the hang-gliding club meeting, then go out—just the two of them—afterwards. Anders had his own glider now—a cutting-edge model that had been an “I’m sorry I screwed up” gift from his dad before Dr. Whitaker’s departure. It was really nice looking, in vibrant green and turquoise that the girls had all assured him went well with his own coloring. A few months hadn’t been enough to get Anders up to speed with the rest of Stephanie’s gang, but at least he no longer embarrassed himself.
    Maybe because Stephanie’s pending departure was making him think back to when everything was fresh and new, Anders found himself thinking how much people had changed in the last six months as he hurried over to join the others.
    The changes were most obvious in Toby Mednick. Toby was just a few months younger than Stephanie, and when Anders had first met him, he’d been Stephanie’s size or a little shorter. Certainly, the way the boy had carried himself—shy and meek—meant he might have been three meters tall and still have seemed small. Now nature had stepped in to give Toby more height. His shoulders were showing powerful muscle, although overall his build remained gazelle-graceful. The biggest change, though, was in his attitude.
    Toby came from a very conservative family. The hang-gliding club was the only such organization he was allowed to join, and that was because it was run by Mayor Sapristos. But hang-gliding had proven to be just what Toby needed. He was well on the way to making good his vow at Stephanie’s fifteenth birthday party to become the best flyer in the club. No longer did dark brown eyes peek up shyly through a curtain of silky black hair. They met other people’s eyes directly, and the dark hair was tied back in a fashion that Anders thought—without undue modesty—was copied from how Anders wore his own.
    The “Double Cs,” Chet Pointier and Christine Schroeder, had changed differently. Chet had finally slowed the growth spurt that had—he admitted cheerfully—been the bane of his parents’ clothes-buying budget. At seventeen, he was settling in at something over 188 centimeters in height, and these days his body seemed determined to fill in the frame it had stretched out. Chet’s natural hair color was just slightly lighter than Anders’ own wheaten gold, but he and his girlfriend Christine had recently indulged in matching dye jobs. Both now sported indigo blue hair, highlighted with violet. When they got set to go out, they also sported matching cat’s-eye contact lenses in silver.
    On Chet, the alterations looked a little affected—or so Anders thought—but from their very first meeting Anders had always thought that Christine had something of the exotic bird