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"But just because I can't pay it, doesn't mean I don't have to try, so as soon as I finish recording this message, I'll be sitting down with the Prime Minister to discuss the withdrawal of the Crown's opposition to the Treecat Rights Bill. The Sphinx Forestry Service will be getting a somewhat larger budget over the next few months, as well, and I would be very grateful if you would ask General MacClintock if he would be so good as to accompany you back to Manticore so that he and I can discuss how best to clarify—and enforce—the treecats' legal status as quickly as possible.
"In addition," his recorded image looked straight into the pickup, meeting his daughter's gaze levelly, "I would ask you and your new friend to come home to Mount Royal Palace. I understand from Colonel Tudev that the 'cats have rather conclusively demonstrated their ability to sense the hostile intent of would-be assassins. I find that an excellent reason to encourage my daughter to consort with them, and I intend to ask the SFS to reassign a few of their enforcement perso
Adrie
For several seconds she smiled at the com while her father smiled out of it, but then his smile faded and his voice softened.
"But that's for the future, Adrie
He stopped speaking and gazed out of the display for a moment longer, and then the message ended, and Adrie
It was all his doing, she realized wonderingly. He'd dropped into her life like a whirlwind, and he was the only reason she was still alive. He and his friends were the only reason anyone even knew there'd been a plot to be discovered, not simply some lone, deranged assassin, and they were the ones who were most likely to discover who the plotters were. And if the miracle she'd prayed for occurred—if somehow she and her father were able to piece back together even a shadow of the warmth and love they once had known—that, too, would be possible only because of the 'cat in her arms.
"I haven't even named you," she whispered into one tufted ear, and the ear twitched. The 'cat raised his head just enough to look into her eyes, and she smiled tremulously. "I guess I really am one of the slowpokes Colonel MacClintock was talking about," she told him, "but you'll have to be patient with me. It has to be the right name for all you've accomplished this afternoon . . . and somehow I don't think you'd like `Miracle Worker' very much when you learned what it meant!"
Seeker of Dreams gazed into his human's eyes and tasted the fragile bubble of amusement deep within her. He did not yet understand what had passed between her and her father, but there would be time for that, and now that he knew the source of her hurt, he could help her—and her father—deal with it. He knew he could do that much, and he looked forward to it. But just now, what he most savored was the humor and the joy within her, and the way the sorrow and the release of long held pain made both of them brighter despite their fragility.
He felt the turnings he might have known fall away from him, cast aside without regret as his empathy nestled close to the brightness and the beauty of his person. He would never know what those lost turnings might have brought to him . . . yet if he had not chosen, had not bonded, he would never have known even a fraction of the joy and awareness and love that were his now. It was a fair trade, he decided, and reached up to touch her face with one true-hand.
Adrie
But then the 'cat she had yet to name reached out a true-hand. He touched her face, then leaned closer, until the very tip of his nose brushed hers. His whiskers quivered as their eyes held to one another, so close her own tried to cross. She held her breath, waiting for some deep, meaningful signal from him . . . and then he drew back and nipped her sharply on the nose.
"Owwww!" Her hand shot up to cover her nose, but the cat had already sprung away from her. He landed on the head of her bed and clung there, head-down, with both true-feet and one hand-foot, flirting his tail daintily while he bleeked laughter at her. She could almost hear his mental "Gotcha!" and she laughed back at him as she felt her spirit soar.
Seeker of Dreams felt his person's joy rising like sap in mud time, felt the scaly mental scabs cracking ever so slightly about the wounds deep within her, and bleeked another laugh at her. He remembered what Sings Truly had said, of how even the best hunter could suddenly find himself the hunted, and he knew she had been right. He had come hunting his dream; now he had found it, and it had captured him, and in the fullness of time, it would slay him.
But if not that, then something else would slay me in time, he thought. And though the choice was mine, the joy will be a thing we both share. Perhaps our time will be short, but oh, how we shall blaze against the night! The memory singers of the People will sing our song so long as there are People, and she and I will go on as one forever!
He gazed down at her for one more brief, endless moment, and then he released his grip on the head of the bed and pounced upon her, growling and capturing her hand and arm like a kitten, and the happy music of laughter, human and treecat alike, burned like a beacon against the darkness.