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himself. But one for which I do not yet have an answer.
    *   *   *
    Stephanie was worried that her dad would ask all sorts of awkward questions regarding how she and Karl had come up with two more treecats, but whatever Karl had said over his uni-link had apparently left Richard Harrington with the impression that they had been working the fringes of a fire with the SFS and that the treecats had been handed over to them.
    “Have I ever messed up the air car,” Karl said, ruefully surveying the array of scratches and smoke stains while the vet examined his two newest patients where they huddled in the backseat.
    Richard Harrington pulled out a spray applicator and gave each treecat a light sedative. “This will let us move them without stressing them further.”
    “Help yourself to the supplies I keep in the hangar,” he went on. “You won’t be able to get the smell of smoke out of the upholstery, but this should go a long way toward your keeping your use-privileges. I’ve found a buffing compound that does wonders with scratches.”
    “Thanks, Dr. Richard. I was wondering what my folks would say. Do you need help moving the ’cats?”
    “No, I can handle them. Once I get them out, you can take the ’car directly over to the hangar.”
    Of average height, but strong enough to carry his heaviest gear without assistance even under the pull of in Sphinx’s 1.35 g , Dad easily lifted the two stranger treecats. Stephanie bent to give Lionheart a ride.
    Without turning, Dad said, “Let him walk, Steph. It won’t hurt him to work off some of what I’ve seen him devouring at the table. In any case, how many times do I have to tell you that you may be strong, but your skeleton is still pliable. Hauling that treecat around could give you curvature of the spine.”
    “But, Dad, I used to carry him all the time.”
    “That was before Scott gave you your last physical, young lady. Consider the facts. You are a hundred and thirty-five centimeters tall. Lionheart is sixty-five centimeters through the body. His tail adds another sixty-five centimeters, so he’s one hundred and thirty centimeters long—only five centimeters shorter than you are.”
    Stephanie knew that was true. When Lionheart stretched out next to her in bed, he was just about as long as her. Still, she wasn’t going to give up without trying at least a little more. Motioning for Lionheart to come along, she followed her dad toward his in-house clinic.
    “He’s not as heavy as I am, though.”
    “No, he’s not, but when you consider that a poorly balanced backpack or even a large purse can contribute to scoliosis, you surely can see my point. Scott MacDallan may carry Fisher half-perched on one shoulder, but Scott’s a grown man. When you’re an adult, you can make your own choices, but for now, you—and your skeletal structure and soft tissues—are my responsibility, got it?”
    “Got it,” Stephanie sighed.
    I can handle being short, Stephanie thought, as long as one of these days I get around to having a figure. Mom’s built okay. She keeps telling me she was a late developer, but what if I got the Harrington genes for figure and the Quintrell genes for height?
    The thoughts, a constant source of minor worry as her fifteenth birthday drew closer, ran like background music through her mind as Stephanie hurried after her father.
    In the clinic, Stephanie assisted her father as he cleaned up the two treecats and treated their surface injuries. One good thing about having a resident treecat was that Richard Harrington had a good idea of what medications would work and which would not.
    The smoke inhalation was more of a problem, since Dad didn’t like the idea of forcing a breathing mask over the treecats’ heads.
    “They’re tense enough without scaring them with that, but from the wheezing in their chests, they took some damage. I’d hate for them to get pneumonia.”
    Lionheart had been standing by making reassuring croons and bleeks