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material culture had decided the ’cats were intelligent. Really, the only question that remained—at least as Anders saw it—was where on the sentience scale the treecats would end up being placed.
    However, Stephanie had confided in Anders something that far fewer people had had the opportunity to learn. She was certain the ’cats were at least telempathic. She was less certain—but still pretty positive—that they were telepathic, as well. Anders had to agree that something was going on with the treecats that didn’t lend itself to visual confirmation. He’d seen how Lionheart seemed aware of the flow of Stephanie’s emotions. He’d also become pretty certain that Lionheart could read people other than Stephanie—although he wasn’t sure if the ’cat got the same amount of detail from anyone else. Stephanie claimed that Lionheart was a really good judge of character. He liked Anders, didn’t he? But he’d taken a strong dislike to another off-worlder, Tennessee Bolgeo, right off.
    As to whether the cats were telepathic…Anders thought Stephanie was probably right. He’d had opportunities to observe Lionheart and Valiant acting in concert when the action in question implied a whole lot more information was being exchanged than could be held in some sort of emotional burst. One of the best examples was when Valiant—who shared Jessica’s interest in gardening—had reached for a specific tool, one Jessica had borrowed a few moments before. Lionheart had loped over, retrieved the tool from Jessica, and handed it to Valiant. There’d been no exchange of sounds. Valiant hadn’t even turned around, so there couldn’t have been any of the body language signals Kesia had thought might substitute for more complex vocalizations.
    All of this made Anders less than comfortable when he was alone with Stephanie and things were getting…romantic. Were the two of them really alone? How much did the treecat share in Stephanie’s reactions? How much did he feel of Anders’ own reactions? Anders was determined to keep his and Stephanie’s mutual explorations within Stephanie’s comfort range, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t had thoughts, some of them pretty detailed and pretty graphic.
    It was bad enough to think that Lionheart might sense some of what he was thinking, but what if the treecat shared those feelings with Stephanie? What would she think of Anders? Would she be enticed or horrified? Could the treecat somehow contaminate or influence their feelings for each other?
    Such conjectures were enough to make Anders stop short every time he got a bit carried away, even when he was pretty sure Stephanie wouldn’t mind trying a little bit more. Now, just thinking about what Lionheart might or might not know was enough to make Anders hot under the collar.
    He shook his head, smiling at himself, and concentrated on paying attention to his surroundings.
    * * *
    “It’s gorgeous, Stephanie!” Dacey Emberly exclaimed as they came to the foot of the waterfall.
    It plunged over a precipice ninety meters above them, plummeting down in a single long spill, flanked by two secondary falls that descended in a series of roaring cataracts. The seething pool at the base of the cliff was at least fifty meters across, its surface perpetually dimpled by fine drops condensing back out of the falls’ spray. The river was twenty meters across where it flowed away from them, brawling through a forest of rapids and sliding down deep, glassy smooth chutes between mossgrown boulders. The backdrop of trees and undergrowth—most of it the distinctive deep blue-green of summer red spruce but touched here and there with paintbrush kisses of autumn—framed it in a rich, luxuriant tangle of color.
    It was just a bit difficult to hear Dacey over the steady, unremitting thunder of the falls, but her expression was all Stephanie had hoped for.
    “Jessica was the one who spotted it, really,” she told the older woman. “She and I were