House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion (36 page)

Zilwicki, Helen Angela (deceased)

Captain (JG), Royal Manticoran Navy

Helen Zilwicki, a native of Manticore, was an active member of the Anti-Slavery League. She was married to Anton Zilwicki and was Helen Zilwicki’s mother. In 1904 PD, she commanded the badly outgunned naval escort for a convoy that was ambushed in hyper-space by a PN force. She sacrificed herself and the escort to protect the convoy, which contained over six thousand Naval technicians and their families, including her husband and daughter. For her actions she was posthumously awarded the Parliamentary Medal of Valor.

Zilwicki, Helen Antonia

Ensign, Royal Manticoran Navy

Helen Zilwicki is the daughter of Anton and Helen Zilwicki, and the adoptive sister of Lars Zilwicki and Queen Berry I of Torch. At age fourteen, she was kidnapped on Old Chicago, where she met and rescued two orphans, Lars and Berry, before the rescue of all three of the children by members of the Audubon Ballroom and the Havenite agent Victor Cachat.

Zilwicki was assigned to HMS Hexapuma for her midshipman’s cruise and took part in the Battle of Monica. Despite her very junior rank, she was specifically requested by Commodore Terekhov as his flag lieutenant for his redeployment to the Talbott Quadrant.

Zyrr-Winton, Prince Justin

Prince Consort, Star Kingdom of Manticore

Justin Zyrr, a native of Gryphon, and Crown Princess Elizabeth III met when she was touring his research lab. They were engaged when she succeeded to the Crown in 1883 PD after the death of her father, Roger III. Zyrr helped Elizabeth investigate Roger’s death. Roger III’s treecat, Monroe, defended Zyrr’s life and created a bond with him shortly after Roger’s death. Zyrr’s children with Elizabeth are Crown Prince Roger and Princess Joanna.

Nonhuman Sentient Species

The Star Empire of Manticore counts among its inhabitants two of the twenty-seven sentient nonhuman species discovered to date: the Sphinxian treecats and the Medusans. Like the Barthoni, treecats are one of the few nonhuman species to have established a multiple planetary presence, with small colonies on
Grayson
and Gryphon in addition to their native Sphinx. The Medusans remain limited to their planet of origin in the Basilisk system.

As a result of treecat-human bondings and the presence of treecats in the courts of several generations of Manticoran monarchs, the Sphinxian treecats now enjoy legal status as citizens of the Star Kingdom and the acceptance of most of her Majesty’s subjects. However, they enjoy that citizenship only in the status of minor children, and until they began to communicate directly with humans through sign language, even many Manticorans dismissed them as intelligent animals rather than a true sentient species.

The Medusans, on the other hand, have had less exposure to the other members of the Star Empire and have, at times, found themselves the subject of uneasiness and ambivalence.

Treecats

Treecats are the native sentient species of Sphinx. As such, they are considered citizens of the Star Empire, albeit with protected status.

PHYSIOLOGY

Treecats are hexapedal like all of Sphinx’s indigenous mammals. ’Cats are built long and lean, somewhat along the lines of a Terran ferret or weasel crossed with a lemur monkey. They average about sixty centimeters in body length or about one hundred thirty centimeters overall, including their tails. Their foremost limbs end in well-developed “true-hands,” each with three fingers and a single opposable thumb. Their mid-limbs end in similar “hand-feet” that are considerably stronger but less agile, and their rearmost limbs end in “true-feet” that have toes, rather than fingers. All digits are tipped with retractable claws, approximately one centimeter in length. These claws are scimitar-shaped and formed of extremely dense, hard material, resembling terrestrial sharks’ teeth much more than they do the claws of terrestrial cats. The back edge of each claw is extremely sharp, which turns them into quite lethal weapons. It is uncommon for a ’cat to shed a claw, but it can happen. When it does a new claw grows to replace it.

Treecats are covered in thick, fluffy coats that grow in three separate layers. The two outer layers are subject to seasonal variations in length and thickness, with a shedding process governed by a temperature-sensitive biological mechanism, and a treecat’s full winter coat is almost twice as bulky as its summer coat. The outer surfaces of treecat tails are also very fluffy, but many people do not realize that those tails are actually flat, with a bare, leathery “gripping” surface on the “bottom.” Under normal circumstances, powerful muscles keep the tail curled into a tube, showing only the outer, furry side. The tube relaxes into its flattened state in order to allow the ’cats to attain secure holds on limbs and branches that may be wet or coated in ice.

Treecats have definite muzzles, cat-like ears, and round heads that appear somewhat too large for their bodies in comparison to terrestrial cats. Their heads resemble that of a terrestrial bobcat or wildcat but with sharper muzzles, higher foreheads, and no tufts to the ears.
Male treecats are universally gray in color, although there are gradations from ’cat to ’cat within that color range. This coloring allows them to blend well with the various colors of picketwood bark. Males also tend to be about fifteen to twenty percent larger than females and, unlike females, grow darker bands around their tails as they age. These “tail rings” make it possible to estimate a male’s age with a fair degree of accuracy. The first ring appears at about four Sphinxian years of age and a new band appears every Sphinxian year thereafter.

In addition to being smaller than males and possessing no tail rings, females have dappled coats patterned in brown and white. This coloring allows them to blend in with the leaf-and-sunlight patterns of the upper branch level of the picketwood.

Treecats are similar to Terran mammals in that they give birth to live young. Multiple births are the norm for treecats. A treecat litter will contain three to seven treekittens, with an average of four being typical. The gestation period is approximately four and a half T-months (thirteen and a half T-weeks).

TELEMPATHY AND TELEPATHY

While many suspected that treecats were true, functional telempaths, the theory was unproven until 1914 PD, when Dr. Adelina Arif developed a sign language to enable direct human-treecat dialogue. Among themselves, treecats are also telepaths, which is undoubtedly how they managed to attain a high level of societal and cultural integration without ever developing the concept of a spoken language. They do use a few recognizable audio signals, such as cries of alarm, but other than that, they communicate directly mind-to-mind. The combined emotional aura and deliberate transmission of thoughts is what a treecat means by the term “mind-glow.” To a treecat, another treecat appears as a bright beacon of emotion at all times. The transmission of thoughts, however, is a deliberate act.

Although it is normally accompanied by what might be thought of as “sideband transmissions” that deliver a great deal of additional, often subtle, information, a treecat’s “mind-voice,” unlike the emotional portion of his mind-glow, operates only when he chooses.

By human standards, ’cats are not naturally innovative. While they are problem solvers, they tend to solve specific problems without generalizing to other applications of the solution. This leads to a highly stable society and technological level, yet they are capable of making sudden, enormous intellectual leaps as a consequence of the existence of “memory singers.” Female treecats’ mind-voices are normally stronger than those of males, but a very small number of females also possess the telepathic equivalent of eidetic memory. Able to actually experience and reproduce the remembered thoughts and actions of other ’cats, these memory singers become their clans’ repositories of history and knowledge. In addition, because a memory singer can pass actual experiences from one treecat to another, they are capable of transmitting new knowledge or new techniques throughout the entire ’cat population with astonishing speed.

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

Treecats are organized into “clans.” These are extended communities of closely related families that share a common range and the responsibilities of maintaining, expanding, and protecting their clan as a whole. Within any clan there are clearly differentiated responsibilities and tasks. Clans and their ranges tend to be extremely stable. In some cases a clan has maintained the same range literally for centuries. Because they are primarily carnivorous, the population density for any given clan range must be carefully maintained. Upon occasion, increases in population will force an expansion of a clan’s range, although the more normal consequence is for the excess population to migrate outside the original range and establish an entirely new, though still closely related, clan.

Treecats seldom mate outside their own clans, although it does happen upon occasion. When it does, the male half of the mated pair normally becomes a member of his mate’s birth clan. That pattern is not always followed, however, and whichever way it works out, the “moving” mate is readily adopted into and assimilated into his or her mate’s clan.

Treecats mate for life. The union between two treecats is a telempathic as well as a physical one. The individual mind-glows of both halves of a mated pair grow considerably “brighter” and stronger than they were prior to the mating. Once a pair has mated, they become permanent parts of one another in a way that other individual treecats do not. Indeed, they are uncomfortable if circumstances part them. This need not rise to the level of acute pain, so long as both know the parting will be only temporary, but it is a source of stress and unhappiness during the period of separation. If one half of a mated pair dies, however, it is far more common than not for the other mate to follow into death. This may be the result of active suicide (although this is rare) or the result of what might be thought of as terminal depression. The surviving mate gradually sinks into a state of withdrawal in which he or she neither eats nor drinks until, eventually, death results. The most common countervailing influence is the existence of relatively youthful treekittens. The mind-glows of a ’cat’s children will sometimes pull the surviving parent out of that dark death spiral.

Treecats who have adopted humans do not normally mate. In most cases, they may form temporary, primarily physical, attachments with other ’cats during their periodic return visits to their clan’s home range, but the permanent mating bond is normally foreclosed by the strength and power of the treecat-human bond of adoption. According to the Sphinx Forestry Service, Nimitz and Samantha are the only mated pair both bonded to humans.

The rearing and education of treekittens, once they are old enough to begin exploring their world, is a communal experience. Adult ’cats, both male and female, contribute to incorporating the ’kittens into the social structure of the clan.

Because of their telempathic abilities, treekittens are familiar with their mother’s mind-glow before they are born. This was believed to be the case once those telempathic abilities were recognized by humans and was subsequently confirmed by Dr. Arif from her discussions with Samantha and with ’cats on Sphinx. It is believed that, much as human babies take time to learn to speak, the growing ’kittens develop the ability to use their mind-voice over time.

TECHNOLOGY

Treecats are tool-users and fire-users, although the use and control of fire in an arboreal civilization poses certain obvious challenges and threats. Prior to contact with humanity, treecats made tools out of bone, wood, and stone, and wove fabrics and ropes out of the Sphinxian equivalent of hemp and also out of their own shed coats. Although clothing was never necessary for them, they created carry nets, tents, pillows, cushions, and similar textile items.

Following the establishment of contact with humanity and especially after the formation of the Sphinx Forestry Service, more sophisticated tools became available to treecats. By and large, especially during the period when treecat intelligence remained a hotly debated topic, efforts were made to prevent them from developing a dependency on humans for tools. Efforts concentrated on teaching them to make new tools out of the materials they’d always used rather than handing out “trade axes” which they would be unable to replace themselves.

RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CROWN

Treecats are legally considered citizens (albeit as minor children) of the Star Empire and have been since 1568 PD with the passage of the Ninth Amendment to the Constitution. By the same enactment, they hold permanent title to over one-third of the land area on Sphinx. Although it took over eighty T-years, that status as citizens was completely resolved by the passage of the Treecats Rights Bill in 1651. A subsequent decision by the Queen’s Bench Court, the highest court in the Star Kingdom, in 1685 forever banned any legal challenge to the treecats’ status as citizens. The Royal Manticoran Navy’s regulations state that a treecat bonded to a serving member may not be separated for his or her adopted human. This applies to all ranks and all situations, including training.

In 1911 PD, a group of treecats from the same clan as Nimitz asserted that they wanted to emigrate to Grayson. Although the Sphinx Forestry Service opposed the move, the ’cats made it clear that they did not want to be “saved” by the SFS, and the move was allowed. After the RMN declined to provide transport, the ’cats were brought to
Grayson
on Lady Harrington’s private yacht. An additional small colony from the same clan was recently established in Alexander-Harrington’s duchy on Gryphon.

While adoptions have been occurring at a limited rate since 1518 PD, when Lionheart adopted Dame Stephanie Harrington, only in the last few years have most Manticoran citizens truly understood the intelligence level of the ’cats. This was due, at least in part, to a conscious policy of the treecats to downplay their own capabilities. Following the work of Dr. Arif, the ’cats have demonstrated a growing “comfort” in allowing humans to understand their level of intelligence. There appears to be a growing understanding among the treecat clans of the potential threat posed to the ’cats existence by warfare among humans. Some human researchers believe that the decision to emigrate to
Grayson
and Gryphon may have been one response to this understanding by the treecats, a fact that seems to be borne out by Dr. Arif’s continuing discussions with the ’cats on Sphinx.

The fact that since the adoption of Crown Prince Adrienne so many monarchs of the Star Kingdom have been adopted by treecats has given rise to some conspiracy theories. Unquestionably, adopting a monarch or a potential monarch gives the treecats powerful protection at Court, but the Wintons have also recognized the benefits of human-treecat bonding, and heirs to the Crown routinely travel to Sphinx to meet the treecats and, hopefully, be adopted. The advantage of having a treecat as a constant companion has been demonstrated on a number of occasions by adoptees, and the Manticoran Palace Guard Service has long recognized the value of treecats as additional security “personnel.” With the growth of direct communications between humans and the ’cats and their mutual recognition of the benefits to each other, it would be reasonable to conclude that ’cats will, more and more, be integrated into the fabric of human society.