The great Treecat conspiracy.

George J. Smith wrote:I think the conspiracy goes way back,

From chapter 13 of Fire Season..

He fell silent, but they were aware of his faint mind-glow growing stronger. Now that he had a sense of the direction from which Left-Striped was coming, Climbs Quickly turned to Death Fang’s Bane.
“Bleek!” he said, then pointed, making at the same time a motion similar to that of hands on the stick of the air car. He felt her flash of delight and amusement, then heard her making mouth noises to Shadowed Sunlight and the boy who drove the larger flying thing. The two vehicles turned almost as one.
<Useful,> commented Nose Biter grudgingly. <Can you always get her to obey so easily?>
<It has taken time,> Climbs Quickly admitted, <but once I felt certain that the mouth noises substitute for mind-voices, I knew we had to find a compromise.