The argument had grown a little less chaotic, but only because half the troop was trailing back. It was no less vehement. Alfin shouted, "You're not listening. They kicked us out! For all we know, they think they're still at war with us!"

 

The Grad said, "Clave, the tribemarks are tended, and we aren't finding as many fan fungi lately, or the shelled things either. I'm thinking they keep this stretch of trunk clean. They must be still around. Our move is to get out of here!"

 

"You want to run from something you haven't even seen!"

 

"We saw the tribal insignia," the Grad said. "DQ. No takeout mark across the Q. Maybe they still call themselves Dalton-Quinn. What does that make us? Intruders on their tree? We've passed the median anyway, we're in their space. Clave, let's go home. Kill another nose-arm, pick some fan fungus and one of the shells, and go home with plenty of food." Clave was shaking his head. "The tribe won't have to go thirsty any more either! We bring water from the trunk.-"

 

Clave waved it away. "That water would get to the tuft anyway. No. I want to meet the Daltons. It's been hundreds of years, we don't know what they're like. . . maybe they know better tending methods for the earthlife, or ways to get water. Maybe they grow food we never heard of. Something. 'Day, Jiovan."

 

"'Day. What's going on?"

 

"We found a tribemark and it isn't ours. The question before the citizenry is, do we say hello before going home? Or do we just run?"

 

The Grad jumped in. "Don't you see, we can't fight and we can't negotiate! We've got one good fighter, and two cripples and a boy and four women and a treemouth tender, and all of us thrown out of Quinn Tuft, we can't even make promises-"

 

Clave broke in. "Alfin, you're for leaving too?"

 

"Jiovan?"

 

"What are we running from?"

 

"Maybe nothing. That mark wasn't tended for a long time. Treefodder, the drought could have killed them off! We could settle the far tuft-"

 

Merril broke in, though she was puffing from the climb. "Oh no. if everyone died there . . - we won't want to . . . go anywhere near it.

 

Sickness."

 

"Are you for going back or going on?"

 

"I don't . . . back, I guess, but . . . let's get that . . . big fan fungus first. Wouldn't that impress the citizens! And smoke another nosearm . . . if we can. Far as that goes . . . we know there's meat to be hunted on the trunk. We should tell the Chairman that."

 

"Jayan? Jinny?"

 

"She makes sense," Jinny said, and Jayan nodded.

 

"Gavving?"

 

"No opinion."

 

"Treefodder. Glory?"

 

"Go back," Glory said. "I haven't tasted foliage in days and days."

 

Clave sighed. "ff1 was sure I was right, we'd go on. Aaall right." His voice became fuller, more resonant. "We'll have enough to carry anyway, what with the giant fan and whatever meat we find. Citizens, we've done very well for ourselves and Quinn Tuft. We go home as heroes. Now, I don't want to lose anyone on the way down, so don't take the tide for granted! It'll get stronger with every klomter. Most of the way down we'll need lines for the meat and the fan fungus-"

 

Their goals had become Clave's own. Gavving noticed, and remembered.

 

The flashers had come back. Minya watched them at their mating dance. Two males strutted before. the same femhle with their wingcloaks spread wide, and the female's head snapped back and forth almost too fast to see. Decisions decisions- "Something's been worrying you, woman."

 

Decisions. Was it any of Smitta's business? Minya made a swift decision: she had to talk to someone, or burst. "I've started wondering if-if I'm right for the Triune Squad."

 

Smitta showed shock. "Really? You were eager enough to join eight years ago. What's changed?"

 

"I don't know."

 

But she did, and suddenly Smitta did too. "Don't talk to Sal about this. She wouldn't understand."

 

"I was only fourteen."

 

"You looked older . . . more mature. And maybe the loveliest recruit we ever got."

 

Minya grimaced. "Every man in the tuft wanted to make babies with me. I must have heard every possible way of saying that. I just didn't want to do that with anyone. Smitta, that's what the Triune Squad is for!"

 

"I know. What would I be without the Triune Squad? A woman born as a man, a man who wants to be a woman . .

 

"Do you ever want-" What was the right word? Not make babie.s~, not for Smitta.

 

"I used to," Smitta said. "With Risher-he was a lot prettier once- and lately with Mik, the Huntmaster's boy." Minya flinched. Maybe Smitta noticed. "We give all that up when we join. You just have to hold it inside. You know that."

 

"Does anyone ever . . ."

 

"What? Quit? Cheat? Alse jumped into the sky, a little after I joined, but nobody really knows why. That's the only way to quit. If you get caught cheating, I can name some would tear you apart. Sal's one."

 

Tight lips and clenched teeth held back Minya's secret. Now Smitta did notice. "Don't get caught cheating," she repeated. "Maybe you don't know how citizens feel about us. They tolerate us. We won't give the tribe babies, so we do the most dangerous jobs anyone can think of, and pay the debt that way. But you don't ask any ordinary man to, you know, help you be in both worlds."

 

Minya nodded. Lips pressed together, teeth clenched: if only she had kept them that way when she was with Mik! Mik had been impossible

 

to get rid of, eight years ago. How had he changed so much? Would he tell?

 

"Smitta-"

 

"Drop it, Sal's coming."

 

Minya looked. There were four figures down there, four women rising on jets of sprayed gas and seeds; and they carried no water. Sal shouted something the wind snatched away.

 

"They're wasting jet pods," Smitta observed.

 

They were closer now and in range to snag the bark. This time Minya heard Sal's joyful bellow.

 

"Invaderrrsss!"

 

 

 

Chapter Seven

 

The Checker's Hand

 

 

 

TWO TRIADS MOVED INWARD, STAYING IN CRACKS IN THE bark where they could. Every minute or so Denisse, a tall, dark woman of Thanya's triad, would pop up, look around fast, and drop back into the bark.

 

"We counted six of them around the tribemark," Thanya said. "Dark clothes. Maybe they're from the Dark Tuft."

 

"Intruders on the tree." Sal's voice was eager, joyful. "We've never fought invaders! There were some citizens thrown out for mutiny, long ago . . . some of them killed the Chairman, and the rest went with them. Maybe they settled in the Dark Tuft. Mutineers . . . Tbanya, what kind of weapons were they carrying?"

 

"We couldn't go ask them, could we? Denisse says she saw things like giant arrows. I couldn't even tell their sexes, but one had no legs."

 

They veered to avoid a crack clogged with old-man's-hair. Smitta said, "Six of them, six of us, you may have missed a few . . . shall we send someone back for Jeel's triad?"

 

Sal grinned wolfishly. "No."

 

"And no," said Thanya for her triad.

 

Minya said nothing-her triad leader spoke for her-but she felt a fierce joy. Right now there was nothing she needed more than a fight.

 

Denisse dropped back from her next survey. Her voice was deadly calm. "Intruders. We have intruders, three hundred meters in and a hundred to port, moving outward. At least six."

 

"Let's go slow," Thanya said suddenly. "I'd like to question one. We don't know what they want here."

 

"Do we care? What they want isn't theirs."

 

Thanya grinned back. 'We're not a debating team. We're the Triune Squad. Let's go look."

 

They worked their way along the bark. Presently Denisse poked her head up, dropped back. "Intruders have reached the Checker's Hand."

 

Clearing the trunk of parasites was one of the Triune Squad's duties. Fan fungi were dangerous to the tree and edible besides; but one large and perfect fan had special privileges. Found twenty-odd years ago, it had been left to grow even larger. Minya had only heard of the squad's unusual pet. She eased her head above the bark.

 

They were there: men, women, looking entirely human. "More than six. Eight, nine, dressed like dirty civilians. Sooty red clothes, no pockets . . . they're chopping at the stalld They're killing it, the Checker's Hand-"

 

 

 

Smitta screamed and launched herself across the bark.

 

No help for it now. Sal cried, "Go for Gold!" and the Triune Squad leapt toward the intruders

 

The fan fungus reached out from the trunk like a tremendous hand, white with red nails. Its stalk, disproportionately narrow and fragilelooking from a distance, was still thicker than Gavving's torso. He set to chopping at it with his dagger. Jiovan worked the other side.

 

"We'll get it down the trunk," Jiovan puffed, "but how will we ever get it through the tuft to the Commons?"

 

"Maybe we don't," said Clave. "Bring the tribe to the fungus. Let them carve off pieces to suit themselves."

 

"Tear the fringe off first," Merril said.

 

The Grad objected. "The Scientist will want some of the red part."

 

"And try it on who? Oh, all right, save some fringe for the Scientist. Not a lot, though."

 

The stalk was tough. They'd made some progress, but Gavving's arms were used up. He backed away, and Clave took over. Gavving watched the cut deepen.

 

Maybe they'd weakened it enough?

 

He pounded a stake into the bark and tethered his. line to it. Then he leapt at the fungus with the full strength of his legs.

 

The great hand bent to his weight, then sprang back, flipping him playfully into the sky. Floundering, gathering in his line, he saw what the others had missed through being too close to the trunk.

 

"Fire!"

 

"What? Where?"

 

"Outward, half a klomter, maybe. Doesn't look big." The sun was behind the out tuft, leaving the trunk somewhat shadowed, he could see an orange glow within a cloud of smoke.

 

A flicker at the corner of his eye. He pulled hard at the line before his forebrain had registered anything at all. . . and a miniature harpoon zipped past his hip.

 

He yelled, "Treefodder!" Not specific enough. "Harpoons!"

 

Jiovan was stumbling, indecisive; a sharp point showed behind his shoulder blade. Clave was slapping shoulders and buttocks to send his citizens to cover. Something sailed past at a distance: a woman, a burly red-haired woman garbed in purple, with pockets clustered from breasts to hips, giving her a look of lumpy pregnancy. She flew loose through the sky while she pulled something apart with both hands. Something that glittered, a line of light.

 

Their eyes met, and Gavving knew it was a weapon even before she let it snap shut. He clutched the bark and rolled. Something came as a tiny blur, thudded into the bark alongside his spine: a mini-harpoon with gray and yellow flasher feathers at the butt end. He rolled again to put the fan fungus between them.

 

Clave was nowhere in sight. Purple-clad enemies sailed along the wall of bark, yelling gibberish and throwing death. The red-haired woman had a harpoon through her leg. She tore it loose, cast it away, and sought a target. She picked the easiest: Jiovan, who wasn't even trying to seek cover. He took a second mini-harpoon through his chest.

 

They were using jet pods. A lean purple-clad man spotted Gavving; he pulled his weapon apart and a string snapped. He screamed in rage and opened a jet pod to hurl him down at Gavving. His other hand waved a meter's-length of knife.

 

Gavving leapt out of his way, drew his knife, yanked at the line to pull himself back. The man smacked into the bark. Gavving was on his back before he could recover. He slashed at the man's throat. Inhumanly strong fingers sank into his arm like a swordbird's teeth. Gavving shifted his own grip and jabbed his knife into the man's side. Hurry!

 

The grip relaxed.

 

The tree shuddered.

 

Gavving didn't notice at once. He was shuddering with reaction. He saw the great wall of bark shuddering too, decided it was the least of his problems, and looked for enemies.

 

The red-haired woman was coasting treeward not far out, ignoring the blood spreading across her pants; her eye was on the shuddering tree. Out of range? Gavving tried a harpoon cast and instantly dived behind the great fan.

 

Not necessary. He'd skewered her. She stared at him, horrified, and died.

 

Purple-clad enemies screamed to each other, voices drowned by a rising background roar. Jiovan was dead with two feathered shafts in him. Jinny held a smaller fan fungus in front of her, harpoon in her other hand. The Grad rolled out of a crevice in the bark, saw what Jinny was doing, and imitated her. A mini-harpoon thudded into Jinny's shield, and she bared her teeth and launched herself in that direction, followed by Jayan and the Grad.

 

Gavving reeled in his harpoon. The dead woman came with it, her arms and legs jerking. A wave of nausea clawed at his throat. He worked his harpoon loose, and was minded to examine the peculiar gleaming weapon still clutched in the woman's hand. He wasn't given time.

 

The tree shuddered again. The bass background roar continued, a sound like worlds ripping apart. Bark slid past Gavving; the red-haired corpse tumbled, fl~i1ing. He was scrambling for a foothold when someone came at him from the side.

 

Dark hair, lovely pale heart-shaped face-purple clothing. Gavving thrust a harpoon at her eyes.

 

"The fire!" Thanya screamed. "It'll block us from the tuft! We've got to get past it!" She blew jet pods and was skimming outward across the bark.

 

Minya heard, but she didn't pause. Smitta was dead, and Sal was dead, and a single invader boy had killed them both. Minya stalked him.

 

The boy wore scarlet clothing, citizen's garb; his blond hair curled tightly as a skullcap; his beard was barely visible. His face was set in a rictus of fear or killing-rage. He thrust at her, threw himself back from her sword's counterthrust, lost his toe-grip on the bark. For an instant Minya was minded to go after him. Pierce him, kill him for the honor of Sal's triad, then go!

 

There wasn't time. Thanya was right. The fire could block them all, maroon them away from Dalton-Quinn Tuft . . . and there was Sal's bow to be recovered. Minya whirled and leapt away, and fired a jet pod for extra speed.

 

Sal's corpse floated free, her dead hand clutching the tribal treasure. Behind Minya the blond youth gripped bark to set himself and hurled his hand-arrow. Minya kicked to alter her course and watched the weapon whisper past her. She turned back as a shape popped up directly in front of her.

 

The shape was wrong, not human. It froze her for an instant. Minya hadn't quite grasped what was happening when a fist exploded in her face.

 

Gavving had ignored the yells from the purple-clad women. Now two were fleeing, firing jet pods to carry them outward along the trunk.

 

Another leapt in a zigzag pattern along the bark. But the dark-haired woman who had tried to kill him was now moving crosswise, back to where Gavving had left . . . left a burly red-haired corpse clutching a curve of silver metal.

 

Merril popped out of a crack just in front of her. Merril's fist smacked into the stranger's jaw with a sound Gavving heard even above the bass ripping sound he'd been ignoring while he fought for his life: a sound like the sky tearing apart. Now he heard the Grad shrilling like a cricket, a sound of panic, the words drowned in the roar.

 

But Gavving didn't need to hear. He knew.

 

"Clave! Claaave!"

 

Clave popped out of a deep crack and shouted, "Ready. What do you need?"

 

"We have to jump!" the Grad screamed. "All of us!"

 

"What are you talking about?"

 

"The tree's coming apart! That's how they survive!"

 

"What?"

 

"Get everyone to jump clear!"

 

dave looked around. Jiovan was dead, floating tethered, but dead.

 

The Grad was already loose in the sky, with line coiled! Gavving...

 

Gavving moved across the shuddering bark, ripped something loose from a purple-clad corpse, continued in along the trunk. Jayan and Jinny weren't visible. Alfln snarled as he watched his enemies disappear into the outward smoke cloud. Glory and Merril watched too, not believing it.

 

Make a decision. Now. You don't know enough, but you've got to decide. It has to be you, it's always you.

 

Gavving. Gavving and the Grad were old friends. Did Gavving know something? He'd captured an invader weapon, and now he was far in along the trunk . . . headed for the meat they'd left when they went after the mushroom. Of course, they'd need food if they were to cast loose from the tree.

 

The Grad's mind could have snapped. But Gavving trusted him and everything was happening at once: fire blazing on the tree, the trunk shuddering and moaning, strangers killing and then fleeing...

 

There were jet pods in dave's pack. He could get his citizens back once things settled down. He bellowed, "Grad! Lines to the tree?"

 

"Nooo! Treefodder, no!"

 

"Ail right." He bellowed above the end-of-the-world roar. "Jayanl Jinnyl Glory, Alfin, MerriL everybody jump! Jump away from the tree! Do not moor yourselves!"

 

Reactions were various. Merril stared at him, thought it over, pushed herself free. Glory only stared. Jayan and Jinny emerged from hiding like a pair of birds taking wing. Alibi clutched the bark in a deathgrip. Gavving? Gavving was working to free one thick leg of nose-arm meat.

 

The bark still shuddered, the sound filled tree and sky, the purpleclad killers were nowhere to be seen, and . . . nobody had gone after the fan fungus. dave hurled himself at the stalk.

 

The fan bent under his weight, then tore loose and was turning end for end. dave's fingers were sunk into white fungus. The tumbling thing seemed to be picking up speed. Faster, the bark raced beneath the tumbling fan fungus, faster.. . a fiery wind rushed past him and was gone before he could draw breath.

 

It wasn't possible. Bewildered, Clave saw tufts of flame receding in both directions. No tree. Citizens floundered in the sky. Even Alfin had jumped at last. But the tree, where was the tree? There wasn't any tree. Fistfuls of fungus turned to mush in aave's closing fists, and he screamed and wrapped his arms around the stalk. They were lost in the sky.

 

 

 

Chapter Eight

 

Quinn Tribe

 

 

 

WOOD SNAPPED EXPLOSIVELY, SPATFERING GAVVING WITH splinters as he leapt across the bucking, tearing bark. A million insects poured from a sudden black gap that must have reached a klomter into the heartwood. Gavving cried out and waved his arms through the buzzing cloud, trying to clear enough air to breathe.

 

The tree was everything that was, and the tree was ending. If he'd stopped to think, his fear would have frozen him fast. He held to the one thought: Get the meat and get out!

 

The nose-arm legs tumbled loose within a cloud of burning coals. One haunch was in reach. Gavving caught a line to pull it free of the coals, then jumped to catch it against his shoulder. Hot grease burned his neck. He yelled and thrust himself away.

 

Now what? He couldn't think in this end-of-the-world roar. He doffed his backpack, tied it against the nose-arm leg, braced against the pack, and pushed himself into the sky.

 

Clouds of insects and pulverized wood half hid the shuddering, thundering tree. Dagger-sized splinters flew past.

 

Gavving braced one of his jet pods against the pack and twisted the tip. Seeds and cold gas blasted past him. The pod ripped itself free of his hands, spat seeds into the flesh of his face, and was gone.

 

His hands shook. Beads of blood were pooling on his cheek and his neck. He dug out his remaining jet pod and tried again, his tongue between his teeth. This time the pod held steady until it had gone quiet

 

The world came apart.

 

He watched it all while his terror changed to awe. Fiery wind swept past him and left him in the open sky. Two fireballs receded in and out, until the home tree had become two bits of fluff linked by an infinite line of smoke.

 

Awesome! Nobody could hope to live through a bigger disaster. All of Quinn Thbe must be dead. . . the idea was really too big to grasp

 

All but dave's citizens, and they'd lost Jiovan too, and who was left? He looked about him.

 

Nobody?

 

A cluster of specks, far out.

 

He'd used both his jet pods, and now he was lost in the sky. At least he wouldn't starve.

 

Thrashing his arms didn't stop the Grad's spin. He wasn't willing to use his jet pods for only that. He settled for spreading his arms and legs like a limpet star, which slowed him enough to search for survivors.

 

The left side of his face was wet. His fingertips traced a bloody gash that ran from temple to chin. It didn't hurt. Shock? But he had worse to worry him.

 

Three human shapes tumbled slowly nearby: purple marked with scarlet His stomach lurched. It was their own doing; he hadn't come here to kill.

 

The giant fan fungus floated free, turning, turning to reveal dave clutching the stalk. Good. Clave still wore his backpack: very good.

 

That was their store of fresh jet pods. Then why wasn't dave doing something about rescue?

 

Feet outward, Jayan and Jinny rotated slowly around their two pairs of clasped hands. It looked almost like a dance. Spreading out like that greatly reduced their spin. Good thinking, and no sign of panic.

 

Merril was a fair distance in. Her arms hadn't pushed her far, and the tree's wind-wake had caught her.

 

The world's-end roar had dwindled, allowing lesser sounds. The Grad heard a thin wail. Alfin had leapt free after all. He was thrashing and spinning and crying, but he was safe.

 

The Grad couldn't find Gavving, nor Glory, nor Jiovan. Jiovan's corpse must have gone with the tree, but where were the others? And why wasn't Clave doing something? He and the fan were drifting away. The Grad sighed. He shrugged out of his backpack and searched out his jet pods. Old jet pods, from Quinn Tuft stores. Were they still active? He'd never fired a jet pod. He knew nobody who had. Hunters carried them in case they fell into the sky; but no hunter lost in the sky had ever returned in the Grad's lifetime. He did it carefully: he donned his pack again, then clutched a jet pod in both hands over his navel. When Clave was approximately behind him, he twisted the tip, smartly.

 

The pod drove into his belly. He grunted. He maneuvered the point, hoping to kill his spin. The push died; he released the pod, and it jumped away on the last of its stored gas.

 

Looking over his shoulder, he found the fan fungus drifting toward him. Clave still wasn't doing anything constructive, and he hadn't noticed the Grad.

 

The smoke of the disaster split the sky from end to end. Dense, flickering black clouds were pulling free of the paler smoke. The same insects that had eaten the tree apart were now casting loose to find other prey.

 

Other debris floated in the smoke trail. The Grad made out great fragments of torn wood and bark; a cloud of flashers whirling in panic; a flapping mote, perhaps a nose-arm fled from its burrow. In that confusion he could still see that the cloud of citizens and corpses was slowly drifting apart.

 

Far in toward Voy, Gavving maneuvered half his own weight in smoked meat. He'd be hard to reach. He'd gone far to save that meat, and the wind-wake must have pulled him further. Save Gavving for last, and hope.

 

The fan brushed against the Grad and he clutched it, fungus springy under his hands. Clave watched as if bemused. He asked, "What happened?"

 

Safe now. "The tree came apart. Clave, I'm going to dig in your pack. We've got to start rescuing citizens."

 

Clave neither helped nor resisted as the Grad searched through his pack. They could use the big fan as a base of operations . . . rescue Alfin first, because he was nearest . . . He took half a dozen pods. He slid to somewhere near the fan's center of mass and fired a jet pod, then another.

 

"The tree came apart?"

 

"You saw it."

 

"How? Why?"

 

The Grad was judging distances. He cast a line in a wide circle. It brushed Alfin's back, and Alfin convulsed and snatched the line in a deathgrip. He didn't try to reel it in. The Grad had to do that, while Alfin watched in near mindless terror. Alfin lunged across the last meter or so and wrapped himself around the stalk and buried his fingers in white fungus to the last knuckle.

 

A hand closed around the Grad's neck. Long, strong fingers overlapped the thumb, tightening like a steel collar. Clave's voice was a hot snarl in his ear. "You'll tell me now!"

 

The Grad froze. Clave had gone crazy.

 

"Tell me what happened!"

 

"The tree came apart."

 

"Why?"

 

"Maybe the fire set it off, but it was ready. Clave, everything in the Smoke Ring has some way of getting around. Some way tos~y near the median . . . middle, where there's water and air. Where do you think jet pods come from?" The hand relaxed a little, and the Grad kept talking. "It's a plant's way of getting around. If a plant wanders out of the median, too far into the gas torus region-"

 

"The what?"

 

Alfin asked, "What on Earth is going on?"

 

"Clave wants to know what happened. Alfin, can you steer this thing and pick up some more of us? Here-" He passed across his store of jet pods.

 

Alfin took them. He took his time deciding what to do with them, and the Grad ignored him while he lectured. "The Smoke Ring runs down the median of a much bigger region. That's the gas torus, where the molecules. . . the bits of air have long mean-free-paths. The air is very thin in the gas torus, but there's some. It gets thicker along the median. That's where you find all the water and the soil and the plants. That's what the Smoke Ring is, just the thickest part of the gas torus, and that's where every living thing wants to stay."

 

'Where it can breathe. All right, go on."

 

"Everything in the Smoke Ring can maneuver somehow. Animals mostly have wings. Plants, well, some plants grow jet pods. They spit seeds back toward the median where they can grow and breed, or they spit sterile seeds farther into the gas torus, and the reaction pushes the plant back toward the median. Then there are plants that send out a long root to grab anything that's passing. There are kites-"

 

"What about the jungles?"

 

"I . . . I don't know. The Scientist never-"

 

"Skip it. What about the trees?"

 

"Now, that's really interesting. The Scientist came up with this, but be couldn't prove it-"

 

The hand tightened. The Grad babbled, "If an integral tree falls too far out of the median, it starts to die. It dies in the center. The insects eat it out. They're symbiotes, not parasites. When the center rots, the tree comes apart. See, half of it falls further away, and half of it drops back toward the median. Half lives, half dies, and it's better than nothing."

 

Clave mulled that. He said, "Which half?"

 

"East takes you out, out takes you west, west-"

 

"What are you doing?"

 

"I'm trying to remember. We were too far in toward Voy, so our end -" It only hit him then. The revelation blocked his throat.

 

A moment later, so did Clave's fingers. "Keep talking, you copsik. I've had it up to here with you telling half a secret!"

 

Thickly the Grad said, "Mister Chairman, you may call me the Scientist."

 

The hand relaxed in shock.

 

"Quinn Tribe is dead. We are Quinn Tribe."

 

Alfin broke the long silence that followed that terrible declaration. "Are you happy, Grad? You were right. The tree was dying."

 

"Shut up," said Clave. He released the Grad's neck. Maybe that had been a mistake, maybe not; he'd have to apologize presently. For now, he clambered around to the edge of the fan. Jayan and Jinny were coming near, watching his approach alternately as they spun.

 

He'd never felt like this, so helpless, so fearful of making decisions. It bothered him that Alfin and the Grad bad seen him like that. He tried his voice and found it normal:

 

"They're almost here. Good work, Alfin. Go for Merril next. I don't see Glory."

 

The Grad said, "I haven't seen her since . . . since." He rubbed his throat.

 

"She may not have jumped. Seven of us. Seven." He flung a line. Jinny snagged it in her toes, and Clave pulled them both in together. He said, "Welcome to what's left of Quinn Tribe."

 

They clung to Clave more in desperation than affection. Jinny pulled back to look into his face. "They're dead? All the rest?" As if she'd already guessed.

 

Alfin demanded, "Why didn't the Scientist see that coming?"

 

"He did," said the Grad.

 

"Treefodder. Why did he stay, then?"

 

"He was an old man. He couldn't climb fifty klomters of tree."

 

Alfin gaped. "But . . . but that's the same as murdering everyone who could climb!"

 

 

There wasn't time for this. Clave said, "AIim, pay attention to what you're doing."

 

Alfin set off two jet pods, then another. The fan drifted toward Merril, who waited in what might have been stoic calm. He murmured, "The children!"

 

Somewhere off to the side, there was motion.

 

What Clave had taken for a purple-clad corpse was floundering in air. dave pointed. "One killer left."

 

They watched. She wasn't floundering now. She'd tied a line to her long knife, and now she cast it out. She snagged a dead companion and reeled it in. She searched the corpse, then pushed off from it in the direction of the next.

 

She hadn't found much, but it must have been what she wanted. Now she fired two jet pods in turn. The thrust carried her in toward Voy. Alfin said, "She's not coming here. Or going home. What does she think she's doing?"

 

"Not our problem."

 

Mcml caught a line thrown by Alfin and pulled herself close. By now there was no room to clutch the fan itself~ Clave asked her, "Did you see any sign of Glory?"

 

"Hanging on to the bark for dear life, last I saw her. She was in the out section. Gavving's a good distance in."

 

"We'll go after him. I hope we get there in time."

 

By then it was obvious. The woman in purple had passed them and was heading toward Gavving.

 

Gavving watched her coming. There was little else he could do. When he could see her face he watched her watching him. The rictus of hate he'd seen earlier wasn't there. He saw close-cut dark hair, a triangular face with an oddly narrow chin, an expression that was thoughtfbI, judging.

 

She was going to go past.

 

He didn't know how to feel about that. He didn't want to die alone, but he surely didn't want to die with those mini-harpoons through him. She was close now. She reached behind her back for a tethered miniharpoon. He could only try to put the meat between them as she pulled her odd weapon apart, looking him in the eye, and released it~

 

The feathered thing buried itself in warm meat.

 

Then Gavving moved in frantic haste, pulling his knife, reaching for her line-Her words were strangely twisted, but he understood her. "No, no, no, let me live! I have water! I have jet pods! I beg you!"

 

It might be so. He shouted, "Freeze! Don't reel yourself in! I have to think"

 

"I obey."

 

She hung, tethered, motionless.

 

"You've got water and I've got food. What if you kill me and keep both?"

 

"My sword," she answered and produced the long knife and threw it.

 

Startled, Gavving reached out and managed to catch it by the handle.

 

"My bow," she said, and he had time to bed the knife in the meat before she threw him the pull-it-apart weapon. He caught that too.

 

Now what? She was just waiting.

 

"What do you want?"

 

"I want to join you, your people. There's nobody else."

 

He could festoon himself with his weapons and hers, and so what? With nothing between them but forty kilograms of smoked meat, either could snatch a weapon and kill the other at any time. He'd have to sleep sometime.. . and still she waited.

 

He thought suddenly, W7iy not? I'm dead anyway. He called, "Come on.',

 

She coiled the line as she came. Gavving had been hanging onto his pack, but she hugged herself up against the meat with no thought for what it would do to her purple clothing. She worked a jet pod out of one of the dozen pockets that gave her body its shapeless, lumpy look. She set it and twisted the end. When it had expended itself there was some change in their velocity. She used another. Then another.

 

"Why were you carrying so many?" he asked. "I took them from my friends."

 

From their corpses. Gavving turned away. Quinn Tribe now formed a single clump around- "The Checker's Hand," said his enemy. He had trouble understanding her odd pronunciation. "They're all moored to the Checker's Hand. Good enough. Fans are edible. So is dumbo meat."

 

"I know that word. Checker: the Grad's used it, but he never tells anyone what it means."

 

"You should not have attacked the Checker's Hand. We tend it tended it."

 

"Is that why you killed Jiovan? For a fan fungus?"

 

"For that, and for returning from exile. You were cast out for assassinating a Chairman."

 

"That's news to me. We've been in Quinn Tuft for over a hundred years."

 

She nodded as if it didn't matter. She was strange . . . she was a stranger. Gavving knew every man, woman, and child in Quinn Tuft. This citizen had dropped on him out of the sky, complete and unknown. He wasn't even sure he should hate her.

 

"I'm thirsty," he said.

 

She passed him a squeezegourd pod half-full of water. He drank.

 

The clump that was Quinn Tribe seemed minutely closer. Gavving might have been imagining it. He said, "What do we do now? The way you use a jet pod, maybe you handle yourself better in the sky than we do. Can you tell us what to do next? Dalton Tuft-"

 

"Dalton-Quinn Tuft," she corrected him.

 

"Your half of the tree is probably safe, but it's being pulled out by the tide. I can't think of any way to reach it. We're lost." Then his curiosity suddenly became unbearable. "Who are you?"

 

"Minya Dalton-Quinn."

 

"I'm Gavving Quinn," he said for the second time in his life. The first had been at his rite of passage into adulthood. He tried again. "Who are you all? Why did you want to kill us?"

 

"Smitta was. . . excitable. Some of us are like that in the Triune Squad, and you were killing the Hand."

 

"Triune Squad. Mostly women?"

 

"All women. Even Smitta, by courtesy. We serve the tuft as fighters."

 

"Why did you want to be a fighter?"

 

She shook her head, violently. "I don't want to talk about it. Will your citizens accept me or kill me?"

 

"We're not-" killers? He'd killed two himselL It caine to him that if the Grad had taught him rightly, those times when the Scientist would have whipped them both for such talk, then . . . then Minya's half of the tree, falling out from Voy, was also falling out of a drought. So.

 

"Can I tell them this? If we can get you back to the far tuft, you'll see to it that we're made members of your tribe. It looks better if I can say that. Well?"

 

She didn't speak at once, and then she said, "I have to think."

 

The meat and the fan were passing at fair speed when Clave cast out a weighted line. He'd reserved their last pod. Another mistake, maybe. Now they'd have only one chance . . . but the dark stranger caught the line neatly and made it fast. They braced against their mutual spin.

 

Gavving shouted across the gap. "This is Minya of Dalton-Quinn. Tribe. She wants to join us."

 

"Don't pull in yet. Is she armed?"

 

"She was."

 

"I want her weapons." Clave cast another line. An impressively thick bundle came back. Clave studied the haul: a knife the length of his own arm, a smaller knife, a bundle of mini-harpoons, and two of the pull-itapart weapons, one of wood and one of metal. He preferred the look of the wooden one. The metal thing looked like it had been made from something else. By now he'd guessed how they must work, and he liked the idea.

 

Alfin said, "She tried to kill us all."

 

"True." dave handed the Grad his last jet pod, not without reluctance. "Stop our spin. Wait. See that sheet of bark, out from us and not moving very fast? See if you can stop our spin and move us that way too."

 

Alfin persisted. "What are you going to do?"

 

"Recruit her, if she'll stand for it," Clave answered. "Seven citizens in a tribe is ridiculous."

 

"There isn't room to guard her."

 

"Where do you want to spend the rest of your life?"

 

The jet pod sprayed gas and seeds. The Grad said, "We won't reach the bark this way. Not enough push."

 

Alfin still hadn't answered. dave told him, "Unless you've learned to like falling, I'd guess you want to live in an integral tree tuft. We now have a prisoner who lives in a tuft. We have the chance to earn her gratitude."

 

"Bring her in."

 

 

 

Chapter Nine

 

The Raft

 

 

 

THE POND WAS A SMALL, PERFECT SPHERE, TWENTY KLOMTERS out from the Checker's Rand: a giant water droplet trailing a tail of mist in the direction away from the sun. When the sun shone through from behind, as it did now, Minya glimpsed shadows wriggling within it.

 

It was going to drift past.

 

The ends of the tree were far away and still separating: Dalton-Quinn Tuft drifting out and west, the Dark Tuft in and east. The smoke trail that joined them was growing faint, save for dark streamers that were indecisive clouds of insects.

 

Something surged from the pond, and the pond rippled and convulsed in its wake. The creature was big even at this distance. Hard to judge its size, but it seemed little more than a mouth with fins. Minya watched it uneasily. It didn't seem to be coming toward them. It was flapping toward the smoke trail.

 

A loose cluster of citizens floated about the Checker's Hand. They couldn't all cling. There wasn't room, and the fungus wasn't holding together that well, either. They used spikes and tethers and showed a reluctance to approach Minya too closely.

 

The old one, Alfin, clung to the stalk. His look of terror had smoothed out, but he wouldn't talk and he wouldn't move.

 

The Grad studied her. He said, "Meen Ya. Have I got that right?"

 

"Close enough. Minya."

 

"Ah. Mineeya-if we could reach your end of the tree, could you help us join your tribe?"

 

Their eyes were on her. The old one's seemed desperate. Well, it had had to come. She said, "We have a drought. Too many mouths to feed already."

 

The Grad said, "Your drought's probably ending about now. There'll be water."

 

"You're the Quinn Tribe Scientist's apprentice?"

 

"That's right."

 

"I accept what you say. How long before that new water grows new food? In any-"

 

"There'll be meatbirds in the wind now-"

 

"I don't want to go back!" There, it was said.

 

Clave asked, "Did you commit a crime?"

 

"I was thinking about committing a crime. I would have had to. Please!"

 

"Leave it then. But if we spend our lives here, they're likely to be short. Any passing triune family would think we're some kind of mushroom tidbit. Or that flying mouth that came out of the pond a minute ago-"

 

"Can't we get to another tree, one with nobody in it? I know we can't go anywhere now, but if we could get to Dalton-Quinn Tuft, we could get to another tree, don't you think?" They weren't buying it. Distract them? "Anyway, we can do better than we're doing now. We should be eating the Hand, not clinging to it. It won't last long now that it's been picked. We need a place to moor ourselves."

 

She pointed. "That."

 

That was a ragged sheet of bark, ten meters long and half that wide, a couple of hundred meters away. Most of its spin had by now been lost to air friction, dave-the Chairman?-said, "I've been watching it for the past day. It isn't getting any closer. Treefodder, if we could move ourselves, I'd go for the pond!"

 

The Grad said, "Maybe the tree left a partial vacuum. That might pull it in. We can hope."

 

"We can do more than that. The bark may be close enough." Minya reached for the weapons.

 

A hand clamped on her wrist, the fingers circling almost twice around. "What do you think you're doing?"

 

Long, strong fingers, and no qualms about touching another citizen. There were men like this dave in Dalton-Quinn Tuft. They had driven Minya into the Triune Squad.. . Minya shook her head, violently.

 

She was his prisoner, and she had come as a killer. She spoke slowly, carefully.

 

"I think I can put a tethered arrow into that wood." He hesitated, then released her. "Go ahead and try." She used Sal's metal bow. The arrow slowed as it flew, and presently

 

drifted. She tried another. Now two arrows floated at the ends of slack lines. There were murmurs of disgust as the boy Oavving reeled the lines in.

 

"I'd like to try that," dave said and took the bow. When he released it, the string brushed his forearm, and he cursed. The arrow stopped short.

 

Minya never dithered. She made decisions fast, important or no: that too had helped to put her in the Triune Squad. Now she said, "Hold your left arm straight and rigid. Pull as hard as you can. Swing the string a little right and you won't hit your arm. Look along the arrow.

 

Now don't move."

 

 

She picked up the loop of line and hurled it as hard as she could in the direction of the sheet of bark. Now the arrow wouldn't pull so much weight. "Whenever you feel ready."

 

The arrow sped away. It ticked a corner of the bark and stayed. dave put pressure on the line, slowly, slowly . . . it was coming . . . the arrow worked itself free.

 

dave repeated the exercise with no sign of impatience. The bark was meters closer now. He reached it again and pulled line in as if he were fighting some huge meatbird.

 

The bark came to them. dave fired another arrow deep into the wood. They crossed on the line. Minya noticed Alfin's shuddering breath once h~ was safely moored to the bark.

 

And she noticed Clave's, "Well done, Minya." But he kept the bow.

 

"We'll used the other side of the bark for privacy," dave instructed. "Now, the bark is all we've got, so there's no point in getting it dirty. When you feed the tree, the fertilizer should go outward."

 

"It'll float around us," Alfin said, his first words in hours. He must have seen how they looked at him. "Yes, I do have a better idea. Be at the rim when you feed the tree. The spin will throw it away from us. Won't it, Grad?"

 

"Yes. Good thinking."

 

Minya chewed on fan fungus. It was fibrous and nearly tasteless, but there was damp in it, and the damp was delicious. Minya looked longingly toward the pond, which was no closer. So near, so far

 

They had eaten the smoked dumbo meat down to the bone, to prevent its spoiling. Maybe that had been a mistake. Their bellies were full, even overfull, but they were left thirstier yet. They could die of thirst here.

 

Aside from that, things were going well.

 

The golden-haired boy, Gavving: she had made a good choice there. Perhaps he thought he owed her his life. Perhaps it was true. Harmless as he looked, she had seen him kill twice. He'd make a better ally than enemy.

 

Alfin she couldn't judge. If he was that terrified of falling, he'd be dead soon anyway.

 

Merril was something else again. Legless, but she swung a fist like another woman's kick! After all she'd lived through, she must be tough. More: handicapped as she was, she'd be dead without friends. She must be well thought of, then. Minya intended to make Merril her friend.

 

The Grad was a dreamer. He'd never notice whether Minya was dead or alive.

 

dave was the dominant male. Perhaps he still considered her an enemy. But she had brought them to this raft and let dave take the credit. It couldn't hurt. If Clave thought he needed her, she didn't care if he trusted her.

 

But what else might he want of her?

 

Jayan and Jinny: they both acted as if Clave belonged to them, or vice versa. Two women sharing a man was not unheard of. They seemed to accept Clave's decisions. But would they resent a potential third? Best stay clear of Clave, if she could.

 

She could solve that problem, perhaps- Merril spoke around a prodigious yawn. "Does it feel like sleeptime? I personally feel like I've been hit on the head."

 

Clave said, "I want someone awake at all times on each side of the tree. Is there anyone who Ian 't sleepy?"

 

"I'm not," said Alfin.

 

So Alfin and Jayan took the first day's watch. Gavving and Merril would be next, then-Minya ignored the rest. Physically and emotionally, she was exhausted. She settled for sleep, floating next to the bark, curled half into fetal position.

 

The sun was just passing north of Voy. She half noticed activity as citizens took their turns behind the bark, feeding the tree. Clave and Jmny slapped bugs off each other. Jayan presently disappeared around the edge. Alfin . . . Alfin was hovering next to her. He said, "Mineeya?"

 

She straightened. "Alfin. What do you want?"

 

"I want you for my wife."

 

Suddenly she was utterly awake. She could not afford enemies now. She said carefully, "I had not considered marriage." He hadn't recognized her un(form/

 

"You'd be a fool to turn me down. What better way to become one of us?"

 

"I will consider what you say," she said and closed her eyes.

 

"I'm a respected man. In dave Tuft I supervised the tending of the treemouth."

 

Her arms hugged her knees and tightened her into a ball, without her volition.

 

Alfin's hand shook her shoulder. "Mineeya, your choices aren't wide, here on this sheet of bark. You came as a killer. Some of us may still see you that way."

 

He wouldn't leave her alone. Well. She tried to keep her voice cool, but she couldn't make herself uncoil, and it came out muffled. "Your argument is good. I should marry one of you. Clave is spoken for, isn't he?"

 

Alfin laughed. "Thrice."

 

"Amazing. And the Grad?"

 

"You're playing games with me. Consider my offer." Then he saw that she was sobbing.

 

Minya was horrified, but she couldn't stop. The sobs racked her like convulsions. She couldn't even muffle the sounds of distress. She wanted a man, yes, but not this man! Did she have a choice? She might find herself forced to mate this ugly, abrasive old man, only to prevent Quinn Tribe from killing her. Or she could speak of her oath to the Triune Squad and never be mated at all. It was just too much.

 

"I-I'll come back when you're feeling better." She heard Alfin's distress and guilt, then quiet. When she forced herself to look, she saw him weaving among the sleepers-stealthily?-to reach the far edge of the bark.

 

She had lost her home, her family, her friends; she was lost in the sky, cast among strangers. Copsik! How could he inflict such a decision on her now? Filthy treefeeding copsik!

 

The tears were drying on her face. At least no Triune Squad companion had seen her so shamed. It came to her that her tears had driven Alfin away. . . just as they had been her primary defense when she was fourteen.

 

But what could she do? She hadn't been quite fair to the old man. He had spoken a partial truth, one she'd already considered: marriage was the way into Quinn Tribe.

 

-And she found that she had made her decision after all.

 

Dared she sleep now? She must. The sun was a hand's breadth past Voy; and she curled up and slept.

 

When the sun neared Voy again, Minya woke. Some had the knack.

 

Minya could tell herself when to sleep and when to wake, and she would.

 

She flexed muscles without moving much. She was thirsty. There was restless motion around her. The Grad seemed to be having a nightmare.

 

She watched until he was quiet.

 

Alfin shook Gavving awake, then Merril. He settled down while Gayving disappeared to his post on the far side. Minya waited a little longer, for Jayan and Alfin to fall asleep.

 

Alfin clutched the bark with all his fingers and toes and, for all Minya could tell, his teeth. His face was pressed to the bark, denying the sky.

 

He'd never sleep that way; but he wouldn't see her either.

 

She uncurled and made her way to the edge of the bark. Merril watched her go. Minya waved and pulled herself around to the smooth side of the bark sheet.

 

Gavving saw her coming. He started moving away from her-to give her privacy? She called, "Wait! Gavving!"

 

He paused.

 

"Gavving, I want to talk to you."

 

"All right." But he was wary.

 

She didn't want that. "I don't have any weapons," she said, and then, "Oh. I'll prove it."

 

"You don't have to-"

 

She pulled her blouse over her head and moored it to the bark. She came closer, wishing for toeholds to let her walk upright. This crawling lacked the dignity she wanted. At least she'd shed the lumpy-pregnant look of the Triune Squad.

 

She said, "There are no pockets in my pants. You can see that. I want to tell you why I can't go back to Dalton-Quinn Tuft."

 

"Why?" He was trying to keep his eyes off her breasts, on her face. "I mean, I'm willing to listen. I've got a name for asking embarrassing questions." He tried to laugh it stuck in his throat. "But shouldn't everyone hear this?"

 

She shook her head. "They might have killed me, without you. Gayving, let me tell you about the Triune Squad."

 

"You told me. You're fighters, and you're all women, even the men."

 

"That's right. If a man wants to be a woman, or a woman doesn't ever want to be pregnant, she joins the Triune Squad. She can serve the tribe without making babies."

 

Gavving digested that. "If you don't want to make babies, they make you fight?"

 

"That's right. And it isn't just fighting. It's anything dangerous. This

 

-" She pulled the rim of her pants down, and he shied, perhaps flinching at the scar. It ran half a meter from her short ribs past her hip. "Tip of a swordbird's tail. If my jet pod hadn't fired I would have been all over the sky."

 

She suddenly wondered if he might see it as a flaw, rather than a matter of pride. Too late . . . and better that he see it now than later.

 

He said, "Three of us fought a swordbird a few waketimes ago. Two came back."

 

"They're dangerous."

 

"So. You don't like men?"

 

"I didn't. Gavving, I was only fourteen."

 

He stared. "Why would a man bother a fourteen-year-old girl?"

 

She hadn't thought she could still laugh, but she did. "Maybe it was the way I looked. But they all . . . bothered me, and the only way out was the Triunes."

 

He waited.

 

"And now I'm twenty-two and I want to change my mind and I can 't. Nobody changes her mind once she's in the Triune Squad. I could be killed for even asking, and I did ask-" She caught her voice rising. This wasn't going as planned. She whispered, "He told me I should be ashamed of myself. Maybe he'll tell. I don't care. I'm not going back."

 

He reached as if to pat her shoulder and changed his mind. "Don't worry about it. We can't move anyway. If we could, well, an empty tree would still be a better bet."

 

"And I want to make babies," she said and waited.

 

He must have understood. He didn't move. "With me? Why me?"

 

"Oh, treefodder, why can't you just . . . all right, who else? The Grad lives all in his head. Alfin's afraid of falling. Clave? I'm glad he's here, he's a good leader. But Clave's . . . type pushed me into the Triunes in the first place! He scares me, Gavving. I saw you kill Sal and Smitta, but you still don't scare me. I think you had to do that." She knew instantly that she'd said the wrong thing.

 

He started to tremble. "I didn't hate them. Minya, they were killing us! Without a word. They were your friends, weren't they?"

 

She nodded. "It's been a bad, bad waketime. But I'm not going back."

 

"All for a fan fungus."

 

"Gavving, don't turn me down. I . . . couldn't stand it."

 

"I'm not turning you down. I've just never done this before."

 

"Neither have I." She pulled her pants off, then didn't have a spike to tether them. Gavving saw the problem and grinned.. He pounded a spike into the bark and added two tethers. One he tied to Minya's pants, then to his own pants and tunic. The other he tied around his waist.

 

"I've watched," he confided.

 

"That's a relief. I never did." She reached to touch what his pants had covered. A man bad put his male member into her hand once, against her will, and it hadn't looked like this . . . except that it was changing before her eyes. Yes.

 

She had thought she could just let it happen. It wasn't like that. But she was used to using her feet as auxiliary hands, and thus she pulled him against her. She'd been warned against the pain; some of the Triunes had not joined while they were still virgins. She had known far worse.

 

Then Gavving seemed to go mad, as if he were trying to make two people one. She held him and let it happen . . . but now it was happening to her! She'd made this decision in the cool aftermath of disaster, but now it was changing her, yes she wanted them joined forever, she could pull them closer yet with her heels and her hands . . . no, they were coming apart . . . it was ending . . . ending.

 

When she had her breath back she said, "They never told me that."

 

Gavving heaved a vast sigh. "They told me. They were righL Hey, didn't you hurt?" He pulled away from her, a little, and looked down.

 

"There's blood. Not a lot."

 

"It hurt. I'm tough. Gavving, I was so afraid. I didn't want to die a virgin."

 

"Me too," he said soberly.

 

A hand shook the Grad's ankle and pulled him out of a nightmare.

 

"Uh! What . . . ?"

 

"Grad. Can you think of any reason Gavving shouldn't make a baby with a woman?"

 

"What then, a musrum?" His head felt muzzy. He looked around.

 

"Who is it, the prisoner?"

 

Merril said, "Yes. Now, I don't see any reason to stop it, unless she's got something else in mind. I just want to keep an eye on them. But someone has to be on watch."

 

"Why me?"

 

"You were closest."

 

The Grad stretched. "Okay. You're on watch. I'll keep track of the prisoner."

 

Merril's glare lost out to a smile. "All right, that's fair."

 

The Grad heard voices as he poked his head around the edge of the bark. Gavving and Minya floated at the end of a tether, quite naked, talking. "A hundred and seventy-two of us," Minya was saying. "Twice as many as you?"

 

"About that."

 

"Enough to crowd the tuft, anyway. The Triune Squad isn't a punishment. It's a refuge. We shouldn't be having children any faster than we are. And I was good, you know. I fight like a demon."

 

"You need a refuge from . . . uh, this?"

 

A laugh. "This, and being pregnant. My mother died of her fourth pregnancy, and that was me."

 

"Aren't you afraid now?"

 

"Sure. Are you volunteering to carry it for me?"

 

"Sure."

 

"Good enough." They moved together. The Grad was intrigued and embarrassed. His eyes shifted . . . and the sky had opened a mouth.

 

The shock only lasted a moment. A great empty mouth closed and opened again. It was rotating slowly. An eye bulged above one jaw; something like a skeletal hand was folded below the other. It was a klomter away and still big.

 

The beast turned, ponderously, still maintaining its axial rotation. Its body was short, its wings wide and gauzy. No illusion: it really was mostly mouth and fins, and big enough to swallow their entire bark raft. Sunlight showed through its cheeks.

 

It was cruising the clouds of bugs left in the wake of the disaster. Not a hunting carnivore. Good. But wasn't there such a beast in the Scientist's records? With a funny name- Merril touched the Grad's shoulder, and he jumped. "I'm a little worried about the bug-eater," she said. "We're embedded in bugs, have you noticed?"

 

"Noticed! How could I not?" But in fact he had learned to ignore them. The bugs weren't stinging creatures, but they were all around the bark raft, millions and millions of winged creatures varying from the size of a finger down to dots barely big enough to see. "We're a little big to be eaten up by accident."

 

"Maybe. What's happening with-?"

 

"I would say Gavving is in no danger. I'll keep an eye open, though."

 

"Good of you."

 

"We're being watched."

 

Minya's whole body convulsed in reflex terror. Gavving said, "Easy! Easy! It's only the Grad."

 

She relaxed. "Will they think we're doing wrong?"

 

"Not really. Anyway, I could marry you."

 

He heard an incipient stutter when she said, "Are you sure you want to do that?"

 

For a fact, he was not. His mind lurched and spun. The destruction of the tree had been no more disorienting than this first act of love. He loved Minya now, and feared her, for the pleasure she could give or withhold. Would she think she owned him? The lesson of Clave's marriage, what he knew of it, was not lost on him. Like Mayrin, she would be older than her mate .

 

And none of that mattered. There were four women in Quinn Tribe. Jayan and Jinny were with Clave; that left Merril and Minya. Gavving said, "I'm sure. Shall we go make an announcement?"

 

"Let them sleep," she said and snuggled close. Her eyes tracked a moving mouth sweeping through the clouds of bugs. It was closer now. It didn't have teeth, just lips, and a tongue like a restlessly questing snake. It rotated slowly: a way of watching the entire sky for danger.

 

"I wonder if it's edible," Gavving said.

 

"Me, I'm thirsty."

 

"There has to be a way to reach that pond."

 

"Gavving. . . dear. . . we need sleep too. Isn't your watch about over?"

 

His face cracked in a great yawn, closed in a grin. "I've got to tell someone."

 

The Grad was curled half into the fetal position, snoring softly. Gayving jerked twice on his tether and said, "We're getting married."

 

The Grad's eyes popped open. "Good thinking. Now?"

 

"No, we'll wait till sleeptime's over. It's your watch."

 

"Okay."

 

 

 

Chapter Ten

 

The Moby

 

 

 

VoIcEs WOKE HER. SHE CAME AWAKE FULLY ALERT, THIRSTY and nervous.

 

He was young. She had given him what he wanted~ had virtually forced it on him. He would lose interesL He would remember that she'd tried to kill him. He'd had hours to change his mind- The voices were some distance away, but she heard them clearly. "- Ten years older than you, and you don't have the bride-price . . . but that's trivia. Six or seven days ago she was trying to kill us all!"

 

"She could have her pick of us." Clave speaking, and he was amused. "All but me, of course. You wouldn't like that, would you, loves?"

 

"I think it's wonderful," said Jayan or Jinny. The other twin said, "It's-hopeful."

 

"Gavving, you are not old enough to know what you're doing!"

 

"Feed it to the tree, Alfin."

 

Gavving noticed Minya when she stirred and pulled herself back to the bark. "Hello," he called. "Ready?"

 

"Yes!" Too eager? It was a little late to be coy! "What kind of ceremony will it be? We can't use mine. I left our Scientist in the Tuft." And he'd have me killed.

 

"There's that too," said Alfln. "The Scientist-"

 

The Grad said, "I'm the Scientist now."

 

Ignoring Alfin's contemptuous snort, he opened his pack and spread the contents. Packed in spare clothing were four small flat boxes of starstuff-plastic-and a flat, polished surface that was glassy, like the Chairman's mirror, but didn't reflect.

 

Quinn Tribe seemed as surprised as Minya. Gavving asked, "Have you been carrying that all along?"

 

"No, I materialized it from thin air. We Scientists have our ways, you know."

 

"Oh, sure."

 

They grinned at each other. The Grad picked up the mirror and one of the boxes. He fitted the box into the thick rim of the mirror.

 

"Prikazyvat Menu."

 

The Grad's pronunciation had shifted; it was odd, archaic. Minya had heard the Dalton-Quinn Scientist speak like that. The mirror responded: it glowed like the diffuse nighttime sun, then bloomed with tiny black print.

 

Minya couldn't read it. The Grad apparently could. He pulled the box loose and substituted another. "Prikazyvat Menu . . . Okay. Prikazyvat Record," he said briskly. "First day since sleeptime, the first sleep following the breakup of the tree, year three hundred and seventy. Jeffer speaking as Scientist. Quinn Tribe consists of eight individuals Prikazyvat Pause."

 

Then nothing happened, until Minya couldn't stand it anymore. "What's wrong?"

 

The Grad looked up. His face was a mask of pain. A keening moan tore through his throat. Crystal lenses trembled over his eyes. Tears didn't run here, without tide to pull them.

 

Clave put his hand on the Grad's shoulder. "Take a minute. Take as long as you need."

 

"I've been trying not to . . . think about it. The Scientist. He knew. He sent these with me. What good does it do if we're dying too?"

 

"We're not dying. We're a little thirsty," Clave said firmly.

 

"We're all dead except us! I feel like recording it makes it real."

 

Clave glared around him. The tears were about to become contagious. Jayan and Jinny were sniffling already. Minya had to remind herself that Dalton-Quinn Tuft still lived, invisibly far, somewhere.

 

Clave snapped, "Come on, Scientist. You've got a marriage to perform."

 

The Grad gulped and nodded. Teardrops broke loose and floated away, the size of tuftberries. He cleared his throat and said in a creditably crisp voice, "Prikazyvat Record. The tree has been torn in half. Seven of us survive, plus a refugee from the outer tuft. Marriage between Minya Dalton-Quinn and Gavving Quinn exists as of now. No children are yet born. Terminate." He pulled the box from the mirror and said, "You're married."

 

Minya was stunned. "That's it?"

 

"That's it. My first act as Scientist. Tradition says you should consummate the marriage the first chance you-"

 

"Just what have you got there?" Aluin demanded.

 

"Everything I need," the Grad said. "This cassette is recent records. It used to be medicine, but the Scientist ran out of room and erased it. We couldn't use that stuff anyway. St.armen got sick in ways nobody ever heard of and used medicines nobody ever heard of either . This cassette is life forms, this one is cosmology, this one is old records. They're all classified, of course."

 

"Classified?"

 

"Secret." The Grad started rolling the gear in clothing again.

 

Clave said, "Hold it."

 

The Grad looked at him.

 

"Is there anything in your classified knowledge that we might need to know, to go on living?" Clave paused, not long enough for the Grad to answer. "If not, why should we guard that stufl or let you carry it to slow you down?" Pause. "If so, you're hiding knowledge we need. Why should we protect you?"

 

The Grad gaped.

 

"Grad, you're valuable. We're down to eight, we can't spare even one. But if you know why we need a Scientist more than an apprentice hunter, you'd better show us now."

 

It was as if the Grad had been frozen with his mouth open. Then he gave a jerky nod. He chose a cassette and fitted it into the rim of the nonmirror. He said, "Prikazyvat Find moby: em, oh, bee, wye."

 

The screen lit, filled with print. The Grad read, "Moby is a whalesized creature with a vast mouth and vertical cheek slots that are porous, used as filters. It feeds by flying through clouds of insects. Length: seventy meters. Mass: approx eight hundred metric tons. One major eye. Two smaller eyes, better protected and probably near-sighted for close work, on either side of a single arm. It stays near ponds or cottoncandy jungles. It prefers to be spinning, for stability and to watch for predators, since there is no safe direction in the free-fall environment.

 

Moby avoids large creatures and also shies from our CARMs. When attacked it fights like Captain Ahab: its single arm is tipped with four fingers, and the fingers are tipped with harpoons grown like finger.

 

dave glanced over his shoulder. They had a side view of the flying mouth. Despite the swarm of insects near the raft, it was going around them. "That?"

 

"I'd think so."

 

"Carms? Captain Ahab? Whale-sized?"

 

"I don't know what any of that means."

 

"Doesn't matter, I guess. So. It's timid, and it eats bugs, not citizens. Doesn't sound like a threat."

 

"And that is why you need a Scientist. Without the cassettes you wouldn't know anything about it."

 

"Maybe," said Gavving, "we don't want it to go around us."

 

He explained, stumbling a little. Nobody laughed. Maybe they were too thirsty. dave studied the massive bug-eater, pursed his lips, nodded.

 

Clave stood as Minya posed him, gripping the steel bow in his left hand, drawing the bowstring halfway back toward his cheek. It felt awkward. Instead of one of Minya's mini-harpoons, a meter and a half of his own harpoon protruded before him.

 

The moby was watching him. He waited until the creature's spin put the major eye on its far side. "Throw the line," he said.

 

Gavving hurled the coiled line toward the moby. Clave let it unroll for a moment, then sent the harpoon after it.

 

The harpoon wobbled in flight, until the trailing line dragged it straight again. With the steel bow and Clave's muscles to propel it, the massive harpoon might have flown as far as the moby. It didn't. It didn't even come close.

 

"Reel it in and coil the line," he told Alfin. To the others he said,

 

"Arrows. Put some arrows in the beast. Get it mad. Get its attention." The Grad's arrow went wide, and dave stopped him from wasting another. Gavving's and Minya's were flying true, and each had fired another when Clave said, "Stop. We want it mad, not scared, not injured. Grad, how timid is that thing likely to be?"

 

"I read you everything I know."

 

Classified! The first chance he got, Clave was going through all of the information on all of those "cassettes." He'd make the Grad read them to him.

 

The moby's gauzy tail was in motion. It had spotted the harpoon's motion and was edging away. Then the first arrows reached it. One struck the fin, one a cheek, neither with any great force.

 

The moby convulsed. Its fins thrashed and it turned. A third arrow struck near its major eye. It turned to face them.

 

"Alfin, have you got that line coiled?"

 

"Not yet."

 

"Then hurry, you copsik! Are we all tethered?"

 

The sky had opened a mouth; it gaped and grew huge. A skeletal arm folded forward, presenting four harpoons. Alfin asked, "Do we want to hurt it now?"

 

dave discarded the metal bow and took up the harpoon. "Treefodder. I want this in its tail."

 

The moby obliged. Its tail flicked forward-and they felt the wind- as it circled to examine the situation. As the tail came into sight, dave cast. The harpoon struck solidly in the meaty part, ahead of the spreading translucent fin. The moby shuddered and continued to advance.

 

The "hand" lashed forward. Gavving whooped and leapt from between closing horn harpoons, away into the sky, until his tether went taut and pulled him around the edge of the bark. Minya yelled and slashed at the "hand." "Feels like bone," she reported and swung again.

 

Clave snatched up another harpoon and jumped toward the tremendous face. He pricked the creature's lip before his line pulled him back. The great skeletal fingers curled around behind him. Minya's sword slashed at a joint, and one of the harpoon-fingers was flying loose.

 

The moby snatched its hand back fast. Its mouth closed and stayed that way. The creature backpedaled with side fins.

 

Gavving reeled himself back to the bark. They watched the moby turning, retreating.

 

The bark raft surged. The moby stopped, turned to look back. The raft was following it. It began swimming strongly against the air.

 

A point of sunlight blazed near the edge of the pond. Vagrant breezes rippled the surface. Shadows moved within. A distant seed pod sent a tendril growing across a klomter of space toward the water. Gavving licked his lips and yearned.

 

Tens of thousands of metric tons of water dwindled in their wake.

 

dave was cursing steadily. He stopped, then said, "Sorry. The moby was supposed to dive into the water and try to lose us."

 

Gavving opened his mouth, reconsidered . . . and spoke anyway.

 

"My idea. Why aren't you blaming me?"

 

"I'd still get the blame. I'm the Chairman. Anyway, it was worth a try! I just wish I knew where the beast was taking us."

 

They waited to learn.

 

Gavving's eyes traced the line of the Smoke Ring, congealing out of the background of sky into the pale blue of water vapor and distance. Toothpick splinters, all aligned, might have been a grove of integral trees. Tens of thousands of klomters beyond, a clot of white storm marked Gold. A thickening halfway down the arch toward Voy would be the far Clump.

 

Here were all the celestial objects a child had once wondered about. Harp had told him that he might see them someday. More practical heads had denied this. The tree moved at the whim of natural forces, and nobody left the tree.

 

He had left the tree, and was married, and marooned, and thirsty.

 

Quinn Tribe clung along the forward edge of the bark raft. At Clave's insistence they had donned their packs. Anything could happen... but nothing had, except that the pond continued to dwindle.

 

"So near and yet so far," the Grad said. "Don't we still have a few jet pods?"

 

"Not enough." Clave looked around him. "At least we haven't lost anyone. Okay. We're moving, and we're moving out; that's good, isn't it, Scientist? Thicker air?"

 

"Thicker anything," said the Grad. "Air, water, plants, meat, meateaters."

 

The moby was turning, swinging gradually east, and slowing. Tiring.

 

Its fins folded against its side, presenting a streamlined egg-shape to the wind; it continued to fall outward, towing the bark raft. The pond had become a tiny jewel, glowing with refracted blue Voylight.

 

Clave said, "We'll cut loose as soon as we get near anything interesting. Integral tree, pond, forest, anything with water in it. I don't want anyone cutting the line too soon."

 

"Cloud ahead," Merril said.

 

A distant, clotted streamer of white fading into blue. Clave barked laughter. "How far ahead? Sixty, seventy klomters? Anyway, it isn't ahead, it's straight out from us. We're aimed almost east."

 

"Maybe not," said the Grad. "We're aimed out from east and moving pretty fast. Gavving, remember? 'East takes you out, out takes you west, west takes you in, in takes you east, port and starboard bring you back."

 

"What the treefodder is that?" Clave demanded. Gavving remembered, but he said nothing. It was 'classified' . . . and the Grad had never told him what it meant.

 

But Minya was saying, "Every child learns that. It's supposed to be the way to move, if you're lost in the sky but you've got jet pods."

 

The Grad nodded happily. "We're being pulled east. We're moving too fast for our orbit, so we'll fall outward and slow down. I'll bet the moby is making for that cloud bank."

 

The moby's fins were spread and flapping slowly. There was nothing at all ahead of them, out to where the arch of the Smoke Ring formed from infinity. Minya moved her tether to bring herself alongside Gayving. They clung to the rim of the bark and watched the wisp of cloud out from them, and hoarded their thirst.

 

The sun circled behind Voy.

 

Again. Already they had moved many klomters outward; the daynight cycle had grown longer.

 

The cloud bank was growing. It was!

 

"It'll try to lose us in the fog," the Grad said with more hope than conviction.

 

The moby hadn't moved for some time. The spike that tethered the harpoon was working itself loose. Clave pounded another into the wood and wrapped the slack line around it. But the cloud bank was spreading itself across the sky.

 

Details emerged: streamlines, knots of stormy darkness. Lightning flashed deep within.

 

Jayan and Jinny took off their shirts. Alfin, enjoying the sight without questions, suddenly said, "They're right. Get our shirts off. Try to catch some of that wet."

 

Darkness brightened as the sun emerged below the edge of the cloud.

 

It continued to sink. They watched the first tenuous edge of mist envelop them and began flapping their shirts. Gavving asked, "Do you feel damp?"

 

Merril snarled, "I feel it, I smell it, I can't drink it! But it's coming!"

 

Lightning flashed, off to the west. Gavving felt the mist now. He tried to squeeze water out of his shirt. No? Keep swinging it. Now? He wrung the shirt tight and tried to suck it, and got sweaty water.

 

They were all doing it now. They could barely see each other. Gayving had never in his life seen such darkness. The moby was invisibly far, but they felt the tugging of the tether. They swung their shirts and sucked the water and laughed.

 

There were big fat drops around them. It was getting hard to breathe.

 

Gavving breathed through his shirt and swallowed the water that came through.

 

Light was gaining. Were they emerging from the cloud? "Clave? Maybe you want to cut that tether. Do we want to stay in here?"

 

"Anybody still thirsty?" Silence. "Drink your fill, but we can't live in here, breathing through our shirts. Let's trust the moby a while longer."

 

The pale green light was getting stronger. Through thinning fog Gayving thought he could see sky . . . green-tinged sky, with a texture to it. Green? Was this some effect in his eyes, due to the long, abnormal darkness?

 

Clave bellowed, "Treefodder!" and swung his knife. The harpoon tether sang a deep note, cut short as Clave slashed again. The line whipped free; the bark sheet shuddered.

 

Then they were out of the mist, in a layer of clear air. Gavving glimpsed the moby flapping away, free at last, and spared it only a glance. He was looking at square klomters of textured green, expanding, growing solid. It was a jungle, and they were going to ram.

 

 

 

Chapter Eleven

 

The Cotton-Candy Jungle

 

 

 

THE CARM WAS LIKE NOTHING ELSE IN THE UNIVERSE. IT WAS all right angles, inside and out; all plastic and metals, unliving starstuff.

 

The white light that glowed from the dorsal wall was neither Voylight nor sunlight. Weirder lights crawled across the control panel and the bow window itself The carm was mobile, where London Tree moved only with the help of the carm. If London Tree was a living thing inhabited by other living things, then Lawn saw the cam' as a different form of life.

 

The carm was a mighty servant. It served Kiance the Scientist, and Lawn. Sometimes it went away into the sky with Navy men as its masters. This time it carried Lawn too.

 

It grated on her nerves that she was not the carm's master here.

 

Seen through the picture-window bow, the jungle was green, dotted with every color of the rainbow-including overlaid scarlet dots that were heat sources. The Navy pilot pushed the talk button and said, "Let go."

 

Several breaths went by before Lawn heard, "We're loose."

 

The pilot touched attitude jet keys. A tide pulled Lawn forward against her straps. Warriors had been clinging to nets outside the hull.

 

Now they swept into view of the bow window as the cam' decelerated.

 

A cloud of sky-blue men fell toward undulating clouds of green.

 

The pilot released the keys after (by Lawri's count) twelve breaths. She'd watched numbers flickering on a small display in front of him. He'd released at zero. And the jungle was no longer moving toward the carm's bow window.

 

"The savages haven't moved yet," he reported. He was ignoring Lawn, or trying to; his eyes kept ificking to her and away. He'd made it clear enough: a nineteen-year-old girl had no place here, no matter what the First said. "They're just under the greenery. Are you sure you want to do this?"

 

"We don't know who they are." The ancient microphone put a squawk in the Squad Leader's voice. "If it's just fighters, we'll retreat.

 

We don't need fighters. If it's noncombatants, hiding-"

 

"Right."

 

"Have you found any other heat sources?"

 

"Not yet. That greenery is a pretty good reflector unless you're looking right into it. We can pick up some meat. Flocks of salmon birds

 

Squad Leader, I see something off to the side. Something's falling toward the jungle."

 

"Something like what?"

 

"Something fiat with people clinging to it."

 

"I see it. Could they be animals?"

 

"No. I'm using science," the pilot said.

 

The display superimposed on the bow window showed scarlet dots clustered close. Warmer objects-salmon birds, for instance-showed more orange in that display. Ribbon birds showed as cooler: wavy lines of a darker, bloodier red . . . The pilot turned and caught Lawn looking.

 

"Learned anything, darling?"

 

"Don't call me darlin&" Lawn said primly/evasively.

 

"Pardon me, Scientist's Apprentice. Have you learned enough to fly this ship, do you think?"

 

"I wouldn't like to try it," Lawn lied. "Unless you'd like to teach me?" It was something she wanted very much to try.

 

"Classified," the pilot said without regret. He returned to his microphone. "That thing hit pretty hard. I'd say it's not a vehicle at all.

 

Those people may be refugees from some disaster, just what we need for copsiks. Might even be glad to see us."

 

"We'll get to you when we . . . can." The Squad Leader sounded distracted, and with reason. Spindly savages taller than a man ought to be were boiling out of the green cloud, riding yellow-green pods bigger than themselves. They were clothed in green, hard to see.

 

There was a quick exchange of arrows as the armies neared each other. London Tree's warriors used long footbows: the bow grasped by the toes of one or both feet, the string by the hands. The cloud of arrows loosed by the savages moved more slowly, and the arrows were shorter.

 

"Cnossbows," the pilot murmured. He played the jets, kicking the carm away from the fight. Lawn felt relief, until he started his turn.

 

"You'll endanger the carm! Those savages could snatch at the nets!"

 

"Calm down, Scientist's Apprentice. We're moving too fast for them." The cam' curved back toward the melee. "We don't want them close enough for swordplay, not in free-fall."

 

The Scientist had his wish, the cam' would never be used for war at all. Putting his Apprentice aboard had been a major strategic victory.

 

He'd told her, "Your sole concern is for the cam', not the soldiers. If the carm is threatened, it must be moved out of danger. If the pilot won't, you must."

 

He had not told her how to subdue a trained fighter, nor how to fly the ancient machine. The Scientist had never flown it himself.

 

Savages flew toward the bow window. Lawn saw their terrified eyes before the pilot spun the cam' about. Masses thumped against the carm's belly. Lawn shuddered. She would do nothing, this time. She would more likely wreck the cam' than save it. . . and there would be hell to pay even if she got home to London Tree.

 

The savages were grouping to attack again. The pilot ignored them.

 

He eased the carm into the midst of his own warriors.

 

"Nice going. Thanks," said the radio voice. Lawri watched the cloud of savages advancing.

 

"We're all aboard," said the Squad Leader.

 

The carm turned and coasted across the green cotton, southwest. Savages screamed or jeered in its wake. They hadn't a hope of catching up.

 

There was time to look, and time to feel rising fear. Gavving tried to take it all in before the end.

 

It was curves and billows of green wall spotted with blossoms: yellow, blue, scarlet, a thousand shades and tones. Insects swarmed in clouds. Birds were there in various shapes, dipping into the blossoms or the insect clouds. Some looked like ribbons and moved with a fluttering motion. Some had membranous triangular tails; some were themselves triangles, with whiplike tails sprouting from the apex.

 

Far to the east was a dimple in the green, funnel-shaped, perhaps half a klomter across; distances were hard to judge. Would a jungle have a treemouth? Why would it be rimmed with gigantic silver petals? The biggest flower in the universe set behind the jungle's horizon as they fell.

 

The storm had hidden a jungle. He'd never seen one close, but what else could it be? The moby had planned this well, Gavving thought.

 

Birds were starting to notice the falling mass. Motionless wings and tails blurred into invisibility. Ribbons fluttered away, as ~ in a strong wind. Larger torpedo-shapes emerged from the greenery to study the falling bark sheet.

 

Clave was snapping orders. "Check your tethers! Arm yourselves! Some of those things look hungry. We'll be shaken up when we hit. Has anybody noticed anything I might miss?"

 

Gavving thought he saw where they'd strike. Green cloud. Could it be as soft as it looked? East and north, far away, more darting swarms of. . . dots at this distance . . . men?

 

"Men, Clave. It's inhabited."

 

"I see them. Treefodder, they're fighting! Just what we need, another war. Now what's that? Grad, do you see something like a moving box?"

 

"'lea."

 

"Well?"

 

Gavving located a brick-shape with rounded corners and edges. It was turning in sentient fashion, moving away from the battle. A vehicle, then... big... and glittering as if made of metal or glass. Men clung to its flanks.  The Grad said, "I never saw anything like it. Starstuff."

 

The aft end of the box was spiky with bell-shaped structures: four at each corner and one much larger in the middle. Nearly invisible flames, not flame-colored but the blue-white color of Voy, puffed from some of the small-nostrils? The vehicle stopped its turn and surged back into the battle.

 

"That should do it," Clave said. Gavving turned and saw what he had been doing: setting his last jet pods to orient the turning raft, so that the underside would strike first. It seemed to be working, but the jungle was hidden now. Gavving clutched the bark, waiting...

 

His head was ringing, his right arm was banged up somehow, his stomach was trying to find something to reject, and he couldn't remember where he was. Gavving opened his eyes and saw the bird.

 

It was torpedo-shaped, about the mass of a man. It hung over him, long wings stretched out and motionless while it studied him with two forward-facing eyes in deep sockets. The other side of its head bore a saw-toothed crest. Its tail was a ribbed fan; the four ribs ended each in a hooked claw.

 

Gavving looked around for his harpoon. The crash had bounced it free of his hand. It was meters away, slowly turning. He reached for his knife instead and eased himself out of the greenery in which he was half-buried. He whispered, "I'm meat. Are you?" intending it as a threat.

 

The bird hung back. Two companions had joined it. Their mouths were long and blunt, and closed. They don't bluff Gavving thought.

 

A fourth bird skimmed across the green cloud, moving fast, right at his head. He scrambled for cover as the bird dipped its tail hooks into the foliage and stopped dead. Gavving stayed where he was, half under the raft. The birds watched him mockingly.

 

A tethered harpoon thudded into a bird's side.

 

It screamed. The open mouth had no teeth, just a scissors-action serrated edge. The bird set itself whirling as it tried to snap at its belly. A third eye was behind the crest, facing backward.

 

The rest made their decision. They fled.

 

With his toes locked in branchiets, Alfin reeled the bird into knife range. By then Gavving had retrieved his own harpoon. He used it to pin the bird's tail while Alfin finished the kill, a performance that left Alfin's sleeves soaked in pink blood. A wide grin stretched his wrinkles into uncustomary patterns.

 

"Dinner," he said and shook his head as if he'd drunk too much beer.

 

"I can't believe it. We made it. We're alive!"

 

During all the years in Quinn Tuft, Gavving couldn't remember seeing Alfin grin. How could Alfin be consistently morose in Quinn Tuft, and happy while lost in the sky? He said, "If we'd hit something solid at that speed we'd all be dead. Let's hope the luck holds."

 

Missing citizens emerged from the green depths. Merrill, Jayan, Jinny, Grad. . . Minya. Gavving whooped and gathered her in his arms.

 

Alfin asked, "Where's Clave?"

 

The others looked around. The Grad tethered himself to the bark and

 

jumped toward the storm, with a turning motion. "I don't see him anywhere," he shouted back.

 

Jayan and Jinny burrowed into the foliage. Minya called, 'Wait, you'll get lost!" and prepared to follow.

 

"He's here."

 

dave was under the bark sheet. They moved it to expose him. He was half-conscious and moaning softly. His thigh bent in the middle~ and white bone protruded through skin and blood.

 

The Grad hung back, squeamishly; but everyone was looking at him, and it was clearly the Scientist's job. He set Alfin and Jayan to holding dave's shoulders, Gavving to pulling on the anlde~ while the Grad moved the bones into place. It took too long. Clave revived and fainted again before it was finished.

 

"That flying box," Alfin said. "It's coming here."

 

"We're not finished here," said the Grad.

 

The starstuff box fell toward them through the clear air between foliage and storm cloud. Men garbed in sky-blue clung to all four sides. The glassy end faced them like a great eye.

 

Clave's eyes had opened, but it didn't seem he understood. Somebody had to do something. Gavving said, "Alibi, Minya, Jinny, let's get the bark sheet out of sight, at least."

 

They turned it edgewise and pushed it down into the greenery. Gayving moved after it, and Minya after him, forcing their way through the thicket into dark green gloom. The foliage was dense at the surface. Underneath were open spaces and masses of springy branchiets.

 

"Grad?"

 

The Grad looked up. "Scientist."

 

"All right, Scientist. I need a Scientist," Alibi said. "Can you leave him for a moment?"

 

Clave was half-conscious and whimpering. He should be all right with two women watching him. "Call me if he starts thrashing around," he told them. He moved away, and Alibi followed.

 

"What's the problem?"

 

"I can't sleep."

 

The Grad laughed. "It's been a busy time. Which of us do you accuse of sleeping well?"

 

"I haven't slept since we reached the midpoint. We're in a jungle, we've got food and water, but Grad-Scientist, we're still falling!" Alfin's laugh surprised the Grad, it had a touch of hysteria in it.

 

Alibi didn't look good. His eyes were puffy, his breathing was irregular, he was as jumpy as tonight's dinner turkey. The Grad said, "You know as much about free-fall as I do. You learned it the same way. Are you about to run amok?"

 

"Feels that way. I'm not helpless. I killed a bird that was after Gayving." And for that moment his pride was showing.

 

The Grad mulled the problem. "I've got a bit of that scarlet fringe from the fans. You know how dangerous it is. Anyway, you don't want to sleep now."

 

Alfin glanced at the sky. The starstuff box was taking its sweet time, but . . . "No."

 

"When it's safe. And I haven't got much."

 

Alfin nodded and turned away. The Grad stayed where he was. He wanted solitude to nurse his jumpy stomach. He'd never set a broken bone before, and he'd had to do it without the Scientist's help .

 

Alibi made his way back toward Jayan and Merril and dave. He looked back once, and the Grad was looking at the sky.

 

He looked back again, and the Grad was gone. Jayan screamed.

 

The darkness and the strange, dappled shadows made them almost invisible, even to each other. "We can hide in here," Gavving said.

 

Minya was nodding. "Burrow deep. Stick together. What about Clave?"

 

"We'll have to pull him through. What looks like a good spot?"

 

"None of it," Jinny said. "It would hurt him."

 

Gavving tracked a dense cluster of branchlets back to a single spine branch. "Cut here," he told Minya.

 

She didn't have room to swing. She used the sword as a saw, and it took her a hundred breaths or thereabouts. Then Gavving pushed against the freed end and found that the entire cluster moved outward as a plug. He pulled himself into open air and looked about him. "Merril! Here!"

 

"Good," Merril called. She and Alibi towed Clave toward the opening, moving with frantic haste. The one-eyed box was too close. The occupants must be watching them by now.

 

They'd have to dig in fast, get lost in the deep branchlets. But- "Where's Jayan? Where's the Grad?"

 

"Gone," Merril puffed. "He's gone. Something pulled him down into the thicket."

 

"Wha'zat?"

 

"Move it, Gavving!"

 

They got dave inside and pulled the plug-bush closed. Gavving saw that dave's leg had been splinted with strips of a blanket and two of Minya's arrows.

 

"The men on the box," Minya said, "they'll follow us."

 

"I know. Merril, what got the Grad? An animal?"

 

"I didn't see. He yelled and disappeared. Jayan snatched up a harpoon and ducked through and saw people disappearing deeper in. She's trailing a line. Gavving, should we stop her? They'll trap her too."

 

Why did it all have to happen at once? Clave's leg, the kidnappers, the moving box-"Okay. The soldiers on the box would be fools to come in here. It's the natives' territory-"

 

"We're here."

 

"We're more desperate . . . never mind, you're right. We go after Jayan right now, because it gets us away from that starstuff relic. Merril

 

-" Would Merril slow them down? Probably not, in free-fall. Okay.

 

"Merril, me, Minya. We'll follow Jayan and see what's going on. Maybe we can bust the Grad loose. Jinny, you and Alfin follow as fast as you can, with dave. Merril, where's Jayan's line?"

 

"Somewhere over there. Treefodder, why does it all have to happen at once?"

 

"Yeah

 

 

 

Chapter Twelve

 

The Copsik Runners

 

 

 

Buws WERE RAISING AN INCREDIBLE RUCKUS. UNSEEN HANDS pulled the Grad headfirst through darkness and the rich smell of alien foliage. Branchlets no longer scratched his face; there must be open space around him.

 

He'd had no warning at all. Hands had grasped his ankles and pulled him down into another world. His yell was strangled by something stuffed into his mouth, something that wasn't clean, and a rag was tied to hold it in. A blow on the head convinced him not to struggle.

 

His eyes were beginning to adjust to the gloom.

 

A tunnel wound through the foliage. It was narrow: big enough for two to crawl side by side, not big enough to walk in. No need, the Grad thought. You couldn't walk with no tide.

 

His captors were human, roughly speaking.

 

They were all women, though this needed a second glance. They wore leather vests and trousers, dyed green. The looseness of the vests was their only concession to breasts. Three of the five wore their hair very short, and they all had a gaunt, stretched-out look: two and a half to three meters, taller than any of Quinn Tribe's men.

 

They held implements: small wooden bows on wooden platforms, the bowstrings pulled back, ready to fire.

 

They were making good time. The tunnel turned and twisted until the Grad was entirely disoriented. His directional senses wouldn't give him an up. It presently opened into a bulb-shape four or five meters across, with three other tunnels leading off. Here the women stopped. One pulled the rag out of his mouth. He spit to the side and said, "Treefodder!"

 

A woman spoke. Her skin was dark, her hair a compact black storm cloud threaded with white lightning. Her pronunciation was strange, worse than Minya's. "Why did you attack us?"

 

The Grad shouted in her face. "Stupid! We saw your attackers. They've got a traveling box made of starstuff. That's science! We got here on a sheet of bark!"

 

She nodded as if she'd expected that. "An eccentric way to travel. Who are you? How many are you?"

 

Should he be hiding that? But Quinn Tribe must find Mends somewhere. Go for Gold-"Eight of us. All of Quinn Tribe, now, plus Minya, from the opposite tuft. Our tree came apart and left us marooned."

 

She frowned. "Tree dwellers? The copsik runners are tree dwellers."

 

"Why not? You don't get a tide anywhere else. Who're you?"

 

She studied him dispassionately. "For a captured invader, you are most impertinent."

 

"I've got nothing to lose." A moment after he said it, the Grad realized how true it was. Eight survivors had done their best to reach safety, and this was the end of it. Nothing left.

 

She had spoken. He said, "What?"

 

"We are Carther States," the black-haired woman repeated impatiently. "I am Kara, the Sherman." She pointed. "Lizeth. Hild." They looked like twins to the Grad's untrained eye: spectrally tall, pale of skin, red hair cropped two centimeters from the skull. "lisa." Usa's pants were as loose as her vest. That discrete abdominal bulge: Usa was pregnant. Her hair was blond frizz her scalp showed through. Long hair must be a problem among the branchiets. "Debby." Debby's hair was clean and straight and soft brown, and half a meter long, tied in back. How did she keep it that neat?

 

Sharman mean Shaman, an old word for Scientist. Could mean Chairman, except that she was a woman . . . but strangers wouldn't do everything the way Quinn Tribe did. Since when did the Chairman take a name?

 

"You haven't given us your name," Kara said pointedly.

 

There was something left to him after all. He said it with some pride:

 

"I'm the Quinn Tribe Scientist."

 

"Name?"

 

"The Scientist doesn't take one. Once I was called Jeffer."

 

"What are you doing in Carther States?"

 

"You'd have to ask a moby."

 

Lizeth snapped her knuckles across the back of his skull, hard enough to sting. He snarled, "I meant it! We were dying of thirst. We hooked a moby. Clave was hoping he'd try to lose us in a pond. He brought us here instead."

 

The Sharman's face didn't reveal what she thought of that. She said, "Well, it all seems innocent enough. We should discuss your situation after we eat."

 

The Grad's humiliation kept him silent . . . until he saw their meal and recognized the harpoon. "That's Alfin's bird."

 

"It belongs to Carther States," Lizeth informed him.

 

He found he didn't care. His belly was stridently empty. "That wood looks too green to make a cookflre-"

 

"Salmon bird is eaten raw, with falling onion when we can get it."

 

Raw. Yuk. "Falling onion?"

 

They showed him. Falling onion was a plant parasite that grew at the forks of the branchlets. It grew as a green tube with a spray of pink blossoms at the tip. The pretty brown-haired woman named Debby assembled a handful and cut the blossom-ends off. Usa's sword carved the scarlet meat in translucently thin slices.

 

Meanwhile Kara bound the Grad's right wrist to his ankles, then freed his left. "Don't untie anything else," she warned him.

 

Raw meat, he thought and shuddered; but his mouth watered. Hild wrapped sheets of pink meat around the stalks and passed one to the Grad. He bit into it.

 

His mind went blank. You learned to put hunger out of your mind during a famine . . . but he had definitely been hungry. The meat had an odd, rubbery texture. The flavor was rich; the onion taste was fiery, mouth-filling.

 

They watched him eat. I have to talk to them, he thought hazily. It's our last chance~ We have to join them. Otherwise~. what is there? Stay here and be hunted or let the invaders catch us, or jump into the sky .

 

The man-sized bird was dwindling. Lizeth seemed content to carve slices until they stopped disappearing; Debby was now cutting the falling onions to stretch them. The women had long since finished eating.

 

They watched with irritating smiles. The Grad wondered if they would consider a belch bad manners, and belched anyway, and had to swallow again. He'd learned while climbing the tree: a belch was bad news in free-fall, without tide to bring gas to the top of the stomach.

 

He asked for water. Lizeth gave it to him in a squeezegourd. He drank a good deal. The falling onion had run out. Feeling pleasantly full, the Grad topped off his meal with a handful of foliage.

 

Nothing could be entirely bad when he felt this good.

 

Kara the Sharman said, "One thing is clear. You are certainly a refugee. I never saw a starving copsik runner."

 

A test? The Grad took his time swallowing. "Cute," he said. "Now that that's established, shall we talk?"

 

"Where are we?"

 

"Nowhere in particular. I wouldn't lead you to the rest of the tribe until I knew who you were. Even here, the copsik runners might find us."

 

"Who are they, these . . . runners?"

 

"Copsik runners. Don't you use the word copsik?" It sounded more like corpsik when she said it.

 

He answered, "It's just an insult-word."

 

"Not to us or them. They take us for corpsiks, to work for them the rest of our lives. Boy, what are you doing?"

 

The Grad had reached for his pack with his free hand. "I am the Quinn Tribe Scientist," he said in freezing tones. "I thought I might find some background on that word."