"Your tribe is dead! Your tree is torn apart! We could have been your tribe, you treefeeding mutineer you!"

 

The Grad had no particular urge to stop her mouth. Lawn's accusations only echoed those in his own mind. He had made his decisions.

 

So he spoke without heat. "Do you know what's been happening to our women? Gavving might have had permission to visit his wife thirtyodd days from now, but any male citizen had rights to her any time he liked. Now she's pregnant. She doesn't know who the father is, and I don't either."

 

Lawn said, "They'll kill you. Shall I tell you what the penalty is for mutiny?"

 

"Feel free, but I notice the line of argument has shifted."

 

She told him anyway. It sounded dreadful enough: good reason to keep the doors closed.

 

He had found the infrared display. It showed him red dots in along the trunk. He cut the infrared out and recognized Clave and Merril, and Navy chasing them. . . including what had to be a dwarf in a pressure suit.

 

Clave and Merril! Then the Carthers were actually on his side. He had wondered.

 

The green-clad warriors rushed the carm. When the Navy retreated he was able to wrap one in flame, not as a casual killing but as a signal to the Carthers. I'm with you! For it was Carthers who now swarmed the carm, and Navy who retreated around the trunk.

 

The Grad opened two yellow lines with his fingertips. He turned to greet the tall, bloody jungle giants.

 

Gavving was on his feet, held upright by two men, before he even started to wake up. He said, "What?"

 

"We need pedalers," someone said.

 

Four Navy men helped three sleepy copsiks out of the barracks and up through the tuft. Gavving held his temper and Horse took it with typical docility, but Alfin was still protesting as they broke through into sunlight. "I'm the treemouth tender's assistant! Not a treefeeding pair of legs-"

 

"Listen, you. We're sending men up to the Citadel as fast as we can. We've worked the regular team half to death. You'll take your place and pedal with the rest!"

 

"And carry out my regular duties too? I'll be half-dead! What do I tell the Supervisor?"

 

"You board that bicycle on you'll be telling your Supervisor where your testes went. Just before the Holidays too!"

 

The copsiks on the platform were sheathed in sweat, it drifted in droplets from their hair; they panted like dying men. The Navy men helped three of them down, wincing at the soggy touch. Other Navy men were boarding the elevator.

 

Half the sky was textured green.

 

The jungle! The jungle had come to London Tree!

 

Only three Navy men remained. One was an officer; Gavving recognized him, and he carried a piece of old science, a talking box. The rest had entered the elevator. Gavving was lifted into the saddle. He started pedaling. The elevator rose.

 

The jungle had attacked London Tree. The jungle was mobile. Who would have guessed? The green cloud was awesomely close. . . and receding.

 

He should be doing something! But what? Armed men were watching.

 

The elevator was tens of klomters above him now, and Gavving was gasping. He felt the change before he saw it. Suddenly it was easier to pedal. The grating whine of the bicycle gears rose half an octave. He looked up.

 

The elevator box was turning, falling. Blue shapes spilled out and made for the trunk. One was too slow. When he reached the trunk he was moving too fast; he bounced away, spinning like a broken thing, and continued to fall. But the box was falling faster.

 

"Stop pedaling. Hold your places," the officer ordered.

 

The invaders had cut the cable. Now what? In takes you east~The box wouldn't hit here; it would strike farther east along the branch, but where? Gavving pictured the massive wooden structure smashing through diffuse cottony foliage. "Officer? Suppose that thing hits the pregnant women's complex?"

 

"It's under the branch," the man said. "Minm . . . it could hit somebody, though. Damn, there's the school complex! Karall Move east along the top of the branch and get everyone underneath. Don't miss the examination hut. Docking section too. Then get under yourself, if you're fast enough."

 

"Sir." A Navy man-wounded, with one arm bound across his chest darted awkwardly away. Two left.

 

The officer spoke to his talking box. "Squad Leader Patry here. The enemy has cut our elevator cables. What's your status?"

 

The answer was almost unintelligible with static. Gavving let his chin droop and his eyes half close (poor exhausted copsik, clearly too tired to think of mutiny) and listened hard. He heard, "Elevators running. We troops. Enemy numbers for garble~ repeat, forty to fifty. Garble outnumbered. They're gentling us. They garble the carm, but even. can't use . . . tethered."

 

"I see two dark masses west of here."

 

"Forget them. . . . trouble enough. We are sending more men to the Citadel."

 

'Patry out."

 

The Grad recognized the long-limbed woman, Debby, by her long, straight brown hair. The two men with her were strangers. The crossbows aimed at him didn't bother him as much as their fear. They didn't like the carm at all.

 

He spread open hands to the sides. "I'm the Quinn Tribe Scientist, the only one who can fly this thing. Good to see you, Debby-"

 

Lawn broke in with, "Feed it to the tree, mutineer! You'd lose us in the sky or smear us all over the trunk."

 

"-and this is Lawn, the copsik runner."

 

One snapped out of it. "I'm Anthon. This is Prez. Debby told us about you, Grad. Can we leave immediately? Pile all our warriors on the nets and go? The silver man is coming."

 

The Grad said, "We're tied to the tree. Cut those lines and we're free to go. But I don't leave without Clave and Merril, and I think there's time to get one more thing."

 

He pointed into the dorsal window display. Anthon and Debby very gingerly moved up behind him. All this scientific stuff must be daunting.

 

"That hut is the Lab. Debby, you'll find some cassettes and the reader inside, on the walls. You remember what they look like?"

 

Debby nodded.

 

"Go get them. Anthon, get some warriors to cut the carm loose." He looked into the displays. Clave was towing Merril as he jumped along the bark, his legs serving both while she fired bolts at their pursuers.

 

One Navy man was dropping back, hurt. The silver man came on. The Grad said, "See if you can give them some covering fire."

 

Anthon said quietly, "You're not the leader here, Scientist."

 

"Here, I am. And I have had enough of being a copsik!"

 

"Debby, go get that treefodder for the Scientist. Take a team. Prez, get those cables chopped." Anthon waited until they were through the doors before he spoke again. He wanted no witnesses to this discussion.

 

"Grad, have you fought in war?"

 

"I captured the carm."

 

"You? I cap-" He trailed off. "Never mind."

 

"How many are you?"

 

"Forty or less, now. We won't fit inside, but we can hang on to the nets."

 

"I want to set the rest of Quinn Tribe free. They're in the in tuft, and I can find them. The carm's got plenty of what makes it go. We've got the small motors for spraying fire. It should be easy."

 

Anthon was in no hurry to make a decision. Into the silence Lawn said, "He can't fly the carm. I can. I'm the Scientist's Apprentice."

 

"Why haven't you killed this one?" Anthon demanded.

 

"Hold it! She's what she says . . . and I did have to kill the Scientist himself~ Lawrihasagreat dealtoteach us, ifshecanbetalkedinto it.

 

She's harmless as long as she's tied up."

 

Anthon nodded. "She lives, then. But I lead Carther States."

 

"I captain the carm."

 

Anthon stepped into the doors and began to shout orders. He'd let the word pass. Captain. He who violated the Grad's orders aboard the carm would be a mutineer!

 

Carthers chopped at the lines that tethered the carm. Crossbow bolts flew among the blue men who followed Clave and Merril. Those dove for cover on the bark. The silver man caine on alone. He wasn't using jet pods. There must be something on the pressure suit itself.

 

The carm was drifting free.

 

Lawri spoke in an angry whisper. "They'd kill me, wouldn't they?"

 

"They don't have my reasons for liking you," the Grad said without overt sarcasm. "Keep your opinions to yourself for a while, if you can. Did you really think a jungle warrior would let you at the controls?"

 

Clave and Merril and Debby entered like a storm. Debby was gashed and bleeding along the ribs. Merril flew into the Grad and hugged him.

 

"Grad! I mean Scientist. Good work. I mean, glorious! Can you run this thing?"

 

The Grad felt huge relief. Let Clave play these dominance games with Anthon! The Grad would captain the carm and hope Lawn was wrong . . . "I can fly it."

 

Clave asked, "Can you find the rest of us?"

 

"They're all in the in tuft. Gavving's at the top, where we can get at him. Jayan and Minya are with the pregnant women. Jinny and Alfin should be in the Commons. We may have to leave the carm to get to them."

 

"Then, it's going to work. I can't believe it."

 

The Grad grinned. "So why'd you come? Never mind. Debby-"

 

"I got these. We had to fight for them." Seven cassettes. "We couldn't find the reader."

 

"Maybe Kiance had it . . . it doesn't matter. Get into a chair. You too, Clave, Merril, strap down!" He looked into the displays. "In a few breaths we can . .

 

"What?" Clave saw the displays floating in the bow window. "This place is too strange for me. Those pictures make my eyes cross! I

 

Grad, have you got anything to take out the silver man?"

 

"Not unless he crawls into a motor. That's a starman's pressure suit."

 

"Well, he's killing all our allies."

 

"That spitgun only puts you to sleep and makes you feel wonderful. Doesn't matter to us, though. They're still out of action. Anthon, good timing. Get into a chair."

 

Anthon was panting; his crossbow was on line with the Grad's eyes. "You waited too long! That goddam silver-"

 

"Get into a chair and strap down! And tell me how many we've got left." The Grad was trying to watch all the displays at once. Carthers were disappearing over the trunk's horizon. Too many floated limp; some were being towed by others who hadn't been hit. The man in the pressure suit was hovering over the carm, firing darts.

 

The glazed look left Anthon's eyes. He worked himself into a chair. "We can't hurt him. I was the only one who even got to the carrier. The rest won't come anyway. They're afraid of it."

 

"We can't leave them."

 

The silver man darted down at the doors. The Grad pinched his fingers together. The silver man shied back as the doors closed in his face, then moved back into view in the dorsal display. Now he was gripping the nets on the hull.

 

"He's on the carm," said the Grad.

 

"Take off," said Anthon.

 

"Leave?"

 

"We can leave my citizens if we take the silver man with us. I've got spare jet pods coming."

 

"Good enough." The Grad's fingers tapped. The silver man was still hanging on the nets when the carm backed away from the trunk and started down.

 

 

 

Chapter Nineteen

 

The Silver Man

 

 

 

THE LAUNDRY VAT WAS A TALL GLASS CYLINDER. IT HUNG from the underside of the branch, from lines pounded into the black bark over Minya's head. Around it ran an extensive wickerwork platform woven from live spine branches. A layer of rocks beneath the vat supported a bed of coals. A pipe ran all the way from the treemouth reservoir to supply the water: an impressive achievement, had Minya not been too tired to appreciate it.

 

Minya and lisa stirred dirty clothing in a matrix of foaming water with a paddle two meters long. It took skill and fine attention. Left to itself, the laundry-soup would have foamed right out of the vat, clothing and all. The supervisor Haryet kept popping out to see how they were doing.

 

Minya wasn't t~eling awkward yet, but there was the sense of a guest building inside her. lisa's pregnancy looked ludicrous, a bulge on a straight-edge. Like the others, she seemed to have adjusted to her new status with little difficulty. Once she had told Minys, "We know all our lives that the copsik runners might come for us. Well, they came."

 

A chain of huts ran along the underside of the branch. Moat of the women preferred to stay inside. They weren't all pregnant. Some were nursing their erstwhile guests. They all had w9rk: knitting sewing preparation of food to be cooked at the treemouth.

 

The quiet was broken by a hurried rustling.

 

Then four people burst from the tunnel that led down from the examination hut: Jayan and Jinny, the supervisor Dloris, and a Navy man with his arm in a sling. Karal spotted her, ran to her, gripped her aim. She shied from his wildness.

 

"You're all right." He was gasping. "Good. Minya. Stay under the branch. Don't let anyone . . . anyone else go wandering."

 

"We don't tend to. We're too awkward. I thought men weren't allowed . . .

 

"I'm not staying. Minya, it's both elevators and at least one man, they're falling from thirty klomters up, and we don't know just where they'll hit. I've got to warn the children in the school complex." He pointed a finger at the tip of her nose. "Stay here!" And he sprinted for the tunnel, wobbling chest heaving.

 

If something happens, the Grad had said. Something was happening all right, but what? Would Dloris know?

 

Minya guessed where the supervisor would be. She moved down the line of huts and entered the last one as Dloris came through with Haryet. 'We've been counting," Dloris said. "Gwen's missing. Have you seen her? Three meters tall and pale as a ghost, with a year-old guest?"

 

"Not lately. What's happening?"

 

"Get those clothes out and drying and then put the fire out. Do you have lines? Good. Keep them handy." The two supervisors moved on.

 

Minya turned to Jayan and Jinny. "Give us a hand. Jinny, we're lucky you were around. We're all together now. Do you know what's happening?"

 

"No. Karal looked scared stiff~"

 

"Is it war'?"

 

"Better stick to our task till we're sure," lisa said.

 

They pulled the clothing from the vat in a geld mass, manipulating it with poles. Some water remained. They inverted the vat and moved back while the water-glob flowed sluggishly out onto the fire. Live steam didn't rise fast enough in London Tree's feeble tide. It tended to expand in an invisible globe, scalding hot.

 

Minys had never seen that fire go out. Dioris must be expecting something drastic!

 

They continued to work. They set the laundry in the press and cranked two great wooden slabs together. Water squeezed out around the edges of the wad of clothing, then began to slide downward.

 

Something smashed through foliage, somewhere nearby.

 

They from Then Minya plunged into the branchiets with Jmny and lisa behind. They made their way toward the sound. Minya angled above where she thought it had stopped.

 

There, a trail of broken branchlets. She followed it down to the broken and twisted rempins of what had been a Navy officer. The corpse wore a sword, scabbarded, and a quiver that was still full, though the bow was missing.

 

"Now it's war," Minya said.

 

"We'll have to kill the supervisors," lisa said.

 

Minya jumped. "What?" It was as if a stone had spoken. "Never mind, you're right. I thought you were . . . I thought you'd given up."

 

lisa only shook her head.

 

West takes you in. In takes you east. At first the Grad held the bow window pointed straight down. They dropped smoothly.. . faster he swung the cairn to point west and fired aft jets to correct as it drifted away from the trunk.

 

His passengers were rigid with terror, save for Lawn, who was rigid with fury.

 

They still had a passenger on the hull.

 

Anthon's voice wanted to stutter. He wouldn't let it. "I want to point out that we could go back to Carther States now. We've got the silver man and the cairn. These copsik runners don't own anything they value more. We can trade for your copsiks."

 

That actually sounded sensible. The Grad said, "dave?"

 

"Feed it to the tree."

 

Anthon said, "You want to kill some copsik runners. AU right, I can underst-"

 

"I want to rescue them myself! I am the Quinn Tribe Chairman.

 

They are entitled to my protection." Clave spat the word: "Trade! They attacked us, we attacked them. We've got the carm and we'll have our people too. All right, Grad-Scientist--have you got an opinion?"

 

They were dropping too fast. The Grad swung the carm nosedown and fired forward jets. He said, "Nice of you to ask. We've got the Scientist's Apprentice and the silver suit and the only man alive who can fit into it. Maybe they would trade. We keep the carm."

 

"Never," said Lawn. "Trade with copsiks!"

 

Anthon and dave looked at each other. The Grad said, "Never mind," and they laughed. Lawri's~tone of voice said it all.

 

Minya stopped and looked out through a screen of branchiets.

 

The supervisors had found Gwen. Haryet was scolding her as they led her toward the huts. Haryet was second-generation copsik, shorter than Minya; she looked tiny beside her very pregnant captive.

 

They'll have heard us coming Minya thought. Jinny must have realized that too. She stepped out through the crackling foliage, ten meters east of Minya's position. Good! They'll think they heard one not two- Dioris came toward Jinny with thunder in her face. Breaking new paths was strictly forbidden.

 

Minya emerged behind Haryet and stabbed her.

 

Gwen turned with her baby in her arms and shrieked. Dloris whirled and stared. Perhaps this place of mothers and babies had given the supervisor a false sense of safety. She reacted slowly. Before she could reach her truncheon, Jinny was pinning her arms and Minya was running at her in long, low leaps.

 

Dioris flipped forward. Jinny flew over her back: and came spinning at Minya, who lost a moment sidestepping. Then Dioris held half a meter of hardwood at guard, but she faced a Navy sword.

 

"Wait," she said. "Wait."

 

"My child will not be born a copsik!" Minya screamed and lunged.

 

Dloris danced backward. The tunnel was behind her, and Minya knew she bad to stop the supervisor from reaching it. She ran at her, ready to bat the truncheon aside. Then Jayan and lisa were moving into place behind Dloris. Jayan held the big paddle well up the haft, blade first, like a two-handed sword.

 

Dioris dropped her truncheon. "Don't kill me. Please."

 

"Dioris, tell us what's happening."

 

"Carther States is all over the trunk. I don't know who's winning."

 

"Have they got the carm?"

 

"The cairn?" Dioris showed nothing but astonishment.

 

They tied her with line. lisa wanted to do more; Minya knew Dioris too well to allow it. She wouldn't have killed Haryet either, if. . . if.

 

Gavving watched the carm descend in fire. Patry was talking to his box, too far away for Gavving to hear; but the Navy officer looked furious and frightened.

 

He caught Gavving watching him. "You! All of you! Stay where you are! Move and you'll be shot. Do you understand? Amy, take cover."

 

The two Navy men disappeared into the foliage. Presently Alfin said,

 

"We're bait."

 

"There's only two."

 

Horse asked, "Do you really think your friends have the carm? What will they do with it?"

 

"Rescue us," Gavving said with more assurance than he felt. "Alfin, when it comes down, jump for the doors and hope they open."

 

Alfin snorted. "You've got to be out of your mind. Look at that thing, you want to ride in it?"

 

"I'll ride anything to get out of here, if I can take Minya."

 

"You don't have Minya. Listen, Gavving. I remember you with your eyes red and half-closed and crying in rivers. They make their own weather here! Nobody starves, nobody goes thirsty. It's a good, healthy tree with a good crop of earthilfe. I've got a responsible position-"

 

"You like it here?"

 

"Oh . . . treefodder. Maybe I don't really like it anywhere. I took orders in Dalton-Quinn too. I'm seeing a supervisor, a nice woman even if she towers over me. I didn't have that in Quinn Tuft. Kor's a year or two old for the citizens, but we get along . . . and I don't like that box."

 

"I do." It was Horse who bad spoken. "Gavving, cede me Alfin's place."

 

The carm was falling straight at them. Those had better be friends aboard! He could only die fighting if they were not. He told Horse, "It's not my decision. Just do what I do, and we'll see what dave says."

 

"Done."

 

"Alfin. Last chance-"

 

"Why?"

 

Alfin met his eyes. "There's tide here."

 

Gwen's shriek of terror had started her baby screaming. He was quieter now. Gwen's awareness was in the hands that stroked and patted the child. There was none in her eyes.

 

The conspirators ignored Gwen as she ignored them. lisa led her back, once, when she tried to return to the huts. They didn't want Gwen talking to the others.

 

Jayan asked, "Lisa, are you sure you want in on this?"

 

Jinny wasn't pregnant; Jayan and Minya were qot obtrusively so. Lisa was. She said, "My baby won't be born a copsik either."

 

The branch shuddered with the force of a tremendous blow. lisa said,

 

"The second elevator. Karal said two."

 

Jayan said, "Minya, you've talked to the Grad. What did he say?"

 

"The Grad said to go up. He'll try to capture the carm. If he can't get the carm-"

 

"Then he's dead," Lisa concluded, "and all the Carther States warriors are going to die, and we'll never get loose at all. So he's got to have the carm. He's got the carm and as many Carther States warriors as he can get aboard, and he's trying to reach us. Who goes with us?"

 

Nobody suggested a name. Jayan said, "We're the only new copsiks. Let the rest run their own revolt."

 

"You can't go up."

 

They turned, surprised. Dloris's eyes shied from their potentially lethal attention. She repeated doggedly, "You can't go up. The tunnels lead to the fin and the treemouth. There isn't any connecting tunnel to the top of the tuft; that's where the men live. None of you are in shape to tunnel through foliage, and if you got to the top you'd stand out like so many mobies in a stewpot."

 

"Then what?"

 

"Stay here till your friends come for you."

 

lisa shook her head. "The children's complex? Karal must have the upper reaches evacuated by now."

 

"LIsa, it's big and complicated and it doesn't connect to the top. The most you'd do is get lost."

 

"What's your stake in this, Dloris?"

 

"Let me live. Don't tell anyone I helped."

 

"Why?"

 

"I wanted to escape once myself. Now I've been a supervisor too long. Somebody would be sure to want me dead. But you can't go up. Stay here and wait."

 

They looked at each other. Minya said, "You did that. For thirty years? No. I think I know what we have to do."

 

The Grad tapped at the motor controls . . . tricky. They had to be used in pairs and clusters or they'd spin the carm. He dropped into the foliage several meters from the platform, with a horrendous crashing, and opened the doors at once.

 

Three men jumped toward the door. Gavving gripped an older man's arm. The third man wore blue, and he was swinging a sword. Debby took careful aim and put a crossbow bolt through him.

 

Gavving and the stranger pulled themselves inside. The older man was gasping. "Get us moving," Gavving said. "This is Horse. He wants to join Quinn Tribe. Alfin isn't coming. He likes it here."

 

A feathered harpoon ricocheted through the doors. The Grad closed them. He said, "I left Minya and Jayan in the pregnant women's compound-"

 

"What? Minya?"

 

"She's carrying a guest, Gavving. Your child. And men aren't permitted there." Later the Grad would tell bim the truth . . . part of it. For now, for witnesses and the record, Minya is carrying her husband's chikL "Lisa's there too, Anthon. I told Minya to gather them all and go up. We'll have to wait for them."

 

Clave nodded. Gavving stared with open mouth. He said, "Grad, don't you know the men's tunnels don't connect to the women's?"

 

"What?"

 

"They'd have to go all the way to the fin or the treemouth, and back!

 

Or break trail-Grad, they're sure to be captured!"

 

Clave had a hand on Gavving's shoulder. "Calm down, boy. Grad, where would they go?"

 

The Grad tried to think. It was Horse who spoke. "Not the fin. That's Navy. Maybe nobody would notice some extra women at the Commons or the schools. Or maybe they'd just stay where they are and wait."

 

"Jinny'll be at the treemouth anyway. Okay." The Grad fired the forward motors.

 

The carm lifted tail-first from the tuft, leaving fires in its wake. Lawn screamed, "You're setting the tree on fire!"

 

She was ignored. "I've been to the pregnant women's complex," the Grad said. "I haven't been in the Commons."

 

"Aifm has," Gavving said. "It's big, and it reaches to the treemouth. If we can get the carm into the treemouth-"

 

Lawn writhed. "You can't! You can't burn the treemouth, what are you? This isn't mutiny anymore, it's just wanton destruction!"

 

Anthon asked mildly, "Will London Tree trade with copsik mutineers?"

 

Lawn was silent.

 

"Lying wouldn't have helped. You were too convincing before. We'll go get our people."

 

The cam moved sideways above the tuft, accelerating sluggishly.

 

Then there was clear sky below, and the Grad swung the carm around. They were dropping past the treemouth. The carm slowed, hovered.

 

The Grad touched paired yellow dots. Light flared into the Commons in twin beams, as if the carm were a tethered sun.

 

Women were running . . . away. Jungle giants all, leapfrogging across the woven spine-branch floor. None were the right size, nor dark enough, to be Jinny.

 

"Drop it," Clave said as if his voice hurt him. "Go for the pregnant women's compound. How do we get there?"

 

The Grad let the carm sink. They were below the tuft now: blue sky below, green passing above. "It's under the branch. I think our best move is to go up into it. I may not hit it exactly, and the Navy may have figured out what we're doing by now. Are you ready for a fight?"

 

"Yes," said several voices.

 

The Grad grinned. "Maybe I can scrape off the silver man too. I notice he's still with us . . . Now what's that?"

 

Things were falling from the foliage. A bundle of cloth tied with line. Long loaves of bread. A bird carcass, cleaned and skinned. Then the green sky was raining women. Jayan, Jinny, and a jungle giant: lIsa?

 

"They jumped," Gavving said in wonder. "What if we hadn't come?"

 

"We did," Merril said. "Get 'em!"

 

Two big leather bags fell, and then another woman, leaping headdown to catch up with the rest: Minya.

 

The Grad cut the motors and took a moment to think. He was aware of voices yelling at him but was able to ignore the intrusive noises.

 

Got to catch them in the airlock What about the silver man? He was still clinging to the dorsal surface. The Grad rotated the carm to put it between the pressure-suited dwarf and the falling women.

 

They were separating. It would be three operations. Jayan and Jinny first. They faced each other across clasped hands, as they had after Dalton-Quinn Tree caine apart. They seemed calm enough under the circumstances. The cam eased toward them.

 

The silver man was crawling around to the airlock.

 

"Hang on," the Grad said, and he started the cam spinning. Faster. His head spun too; he could see sickness in the faces behind him. The silver man, caught rounding a corner, was hanging by his hands. The Grad used the motors again, against the spin, and slapped the silver man hard against the hull. He flew free.

 

The Grad opened the doors. The twins were flying at him. He jetted flame to slow the carm; stopped just alongside them, backed and moved sideways. Then they were crawling into the carm.

 

Blue shapes crawled within the green sky. Armed Navy men, carrying jet pods and footbows and a massive thing that took three men to handle.

 

The reunion would have to wait. "Get 'em into chairs," he called back to Clave. Minya next. He was flying the carm like he'd done it all his life. He got a little careless; Minya thumped the hull, then came in with a bloody nose. "Sorry," he said. "Gavving, never mind that, get her to a chair! Who's the other one?"

 

"It's lisa," Anthon said. "They're shooting at her! Grad, get her!"

 

"I'm doing that. Do we need the food and other stuff'?" He was alongside LIsa now, between her and the failing Navy men. Voy glared behind her. Footbow arrows ticked off the hull.. . but that thump had no place in his scheme. What-?

 

Lisa's look of terror and determination faded into blissful sleep. He knew before he looked: the silver man was back, spitgun and all. He was on the dorsal surface, out of reach of the doors, and Anthon had thrown a line round lisa's waist and was pulling her in.

 

"Get her into-" The chairs were full. "Get her against the back wall and stay with her. Don't turn any fixtures. Debby, put a tethered bolt in that carcass and we'll pull it in."

 

Anthon said, "The silver man-"

 

"These are close quarters. if he gets through the door, swarm him. The spitgun doesn't kill, but if he shoots us all, he owns us."

 

Jinny called to the Grad, "We brought a stack of clean laundry and a water supply."

 

"We've got water. Laundry . . . why not? Hey, I told Minya to go up. You did it right, we'd never have found you-"

 

Minya said, "if you had the carm, you could find us in the sky. So we grabbed what we could and went down."

 

The Navy men had not left the branch's green underside. Hardly surprising. if they failed to capture the cam, how would they reach the tree again? They would have looked futile, the Grad thought, were it not for the bulky starstuff thing they handled like a weapon.

 

The salmon bird carcass was a black silhouette with Voy painfully bright behind it. Anthon and Debby had to squint.. . but their tethered arrows nailed it and they reeled it in. Maybe the silver man was hoping someone would show his head, none did. He tried to enter with the stack of ponchos, and the Grad almost managed to catch him in the closing door. That left the laundry outside top, and a red border around the yellow diagram. "I never saw red before. What's it mean?"

 

Lawn deigned to answer, contemptuously. "Emergency. Your line's holding the airlock open."

 

The Grad opened the door (the red warning disappeared) and Debby pulled the mass in. The silver man didn't try to follow. The door may have scared him. It was his last chance: the Grad closed the doors and sighed with satisfaction.

 

His sigh chopped off when his ventral view flared pure, diizzling red, then disappeared from the bow window.

 

From other displays he caught glimpses of painfully bright scarlet. "Can that thing hurt us?" Anthon demanded, while Lawri cried, "Now you'll see! They'll cut us in half!" and Clave said, "They're almost on us. We'll have them all over the hull if-"

 

"Feed it to the tree!" the Grad shouted at them all. He couldn't think. What could that light do to them? Neither Klance nor Lawri had ever mentioned such a thing.

 

We've got what we need~ Forget the bread~. forget the water. Get out! They'll never catch the carm.

 

Lawri saw his hand move and screamed, "Wait!" The Grad didn't.

 

He tapped the center of the big blue vertical bar.

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty

 

The Position of Scientist's Apprentice

 

 

 

THE AIR SIGHED OUT OF THE GRAD's LUNGS. HE WAS BEING crushed flat. His left arm had missed the arm rest; it was behind him, being pulled gradually from the shoulder socket. The chair was too low to support his head. His neck hurt savagely. Above the muted shriek of the main motor he heard his passengers fighting for breath.

 

This must be killing the jungle giants.

 

London Tree dwindled like a dream in the aft view. They were in the storm now, and blind. The Grad tried to raise his right arm, to touch the blue bar, to end the force that flattened him. Up, up . . . farther his arm fell back across his chest with a jolt that smashed the last sipful of air from his lungs. His sight blurred.

 

Lawn's chin was tucked down against her collarbone. She was sure that if she relaxed her neck the tide would snap it.

 

She watched Jeffer trying to turn off the motor and knew he couldn't make it. And Lawti's arms were bound.

 

ThLc will kill some mutineer~ she thought with alloyed satisfaction. And I did it to them. The corn laser would burn or blind at close range, but almost certainly it would not have hurt the cam. She'd lied in hope that the mutineers would panic. She'd succeeded beyond her ambitions.

 

But it's killing me!

 

The screen of clouds swept past and away.

 

Gold was to left of center in the bow window. The Smoke Ring trailed left of Gold. They were accelerating east and a little out.

 

East takes you out.

 

They were leaving the Smoke Ring.

 

I knew it. That crazy Jeffer's killed us all.

 

With his head pulled far back, with the points of what should have been a neck rest digging savagely into his shoulder blades, Gavving looked along his nose and tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

 

The skyflowed away at the edges of the bow window. A triune family split and fluttered and were gone before they could move. A small, flattish green jungle drifted close, accelerated, whipped past. A fluffy white cloud showed ahead. Closer. White blindness, and the carm shuddered and rang with the impact of water droplets. Something tiny struck the bow window a terrific blow and left a pink film a quarter meter across. In a breath the rain had pounded it clear.

 

The cloud was gone, and the sky ahead was clear of further obstructions. Gold and the Smoke Ring showed like a puffball on a stem, against blue sky . . . a deep, dark blue sky, a color he'd never seen in his life.

 

He rolled his head to look at Minya. The agony in his neck shifted the pressure was easier to take this way. She looked back at him.

 

Lovely Minya, her face fuller than he remembered. He tried to speak and couldn't. He could barely breathe.

 

She sighed, "Almost."

 

The light of the CARM's main drive was back, and blueshifting!

 

A shift in its spectral line, and he'd caught it. Lucky. Kendy aborted his usual message. The CARM's time-eroded program would be busy enough without distraction. For the CARM was in flight. It must have been accelerating for some minutes already. By the frequency shift, it was building up enough velocity to take it out of the Smoke Ring . . within a few thousand kilometers of Discipline itself!

 

When the light went out, Kendy began his message. The air was already thinning around the CARM. Reception should be good.

 

"Kendy for the State. Kendy for the State. Kendy for the State."

 

The sound stopped, the terrible tide was gone, all in a moment. Bodies bent like bows recoiled. Citizens who had not had the breath for screaming, screamed now.

 

As the reflexive screams died to groans, the Grad heard Lawn say, wearily, "Jeffer. Never use the main motor unless you're pushing the tree."

 

The Grad could only nod. He'd captured the carm, he'd. treefodder, everyone he knew, if he hadn't murdered him he'd put him aboard the carm! And then he'd touched the blue bar. He said, "Lawti, I'm open to suggestions."

 

"Feed it to the tree."

 

The Grad heard full-throated laughter aft . . . from Anthon. Debby swatted him hard across the belly. The blow snapped him into a U, but he kept laughing, and she joined him.

 

They had reason! They had been flat against the back wall, protecting lIsa from what should have been mild jolting. The killer chairs would have snapped their backs, but none of the jungle giants had been in them.

 

Others were groaning, stirring, moving from pain to fear. Ilsa was beginning to wake up. Merril-vacant-eyed, hypnotized by the peculiar sky rushing at the bow-seemed to snap out of it. "Well, somebody do something!"

 

Clave's voice was a carrying one, and it filled the carm's cabin to overflowing. "Calm down, citizens. We're not in that much trouble. Remember where we are."

 

Other sounds stopped. Clave said, "The carrier was built for this. It came from the stars. We know it operates inside the Smoke Ring, but it was built to operate anywhere, wasn't it, Grad?"

 

That simply hadn't occurred to him. "Not anywhere, but . . . Outside the Smoke Ring, that's certain."

 

"Good enough. What's our status?"

 

"Give me a breath." The Grad was ashamed. It had taken Clave to get his mind working again. We're not in tmuble-Luck, that Clave didn't have the training to know what nonsense that was.

 

The blue display was on. Thrust: 0. Acceleration.~ 0. The big blue rectangle had a border of flickering scarlet: main motor on, fuel exhausteL He tapped it off, for what that was worth. 02: 211. H2:0. H20: 1,328. "Plenty of water, but no fuel. We can't maneuver. I don't know how to find out where we're going. Lawti?"

 

No answer.

 

"But we're bound to fall back sooner or later." Green display: "Pressure's way down outside. We're-" This could start a riot; but they'd have to know. "We're leaving the Smoke Ring. That's why the sky's that peculiar color." Yellow display: "Life support looks okay." Window displays: "Oh, my."

 

In the aft and side views, all detail had become tiny: integral trees were toothpicks, ponds were drops of glitter, everything seemed embedded in fog. Gold had become a bulge within a larger lens of cloud patterns that trailed off to east and west: a storm pattern that spread across the Smoke Ring. The hidden planet seemed indecently close.

 

"Sorry, Clave, I got hung up. Citizens, don't miss this! Nobody's seen the Smoke Ring from outside since men came from the stars."

 

Others were craning forward to see the displays or peering out through the side windows. But Gavving said, "I think Horse is dead."

 

Horse? The old man Gavving had brought with him. Horse certainly looked dead enough; small wonder if the tide had stopped an old man's heart. Poor copsilc the Grad thought. He had never met Horse, but what human could have wanted to die before seeing this? "Check his pulse."

 

Lawn said, "Port view, Jeffer."

 

Something in her voice . . . the Grad looked. Off to the edge: a flash of silver? "I don't-"

 

"It's Mark! He's still out there!"

 

"I don't believe it."

 

But the silver pressure suit was crawling into view. The dwarf must have clung to the nets throughout that savage acceleration.

 

"Jeffer, let him in!"

 

"What a man! I . . . Lawn, I can't. The pressure's too low outside. We'd lose our air."

 

"He'll die out there! . . . Wait a minute. Open the doors one at a time. Hall that's why Klance calls it an airlocki So did the cassettes-"

 

"Sure, two doors to lock the air in. Okay." Muffled thumps sounded aft. The silver man wanted in. "Anthon, dave, he may be dangerous. Take the spitgun away from him when he comes in." The Grad cleared all but the yellow display. No fast decisions from now on. He pinched both lines together-make sure they're closed tightl-then opened the outer door with a forefinger.

 

The silver man disappeared from view, into the airlock.

 

Good. Now close the outer line, wait-no red borders? Open the inner. Air shushed into the airlock. The silver man stepped into the carm, handed the spitgun to Anthon, and reached for his helmet.

 

In her heart of hearts, Lawn may have hoped for a last-breath countermutiny from the Navy's toughest warrior. She gave up that hope when she saw his face. Mark was a dwarf, of course, and the bones of his face were massive, brutal; but his jaw hung slack and his breath came fast and his face was pale with shock. His eyes wavered about the cabin, seeking reassurance. "Minya?"

 

A dark-haired woman answered. "Hello, Mark."

 

Her voice was flat and her face was hostile. Mark nodded unhappily. Now he recognized Lawn. "Hello, Scientist's Apprentice. What now?"

 

"We're in the hands of mutineers," Lawn said, "and I wish they were better at flying what they've stolen."

 

The mutineers' First Officer said, "Welcome to Quinn Tribe, as a citizen. Quinn Tribe doesn't keep copsiks. I'm dave, the Chairman. Who are you?"

 

"Navy, point man, armor. Name's Mark. Citizen doesn't sound too bad. Where we going?"

 

"Nobody seems to know. Now, we don't quite trust you, Mark, so we're going to tie you to a seat. That must have been quite a ride. Maybe you really are made of starstuf."

 

Mark was letting himself be led forward, to an empty chair. "All things considered, I'd rather ride inside. I was too mad to let go. We're not really going to hit Gold, are we?"

 

He's turned docile! Lawn thought in disgust. He's given in to the mutineers! Are they really going to win?

 

And then she saw that they were not.

 

She kept her silence.

 

dave counted ten seats and thirteen citizens, one dead. Horse didn't need a chair. Neither did the three jungle giants. Quite the contrary! But even with the wide cargo space aft, the carm was crowded.

 

The citizens seemed calm enough. Exhausted, Clave guessed, and too awestruck to feel fear. He felt a touch of that hixnself~ Most of them- even the silver man-were looking out the windows.

 

The sky was nearly black and scattered with dozens of white points. The Scientist's Apprentice broke her angry silence to say, "You've heard about them all your lives. The stars! You say it without knowing what you're talking about. Well, there they are. You'll die for it, but you've seen the stars."

 

Real they were, and impressive enough, but they were just points. It was the Blue Ghost and Ghost Child that held dave's attention. He'd never seen them either. The paired fans of violet light were vivid and terrifying. They were entirely outside the Smoke Ring, flowing out along the hole in the ring.

 

Anthon and Debby were keeping busy. They had moored the ponchos and the smoked and cleaned carcass of a salmon bird to fixtures along the cargo hold walls. Now they were carving thin slices from the bird.

 

dave remembered feeling like this when the tree came apart. He didn't know enough to make decisions! Then, he had been ready to strangle the Grad for withholding information. Now- The Grad was watching him uneasily. Did he think dave would attack their prisoners? dave smiled back. He made his way aft and helped the jungle giants pass curls of meat forward.

 

Now was different. dave was not Chairman here. If they died it would not be dave's fault.

 

Probably the jungle giants found the carm more frightening than most-than Clavel-yet they were acting to make it their home.

 

Squeezegourds of water were passing up and down the chairs. . three squeezegourds, looking somewhat flat. Clave wondered about the carm's water supply.

 

He was about to ask when the Grad spoke first. "Gavving~ would you come here for a moment?"

 

There was secret urgency in his voice. Anthon noticed and continued what he was doing.  So did Clave.  If their help was needed it would be requested.

 

Gavving squeezed between Lawn and the Grad. The summons was something of a relief. Minya's news had startled him, and he did ~ time to compose his face.

 

The Grad pointed. "See the red border blinking around that number?"

 

"Sure."

 

"Red means emergency. That number is the air in the cabin. How do you feel? Allergy attack coming on?"

 

"Actually, it was the last thing on my mind." Gavving listened to his body. Ears and sinuses were unhappy. . . eyes scratchy...

 

"Maybe."

 

The yellow number dropped a digit behind the decimal point.

 

"Scientist's Apprentice, any comments?"

 

"Fix it yourself, Jeffer the Scientist."

 

"Grad, what does it mean?"

 

"Oh, sorry, Gavving. There's no air outside. The air inside must be leaking out into the, um, universe. You know, I talk to you when I get confused. Maybe you'll come up with something."

 

Gavving chewed it over. "What Clave said-"

 

"dave did not say that the carm is almost four hundred years old and maybe falling apart."

 

"Like all those bicycle gears . . . okay, what's your opinion of the Scientist's Apprentice?"

 

Lawn bore their considering stares with her lips pressed tight and her eyes full on Gavving's. The Grad smiled and said, "Better you ask her opinion of us."

 

Gavving didn't have to. "Four enemy warriors, six copsiks caught in mutiny, one corpse, and a Navy man who surrendered his weapon." Her expression ifickered. Had she forgotten the silver man? This wouldn't be easy, guessing at a stranger's thoughts. Try anyway. "I only wondered if she's good enough to save us if she wanted to. We could waste too much time on that."

 

The Grad nodded. "Lawri, if the Scientist were here, could he save us?"

 

"Maybe. But he wouldn't!"

 

"Kiance wouldn't save the carm?" The Grad smiled.

 

She shrugged as best she could within her bonds. "All right, he'd save the carm if he could."

 

"How?" She didn't answer. "Can you save us?"

 

She raised an eyebrow at him. Gavving found that admirable, but what he said was, "Bluff Grad, we'll have to fix it ourselves. The Scientist told you things about gases, didn't he?"

 

"Both Scientists did. Come to that . . . oxygen? We must be getting air from the oxygen tank. It's the hydrogen tank that's empty. And we'll have more fuel pretty soon. The carm splits water into the two flavors of fuel. The one flavor, the oxygen, it's what we breathe. At least we'll have some time."

 

Gavving studied the blonde girl's face. What did she know? What did she want? If she only wanted everybody dead, then dead they were. But there was something she might hate even more than mutiny.

 

It depended on getting the Grad moving, which was a good idea anyway. How? Ask stupid questions; that worked sometimes. "Can we find the leak? Set something smoldering and watch the smoke?"

 

"Yes! It'll tell the others what's wrong, though, and burn up air too. Mph?"

 

"Inspiration?"

 

"Molecules of. . . bits of air move more slowly when they're cold."

 

The board was already alive with yellow numbers and drawings. The Grad touched an arrowhead on a vertical line, then moved his fingertip slowly toward him. The arrowhead became two arrowheads, and one followed his finger.

 

"I never even wondered if we could make the cabin warmer or cooler, but it has to be true. That oxygen is liquid. Cold! It'd be freezing our lungs out if something wasn't keeping the cabin warm. Okay, now it'll be cold in here, but we'll live longer. I think you'd better tell dave what's on and let him make the announcement. They'll have to know now, because we'll have to pass out the extra ponchos. Then we'll try the smoke-"

 

Lawn spoke. "Just let me at the damn controls!"

 

Gavving turned from her. Hide the smile. Lawn might want their deaths, but she couldn't let the Grad save them without her help. He asked, "Is it too complicated to tell the Grad?"

 

"No. But I won't!"

 

"Grad? Try the smoke?"

 

"Worst she can do is kill us. Besides, Lawn always wanted to fly the carm. Lawn, the position of Scientist's Apprentice is now open."

 

Lawn flexed her arms and looked about at her captors. Her hands prickled; her arms hurt. Her urge was to strike out at the mutineers. But the look on Jeffer's face: considering . . . like Kiance waiting for the right answer to some stupid rote question . .

 

The sky was black as charcoaL The stars were white points, like tiny versions of Voy, but thousands of them. And if they roused fear in Lawri, what must they be doing to these savages? She watched them nibbling on rolled slices of raw meat, and suddenly smiled.

 

She reached past the Grad and tapped the white key. "Pnikasyvat Voice." Hear this you treefeedersi

 

"Ready," said a voice belonging to nobody in the carm. "Identify yourself~"

 

The lunchtime conversation went dead silent. The jungle giant male cocked his crossbow. She turned her back on him. "I am Lawn the Scientist. Give us your status."

 

"Fuel tanks nearly empty. Power depleted, batteries charging. Air pressure dropping, will be dangerously low in five hours, lethal in seven. Displays are available."

 

"Why are we losing air pressure?"

 

"All openings are sealed. I will seek the source of a leak." Lawn tapped the white switch again. "That's what will kill us. We'll strangle without air. Too bad. It would have been quite a show, but you won't see it," she flashed at the Grad.

 

"Why did you turn oft' the display?"

 

"Voice can't hear us till I tap it again. It can do almost anything if you say the wrong thing, just talking."

 

"Would it talk to me?"

 

"You're a . . ." Her scorn became something else. "It wants you to identify yourself, and it remembers. Hmm. Try it." She tapped the talk button.

 

"Prikazyvat Voice," said the Grad.

 

"Identify yourself."

 

"I'm the Scientist of Quinn Tuft. Do we have enough fuel to get back into the Smoke Ring?"

 

For a moment the Grad forgot how to breathe. Then, "We have a water supply. Won't it be separated into fuel?"

 

Voice paused. Then, "If the flux of sunlight maintains its intensity, I will have fuel soon enough to affect a return. I note a mass near our course. I can use it as a gravity sling."

 

"Would that be Gold?"

 

"Rephrase."

 

"The mass, is it Goldblatt's World?"

 

The Grad tapped the switch before he began laughing. "Go for Gold! if we live that long."

 

The whispering aft had become obtrusive. With the air turning icy and Voice speaking from the walls, luncheon was sliding over to panic. Jeffer said, "Gavving, you'd better tell them about the pressure. We don't have time to brief Clave."

 

Lawn asked, "Shall I do it?" She knew more about what was going on.

 

Jeffer seemed appalled. "Lawn, they'd think you started the leak!"

 

"Savages-"

 

"Anyone would."

 

She couldn't decide if he meant it.

 

Gavving was telling the rest of the mutineers about the leak. He told it long, including what they planned to do about it. Jeffer tapped the white button. "Pnikazyvat Voice. Have you found the leak?"

 

"I find no point of leakage. Air is disappearing."

 

"Will we live long enough to get back into the Smoke Ring?"

 

"No. The course I've programmed would take twenty-eight hours. Air pressure will have dropped to lethal levels in ten hours. Times are approximate."

 

Lawn couldn't remember how long an hour might be. Still. . . ten hours? It had been seven before the cabin got so cold. She wondered why Voice hadn't taken it into account. Sometimes Voice could be such a fool.

 

She said, "Display the areas where you have looked for a leak."

 

The yellow line diagrams of the cabin sprouted green borders along two-thirds of the interior. Red dots blinked elsewhere. "Those are sensors that have died," Lawn told Jeffer. "Voice, implement your course correction."

 

Jeffer added, "Prikazyvat Voice. Do not use the main motor at any time!"

 

"I will fire as I have fuel," Voice said. "First burn in ten seconds.

 

Nine. Eight."

 

"Everybody grab something," Jeffer called.

 

Mutineers were pulling the extra ponchos over their clothing. They stopped to strap themselves in. The jungle giants moved against the aft wall and grabbed fixtures- "Two. One."

 

But only the attitude jets lit. The carm's nose swung toward the

 

Smoke Ring and stayed there while the aft motors fired. It lasted several tens of breaths. They would pass closer to Gold . . . which had become huge, a spiral storm seen edge-on, whose rim was already below them.

 

If Mark weren't tied, Lawni thought, and ~( the main motor fired~ nobody would be able to move except Mark It was something to keep in mind. Jeffer didn't seem to realize that the thrust could be controlled, by touching the top or bottom of those rectangles to raise or lower the fuel flow.

 

Meanwhile . . . how could the leaks be blocked? If there was a way, Lawn was damned well going to find it before Jeffer did.

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-one

 

Go For Gold

 

 

 

"KENDY FOR THE STATE. KENDY FOR THE STATE. KENDY FOR the State."

 

The response came almost instantly, sharp and crisp through near vacuum and dwindling distance. The CARM was out of the Smoke Ring. Kendy had clear sending for the first time since the mutiny. He sent: "Status?"

 

The motors were functional, all of them. Fuel: a few teacups full.

 

Water: a good deal. Solar power converters: functional. Batteries: charged, but running down as they changed water into liquefied hydrogen and oxygen. Sunlight flux from T3 would be steady in vacuum. There would be fuel.

 

The CARM was on manual. CO2 flux indicated a full load of passengers. The carbon dioxide was accumulating slowly; the life support system could almost handle it.. . and the cabin was leaking air. Oh shit, they were dying!

 

"Course record since initiating burn."

 

It came. The CARM was rising. It would have passed near the L2 point-Kendy's own location, the point of stability behind Goldblatt's World-were it not for Goldblatt's World itself. And were it not for Goldblatt's World, the CARM would presently fall back to safety...but the core of an erstwhile gas giant planet was pulling the CARM's orbit into a tilted near-circle entirely outside the Smoke Ring.

 

"Switch to my command."

 

Massive malfunction.

 

"Give me video link with crew."

 

"Denied."

 

And the cabin pressure was dropping. Something had to be done.

 

Kendy sent, "Copy," and waited.

 

The CARM computer thought it over, slowly, bit by bit; geared up; and began beaming its entire program. It took twenty-six minutes.

 

Kendy looked it over-a simplified Kendy, patched with subsequent commands and garbled by time and entropy-while he sent, "Stand by for update programming."

 

"Standing by."

 

Kendy didn't believe it. The long-dead programmer would have embedded protect commands. He simply hadn't reached them yet... unless they had deteriorated too? Kendy didn't have an update program, he'd been so sure. He'd have to assemble it from scratch.

 

The speed with which a computer can think was Kendy's triumph and tragedy. Always he was freshly surprised by the boredom of his evenfless life. It stayed fresh, because Kendy was constantly editing his memories. The storage capacity of his computer-brain was fixed. He was always near his limit. He had edited his memory of the mutiny, deleting the names of key figures, for fear that he might later seek vengeance against their descendants. He regularly deleted the memory of his boredom.

 

Once he had examined the solution to the Four-Color Problem in topology. The proof submitted in 1976 by Appal and Haken could not be checked except by a computer. Kendy was a computer, he had experienced the proof directly and found it valid. He remembered only that.

 

The details he had deleted.

 

He had used a simplified program for the CARM computers, then deleted it. But now he had the CARM's program as a template. He ran through it, sharpening everywhere, correcting where suitable, updating his own simplified personality. . . leaving intact the CARM's own memories of the time of mutiny, because he was determined to ignore them. He looked for a way to plug the leak in the cabin. It was hopeless: the life support sensors had failed, not the program. He almost deleted the command that barred use of the main motor. The main motor was more efficient. He didn't understand that command. . . but it was input, and recent. He left it alone.

 

Now: a course program to bring them here, to study them.

 

He barely had time to hope. Kendy apprehended orbital mechanics directly. He saw instantly that the fuel wasn't there, nor the sunlight to electrolyze enough water in time. His own pair of CARMS, which fed him power via their solar collectors, didn't have fuel to meet and tow the savages' CARM even if he were willing to risk them both.

 

Forget it and try again . . . He could get them back into the Smoke Ring via a close approach past Goldblatt's World. In fact, the CARM's computer had already worked out a course change. It didn't matter.

 

They'd be dead by then.

 

He left that part of the program intact. He deleted the barriers that barred him from communication. He beamed the revised program to the CARM at the snail's pace the CARM could accept.

 

The CARM filed it.

 

It had worked! At least he could look them over, get to know them a little, before they were gone. After five hundred and twelve years!

 

The cold had gotten to the jungle giants. Anthon and Debby and Ilsa were curled into a friendly, cuddling, shivering ball, with the spare ponchos pulled around them.

 

The other passengers were taking it better. There were ponchos for everyone but Mark, and two to spare. One they tore into scarves. Jinny wound a scarf around Mark's neck and tucked the ends into the collar of the silver suit. "Comfortable?"

 

The silver man seemed cheerful enough, despite the lines that held him immobile in his chair. "Fine, thanks."

 

"Is that suit thick enough?"

 

"Damn it, woman, you're the one who's shivering. This suit keeps its own temperature, just like the carm. If anyone needs my scarf. .

 

"You want it?"

 

Jinny smiled and shook her head.

 

"Of course, I'd be even better off with my helmet closed," Mark said, and they laughed as if he'd said something funny. It didn't need saying: if they couldn't plug the leak, or if Lawn chose to kill them somehow, Mark would die with the rest.

 

The Grad had made a torch from one of the scarves plus fat scraped from the skin of the salmon bird. He was about to light it when he noticed mist before his face. He blew. . . white smoke. Everyone save Horse was breathing white smoke, as if they were all using tobacco.

 

"If you think something's leaking, breathe on it!" he announced.

 

"Watch your breath. No, Jayan, forget the doors. Voice has sensors there."

 

Lawn did something to the controls "I'm turning up the humidity the wetness in the air. More fog that way."

 

Citizens took their turns at the control panel to find the blank spots in the yellow diagram. The Grad began the uncomfortable job that others might miss: he crawled between the seats, edging around the cold corpse of Gavving's friend, blowing mist where the floor joined the starboard wall.

 

Merril called, "I've got it. It's the bow window."

 

A crowd of citizens crawled around the rim of the bow window, blowing, watching the pale smoke form streamlines where the window joined the hull. The window was loose around the ventral-port corner.

 

"Keep looking," Lawri ordered. "There may be more."

 

She herself made her way aft. The Grad joined her at the back wall. "What have you got in mind? Is there a way to plug the leaks?"

 

Voice began a countdown. Lawn waited while small jets fired. The cluster of jungle giants sagged against the aft wall without falling apart. lisa giggled. She must be still floating from the spitgun drug.

 

The burn ended. Lawri said, "Maybe. Have we got something to hold water?"

 

The Grad called, "We need squeezegourds!"

 

They found three. Merril collected them and brought them back. Jayan and Jinny were blowing on the side windows, which seemed all right. Gavving and Minya moved along the rim of the bow window, blowing and watching. Mist formed outside and vanished immediately, along a curve of window as long as the Grad's arm, shoulder to fingers.

 

Lawn turned a valve. Brown water oozed from the aft wall, formed a growing globule.

 

"It's mud!" Merril said in disgust.

 

Lawri said, "We put pond water in. The carm breaks the pure water into hydrogen and oxygen, but it leaves the goo behind. Every so often we have to clean it out. That's why there's an eject system, and you can be damn glad of it."

 

"We can't drink that stuff. We should have picked up Minya's water supply."

 

"Say that if we live long enough to get thirsty." Lawn took the gourds and filled them from the brown globule. Merril winced, watching each of their water gourds become fouled.

 

Lawn went forward with the gourds. Would she plug the leak with mud? He could do it himself, now, if Lawn balked; but he wanted her on his side, as far as that was possible.

 

Lawn squeezed muddy water along the rim of the bow window.

 

Mist showed outside. The glass began to frost. The water stayed where she put it, in a long brown bubble. Over the next several minutes-while Lawn alone watched the controls-the water dwindled and thickened to a darker brown. Presently it began to turn hard.

 

Clave said, "Grad? Is it working?"

 

The Grad had read of ice. It was no more real to him than the liquefied gases in the tanks. He looked to Lawri.

 

Lawn met his eyes and said, "I will not accept the position of Scientist's Apprentice."

 

After such a performance, was she quitting on them? Clave spoke first, and in haste. "I'm certain there's room in Quinn Tribe for two Scientists. Especially under the circumstances."

 

"I've saved you. Now I want to go home to London Tree. That's all I want."

 

She's earned it, the Grad thought, but- Clave said, "Point to it."

 

The carm was nose-down to the Smoke Ring. Closest was the storm pattern that surrounded and cloaked Gold, a turbulent spiral of cloud, humped in the middle. The whole pattern drifted west at a speed that looked sluggish, but must be quick beyond imagination. The arms of the Smoke Ring reached away in both directions. They could see the flow of cloud currents, faster toward Voy, drifting backward near the carm. Minor details-like integral trees-were invisibly small.

 

"You're the Scientist," Clave said. "Could you get us back to London Tree?"

 

Lawn shook her head. She began to shiver; and once begun, she couldn't stop. Minya got her the last of the ponchos and they wrapped it around her, then tied a strip of cloth round her head and throat. She said, "We're not losing air anymore. Leave the humidity up and we won't get thirsty so fast. Jeffer, I'm cold and tired and lost. I can't make decisions. Don't bother me."

 

They weren't human.

 

Kendy had watched them for a bit. They had the temperature turned far down. Kendy was going to fix it, until he realized that the lowered temperature had slowed the leak.

 

They must have kept some of the old knowledge. But the cold was killing them too. He watched the really strange ones succumb first and crawl into a ball to wait for their deaths.

 

The CARM's medical sensors indicated a corpse and twelve citizens, not one of them quite normal. One had no legs. If lethal recessive genes were appearing in the Smoke Ring, it might point to inbreeding. Otherwise they seemed healthy. He saw no scars or pockmarks, no sign of disease-which was reasonable. Discipline had carried none of the parasites or bacteria that had adapted over the millions of years to prey on humanity. They didn't even show the sores that came with insufficient bathing.

 

The abnormal height, the long, vulnerable necks and long, fragile fingers and long, long toes, must be evolution at work, an adaptation to the free-fall environment.

 

He would have his problems, bringing these back into the State. In its way this small group was a perfect test sample. He could make his mistakes here and never pay a penalty. In time the CARM would be found by other savages.

 

Time to make his appearance.

 

Lawn was eating raw salmon bird, clearly hating it, but eating. Jayan and Jinny had gone aft to join the clustered Carther States warriors. It looked like fun, the Grad thought wistfully; but he was needed here.

 

Something was happening to the bow window: a pattern like a colored shadow, occluding the view.

 

"Lawri? Have you done something?"

 

"Something's wrong . . . I've never seen anything like . . ." she trailed off.

 

The carm was silent. A ghostly face filled the bow window. It took on color, huge and transparent, with the storms around Gold showing through.

 

It was brutal, with bushy brown hair and brows; thick brow ridges and cheekbones; a square, muscular jaw; a short neck as thick in proportion as a man's thigh. A face that resembled Mark's or Harp's. A gigantic dwarf~ It spoke in Voice's voice.

 

"Citizens, this is Kendy for the State. Speak, and your reward will be beyond the reach of your imagination."

 

The passengers looked at each other.

 

"I am Sharls Davis Kendy," the face said. "I~brought your ancestors here to the Smoke Ring and abandoned them when they made mutiny against me. I have the power to send you into Gold, to your deaths. Speak and tell me why I should not do so."

 

Too many were looking at the Scientists. Was this some trick of Lawri's? The Grad could feel the hair rising in a halo around his head but somebody had to speak. He said, "I am the Quinn Tribe Scientist-"

 

"And I am the London Tree Scientist," Lawri said firmly. "Can you see us?"

 

"We are lost and helpless. If you want our lives, take them."

 

"Tell me of yourselves. Where do you live? Why are you of different sizes?"

 

The Grad said, "We are of three tribes living in two very different places. The three tall ones-" He kept talking while his mind sought a memory. Sharis Davis Kendy?

 

Lawri broke in. "You were the Checker for Dicciplina"

 

"I was and am," said the spectral face.

 

"The Checker's responsibility includes the actions, attitudes, and well-being of his charges,'" Lawn quoted. "If you can help us, you must."

 

"You argue well, Scientist, but my duty is to the State. Should I treat you as citizens? I must decide. How did you come in possession of the CARM? Are you mutineers?"

 

The Grad held his breath . . . and Lawri said, "Certainly not," contemptuously. "The carm belongs to the Navy and the Scientist. I'm the Scientist."

 

"Who are the rest of you? Introduce me."

 

The Grad took over. He tried to stick to lies he could remember, naming the copsiks of London Tree-Jayan, Jinny, Gavving, Minya- as London Tree citizens; Clave and Merril as refugees who had become copsiks; himself as a privileged refugee; the jungle giants as visitors. Too late, he remembered Mark tied motionless in his chair.

 

Go for Gold-"Now, Mark is a mutineer," he said. "He tried to steal the carm."

 

Would the dwarf brand him a liar? But the rest would back him up except Lawri. . . Mark let his eyes drop. He looked sullenly dangerous.

 

Sharis Davis Kendy began to question Mark. Mark answered angrily, belligerently. He created a wild tale of himself as a copsik barred from citizenship by his shape; of trying to steal the carm by activating the main motor, hoping to immobilize all but himself, then finding that the ferocious thrust left him as helpless as the rest.

 

The face seemed satisfied. "Scientist, tell me more of London Tree. You keep some who are barred from citizenship, do you?"

 

Lawri said, "Yes, but their children may qualify."

 

"Why does a tree come apart?" the face asked, and "How does London Tree move?" and "Why do you call yourself Scientist?" and "Are many of you crippled?" and "How many children do you expect to die before they grow to make children?" It wanted populations, distances, durations: numbers. Lawn and the Grad answered as best they could. With these they could stick close to the truth.

 

And finally the voice of Kendy said, "Very well. The CARM will reenter breathable atmosphere in eleven hours. The air will slow it. Keep the-"

 

"Hours?"

 

"What measure do you use? The circuit that Tee-Three makes around the sky? In about one-tenth of a circuit, you'll be falling through air. Air is dangerous at such speeds. Keep the bow forward. You'll see fire; don't worry about it. Don't touch anything at the bow. It will be hot. Don't open the airlock until you've stopped. By then you'll have fuel to move about. Do you understand all of that?"

 

Lawri said, "Yes. What are our chances of living through this?"

 

The face of Kendy started to answer-and froze with its mouth half open.

 

Update: Cabin pressure has returned to normal.

 

They had blocked the leak! How? A man without glands might naturally feel curiosity and duty as his strongest emotions. For Kendy these were now in conflict. And the CARM was about to pass out of range.

 

Kendy had never intended to tell them that they would not live to see reentry. Medical readouts implied that they had lied to him too... and he dared not accuse them of it.

 

This changed everything. The savages might actually return to describe Kendy and Discipline. He could stop them, of course, by beaming some wild course change to the CARM. Or he could spend the next few minutes . . . indoctrinating them into the State? Impossible. He could take one trivial step in that direction, then try to impress them with the need to talk to him again.

 

And when they did that-years from now, or decades-he could begin the work that had waited for half a thousand years.

 

The face said, "You have stopped the leak. Well done. Now you must kill the mutineer. Mutiny cannot be tolerated in the State."

 

Mark went pale. Lawn started to speak, the Grad rode her down. "He'll face trial on our return."

 

"Do you doubt his guilt?"

 

"That will be decided," the Grad said. At this point he probably became guilty of mutiny himself, but what choice did he have? If Mark didn't talk to save himself Lawri would. And I captain the carm!

 

"Justice is swift in the State-"

 

The Grad countered, "Justice is accurate in Quinn Tuft."

 

"Our swiftness may well depend on instant communication, which you clearly do not have." The face began speaking louder and more rapidly, as if in haste. "Very well. I have a great deal to tell you. I can give you instant communication and power that depends on sunlight instead of muscle. I can tell you of the universe beyond what you know. I can show you how to link your little tribes into one great State, and to link your State to the stars you now see for the first time. Come to me as soon as you can . .

 

The voice of Kendy died in a most peculiar fashion, blurring into mere noise, as the brutal face blurred into a wash of colored lines. Then the voice was silent, and the storm pattern around Gold glowed blue and white through the bow window.

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-two

 

Citizens' Tree

 

 

 

KENDY'S READINGS WERE BEGINNING TO BLUR. FRUSTRATINGLY, the CARM's aft and ventral cameras worked perfectly. He had two fine views of the stars and the thickening Smoke Ring atmosphere. Plasma streamed past the dorsal camera, and Kendy sought the spectral lines of silicon and metals: signs that the CARM's hull was boiling away. There was some ablation, not much more than he would have expected when the CARM was new.

 

Inside the cabin the CO2 content was building. The jolting looked bad enough to tenderize meat. The passengers were suffering: mouths wide, chests heaving. Temperature was up to normal and rising. A blurred figure snapped its safety bands loose and struggled to tear its clothing away. Kendy couldn't get medical readings through the growing ionization, but the pilot had been under terrific tension earlier.

 

It looked chancy, whether the CARM would live or die. Kendy wasn't sure which he preferred.

 

He had bungled.

 

The principle was simple and had served the State before. To further the cause, a potential convert was ordered to commit some obscene crime. He could never repudiate the cause after that. To do so would be to admit that he had committed an abomination.

 

The caveat was simple too. One must never give such an order unless it would be obeyed.

 

Kendy was ashamed and angry. He had attempted to bind their loyalty to him by ordering an execution. Instead, he had almost turned them all into mutineers! He'd had to back down gracefully and fast.

 

He'd had no chance to recover from that, with the ionosphere building up around the CARM, cutting communications. His medical readings told him that they had lied to him, somewhere. He shouldn't have forced them to do that either! He didn't know enough even to guess at what they were hiding.

 

Too late now. If he sent some lethal course correction now, ionization would garble it. If they lived, they would tell of a Kendy who was powerful but gullible, a Kendy who could be intimidated. If they died Kendy would remain a legend fading into a misty past.

 

The forward view was a blur of fire as the CARM plowed deeper into atmosphere. He was losing even the cabin sensors .

 

There was flame in front of them, transparent blue, streaming to the sides. The Grad felt the heat on his face. They'd be losing air again: the black ice around the rim of the bow window had turned to mud . . mud that bubbled. He'd been wrong. The screaming flame-hot air massed before the bow was coming in.

 

Things came at them. Little things were hopeless; they hit or they didn't. Blood spots turned black and evaporated. Larger objects could be avoided.

 

His hands strangled the chair arms. Trying to steer the carm through this would have been bad enough. Watching Lawri steer was distilled horror. From her rigid posture, the knotted jaw and bared teeth, she was just at the edge of screaming hysterics. Her hands hovered like claws, reached, withdrew, then tapped suddenly at blue dashes. His own hands twitched when she was slow to see danger.

 

The chairs were full. Citizens had objected, but the Grad had simply kept yelling until it got done: the corpse of Horse moored to cargo fixtures; Mark the silver man in back, gripping cargo moorings with his abnormal strength; Clave beside him, swearing that his own strength was enough; everyone else strapped into seats that would give some protection, even to jungle giants, against thrust from the bow. Reentry wasn't like using the main motor. It was an attack. The air was trying to pound the carm into bits of flaming starstuff.

 

Lawn had lived half her life with the carm. She had to be better at this than the Grad, she'd insisted, and she was right. He gripped the chair arms and waited to be smashed like a bug.

 

The carm fell east and in. Integral trees showed foreshortened, as three. . . four pairs of green dots, hard to see . . . she'd seen them: jets fired. A bit of green fluff; dead ahead. . . Lawn fired port jets the carm swung sluggishly around, shuddering as the flpming air blasted the nose off-center. Forward jets: the carm eased backward, too slowly, while the fluff swelled to become an oncoming jungle.

 

A grunt of pain, aft. Clave had been jarred loose. The silver man was holding him in place with a hand on his chest.

 

The Grad saw birds and scarlet flowers before the jungle was past. Lawri let the bow face forward again. A pond a klomter across just missed swatting them; droplets of fog in its wake rang the hull like a myriad tiny chimes. The debris was growing ever thicker.

 

And it was moving past them more slowly.

 

Something barred their path like a green web. It might have been half of an integral tree with the tuft gone wild, the foliage spreading like gauze, the trunk ending in a swollen knob. Small birds played in the slender branches. Swordbirds hovered at the edges. He'd never seen such a plant . . . and Lawn was steering clear of it.

 

The Grad said, "Lawri?"

 

"It's over," she said. "Damn, I'm tired. Take the controls, Jeffer."

 

"I have it. Relax."

 

Lawri rubbed her eyes fiercely. The Grad touched blue dashes to slow the cairn further. A fingertip touch set the cabin warmth control to normal. The cabin was already warm. If it hadn't been lethally cold when they entered atmosphere, they might well have roasted.

 

He looked back at his passengers. Six of Quinn Tribe remained.

 

Twelve total, to start a new tribe . . . 'We're back," he said. "I don't know just where. Are we all alive? Does anyone need medical help?"

 

"Lawn You did it!" Merril chortled. "We lived long enough to get thirsty!"

 

The Grad said, "We're low on fuel and there's no water at all. Let's find a pond. Then pick a home."

 

"Open the doors," Jayan said. She released her straps and moved aft, with Jinny following.

 

"Why?"

 

"Horse."

 

Right." He opened the airlock to a mild breeze that smelled fresh, clean, wonderful. The carm's air stank! It was stale~ a treefodder stink, fear and rotting meat and too many people breathing in each other's faces. Why hadn't he noticed?

 

The twins released the corpse from its mooring, wincing at the touch. They towed it through the doors. The Grad waited while they sent the bones of the salmon bird after it.

 

Then he fired the aft motors. If I met his ghost, he wouldn't even recognize me. How can I say I'm sorry? Never use the main motor unless -Horse dwindled into the sky.

 

The pond was huge, spinning fast enough to form a lens-shape, fast enough to have spun off smaller ponds. The Grad chose one of the smaller satellites, no bigger than the carm itseIf~ He let the carm drift forward until the bow window just touched the silver sphere.

 

What happened then left him breathless. He was looking into the interior of the pond. There were water-breathing things shaped like long teardrops with tiny wings, moving through a maze of green threads. He turned on the bow lights, and the water glowed. There was a jungle in there, and swimming waterbirds darting in flocks among the plants.

 

Lawn roused him. "Come on, Jeffer. Nobody else knows how to do this. Pick two mutineers with good lungs."

 

He followed her aft and didn't ask her about lungs until he'd figured it out himself. "Clave, Anthon, we need some muscle. Bring the squeezegourds. Better than lungs, Scientist."

 

"Squeezegourds, fine. If you'd planned your mutiny better, you'd have dismounted the pump and stored it aboard."

 

He laughed and thought, Should I have asked your advice too? and didn't say it. After all Lawri had been through, it was good to hear her joking, even in treemouth humor.

 

While she mounted the hose to the aft wall, the Grad carried the other end outside. He saw no sign of the nets that had covered the hull. Even the char had been burned off. He tethered himself before he jumped toward the water a few meters away. Clave came after him, also properly moored, carrying squeezegourds, followed by Jinny and Jayan.

 

Everyone was coming out. Mark was out of his pressure suit and tethered to Anthon. Merril, Usa, Debby . . . In a tangle of lines they plunged into the water and drank. The Grad hadn't let himself think of his thirst. Now he surrendered to it, submerging head and shoulders and doing his best to swallow the pond. The carm's headlamps lit the water around him.

 

It was playtime. Why not? He tugged on his line, pulled himself out before he drowned. The rest of the citizens were drinking, splashing, washing themselves and each other.

 

Was Lawri alone in the cairn?

 

Alone with the controls of a vehicle that could hover near the pond, spraying fire on men and women who would have to choose between burning and drowning-He saw Lawn emerge with Minya and Gayving behind her. He'd been careless; they hadn't. The Grad kept an eye on her thenceforth to be sure she didn't return alone.

 

She splashed in the water. She and the dwarf washed each other and talked a little, in earshot of Anthon. Her motions were jerky, twitchy.

 

She looked wire-tense in the aftermath of reentry. His suspicions seemed silly; she was in no shape to contemplate a countermutiny. He wondered if she would have nightmares.

 

They took turns pumping. The technique was to shove the neck of a squeezegourd into the hose, warily, because there were three gourds in motion; squeeze; duck it under water, squeeze, wait while it filled; into the hose, squeeze.

 

"My arms just quit," Minya said and handed her gourd to Merril.

 

With her archer's muscles she had lasted longer than most. Gavving was some distance from the others, motionless in the water. He'd already speared four peculiar, supple, scaly waterbirds. She watched him and wondered how he really felt about the guest growing in her.

 

How did she feel? Her impregnation was part of her past. The past was dead for anyone, but stone dead for these citizens, with hundreds of thousands of klomters and the storms of Gold itself between them and their homes. She would have a child. Time was when she had given up hope of that . . . but how did Gavving feel?

 

Mcml said, "Nobody's talking about Sharls Davis Kendy."

 

"What for?" Debby wondered. "He never bothered us before and he never will again."

 

"Still, it's something to have seen the Checker, isn't it? Something to tell our children. Someone that old must have learned a lot-"

 

"If he wasn't lying, or crazy."

 

"He had the facts right," the Grad said. "We did take him at his word, didn't we? Maybe he only had cassettes, like me. A dwarf Scientist, stuck out there in a carm, like we almost were. He's not all that bright, either. He swallowed Mark's story-"

 

"Come on, I was brilliant!" the silver man bellowed.

 

"You tell a fine story. Mark, why did you back me up?"

 

It was a breath or two before the dwarf answered. "You understand that I can't support a bloody copsik revolution."

 

"Okay. Why?"

 

"It was none of this Kendy's business. Whoever he is. Whatever he is.',

 

"Yeah . . . He did have some interesting machinery. Maybe he got stuck aboard Discipline itself, somehow. I'd have liked to see Discipline."

 

Lawri hadn't even tried pumping. She flexed her fingers, wondering if they would heal. She had smelled the stink of fear on herself. That at least was gone.

 

She said, "I wouldn't deal with Sharls Davis Kendy if he gave me Discipline. Ugly, arrogant treefeeder. He wanted Mark dead like you'd kill a turkey, because it's time. Convenient. And he ordered us around like copsiks!"

 

They laughed at that. Even Mark.

 

At the end of three hours their forearms were distilled pain. The blue indicator inside read H20: 260. The Grad asked Lawri, "Enough?"

 

"For what we've got in mind-"

 

"We wondered about going home," Debby said.

 

Clave snorted, but they waited for Lawri's reply. She said reluctantly,

 

"I'd never find London Tree again. Carther States is even smaller, and they're both on the wrong side of Gold. We'd have to accelerate west, drop in from the Smoke Ring, and let Gold pull us around. Do you want to go for Gold again?"

 

She smiled at their reactions. "Me neither. I'm tired. We can get to another tree and moor the carm. We'll build a pump before we need more water than that."

 

"We'd prefer a jungle, of course," lisa said.

 

One of the women bristled. "Nine of us and three of you! If-"

 

Clave said, "Hold it, Merril. Usa, are you sure? You can move a jungle, and that's good, right?"

 

lisa nodded cautiously. Anthon said, "That's one of the things we like about jungle life."

 

"But you can only do it every twenty years or so. We can moor the carrier. . . carm to the middle of an integral tree and move it when and where we like."

 

"Why not do that with a jungle?"

 

"Where would you mount the carm?"

 

Anthon thought it over. "The funnel? No, it might suddenly blow live steam-" He smiled suddenly. "There are more of you than us anyway. Sure, pick a tree."

 

There was a grove of eight small trees, thirty to fifty kilometers long.

 

The Grad chose the biggest, without asking. He hovered on the forward jets at the western reach of the in tuft.

 

It was a wilderness. A stream ran down the trunk and directly into the treemouth. He looked for the rounded shapes of distorted old huts, and they weren't there. The foliage around the treemouth had never been cut; there were no paths for burial ceremonies or moving of garbage. No earthlife showed, not even as weeds.

 

It was daunting. He said cheerily, "It seems we're the first here.

 

Lawn, have you thought of a way to land this thing?"

 

"You have the helm."

 

He'd thought it through in detail. "I'm afraid our best move is to moor at the trunk and go down."

 

"Climb?"

 

"We did it before. Clave could lead most of us down while, say, Gavving and I wait. We'd have the carm for rescue operations. After the rest of you get down, Gavving and I can follow. We've climbed before-"

 

"Hold it," Clave said. "This is taking too treefeeding long. Grad, quit fooling around and just land in the treemouth."

 

"We might set it on fire!"

 

"Then we try again with another tree!"

 

Lawn had gone berserk at the suggestion of landing in the treemouth of London Tree. Now she just rubbed her eyes. Tired .

 

They were all too tired. They'd had enough of shocks and strangeness. dave was right, delay would be torment, and there were trees to waste.

 

There was no kind of landing site in that wilderness. Everything he saw was green; there was no drought here. Would it burn?

 

Go for GoIS

 

He went in over the treemouth and rammed the carm into the foliage hard enough to stick. Still shaken by the impact, they forced their way through the doors, fast, and flailed with ponchos at the smoldering fires until they went out.

 

Then, finally, they had time to look around.

 

Minya stood panting, grinning, her black hair wild and wet, the blackened poncho trailing from hen hand. She snatched at his hand and cried, "Copter plants!"

 

Gavving laughed. "I didn't know you liked copter plants."

 

"I didn't either. But in London Tree they weeded out the copter plants and flowers and anything else they couldn't use." She tapped at one, two, three ripe plants, and the seed pods buzzed upward. Suddenly she was looking into his eyes, close. "We did it. Just like we planned, we found an unoccupied tree and it's ours."

 

"Six of us. Six out of Quinn Tuft . . . sorry."

 

"Twelve of us. More to come."

 

She had fought the fire with a predatory grace unhampered by the thickening around her hips. Mlne~ Gavving thought. Whether it looks like me or some copsik runner. . . or Harp, or Merrill Mine,~ ours.

 

He'd tell her when the mood was right. But that was too serious for now. "Okay, everything you see is ours. What shall we call it?"

 

"The thing I like best . . . lean say citizen and mean all of us. I'm no copsik and I'm not a triune. Citizens' Tree?"

 

The foliage tasted like Quinn Tuft in the Grad's childhood, before the drought. He lay on his back in virgin foliage and sucked contemplatively.

 

He became aware that Lawri was watching him from the dappled shadows. She looked cold, or just twitchy, hugging her elbows, cringing as if from a blow. He snapped, "Can't you relax? Eat some foliage."

 

"I did. It's good," she said without inflection.

 

It was irritating. "All right, what's got you worried? Nobody's ever going to call you a copsik runner. You saved our lives and everyone knows it. You're clean, fed, rested, safe, and admired. Take a break, Scientist. It's over."

 

Now she wouldn't meet his eyes. "Jeffer, how does this sound? There are only two London Tree citizens for at least ten thousand kiometers around. Doesn't it stand to reason that we'd . . . get along best together?"

 

He sat back on his haunches. Why ask him? "I suppose it does."

 

"Well, Mark thinks so too."

 

"Okay."

 

"He didn't have to say so. We talked a little about building huts, that's all, but he looks at me like he knows. Like, he's too polite to broach the subject yet, but where else can I go, who else is there? Jeffer, don't make me marry a dwarf!"

 

"Uh . . . huh."

 

She turned, convulsively, to see his face. He held up a hand to stop her from speaking. "In principle, two Scientists ought to make good mates too. Does that make sense? But you watched me murder Kiance. I didn't warn him. I didn't make any speeches about copsiks and freedom and war and justice. I just killed him the first good chance I got. I'd have killed you too to get us free of that place."

 

She didn't nod, she didn't speak.

 

"You could put a harpoon in my belly while I'm sleeping. So don't push me. I have to think."

 

She waited. He thought. Now he knew why she irritated him with her twitchy unhappiness. He was guilty, and she had seen it. Not quite what one wanted in a mate!

 

Did he want a wife? He'd always thought he did, and with seven women and five men in Nameless Tuft . . . no chance for an unm~rried man to play around in such a tiny population, but he should have his choice of wives. So who?

 

Gavving and Minya: married. Gave, Jayan, Jinny: a unit, and the twins seemed to like it that way. Anthon, Debby, lisa might all have left mates in Carther States, and they might all be looking around . . . but Anthon didn't seem to think so, and even if Debby or lIsa were available . . . a romp might be fun, but they looked so odd~ Which left Lawn.

 

He said, being nearly sure he could get away with it, "Lawri, will you forgive me for murdering Klance?"

 

"I notice you said murder. Not kill."

 

"I'm not even claiming it was war. I know what he was to you.  Lawn, I demand this."

 

She turned her back and wept. The Grad did not turn his back. He'd virtually invited her to try to kill him. Now or never, Lawn! You can add too. There's me or there's Mark or there's nobody. I might be giving Mark another reason to kill me. Do I want to risk that?

 

She turned around. "I forgive you for murdering Kiance."

 

"Then let's go to the carm and register a marriage. We'll pick up witnesses along the way."

 

Gave looked down into the treemouth. "I see rocks down there. Good. We'll have to collect them for a cookflre. Cook Gavving's waterbirds. Tear out some foliage so we'll have room. Where do we want the Commons?"

 

He didn't see many of his citizens in earshot, and none were listening. He raised his voice. "Treefodder, we have to get organized! A reservoir. Tunnels. Huts. Pens. Maybe we won't find turkeys, but we're bound to find something. Maybe dumbos. We need everything. Sooner or later we want elevators to the midpoint so we can moor the carm there. But for now-"

 

Anthon, flat on his back in the foliage with a long, long woman in each arm, bellowed, "Claaave! Feed it to the treeee!"

 

Gave grinned at Anthon. He did seem to represent the majority opinion. "Take a break, citizens. We're home."

 

For good or ill, they were alive and safe, two-thirds of the distance from Goldblatt's World to the congestion of masses and life forms around the L4 point; and they would remember Kendy.

 

He had promised a treasure of knowledge. A pity he hadn't had time to give them more of a foretaste; but they must have experienced exactly what he'd predicted during reentry, given that they'd survived. A savage's gods were omniscient, weren't they? Or were they gullible, easily manipulated? Kendy's memory had been pruned of such data.

 

Whatever: the legend would spread.

 

I can show you how to link your little tribes into one great State.

 

He had altered the programming in the CARM. The CARM would watch their behavior and record everything. Before the children of the State came again to Kendy, he would know them .

 

He would know one tiny enclave within that vast cloud. The Smoke Ring was roomy enough for endless variety. lO'~ cubic kilometers of breathable atmosphere was about thirty times the volume of the Earth! Kendy wished for a thousand CARMs, ten thousand. What were they doing in there?

 

Never mind. Sooner or later there would come a man eager to carve out an empire, determined enough to take the CARM, crazy enough to trust his life to the ancient, leaky service vehicle. Kendy would know how to use him. Such men had helped to shape the State on Earth. They would again, in this strange environment.

 

Kendy waited.

 

Dramatis

 

Personae

 

 

 

 

 

Discipline

 

 

 

SHARLS DAVIS KENDY Once a Checker for the State, now deceased. Also, the recordings of Sharls Davis Kendy's personality in the master computer of the seeder ramship Discipline and its service spacecraft.

 

 

 

Quinn Tuft

 

 

 

GAVVING A young warrior subject to allergies.

HARP The teller, or bard.

LAYTHON The Chairman's son.

MARTAL Quinn Tuft's cook (deceased).

THE SCIENTIST Quinn Tuft's guardian of knowledge.

THE GRAD The Scientist's half-trained apprentice.

THE CHAIRMAN Ruler of Quinn Tribe.

CLAVEA mighty warrior, the Chairman's son-in-law.

MAYRIN Clave's wife, the Chairman's daughter.

JAYAN and JINNY Twin sisters enamored of Gave.

MERRIL An older woman, strong, but barren. Small, withered legs.

JIOVAN A hunter.

GLORY A woman of unwanted fame.

ALFIN An older man, Keeper of the treemouth.

 

 

Others

 

 

MINYA A fighting woman of the Truine Squad, of Dalton-Quinn Tu~

SAI~ SMITI'A, JEEL, THANYA, DENISSE Others of the Triune Squad.

KARA Sharman (or Scientist) of Carther States.

DEBBIE, ILSA, HILD, LIZETH, ANTHON Citizens of Carther States.

KLANCE London Tree's Scientist.

LAWRI London Tree's Scientist's Apprentice.

HORSE, JORG, HELN, GWEN Copsiks in London Tree.

DLORIS, HARYET, KOR Supervisors in London Tree.

KARAL, MARK, PATRY London Tree Navy men.

 

Glossary

 

BLUE GHOST and GHOST CHILD-Auroralike glow patches produced by magnetic effects above Levoy's Star's poles. Rarely visible.

 

BRANCH-One at each end of an integral tree, curving to leeward. BRANCHLEI'S-Grow from the spine branches and sprout into foliage

 

CARM-Cargo And Repair Module. Discipline originally carried ten of these.

 

THE CLUMPS-The L4 and L5 points for Gold. They tend to collect debris.

 

COPSIK-Slave. Used as a general insult.

 

COPSIK-RUNNER-Slavetaker or slavemaster.

 

COUON-CANDY JUNGLE or JUNGLES-Describes almost any large cluster of plants. A good many plants and clusters of plants look like fluffy green cotton candy. Many are edible.

 

DAY-One orbit about Levoy's Star, the neutron star (equals two hours for Dalton-Quinn Tree).

 

DUMBO-A predator of the integral trees.

 

FAN FUNGUS-An integral tree parasite. Parts are edible

 

"FEED THE TREE"-Defecate, or move garbage, or die.

 

FLASHER-An insectivorous bird.

 

GO FOR GOLD-Rush headlong into diaster. Or battle!

 

GOLD-See GOLDBLAITS WORLD. Secondary meaning: something to avoid.

 

GOLDBLATPS WORLD-A gas giant planet captured after Levoy's Star went supernova/neutron. Named for Discipline's Astrophysicist, Sam Goldblatt.

 

HUTS-Any dwelling. In the integral trees, huts are woven from living spine branches.

 

INTEGRAL TREE-A crucial plant.

 

JET POD-Some plants grow pods that may be carried for attitude control: they jet gases (of corruption, or of oxygen in plants that favor the outer fringes of the Smoke Ring). Other plants fire seeds when dying, or going to seed, or falling too far out of the Smoke Ring. There are tropisms.

 

LEVOY'S STAR-A neutron star, the heart of the Smoke Ring system. Named for its discoverer, Sharon Levoy, Astrogator assigned to Discipline.

 

NOSE-ARM-See DUMBO.

 

OLD-MAN'S-HAIR-A fungus parasite on integral trees.

 

POND-Any large globule of water.

 

PRIKAZYVAT-Originally, Russian for "command." Presently used to activate computer programs.

 

QUINN TUFr-The in tuft (or point nearest Levoy's Star) of DaltonQuinn Tree.

 

THE SCIENTIST-Quinn Tuft's guardian of knowledge. Tribes elsewhere use the same term.

 

SPINE BRANCHES-Grow from the branch of an integral tree.

 

SUN-A GO star orbits the neutron star at 2.5 X 10' kilometers, supplying the sunlight that feeds the Smoke Ring's water-oxygen-DNA ecology.

 

TREEFODDER-Used as a curse. Treefodder is anything that might feed the tree: excrement, or garbage, or a corpse.

 

TUFTBERRIES-Fruiting bodies growing in the tuft of an integral tree. They fruit and scatter seed only at the tuft closest to the Smoke Ring median.

 

VOY-See LEVOY'S STAR.

 

YEAR-Half of a complete circuit of the sun around Levoy's Star,

 

Directions

 

 

OUT-Away from Levoy's Star.

 

IN-Toward Levoy's Star.

 

EAST-In the orbital direction of the gas torus.

 

WEST-Against the orbital direction of the gas torus. The way the sun

 

moves.

 

WINDWARD-Into the wind.

 

LEEWARD-The direction toward which the wind blows.

 

PORT-To the left if your head is out and you're facing west, or if your head is in and you're facing east, and so forth. Direction of the Ghost Child.

 

STARBOARD-Opposite port. Toward the Blue Ghost.

 

DOWN and UP-Usually applied only where tides or thrust operate.

 

The general rule as known to all tribes is "East takes you out. Out takes you west. West takes you in. In takes you east. Port and starboard bring you back." Even those tribes who no longer can maneuver within the Smoke Ring know the saying.

 

About the Author

 

Larry Niven was born on April 30, 1938, in Los Angeles, California. In 1956, he entered the California Institute of Technology, only to flunk out a year and a half later after discovering a bookstore jammed with used science-fiction magazines. He graduated with a B.A. in mathematics (minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Kansas, in 1962, and completed one year of graduate work in mathematics at UCLA before dropping out to write. His first published story, "The Coldest Place," appeared in the December 1964 issue of Worlds of If

 

Larry Niven's interests include backpacking with the Boy Scouts, science-fiction conventions, supporting the conquest of space, and AAAS meetings and other gatherings of people at the cutting edge of the sciences.

 

He won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1966 for "Neutron Star," and in 1974 for "The Hole Man." The 1975 Hugo Award for Best Novelette was given to "The Borderland of Sol." His novel Ringworld won the 1970 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 1970 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the 1972 Ditmars, an Australian award for Best International Science Fiction.