by Larry Niven
Booce and Carlot rejoined Jeffer in the carm. Booce said, “They seem to be doing all right.”
“But it’s scarred,” Carlot objected.
“And how much wood will that cost us?”
She shrugged. “Five percent? And weren’t we in a hurry to get home?”
Booce was smiling. “Exactly. Jeffer, why this tree?”
“You’ll be painting a line of honey down the trunk, stet? Have a look at that scar.”
“Can you tell me what I’m supposed to find?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Jeffer the Scientist, Citizens’ Tree gave us shelter and a place among you. We’re grateful. I will not quarrel with any decision you make. You won’t need to test it again.”
Jeffer could feel his ears and cheeks burning. “If that scar isn’t more interesting than you expect, you can count on it that I won’t make a fool of myself twice. Stet?”
“Stet. I won’t raise this subject with the Chairman, ever.”
“You are kind. What’s next?”
“The honey line.”
In the cabin the roar of the main drive was like a great beast heard far away; but outside the airlock the roar was deafening. A translucent blue flame reached out from the carm’s main rocket nostril. Warmth backwashed against the bark.
Carlot’s eyes were big with fear. Rather pulled at her arm to set her kicking toward the in tuft, and followed, with Booce following him.
They stopped where the noise had decreased somewhat. The rough bark itself absorbed sound. Booce screamed, “That noise is beyond belief! What is that damn carm, a ship from the stars?”
“Jeffer says it rode here on the starship. My father never saw Discipline.” What Rather said would be true whoever his father was. “But he’s seen the stars. They’re real.”
“I’m afraid of it. I admit it. Look, the noise is scaring the bugs out of the bark! Let’s get to work.”
Booce used a branchwood matchet to open a hole in one of the honeypots. The interior was partitioned; the cells held red, sticky honey. Booce used the blade to paint it on the bark.
“You’ll find a few hornets still in there,” he told Rather. “They try to sting through the sack if you give them a few days to get restless, and then they die. But don’t count on it. Don’t let one get at you. Now you paint dabs a couple of meters apart. Closer, you waste honey. Farther apart, the bugs lose their way.”
Rather had thought he was a climber, but this was different. He had problems keeping up. He was almost lost among the sacks he was carrying. Booce and Carlot climbed head-down; they would have left him behind if Booce had not been stopping to paint the trunk.
They took a breather when the sun was at nadir and the shadows had become confusing. The sun was passing closer to Voy as the year waned.
A day later they took a longer rest. “This is the part I like best,” Booce said. “We’re usually in too much of a hurry. This time your carm is already pushing us home. We can take our time, do what we like!”
“Like what?”
“I’ll show you as we go.” Booce began tearing up sheets of bark greater than a man, mooring them edgewise against the bare wood. When he had them arrayed he set them alight.
The smoke tended to stay where it formed. Booce moored a four-kigram slab of shellbird meat in the cloud. They broiled smaller steaks on their matchets, closer to the fire, and ate them still hot.
“The smoked meat will keep till we’re down,” Booce said. “But there are other things on the trunk. You’ve never climbed?”
“When we were children we did a little climbing, but just on the lower trunk. We weren’t supposed to go more than a klomter up. If you fell, the foliage would catch you. Any higher, we rode the elevator.”
They slept carefully tethered in cracks in the bark. Sometimes, for moments, the roar of the carm could be heard above the wind. A dark cloud had formed above them and was gradually drifting down.
The bugs of the tree had found the honey.
They breakfasted on smoked bird. Then Carlot did the painting while Booce carried the food.
The sun circled them, once and again. Always they stopped when the shadows were pointing straight out. Water was beginning to flow sluggishly in alongside their path. “Bugs like it damp,” Booce said. “The bark’s wet enough for them around the midpoint, but not lower down. You have to paint down the east side, alongside the waterfall, or they won’t come. Also the trunk blocks the wind. You don’t want the bugs blown away.”
There was fan fungus like so many pallid hands reaching from the bark. Carlot showed Rather how to tear the red fringe off before eating the white interior. It was bland, almost tasteless, but went well enough with the strongly flavored smoked meat.
With lunch came entertainment: a gust of roses on the wind. The stems were four meters long. Dark-red blossoms fragile as tissue paper pointed straight toward Voy, soaking up blue Voy-light. Rather had never seen the like. He and Carlot watched the roses blowing east until they were out of sight.
Rather took his turn painting. Booce kept a close watch, but it seemed simple enough. A dab the size of a baby’s hand; the next dab two meters lower.
A dark cloud flowed after them down the trunk.
The wind grew stronger, though the trunk blocked most of it. The growing tide made climbing easier for Rather. The water flowed more strongly. It was cleaner than pondwater, cleaner than the water that reached the basin in the commons. It tasted wonderful, and painting was hard, thirsty work.
In two days. Rather’s arm was one long cramp.
He was too tired to help with dinner. Booce managed alone. He found shelled things hiding in the bark and pulled them loose. Roasted, their white flesh made a fine meal.
Again they wedged themselves along a wide crack in the bark, with Carlot between the men. There were dangers on the trunk.
Rather’s aches kept him awake. He presently noticed Carlot’s feet stirring restlessly. “Carlot?”
He would not have spoken twice, but she answered at once. “Can’t sleep?”
“No. My father told me about climbing up a tree. When they got to the top the tree came apart.”
“That’s one reason we don’t just chop off the tuft or burn it loose. This is easier, but it also gets the bugs away from the midpoint. When the tree dies, they’re not there to eat it apart.”
“How do you get rid of the out tuft?”
“Oh, some of the bugs won’t follow the honey. They’ll be breeding while we travel. When we get close to the Clump we’ll paint another trail out.”
“Why are you awake?”
“Tide. I have trouble sleeping in tide.” But her voice trailed off raggedly. He stopped talking, and presently slept.
After breakfast Booce said, “There’s something I want to see on the west side of the trunk. Leave the gear here.”
Climbing was easy if you didn’t have to paint too. In less than a day they had half circled the trunk. Above them by a quarter klomter, the bark bulged like a wave surging across a pond. They climbed toward that.
“Jeffer wanted us to look at this,” Booce told them. “Something must have hit the trunk while it was younger. The wood’s grown around it.”
The wood bulged to hide it like some secret treasure. Rather was almost inside the crater before he could see anything. Carlot, ahead of him, had stopped. Booce was at his shoulder. Rather heard him gasp.
Carlot said, “Metal!”
“I must apologize to Jeffer,” Booce said. “Metal indeed! The tree may consider it poisonous; see how reluctant the wood is to touch it! But the Admiralty won’t think so.”
Rather asked, “We want this?”
“We do. Secret auction, I think.” Booce was deep into the crater, running his hands over the reddish-black surface of the metal. “Six or eight thousand kilos. No point in trying to move it. We’ll have to show it to the Navy anyway, unless…hmm.”
Carlot looked at her father. “We don’t want t
o attract attention.”
“Exactly. I have to think about this. Well, my merry crew, I think we’ve earned a holiday.”
They climbed back around the trunk, taking their time. Booce knew just where to find the shelled burrowers. After lunch they spent a day tethered in the now strongly running waterfall, first washing each other and squeezing honey out of their clothing, then wrestling. They still got some painting in before sleeptime.
In twenty days they had reached the wild tuft.
Rather had never appreciated foliage before. It had surrounded him all his life. He gorged, savoring the taste and texture. “You love it too,” he observed. “Carlot, Booce, why don’t you live in a tree?”
“Oh, there’s foliage in the Clump too,” Carlot said. “All kinds. Rather, I can’t wait to show you!”
They slept in foliage. Rather slept like a dead man, from exhaustion and the familiar sensation of sleeping under tide, in a womb of soft foliage. He woke early, feeling wonderful.
Carlot lay not far from her father. Her face was grief-stricken. She thrashed in slow motion, unconsciously trying to hold herself against the tide.
Rather took her hand, gently. “Hey. Nightmare?”
Her eyes opened. “Oh. Rather. I was trying to get to Wend. She was screaming and trying to fly with just her bare feet—” She shook her head violently and sat up. “Something I have to tell you.”
“Okay.”
“When we were swimming. Father noticed you were up.”
“Up? Oh, up. You’re very pretty,” Rather said a little awkwardly.
“We can’t make babies.”
“We can’t? Hey, the jungle giants and the London Tree citizens didn’t have any trouble. I’m a dwarf, but—”
Carlot laughed. “Father says we can’t. He wants me to marry another logger. I think he wants it to be Raff Belmy, from Woodsman, but definitely another logger. I thought I’d better say something before…well, before you got to thinking.”
“Thinking. Well, it’s too late, then.”
“It’s all right, then?”
“Sure. Go back to sleep.” The truth was that Rather was almost relieved. Carlot with her clothes off made his head swim and his blood boil: an uncomfortable feeling.
And Booce didn’t want his daughter to love a dwarf savage. Should he resent that? Somehow he didn’t.
Breakfast was more foliage. Then Booce gave Rather the matchet. “Pry the bark off. We want a complete ring of bare wood half a meter across. We’ll paint along behind you.”
Three and a half days later he was halfway around. The bark was soft, easy to pry loose, but the trunk must have been a good two klomters in circumference. They returned to the wild tuft to sleep and eat. Rather was one vast ache, but it still felt good to be sleeping in tide, in foliage.
After breakfast Rather was still on the matchet. The Serjents seemed to share Citizens’ Tree’s faith in a dwarf’s superior strength. He finished the job before they slept again. They were ahead of schedule. Jeffer would not bring the carm down for them for another six or seven days.
From the base of the trunk they watched a moby attack the bugs descending along the honey track. Mobies normally skimmed clouds of bugs from the sky for their food. This was a tremendous creature, mostly mouth and fins, riding the wind toward the trunk and the bug-swarm at a hundred meters per breath. It realized its mistake just in time. It thrashed madly, gaping, irresistibly comical, as the wind hurled it toward the tree. Its flank smashed loose a shower of bark as it passed.
The bugs descended like a cloud of charcoal dust. They reached the ring of painted bare wood and spread to north and south. The cloud condensed, growing darker, swarming a few ce’meters out from the bark.
“Carlot. Do you like it on the tree?”
She nodded, watching the bugs.
“Booce? I’ve watched you. You like it here.”
“I love it.”
“Then how can you kill trees?”
Booce shrugged. “There are plenty of trees.”
Chapter Nine
THE ROCKET
from Logbearer’s log. Captain Booce Serjent speaking:
Year 384, day 1280. Ten degrees west of the Clump. We’ve found a grove and chosen a short one, 30 klomters.
Day 1300. Refueled in a raincloud. Everything’s wet.
Day 1310. Anchored at midpoint of tree.
Day 1330. Ryllin and Karilly must have laid the honey track by now. Bugs are following them down to the tuft. I’ll take Logbearer in to pick them up. We’re all eager to return to the Admiralty, but there’s no way to hurry the bugs.
Day 1335. Ryllin and Karilly are aboard. From the in tuft they spotted a pond 50 klomters west and a little in. The women argue that we can fire up the rocket and start our return without waiting for the bugs. The pond will let us refill the water tank. It would gain us twenty to thirty days.
Now it’s my choice. There’s a risk, but I’ve never yet held out against the women. I’ll give up early, save time.
Day 1360. The bugs have reached the honey band around the in tuft. Ordinarily I would be down there supervising, but I can’t do that while we’re under acceleration.
We maintain staggered watches against happyfeet. If they find us we can ready Logbearer for independent flight in half a day. The rocket is hot and running.
Day 1370. I’ll stop feeding the pipefire soon. Let it burn out before the bugs cut the tuft loose. I can guide us into the pond on the last of our steam.
If the rocket runs dry it’ll teach the girls caution. We’ll still fill the tank before we reach the Clump. You always bump a pond or two when you’re moving.
Day 1380. A mature tree is drifting to block our path. Dammit. Maybe it’ll move past.
No further entries.
The carm picked them up on the branch and returned to its dock with the cabin half filled with foliage. Rather suspected that they would not eat foliage again, nor sleep in decent tide, for a long time.
He heard the argument when Clave wanted to restart the motor. “There’s no point,” Jeffer told him. “We’d be using fuel to fight wind. We’re doing fine.”
Booce added his voice to Jeffer’s. “We’ll sail even further in after the tuft severs. Leave us something to breathe!”
Had anyone else seen Clave glance aft? Clave had taken less than a breath to read the faces of his crew, but Rather had caught it.
Not so long ago, far away in Citizens’ Tree, Gavving had spoken thus to his eldest son: “You’re a citizen now. Watch Clave during a meeting. He leads where we’ll go. He always has. You don’t have to go Clave’s way just because Clave says so…”
The motor stayed off.
The tree moved ponderously west and in. Its westward motion slowed over several days. The days were shorter, and Voy had come nearer. The smallest children learned never to look directly at Voy; but Rather could tell. In the corner of his eye the violet-white pinpoint was more intense, closer and smaller, with less sky to blur and distort it.
It took six days to make a sleep; then seven. Time whirled around them until they stopped caring. The journey had become more important than their destination.
The crew lived on the bark, all but Jeffer. They found the carm too strange. Even Rather left the carm after a few sleeps. He had learned that he liked strangeness; but he sensed that Jeffer saw him as an intruder. The Scientist captains the carm.
Debby and Booce disappeared down the trunk to monitor the progress of the bugs. They returned with smoked dumbo meat and two cured skins, which Booce shaped into armor that looked remarkably like the silver suit. “We won’t use it this trip, but it’s standard gear. The Navy will expect us to have it.”
A grove of integral tree sproutlings passed Voy-ward of the tree, the first the citizens had ever seen. They were a few scores of meters long, tufted only at the out end. “The seeds drop away, out and in,” Booce told them. “After they sprout, they have to sail back to the median. They’ll grow the other t
uft when there’s enough to feed them.”
The day came when Carlot called her father and pointed outward. “Isn’t that a pod grove?”
Backlit by the sun, the cluster might almost have been a miniature tree grove hundreds of klomters out. “Small…yes. Too far, though.”
“Why?” Debby asked.
“Well, it’d take too long to…I’d forgotten the carm. Let’s ask Jeffer.”
Jeffer summoned up his windows-within-windows. “Sure, we can get there. Clave, want to take a trip?”
“Can we find our way back? The tree looks big when you’re tied to it, but from six hundred klomters away—”
“Trust me.”
Forty plants grew in a loose cluster, all much alike. From a fibrous cup that faced west, a long, limp leaf trailed eastward, waving sluggishly in the wind. A thick vine reached a hundred meters out from the boll, ending in a kind of collar. Each collar held a brown egg-shape.
“Those are jet pods,” Debby realized suddenly. “We used to ride them in Carther States.”
Booce directed Rather to one of the largest plants. Carlot and Debby hung back. Rather the Silver Man circled the pod, cautious in the face of a new thing: a fibrous brown egg as big as the common room in his father’s hut. There was tide enough to pull the vine taut. Smaller pods grew in a spiral around the stem end, ranging from fist-sized to man-sized. Replacements, he surmised, that would grow after the ripe one dropped away.
Satisfied, Rather wrapped his legs around the stem for leverage and swung his matchet.
The sound blasted his whole body. The sky spun round him. Tide was pulling him apart. His fingers and toes felt like they were inflating as spin pulled blood into them.
Against the tide that was pulling him rigid, Rather forced his legs vertical to his torso, pulled an arm against his chest, and fired the ankle jets. The spinning sky slowed. He aimed his feet against the spin and brought it to a stop.