by Larry Niven
It struck the crater around the Wart and deformed like soft mud.
Logbearer bumped the trunk more softly. Debby emerged from the hatch in the forward pod. She stared hard at the intrusionary mass. She called, “It’s going to stick.”
Booce answered from inside. “Stet. Spread the honey.”
Debby waved at Booce and Rather, but that was all the attention she gave them. She began spreading red sticky honey around the rim of the crater.
The swarm of insects followed her. When she closed the circle, most of the insects had migrated to the honey.
“Done!”
“Good. Get aboard. Clave, Rather, I’ve got to moor this thing. Want a ride?”
Clave bellowed, “Booce, you get out here and answer some questions!”
Booce’s head popped out. He thought it over, then flapped to join them. He looked indecently self-satisfied.
“It’s a termite nest,” he said before Clave could ask. “We’ll say we didn’t have any choice, it was the only tree around and we had to get back to the Clump because…I’ll think of something.”
“Uh-huh. The honey?”
“Encouragement. When the termites run out of honey they’ll eat wood. They’ll bond the nest to the Wart.”
“What about the silver suit? Were you just going to leave it?”
“Where would it be safer?”
“Jeffer’s all alone in the sky. He’d go crazy!”
Booce’s grimace told it all. Clave said, “He’s the Citizens’ Tree Scientist, and he is not a crazy murderer. He was in a fight with our lives at stake, Booce, and he used what he had. It was more powerful than he thought it was—”
“He used it twice.”
“Booce, if you’ve ever been a happyfeet bandit yourself, tell me now.”
Booce was astonished, then amused. “Oh, really! No, I’m not protecting my own kind. I’m not defending bandits that prey on loggers. Granted they’d generally rather attack some tribe of helpless savages. Your suspicions are right there, Clave, but it doesn’t mean I like bandits. I wouldn’t have burned a whole damn tribe either!”
“Uh-huh. You would have sent them away without hurting them so much. How? Describe the procedure in detail.”
“I can’t do that. Jeffer hasn’t told any of us how to fly the carm! Clave, the Scientist is not to burn any tribe, ever again. I’m telling you, not him. You are to stop him.”
“I’ll tell him. Now what?”
“Oh…we’ll leave everything but the helmet where it is. Jeffer’s scientific eyes are in the helmet, right? Those little windows in the forehead? We’ll moor it in the nest. He’ll have a view. We’ll be spending enough time around the Wart; we’ll talk to him then.”
The CARM with its cameras was hidden in a dark place, the pressure suit was in another, the incoming recordings were days old, and in present time Jeffer wasn’t present. Kendy skimmed the recordings. He was learning more through Discipline’s own senses.
Logbearer was easy to follow: forty kilometers of tree with tufts missing and a metal mass off-center, now rounding the starward limb of the L4 whorl. Maintaining contact wasn’t going to be easy here. Discipline’s new orbit had twice the period of Goldblatt’s World, with periVoy falling north of the L4 point. Tilting his orbit out of the Smoke Ring allowed his instruments to penetrate less of the garbage in the Clump; but the log and the CARM and all of Kendy’s citizens would be circling that center on long kidney-shaped paths.
At least he wouldn’t have to burn more fuel. If he could establish relations with the Admiralty, his present orbit might suffice for hundreds of years.
Savages in a thriving civilization would find trouble sooner or later. Patience. Some emergency would force Jeffer to bring the CARM into the L4 point. Then he must open the airlock to the Navy…
One problem at a time. Wait. Learn.
Jeffer entered the cabin before Kendy passed out of range. There was fresh pink blood on his tunic and more on his hands.
“Kendy for the State—”
“Hello, Kendy. How can we—”
“Jeffer, if Rather has an offer from the Navy, I want him to accept.”
“You would. Rather didn’t sound too enthusiastic. Neither am I. How can we get away with not hiding the silver suit?”
“An excellent question.” Kendy was using light amplification, but it only showed him iron ore and chewed wood. Clave and Rather had departed the hiding place. “If the Navy has pressure suits, they’ll recognize yours. I thought of disassembling it, but they’d know the helmet too. We would ruin the camera if we tried to dismount it, and the electrical source is in the helmet.”
“So?”
“Patience.”
“Feed your patience to the tree, Kendy. I’ve got a cryptic entry under ‘Lagrange Points’—”
“I’ve had three hundred and eighty-four years to learn patience. You are almost out of range. Can you feed yourself there?”
“Sure. There’s hand fungus, and flashers living on the bugs, and some other things. In a way it’s like learning to hunt all over again…” The link was lost.
A chance to examine the Admiralty’s military arm from inside! But Rather wasn’t enthusiastic. And Kendy would have to talk Jeffer around before his arguments could even reach the boy.
Patience…
Chapter Fourteen
DOCKING
from Logbearer’s log. Captain Booce Serjent speaking:
Year 384, Day 1700. This trip we need not fear happyfeet.
I fear Jeffer the Scientist. I fear the secrets we hide from the Admiralty and the secrets the Scientist keeps from me. But I owe a major debt to Citizens’ Tree.
Day 1710. We’ve found a simple way to hide our empty crew member. May I never have the chance to thank the happyfeet for making it possible.
Day 1780. We’ve gone for more pods. One has become our cabin, one stores extra water in case a fire spreads. Returning with a pod for Logbearer’s cabin grates in my soul, but it will surely hide the wealth we carry.
Day 1810. Making paints gave more trouble than I expected. The colors are still poor, but will suffice. We’ve painted the honey hornet logo across Logbearer’s cabin. Now we’ll see what can be done about my crew’s wings.
Day 1996. Entered Admiralty space. Gyrfalcon has registered log and metal for customs. Assessment to follow.
Day 2000. Log nearing Market. Metal concealed from all but Navy. Conditions optimal.
Day 2015. Docked. Sent the crew off with Carlot. Would have gone with them if I could. I never dealt with tree dwellers before. I can’t guess how they’ll react.
I miss Ryllin. I never in my life had to weave so many threads at once.
A fat, baby-blue torpedo cruised slowly along the Serjent log, moving closer to where Rather and Carlot stood watch. Suddenly it split along its length, and four slender blue-and-orange triunes dived on some tree-dwelling life form.
Rather pointed. “Four?”
“Sometimes triunes have twins.”
“I’ve never heard of that.”
“You never saw one of those either.” She pointed out a triangular shadow. “That’s a Dark shark. They don’t usually come this far skyward. They’re dangerous. All teeth, no brain.”
“Skyward?”
“Dark, skyward, spin, and antispin. We use all the normal directions too.”
“How do you keep it all straight?” Rather reached to wrap his legs lightly around her waist. She did not respond.
A ball of green fluff stretched a quarter klomter of curly tail toward a passing sphere of water.
Booce, Debby, and Clave were around the log’s horizon, ready to use the rocket if anything came near. Carlot and Rather kept watch from the east. “We can still keep our eyes on the sky,” Rather pointed out.
Carlot pounded his kneecaps with her fists, briskly. “Who’s watching us?”
“I don’t mind triunes watching. Maybe I even like it.”
“What about the
houses?”
“Houses?”
“You’d say huts. Look—”
Beyond the Market, beyond Carlot’s pointing chin, six cubes were strung along a spire of wood with a rocket tank and nozzle at one end. “That’s Captain-Guardian Wayne Mickl’s household,” Carlot said. “He’s one of the richest officers.”
“It isn’t close.”
“That one is.”
A structure floated against the Dark, a cube festooned with platforms, extrusions for tethers, water pods, and other things for which he had no name.
“That’s the Hillards, I think. And that puff jungle is the Kerians.”
The sky was full of puffballs. The one Carlot pointed out bore a big K with other letters within, too small to read. Carlot said, “Crew live in those if they’re too poor to buy wood. Usually they clip a logo in the foliage.”
Rather laughed. “Okay, I’m convinced.” Another puff jungle was marked with a slender figure-eight. “If you’re rich, you build with wood?”
“Yes.”
“Your family has a house.”
“We find our own wood! I’ll show you if it comes around. It wasn’t finished when we left, but I know the design.”
“We’re poor; aren’t we? Citizens’ Tree is poor.”
“You live poor. The carm makes you rich, except that you can’t use it…and there’s your share of the Wart, once Father sells it. Rather?”
“Speaking.”
“I think I’m going to marry Raff.”
Rather turned to look at her. The sudden black emptiness in his belly was entirely new to him, yet he couldn’t feel any surprise. He got his lips working. “Would you be better off if I went somewhere else?”
She was having trouble meeting his eyes. “I haven’t seen Raff in three years. Rather, I think he’d be happier if he didn’t know we’ve been…”
“Making babies. I won’t announce it.”
“All right. But I wouldn’t push you into the Navy just to get rid of you! Don’t ever think that! I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not. I don’t think for Citizens’ Tree, and I don’t do your thinking either. Don’t give up the idea just to stay near me.”
“I have no intention of joining the Navy.” Rather turned back to the sky. He was still on watch.
Now that he knew what to look for, the sky danced with structures. Puff jungles were everywhere, more of them toward the Dark, and some were marked. There were wooden cubes and clusters of cubes, elaborately colored in bright primaries. He could pick out wind-curdled lines of steam crossing the Dark.
He said, “People change in three years.”
Carlot said, “Sure. Maybe we won’t like each other. We’ll see. I’m telling you, Rather, if we get along I’ll marry him. Belmy was the first of the logging concerns, and it’s the most powerful.”
The helmet had been in place in the termite nest for some twenty hours. Kendy ran the record through his mind, classifying, deducing, making notes. When he reached present time he went back to the beginning.
His mental model of the Admiralty was shaping up nicely.
There were more new plants than new animals. Animals showed the same modified trilateral symmetry here as they did in the Smoke Ring proper. There was a clear absence of tide-stabilized plants: hardly surprising.
The buildings were interesting. Everything less primitive than a carved-out cotton-candy plant was built in rectangular solids. It was as if they still built to resist gravity…but not quite, for addenda sprouted at any angle, and openings might appear in any of the six walls. They looked like Escher had designed them.
Some houses had a big square fin sticking out from one corner. The Clump was turbulent. In infrared Kendy could see little whirlwinds, “dust devils” with no dust in them. A house would tumble and keep tumbling without that fin.
Unless it was attached to some larger structure.
Why was there only one Market? It didn’t look difficult to construct. Houses were scattered through the outer Clump. Most would have no neighbors at all most of the time. There was no need for such isolation. It was inefficient and lonely.
The tree’s attitude changed continually. The view through the helmet camera wavered with it. Kendy was getting only glimpses of the Market, but he could integrate them.
Many of the structures were moored by concrete to the Market frame. Too bad. Kendy would have liked to offer them concrete. If he ever got their attention he’d have to have something to offer, some bit of knowledge to make their lives better. He knew the pattern that would make them a thriving. Smoke Ring-girdling State in a hundred years; but there had to be something quicker.
Electricity? The Clump never had true night either. How did they light their houses?
He recognized a glass tank from one of Discipline’s seeding missiles, emitting a sharp spike in the light spectrum: chlorophyll. They’d made it into a hydroponics tank. The faceted hemisphere nearby was an old survival tent sheathed with wood, with transparent facets left open. Other structures on the ring were made from Smoke Ring materials: mostly wood, but one was a cotton-candy jungle tethered to a mast.
A building beyond the Market sported a broad picture window: the windscreen from a CARM. Otherwise, no glass anywhere. No sand?
Crew drifted among the buildings like leaves in an autumn wind. Half-grown children flew in groups tended by one or two adults…
I’ve got to know more. Can I find a way to move the helmet into the Market?
Booce was in position at the rocket, with hot coals ready, and Debby and Clave to watch and to steer. The sky was thick with debris. One might hope that Carlot and Rather would keep to their watching…but at least they’d have their chance to talk.
A Navy ship had them in clear view. Supervising, to make sure that the log came to rest a safe distance from the Market. A larger rocket pulled free of Belmy’s log and steamed toward Logbearer.
Booce and his damaged tree would arrive in a blaze of publicity.
He was returning like a beggar.
But of course there was the Wart…and the silver suit behind it. He would have liked to lose that. The worst the Admiralty could charge him with was “concealment of vital resources,” but that was a heavy charge. Was it worth the risk, to be able to talk to Jeffer the Scientist?
Not that he had a choice.
He was almost home. The Belmy log was ahead of them, eclipsing the Market. The tuftless end looked chewed. Belmy had sold some of his wood.
Woodsman was prominent in the sky, arriving nozzle-foremost. There was no mistaking that elaborate superstructure, four cubes surrounding the water pod, each painted a different color, each bearing the small black B logo. Handholds everywhere, and a steering platform around the nozzle, with a carved rail. The nozzle was mounted a little out from the rest so that replacement water pods could be inserted easily. Hilar Belmy was coming to greet him.
“Almost time,” he said, and saw Clave and Debby nod acknowledgment. Booce pushed his coals into the firebox. The fire would need time to catch. “Belmy docked his log behind the Market, of course. We’re going to have to dock behind him. Then it gets unpleasant.”
Debby asked, “Why not dock just ahead of the Market?”
“Because that’s where the Admiralty docks its ships.”
“Booce, if you’re expecting a fight, you’d better tell us now. Also, what weapons—”
“Bloodthirsty woman. No weapons, no fight. It’s just…I’m coming in behind Hilar Belmy with a fuel pod for my cabin and a log damaged in two places. Checker only knows what Hilar will think. He’ll change his mind when he finds out about the Wart, but…That log still has one tuft.”
“So?”
“Why on Earth would Hilar Belmy leave one tuft on a log?”
Clave asked, “Why didn’t we?”
“Wind. You can bring a log to its mooring with one tuft on, but it’s tricky. It usually means you ran out of honey or bugs…hmm?”
“What?”
&n
bsp; “Just a passing thought. Hello, Hilar!” His crew stared. They had never heard so cheerful a sound from Booce Serjent.
Woodsman vented steam, decelerating. Two men rode the platform above the nozzle. They were tall: taller than Booce. Their necks were long, like Ryllin’s; there was a great-grandmother in common. Black hair, gray hair, otherwise nearly identical.
The black-haired man waved joyfully. Booce couldn’t tell Belmy’s sons apart, but that must be Raff, and Carlot would be waving back.
Gray hair was Hilar. He looked good: sturdy, prosperous, a few kilos more massive than his son. “Booce! I thought I’d offer you a tug. How…Did you have some trouble?”
“That we did!” Booce’s shout became less effortful as Belmy’s rocket drew closer. “Hilar, thanks for the offer, but I’ll bring her in myself.”
“Stet,” Hilar Belmy shouted back. Woodsman slowed and stopped fifty meters from the trunk. “Join us after! I want to talk business.”
“Stet.” Booce dropped his voice. “Now let’s do this right. Debby, stand by the water pod. Clave, I’ll need you to help me turn the rocket.” Logbearer looked ready. The firebox was dull red; white light glowed through the cracks. The plates had never fit exactly, but they didn’t seem to be coming apart. Logbearer was tilted nearly parallel to the bark.
Booce entered the cabin. He blew into the flow port (CHUFF CHUFF chuff chuffchuff…) and emerged panting. “Clave, not quite yet…now.”
They heaved against Logbearer’s fuel pod, tilting the rocket in its bark nest to keep it pointed straight toward the Market. Condensing live steam drew a line across the sky. Woodsman stood well clear. The log turned as it approached Belmy’s log; and the rocket turned in counterposition, and the log’s sluggish motion slowed, slowed, stopped.
Booce dove into the cabin. He knocked the plug loose from the flow port and jumped away. Warm water globules followed him out. “I’ve spilled the water. Debby, hose down the firebox. We’re in place.”
The firebox hissed. Globed in invisible water vapor, the coals went out immediately. The gap between the two logs remained constant.
“And that was a nominal docking,” Booce said in satisfaction.