The climber doggedly scrabbled upward through a tan darkness punctuated by occasional blotches of light that marked cross sections of transverse channels. Once, when it tried to abandon its climb for something enticing down a side channel, Jao corrected its course by reaching over the side of the cup and doing something with his hand that Bram couldn’t see. Enough moisture was being collected from the dewy trickle along the woody shaft so that Bram found himself standing in a small warm pool. “Should have brought something along to bail with,” Jao grumbled. “But we won’t be using this thing long enough to get wet past the ankles.”
“I can see the drawbacks in using climbers as your elevator system,” Bram said.
“Most humans won’t use them at all,” Jao told him. “Prejudice about animate machines with independent nervous systems. That goes double for anyone leeward of the Ascendists, like most of Penser’s crowd. Actually, I think the climber genome was put together at least partly from plant genes. But you’d know more about that, being a biologist.”
“You seem to be more politically aware than most of the people here,” Bram said, remembering Marg’s blank puzzlement about the differences between Ascendists, Schismatists, and splinter groups.
There was a pause. Bram could imagine Jao grimacing in the darkness. “No, I don’t suppose most of my fellow passengers have ever devoted much time to political thought,” Jao said at last.
The climber was rising toward a region of amber light. Bram saw fluid moving sluggishly through translucent walls. Above, the vertical shaft widened slightly. Transverse openings on opposite sides of the shaft were linked by a narrow catwalk that was obviously the result of deliberate carpentry. More catwalks and openings could be seen farther up. But there was still plenty of room for the climber to get by.
“The threshhold of Nar country,” Jao announced. “Penser and the others ought to be on the other side of that wall at about this level.”
He reached over the side of the cup and did something to slow the climber down. Bram would have preferred to get past the catwalk quickly, but he supposed that Jao knew what he was doing.
Then, as they drew abreast of the opening, Jao reached down again, and the climber stopped, hooked several limbs into the lip of the opening, and began to drag itself inside.
“Where are you going?” Bram said. “This will take us into Penser’s hands!”
“I know,” the redbeard said.
He plucked Bram’s spear from its resting place against the side of the cup and tossed it overboard. Incredulously, Bram watched it tumble down the shaft.
“You’re one of them!” he blurted. “You’ve been a secret Penserite all along!”
Jao nodded. “Kept my opinions to myself. Jao, the happy colonist, without a serious thought in his head. More useful to the cause that way, you see.”
Bram tried to scramble over the rim of the cup. The cup bobbed alarmingly as the climber’s wiry limbs clawed for support. Jao wrapped his arms around Bram’s waist and hauled him back inside. “Stop it, you fool!” he panted. “You’ll get us both killed!”
The climber got itself over the edge of the pithead. Bram stared at Jao. “You were Penser’s source of information on board the tree, then! That’s how he knew about the layout and the movements of the Nar!”
“You’re giving me too much credit. There were several of us. We applied as colonists over a year ago, as soon as we knew that Penser was coming. To prepare the way for him.” Jao chuckled. “Smeth couldn’t understand why I was willing to give up a promising career as a physicist to go to Juxt One.”
The climber was on level ground now, hoisting itself along the sidewalls of the connecting duct. Bram looked back at the catwalk bridging the way to the adjoining tracheid.
Jao read his mind. “Don’t bother,” he said. “You wouldn’t get very far.”
Bram gathered himself anyway, tensing to give Jao a sudden shove and vault over the edge of the cup. But he had waited too long. Just then, he and Jao had to duck their heads as the climber squeezed past the springy guard cells at the end of the duct, and then the climber broke through into bright light.
There was about an acre of polished floor, bristling with armed men who came running toward the climber as Jao brought it to a halt. At least twenty hard-looking individuals with pikes and bludgeons surrounded the vehicle while one of the section chiefs sauntered over.
“Brought you a little present,” Jao said. “He was on his way to the Nar sector to warn them.”
Bram found himself staring down into the flushed, sweat-streaked face of Pite. “Hello, Brammo,” Pite said. “You’re just in time for the fun.”
Bram had no idea how much time had gone by. He couldn’t reach his waistwatch with his hands tied behind his back, and though its face was in plain sight, he couldn’t distinguish the changes in the texture of its surface by eye.
The man who had been left to guard him was an uncommunicative sort with thin lips, thin nose, and little eyes. He did not respond to Bram’s attempts to find out what was going on. He stared wistfully across the wooden plain at the comings and goings of his compatriots. Bram had the feeling that the man resented him for keeping him out of the action.
Only a handful of people were visible in the lofty outer chamber. In the middle distance two or three Penserites tended a depot of indefinable goods heaped in neat arrangements on the ground and dispensed them to the runners who came in pairs with baskets and carrypoles to fetch them. At the base of the wooden cliff beyond, several people squatted in a loose semicircle and watched one of their number trace diagrams with a stick and do a lot of pointing.
Bram looked up as somebody came jogging heavily toward him, a chunky figure weighed down with bouncing gear. Bram’s guard stopped picking his teeth and surveyed the newcomer with mild interest.
“On your feet. Penser wants to talk to you.”
Bram struggled up. His legs were numb. “What about?” he asked.
“You’ll find out from him.”
Bram’s uncommunicative guard broke his vow of silence. “He’s gotten around to sentencing you to death, that’s what,” he said with moderate malice as he rose to his feet.
“Get going.”
Bram stumbled along between the two of them. They went through a cleft in the wall of wood and down an avenue of tall compartments. The signs of destruction were everywhere: charred doorways, splintered rubble, heaps of smashed furnishings. They passed a dead Nar who lay across a threshhold with three spear handles sticking out of him.
“I thought you weren’t going to hurt anyone,” Bram said.
“Shut up,” his guard said, prodding him.
“It’s gone wrong, hasn’t it?” Bram said, and got another jab with the end of a cudgel for that.
They shoved him through into a large hall that was littered with overturned equipment. A lot of wanton destruction had gone on. Bram saw a touch reader, smashed apparently for the fun of it, and its library of holos piled in a charred heap. About a hundred people were milling around — the greater part of Penser’s force. A stink of smoke and chemicals hung in the air.
Pite came striding toward Bram and his captors. He was festooned with equipment: club, short spear, a mesh bag of doughy balls garnished with long wicks dangling from his waist. The nasty little electrical weapon was stuck carelessly into his belt.
“Got him? Good,” he said. “I’ll take him in to Penser.”
The other two left. Pite gripped Bram above the elbow and led him through the hall. Bram saw people pouring clear liquid from demijohns into glass bottles, while others stoppered the containers, wrapped them with impregnated strips of cloth, and bore them away. Quite a collection of them was growing. Bram smelled the agreeable aroma of grain alcohol. “What are they doing?” he said.
“Making firebottles,” Pite said. He seemed edgy, over-stimulated, his color high and his eyes shining.
“What’s happening?”
Pite stopped him and swung around
to face him. “Nothing that’s going to change anything. Penser caught them by surprise, the way he figured. We took the whole lower level on our initial sweep. But the place is too big, and the yellowlegs were too dispersed. They reacted faster than we thought they would once they figured out what was going on. I’ve never seen anything move as fast as the ones that got by us. They’ve barricaded themselves in one of the upper levels.”
“They’ve probably reached the outside crew by radio by now, haven’t they?” Bram said. “And the outside crew will be able to get in touch with Lowstation.”
Sweat glistened in the yellow stubble over Pite’s upper lip. “There’s nothing the outside crew can do to stop us,” he said. “There aren’t enough of them. And if one of them did get in here somehow, we’d kill him before he got ten feet. They’re no match for us. You saw that. They don’t know how to fight. They don’t get the idea of it.” He wiped a hand across his forehead, making a smudge. “As for Lowstation, they can’t get here in time. As soon as we get past those yellowlegs who’ve barricaded themselves, we’ll get the tree moving.”
“What are you going to do?” Bram asked, feeling a chill start down his spine.
“We’re going to burn them out,” Pite said, showing his teeth. “We’ll burn out the whole Nar sector and get every last one of them.”
“You can’t be serious! What if it spreads? If you don’t care about anything else, there are hundreds of people living in this branch!”
“Fire spreads upward. Inward in this case. And so does smoke. We can keep any downward movement under control. Wet the lower level down with water from those veins. The Nar sector only goes on for a few miles, anyway. After that, it’s all living wood. Penser says a fire can’t sustain itself in living wood. After a while it’ll smother itself, and we get past to the control center. Jao says there’s a high-speed tube that goes straight through the heartwood.”
“Penser is out of his mind. There’s deadwood and discarded ducts all through a branch. Maybe a fire would smother itself when it got high enough for diminishing gravity to squelch circulation, but what if the support wood was so weakened by that time that centrifugal force sent the whole branch flying off into space? With all those people in it?”
“Enough talk,” Pite said. “Penser’s waiting.”
He pushed Bram along to a line of suites that adjoined the large chamber. The Nar had done well for themselves over the many years since the tree had been commissioned. It was a comfortable habitat, with pools, basking slopes, and garden spots planted with the brilliant yellow foliage of the Father World’s native plant life with its sulfur-based photosynthesis. Real sunlight poured in through the translucent lenticels along the outer walls — sunlight that would turn to starlight as the tree left a system.
“What does Penser want with me?” Bram asked.
“It seems,” Pite said, “that you’ve become the indispensable man. Nice of you to come join us on your own.”
He led Bram to a sunny room where Penser stood staring through one of the tall translucent blisters with his hands clasped behind his back. The room was pure Nax in style, but Penser had taken possession of it by creating a spartan corner with an improvised wooden table surface that had writing materials laid out on it.
Penser turned, though he could not have heard their approaching footsteps on the spongy material of the floor. He wore the same loose gray costume. His dark remote eyes bored into Bram.
“Bram,” his hollow voice said. “I gave you my trust, and it seems you have betrayed me.”
Bram’s throat was desperately dry. He was astounded that Penser could remember his name out of so many. He stood there and said nothing.
“Untie his hands,” Penser said.
Pite undid the cords. Bram flexed his fingers, feeling the circulation come back.
“I’m told,” Penser said, “that you are a biologist.”
Bram found his voice. “I’m more of a molecular artisan,” he said. “I haven’t really done much work in macrobiology.”
“No matter,” Penser said. “I’m also told that you are able to read the touch language.”
Bram swallowed. “No human can do that,” he said.
Penser gestured toward the waistwatch that Bram was wearing. “And yet you use one of their instruments,” he said.
“Telling time is easy,” Bram said. “It’s only a matter of feeling the position of numbers. Simple outlines that don’t change. Any human child could be taught to do it. It’s not the same as understanding the Great Language.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Penser said softly.
“I’m not lying.”
Behind Bram, Pite sighed. “Brammo, we know about all the time you spent stretched out on those tickle machines. Remember? Waller was keeping track of you.”
Bram tried to make them understand. “I can pick out broad areas of cilia movement, that’s true. Outlines that enclose meaning. Maybe that’s not a common talent. I guess it isn’t, though it ought to be. That’s good enough for numbers, some names, general subject headings that give me the drift of things. I can detect some nuances of emotion that surround the … the essence … just as you could tell that a man was angry about a particular something by the tone of his voice and his gestures, even if you didn’t understand language, and from that infer some of his meaning. It’s — it’s like a child who’s too young to read being able to look through his picture book and recognize the shapes of the letters and the limited number of things they’re associated with —‘P’ for ‘potato,’ for instance. But he still can’t read. I guess what I’m saying is that I have a certain amount of pattern recognition, even though the patterns aren’t compatible with the human nervous system.”
“That may suffice,” Penser said.
It was hard to resist Penser. As unprepossessing as was his appearance, the man radiated an uncanny force of will that made you want to please him. Bram had to remind himself that Penser’s reasonable tones stood for dead Nar, broken heads, Pite’s firebottles. He shook his head angrily to rid himself of Penser’s influence.
“I won’t help you,” he said.
“What did I tell you?” Pite said. “Want me to give him a touch of current?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary yet,” Penser said. The bruised eyes regarded Bram sorrowfully. “Bram, I hope to persuade you that whether you help me or not will make no difference to the outcome of this affair. You may tell yourself, if you wish, that helping to move the tree out of Nar reach sooner rather than later may save Nar and human lives in the long run. But one way or the other, you will be persuaded.”
Bram said thickly, “I’m not cooperating, whatever you do. Anyway, I don’t know anything about moving trees.”
Penser seemed not to have heard him. He turned and stared out the lenticel again with his hands clasped behind him. It was night again outside the oval transparency, after the quarter turn the tree’s crown had made on its axis since Bram had entered the room, and a blurred dappling of stars could be seen through the membrane.
“It’s a simple matter, really,” Penser said almost to himself, “just a question of overriding the tree’s own tropisms. The first problem is to get it out of low orbit. Light pressure isn’t strong enough for that. Nor can I use the rocket engines of the various vehicles garaged here; the tree’s far too massive to move that way. The tree itself uses its own gases — builds them up and spurts them out under pressure, always orienting itself to break out of orbit. Ordinarily it would have done so by now — trees don’t like to linger near planetary masses. But a chemical inhibitor’s being metered into the tree’s circulatory system through the pumping station. We have to find it and turn it off. But first we have to identify it. We don’t want to go into retrograde orbit and fall through the atmosphere.”
He said it calmly. Bram was appalled at the risks the man was prepared to take. It was as if Penser wooed death.
“The next problem,” Penser continued dryly, “is to po
int the tree where we want to go. To do that we must induce a secondary phototropism — get the sun behind us and head for the second brightest light source in the sky, as trees tend naturally to do when they migrate from star to star.”
“The lesser sun,” Bram said, and immediately snapped his mouth shut.
“You know that?” Penser gave him an incurious glance. “Ah, yes, the young woman would have told you. One cannot do without such enthusiasts, but one uses them sparingly. No matter. The Nar will be tracking us soon enough. But when they see that we are headed for the lesser sun, they will assume that our destination is Ilf.”
Behind Bram, Pite growled, “The trouble is that our time’s running out.”
“I thought you said you knew how to operate a tree,” Bram said, unable to keep the hostility out of his voice. “That’s what you told the people down below. Do you mean to say you’ve killed and injured folk for nothing?”
“We have our own biologist and computer technicians,” Penser said. “They’ll be fully competent to sail the tree once we get started. But there isn’t time to rewire the systems for human operation.”
“It’s the computer that runs the chemical synthesizer at the pumping station,” Pite said unwillingly. “It only talks the yellowleg language, and we need a yellowleg to feed it the right data out of the operating library.”
“We were in the process of persuading a Nar biologist to assist us,” Penser said, “but something … unforeseen happened. So you see the problem. We need someone who can understand the touch language to select the right programs for us.”
“That’s you, Brammo,” Pite said.
“No.”
“Let me give him just a touch,” Pite begged.
Penser sighed. Day broke behind his gray figure as the tree rotated back into sunlight again. “Bring him along, Pite.”
With Pite prodding him from behind, Bram followed Penser unwillingly to another chamber in the suite. This one, too, had a lenticel in the outside wall, sending light streaming through the interior. A recessed pool added a further note of luxury to the place.
The Genesis Quest Page 29