Curiosity underlined her response. “I have heard of cold. I don’t think I’d like it.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” he told her feelingly. “It’s wet, but not as wet as this, and the rain is cold, too. There are trees—”
She perked up. “Trees! Like these?”
He had to laugh, gently. “Teal, there are no trees like these anywhere else in the known universe. Your home is special in so many ways.”
“Well, if it is special and you are special, then what better place for you to be?” she argued ingenuously.
He started to reply, hesitated, and had to admit that she was making her case very well. The truly sad part of it was that he wanted to give in, wanted to make a home somewhere.
Presently that was impossible. As for the future, his present concern was to learn if there would be one. And just because this world might be a suitable place for him didn’t mean that he was suitable for it.
She wouldn’t understand any of that, of course.
“There are also places on Moth called plains, where there are no trees at all.”
Her eyes widened. “No trees at all!”
“Some of them don’t even have grass, and are covered all year round in ice.”
“Ice?” Her expression twisted. “Isn’t that something like ‘cold’?”
“It’s cold you can pick up,” he explained patiently. “Solid cold.”
She shook her head. “The old stories—it was always hard to believe some of the things they said. Your home is such a place?”
“It’s where I grew up.” He was not being intentionally evasive, only truthful. “I need to find out about who and what I am, Teal, before I can inflict myself for any length of time on someone else.”
This time there was nothing innocent about her response. “Don’t be in such a hurry to protect everyone from yourself.”
“I have things I have to do. There’s something unpleasant,” he looked upward and nodded, “up there. I may be fooling myself, but I think maybe I can do something about it. Or at least help.” He ran one hand lightly over the warm living wood on which they were sitting. “This place may be involved, somehow.”
She blinked. “This tree?”
Again he had to smile. “No. More than this tree. Much more. I don’t understand it all yet. There are so many things I don’t understand.”
She squeezed his arm. “Then you are more normal than you believe.”
If only that were so, he thought. If only it were so.
“Things are happening, Teal. On a very big scale. Very big. I seem to be in the middle of it all, somehow. There’s a sense of many parts of a whole trying to come together. I don’t know yet how I fit into the final equation. Only that I’m a part of it.”
“And because of that you can’t mate?”
His tone was tender but unyielding. “Because of that it wouldn’t be fair of me to mate.”
She looked away from him, silent and contemplative for some time. “Afterward?”
“Afterward all things might be possible.” There, he thought. No lie and no harm in speculating on a nonexistent future.
She sighed. Wee comical snores rose from the two young furcots while Saalahan’s great mass rose and fell silently. Dwell and Kiss slumbered in silence and Pip remained curled comfortably atop the big furcot’s back.
“Then you will not mate with me?”
He considered carefully. If greatness or tragedy was to be thrust upon him, it still lay sometime in the future. Vast forces in motion had not yet come together, were still in the process of doing so. Meanwhile, reality consisted of the forest, the rain, the warmth, and those around him.
Turning to her more solemnly than he intended, he replied, “I didn’t say that. What I said was that I couldn’t be your mate.”
After a moment’s uncertainty her face crinkled into a fresh smile; a provocative blend of shyness and anticipation. Then she reached for him.
Chapter Twenty
It took several days of hard climbing to reach the Home-tree. Flinx followed patiently behind Saalahan and Teal, watching the children and their furcots swing fearlessly across green-fringed chasms that would have given a mature human athlete pause. Occasionally they detoured carefully around dangers Flinx never saw, and once at Teal’s admonition he was compelled to all but tiptoe past a slim, smooth-barked growth that appeared no more threatening than its immediate neighbors.
Eventually Moomadeem called out from his position on the right. Joining the young furcot, Teal and Saalahan discussed what appeared to be familiar surroundings. They were sufficiently confident to diverge from the course dictated by Flinx’s positioner.
“If we’re wrong we can always use your device to return to our former path,” she told him. “But I think Moomadeem is right. I think we are very near the Home.”
An hour’s walk proved the furcot right. The branch that marked the outlying reaches of the Home-tree looked the same as those that he’d initially encountered upon leaving his shuttle at the landing site and descending into the hylaea. But it was not the same.
Without warning a large, powerful form dropped from a cluster of lianas dangling overhead to land directly in front of Saalahan, effectively blocking their path. Startled by her master’s reaction, Pip instantly rose into the air and began searching for the source of the alarm, alert and ready to defend against any attack.
A man landed on the branch next to the fully grown furcot. He was little taller than Teal and similarly clad. A finger waved in Flinx’s direction.
“Who and what is that?”
“Hullo, Enoch.” Stepping forward, Teal put a hand on each of the man’s shoulders. Still wary, he kept trying to see past her. Flinx wasn’t sure whether the newcomer’s attention was directed toward him or Pip.
Saalahan led the younger furcots to greet the second adult. Meanwhile Kiss and Dwell raced past both guards, shouting and calling out gleefully. The man watched them go, then put his own hands on Teal’s shoulders. At that moment Flinx realized what the man was looking for.
“Where is Jerah?”
Lowering her eyes respectfully, Teal shook her head. “It was not a good gathering.”
The older man nodded knowingly. “We thought you all dead.”
“Only Jerah.”
As Enoch retreated a step, Flinx noted the snuffler strapped to his back. “I didn’t know you knew the returning way.”
“We didn’t.” She turned to indicate Flinx. “This person found us and helped us to return.”
Enoch studied Flinx carefully. “It is a person, then.” Like Teal and the children, the scout had a gymnast’s build, further hardened by a lifetime of climbing trees and swinging from convenient creepers.
“He is from Up There.” Teal thrust a finger heavenward.
The man’s eyes widened slightly. “A skyperson?”
“Yes, but of a different tribe. In fact, he was being chased by evil skypersons. He came here seeking refuge.”
Enoch’s deep-seated gaze flicked past the arrivals. “Where are these evil skypersons? What happened to them?”
“Furcots and forest.” Her smile was tight. “The little flying creature is a furcot to him. Without him we would not be here now.”
Striding boldly and unafraid up to the much taller Flinx, the older man held out his right hand, palm facing up. Echoing the gesture Teal had demonstrated, Flinx placed his own hand atop the other man’s, covering it completely. The scout didn’t pull back.
“Feels like a person,” he avowed.
Sensing that her master was once more relaxed, Pip settled back down onto his shoulder.
Enoch stepped back. “You are welcome, and thanked for helping Teal and her children.” He smiled affectionately at her. “You will have a tale to tell. Everyone will be glad to see that you and your cubs have survived. There will be mourning for Jerah.”
Flinx followed, noting carefully which growths Enoch and Teal avoided. In this fashion he had traveled
in safety for the past several days, and he had no intention of letting his guard down now.
It was another hour before they came upon a tree so grand of girth that Flinx thought surely that it had to be one of They-Who-Keep.
“It is the Home-tree,” Teal informed him. “The They-Who-Keep are very rare.”
Gazing at the gnarled wall of wood, Flinx found it difficult to believe, anything so big could actually be alive. Approaching the main trunk at an altitude some four hundred meters above the surface, he saw that it split into half a dozen subsidiary boles, each of which sought its own path to the distant sky. From the multiple trunks, branches greater in diameter than most trees grew in all directions.
The immense structure supported a forest of its own in the form of the thousands of symbiotic and parasitic growths that found purchase upon it. Tons of vines and lianas clung to soaring branches or hung from subsidiary verdure. Flowers bloomed in profusion, attended by hundreds of nectar-, pollen-, and leaf-eaters.
Their guide halted before an impenetrable thicket of vines which sprouted clusters of a peculiar, waxen-petaled blossom. As Flinx looked on, first Enoch and then Teal spat directly into the center of two of the vitreous blooms. The petals closed momentarily over the spittle. A moment later a tremor ran through the obstructing vines. In fits and jerks they pulled themselves aside, contracting far enough in upon themselves to create a passageway between.
Some kind of specialized, acquired biochemical interaction, Flinx mused wonderingly as he followed Enoch and Teal. The children and young furcots had preceded them by several minutes.
A woody chasm opened before him to reveal a spacious hollow formed by the six subsidiary trunks. Within the vaulted enclosure he saw his first signs of permanent habitation.
Using creepers and saplings, leaves and split gourds, hand-hewn planks and thatch, the inhabitants of the Home-tree had fashioned within its protective heart a real village. Storage chambers had been hollowed from parasitic galls, and unusually hard knots served as places of work, trimmed and shaped to serve as living tables and benches.
He was allowed only a fleeting glimpse before Enoch hailed his fellow villagers and they recognized Teal. A helpless Flinx was caught up in the subsequent rejoicing as they swarmed around her. Because most of the men were out hunting or gathering, the celebrants consisted primarily of women and children.
Separating himself from the crowd as best he could, Flinx noted that more formal greetings were being exchanged elsewhere within the clearing as Saalahan’s return was acknowledged by fellow furcots. No doubt Moomadeem and Tuuvatem had already announced themselves and retired to the company of their children.
When the initial excitement over her safe return finally subsided, she proudly introduced Flinx and Pip to her people. Wide-eyed but audacious children dared one another to touch him. All were fascinated by his pale skin, red hair, and towering frame. Hugging his neck, Pip hissed warningly at any small hands that fumbled too close. Each time she reacted, two or three children would retreat while emitting squeals of mixed fear and laughter.
Eventually the crowd parted, quieting reverently at the approach of the old shaman, Ponder. Flinx stoically presented himself for examination while Teal stood by approvingly. The old man studied the strange arrival intently, occasionally feeling of his body and raiment. Flinx endured it all in silence, looking past the old man only once to wink at Teal.
When he was satisfied, the shaman turned to the expectant villagers. “That this person has come among us is an important thing. That he is a skyperson and yet comes in peace seeking understanding is more important still. All the tribes must be notified.” He turned back to the visitor. “What knowledge do you seek, young man?” The crowd watched and listened intently.
Feeling many eyes on him, Flinx replied with care. “That which I do not have.”
“And what knowledge is it that you do not have?”
“Everything.”
The shaman Ponder chuckled. “You are not as young as you look. Or at least a part of you isn’t.” A wrinkled but still vigorous hand clapped him on the shoulder.
“In particular,” Flinx added, now that he’d made a good impression, “I’d like to see the place that belonged to the evil skypersons.”
For an instant the old man’s expression darkened, and Flinx worried that he might have overstepped his bounds. But the shaman’s emotional aura was warm, and a moment later he was grinning.
“It never ‘belonged’ to them. No part of the forest can belong to anyone. According to the old tales, they learned that the hard way. Where they once were is a place to be shunned, but if knowledge of this is something you wish to acquire, then you shall have it. For what you did to help Teal and her cubs, you are owed.”
Uncertainty gave way to embarrassment. “They helped me more than I helped them.”
“A modest skyperson!” exclaimed someone in the crowd. It sparked murmurs of approval.
Old Ponder’s smile widened: “There must be a feast, to celebrate Teal’s safe return. Later, I would like to talk with you, young man. There are some questions I have about the sky I would very much like to have answered.”
Flinx smiled back. “The brethren of the curious. I’ll do what I can.” Arm in arm, young skyperson and aged forest dweller strolled off toward the center of the village.
The sheer variety of edibles brought forth at the communal meal that evening was breathtaking in its scope. Flinx hardly knew what to try first. There was meat both dried and fresh, the product of several days’ hunt, but it was the fruits and vegetables and a number of unclassifiable growing things that truly teased his palate. A whole spectrum of new flavors was opened. A suitcase full of synthesizable extracts from this world would be worth a fortune to any food conglomerate in the Commonwealth, he reflected as he ate.
Someone handed him an oblong lavender fruit speckled with blue streaks that had been cooling in the depths of a hollowed-out gall. Taking a bite, he was rewarded with soft indigo pulp that tasted of raspberries and cream. Settled on his lap, Pip lay quiescent, her middle swollen, her appetite properly sated for the first time in many days.
He loosely estimated the tribe’s population at between fifty and a hundred. It was impossible to be any more accurate because people were constantly coming and going on this or that errand while giggling, laughing children streaked back and forth at random.
To all outward appearances the community was thriving and healthy despite being surrounded by danger enough to give a fully equipped exploration expeditionary force pause. Teal and her people had adapted so completely to a life in the forest that if left alone, in another couple of hundred years any memories of Commonwealth antecedents would probably be completely forgotten.
Whether they would be left alone was doubtful. Where one ship had accidently come, others were likely to follow. Another problem for him to contemplate, as if his problem quotient wasn’t bursting mental seams already.
Several days passed before, with Ponder’s blessing, he was guided to the blasted place in the forest that had been the site of the evil skypersons’ brief sojourn on this world. Beneath a pulsing, fecund blanket of greenery, the ruins of a commercial humanx outpost were clearly visible. How it had come to be here he had no idea, but the stories related by Ponder pointedly detailed the tragedy that had overtaken its hopeful but intrusive builders.
With the aid of the shaman and others from the tribe, a path was hacked through the suffocating vines and roots that had taken possession of the buildings. Branches and creepers had pushed through every port. Doors lay crumpled and twisted, ripped from their hinges by the slow but inexorable action of growing things. Secondary and tertiary trees had burst upward through the floor and continued growing until they’d punctured the roof.
Ample evidence showed where fire had swept through the complex, though the profusion of plant life had healed or obliterated many of the original wounds. He had to smile at the sight of pink and yellow flowers trai
ling from vines that had enveloped a floor-mounted pulse cannon. Once a brooding weapon, time had reduced it to the status of a decorative planter.
Flinx would have probed deeper, but Ponder restrained him. “Dangerous animals live in the darkest places.” It was clear that only his curiosity allowed the shaman to move freely about the ruins. After helping to clear a way in, most of the tribespeople had chosen to remain outside. For them the complex was the location of unpleasant collective memories, and they saw no reason to tempt whatever ghosts might linger in its depths.
“These animals you refer to; they scare you?” Flinx asked the shaman. Ponder nodded solemnly. “Then they scare me as well.” He gestured down a half-lit corridor. “Let’s see what’s up that way. What happened here, anyway?”
“The stories tell that the skypersons came seeking to steal from the forest.” The shaman stepped carefully around a twisted lump of stelamic. “They could not emfol, not a one of them. So what happened here was as sad as it was inevitable.”
A failed commercial venture, Flinx mused. Carried out surreptitiously, without proper permits, preparations, or safeguards. He edged around a bush whose flowers he’d been told were capable of firing tiny, toxic darts if disturbed. Whoever these people were, they’d come intending to subdue rather than cooperate with the world-forest. He shook his head at the thought. No wonder they’d never had a chance.
Somewhere there would be a record of the failed venture. In company files, in the records of whichever concern had insured the ill-fated House. It constituted a piece of Commonwealth history destined to remain sealed for some time. Any individuals who’d been directly involved and who could tell the true story of what had happened here were probably dead by now.
Until and unless proper protection was extended to Teal and her people, a repeat of that tragedy was certainly possible. How he would manage to secure such protection, Flinx didn’t know; only that he would arrange it somehow. Wherever it could be found and whatever the circumstances, happiness was a rare enough commodity that it deserved protection. If it could be done without exposing the tribesfolk to a stampede of Commonwealth attention, from starry-eyed botanists to overeager anthropologists, so much the better.
Mid-Flinx (Pip and Flinx) Page 27