The Smoke Ring t-2

by Larry Niven

  “To move. You know the rule? West takes you in, in takes you east. I want the tree to move east, back to the Clump. So I cut the in tuft. Now I’ve got a west wind blowing on the out tuft, and nothing at the in stump to catch the wind. The tree accelerates west. It drops toward Voy. Things move faster when their orbits are closer to Voy, so the tree moves east. After a while I’m in from the Clump and still moving. That’s when I need the rocket. I have to cut off the other tuft, then fire the rocket to move the tree into the Clump.”

  The dwarf boy asked, “What then?”

  “Then I sell the log for what I can get, and hope nobody else brought a log in at the same time. If there are two of us competing, we might not get enough to pay us for the work.”

  Most of the children looked puzzled. The dwarf asked, “What went wrong this time?”

  Booce’s throat closed up. His decision! With some re- r lief he heard Ryllin say, “We were in a hurry. We thought we could get more water for the rocket. So we set the rocket going before the tuft dropped off. That started a fire. Wend was trying to get out of the huts when the water tank — well, it got too hot and—”

  Booce jumped in, hastily. “The water tank split open. Wend got caught. Carlot and I were burned pulling her out of the steam. We were steering the log for that pond out there, and your tree moved in front of it, so it was the closest. So we made for it. And you found six of us clinging to the trunk like toes in hair, and — and Wend was dead, and the rest of us were ready to die, I think.”

  The adults had all been served. The children drifted toward the cookpot. Booce ate. He’d let his stew get cold.

  Likely he would never see the Clump again. It was as well. He and his family would be paupers there. He had never owned anything but Logbearer itself, and even that was gone. But was it really beyond belief that these people could build another Logbearer?

  When all the adults were eating, the children drifted into line at the cookpot. Rather was just ahead of three tall and dark young women, and just behind his brother Harry.

  “Take Jill’s place,” Rather told Harry.

  “Why should I?”

  “Beats me. Will you do it?”

  “All right.”

  The favor would be repaid. Rather would take Harry’s place at the cookpot or in the treadmill, or show him a wrestling trick; something. These things didn’t need discussion. Harry stepped out of line and talked to Jill where she was serving stew. Jill served herself and Harry took her place.

  The blond girl joined Rather. “What’s that for?” she asked; but she seemed pleased.

  “I’ve been listening to the old ones. Now I want to talk to the girls. Come along?” If they wouldn’t talk to a dwarf boy, maybe they’d talk to a girl.

  They followed the Serjent girls as they made their exaggeratedly careful way across the commons’ wicker floor. The refugees settled slowly into the foliage, keeping their eyes fixed on their bowls. Stew still slopped over the edge of Carlot’s bowl. “The hole’s too big,” she said.

  “You just need practice. — I’m Jill, he’s Rather.”

  “How do you eat when you’re at the midpoint?”

  Jill and Rather settled across from them. Rather stripped four branchlets for chopsticks. Jill said, “I’d take a smoked turkey along. What do you use? Bowls with smaller holes?”

  “Yes, and we carry these.” Carlot produced a pair of bone sticks, ornately carved. “You’re lucky. You’ve always got…spine branches?”

  “These are branchlets. The spine branches are the big ones.”

  The third girl, Karilly, had not spoken. She was concentrating fully on her bowl.

  Mishael said, “You seem to be happy.”

  Rather found the comment disconcerting. “What do you mean?”

  “You, all of you. You’ve got your tree and it’s all you need. Lumber from the bare end of the branch. The clothes you wear, the cloth comes from branchlet fibers, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s foliage with the sugar washed out.”

  “And the dye is from berries. Water comes running down the trunk into that basin, and you eat foliage and catch meat from the sky. And there’s the CARM. Without the CARM you’d have to build a rocket to move the tree.’’

  “Right.” Rather thought, We don’t know how to do that. The CARM is all that keeps us from being savages. Is that how they see us? “We had to leave the tree to get our lines. And “the adults keep talking about earthlife crops. They couldn’t bring seeds and eggs with them.”

  “You could buy them in the Market if you were rich enough.”

  Jill said, “We don’t know those words. Rich? Buy?”

  Carlot said, “Rich means you can have whatever you want.”

  “Like being Chairman?”

  “No—”

  Mishael took over. “Look, suppose you want earthlife seeds or pigeons or turkeys. Stet, you go to the Market and you find what you want. Then you’ve got to buy it. You need something to give the owner. Metal, maybe.”

  “We don’t have much metal,” Rather said. “What are the people like? Like you?”

  “Sometimes,” Carlot said. “What do you mean? Tall? Dark? We get dark and light, short and…well, mostly we’re about as tall as me, and the men are taller.”

  “No dwarves?”

  “Oh, of course there are dwarves. In the Navy.”

  “What do you think of dwarves?” He hadn’t meant to ask so directly; he hadn’t realized how important the question was to him.

  Carlot asked, “What do you think of my legs?”

  Rather blushed. “They’re fine.” They were hidden anyway; Carlot was wearing the scarlet tunic and pantaloons of Citizens Tree.

  “One’s longer than the other. My teacher’s got one leg longer than mine and one leg like yours, and it never bothers him. And the Admiral’s got an arm like a turkey wishbone. I’ve seen him. We’re all kinds. Rather.”

  It was Mark’s habit to eat near the cauldron, where others might find him. Rarely did he get company. This day he was mildly surprised when Clave and Minya settled themselves across from him. They plucked branchlets and ate. Presently Clave asked, “What do you think of the Serjents?”

  “They’re doing all right.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant,” Clave said, while Minya was saying, “What will they do to Citizens Tree?”

  “Oh.” Mark thought it over. “Half of you came from the in tuft of a broken tree. You were from the out tuft, Minya. Three from Carther States. Lawri and me from London Tree. London Tree used to raid Carther States for copsiks. Fourteen years we’ve been living here, and nobody’s killed anyone yet. We can live with the Serjents too.”

  Clave said, “Oh, we can live with them—” while Minya wondered, “What do they think of us?”

  Clave snorted. “They think we’re a little backward, and they’d like to talk us into going to the Clump.”

  Where was this leading? Mark asked, “Are you thinking they want the CARM?”

  “No, not that. Not impossible either…Have you talked to Gavving or Debby lately?”

  “They don’t like my company. Neither do you, Minya.”

  Minya ignored that. “They’re trying to figure out how to build a steam rocket, starting with just the metal tube they brought back!”

  “Uh-huh” Mark saw the point now. “They can build us a machine that moves trees around. They can tell us why we should all go to the Clump. So you’re a little nervous. Chairman? We could lose half the tribe. Lawri keeps saying there aren’t enough of us now.”

  “And what do you want. Mark?”

  Mark would have wished for a wife or three, but he saw no point in telling Clave or Minya that. “I want nothing from the Clump. We’re here. Twelve adults, twenty children, happy as dumbos in Citizens Tree. We shouldn’t be announcing that all over the sky. Even if the Clump doesn’t keep copsiks, maybe somebody out there does. Things aren’t perfect here, but they’re good. I wouldn’t want to wind up as somebody
’s copsik.”

  Clave nodded. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  Minya said, “We worked so hard to make this our home. Gavving knows how close we came to dying. How can he risk what we’ve got?”

  “We seem to be agreed,” Clave said briskly. “Well? What do we do about it?”

  Lawri and Jeffer were missing dinner. Lawri had led her husband east along the branch, beyond the region of the huts. In a dark womb of foliage and branchlets, they were making babies.

  Resting, relaxed for the first time in many days, Lawri plucked foliage and put it in Jeffer’s mouth. He talked around it, indistinctly. “Does this remind you of being young?”

  She lost her smile. “No.”

  He leered. “Little London Tree boys and girls never snuck off into the foliage — ?”

  She shook her head violently. “It isn’t like that for a girl in London Tree. When boys get old enough, they don’t need us. They go to the in tuft. Copsik women belong to any male citizen. Jeffer, you know that much!”

  “I should. That’s how Mark got Minya pregnant, before we got loose.”

  She changed position to lie along his length. “If he did. Any man can father a dwarf.”

  “Even Rather doesn’t believe that.”

  “Bother him?”

  “Yeah…But women had children in London Tree, didn’t they? And married?”

  “Yes, if we were willing to act like copsiks ourselves. How else could we compete? I would’ve been some man’s copsik if I wanted to make babies. So I never made babies.”

  Jeffer looked into her eyes as if seeing her for the first time. “Are you glad I came?”

  She nodded. Perhaps he couldn’t see her blushing in the near-darkness.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  That was a stupid question. Knowing how she needed him, he’d use his advantage to win arguments! “This wasn’t what we came to talk about.”

  “Did we come to talk?”

  “What did you find on the burned tree?”

  “We didn’t keep any secrets. — That’s right, you weren’t there when Booce was telling us what we had. Well, we got a pot full of charred stuff — honey, he said — and a metal thing for cutting wood, and hooks…miscellaneous stuff. And the metal pipe. Everything else that burned — I’ve forgotten what he called it all, but it can all be replaced, except the — what did Booce call it? The sikenwire.”

  “I want to go to the Clump,” Lawri said.

  “Me too. Clave would never let both Scientists go.”

  Jeffer kissed her cheek. “Let’s wait till the last minute and then fight about it.”

  “What about the sikenwire?”

  “We’ll think of something. Do you think Clave will let us take the CARM?”

  “…No.”

  She felt him shrug. “Okay. We go as loggers?” She nodded (their foreheads brushed) and he said, “I’d guess Clump citizens will all look like jungle giants. We should have a few. Anthon and Debby’ll come. A couple of the Serjents for guides. Defenses…we wouldn’t want to risk the CARM in the Clump, but we could take the silver suit.”

  “Wrong. A lot of citizens don’t want anything changed. Clave thinks we’re too close to the Clump already. He wants to take us farther west. Mark agrees with him.”

  “Yeah, I’ve talked to Mark. Treefodder. Without him we can’t use the silver suit…Lawri? Clave wants to move us west?”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “We don’t know enough yet. Forget it. Look what you missed when you were a little girl…”

  Whatever the disagreements now roiling through Citizens Tree, there was at least this bone of consensus: they all wanted to fly.

  The Serjent girls were willing. From branchwood sticks and from cloth that was made on the looms below the branch, they made wings. Karilly worked quietly and skillfully and without words. Mishael and Carlot explained as they went, and corrected the mistakes of the children who emulated them. The work went fast. Citizens would wear their old tunics and pants for half a year longer, for cloth was not made quickly; but twenty-four wings were ready within twelve days.

  Jeffer took Mishael, Minya, Gawing, and eight of the older children to the midpoint via the lift. Other children ran with zeal in the treadmill, knowing that theirs would be the next flight.

  Jeffer had chosen with some care. These were the children who had not shied back from crossing to the pond on the day of the firetree. Yet there had been lines to cling to then. Today there was only bark, and some of them clung to that.

  Rather flew, and was instantly in love with wings. Jill looked like she was facing death, but when wings were bound to her ankles and Rather was already in the sky, she flew. Mishael served as instructor. Jeffer learned how to kick, how to turn. When the sky was filled with winged adults and children, the rest gulped hard and loosed their hold on the bark and flew.

  They were in the sky for one full circle of the sun. The adults had their hands full herding them back to the lift.

  Arth made a game of it, fleeing across the sky until Jeffer and Gawing closed in on him and pulled his wings off.

  The sun was rising up the east before they had the children rounded up.

  Then Jeffer sent the others down without him. He told Minya, “I want to do some maintenance. Start the lift again after you’re down.”

  “Kendy for the State. Hello, Scientist.”

  “Hello, Kendy.”

  “How are your refugees?”

  “Four of the Serjents recovered. One of the girls, Karilly, looks okay but she doesn’t talk.”

  “Shock. She may recover. When may I see them?”

  “Kendy, I wanted to give Mishael a tour of the CARM. The Chairman vetoed that. He’s afraid they’ll try to steal the CARM.”

  “Nonsense. What do the rest of your tribe think?”

  “We’re split down the middle. Half of us want to go see what’s in the Clump. They’ve got a place…the Market?…where we could get anything we want. The Serjents told us about it.”

  “And?”

  “The Chairman is scared spitless of the Clump. He thinks we’re too close now. Some of the others feel the same way. Jayan and Jinny, of course, but Mark and Minya too. Even the Serjents don’t all want to leave. Mark’s asked Ryllin for permission to marry Karilly, and she gave it.”

  “Good. How do you feel about this, Jeffer?”

  “I want to see the Clump. Booce told me they’ve got something they call the Library, but it sounds like a CARM autopilot. I want to scan their cassettes. Kendy, I’m doing what I can. I just took some of them flying. They like that. Maybe they’ll start wondering what else they’re missing.”

  “I remember Clave. He leads his citizens where they want to go. Call a council. Force your citizens to make a decision.”

  “What good does that do us?”

  “If you lose the vote, you’ll know where you stand. Then make Clave set a date for moving the tree. Decide what you need and who you need. Is there any chance you can talk Mark around?”

  “None.”

  “The Serjents told you how to go about setting up a logging enterprise. Tell me.”

  The children slept on, exhausted by their flying. Gavving was making an early breakfast on a slice of smoked dumbo meat. He said, “The Admiralty has earthlife plants.”

  “We’ve lived without them for fourteen years,” Minya said sleepily.

  “We lived without lifts and the CARM for longer than that. It was because we didn’t know.”

  “The Admiralty has never touched us. We wouldn’t know it exists, except that Booce tells us so. But you want to know more. Aren’t these matters more properly discussed in council?”

  Gavving looked closely at his wife. “You looked like this fourteen years ago, when you were trying to kill me. The whole tuft is like that. There hasn’t been fighting like this since the War of London Tree!”

  “I haven’t forgotten London Tree. We made a home here. Any
change is for the worse.”

  “Dear, are you sorry they came?”

  “No!” Minya said with some force. She was fully awake now. “There aren’t enough of us. We all feel that.”

  “Lawri the Scientist talks about the gene pool being too small—”

  “We don’t need that gibberish. We can feel we’re too few. Now we have three more women, even if Ryllin is too old to host a guest, and they’re different from us—”

  “They are indeed!”

  “Well, that’s good!”

  “Suppose they want to go home?”

  “They can’t,” Minya said flatly.

  A child stirred: Qwen. Gavving lowered his voice.

  “Suppose we built them another rocket. Suppose some of us wanted to go with them.”

  Minya stopped to sort words through her head. Gavving waited patiently. Presently she said, “They’d have to be crazy. We’d have to be crazy to let them go. Gav, have you forgotten London Tree?”

  “No. I haven’t forgotten Quinn Tuft, either, or Carther States. They didn’t make citizens into copsiks, and neither did your people.”

  “…No. But we attacked you the instant we saw you.”

  “True.”

  “Do you remember being lost in the sky, clinging to a sheet of bark and dying of thirst? We faced dangers we can’t even describe to our children, because they were too strange! We fought hard for Citizens Tree! And now both Scientists want to cross a thousand klomters to the Clump shouting ‘Here we are!’ Why do you want to risk what we’ve got?”

  “They’ve got things to trade. They’ve got wings—”

  “We’ve got wings.”

  “We picked jet pods, when we could find them. All this time. And it’s so simple. Minya, what would you have given for a pair of wings, when we were stranded in the sky? Everything in the Smoke Ring can fly except men, and all it takes is spine branches and cloth! They’ve got a rocket that moves a tree, and it isn’t stolen starstuff, it’s made mostly from things they find in the Smoke Ring. What have they got in the Clump? What haven’t we seen yet?”

  She put bitterness in her laughter. “A thousand people and a drastic need for copsiks, maybe.”