The Smoke Ring t-2

by Larry Niven

  Gavving sighed. “Stet, you don’t want anything changed. What should we do? They’re here.”

  “Make them welcome,” said Minya. “Teach them how to live in a tree. Get the girls married. Make them part of us. Gavving, Mark intends to marry Karilly.”

  “Karilly’s sick in the mind. She isn’t getting over it.”

  “Sure, and Mark’s a dwarf. He’s needed a wife, and none of us would touch him. 1 never did feel sorry for the copsik runner, but…but he’s willing to take care other.

  And I think you ought to marry one of the other girls.”

  Bang! Gavving stared. This was a woman afraid of changes? “I am married.”

  “Clave has two wives. Anthon did, until lisa died. I’m getting too old to make babies, dear.”

  “You don’t mean—”

  “No!” She hugged him. “But it won’t give me a guest to carry.”

  “You’re serious? Okay, who?”

  She hesitated. Then, bravely (he thought): “I would have thought Mishael. She’s the oldest. Gavving, she showed me how to fly. I like her.”

  “Have you mentioned any of—”

  “No, you fool! A woman doesn’t ask a woman to be her wife!” And when he laughed she smiled, weakly.

  Gavving saw how difficult this was for her. Minya must have thought long and hard about this.

  “There’s room to extend the hut,” she said. “We’d have another pair of hands, adult hands. The children are growing up, they’re not as much fun any more—”

  And if some of us marry Serjent women, we’ll have their loyalty when the Admiralty comes to us! Logbearer can’t be the only ship in the sky. Gavving wondered if his brain was working in the service of his seeds. Minya had not referred to Mishael’s alien beauty.

  And if we do visit the Clump, his brain ran on, we’ll need guides. Booce or Ryllin would have to go. With their daughters among us, we’d have their loyalty—

  Chapter Five

  The Silver Suit

  from the Admiralty cassettes, year 3 SM:

  WE WERE CHOSEN FOR THIS. NO CITIZEN LEAVES EARTH ORBIT UNTIL THE STATE HAS LEARNED HIS TOLERANCE FOR FREE-FALL. ONE IN TEN THOUSAND HAVE THE GENETIC QUIRKS TO SURVIVE MONTHS OR YEARS OF FREE-FALL WITHOUT SOFTENING OF THE BONES, WITHOUT FAILURE OF THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM, WITHOUT THE TERROR OF FALLING.

  WE SERVED THE STATE BY FLYING TO THE STARS. WHEN THE DRIVE WAS OFF WE PLAYED AT FLYING, WHILE CRAMPED IN A SEEDER RAMSHIP WITH BARELY ROOM TO FLAP OUR ARMS. HERE IS REAL FLIGHT. OF COURSE THE SMOKE RING SEEMS AN INCREDIBLE DREAM COME TRUE — TO US.

  — SHARON LEVOY, ASTROGATION

  “KENDY FOR THE STATE. HELLO, JEFFER. IT’S BEEN more than thirty days.”

  “I was busy. We got our council. It’s over.”

  “How did it go?”

  “We lost.”

  “Who sided against you?”

  “Clave. Jayan and Jinny. Minya. Mark.”

  “Five out of ten. If you count the Serjents, twelve.”

  “Thirteen. Mishael’s old enough, and married too, but she acts like a junior wife. She won’t make Minya or Gavving angry. Gavving doesn’t want to fight with Minya. The Serjents don’t think like citizens yet. Anthon won’t get into the arguments. I’m not really sure where he stands. The rest of us want to see what’s out there, but we don’t all want it enough. Debby loves arguing, but she’s not very good at it. We didn’t give Clave any trouble at all.”

  “You’re disappointed. Don’t be. Did you think that flying would bring them around? People tend to side with authority, and authority tends to protect its own power. Clave is the key. Clave has everything he wants in Citizens Tree.”

  “Kendy, do you see us as savages?”

  “Yes. Don’t take that too seriously, Scientist. I would probably see the Admiralty as savages too. I want to educate you all.”

  “Then educate me, Kendy. I can’t just take Booce and Ryllin and go off into the sky. We—”

  “You must go, Jeffer. The wealth of the L4 point is almost irrelevant. It takes many people to hold a civilization together. There are too few of you here to be more than savages!”

  Jeffer didn’t react to the insult, barring an increase in infrared radiation from his cheeks, neck, and ears. “We’d need things Citizens Tree can’t spare. Lawri’s on my side, but we can’t both go. The tree needs a Scientist. We’d have to take the CARM too. We—”

  “Take it.”

  “You’re not serious. Dalton-Quinn Tree died because we couldn’t move it. I won’t see it happen to Citizens Tree.”

  “Bring the CARM back when you’re through with it.”

  Jeffer paused to think. (Kendy never did that. It was another reason to distrust Kendy: he seemed to leap at his answers, without forethought.) “We might lose the CARM.”

  “You can build a steam rocket. Jeffer, I’m drifting out of range.”

  “We’ve got one pipe, and we need that to be loggers. Without the pipe, Citizens Tree couldn’t build a steam rocket. I wouldn’t have believed that so much could change in twenty sleeps. Kendy?” The signal dissolved in noise.

  Kendy returned to his records.

  For twenty State years CARM #6 had been taking pictures, not just through the CARM cameras but through the fisheye lens on the pressure suit too.

  Here: the squirrel cage that ran a muscle-powered lift, and the lines leading up. Far too much footage of that.

  Here: fire burned in a great bowl of soft clay. The silver suit moved around the edges of the fire, poking it, or adjusting sheets of bark that had been set as vanes to channel the wind into the burning wood. The look of the clay began to change.

  Here: less fire than smoke. What looked like enough spaghetti to feed Sol system’s entire State government had been spread leeward of smoldering wood. The pressure suit moved around and within the mass, turning it and loosening the strands — vines — with the handle of a harpoon so that the smoke would cure them. These were the lines that now served Citizens Tree.

  Ingenious. A poor way to treat State property; but they were making use of local resources too.

  The platform-around the cookpot was of boards tied with line. It had always been flimsy, and that didn’t matter much in Citizens Tree’s low tide; but over the years the lines had loosened. Jayan and Jinny complained about the way the platform lurched while they tried to make dinner.

  So Rather and Carlot had been sent to repair the platform.

  Rather enjoyed the work. It called for muscle rather than dexterity. He lifted one end of a new branchwood plant into place. He called, “Hold this,” and waited until Carlot was set. Then he bounded down to the other end and hoisted that.

  Carlot giggled.

  Rather began to tie the planks. One loop of line to hold it, then he could work on a more elaborate mooring. He asked, “What’s funny?”

  “Never mind,” Carlot said. “Are you going to tie this for me?”

  “I thought I’d just leave you there. You make a good mooring, and decorative too.”

  “Oh.” She held the planks in place with one arm while she reached out. Her right leg was twenty ce’meters longer than the left, and she usually reached with that. Her long toes grasped a coil of line and pulled it to her hands. She tied a temporary binding.

  In the twenty-two sleeps since their arrival, all of the Serjent family had become dextrous in Citizens Tree tide.

  Rather wrapped a dozen loops of line around the plank ends, then began tightening them. Heave on a loop, pull the slack around; again. From the opening beyond the treemouth the wind blew steadily, drying sweat as fast as it formed.

  Carlot called from her corner. “That’s as tight as I can get it.”

  Rather was finished at his end. He jogged down to Carlot’s end (ripe copter plants buzzed up around his feet) and began pulling in slack. She’d left a good deal, of course. Carlot was agile, but not strong. He asked, “What got you giggling?”

  “Just the way you scurry.”

 
Rather’s hands paused for less than a second, then continued.

  “You did ask,” she said defensively. “You have to go running back and forth because you can’t reach as far as—”

  “I know that.”

  “Did you make this cauldron yourselves? I wouldn’t have thought you could do that here. It’s big enough to boil two people at once.”

  “Hey, Carlot, you don’t really eat people in the Empire, do you?”

  She laughed at him. “No! There’s a happyfeet tribe that’s supposed to do that. But how did you make it?”

  “The grownups found a glob of gray mud west of the tree. Maybe it was the middle of a pond that came apart. They brought some back. We took all the rocks in Citizens Tree and piled them in a bowl-shape, out on the branch where we couldn’t do any damage. I was just a kid, but they let me help with the rocks. We plastered the mud over the rocks. We got firebark from another tree and piled it in the bowl-shape and fired it. It took a dozen days to cool off, and then it was like that. We did it twice—”

  “You’re cute,” she said solemnly.

  Carlot was a year older than Rather. An exotic beauty was growing in her. Half her hair had been burned off, and she had cut the rest to match. Now it was like a skullcap of black wire. She was two and a half meters tall, with long fingers and long, agile toes, and arms and legs that could reach out forever.

  Carlot affected Rather in ways he wasn’t quite ready to accept. He said, “Put it in the treemouth. When do I get to be overwhelmingly handsome?”

  “Cute is good. If I weren’t your aunt—”

  “Treefodder.”

  “Are you not my nephew?”

  Rather studied his work. “I think we’re done. — It’s an Empire thing, is it? You don’t make babies even with relatives of relatives? Fine, but you’ve got a thousand people in the Empire! At least that’s what your parents say. We had ten adults and twenty children when you came. I won’t get much choice about who I marry.”

  “Who, then?”

  He shrugged. “Jill’s a half year older than me. All the other girls are younger. I’d have to wait.” The subject made him uncomfortable. He looked up past the treadmill and along the trunk, to where a handful of citizens were trying their wings. “I wish I was up there. You’ve been flying all your life, haven’t you?”

  “I should be there, showing you people how to fly. This damn fluff,” Carlot said. Long sleeves were sewn loosely to her tuftberry-scarlet tunic. She pulled one away. The green fur along her arm had turned brown; the patch had shrunk. “How’s yours?” She touched his cheek. The patch felt half numb and raspy; it ran from his face down his neck and across part of his chest. “It’s drying up. Ten days, it’ll be cleared up.”

  “Too treefeeding slow.”

  “We just have to stay in the shade for a while. Fluff needs sunlight.”

  “Yeah.”

  From eastward, his first mother’s voice called above the wind-roar. “Rather!”

  Rather bounded toward Minya across the floor of braided, live-spine branches. Carlot gave him a good head start, then bounded after him. Her asymmetric legs gave her an odd run, a pleasure to watch: boundBOUND, boundBOUND, low-flying flight. Soon she’d be faster than Jill. She reached Minya a good six meters ahead of Rather, turned and flashed a grin at him. She lost it immediately.

  “—Crawled too far toward the treemouth, and now he can’t—” Minya stopped and began again. “Rather! It’s the children. Harry and Qwen and Gorey went crawling around in the old west rooms. Gorey went too far, and Harry and Qwen can’t reach him, and he can’t get out.”

  “You can’t get to him?”

  “I didn’t try. Rather, we don’t know how long it was before Harry came to get us.”

  “Oh.” Harry would have tried to rescue Gorey himself, then spent more time working up the nerve to tell his mother. And Gorey was only five! “I’ll need some kind of knife,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I’m no narrower than you are, First Mother. I’m just shorter. I may have to cut through some spine branches.”

  The wind didn’t reach Mark’s long hair and beard.

  They held the sweat like two sponges. The slab of hard branchwood strapped to his back massed as much as he did. He scrambled up the slope of the treadmill, panting, trying to stay higher than Karilly and seven children. With a weight on his back, Mark was the equal of any two adults.

  The treadmill was six meters across and four wide, a fragile wheel of branchwood sticks. Water running down the trunk helped to spin it, but runners were still needed.

  It was getting easier; the treadmill was spinning faster.

  The cages must be almost passing each other. “Out!”

  Mark panted. “Runners, out!” Seven laughing children jumped from both sides of the treadmill, until only Mark and Karilly were left.

  Above was a sudden glare as the sun passed into view.

  Karilly’s dark skin shone with sweat; she breathed deeply as she bounded uphill alongside him. He knew she could understand him. “Karilly. When the up cage is at the top it…doesn’t weight anything. It takes all of us…to lift the down cage. Right now…the cages are next to each other. I can run by myself. In a little while…the down cage will be falling. I’ll have to get out. Use the brake. Slow it down.” She watched him as if she were listening. “So you jump out now.”

  Then he saw that she was afraid.

  “Okay.” He let the cage carry him around. Inverted, he scrambled down the other side. “I’m slowing it. Can you get out now?”

  Karilly scrambled out.

  Twenty klomters over his head, Lawri and her student flyers must be wondering what had gone wrong. Mark started the cage spinning again, letting his body do its accustomed work while his mind drifted.

  Long ago and far away, there had been civilization.

  London Tree had had stationary bicycles to run the elevators to the tree midpoint, and copsiks to run the bicycles. Citizens Tree was primitive. They had London Tree’s CARM, of course: a thing of science dating from the day men came from the stars. Otherwise they must build everything.

  Mark had shown the refugees how to build a lift. Mark had wanted to make bicycles, but the Scientists had built the treadmill instead. They kept the silver suit next to the treadmill with its helmet open. Citizens at the CARM could call for the lift through the radio in the suit.

  Below him he could see the hollow space of the commons, and two children bounding east. The tall, dark girl was far ahead of the smaller boy, who moved in slower, shorter steps, as if tide were heavier for him.

  His son. His size proved it. Mark would not have wished that on him; yet Rather would be the next Silver Man. Mark wondered if the citizens would appreciate their fortune. In the short lifetime of Citizens Tree there had been no need for an invulnerable fighter, and the silver suit had become a mere communications device.

  Had it not been for one stupid, stubborn act, Mark would still be a citizen of London Tree. But he would never have seen the stars, and he would never have seen his son.

  The treadmill was spinning by itself. Mark jumped out.

  He set the branchwood slab down. He looked up along the trunk, but he couldn’t see the down cage yet. “We’ll let it run for a bit.”

  If Karilly could talk, would she still smile at him like this? He took her hand. “Lawri wanted you with them.

  You were afraid to go up, weren’t you?” He had known a London Tree citizen who was afraid of falling. It was instinct gone wrong. If such a woman were born in a place like Carther States, would she be afraid all the time? Until the added terror of a fire pushed her over the edge.

  “Lawri wanted me up there too. I wonder what it’s like. Flying.”

  But the silver suit caught his eye. No.

  His business in London Tree had been war. Were there copsik runners in the Clump? Karilly would know. “I wish you could talk. The Scientists can’t marry us till you can say the words. The key
word is yes. Will you try? Yes.”

  “Mark!”

  He jumped. “Debby?”

  She called from below. “Yeah. Shall we relieve you?”

  Mark swallowed his irritation. “The empty’s coming down. You want to brake when the sun’s at about eleven.”

  “We’ll do it.” Debby and Jeffer climbed up to join them. “Hello, Karilly.”

  Jeffer said, “You didn’t go flying? You should try it.”

  “Not me. I’m the Silver Man. I fly with the silver suit. Come on, Karilly.” Maybe somebody would need muscle at the cookpot platform.

  The tunnels ran through the tuft like wormholes in an apple. Unused tunnels tended to close up; but passersby ate from the foliage as they passed, so the tunnels in normal use stayed open. One such tunnel ran past Rather’s home.

  At its west end Rather could have circled the hut with his legs. This was the oldest section. As the spine branches migrated west along the branch, eventually to be swallowed by the treemouth, enclosures tended to shrink. The newest sections were the largest.

  This disappearing section had been small when new.

  It had housed only Gavving and Minya and the baby Rather. Other children had come, and Gavving wove new rooms eastward, faster than the treemouth could swallow them. By now there were seven children, and a new wife for Gavving, and a far bigger common room; for the Citizens Tree populace was growing too. The original rooms had disappeared into the treemouth. These that he was passing now, wicker cages alongside the tunnel, were still less than Rather’s height. The children tended to claim these for their own.

  Rather found a deformed door. As he crawled inside he heard Minya saying, “Keep going, Carlot. Go to the common room and get my old matchet off the wall and bring it back. Hurry.”

  Harry, eight years old and Rather’s height, was crying into Mishael’s chest. Rather nodded to Mishael. “Second Mother. Which way did he go? Straight west?”

  Mishael, seven years older than Carlot, had Carlot’s dark, exotic beauty in fully developed form, and legs that caused even Rather to stare: long and slender and perfectly matched. She’d cut her trousers into loose shorts, odd-looking in Citizens Tree. The low roof cost her some dignity. She had to crouch. She looked uncomfortable and annoyed. “Straight on in. And he’s stopped talking. I think he’s mad at us.”