The Smoke Ring t-2

by Larry Niven

  He wiggled through the foliage in her wake. Nice to have a view. The puff jungle was hollow in the middle. A thousand flashers edged warily away, flashing blue and yellow wings at them.

  They balled their clothes and threw them at the flashers, causing great excitement.

  The birds perched in a shell around the hollow, watching them. She was just his size. She knew more than Carlot: delightful things. There were moments in which Rather resented that knowledge. Others in which he was shocked. His body knew things his mind hadn’t dreamed.

  They rested…running hands and toes across the sweat-slick contours of stranger’s flesh, learning each other. Smooth muscle. Hair red everywhere. Fingers and toes stubby like his own. Either of Sectry’s breasts fit nicely into his two hands.

  “We could go back and forth,” she said. “Live some in the Clump, some in your tree.”

  “Do you mean that?’’ As the fringe died out of his brain he began to wonder what he had committed himself to.

  “Who knows? Don’t ever make decisions when you’re on fringe.” Suddenly Sectry wriggled out of his arms. She snatched up her wings and eeled through the foliage and out. Rather followed, curious and horny.

  Only her head poked into the sky. Flashers wheeled there, and something much larger circled thirty meters away. Sectry asked, “Want to see something funny?”

  A wedge with teeth. “Get back.” He pulled at her ankle. She had donned her wings. “That’s a Dark shark. Carlot showed me.”

  “We try to keep them out of the Market region.” She thrust herself into the sky, naked; waved her arms and yelled. The Dark shark froze. A window came open in a nearby cluster of cubes. The beast charged.

  Rather didn’t have his wings. He called, “Sectry! Dark sharks aren’t funny!”

  The long limber torso whipped back and forth too fast to see. The narrow triangular wing was a rippling blur. Sectry turned and kicked hard. She dived into the foliage, whooping, pulling Rather after her.

  They were in the hollow center.

  “Are you nuts?” he bellowed, and she laughed. Then the Dark shark burst through in a shower of leaves and splintered wood.

  All Rather could see was teeth. His own wings were out of reach. He set his feet against a branch and watched the predator. Which way to jump? Flattened head and the forepart of a thrashing torso, three big crescent eyes, a thousand pointed teeth…the eyes beginning to show panic. Sectry couldn’t stop laughing.

  The beast was stuck.

  Rather asked, “You do this a lot?”

  “Sure. We don’t like Dark sharks.” She wrapped her arms and legs around him and laughed into his face.

  The predator snapped its teeth at them, raging and impotent. Sectry murmured in his ear. “Gives it a kick, doesn’t it?”

  Debby was tired. She was flying blind, pushing bags of about her own mass, with no more than the strength of her legs. From time to time she stopped to look past her burden. The Serjent log grew larger.

  Logbearer had dropped Debby and Rather near Navy Headquarters on its way to the Serjent log. Now Debby found the rocket moored near what had been the out tuft.

  Two days’ time had wrought wonderful changes.

  A skeletal cylinder perched atop the fuel pod. Men were all over it, placing planks, driving pegs into wood. Booce floated nearby, watching contentedly. When he saw Debby coming he donned wings and kicked to join her.

  “No problems?”

  “No problems,” she said. “Zakry wanted money. I just went down the list and paid him what I had. Here, there’s some left. I don’t think I got cheated. I’ve only got half the seeds here. We’re supposed to get the rest within five days. Where do we store all this?”

  “Not in Logbearer. There’ll be paint fumes.”

  They lined the seed bags along a crack in the bark and ran tethers across them.

  More men approached, pushing a cylinder of wooden beams. Debby watched as they maneuvered the lumber toward Logbearer. She called, “Ho, Clave! Learning a new trade?”

  Clave joined them. He smelled of hard work. “I’m learning it, but I don’t like it. Too nitpicking. Every board has to be just the right size, just the same thickness.”

  “I got the seeds.”

  “Good. Booce, isn’t this a bit of a luxury? Don’t we have other concerns?”

  “Like selling my wood? This’ll show off its quality! I’ll paint my logo, but I’ll leave most of the wood bare. I’ll cruise past the Market and anyone can see I’ve got a good tree.”

  The hired crew were fixing panels on the long cylinder. Clave, rested, resumed work. Some of the panels were on swivels: windows. The sun swung behind the Dark; the day turned gloomy. When the sun reappeared, passing within a degree of Voy, one whole flank of Logbearer was finished.

  A shadow flapped out of the sun and became Carlot with her arms full of gear. Debby flew to help her. Carlot was pushing cooking utensils and a slab of smoke-blackened moby meat. She asked, “Where’s Rather?”

  “I left him in Half Hand’s with Sectry Murphy.”

  “Mmm.”

  They stored the gear near the bags of seeds. “We’d better do our cooking here tonight,” Carlot told her father. “That paint’s awful stuff.” Booce agreed.

  Carlot asked, “How did Rather do? I keep forgetting we want him to fail.”

  “Yeah. The way Sectry Murphy was acting, he made some kind of endurance record on a big wheel. Somebody should have thought of that.”

  “Me,” Booce muttered.

  “Might not matter. They seem to want him bad.”

  The cabin formed with remarkable speed. Now men were pegging crossbars across the bow…for pushing against a log? Two men produced gourds; wind brought a noxious chemical reek. Booce excused himself and went to supervise while they painted the finished flank of Logbearer.

  Carlot asked, “What was he doing with Murphy?”

  “You remember your father said—”

  “Yes, and I said she might be seriously offended. He didn’t actually make a pass, did he?”

  “Not while I was there. She’s in a rotten mood. They put her in a pressure suit and she didn’t fit.”

  “That’s bad.”

  “She wanted to blow her mind out on fringe tea, and she wanted company. I left them alone. Treefodder, Carlot, if he does get Murphy mad at him, what’ll she do? Keep him out of the Navy!”

  “…Yeah.’’ Carlot began setting her gear up for cooking. She worked with furious energy.

  Debby watched. Presently she asked, “Carlot, are you going to marry Raff Belmy?”

  “I don’t know. I just spent a couple of days with Raff aboard Woodsman. He seems — he takes it for granted we’ll be married. He’s so sure, he hardly mentioned it.”

  “So? It’s what you told Rather.”

  “I know. Where is he?”

  There were beams left over from the making of Logbearer. Clave brought them an armload. Carlot arrayed them and started a fire.

  Booce paid off the hired crew and they departed. His own crew went to inspect the altered rocket. Booce was exuberant. Clave was proud. Debby made appropriate noises. Logbearer had been repaired in just four days.

  The paint was well done, she thought. She wasn’t qualified to judge’ woodwork. The cabin was as big as the pod, roomy for half a dozen. Booce and Clave began the finishing touches: setting knobs and moorings into the hull, outside and in. Booce wanted particular patterns…

  The fire was going well: a dim globe of heat, nearly invisible while both Voy and the sun bathed this side of the log. Carlot sliced the moby meat into two slabs. She set sliced vegetables between the slabs, locked them together with wooden pegs, and tethered it all within the fringe of the flame.

  A distorted blue-fringed black man-shape swam across Voy.

  “Rather! Where have you been?” Carlot shouted.

  He reached the bark. “I’m in deep trouble,” he said. “Where’s the Chairman?”

  “Working on
the rocket. What kind of trouble?”

  “Carlot, maybe you can tell me.” Rather looked bewildered, a little frightened. “I’m afraid I’ve gotten myself in deeper than I wanted.”

  Section Four

  THE DARK AND THE LIGHT

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Dark

  from the Citizens Tree cassettes, year 54 SM:

  WE’VE HAD SERIOUS ARGUMENTS ABOUT WHY KENDY CUT CONTACT. MAYBE SOMETHING JUST BURNED OUT SOME CIRCUITS. MASS DOES CONSTANTLY RAIN OUT OF ORBIT ONTO VOY — MAKE THAT LEVOY’S STAR, MY APOLOGIES TO SHARON. A BIG INFALL WOULD CAUSE BIG MAGNETIC STORMS, MAYBE BIG ENOUGH TO BURN OUT DISCIPLINE’S COMPUTER, AND THE THICK SMOKE RING ATMOSPHERE WOULD STILL SHIELD US. I HATE TO THINK SO. I LIKED KENDY.

  THAT SOUNDS CRAZY. A COMPUTER PROGRAM… I CAN’T HELP IT. KENDY HAD LESS IMAGINATION THAN THE TURKEYS. I TRIED TELLING HIM A JOKE, ONCE AND NEVERMORE. BUT I ADMIRE DEDICATION, AND KENDY HAD AS MUCH DEDICATION AS A MAN CAN STAND. I’M GOING TO LEAVE THIS IN.

  — DENNIS QUINN, CAPTAIN

  BOOCE HAD BOUGHT A SMALL PUMP. RATHER WAS working it to fill Logbearer’s fuel tank. A Navy ship was doing much the same on the other side of the pond. Water had to be shared, this close to the Market. Greetings had been exchanged, and now the two crews were ignoring each other.

  Carlot said, “Raym’s been running messages for Dave Kon and Mand Curts. They’ll know where he is. You’ll have to track him down, though.”

  “No problem,” Booce said. “How did he lose his rocket?”

  “I didn’t want to ask. He’s far gone on fringe spores, Dad. We want him, but I don’t want him in charge of anything.”

  “Fine. Rather, stop, it’s full.”

  Rather began packing up the pump and hose. “That was quick,” he said, remembering how long it took to fill the CARM.

  “A pretty good pump for something that’s all hardwood. Let’s get going. Carlot, you drop me and Clave at the Market and then go on to the house. Clave, you get the rest of the seeds. I want to buy us some clothes. You’re all still wearing tree-dweller pajamas.”

  “You’ll bring Raym?”

  “I’ll send him to the house. If he’s too fringey to find it, I don’t want him aboard any ship of mine.”

  Rather had not found the chance to confide in anyone but Debby and Carlot. Maybe that was good. Booce seemed to take it for granted that he would stay where the Navy could find him. Rather’s plans were quite different.

  Would Carlot help him? He wasn’t sure. The way she was acting—

  The Market swarmed like a hive. When the rocket came near, a dozen citizens separated from the pattern and flew to look. Booce delayed his exit for dramatic reasons. When he emerged he was surrounded. He stayed to talk, and Carlot joined him. Clave grew bored and flapped off toward the Vivarium at the far rim. Booce took an order for a thousand square meters of wooden planks…and the sun crossed half the sky and was behind the Dark before Logbearer moved on.

  Serjent House continued to drift. It was now radially out from the Market. The Dark eclipsed the sun; Voy shone from the side. Half violet, half black, the cluster of cubes made an eerie sight.

  “We’ll have to tell Clave,” Debby said. “First chance we get.”

  Carlot said, “I’m still not sure about this.”

  Rather said, “Booce was right, wasn’t he? I want to look undependable. So—”

  “They’ll think you had Dad’s permission!”

  “The Navy doesn’t own me. Booce doesn’t own me. Even you don’t own me, Carlot, and if you’re holding me as a copsik I want to know it so I can think about escaping!”

  “No, I don’t own you.” The ship was turning, decelerating. Carlot was very busy tending the rocket, too busy to look him in the face. Her voice was almost inaudible. “But it was a fool stunt, running off to make babies with that Navy woman.”

  “You’re going to marry Raff Belmy.”

  “I said probably. Skip it. It was a fool stunt. So tell me this. Does Clave own you? Your Chairman?”

  “…Maybe.”

  “So ask him whether you’re going.”

  “I want to talk to Jeffer too. And one other.”

  “You keep hinting—”

  “You’ll see for yourself. You too, Debby. I am treefeeding tired of keeping secrets.”

  A random comet had impacted Levoy’s Star. It had reached the surface as a stream of gas moving at thousands of miles per second. The neutron star had rung like a bell. There were two hot spots on the rapidly spinning body, at the impact point and the point opposite, where the shock waves had converged. The violet ion streams that normally rose from the magnetic poles of Voy, which natives called the Blue Ghost and Ghost Child, were brighter than Kendy had ever seen them. Radiation was beginning to sleet against Discipline’s hull.

  But Kendy spared instruments for the CARM.

  He ran the record as it came in. Jeffer had been idle: not much there. The house had been empty most of the time. Ah, here was something—

  The motley collection of metal and plant tissue the savages called Logbearer bumped the wall nozzle-first. Rather, Debby, and Carlot emerged. They tethered the steam rocket to the door, close enough to block the sky.

  Rather said, “Jeffer. Come in, Jeffer.”

  Jeffer had been reviewing records from the cassettes. He set up the link. “I’m here. Hello, Debby, Carlot, Rather.”

  “I’m in trouble,” Rather said.

  “Tell me.”

  “Petty Wheeler interviewed me for the Navy.”

  “How did it go?”

  The depth of Smoke Ring atmosphere was blocking most of the radiation and X-rays, and Kendy’s instruments too. He could still watch events on the star itself via neudar. A plasma cloud hovered over the impact site, several centimeters high and spreading at terrific speed along lines of magnetic force—

  Rather said, “Scientist, I did everything right except only two things. I did what Booce told me. I slept in the silver suit with the humidity turned low, and got there sniffling and crying. Debby came with me, and I really did need supervision. I could hardly see where I was flying. I asked for Sectry Murphy: all seeds and no brain, stet? But Booce didn’t tell me not to show off my muscles, so I did.”

  “You’re strong but sickly.”

  “And I’m a dwarf. If enough dwarves get into the Navy, a certain Captain-Guardian Mickl gets to act like an officer. I’m quoting Sectry. Mickl was there to watch the interview.”

  “Two mistakes. Did you suggest marriage to Bosun Murphy?”

  Laughter, chopped off. “We got high on fringe tea. Then we dived into a puff jungle and—” Quick sidewise glance at Carlot, whose face was like stone. “Jeffer, none of us ever thought she might take me up on it. Now she thinks I’m joining the Navy and making plans to marry her. Maybe she can hold me to it!”

  “This is not to your taste?”

  “Sectry…I don’t know. I don’t want to join the treefeeding Navy and I don’t know how to tell her that!”

  “Okay, I’m thinking…Rather, they already know you’re allergic. Let them train you. Carlot said they don’t give you much sleep in training. Stay awake even when you don’t have to. Get sick a lot. They’ll give up.”

  “I thought of something better.”

  “Listen—”

  “No, you listen. I went running to Carlot and Debby. Help, I said. I’m in trouble, I said. The Navy wants me. What do I do? And we talked it over, and what I want to do now is talk to Kendy.”

  Jeffer’s medical readings showed his shock. Kendy stopped paying attention to the impact on Levoy’s Star.

  Paydirt!

  “Rather? You told them?”

  “I’m letting you tell them. You and Kendy.”

  “Kendy isn’t in range yet. When he gets the record—”

  Carlot said, “Kendy the Checker?”

  “The same,” Jeffer said. “Kendy made contact with us fourteen years ago…fifteen now. I made a mistake with the CARM
. Kendy told us how to get home. We didn’t hear from him again till…well, it was just before you showed up, Carlot. He wanted this expedition.”

  Debby was seething. “Jeffer, you treefeeding mutineer! What game did you think you were playing, hiding a thing like this?”

  Carlot exclaimed, “You can’t deal with the Checker! We know all about—”

  The record was finished. He’d reached present time.

  Kendy printed I’LL HANDLE IT across the bow window in front of Jeffer. He sent, “We told Clave. Rather was there, so we told him too. Hello again, Debby. Carlot, it’s a pleasure to meet you at last. Rather, you did the right thing.”

  “And I suppose you’ll try to talk me into joining the treefeeding Navy! But I won’t do that, Kendy. I want out of this.”

  Rather wasn’t aboard the CARM. Kendy couldn’t get medical readings; but he sensed truth here. Never give an order that won’t be obeyed! Try something else… while Discipline moves steadily out of range. Wrap it up fast, but wrap it tight—

  Kendy asked, “Rather, what are you planning?”

  “Remember Booce telling me to look undependable? The Navy expects me to stay in touch. I’m going Dark diving. Carlot and Debby and Clave are taking Logbearer to get mud for Belmy’s burl tree. I’m going with them.”

  “Just to look undependable?”

  “It’s not a crime. Sectry’ll hate me, and I don’t like that, but it’ll get me off the harpoon.”

  Kendy finished putting details on his own plans. The speed of his thoughts was one powerful advantage to being a computer. It helped win arguments too. He said, “That’s good, but it’s not enough. Not if this Wayne Mickl wants you so badly. We need to get you out of the Clump entirely. Mmm…Rather, I think I may have something. Booce was planning to take the helmet with him so that Jeffer and I can see the Dark. Still true? Carlot?”

  “Stet. Dad wants it out of the house.”

  “Good. Take the whole suit. Take Rather too. Go into the Dark. Rather, the suit’s fully fueled. When you’re out of sight of the Market…”

  They heard him out, looking at each other. The silence that followed lasted only five or six seconds, but Kendy found it excruciating. Then Jeffer asked, “How long have you been planning this?”