The Integral Trees t-1

by Larry Niven

  When the sun neared Voy again, Minya woke. Some had the knack.

  Minya could tell herself when to sleep and when to wake, and she would.

  She flexed muscles without moving much. She was thirsty. There was restless motion around her. The Grad seemed to be having a nightmare.

  She watched until he was quiet.

  Alfin shook Gavving awake, then Merril. He settled down while Gayving disappeared to his post on the far side. Minya waited a little longer, for Jayan and Alfin to fall asleep.

  Alfin clutched the bark with all his fingers and toes and, for all Minya could tell, his teeth. His face was pressed to the bark, denying the sky.

  He'd never sleep that way; but he wouldn't see her either.

  She uncurled and made her way to the edge of the bark. Merril watched her go. Minya waved and pulled herself around to the smooth side of the bark sheet.

  Gavving saw her coming. He started moving away from her-to give her privacy? She called, "Wait! Gavving!"

  He paused.

  "Gavving, I want to talk to you."

  "All right." But he was wary.

  She didn't want that. "I don't have any weapons," she said, and then, "Oh. I'll prove it."

  "You don't have to—"

  She pulled her blouse over her head and moored it to the bark. She came closer, wishing for toeholds to let her walk upright. This crawling lacked the dignity she wanted. At least she'd shed the lumpy-pregnant look of the Triune Squad.

  She said, "There are no pockets in my pants. You can see that. I want to tell you why I can't go back to Dalton-Quinn Tuft."

  "Why?" He was trying to keep his eyes off her breasts, on her face. "I mean, I'm willing to listen. I've got a name for asking embarrassing questions." He tried to laugh it stuck in his throat. "But shouldn't everyone hear this?"

  She shook her head. "They might have killed me, without you. Gayving, let me tell you about the Triune Squad."

  "You told me. You're fighters, and you're all women, even the men."

  "That's right. If a man wants to be a woman, or a woman doesn't ever want to be pregnant, she joins the Triune Squad. She can serve the tribe without making babies."

  Gavving digested that. "If you don't want to make babies, they make you fight?"

  "That's right. And it isn't just fighting. It's anything dangerous. This—" She pulled the rim of her pants down, and he shied, perhaps flinching at the scar. It ran half a meter from her short ribs past her hip. "Tip of a swordbird's tail. If my jet pod hadn't fired I would have been all over the sky."

  She suddenly wondered if he might see it as a flaw, rather than a matter of pride. Too late…and better that he see it now than later.

  He said, "Three of us fought a swordbird a few waketimes ago. Two came back."

  "They're dangerous."

  "So. You don't like men?"

  "I didn't. Gavving, I was only fourteen."

  He stared. "Why would a man bother a fourteen-year-old girl?"

  She hadn't thought she could still laugh, but she did. "Maybe it was the way I looked. But they all…bothered me, and the only way out was the Triunes."

  He waited.

  "And now I'm twenty-two and I want to change my mind and I can 't. Nobody changes her mind once she's in the Triune Squad. I could be killed for even asking, and I did ask—" She caught her voice rising. This wasn't going as planned. She whispered, "He told me I should be ashamed of myself. Maybe he'll tell. I don't care. I'm not going back."

  He reached as if to pat her shoulder and changed his mind. "Don't worry about it. We can't move anyway. If we could, well, an empty tree would still be a better bet."

  "And I want to make babies," she said and waited.

  He must have understood. He didn't move. "With me? Why me?"

  "Oh, treefodder, why can't you just…all right, who else? The Grad lives all in his head. Alfin's afraid of falling. Clave? I'm glad he's here, he's a good leader. But Clave's…type pushed me into the Triunes in the first place! He scares me, Gavving. I saw you kill Sal and Smitta, but you still don't scare me. I think you had to do that." She knew instantly that she'd said the wrong thing.

  He started to tremble. "I didn't hate them. Minya, they were killing us! Without a word. They were your friends, weren't they?"

  She nodded. "It's been a bad, bad waketime. But I'm not going back."

  "All for a fan fungus."

  "Gavving, don't turn me down. I…couldn't stand it."

  "I'm not turning you down. I've just never done this before."

  "Neither have I." She pulled her pants off, then didn't have a spike to tether them. Gavving saw the problem and grinned… He pounded a spike into the bark and added two tethers. One he tied to Minya's pants, then to his own pants and tunic. The other he tied around his waist.

  "I've watched," he confided.

  "That's a relief. I never did." She reached to touch what his pants had covered. A man bad put his male member into her hand once, against her will, and it hadn't looked like this…except that it was changing before her eyes. Yes.

  She had thought she could just let it happen. It wasn't like that. But she was used to using her feet as auxiliary hands, and thus she pulled him against her. She'd been warned against the pain; some of the Triunes had not joined while they were still virgins. She had known far worse.

  Then Gavving seemed to go mad, as if he were trying to make two people one. She held him and let it happen…but now it was happening to her! She'd made this decision in the cool aftermath of disaster, but now it was changing her, yes she wanted them joined forever, she could pull them closer yet with her heels and her hands…no, they were coming apart…it was ending…ending.

  When she had her breath back she said, "They never told me thaL"

  Gavving heaved a vast sigh. "They told me. They were right. Hey, didn't you hurt?" He pulled away from her, a little, and looked down.

  "There's blood. Not a lot."

  "It hurt. I'm tough. Gavving, I was so afraid. I didn't want to die a virgin."

  "Me too," he said soberly.

  A hand shook the Grad's ankle and pulled him out of a nightmare.

  "Uh! What…?"

  "Grad. Can you think of any reason Gavving shouldn't make a baby with a woman?"

  "What then, a musrum?" His head felt muzzy. He looked around.

  "Who is it, the prisoner?"

  Merril said, "Yes. Now, I don't see any reason to stop it, unless she's got something else in mind. I just want to keep an eye on them. But someone has to be on watch."

  "Why me?"

  "You were closest."

  The Grad stretched. "Okay. You're on watch. I'll keep track of the prisoner."

  Merril's glare lost out to a smile. "All right, that's fair."

  The Grad heard voices as he poked his head around the edge of the bark. Gavving and Minya floated at the end of a tether, quite naked, talking. "A hundred and seventy-two of us," Minya was saying. "Twice as many as you?"

  "About that."

  "Enough to crowd the tuft, anyway. The Triune Squad isn't a punishment. It's a refuge. We shouldn't be having children any faster than we are. And I was good, you know. I fight like a demon."

  "You need a refuge from…uh, this?"

  A laugh. "This, and being pregnant. My mother died of her fourth pregnancy, and that was me."

  "Aren't you afraid now?"

  "Sure. Are you volunteering to carry it for me?"

  "Sure."

  "Good enough." They moved together. The Grad was intrigued and embarrassed. His eyes shifted…and the sky had opened a mouth.

  The shock only lasted a moment. A great empty mouth closed and opened again. It was rotating slowly. An eye bulged above one jaw; something like a skeletal hand was folded below the other. It was a klomter away and still big.

  The beast turned, ponderously, still maintaining its axial rotation. Its body was short, its wings wide and gauzy. No illusion: it really was mostly mouth and fins, and big enough to
swallow their entire bark raft. Sunlight showed through its cheeks.

  It was cruising the clouds of bugs left in the wake of the disaster. Not a hunting carnivore. Good. But wasn't there such a beast in the Scientist's records? With a funny name Merril touched the Grad's shoulder, and he jumped. "I'm a little worried about the bug-eater," she said. "We're embedded in bugs, have you noticed?"

  "Noticed! How could I not?" But in fact he had learned to ignore them. The bugs weren't stinging creatures, but they were all around the bark raft, millions and millions of winged creatures varying from the size of a finger down to dots barely big enough to see. "We're a little big to be eaten up by accident."

  "Maybe. What's happening with-?"

  "I would say Gavving is in no danger. I'll keep an eye open, though."

  "Good of you."

  "We're being watched."

  Minya's whole body convulsed in reflex terror. Gavving said, "Easy! Easy! It's only the Grad."

  She relaxed. "Will they think we're doing wrong?"

  "Not really. Anyway, I could marry you."

  He heard an incipient stutter when she said, "Are you sure you want to do that?"

  For a fact, he was not. His mind lurched and spun. The destruction of the tree had been no more disorienting than this first act of love. He loved Minya now, and feared her, for the pleasure she could give or withhold. Would she think she owned him? The lesson of Clave's marriage, what he knew of it, was not lost on him. Like Mayrin, she would be older than her mate.

  And none of that mattered. There were four women in Quinn Tribe. Jayan and Jinny were with Clave; that left Merril and Minya. Gavving said, "I'm sure. Shall we go make an announcement?"

  "Let them sleep," she said and snuggled close. Her eyes tracked a moving mouth sweeping through the clouds of bugs. It was closer now. It didn't have teeth, just lips, and a tongue like a restlessly questing snake. It rotated slowly: a way of watching the entire sky for danger.

  "I wonder if it's edible," Gavving said.

  "Me, I'm thirsty."

  "There has to be a way to reach that pond."

  "Gavving…dear…we need sleep too. Isn't your watch about over?"

  His face cracked in a great yawn, closed in a grin. "I've got to tell someone."

  The Grad was curled half into the fetal position, snoring softly. Gayving jerked twice on his tether and said, "We're getting married."

  The Grad's eyes popped open. "Good thinking. Now?"

  "No, we'll wait till sleeptime's over. It's your watch."

  "Okay."

  Chapter Ten

  The Moby

  VOICES WOKE HER. SHE CAME AWAKE FULLY ALERT, THIRSTY and nervous.

  He was young. She had given him what he wanted, had virtually forced it on him. He would lose interest. He would remember that she'd tried to kill him. He'd had hours to change his mind. The voices were some distance away, but she heard them clearly. "—Ten years older than you, and you don't have the bride-price…but that's trivia. Six or seven days ago she was trying to kill us all!"

  "She could have her pick of us." Clave speaking, and he was amused. "All but me, of course. You wouldn't like that, would you, loves?"

  "I think it's wonderful," said Jayan or Jinny. The other twin said, "It's-hopeful."

  "Gavving, you are not old enough to know what you're doing!"

  "Feed it to the tree, Alfin."

  Gavving noticed Minya when she stirred and pulled herself back to the bark. "Hello," he called. "Ready?"

  "Yes!" Too eager? It was a little late to be coy! "What kind of ceremony will it be? We can't use mine. I left our Scientist in the Tuft." And he'd have me killed.

  "There's that too," said Alfln. "The Scientist—"

  The Grad said, "I'm the Scientist now."

  Ignoring Alfin's contemptuous snort, he opened his pack and spread the contents. Packed in spare clothing were four small flat boxes of starstuff-plastic-and a flat, polished surface that was glassy, like the Chairman's mirror, but didn't reflect.

  Quinn Tribe seemed as surprised as Minya. Gavving asked, "Have you been carrying that all along?"

  "No, I materialized it from thin air. We Scientists have our ways, you know."

  "Oh, sure."

  They grinned at each other. The Grad picked up the mirror and one of the boxes. He fitted the box into the thick rim of the mirror.

  "Prikazyvat Menu."

  The Grad's pronunciation had shifted; it was odd, archaic. Minya had heard the Dalton-Quinn Scientist speak like that. The mirror responded: it glowed like the diffuse nighttime sun, then bloomed with tiny black print.

  Minya couldn't read it. The Grad apparently could. He pulled the box loose and substituted another. "Prikazyvat Menu…Okay. Prikazyvat Record," he said briskly. "First day since sleeptime, the first sleep following the breakup of the tree, year three hundred and seventy. Jeffer speaking as Scientist. Quinn Tribe consists of eight individuals. Prikazyvat Pause."

  Then nothing happened, until Minya couldn't stand it anymore. "What's wrong?"

  The Grad looked up. His face was a mask of pain. A keening moan tore through his throat. Crystal lenses trembled over his eyes. Tears didn't run here, without tide to pull them.

  Clave put his hand on the Grad's shoulder. "Take a minute. Take as long as you need."

  "I've been trying not to…think about it. The Scientist. He knew. He sent these with me. What good does it do if we're dying too?"

  "We're not dying. We're a little thirsty," Clave said firmly.

  "We're all dead except us! I feel like recording it makes it real."

  Clave glared around him. The tears were about to become contagious. Jayan and Jinny were sniffling already. Minya had to remind herself that Dalton-Quinn Tuft still lived, invisibly far, somewhere.

  Clave snapped, "Come on, Scientist. You've got a marriage to perform."

  The Grad gulped and nodded. Teardrops broke loose and floated away, the size of tuftberries. He cleared his throat and said in a creditably crisp voice, "Prikazyvat Record. The tree has been torn in half. Seven of us survive, plus a refugee from the outer tuft. Marriage between Minya Dalton-Quinn and Gavving Quinn exists as of now. No children are yet born. Terminate." He pulled the box from the mirror and said, "You're married."

  Minya was stunned. "That's it?"

  "That's it. My first act as Scientist. Tradition says you should consummate the marriage the first chance you—"

  "Just what have you got there?" Alfin demanded.

  "Everything I need," the Grad said. "This cassette is recent records. It used to be medicine, but the Scientist ran out of room and erased it. We couldn't use that stuff anyway. St.armen got sick in ways nobody ever heard of and used medicines nobody ever heard of either. This cassette is life forms, this one is cosmology, this one is old records. They're all classified, of course."

  "Classified?"

  "Secret." The Grad started rolling the gear in clothing again.

  Clave said, "Hold it."

  The Grad looked at him.

  "Is there anything in your classified knowledge that we might need to know, to go on living?" Clave paused, not long enough for the Grad to answer. "If not, why should we guard that stufl or let you carry it to slow you down?" Pause. "If so, you're hiding knowledge we need. Why should we protect you?"

  The Grad gaped.

  "Grad, you're valuable. We're down to eight, we can't spare even one. But if you know why we need a Scientist more than an apprentice hunter, you'd better show us now."

  It was as if the Grad had been frozen with his mouth open. Then he gave a jerky nod. He chose a cassette and fitted it into the rim of the nonmirror. He said, "Prikazyvat Find moby: em, oh, bee, wye."

  The screen lit, filled with print. The Grad read, "Moby is a whalesized creature with a vast mouth and vertical cheek slots that are porous, used as filters. It feeds by flying through clouds of insects. Length: seventy meters. Mass: approx eight hundred metric tons. One major eye. Two smaller eyes, better protec
ted and probably near-sighted for close work, on either side of a single arm. It stays near ponds or cottoncandy jungles. It prefers to be spinning, for stability and to watch for predators, since there is no safe direction in the free-fall environment. Moby avoids large creatures and also shies from our CARMs. When attacked it fights like Captain Ahab: its single arm is tipped with four fingers, and the fingers are tipped with harpoons grown like fingernails.”

  Clave glanced over his shoulder. They had a side view of the flying mouth. Despite the swarm of insects near the raft, it was going around them. "That?"

  "I'd think so."

  "Carms? Captain Ahab? Whale-sized?"

  "I don't know what any of that means."

  "Doesn't matter, I guess. So. It's timid, and it eats bugs, not citizens.

  Doesn't sound like a threat."

  "And that is why you need a Scientist. Without the cassettes you wouldn't know anything about it."

  "Maybe," said Gavving, "we don't want it to go around us."

  He explained, stumbling a little. Nobody laughed. Maybe they were too thirsty. Clave studied the massive bug-eater, pursed his lips, nodded.

  Clave stood as Minya posed him, gripping the steel bow in his left hand, drawing the bowstring halfway back toward his cheek. It felt awkward. Instead of one of Minya's mini-harpoons, a meter and a half of his own harpoon protruded before him.

  The moby was watching him. He waited until the creature's spin put the major eye on its far side. "Throw the line," he said.

  Gavving hurled the coiled line toward the moby. Clave let it unroll for a moment, then sent the harpoon after it.

  The harpoon wobbled in flight, until the trailing line dragged it straight again. With the steel bow and Clave's muscles to propel it, the massive harpoon might have flown as far as the moby. It didn't. It didn't even come close.

  "Reel it in and coil the line," he told Alfin. To the others he said,

  "Arrows. Put some arrows in the beast. Get it mad. Get its attention." The Grad's arrow went wide, and Clave stopped him from wasting another. Gavving's and Minya's were flying true, and each had fired another when Clave said, "Stop. We want it mad, not scared, not injured. Grad, how timid is that thing likely to be?"