by Larry Niven
"I read you everything I know."
Classifiedl The first chance he got, Clave was going through all of the information on all of those "cassettes." He'd make the Grad read them to him.
The moby's gauzy tail was in motion. It had spotted the harpoon's motion and was edging away. Then the first arrows reached it. One struck the fin, one a cheek, neither with any great force.
The moby convulsed. Its fins thrashed and it turned. A third arrow struck near its major eye. It turned to face them.
"Alfin, have you got that line coiled?"
"Not yet."
"Then hurry, you copsik! Are we all tethered?"
The sky had opened a mouth; it gaped and grew huge. A skeletal arm folded forward, presenting four harpoons. Alfin asked, "Do we want to hurt it now?"
Clave discarded the metal bow and took up the harpoon. "Treefodder. I want this in its tail."
The moby obliged. Its tail flicked forward — and they felt the wind — as it circled to expmine the situation. As the tail came into sight, Clave cast. The harpoon struck solidly in the meaty part, ahead of the spreading translucent fin. The moby shuddered and continued to advance.
The "hand" lashed forward. Gavving whooped and leapt from between closing horn harpoons, away into the sky, until his tether went taut and pulled him around the edge of the bark. Minya yelled and slashed at the "hand." "Feels like bone," she reported and swung again.
Clave snatched up another harpoon and jumped toward the tremendous face. He pricked the creature's lip before his line pulled him back. The great skeletal fingers curled around behind him. Minya's sword slashed at a joint, and one of the harpoon-fingers was flying loose.
The moby snatched its hand back fast. Its mouth closed and stayed that way. The creature backpedaled with side fins.
Gavving reeled himself back to the bark. They watched the moby turning, retreating.
The bark raft surged. The moby stopped, turned to look back. The raft was following it. It began swimming strongly against the air.
A point of sunlight blazed near the edge of the pond. Vagrant breezes rippled the surface. Shadows moved within. A distant seed pod sent a tendril growing across a klomter of space toward the water. Gavving licked his lips and yearned.
Tens of thousands of metric tons of water dwindled in their wake.
Clave was cursing steadily. He stopped, then said, "Sorry. The moby was supposed to dive into the water and try to lose us."
Gavving opened his mouth, reconsidered…and spoke anyway.
"My idea. Why aren't you blaming me?"
"I'd still get the blame. I'm the Chairman. Anyway, it was worth a try! I just wish I knew where the beast was taking us."
They waited to learn.
Gavving's eyes traced the line of the Smoke Ring, congealing out of the background of sky into the pale blue of water vapor and distance. Toothpick splinters, all aligned, might have been a grove of integral trees. Tens of thousands of klomters beyond, a clot of white storm marked Gold. A thickening halfway down the arch toward Voy would be the far Clump.
Here were all the celestial objects a child had once wondered about. Harp had told him that he might see them someday. More practical heads had denied this. The tree moved at the whim of natural forces, and nobody left the tree.
He had left the tree, and was married, and marooned, and thirsty.
Quinn Tribe clung along the forward edge of the bark raft. At Clave's insistence they had donned their packs. Anything could happen…but nothing had, except that the pond continued to dwindle.
"So near and yet so far," the Grad said. "Don't we still have a few jet pods?"
"Not enough." Clave looked around him. "At least we haven't lost anyone. Okay. We're moving, and we're moving out; that's good, isn't it, Scientist? Thicker air?"
"Thicker anything," said the Grad. "Air, water, plants, meat, meateaters."
The moby was turning, swinging gradually east, and slowing. Tiring.
Its fins folded against its side, presenting a streamlined egg-shape to the wind; it continued to fall outward, towing the bark raft. The pond had become a tiny jewel, glowing with refracted blue Voylight.
Clave said, "We'll cut loose as soon as we get near anything interesting. Integral tree, pond, forest, anything with water in it. I don't want anyone cutting the line too soon."
"Cloud ahead," Merril said.
A distant, clotted streamer of white fading into blue. Clave barked laughter. "How far ahead? Sixty, seventy klomters? Anyway, it isn't ahead, it's straight out from us. We're aimed almost east."
"Maybe not," said the Grad. "We're aimed out from east and moving pretty fast. Gavving, remember? 'East takes you out, out takes you west, west takes you in, in takes you east, port and starboard bring you back."
"What the treefodder is that?" Clave demanded. Gavving remembered, but he said nothing. It was 'classified'…and the Grad had never told him what it meant.
But Minya was saying, "Every child learns that. It's supposed to be the way to move, if you're lost in the sky but you've got jet pods."
The Grad nodded happily. "We're being pulled east. We're moving too fast for our orbit, so we'll fall outward and slow down. I'll bet the moby is making for that cloud bank."
The moby's fins were spread and flapping slowly. There was nothing at all ahead of them, out to where the arch of the Smoke Ring formed from infinity. Minya moved her tether to bring herself alongside Gayving. They clung to the rim of the bark and watched the wisp of cloud out from them, and hoarded their thirst.
The sun circled behind Voy.
Again. Already they had moved many klomters outward; the daynight cycle had grown longer.
The cloud bank was growing. It was!
"It'll try to lose us in the fog," the Grad said with more hope than conviction.
The moby hadn't moved for some time. The spike that tethered the harpoon was working itself loose. Clave pounded another into the wood and wrapped the slack line around it. But the cloud bank was spreading itself across the sky.
Details emerged: streamlines, knots of stormy darkness. Lightning flashed deep within.
Jayan and Jinny took off their shirts. Alfin, enjoying the sight without questions, suddenly said, "They're right. Get our shirts off. Try to catch some of that wet."
Darkness brightened as the sun emerged below the edge of the cloud.
It continued to sink. They watched the first tenuous edge of mist envelop them and began flapping their shirts. Gavving asked, "Do you feel damp?"
Merril snarled, "I feel it, I smell it, I can't drink it! But it's coming!"
Lightning flashed, off to the west. Gavving felt the mist now. He tried to squeeze water out of his shirt. No? Keep swinging it. Now? He wrung the shirt tight and tried to suck it, and got sweaty water.
They were all doing it now. They could barely see each other. Gay ving had never in his life seen such darkness. The moby was invisibly far, but they felt the tugging of the tether. They swung their shirts and sucked the water and laughed.
There were big fat drops around them. It was getting hard to breathe.
Gavving breathed through his shirt and swallowed the water that came through.
Light was gaining. Were they emerging from the cloud? "Clave? Maybe you want to cut that tether. Do we want to stay in here?"
"Anybody still thirsty?" Silence. "Drink your fill, but we can't live in here, breathing through our shirts. Let's trust the moby a while longer."
The pale green light was getting stronger. Through thinning fog Gayving thought he could see sky…green-tinged sky, with a texture to it. Green? Was this some effect in his eyes, due to the long, abnormal darkness?
Clave bellowed, "Treefodder!" and swung his knife. The harpoon tether sang a deep note, cut short as Clave slashed again. The line whipped free; the bark sheet shuddered.
Then they were out of the mist, in a layer of clear air. Gavving glimpsed the moby flapping away, free at last, and spared it only a glanc
e. He was looking at square klomters of textured green, expanding, growing solid. It was a jungle, and they were going to ram.
Chapter Eleven
The Cotton-Candy Jungle
THE CARM WAS LIKE NOTHING ELSE IN THE UNIVERSE. IT WAS all right angles, inside and out; all plastic and metals, unliving starstuff.
The white light that glowed from the dorsal wall was neither Voylight nor sunlight. Weirder lights crawled across the control panel and the bow window itself The carm was mobile, where London Tree moved only with the help of the carm. If London Tree was a living thing inhabited by other living things, then Lawri saw the cam' as a different form of life.
The carm was a mighty servant. It served Kiance the Scientist, and Lawri. Sometimes it went away into the sky with Navy men as its masters. This time it carried Lawri too.
It grated on her nerves that she was not the carm's master here.
Seen through the picture-window bow, the jungle was green, dotted with every color of the rainbow-including overlaid scarlet dots that were heat sources. The Navy pilot pushed the talk button and said, "Let go."
Several breaths went by before Lawri heard, "We're loose."
The pilot touched attitude jet keys. A tide pulled Lawri forward against her straps. Warriors had been clinging to nets outside the hull.
Now they swept into view of the bow window as the cam' decelerated.
A cloud of sky-blue men fell toward undulating clouds of green.
The pilot released the keys after (by Lawri's count) twelve breaths. She'd watched numbers flickering on a small display in front of him. He'd released at zero. And the jungle was no longer moving toward the carm's bow window.
"The savages haven't moved yet," he reported. He was ignoring
Lawri, or trying to; his eyes kept ificking to her and away. He'd made it clear enough: a nineteen-year-old girl had no place here, no matter what the First said. "They're just under the greenery. Are you sure you want to do this?"
"We don't know who they are." The ancient microphone put a squawk in the Squad Leader's voice. "If it's just fighters, we'll retreat. We don't need fighters. If it's noncombatants, hiding—"
"Right."
"Have you found any other heat sources?"
"Not yet. That greenery is a pretty good reflector unless you're looking right into it. We can pick up some meat. Flocks of salmon birds.”
“Squad Leader, I see something off to the side. Something's falling toward the jungle."
"Something like what?"
"Something flat with people clinging to it."
"I see it. Could they be animals?"
"No. I'm using science," the pilot said.
The display superimposed on the bow window showed scarlet dots clustered close. Warmer objects-salmon birds, for instance-showed more orange in that display. Ribbon birds showed as cooler: wavy lines of a darker, bloodier red…The pilot turned and caught Lawri looking.
"Learned anything, darling?"
"Don't call me darling." Lawri said primly/evasively.
"Pardon me, Scientist's Apprentice. Have you learned enough to fly this ship, do you think?"
"I wouldn't like to try it," Lawri lied. "Unless you'd like to teach me?" It was something she wanted very much to try.
"Classified," the pilot said without regret. He returned to his microphone. "That thing hit pretty hard. I'd say it's not a vehicle at all. Those people may be refugees from some disaster, just what we need for copsiks. Might even be glad to see us."
"We'll get to you when we…can." The Squad Leader sounded distracted, and with reason. Spindly savages taller than a man ought to be were boiling out of the green cloud, riding yellow-green pods bigger than themselves. They were clothed in green, hard to see.
There was a quick exchange of arrows as the armies neared each other. London Tree's warriors used long footbows: the bow grasped by the toes of one or both feet, the string by the hands. The cloud of arrows loosed by the savages moved more slowly, and the arrows were shorter.
"Cnossbows," the pilot murmured. He played the jets, kicking the carm away from the fight. Lawri felt relief, until he started his turn.
"You'll endanger the carm! Those savages could snatch at the nets!"
"Calm down, Scientist's Apprentice. We're moving too fast for them." The cam' curved back toward the melee. "We don't want them close enough for swordplay, not in free-fall."
The Scientist had his wish, the carm would never be used for war at all. Putting his Apprentice aboard had been a major strategic victory.
He'd told her, "Your sole concern is for the cam', not the soldiers. If the carm is threatened, it must be moved out of danger. If the pilot won't, you must."
He had not told her how to subdue a trained fighter, nor how to fly the ancient machine. The Scientist had never flown it himself.
Savages flew toward the bow window. Lawri saw their terrified eyes before the pilot spun the cam' about. Masses thumped against the carm's belly. Lawri shuddered. She would do nothing, this time. She would more likely wreck the cam' than save it…and there would be hell to pay even if she got home to London Tree.
The savages were grouping to attack again. The pilot ignored them.
He eased the carm into the midst of his own warriors.
"Nice going. Thanks," said the radio voice. Lawri watched the cloud of savages advancing.
"We're all aboard," said the Squad Leader.
The carm turned and coasted across the green cotton, southwest. Savages screamed or jeered in its wake. They hadn't a hope of catching up.
There was time to look, and time to feel rising fear. Gavving tried to take it all in before the end.
It was curves and billows of green wall spotted with blossoms: yellow, blue, scarlet, a thousand shades and tones. Insects swarmed in clouds. Birds were there in various shapes, dipping into the blossoms or the insect clouds. Some looked like ribbons and moved with a fluttering motion. Some had membranous triangular tails; some were themselves triangles, with whiplike tails sprouting from the apex.
Far to the east was a dimple in the green, funnel-shaped, perhaps half a klomter across; distances were hard to judge. Would a jungle have a treemouth? Why would it be rimmed with gigantic silver petals? The biggest flower in the universe set behind the jungle's horizon as they fell.
The storm had hidden a jungle. He'd never seen one close, but what else could it be? The moby had planned this well, Gavving thought.
Birds were starting to notice the falling mass. Motionless wings and tails blurred into invisibility. Ribbons fluttered away, as in a strong wind. Larger torpedo-shapes emerged from the greenery to study the falling bark sheet.
Clave was snapping orders. "Check your tethers! Arm yourselves! Some of those things look hungry. We'll be shaken up when we hit. Has anybody noticed anything I might miss?"
Gavving thought he saw where they'd strike. Green cloud. Could it be as soft as it looked? East and north, far away, more darting swarms of…dots at this distance…men?
"Men, Clave. It's inhabited."
"I see them. Treefodder, they're fighting! Just what we need, another war. Now what's that? Grad, do you see something like a moving box?"
"'Yea."
"Well?"
Gavving located a brick-shape with rounded corners and edges. It was turning in sentient fashion, moving away from the battle. A vehicle, then…big…and glittering as if made of metal or glass. Men clung to its flanks.
The Grad said, "I never saw anything like it. Starstuff."
The aft end of the box was spiky with bell-shaped structures: four at each corner and one much larger in the middle. Nearly invisible flames, not flame-colored but the blue-white color of Voy, puffed from some of the small-nostrils? The vehicle stopped its turn and surged back into the battle.
"That should do it," Clave said. Gavving turned and saw what he had been doing: setting his last jet pods to orient the turning raft, so that the underside would strike first. It seemed to be workin
g, but the jungle was hidden now. Gavving clutched the bark, waiting…
His head was ringing, his right arm was banged up somehow, his stomach was trying to find something to reject, and he couldn't remember where he was. Gavving opened his eyes and saw the bird.
It was torpedo-shaped, about the mass of a man. It hung over him, long wings stretched out and motionless while it studied him with two forward-facing eyes in deep sockets. The other side of its head bore a saw-toothed crest. Its tail was a ribbed fan; the four ribs ended each in a hooked claw.
Gavving looked around for his harpoon. The crash had bounced it free of his hand. It was meters away, slowly turning. He reached for his knife instead and eased himself out of the greenery in which he was half-buried. He whispered, "I'm meat. Are you?" intending it as a threat.
The bird hung back. Two companions had joined it. Their mouths were long and blunt, and closed. They don't bluff Gavving thought.
A fourth bird skimmed across the green cloud, moving fast, right at his head. He scrambled for cover as the bird dipped its tail hooks into the foliage and stopped dead. Gavving stayed where he was, half under the raft. The birds watched him mockingly.
A tethered harpoon thudded into a bird's side.
It screamed. The open mouth had no teeth, just a scissors-action serrated edge. The bird set itself whirling as it tried to snap at its belly. A third eye was behind the crest, facing backward.
The rest made their decision. They fled.
With his toes locked in branchiets, Alfin reeled the bird into knife range. By then Gavving had retrieved his own harpoon. He used it to pin the bird's tail while Alfin finished the kill, a performance that left Alfin's sleeves soaked in pink blood. A wide grin stretched his wrinkles into uncustomary patterns.
"Dinner," he said and shook his head as if he'd drunk too much beer.
"I can't believe it. We made it. We're alive!"
During all the years in Quinn Tuft, Gavving couldn't remember seeing Alfin grin. How could Alfin be consistently morose in Quinn Tuft, and happy while lost in the sky? He said, "If we'd hit something solid at that speed we'd all be dead. Let's hope the luck holds."