by Larry Niven
"The red fringe made you feel strange but nice. Maybe that was the reason they were protecting it?"
"I don't think so. There were too many of those fan fungi. This one was big and nicely formed and had a special name."
"The Checker's Hand. Jeffer, have you ever heard that word Checker before?"
"My grandmother used to say, 'Treefeeder must think he's the Checker himself,' when she was mad at the Chairman. I never heard anyone else—"
The Scientist reached for the Grad's reader and one of his own cassettes. "I think I remember…
CHECKER. Officer entrusted with seeing to it that one or a group of citizens remains loyal to the State. The Checker's responsibility includes the actions, attitudes, and well-being of his charges. The Checker aboard Discipline was the recording of Sharls Davis Kendy in the ship's master computer.
"This is strictly starman stuff. Hmm. The State…it took me four days to read the insert on the State. Have you seen it?"
"Yes. Strange people. I did get the feeling that they lived longer than we do."
Kiance snorted. "Your Scientist never tumbled to that? They had shorter years. They used one whole circle of their sun for their year. We only use half a circle, but it's still about seven-fifths of a State year. The truth is, we live a little longer than they do, and grow up more slowly too."
To hear his teacher so slighted set the Grad's ears burning. He barely heard Klance add, "All right, Jeffer, from now on you must think of me as your Checker."
"Yes, Scientist."
"Call me Klance. How do you feel?"
The Grad answered with careful half-truth. "I'm clean, fed, rested, and safe. I'd feel even better if I knew the rest of Quinn Tribe was all right."
"They'll get showers and food and drink and clothing. Their children may become citizens. The same goes for you, Jeffer, whether or not I keep you here; but I think you'd be bored in the tuft."
"So do I, Klance."
"Fine. For the time being I have two apprentices."
Lawri exploded. "It's unheard of for a freshly claimed copsik to be at the Citadel at all! Won't the Navy—"
"The Navy can feed the tree. The Citadel is mine."
Chapter Fifteen
London Tree
GAVVING WAS ON THE BICYCLE WITH THREE OTHER COPSIKS.
There wasn't tide enough to pull him against the pedals. Straps ran from the belt around his waist to the bicycle frame. Forcing his legs down against the pedals pushed him up against the belt. After the first session he'd thought he was crippled for life. The endless passage of days had toughened him; his legs no longer hurt, and the muscles were hard to the touch.
The bicycle gears were of old metal. They squealed as they moved and gave forth a scent of old animal grease. The frame was massive, of cut wood. There had been six sets of gears once; Gavving could see where two had been ripped out.
The frame was anchored to the trunk where the tuft grew thin. Foliage grew around the copsiks. Surrounded by sky, with most of the tuft below them, they could still snatch and eat a handful while pedaling. They worked naked, with sweat pooling on their faces and in their armpits.
High up along the trunk, a wooden box descended slowly. A similar box had risen almost out of sight.
Gavving let his legs run on while he watched the elevator descend. The mindless labor let his eyes and ears and mind run free.
There were other structures around the trunk. This level was used for industry, and here were all the men. Man's work and woman's work never seemed to intersect in London Tree, at least not for copsiks.
Sometimes children swarmed through or watched them with bright, curious eyes. Today there were none.
The citizens of London Tree must have kept copsiks for generations. They were skilled at it. They had chopped Quinn Tribe apart. Even if opportunity came to run, how would he find Minya?
Gavving, pumping steadily, watched storms move sluggishly around a tight knot on the eastern arm of the Smoke Ring. Gold was nearer than he had ever seen it, save for that eerie time when he was a child, when Gold had passed so near and everything had changed.
The jungle hovered hundreds of klomters beyond the out tuft: a harmless-looking green puffball. How are you doing Clave? Did that broken leg save your freedom? Merril, were those shrunken legs finally good for something? Or have you become copsiks among the jungle people or are you dead?
Over the past eighty-five days or so, twenty sleeps, the tree had drifted to the eastern fringes of the cloud bank. He'd been told, during the trip across the sky to London Tree, that the tree could move by itself. He had seen no evidence of it. Rain swept across them from time to time…surely the tree had collected enough water by now.
The elevator had settled into its slot and was releasing passengers. Gavving and the others stopped pedaling. "Navy men," Horse puffed.
"Come for the women."
Gavving said, "What?"
"Citizens live in the out tuft. When you see a boxful come down and it's all men, they're come for the women."
Gavving looked away.
"Nine sleeps," said Horse. He was in his fifties, three ce'meters shorter than Gavving, with a bald, freckled head and tremendously strong legs. He had driven the bicycles for two decades. "Forty days till we meet the women. You wouldn't believe how rancy I get thinking about it." By now Gavving was strangling the handbar. Horse saw the muscles standing out along his arms and said, "Boy, I forgot. I was never married, myself. I was born here. Failed the test when I was ten."
Gavving forced himself to speak. "Born here?"
Horse nodded. "My father was a citizen, at least mother always said so. Who ever knows?"
"Seems likely. You'd be taller if—"
"Na, na, the jungle giants' kids aren't any taller than the citizens."
So: children raised in the jungle grew taller, without tide to compress them. "What are the tests like?"
"We're na supposed to say."
"Okay."
The supervisor called, "Pedal, you copsiks!" and they did. More passengers were coming down. Over the squeal of the gears Horse said, "I flunked the obedience test. Sometimes I'm glad I didn't go."
Huh? "Go?"
"To another tree. That's where you go if you pass the tests. Heh, you are green, aren't you? Did you think your kids would stay as citizens if they passed the tests?"
"That's…yes." He hadn't been told that, he'd been allowed to assume it. "There are other trees? How many? Who lives in them?"
Horse chuckled. "You want to know everything at once? I think it's four bud trees now, settled by any copsik woman's kid who passes the tests. London Tree goes between them, trading for what they need. Any man's kid has the same chance as a citizen's, because nobody ever knows, see? I thought I wanted to go, once. But it's been thirty-five years.
"I did think I'd be picked for service in the out tuft. I should've been. I'm second-generation…and when they turned me down for that, I damn near lost my testes for swatting a supervisor. Jorg, there" — Horse indicated the man pedaling in front of him—"he did. Poor copsik. I don't know what the gentled ones do when the Holidays come."
Gavving still hadn't learned to shave without cutting himself. It was not his choice. All copsiks shaved. He had seen no man wearing a beard in London Tree, save one; and that one was Patry, a Navy officer. "Horse, is that why they make us shave? So the gentled ones won't be quite so obvious?"
"I never thought of that. Maybe."
"Horse…you must actually have seen the tree move."
Horse's laughter brought a supervisor's head around. He lowered his voice. "Did you think it was just a story? We move the tree about once a year! I've been on water details too, to feed the carm."
"What's it like?"
"It's like the tide goes slantwise. Going to the treemouth is like climbing a hill. You don't want any hunting parties out when it happens, and you have to tilt the cookpot. The whole trunk of the tree bendsalittle…"
"Lawri," said
the Grad, "trouble."
Lawri glanced back. The pond clung to the bark, a flattened heinisphere. The Grad had run the hose into the water. Now the water was flowing up the outside of the hose, forming a collar.
"Don't worry about it. Just get to the bicycle and pedal," Lawri told him. "And don't call me that."
The Grad strapped himself to the saddle and started the pedals turning. The gears moved a pump. It was all starstufl metal, discolored with age. The collar of water shrank as water was sucked into the hose.
It was strange work for the Quinn Tuft Scientist, or for the London Tree Scientist's Apprentice, for that matter. Hadn't Kiance suggested that he would be better off than the standard run of copsiks? He wondered what Gavving was doing now. Probably worrying about his new andalienwife…andwithreason.
Water spurted from the hose as Lawri carried it into the carm. The Grad couldn't see what she was doing in there. He pedaled.
In Klance's presence the Grad was Lawri's equal. Otherwise Lawri treated him as a copsik, a spy, or both. He was clean, fed, and clothed.
Of the rest of Quinn Tribe he had not even rumors. He and Lawri and the Scientist explored the cassettes together for old knowledge, and that was fascinating enough. But he was learning nothing that would rescue Quinn Tribe.
It was night. Both Voy and the sun were hidden behind the in tuft. In the peculiar light that remained, two faint streamers of blue light fanned out from the tuft. If he stared at them they went away. He could catch them by looking near them. He could almost imagine human shapes pouring as smoke from a squeezegourd. To starboard, the Blue Ghost. To port, even fainter, the Ghost Child.
The Scientist (the Scientist) had told him that they were discharges of peculiar energies from the poles of Voy itself. The Scientist had seen them when he was younger, but the Grad had never been able to see them, not even from the midpoint of Dalton-Quinn Tree.
He was sweating. He watched the elevator climb the tree to its housing. A Navy man and two copsiks emerged. None were jungle giants; he had never seen a first-generation copsik at the Citadel, barring himself. They entered the Scientist's laboratory complex and presently left carrying the dishes from brunch.
Lawri called from the carm. "The tank's full."
The Grad moved with a briskness he didn't feel, unfastening the belt, jerking the hose free of the pond. There were lineholds, wooden hoops, set in the bark to crisscross the citadel region. The Grad used them to make his way toward the carm, calling ahead of him, "Can I help?"
"Just coil the hose," Lawri answered.
She hadn't yet let him into the carm during this operation. The hose must lead, somehow, into a water tank in the carm. They filled it repeatedly, and a couple of days later they would fill it again.
The Grad coiled the hose as he moved toward the carm. He heard cursing from within. Then Lawri called, "I can't move this damn fitting."
The Grad joined her at the doors. "Show me." That easy?
She showed him. The hose attached to a thing on the back wall, with a collar. "It has to be turned. That way." She rotated her hands.
He set his feet, grasped the metal thing, put his back into it. The collar lurched. Again. He turned it until it was loose in his hands, and kept turning. The hose came loose. A mouthful of water spilled out. Lawri nodded and turned away.
"Scientist's Apprentice? Where does the water go?"
"It's taken apart," she said. "The skin of the carm picks up sunlight and pumps the energy into the water. The water cOmes apart. Oxygen goes in one tank and hydrogen goes in the other. When they come together in the motors, the energy comes back and you get a flame."
He was trying to imagine water coming apart, when Lawri asked,
"Why did you want to know?"
"I was a Scientist. Why did you tell me?"
She sent herself skimming across the seats and settled herself at the controls. The Grad moored the coiled hose to fixtures in the cargo area.
The tank must be behind the wall. The carm had been nearly out of fuel…which came in two "flavors"? There must be fuel by now; the artificial pond was visibly shrunken.
Lawri tapped the blue button as he came up behind hen. The display she'd been studying disappeared before he could see it. The Grad had half forgotten his question when she turned to him and said, "The Scientist quizzes me like that. Since I was ten. If I can't answer I get some dirty job. But I don't like having my buttons pushed, Jeffer, and that information is classified!"
"Scientist's Apprentice, who is it that calls you Lawri?"
"Not you, copsik."
"I know that."
"The Scientist. My parents."
"I don't know anything about marriage customs here." "Copsiks don't get married."
"You're not a copsik. Would your husband call you Lawri?"
The airlock thumped, and Lawri turned in some relief. "Kiance?" "Yes. Put that display on again, will you, Lawri?"
She looked at the Grad, then back at Klance.
"Now," said the Scientist. Lawri obeyed. She'd made her point: she'd show scientific secrets to a copsik, but only under protest. Dominance games again. If she really cared, she would have removed the hose herself.
Theblueightsandnumbershadtodowithwhatmovedthecarm, as green governed the carm's sensing instruments and yellow moved the doors and white read the cassettes…and more. He was sure that they all did more than he knew. And red? He'd never seen red.
Every time he saw this display, certain numbers were larger. Now they read 02: 1,664. H2: 3,181. Klance was nodding in approval. "Ready to go any time. Still, I think we'll feed in the rest of the reservoir. Jeffer, come here." He cut the blue display and activated the yellow. "This number tells you if there's a storm coming, if you watch it."
"What is it?"
"It's the external air pressure."
"Can't you see a storm coming?"
"Coming, yes. Forming, no. If the pressure goes up or down fast, over a day or so, there's a storm forming. Lets you impress hell out of the citizens. This is classified, of course."
The Grad asked, "Where does the tree go from here?"
"Out of this rain. Then on to Brighton Tree; they haven't seen us in a while. Grad, you'll get a good chance to look the bud colonies over and pick and choose among them."
"For what, Kiance?"
"For your children, of course."
The Grad laughed. "Klance, how am I going to have children if I spend my life at the Citadel?"
"Don't you know about the Holidays?"
"I never heard of them."
"Well, every year's-end, when Voy crosses in front of the sun, the copsiks all get together at the treemouth. It's holiday for six days while the copsiks mate and gossip and play games. Even the food comes from the out tuft. The Holidays start in thirty-five days."
"No exceptions? Not even for a Scientist's Apprentice?"
"Don't worry, you'll go," Klance chuckled.
Lawri had turned away, showing her bowed back, the wealth of blonde hair floating around her. He wondered then: How would Lawri have children? The Scientist didn't seem to be her lover; the Grad knew that he imported copsik women from the in tuft. If she never left the Citadel-How would Lawri ever find a man?
Me?
A copsik could have children, but Lawri could not. It couldn't be helped. He dared not think of Lawri as other than an enemy.
There was flesh against her as she woke. It happened often. Minya shifted position and refrained from wrapping her arms around the citizen who slept beside her. She might hurt him.
Her motion wakened him. He turned carefully-his arm was bound with cloth against his torso-and said, "Good morning."
"Good morning. How's your arm?" She searched her memory for his name.
"You did a good job on it, but it'll heal."
"I wondered why you came looking for me, given that I broke it."
He scowled. "You stuck in my head. While Lawri was setting the bone I kept seeing your face, two ce'meters
away with your teeth bared like you were going for my throat next…yeah. So I'm here." The scowl relaxed. "Under, eh, different circumstances."
"Better now?"
"Yes."
His name surfaced. "Karal. I don't remember a Lawri."
"Lawri's not a copsik. She's the Scientist's Apprentice-one of his apprentices, now-and she treats Navy men if we get hurt."
One of his apprentices? Minya gambled. "I hear the new one is a copsik."
"Yes. I saw him from a distance, and he's not a jungle giant. One of yours?"
"Maybe." She stood, donned her poncho. "Will we meet again?"
He hesitated—"Maybe" — and added, "The Holidays are eight sleeps away."
She let her smile show through. Gavving: "How long do they last?"
"Six days. And all work stops."
"Well, I have to get to work now."
Karal disappeared into the foliage while Minya strolled into the Commons She missed Dalton-Quinn Tuft. She'd grown almost used to the obtrusive differences: the huge Commons, the omnipresent supervisors, hen own servility. But little things bothered her. She missed cupvines, and copter plants. Nothing grew here but the foliage and the carefully cultivated earthlife, beans and melons and corn and tobacco, as thoroughly regimented as herself.
A dozen copsiks were up and stirring. Minya looked for Jinny and spotted her at the treemouth, just her head showing above the foliage as she fed the tree.
The schedules were loose. If you arrived late, you would work late.
Beyond that, the supervisors didn't care much…but Minya cared!
She would do nothing badly. She would be an exemplary copsik, until the time came to be something else.
She tried to remember nuances of Karal's speech. A citizen's accent was odd, and she had been practicing it.
It had been strange for Minya. Her instincts were at war: a conditioned reflex that resisted sexual assault as blasphemy incarnate, versus the will to live.
Survival won. She would do nothing badly!
Jinny stood up, set her poncho in order, then sprinted west.
Minya screamed. She was too far to do anything but shout and point as she ran. A pair of supervisors, much closer, saw what was happening and ran too.