by Larry Niven
“Maybe they didn’t have one,” Maxell suggested. “Not all climber cultures are alike.”
“Oh, we had a bath,” Stevn said. He jumped high, clutched foliage and began crawling down. Maxell realized that he was following the waterfall. “Here,” he said suddenly.
Again they tore away foliage. The work was getting to Maxell’s back. He took it for granted that he was doing most of the work. Dwarves were stronger than normal men. He continued uprooting foliage until they had exposed a hemispherical ceramic bowl.
“Big enough to boil a dozen citizens at once,” he said.
“Right. Help me move this.” Harp had found a massive wooden wall, hinged at one end. The foliage that half-hid it impeded its swing. They pushed it across the waterfall, and were soaked before they finished.
The diverted waterfall began to fill the bowl.
“And we still don’t have a cookpot,” Maxell said.
“Nope.” It didn’t bother Harp. She seemed half-asleep, watching the bowl fill.
Would they expect him to take off the pressure suit? He couldn’t do that; but it looked like he’d better have a damn good excuse. The silver suit was his uniform and his defenses and the measure of his value.
Renho and Dunninger returned. Dunninger had another cluster of angel moles. Renho pulled a respectable mass up through the foliage: a half-grown triune a bit smaller than he was. They moved away to butcher their catch.
On no visible signal, Harp and Stevn began taking off their clothes.
She was wonderful. Maxell tried to keep his jaw closed, his eyes half-lowered; he certainly couldn’t keep them off Harp. Normal women had always seemed fragile to him, too long and narrow; and while they might admire his muscle, they chose taller men.
Renho and Dunninger noticed what was going on. They began to strip too. They all set their bundled clothes handy and entered the pool.
Harp grinned at him. “Doesn’t it come off?”
“Classified,” the Silver Man said automatically. But anyone who might steal a silver suit was here within his sight. Right? And a Navy-trained dwarf was the equal of any four citizens, right? And any fool could see that if he didn’t get into that bath he’d be ostracizing himself, very bad vibes for the Admiralty, and he certainly couldn’t do it with the suit on, because water might damage something inside—
He stepped into the foliage to get it off. The means were certainly classified.
If he’d had his life to live over again, he’d have been first into the bath. The way he’d hesitated, everyone watched him swim out of the foliage and enter the water. It was cold. He masked a grimace and submerged himself. He asked, “Is body heat supposed to make this warmer?”
Harp laughed. Stevn said, “Sitzen Tree is supposed to have their fireplace next to the bath, so one side gets hot.”
“The whole grove thinks they’re effetes,” Harp said.
She didn’t know about Admiralty practices. Renho and Dunninger were grinning, avoiding his eye and each other’s. Maxell said, “What do we use for soap?”
“Soak a bit, then we rub each other clean. I’ll show you.”
Maxell didn’t swallow his grin, because the rest were grinning too. Harp was going to be sparklingly clean.
“Guardian,” she said, “How do you like tree life?”
“It’s all new to me. Has its attractions, though. How are you feeling? It must have been a nightmare, your tree coming apart.”
“Oh, yes.” She took his hand underwater. Maxell was surprised, then pleased.
“Did you get any warning?”
She was silent for a few breaths. Then, “The whole tree was lurching around. The floor of the Commons twisted and ripped apart under us. We could hear a kind of bass scream, the sound of tearing wood, I guess. So we had some time, some warning, but what were we going to do with it? We tied the children in the loops and ran the treadmill to get them up quick, and then rode the line ourselves. Some of us snatched wings before it all ripped loose. I grabbed my windpipe instead.
“Some of us didn’t want to come, and some of the children hid when we tried to gather them up. We weren’t going to force them. We didn’t have room. They’re still in the tuft, I guess.”
Stevn left the water to pluck spine branches. These he distributed with ritual precision. The ritual continued: the five fed each other foliage until the branches were bare, then began scraping each others’ backs with the springy branchlets. Backs and shoulders, and then they scraped themselves.
Maxell, last to scrape Harp’s back, took it easy. The skin was already pink. And while he was close enough, he half-whispered, “When I was surrounded by foliage and starving—”
“Yes?” Her head turned; her lips were very close.
“Thank you for not laughing.”
“I’ve visited half the trees in the grove, you know. They’re all different. I don’t laugh at anyone.”
“I try not to.”
“Guardian, would you like to find some privacy with me?”
Though they were both naked and whispering, this seemed very sudden. Maxell felt a stutter coming on. He made himself say, “Yes. Absolutely. Can I take my suit?”
She was surprised, but she didn’t laugh. “Something inventive?”
“No, I have to guard it. Standing orders.”
“Oh.”
CHAPTER THREE
YEAR 419 DAY 118
Sounds trickled through his sleeping mind: snores, voices, complaints, crying children; wind, growing gradually louder; “Kitemaster? Kitemaster?” all faintly irritating, all “Kitemaster?”
“Yuh.” He was standing half-upright in a wobbly lift cage. Everything hurt. He felt beaten half to death…but not sleepy. Alert. His eyes were crusted and the Sun was too bright, west and a little in. The Sun had been west and a little out when the cage began to fall.
Between waking and waking was generally about four and a half days…standard days: orbits of Goldblatt’s World. Nearer Levoy’s Star the days ran shorter. Farther out, they ran longer. A sleep was a day and a half to two days; but a voyage from the midpoint to the in tuft took longer than that. He must have slept for two days and a little, because the tuft was coming up fast—
“Kitemaster, what do we do?”
“Brake. There’s a brake. Ling, it’s hardwood, eyeball height in one corner. I think it’s behind those two white-haired—” Ling dove into the crowd; they made way. “Found it? Two flat pieces of wood. Squeeze them together.” The lift cage jerked and surged, and everyone still sleeping woke. “Not so hard, Captain, you’ll break it! Just gently, with both hands…a little harder. Remember, you’re not just braking a cageful of citizens, you’re braking the whole system. Spit on it if it smokes.”
The cage slowed.
Below was a Navy spinner ship, deeply nested, the first Alin had seen so close. For a made thing, it was big. A windmill turning on an oddly curved box, a tank, an octagonal hut, all decorated unimaginatively in letters and numbers, like Admiralty wings; all festooned with rope. Green billows rose up to hide it.
The channel for the cage and lift lines had grown closed. No, there it was, just a pucker, and next to it the windmill spinning merrily, its blades almost cutting foliage. He’d seen it this way a hundred times…
When Alin was eight years old, the Scientist caused a windmill to be built and hooked to the treadwheel that ran the lift lines. After that the lift lines were simply left running. They only called the kids to the treadwheel for extra power to lift a loaded cage.
Alin had liked the treadwheel, the companionship, the chance to show off muscle. Maybe that was why he’d become the Liftmaster’s Apprentice.
He was twenty when the crops failed. The tribe had migrated to the out tuft, traveling naked for fear of bringing contamination. Those had been frantically busy days. Lift lines had to be run to the out tuft, and a windmill built, and eventually a treadwheel and more lift cages; foraging parties on the truth needed transportation, and so did an
y food they found; and everything needed to be lifted to the midpoint and then out…
He’d been Liftmaster’s Apprentice when ten Admiralty kitemen came sailing out of the sky to touch down at Brighton’s midpoint. He’d known his destiny in that instant.
He’d asked for a pair of kites.
They’d laughed. It must have seemed funny to these tourists, a climber thing, this unspoken understanding that a gift would be repaid, eventually, somehow. But the kiteman Chet Bussjak had offered a trade.
It was all arranged in advance, carefully spelled out. For Bussjak’s set of kites, plus several sleeps spent teaching Alin how to make and bind more kites, Bussjak would take the kites they made together (proof that the making was taught well!) plus Alin’s wings.
It was easy to see why Bussjak wanted those. The wings bound to the kitemen’s backs were crude things, unpainted, ugly.
So Liftmaster Kent had taken another apprentice—
“Brake!” Alin shouted. He’d never descended the tree with such a load. The cage plunged into the foliage, into darkness and a roar of shattering branchlets loud enough to drown out the yelling, and slapped down hard. With his head ringing, Alin leapt to disconnect the cage before the lift line could pull it back out.
“Sorry,” he said.
Ling bellowed, “I can’t see a damn thing! Kitemaster, you’ve really…All right, so you’ve been gone for two years, but this place is really…What’s next?”
Alin’s sight was coming back. Parallel beams of sunlight flared from out. From in, from below…the red glow of a fire?
There were five shadows perched around the orange-white light of a rock firepit. Then one was flying toward him, backlighted by the glow. Stevn.
Alin caught him in the air. They drifted backward, and settled into green cloud.
“Boy, are you all right?”
“Sure. Well, I hurt.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere. My hands. Wrists.”
The cage had emptied. The chatter of Linnet’s people faded as they all streamed toward the fire.
“Me too, but we did good. Everyone came back. What’s going on here? Who’s the—” In his concern for Stevn, Alin had only glimpsed the others at the fire. “Who’s the gleaming…silver man? It’s a Guardian!”
Stevn tugged at his arm. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”
“No, hold a breath. I should know a little more. The Guardian?”
“He flew out to get me when I got close enough. They hadn’t seen the tree. When I pointed it out they went right in, but all we found was Harp.”
“Did you have any trouble with the kites?”
“No, Dad, it was just a straight shot, just set the kites and wait. I was afraid the fog would thicken up, but it didn’t. Riding back in a Navy ship was a kick. Noisy, though. When the windmill spins it’s like a thousand little men pounding with hammers.”
“There’s supposed to be little explosions going off in that box.” Alin was watching while he listened. Captain Ling and his men and women and children had only paused at the fire. There was a flurry of activity back…“Isn’t that where we had the bath?”
“Yes. We ripped out the foliage and filled it. Harp thinks it’s important, ‘important bonding ritual,’ and maybe she had another reason too.”
“Capability’s Harp?”
“Right. Dad, there’s food at the fire.”
At the rock firepit the overgrowth of foliage had been torn away to prevent the fire’s spreading, and used to feed the fire itself. There were angel moles and apples broiled on spine branches. The horde hadn’t left much.
Stevn said, “Not all the earthlife died. We’ve got oats and two kinds of beans, but we couldn’t figure how to cook them.”
“Not to mention enough foliage to strangle us all if we don’t eat fast enough. I’d say the tuft’s ready for occupancy. What else don’t I know?”
“This tuft’s infested with angel moles. We should take some back. And we got the bath going.”
“Who did you bring? Who didn’t you bring?”
“Captain Murphy and one of the crew stayed with Flutterby. We’ve got two crew and Guardian Curtz and Harp.”
From the blurred activity in the dark beyond the fire, one separated and climbed toward sunlight. Alin’s dark vision must have been improving. He saw Capability’s Harp with fire in her hair, vivid as his memory, where every other human shape had been a blur. She perched herself above the bath: a creature of magic, backlit by yellow-white sunlight, playing a windpipe in the low breeze. Half-heard music wafted toward them.
Stevn said, “She went off into the bushes with the Guardian. Right out of the bath, naked, hauling that silver suit after them.”
Alin suppressed a guffaw.
“But she got the bath set up first. The silver suit has a smell to it that must be four hundred years old. Yug! Getting the suit off him was like pulling teeth, and getting the smell off took awhile, and now he’s back in the suit.”
“He did save her life…yours too.”
“Sorry.”
Harp recognized Alin, or maybe Stevn, and waved. They both waved back. Alin asked, “Did anyone ever tell you about bards?”
“What about bards?”
“Bards don’t marry. It seems to be that way in every tree. There’s always a bard, and bards belong to everyone. Nobody gets mad if his wife rubs up against a bard, and of course they’re usually men. Harp is the only woman bard I know about.”
“Have you rubbed up against Capability’s Harp?”
Alin nodded.
“Does Mom know?”
“Yes.”
“She doesn’t care?”
“It makes Natlee furious every time she thinks about it. But it’s not supposed to. Stevn—”
“We don’t mention her.”
“She’ll ask. She’ll know what tree came apart. Stick with me, stet? Harp will never speak a word to me without you right beside me.”
“Stet.”
“I wonder why the dwarf? They all saved her life. Did she—”
“Just the dwarf.”
The little man was a power in the Admiralty. And he was short.
They worked their way down a slope of foliage half-shaped into ledges. Stevn and the rest had uncovered just the rim of the hemispherical bowl. It was very crowded. Above the sloshing and murmuring Alin called, “Captain Ling?”
“Who asks?”
“Your companion in flight.”
“Kitemaster! Join us by all means!” Ling lolled in a soup of bodies. “I must say, it’s startling to find such luxury beneath the mask of overgrown foliage. The seats above the treemouth, for instance. And the firepit. Elegant.” Something in his tone suggested that Captain Ling did not quite approve.
Alin stripped and entered the water. It wasn’t jarringly cold. Thirty-odd bodies must have warmed it.
He must have been in body contact with half that many. He let his eyelids fall and savored sensations. His head lolled on someone’s shoulder, somebody’s child wiggled under his arm, a near-infant stood on his knee and studied him. Ripples marched as someone scrubbed someone’s back. A foot caressed his calf and a woman smiled. Sleepy eyes were all about him, the sloshing and the faintly heard music and the quiet.
And the Silver Man settling himself on a ledge above the bath. “Captain Ling, what’s going to happen to the rest of your tribe? Just how much rescue are they going to need? Harp tried to tell me a little—”
“Yes. Well, splitting is how integral trees breed.” Ling showed no anger at being confronted in his bath. “They fall apart. Now, the half that’s falling in, it’s got only the in tuft, stet? The other end was the midpoint; it’s just broken wood.
“So the wind is blowing just on the in tuft, so it blows the whole tree east, the way the Smoke Ring turns. You push the tree east, it wants a wider orbit. East takes you out. Likewise the other half-tree, which is falling out—”
“So they’re both being pus
hed back to the median.”
“Exactly. The wind blows it west, against its motion, so it wants a narrower orbit. Then again, the out half-tree had the rocket motor. It can get back by itself.”
“So now you’ve got two Capability Trees?”
“Maybe. Maybe inhabited by corpses. We’ll be very glad of your rescue maneuvers.”
A man began scrubbing Alin’s upper back; a woman started on his lower back. Then they traded. Body language and blooming romance across Alin’s back. It would have been fun without the treefeeding Silver Man…who…
He said, “Guardian, thank you for your courtesy to my son.” Fair’s fair.
Maxell Curtz was glad that he had bathed earlier. Older citizens often said that the Clump had grown crowded; but they never got as close together as this! His inclination was to loll in the foliage somewhere and remember Harp while he listened to Harp’s voice. Instead, with Renho and Dunninger, he perched on the rim of the bowl and tried to make conversation.
To Alin Newbry he said, “Not at all. Stevn guided us to where we could do some real good.” The so-called Kitemaster was in his thirties, short (but not dwarfed) and muscular, like any climber, but with a kiteman’s startling muscular development in his wrists and forearms. Maxell asked, “Your people used to live here?”
“Up to a couple of years ago. A little after we joined the Grove, most of the crops died. We had to move out. Sitzen and Research and Capability Trees gave us seeds, but we still had to get to the Admiralty and buy more. It’s the only time any of us have gone to the Admiralty.”
“Good thing you were already in reach,” Maxell said. Give. Buy. For sixty people in a tree, it was easy to keep obligations straight. For eleven trees in a Grove, not so easy. A tree might move, or come apart. For two thousand people in a region that changed shape faster than any artist could draw a map…
Money was less fragile than memory; money lost shape less easily than an obligation.
Admiralty ships had contacted a good many trees over past centuries. Some moved into the East Grove, for access to the Admiralty and the benefits of civilization. Too many did not. For that matter—“How did you get into the Grove, Kitemaster? We looked for a steam rocket.”