The Integral Trees

Chapter Nine The Raft

THE POND WAS A SMALL, PERFECT SPHERE, TWENTY KLOMTERS out from the Checker's Rand: a giant water droplet trailing a tail of mist in the direction away from the sun. When the sun shone through from behind, as it did now, Minya glimpsed shadows wriggling within it.

It was going to drift past.

The ends of the tree were far away and still separating: Dalton-Quinn Tuft drifting out and west, the Dark Tuft in and east. The smoke trail that joined them was growing faint, save for dark streamers that were indecisive clouds of insects.

Something surged from the pond, and the pond rippled and convulsed in its wake. The creature was big even at this distance. Hard to judge its size, but it seemed little more than a mouth with fins. Minya watched it uneasily. It didn't seem to be coming toward them. It was flapping toward the smoke trail.

A loose cluster of citizens floated about the Checker's Hand. They couldn't all cling. There wasn't room, and the fungus wasn't holding together that well, either. They used spikes and tethers and showed a reluctance to approach Minya too closely.

The old one, Alfin, clung to the stalk. His look of terror had smoothed out, but he wouldn't talk and he wouldn't move.

The Grad studied her. He said, "Meen Ya. Have I got that right?"

"Close enough. Minya."

"Ah. Mineeya-if we could reach your end of the tree, could you help us join your tribe?"

Their eyes were on her. The old one's seemed desperate. Well, it had had to come. She said, "We have a drought. Too many mouths to feed already."

The Grad said, "Your drought's probably ending about now. There'll be water."

"You're the Quinn Tribe Scientist's apprentice?"

"That's right."

"I accept what you say. How long before that new water grows new food? In any—"

"There'll be meatbirds in the wind now—"

"I don't want to go back!" There, it was said.

Clave asked, "Did you commit a crime?"

"I was thinking about committing a crime. I would have had to. Please!"

"Leave it then. But if we spend our lives here, they're likely to be short. Any passing triune family would think we're some kind of mushroom tidbit. Or that flying mouth that came out of the pond a minute ago—"

"Can't we get to another tree, one with nobody in it? I know we can't go anywhere now, but if we could get to Dalton-Quinn Tuft, we could get to another tree, don't you think?" They weren't buying it. Distract them? "Anyway, we can do better than we're doing now. We should be eating the Hand, not clinging to it. It won't last long now that it's been picked. We need a place to moor ourselves."

She pointed. "That."

That was a ragged sheet of bark, ten meters long and half that wide, a couple of hundred meters away. Most of its spin had by now been lost to air friction, Clave-the Chairman?-said, "I've been watching it for the past day. It isn't getting any closer. Treefodder, if we could move ourselves, I'd go for the pond!"

The Grad said, "Maybe the tree left a partial vacuum. That might pull it in. We can hope."

"We can do more than that. The bark may be close enough." Minya reached for the weapons.

A hand clamped on her wrist, the fingers circling almost twice around. "What do you think you're doing?"

Long, strong fingers, and no qualms about touching another citizen. There were men like this Clave in Dalton-Quinn Tuft. They had driven Minya into the Triune Squad…Minya shook her head, violently.

She was his prisoner, and she had come as a killer. She spoke slowly, carefully.

"I think I can put a tethered arrow into that wood." He hesitated, then released her. "Go ahead and try." She used Sal's metal bow. The arrow slowed as it flew, and presently drifted. She tried another. Now two arrows floated at the ends of slack lines. There were murmurs of disgust as the boy Oavving reeled the lines in.

"I'd like to try that," Clave said and took the bow. When he released it, the string brushed his forearm, and he cursed. The arrow stopped short.

Minya never dithered. She made decisions fast, important or no: that too had helped to put her in the Triune Squad. Now she said, "Hold your left arm straight and rigid. Pull as hard as you can. Swing the string a little right and you won't hit your arm. Look along the arrow. Now don't move."

She picked up the loop of line and hurled it as hard as she could in the direction of the sheet of bark. Now the arrow wouldn't pull so much weight. "Whenever you feel ready."

The arrow sped away. It ticked a corner of the bark and stayed. Clave put pressure on the line, slowly, slowly…it was coming…the arrow worked itself free.

Clave repeated the exercise with no sign of impatience. The bark was meters closer now. He reached it again and pulled line in as if he were fighting some huge meatbird.

The bark came to them. Clave fired another arrow deep into the wood. They crossed on the line. Minya noticed Alfin's shuddering breath once he was safely moored to the bark.

And she noticed Clave's, "Well done, Minya." But he kept the bow.

"We'll used the other side of the bark for privacy," Clave instructed. "Now, the bark is all we've got, so there's no point in getting it dirty. When you feed the tree, the fertilizer should go outward."

"It'll float around us," Alfin said, his first words in hours. He must have seen how they looked at him. "Yes, I do have a better idea. Be at the rim when you feed the tree. The spin will throw it away from us. Won't it, Grad?"

"Yes. Good thinking."

Minya chewed on fan fungus. It was fibrous and nearly tasteless, but there was damp in it, and the damp was delicious. Minya looked longingly toward the pond, which was no closer. So near, so far

They had eaten the smoked dumbo meat down to the bone, to prevent its spoiling. Maybe that had been a mistake. Their bellies were full, even overfull, but they were left thirstier yet. They could die of thirst here.

Aside from that, things were going well.

The golden-haired boy, Gavving: she had made a good choice there. Perhaps he thought he owed her his life. Perhaps it was true. Harmless as he looked, she had seen him kill twice. He'd make a better ally than enemy.

Alfin she couldn't judge. If he was that terrified of falling, he'd be dead soon anyway.

Merril was something else again. Legless, but she swung a fist like another woman's kick! After all she'd lived through, she must be tough. More: handicapped as she was, she'd be dead without friends. She must be well thought of, then. Minya intended to make Merril her friend.

The Grad was a dreamer. He'd never notice whether Minya was dead or alive.

Clave was the dominant male. Perhaps he still considered her an enemy. But she had brought them to this raft and let Clave take the credit. It couldn't hurt. If Clave thought he needed her, she didn't care if he trusted her.

But what else might he want of her?

Jayan and Jinny: they both acted as if Clave belonged to them, or vice versa. Two women sharing a man was not unheard of. They seemed to accept Clave's decisions. But would they resent a potential third? Best stay clear of Clave, if she could.

She could solve that problem, perhaps. Merril spoke around a prodigious yawn. "Does it feel like sleeptime? I personally feel like I've been hit on the head."

Clave said, "I want someone awake at all times on each side of the tree. Is there anyone who isn 't sleepy?"

"I'm not," said Alfin.

So Alfin and Jayan took the first day's watch. Gavving and Merril would be next, then-Minya ignored the rest. Physically and emotionally, she was exhausted. She settled for sleep, floating next to the bark, curled half into fetal position.

The sun was just passing north of Voy. She half noticed activity as citizens took their turns behind the bark, feeding the tree. Clave and Jmny slapped bugs off each other. Jayan presently disappeared around the edge. Alfin…Alfin was hovering next to her. He said, "Mineeya?"

She straightened. "Alfin. What do you want?"

"I want you for my wife."

Suddenly she was utterly awake. She could not afford enemies now. She said carefully, "I had not considered marriage." He hadn't recognized her uniform.

"You'd be a fool to turn me down. What better way to become one of us?"

"I will consider what you say," she said and closed her eyes.

"I'm a respected man. In Clave Tuft I supervised the tending of the treemouth."

Her arms hugged her knees and tightened her into a ball, without her volition.

Alfin's hand shook her shoulder. "Mineeya, your choices aren't wide, here on this sheet of bark. You came as a killer. Some of us may still see you that way."

He wouldn't leave her alone. Well. She tried to keep her voice cool, but she couldn't make herself uncoil, and it came out muffled. "Your argument is good. I should marry one of you. Clave is spoken for, isn't he?"

Alfin laughed. "Thrice."

"Amazing. And the Grad?"

"You're playing games with me. Consider my offer." Then he saw that she was sobbing.

Minya was horrified, but she couldn't stop. The sobs racked her like convulsions. She couldn't even muffle the sounds of distress. She wanted a man, yes, but not this man! Did she have a choice? She might find herself forced to mate this ugly, abrasive old man, only to prevent Quinn Tribe from killing her. Or she could speak of her oath to the Triune Squad and never be mated at all. It was just too much.

"I-I'll come back when you're feeling better." She heard Alfin's distress and guilt, then quiet. When she forced herself to look, she saw him weaving among the sleepers-stealthily?-to reach the far edge of the bark.

She had lost her home, her family, her friends; she was lost in the sky, cast among strangers. Copsik! How could he inflict such a decision on her now? Filthy treefeeding copsik!

The tears were drying on her face. At least no Triune Squad companion had seen her so shamed. It came to her that her tears had driven Alfin away…just as they had been her primary defense when she was fourteen.

But what could she do? She hadn't been quite fair to the old man. He had spoken a partial truth, one she'd already considered: marriage was the way into Quinn Tribe.

— And she found that she had made her decision after all.

Dared she sleep now? She must. The sun was a hand's breadth past Voy; and she curled up and slept.

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."