The Smoke Ring

Chapter Twelve Customs

Year 384, day 1992, by heliograph:

“RICE, DID THIS JUST COME IN?”

“Yes, sir. I was scraping the hull when I saw the light blinking near the Market. Took the message and came straight in, but I don’t know how long the helio was blinking.”

Petty Mart Wheeler thought it through. Gyr falcon carried six crew; Swallow, two. The Navy preferred that civilians notice the big armed ships. In the act of paying customs they should remember what they were buying. So.

“Where are we?”

“I’ll find out, sir.” Spacer Rice turned toward the instrument closet.

“No, not you. Bosun Murphy, take our position.” This was not an urgent mission. He’d use it as a training exercise.

The dwarf nodded cheerfully; her flame-red hair swirled around her. Her short but powerful legs shot her across the cabin to the instrument closet. She chose what she needed and went out.

The long hair would have to go when she reached higher rank. Pity. But dwarves were rare, and Bosun Sectry Murphy must be trained quickly…

Through the hatch Wheeler could see a blue light, tiny and intense: a Navy heliograph, reflected Voy-light blinking near the east limb of the whorl. Red hair and a squarish feminine face suddenly blocked the view. “Petty, we’re at two-sixty-five flat, six south, two-forty klomters.”

“And we’ve got better than half a tank, right?” Murphy nodded. “Get on the heliograph. We’ll rendezvous with the log. Jimson, Rice, get us ready for a burn.”

The thick, disordered sky made Rather dizzy. If he fell into that he would be more than ordinarily lost. He climbed with care. Clave and Debby trailed him.

There had been hard work followed by a long climb.

They were all tired. Rather’s fingers and toes were starting to cramp. But the rocket was in sight, a hundred meters out…if that direction was still out.

The log was rising through the Clump’s eastern fringes.

Wind slapped at Rather from ambush, here, there, everywhere, as if he were embedded in a flock of terrified turkeys. Clouds ran in peculiar directions, not east-west, not flattened spirals, but shallow in-out curves. A line of small green puff jungles flowed in an arc that was not tidelike at all. Confronted by such strangeness, Rather’s bewildered eyes sought the one unchanging reference point.

Voy burned blue-white and steady…twenty-five degrees east of the stump of the in tuft! Choppy clouds blurred the sun. Shadows pulsed, blurring and sharpening. Overlaid on those, Voy’s faint, sharp blue shadows lay in skew directions. Children learned not to see Voyshadows. Voyshadows told nothing, for they never moved, never changed, never distracted the eye.

The tree had turned; the trunk was pointing wrong.

Booce and Carlot waited at the rocket. Debby called, “Booce! How can you stand it?”

“The tide? I grew up in it. You’ll get used to it. The happyfeet do.”

“The shadows are making me sick to my stomach,” Debby said.

Rather’s own stomach was queasy. “Carlot—”

“We’re almost home.” There was no mistaking her joy. She liked it here. “Look, we’ve got the pipefire going.”

“I’ll start the water.” A smaller pod had been carved into Logbearer’s new cabin. Booce crawled inside. “Tether yourselves.”

The rocket cone pointed east. Rather poked his nose into the small hatch. “Booce, are you slowing us again?”

Booce’s voice echoed. “What? No, tide’s different in the Clump. We’ll push west, straight toward the Dark.” He pulled a wooden plug from the water tank. He inhaled, put his lips to the hole, and blew.

Rather withdrew his head to watch the completed rocket in action. Yellow-white coals glowed within the iron firebox that had given them so much trouble. The iron glowed dull red. A fourth pod nearby was filled with water in case the plates didn’t hold together.

At the nozzle end of the rocket — “Nothing’s happening.”

His answer was the sound of Booce inflating his lungs. Then the rocket went Chuff! and sprayed steam.

“It’s going, Booce,” Rather said, and looked in.

Booce’s face dripped with water. He was coughing and choking while he pounded the plug in with the heel of his hand. His glare was murderous.

CHUFF, CHUFF, Chuff chuffchuffchuff…The rocket settled down. A row of cloud-puffs became a steady stream jogged by the play of capricious wind. Rather felt no acceleration. It would be gentle, with so great a mass to be moved.

Carlot came up behind him; her long fingers found his hand and enclosed it. “Father? Shouldn’t we—”

Booce sounded like his throat was still full of water. “Yes, go play lookout on the west face, you two. Watch for Navy and anything we might hit.”

The maelstrom revealed itself to them as they circled the trunk. Flying was a continuing wonder to Rather, but Carlot did it better. She kept darting ahead, then circled to urge him on. At a vantage point on the west face they doffed their wings and rested.

The Clump was a whorl like a tremendous fingerprint.

Inward, matter thickened. There were puzzle trees, distorted cotton-candy jungles, the much smaller puffballs that Carlot had pointed out for him (“fisher jungles”), and greenery that was totally unfamiliar. Ponds took odd shapes in the distorted tide. The sky was thick with birds: skyhorses, triunes, and a thousand tiny red and yellow darts converging on a puff jungle. Everything moved in arcs, tighter near the center of the whorl, and darker. The center itself was almost black, but motion could still be seen there.

The triune families were hard to spot, but two had turned to observe the passing log. They were fat sky-blue cigar-shapes with wide triple fins: male and female and child, linked along their bellies. Three slender blue shapes flashed violent-orange bellies as they converged on the red-and-yellow bird-swarm: another triune family, separated to hunt.

A thin stream of cloud cut across other patterns of cloud-flow. Rather spotted it in the moment before Carlot pointed. “There. Navy.”

“How do you know?” Rather saw only a dark point at the end of the line of cloud.

“It’s coming toward us. Customs. They’ll make a burn and intercept us in a day. Oh, treefodder.”

Rather laughed. She’d borrowed his curse. “What?”

She showed him.

Far in toward the Clump’s dark center, in the thick of moving matter, was a broad, flat ring-shape with a pebbly inner surface…angular structures in pastel colors… blatantly artificial. Could it really be as big as it looked?

He judged its size by an even larger natural object nearby: a tree with one tuft missing. The log was smaller than their own, Rather thought. At its midpoint he could make out a rocket-shape, cone and tank and angular cabin.

Carlot said, “I know that rocket. Woodsman. Dad won’t like this. They could just as easily have been out another damn year.” She looked into his eyes. “We won’t have much time together. The Belmy family owns Woodsman. Dad wants to marry me to Raff Belmy.”

“Will you do it?”

“Shut up.” She pulled him against her by the slack of his tunic. “I don’t want to think about it. Just don’t talk,” she breathed into his ear, and he obeyed. It crossed his mind that Booce should be told of these things. But there would be time…

Gyrfalcon found the log easily: bigger than average, with both tufts severed. It was making its burn: a wavery line of cloud behind it was beginning to arc over. The rocket would be behind the trunk.

“Instruments,” Wheeler instructed. “Rice, get us a rendezvous track. Murphy, the neudar. That dark blemish in the wood—”

“I see it, sir.”

He waited and watched. His crew moved well, Bosun Murphy in particular. She hadn’t yet used the neudar under field circumstances. She moved slowly, but without mistakes. That would reflect well on Wheeler.

“The blemish is dense. Metal,” she said. “Kilotons.”

“Now the rocket.”

“I can’t see anything—”

“Behind the midpoint.”

“Oh! I can look through the wood!” She tried it. “Mmm…something…metal, not much. Our own iron rocket nozzle would show a mark like that.”

“Rice?”

“We need a burn, Petty. Fifty degrees planar, zero axial, a hundred breaths of bum and we’ll go just past.”

“Give us the burn, then all hands suit up. Spacer Rice, you’re in the cabin, on instruments. Murphy, on the pump.”

Gyrfalcon carried a glass alcohol tank and a pair of water tanks. Its valve system had been rifled from the hulk of an ancient Cargo and Repair Module. On long voyages, standard practice was to spray water into the alcohol flame as working mass. Water could be replaced in domains beyond the Admiralty’s reach. Alcohol generally could not, though some of the happyfeet tribes carried alcohol distilleries for trade with the Admiralty.

Wheeler and Jimson tethered themselves carefully at the steering platform above the motor. Murphy began to pedal. Pedals could be extended, but a dwarf on the bicycle always delivered more power. Wheeler put his hand in the airflow to test it, then started the alcohol flame. He checked his crew’s handholds before he increased the flow.

Thrust pulled at his skin and his bones. He ran water into the flame. Thrust rose again, and heat bathed the inner surfaces of his straining legs.

Rice called down from the cabin. “Cut it!”

Petty Wheeler reached below his feet for the alcohol valve. The roar died to a hiss: water on a hot surface.

Next, the water valve. Gyrfalcon fell free.

The log was nearer; the plume of acceleration was gone. Using the binoculars, Wheeler found a pair of human shapes on the near side.

“They’re not giving us much attention,” he said. Murphy took the binoculars. Presently she said, “They’ll have time.” She looked until he took them away.

The Navy ship was bigger and more elaborate than Logbearer. It arrived in a wave of warm steam and paused a hundred meters from the center of the midtrunk. Four men emerged and flew toward them.

Logbearer’s crew waited outside the cabin.

“They’re fast,” Debby said.

Booce chuckled. “Never try to outfly the Navy. Navy wings are different, and the men are picked for their legs.”

They were closer now. Rather suddenly gripped Booce’s arm. “Booce, they’re wearing silver suits!”

“Ah, Rather—”

Rather eased his grip. “Sorry.”

“Well, watch that. It’s only Navy armor.”

“But it looks—”

“Just armor. There are three vac suits in the Admiralty, and we aren’t important enough to see one. Incidentally, they’d love to make it four.”

Closer yet. The armor didn’t cover them. All wore helmets: head-and-shoulder pieces with an opening for the face. Some wore additional plates. And one was a dwarf.

Their wings! They pointed a little forward, as the foot did; they folded on the forward kick and snapped open on the back-kick. The Scientist should see this. Rather thought.

They left their wings on even after they touched bark.

The dwarf was a woman. Red hair showed around the helmet before she lifted it. Pale skin, pointed nose, and pointed chin; hair like flame streaming from a tree afire.

Her chest plate stood several ce’meters out from her chest. She was five or six years older than Rather, quite lovely, and Rather’s height.

She caught him looking and smiled at him. He forgot that he could move. Her eyes were blue, and they danced.

He was blushing, and Carlot had caught it, and Rather looked away in haste. And watched a long, long man kicking toward them.

The globe helmet was much larger than his head, with an opening for his face…like the silver suit’s helmet with the faceplate missing. Separate curved pieces protected his thighs, back, upper arms, and hips. Those were wood painted in silver; but the head-and-shoulder piece was of hammered metal. Wide nose, dark skin, black cushion of hair: he might have been part of Booce’s family.

He recognized Booce (and ignored his crew). “Booce Serjent? You may remember me: Petty Wheeler. Welcome home.”

“Good to see you again, Petty. You’ll remember Carlot—”

She smiled brilliantly. “Good day, Petty Wheeler.”

“Oh, yes. You’ve grown, Carlot.”

Booce said, “These others are Clave and Rather Citizen, from Citizens Tree, a few hundred klomters west of us. Debby Carther we hired before we left.”

Meeting strangers was outside Rather’s experience. Booce had told him what to do. He said, “A pleasure to meet you, sir,” and held out his hand.

“Pleased.” The Navy man’s handshake was strong for a jungle giant. “I’ll speak to you later. Rather. Clave, Debby, a pleasure. Booce, do you have anything to declare?”

“Yes. One log, forty klomters or thereabouts. If you want to measure it yourselves—”

“No, we’ll just take half the manifests as you sell it off.”

“And the Wart,” Booce said complacently. “Our one bit of luck, and a happyfeet tribe almost made off with it.”

“That mucking great chunk of metal halfway in?”

“Heh. You’ve found it already? We haven’t measured that either, but it’s thousands of tons. Petty, we’d like the Wart classified. We won’t get so many thieves that way.”

“All right, but if happyfeet attacked you—”

“I don’t want to file charges. They got away, but we hurt them, and I don’t want them to know who. They might want to come after us with friends.”

“That attitude makes life difficult for the Navy, Booce. We’d rather chase them down. You’re sure?…All right. We’ll want our taxes in metal.”

“Fine. I want to keep that makeshift firebox until I can buy more sikenwire. It’s not pretty, but it works. Barring that, I’ll sell the entire lode to the Navy right now, if you can tear it out and tow it home. Take it off my hands,” Booce said.

Rather couldn’t help himself: he stared. But what if he takes you up on it?

Petty Wheeler laughed. “I don’t have alcohol to tow it, and I can’t authorize that kind of expenditure. But we’ll inspect it now, and I’ll send a team to cut our share loose after you’re moored.’’

Petty Wheeler’s crew began searching Log bearer inside and out. Rather’s momentary impulse was to stop them. But Booce showed no surprise…and of course there was nothing aboard Logbearer to be found. Meanwhile the Navy officer turned to Rather and said, “Rather, wasn’t it? You should consider joining the Navy.”

“Why?”

The man smiled. “The pay is good, particularly for a tree dweller, if you can get in. We’ll shape you up and teach you things you should know, like how to win a fight. You’ll be holding civilization together. The personal advantage is, you’re the right shape. You noticed Bosun Sectry Murphy? Short, with red hair—”

“Yes?”

“She’ll be wearing a vac suit within six years. Guardian is the highest rank there is, unless you were born an officer. You could do the same.”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

“Talk to her yourself. Ask Booce, for that matter. Booce, we’ll fly down and inspect your Wart. Would you like to ride with us?”

“I’d be delighted.” Booce looked around at his crew and added, “We’d all be delighted.”

Gyrfalcon’s hull sported handholds everywhere. The Navy men spaced Logbearer’s people high along one flank. There were shelves for feet and straps to circle a waist (or just under the armpits on Rather). “Fighting vessel,” Clave whispered to Debby. “They can cover the hull with archers.”

Three Navy worked aft, around the motor. They ignored the civilians.

Something green was trying to grow on the wooden hull. Fluff, maybe. The wood had been scraped recently. Rather noticed that much before the rocket fired.

If Wheeler was trying to impress a barbarian dwarf, he succeeded. The rocket roared and spat flame. Rather felt his blood settling into his legs. The log’s rough bark surged past, accelerating. Aft, Wheeler and Murphy used toothed gears to point the nozzle. In a way it was more impressive than the CARM. You could see how it all worked.

The roar of the motor would cover his voice (and the fear in it). Rather asked, “Why don’t they let us inside?”

“Classified. Nobody knows what’s in a Navy ship,”

Carlot said. “We haven’t seen the whole crew, I’m sure of that. Rather, I noticed you staring at the, um, redhaired woman?”

Rather told a half-truth. “She looks short. I mean, it’s surprising, because she’s the same size I am. Mark never looked short.”

Carlot seemed to relax. “Well, no. He was bigger than you when you were growing up.”

Wheeler moved the nozzle ten degrees to port. The ship slewed around, spraying flame. He swiveled the nozzle starboard; the rotation slowed and stopped, and Gyrfalcon decelerated. It eased to a stop less than a hundred meters from the blister in the trunk.

“The bandits almost had it torn loose,” Wheeler observed.

Booce nodded.

The same four Navy personnel accompanied them to the Wart. Three set to examining the blister that had grown up around the metal and the matchet-chewed wood that extended far back behind it. The fourth sought out Rather. “Petty Wheeler said you might have questions to ask me,” said Bosun Murphy.

Rather was not really thinking of joining the Navy. He didn’t say so. “I don’t know enough to ask good questions.”

She smiled enchantingly. “Ask bad ones. I don’t mind.”

“What are the vac suits? Why are they important?”

“They’re old science, as old as the Library. They’re invulnerable,” she said. “The highest fighting rank is Guardian, and that’s the rank that wears the vac suits. There are supposed to be nine Guardians. We’ve got eight. This—” She rapped her helmet, then the plates on her thighs. “—It looks like this, but all over. You’ll get as high as Petty just because you’re the right shape, and then you find out if you actually fit into a vac suit.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t got that far yet.” She looked down at her protruding chestplate unhappily. “Maybe I won’t fit. I’d still keep my rank as Petty. Understand, you have to be qualified, you have to be trained. It’s just easier if you’re the right size.”

“Training. What’s it like?”

“They’ll put you through exercises. You may think you’re strong — you’re a tree dweller? I can see the muscles. But Petty Wheeler could tie you in knots. After you’ve been through training you could tie him in knots. I could, I think, and you’re stronger. Your people, do they use polar coordinates to find themselves?”

“No.”

“They’ll teach you how to find yourself in the sky. You’ll learn how to count, if you don’t know—”

“I can count.”

“You’ll learn how to work a rocket, not a steam rocket but a Navy rocket. They teach you how to obey too. You want to go in braced for that, Rather. A superior officer tells you to fly, you fly, wings or no.”

It sounded unpleasant. “Where do the Navy ships go?”

“Mmm…Where do you come from?”

“Citizens Tree. A little west of the Clump.”

“You’re not likely to visit your family. We don’t see many tree dwellers. We send ships outside the Clump, but not often, and never more than a few thousand klomters. Mostly we cruise the Clump itself. We collect taxes, of course—”

“Yeah.”

“We fight the wildlife. Dark sharks and other things. Citizens find a drillbit nest, or honey hornets, they call us and we burn it out.”

“Triunes too?”

“Oh, no, the triunes got the idea fast. They never attack us. Some of them like us. There’s a guy, Exec Martin, he hunts swordbirds with triunes. Nobody knows how bright they really are, but they can be trained.”

“Why do you burn honey hornets? Booce says they’re valuable.”

Her expression soured. “Honey is contraband. Put just a tip of a fingernail’s worth on your tongue, you dream wonderful dreams. Then you can’t stop. Use a little more and you die in ecstasy. Some people will pay a lot for that.”

Honey is suicide. Rather hadn’t realized that Booce meant it literally. He thought it over, then said, “But it’s their choice—”

She shook her head. “Not my decision. Then there’s detective work, and riot control, and rescue work. We don’t specialize much. You learn to do all of that, but first you learn how to fly a ship.”

“What happens to cadets who fail? Murphy, what happens to dwarves who fail?”

“Nothing. I mean, they’re out of the Navy, of course. They hire out or they build a business, maybe they go diving in the Dark for mushrooms and fan fungus, or they go logging. Hell, what does a logger do if he fails at something?” She looked closely at him. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m having trouble with this. There’re more people here, so there’s more places for people, right? If you can’t hunt or do earthlife farming, you just try something else?”

Murphy nodded brightly. “Next question?”

Would we see each other if I joined up? May I call you Sectry? “Thank you, Bosun.”

“Any time,” she said, and Sprang away. She coasted parallel to the bark, toward Wheeler as he emerged from behind the Wart.

“It’s big,” Wheeler called. “Booce Serjent, you’ve made your fortune.”

“Recouped it, anyway. The first thing I’ll do is rebuild Logbearer.”

“Yes…Well, I’ve seen enough. Eight thousand tons or so. Those scars on the metal—”

“We used the saw to get the slabs that make up the firebox. It worked better than I’d hoped. It’s a good substitute for sikenwire, and the saw’s not damaged.”

Wheeler nodded, satisfied. “Can we lift you back to your ship?”

“No, we need to cover this somehow before we reach the Market.”

“I think you’re worrying over nothing. How could anyone steal anything this big7”

“With saws…Well, you may be right.”

They watched Gyrfalcon steam toward the Clump interior. Something bright twinkled at the bow. “He’s calling home,” Booce said. “They use mirrors to bounce Voy-light where they want it.”

“What happens now?” Clave asked.

“Wheeler thinks I sawed off more metal than just those plates for the firebox. He’ll watch to see if I sell it on the black market. He could have bought the Wart on the spot, but he thinks I’ll give him a better price if he waits. A few days after we dock I’ll get an offer. It’ll be too little, and I’ll boost them a bit and then take it so I can stop guarding the metal—”

“What do we do now, Booce? Jeffer must be going crazy waiting for us to call in.”

“We’re still being watched.”

Gyrfalcon was tiny now. Its steam trail was dissipating.

Clave asked, “Can they still see? Have they got something like the CARM windows?”

“A box they hold to their eyes. Clave, we’d like some way to disguise this mucking great chunk of metal.”

So Logbearer’s five crew swarmed over the Wart, taking their time, just looking at it from all angles, as if there were some way to hide a conspicuous pucker in the honest wood of a tree. The sun crept from zenith to pass north of Voy. And presently Debby said, “Booce, you’ve seen more trees than any of us. What kind of a thing causes this kind of scar?”

“Something hits the tree…could be stony, it doesn’t have to be metal. I’ve seen this kind of gap with nothing in it at all, just chewed wood healing over. I never did figure it out.”

Debby wondered, “Ice?”

Booce’s face went…stupid? Mouth agape, eyes drifting. He said, “Heh. Yes! A chunk of ice could smash a tree, then melt.”

“Still doesn’t do anything for us. What else? Disease? Is there something that builds nests? Or the tree bugs could chew just in one place—”

“Sure, a honey pod could hit a tree, and the bugs would chew a huge hole…give me a breath, Debby.” Stupid again: thinking. “We can do it. Twenty days to reach the Market. Okay. We need a fisher jungle that’s got termites, and we need to look like we’ve been through a disaster, but we’ve got that already. I never thought I’d come home with a pod for Logbearer’s cabin!”

“What do you need from us?” Clave asked.

“Stay here, talk to Jeffer. The rest of us will fly up the trunk. This is nice. If Wheeler wonders why we’re still hovering around the Wart, he’ll see us hiding it!”

Rather swallowed his protest, because Clave was saying, “You don’t need Rather. I want him.”

“Stet.” Booce had his wings on. “Come, children.”

Chapter Thirteen The Termite Nest

from the Citizens Tree cassettes, year 5 SM:

Jeffer ate as he read. When he reached the end he doggedly scrolled back to the beginning. His students had found it bewildering. So did Jeffer, but he had an advantage over his students. He had Kendy.

If Kendy would call!

Today he had hunted the sky. He’d returned to the dead fisher jungle trailing a sizable shieldbird. A small fire near the CARM had cooked his catch. He was getting good at it. Sandwiching the meat between two of the shieldbirds’ bone plates cooked it tender without scorching it.

He almost choked when the CARM suddenly spoke. “Jeffer? This is Clave. Jeffer, can you hear me?”

Jeffer swallowed hard and said, “Prikazyvat Send to pressure suit. And about treefeeding time too! Are you alive?”

“Jeffer, we couldn’t get to the helmet. The Navy searched Logbearer. Even after they left they were watching us. Where are you? Are you hidden?”

“Clave, I found something good. Do you remember Booce’s description of a fisher jungle? A green puffball a klomter across, with a long coiled root. It reaches out to put the root in a pond, but there’s poison on it and it can attack life forms and kill them and draw them in to rot—”

“Right. They’re not supposed to live outside the Clump.”

“Maybe so. This one’s fifty klomters from the Clump fringes, and it’s dead. The axis trunk is hollow. There’s a Navy ship coming this way. It’s not likely they’ll want to sniff around a fisher jungle, but I’ve got the CARM moored inside the hollow anyway. When it goes away I’ll tether it above the root so the CARM can get some sunlight. Where are you? I can’t see anything.”

“I’m in the dark. I’m in that channel we chopped past the Wart. We haven’t moved the silver suit yet.”

Jeffer remembered extending the work done by the happyfeet. His back and shoulders still ached. “We should have let the happyfeet do more of the carving.”

“It was worth it. Booce was right. The Navy knows if you’re carrying metal. This Petty Wheeler citizen knew about the Wart, but he didn’t look for anything behind it.”

“What’s the Clump like?”

“Crowded. We’ll have the log moored in twenty days. Booce has a way to hide the Wart. He’s afraid of thieves, and we can’t use the silver suit to win a fight, because—”

“No, of course not.”

“ — Because they’d recognize it. Jeffer, they’ve got three silver suits. It’s a mark of high rank. Dwarves are in good shape if they join the Navy, and Rather’s had an offer.”

An offer? “Rather, you there?”

Jeffer heard Clave’s distant yell. Presently Rather said, “Here.”

“You had an offer to join the Navy? What was said? What did you tell them?”

“I didn’t take the Petty seriously. The idea is to learn something about the Admiralty, buy some earthlife seeds, and get back to Citizens Tree!”

“We want to know about the Navy too.”

“I learned a little—”

Clave interrupted. “How serious are we? Booce, what has the Navy got that we want to see? I’m not so eager to see the inside of a Navy rocket that I’d feed one of my—”

“The Library! The cassettes! What’s on the Admiralty cassettes?”

“All right, Jeffer. What makes you think Rather could get to any of that? Booce might know, but he isn’t here to ask.”

Jeffer finished the shieldbird meat while he thought. “Ask him when you get the chance. Now, I’m getting terminally bored here. Are you free to move the silver suit into the rocket?”

“’No. It’s too easily recognized,” Clave said.

“How about just the helmet?”

“We’ll have to ask Booce, but…I think not. Let’s get Kendy in on this. Are you in contact?”

“He said he was changing orbit. He’ll be back in another day. Clave, I wish you could give me some kind of a view.”

“I’ll think of something. Jeffer, Rather’s waving at me.”

“Scientist out.”

“Clave? You’d better see this,” Rather said.

“What? I was talking to Jeffer.” Clave crawled out of the cavity behind the Wart. “Oh.”

From out of the crowded sky came a shapeless thing colored a dead yellowish brown. Its outline was fuzzed with a jittering motion that caused the optic nerves to twitch. It was coming straight at them, and Logbearer was behind it.

“Get out of its way, Rather, it’s going to hit! Got your wings?”

They fled. The thing fell toward the Wart with a faint, frightening buzzing sound. Myriads of black flecks swarmed around it, insects much smaller than honey hornets.

It struck the crater around the Wart and deformed like soft mud.

Logbearer bumped the trunk more softly. Debby emerged from the hatch in the forward pod. She stared hard at the intrusionary mass. She called, “It’s going to stick.”

Booce answered from inside. “Stet. Spread the honey.”

Debby waved at Booce and Rather, but that was all the attention she gave them. She began spreading red sticky honey around the rim of the crater.

The swarm of insects followed her. When she closed the circle, most of the insects had migrated to the honey.

“Done!”

“Good. Get aboard. Clave, Rather, I’ve got to moor this thing. Want a ride?”

Clave bellowed, “Booce, you get out here and answer some questions!”

Booce’s head popped out. He thought it over, then flapped to join them. He looked indecently self-satisfied.

“It’s a termite nest,” he said before Clave could ask. “We’ll say we didn’t have any choice, it was the only tree around and we had to get back to the Clump because… I’ll think of something.”

“Uh-huh. The honey?”

“Encouragement. When the termites run out of honey they’ll eat wood. They’ll bond the nest to the Wart.”

“What about the silver suit? Were you just going to leave it?”

“Where would it be safer?”

“Jeffer’s all alone in the sky. He’d go crazy!”

Booce’s grimace told it all. Clave said, “He’s the Citizens Tree Scientist, and he is not a crazy murderer. He was in a fight with our lives at stake, Booce, and he used what he had. It was more powerful than he thought it was—”

“He used it twice.”

“Booce, if you’ve ever been a happyfeet bandit yourself, tell me now.”

Booce was astonished, then amused. “Oh, really! No, I’m not protecting my own kind. I’m not defending bandits that prey on loggers. Granted they’d generally rather attack some tribe of helpless savages. Your suspicions are right there, Clave, but it doesn’t mean I like bandits. I wouldn’t have burned a whole damn tribe either!”

“Uh-huh. You would have sent them away without hurting them so much. How? Describe the procedure in detail.”

“I can’t do that. Jeffer hasn’t told any of us how to fly the CARM! Clave, the Scientist is not to burn any tribe, ever again. I’m telling you, not him. You are to stop him.”

“I’ll tell him. Now what?”

“Oh…we’ll leave everything but the helmet where it is. Jeffer’s scientific eyes are in the helmet, right? Those little windows in the forehead? We’ll moor it in the nest. He’ll have a view. We’ll be spending enough time around the Wart; we’ll talk to him then.”

The CARM with its cameras was hidden in a dark place, the pressure suit was in another, the incoming recordings were days old, and in present time Jeffer wasn’t present. Kendy skimmed the recordings. He was learning more through Disciplined own senses.

Logbearer was easy to follow: forty kilometers of tree with tufts missing and a metal mass off-center, now rounding the starward limb of the L4 whorl. Maintaining contact wasn’t going to be easy here. Discipline’s new orbit had twice the period of Goldblatt’s World, with Voy periodically falling north of the L4 point. Tilting his orbit out of the Smoke Ring allowed his instruments to penetrate less of the garbage in the Clump; but the log and the CARM and all of Kendy’s citizens would be circling that center on long kidney-shaped paths.

At least he wouldn’t have to burn more fuel. If he could establish relations with the Admiralty, his present orbit might suffice for hundreds of years.

Savages in a thriving civilization would find trouble sooner or later. Patience. Some emergency would force Jeffer to bring the CARM into the L4 point. Then he must open the airlock to the Navy…

One problem at a time. Wait. Learn.

Jeffer entered the cabin before Kendy passed out of range. There was fresh pink blood on his tunic and more on his hands.

“Kendy for the State—”

“Hello, Kendy. How can we—”

“Jeffer, if Rather has an offer from the Navy, I want him to accept.”

“You would. Rather didn’t sound too enthusiastic. Neither am I. How can we get away with not hiding the silver suit?”

“An excellent question.” Kendy was using light amplification, but it only showed him iron ore and chewed wood. Clave and Rather had departed the hiding place. “If the Navy has pressure suits, they’ll recognize yours. I thought of disassembling it, but they’d know the helmet too. We would ruin the camera if we tried to dismount it, and the electrical source is in the helmet.”

“So?”

“Patience.”

“Feed your patience to the tree, Kendy. I’ve got a cryptic entry under ‘Lagrange Points’—”

“I’ve had three hundred and eighty-four years to leam r patience. You are almost out of range. Can you feed yourself there?”

“Sure. There’s hand fungus, and flashers living on the bugs, and some other things. In a way it’s like learning to hunt all over again…” The link was lost.

A chance to examine the Admiralty’s military arm from inside! But Rather wasn’t enthusiastic. And Kendy would have to talk Jeffer around before his arguments could even reach the boy.

Patience…

Chapter Fourteen Docking

from Logbearer’s log. Captain Booce Serjent speaking:

A FAT, BABY-BLUE TORPEDO CRUISED SLOWLY ALONG the Serjent log, moving closer to where Rather and Carlot stood watch. Suddenly it split along its length, and four slender blue-and-orange triunes dived on some tree-dwelling life form.

Rather pointed. “Four?”

“Sometimes triunes have twins.”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“You never saw one of those either.” She pointed out a triangular shadow. “That’s a Dark shark. They don’t usually come this far skyward. They’re dangerous. All teeth, no brain.”

“Skyward?”

“Dark, skyward, spin, and antispin. We use all the normal directions too.”

“How do you keep it all straight?” Rather reached to wrap his legs lightly around her waist. She did not respond.

A ball of green fluff stretched a quarter klomter of curly tail toward a passing sphere of water.

Booce, Debby, and Clave were around the log’s horizon, ready to use the rocket if anything came near. Carlot and Rather kept watch from the east. “We can still keep our eyes on the sky,” Rather pointed out.

Carlot pounded his kneecaps with her fists, briskly.

“Who’s watching us?”

“I don’t mind triunes watching. Maybe I even like it.”

“What about the houses?”

“Houses?”

“You’d say huts. Look—”

Beyond the Market, beyond Carlot’s pointing chin, six cubes were strung along a spire of wood with a rocket tank and nozzle at one end. “That’s Captain-Guardian Wayne Mickl’s household,” Carlot said. “He’s one of the richest officers.”

“It isn’t close.”

“That one is.”

A structure floated against the Dark, a cube festooned with platforms, extrusions for tethers, water pods, and other things for which he had no name.

“That’s the Hillards, I think. And that puff jungle is the Kerians.”

The sky was full of puffballs. The one Carlot pointed out bore a big K with other letters within, too small to read. Carlot said, “Crew live in those if they’re too poor to buy wood. Usually they clip a logo in the foliage.”

Rather laughed. “Okay, I’m convinced.” Another puff jungle was marked with a slender figure-eight. “If you’re rich, you build with wood?”

“Yes.”

“Your family has a house.”

“We find our own wood! I’ll show you if it comes around. It wasn’t finished when we left, but I know the design.”

“We’re poor; aren’t we? Citizens Tree is poor.”

“You live poor. The CARM makes you rich, except that you can’t use it…and there’s your share of the Wart, once Father sells it. Rather?”

“Speaking.”

“I think I’m going to marry Raff.”

Rather turned to look at her. The sudden black emptiness in his belly was entirely new to him, yet he couldn’t feel any surprise. He got his lips working. “Would you be better off if I went somewhere else?”

She was having trouble meeting his eyes. “I haven’t seen Raff in three years. Rather, I think he’d be happier if he didn’t know we’ve been…”

“Making babies. I won’t announce it.”

“All right. But I wouldn’t push you into the Navy just to get rid of you! Don’t ever think that! I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not. I don’t think for Citizens Tree, and I don’t do your thinking either. Don’t give up the idea just to stay near me.”

“I have no intention of joining the Navy.” Rather turned back to the sky. He was still on watch.

Now that he knew what to look for, the sky danced with structures. Puff jungles were everywhere, more of them toward the Dark, and some were marked. There were wooden cubes and clusters of cubes, elaborately colored in bright primaries. He could pick out wind-curdled lines of steam crossing the Dark.

He said, “People change in three years.”

Carlot said, “Sure. Maybe we won’t like each other. We’ll see. I’m telling you. Rather, if we get along I’ll marry him. Belmy was the first of the logging concerns, and it’s the most powerful.”

The helmet had been in place in the termite nest for some twenty hours. Kendy ran the record through his mind, classifying, deducing, making notes. When he reached present time he went back to the beginning.

His mental model of the Admiralty was shaping up nicely.

There were more new plants than new animals. Animals showed the same modified trilateral symmetry here as they did in the Smoke Ring proper. There was a clear absence of tide-stabilized plants: hardly surprising.

The buildings were interesting. Everything less primitive than a carved-out cotton-candy plant was built in rectangular solids. It was as if they still built to resist gravity …but not quite, for addenda sprouted at any angle, and openings might appear in any of the six walls. They looked like Escher had designed them.

Some houses had a big square fin sticking out from one corner. The Clump was turbulent. In infrared Kendy could see little whirlwinds, “dust devils” with no dust in them. A house would tumble and keep tumbling without that fin.

Unless it was attached to some larger structure.

Why was there only one Market? It didn’t look difficult to construct. Houses were scattered through the outer Clump. Most would have no neighbors at all most of the time. There was no need for such isolation. It was inefficient and lonely.

The tree’s attitude changed continually. The view through the helmet camera wavered with it. Kendy was getting only glimpses of the Market, but he could integrate them.

Many of the structures were moored by concrete to the Market frame. Too bad. Kendy would have liked to offer them concrete. If he ever got their attention he’d have to have something to offer, some bit of knowledge to make their lives better. He knew the pattern that would make them a thriving. Smoke Ring-girdling State in a hundred years; but there had to be something quicker.

Electricity? The Clump never had true night either. How did they light their houses?

He recognized a glass tank from one of Discipline’s seeding missiles,’ emitting a sharp spike in the light spectrum: chlorophyll. They’d made it into a hydroponics tank. The faceted hemisphere nearby was an old survival tent sheathed with wood, with transparent facets left open. Other structures on the ring were made from Smoke Ring materials: mostly wood, but one was a cotton-candy jungle tethered to a mast.

A building beyond the Market sported a broad picture window: the windscreen from a CARM. Otherwise, no glass anywhere. No sand?

Crew drifted among the buildings like leaves in an autumn wind. Half-grown children flew in groups tended by one or two adults…

I’ve got to know more. Can I find a way to move the helmet into the Market?

Booce was in position at the rocket, with hot coals ready, and Debby and Clave to watch and to steer. The sky was thick with debris. One might hope that Carlot and Rather would keep to their watching…but at least they’d have their chance to talk.

A Navy ship had them in clear view. Supervising, to make sure that the log came to rest a safe distance from the Market. A larger rocket pulled free of Belmy’s log and steamed toward Logbearer.

Booce and his damaged tree would arrive in a blaze of publicity.

He was returning like a beggar.

But of course there was the Wart…and the silver suit behind it. He would have liked to lose that. The worst the Admiralty could charge him with was “concealment of vital resources,” but that was a heavy charge. Was it worth the risk, to be able to talk to Jeffer the Scientist?

Not that he had a choice.

He was almost home. The Belmy log was ahead of them, eclipsing the Market. The tuftless end looked chewed. Belmy had sold some of his wood.

Woodsman was prominent in the sky, arriving nozzleforemost. There was no mistaking that elaborate superstructure, four cubes surrounding the water pod, each painted a different color, each bearing the small black B logo. Handholds everywhere, and a steering platform around the nozzle, with a carved rail. The nozzle was mounted a little out from the rest so that replacement water pods could be inserted easily. Hilar Belmy was coming to greet him.

“Almost time,” he said, and saw Clave and Debby nod acknowledgment. Booce pushed his coals into the firebox. The fire would need time to catch. “Belmy docked his log behind the Market, of course. We’re going to have to dock behind him. Then it gets unpleasant.”

Debby asked, “Why not dock just ahead of the Market?”

“Because that’s where the Admiralty docks its ships.”

“Booce, if you’re expecting a fight, you’d better tell us now. Also, what weapons—”

“Bloodthirsty woman. No weapons, no fight. It’s just …I’m coming in behind Hilar Belmy with a fuel pod for my cabin and a log damaged in two places. Checker only knows what Hilar will think. He’ll change his mind when he finds out about the Wart, but…That log still has one tuft.”

“So?”

“Why on Earth would Hilar Belmy leave one tuft on a log?”

Clave asked, “Why didn’t we?”

“Wind. You can bring a log to its mooring with one tuft on, but it’s tricky. It usually means you ran out of honey or bugs…hmm?”

“What?”

“Just a passing thought. Hello, Hilar!” His crew stared. They had never heard so cheerful a sound from Booce Serjent.

Woodsman’vented steam, decelerating. Two men rode the platform above the nozzle. They were tall: taller than Booce. Their necks were long, like Ryllin’s; there was a great-grandmother in common. Black hair, gray hair, otherwise nearly identical.

The black-haired man waved joyfully. Booce couldn’t tell Belmy’s sons apart, but that must be Raff, and Carlot would be waving back.

Gray hair was Hilar. He looked good: sturdy, prosperous, a few kilos more massive than his son. “Booce! I thought I’d offer you a tug. How…Did you have some trouble?”

“That we did!” Booce’s shout became less effortful as Belmy’s rocket drew closer. “Hilar, thanks for the offer, but I’ll bring her in myself.”

“Stet,” Hilar Belmy shouted back. Woodsman slowed and stopped fifty meters from the trunk. “Join us after! I want to talk business.”

“Stet.” Booce dropped his voice. “Now let’s do this right. Debby, stand by the water pod. Clave, I’ll need you to help me turn the rocket.’’ Logbearer looked ready. The firebox was dull red; white light glowed through the cracks. The plates had never fit exactly, but they didn’t seem to be coming apart. Logbearer was tilted nearly parallel to the bark.

Booce entered the cabin. He blew into the flow port (CHUFF CHUFF chuff chuffchuff…) and emerged panting. “Clave, not quite yet…now.”

They heaved against Logbearer’’s fuel pod, tilting the rocket in its bark nest to keep it pointed straight toward the Market. Condensing live steam drew a line across the sky. Woodsman stood well clear. The log turned as it approached Belmy’s log; and the rocket turned in counterposition, and the log’s sluggish motion slowed, slowed, stopped.

Booce dove into the cabin. He knocked the plug loose from the flow port and jumped away. Warm water globules followed him out. “I’ve spilled the water. Debby, hose down the firebox. We’re in place.”

The firebox hissed. Globed in invisible water vapor, the coals went out immediately. The gap between the two logs remained constant.

“And that was a nominal docking,” Booce said in satisfaction.

Carlot and Rather came around the curve of bark. Booce called to them. “Well done, my crew! I’m crossing to Woodsman to see what Hilar wants. Carlot, why don’t you show these people the Market?”

Carlot reached him well ahead of Rather. “Speak to you in private?”

They flew clear of the others. Booce asked, “Have you been making decisions?”

She nodded, jerkily. “Raff probably expects to see me.”

“Then you decide whether to take him along. Will Rather behave himself?”

She hesitated. “It’s not a good idea.”

“I’ll make your excuses to Raff. Blame everything on me.”

Clave and Debby followed Carlot. Rather hung back a little. Flying too close to Carlot would be uncomfortable now.

They passed close to Woodsman. It was Rather’s first good look at Raff Belmy. He was dark-haired and tall, three meters or close to it, with long arms, long symmetrical legs, stiff black hair, and a short beard. His neck was like his father’s: long and graceful, but the lines of muscle showed strongly. If you liked tall. Raff was a goodlooking man. He waved energetically as they flew past, then ducked into a cabin. There must have been hasty conversation in there. When Raff Belmy emerged he did not follow them.

“I’d have liked to talk to Jeffer first,” Clave said softly.

“Let him wonder,” Debby answered. “We’ll have plenty to tell him when we get the chance.”

They passed the Belmy log, and the Market was huge in their sight.

The wheel was ten to twelve klomters in diameter, and a hundred meters broad. The inner surface was partly covered with…houses? They surely weren’t proper huts. They glowed with color. Most were cubes and oblongs, but there were other, stranger shapes: a faceted hemisphere, a wooden cylinder, a larger cylinder as transparent as the CARM’s bow window.

Carlot shouted back at them as they flew. “We leam all about the Market in school. It started out as a beam carved along the entire length of a log, three hundred years ago. The Admiralty ran it through a pond to soak it. Then they used tethers to bend it in a circle. Before that, the Market was only shops tethered together.”

This tremendous made thing…this was wealth. Rather felt the fear and the awe of any savage approaching a civilized city.

People were flying to meet them.

“The older shops are funny shapes. Balls and geodesies. That glass cylinder is the Vivarium. Vance Limited grows earthlife there.” Carlot noticed that all three of her charges were dropping behind. She turned in a half circle and rejoined them. “Are you all right? Tired?”

Rather answered for the others. “It’s a little frightening. Who are those people?”

“Friends. Traders. I’ll introduce you. Raym! Crew, this is Raym Wilby—”

He was an older man, a jungle giant with pale skin and dark, curly hair and beard. He shouted at the sight of Carlot, bounced into her a little too hard, and wrapped her in his arms. As he examined her companions the wide, goofy smile was lost to a look of comical amazement.

“Carlot? Shorts?”

She rebuked him. “Raym, these are some of the citizens who saved our lives when our tree caught fire. Hey, John, hey. Nurse!” Others were arriving. Carlot squirmed loose; clasped hands or toes; chattered introductions. John and Nurse Lockheed were brother and sister, and looked it, with angular faces (shaved, in John’s case) and white-blond hair. Long-headed Grag Maglicco was in the Navy as a Spacer First. Adjeness Swart was small for a jungle giant. Her hair was black and straight, her nose curved and sharp. She worked in the Vivarium, Carlot said.

Half a dozen others reached them and Rather started to lose track. Raym would be thirty to forty years old; Grag would be a little younger. The rest were around Carlot’s age. Jungle giants all, and expert flyers.

Carlot told her tale as they flew toward the Market.

Other strangers joined them and she had to start over.

Now there were a dozen jungle giants among them, and all were strangers to all but Carlot. She stuck to her father’s story, and made no mention of Wart or CARM or silver suit.

The citizens were uncharacteristically quiet. There was too much to see, and they were surrounded by as many strangers as there were adults in Citizens Tree.

Debby was finally ready to admit that it had been a mistake. She wanted to go home.

She hadn’t been with Anthon in hundreds of days. Booce was afraid of his wife, Jeffer seemed to be married to the CARM, and Clave…the best she could tell, Clave was vastly enjoying his vacation from his wives. She was in a sexual desert.

She had other reasons for being on edge. The Market covered a quarter of the sky. No bigger than a small tree, it was obtrusively a made thing, made by the ancestors of this crew.

They didn’t look that powerful. They flew a little closer together than Debby found comfortable. Easy to guess why: they’d been flying all their lives. Raym Wilby was chattering to Rather. “The bugeyes, they get whistling drunk when the fringe blooms. You just reach out and pop ’em in a bag—” Debby tried to follow it, but she couldn’t. The Lockheeds stayed together, off to one side.

Maybe they were shy?

Adjeness Swart flew alongside Debby. Cheerfully she called, “How do you like the Market?”

“Impressive.”

“Your first visit to civilization?”

“We like to think we’ve got a civilization too,” Debby said. We must be gawking like fools.

Adjeness laughed and waved around her. They had passed the rim of the Market and were crossing the central gap. “If you’ve got anything like this, the Admiralty would like to know it.” And as Debby was throttling the urge to tell this smug Clump dweller about the CARM, Adjeness asked, “How much can you see of the Admiralty from your tree? Why haven’t any of you come here before?”

“Some didn’t want us to come at all. We didn’t know what we’d find. Maybe things we wouldn’t like. Excuse me.” Debby kicked hard to reach Carlot.

Chattering companions surrounded Carlot. Debby tried to ease inconspicuously among them, just to listen…but she hadn’t counted on Admiralty manners. The locals drifted away from Debby and Carlot and left them to talk.

Carlot looked at her questioningly. Debby said, “I’m afraid I’ll say too much.”

“Adjeness?”

“Yeah. It isn’t just the questions, it’s her treefeeding superior attitude. Carlot, I feel so small.”

“Can’t help you there, but…go fly next to Raym. He won’t let you talk at all.” Carlot held her voice low. “Raym Wilby is an old Dark diver. It’s gotten to his brain.”

“What’s he doing with us?”

“He’s an old friend of Mother’s. I’d hate to have her see him now! I could get rid of him, but it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Either I’d hurt his feelings or it’d take forever.”

“Stet. What’s a Dark diver?”

“Ask him. Or just listen.”

Debby dropped back. Raym was telling Rather, “It isn’t the dark that bothers you, it’s the thick. Your eyes get used to the light in there. It’s kind of gray, and the colors bleach out. I never heard of a diver getting wrecked unless he was a damn fool, because things don’t move fast in there. But you can’t move fast either. You drift. Sometimes you get lost, you forget which way is out. You come out never knowing how many days you were in.”

Rather asked, “Why do you — ?”

“Credit. On a bad trip you only come out with mud, but Zakry pays high for mud. A good trip, you can come out with your hull covered with blackbrain or walnutcushion or fringe.” Raym grinned, and Debby realized what it was that bothered her about Adjeness’s toothy smile.

Rather said, “This makes you—”

“No. You never hold onto it.”

“ — Rich?”

Teeth. Raym was an older man, yet he still had half his teeth. Adjeness must be Debby’s age, but her smile was all teeth, with only three or four gaps. The rest were youths: no teeth missing at all.

Angular huts surrounded her. Debby fought vertigo. Down in all directions; no tide. The Admiralty crew were forming a line as Carlot led them toward a huge transparent cylinder. They had flown all their lives. Their grace made Debby feel clumsy.

Debby eased into line behind Rather. The starstuff cylinder had an opening at one end. Debby brushed it with her wings as she went through. None of the others did.

Chapter Fifteen Half Hand’s

from the Citizens Tree cassettes, year 80 SM:

WOODSMAN’S DOOR HAD BEEN BRACED HOSPITABLY open. A guest need only grip the rounded edge as he flew past, set his wings in the racks, and swing himself in.

Booce entered an atmosphere rich with blackbrain tea.

Jonveev Belmy was a small woman, not much more than Clave’s height. Booce had watched her auburn hair turn gray over the years, but it was still long and thick. She was busy at a turning cookglobe. She stretched a foot to meet Booce’s hand.

Her grip was strong. “Booce, I’m so sorry about Wend. Is Ryllin all right?”

“She’s fine, Jonveev. We’re doing business with Citizens Tree, and that’s where she is now.” He wondered what Jonveev was thinking. Her concern was real, of course; but she had never dealt with Booce himself. In business matters Ryllin and Jonveev did the talking.

Jonveev swung the big globular teapot round her head to settle the water, then quickly opened the spigot. Steam puffed. Hilar wrapped the teapot in cloth and passed it to Booce. “I never saw a log come home like that. Do you want to talk about it?”

Booce sipped and swallowed. He liked his tea hot, and this was just off the boil. He savored old memories as much as the powerful, bitter taste. He said, “Not a lot—”

Hilar waved it off. “Oh, then we’ll—”

“I have no wish to drive you crazy at this time.”

“Tell us a story,” Jonveev said.

He told it long. Carelessness and bad luck; the fire; Wend dead, Karilly mute with shock. “There was a tuft tribe waiting to rescue us. They helped rebuild Logbearer. We found a tree.” Booce hesitated. “We were only half a thousand klomters from the Clump, Hilar, and we might’ve had to go halfway to Gold to find a better choice. It was big and it was close and we wanted to go home.”

“I never saw termites on a tree before.”

“A new breed, maybe. They’re dying now. They haven’t done that much damage, and it’s a lot of wood.”

“That it is. We have a problem,” Jonveev said.

The tea had come round again. Booce sipped and passed it on. “I notice you managed to sell some of your wood.”

“Some. Then the whole Market saw you coming and the orders dried up. I could have sold at a loss, but Jonveev thought—”

“I thought we might reach an agreement,” she said. “The merchants can’t whiplash us if one of us announces that his wood isn’t for sale.”

Booce smiled. Such things had been done. “We’d have to give them time to believe we mean it. Thirty sleeps or so. That’ll cost one of us.”

“We’re willing,” Jonveev said. “We’ll want something in return, of course.”

“Speak further.” He sipped. The bitter taste of blackbrain fungus was the taste of civilization and hospitality and homecoming. He wished with all his heart that Ryllin were here. If Hilar was tiptoeing round the edges of a risky venture, Ryllin would have known at once.

Jonveev said, “Booce, we’ll agree not to sell our tree until the next midyear. What I want is a loan at reasonable interest. Or I’ll offer you the same deal.”

Booce was silent.

“The loan would be, say, ten-to-fourth chits. Enough to keep one of us going for nearly a year.” She affected not to notice Booce’s sudden mirthless smile.

“I don’t have that much on hand. And you, I suspect, don’t need that much—”

“We’d need it if we don’t want to short-change some of our other concerns. But we can float such a loan and recoup it by selling our wood. On the other hand, whatever you’re doing with…what was it. Citizens Tree? It’s bound to bring you money, but not soon, stet? But you have a house that’s never been lived in.”

The tea caught in his throat. Booce swallowed carefully, managed not to sputter. He said, “Ryllin would wring my neck.”

“Well, then, you can’t do it,” Jonveev said instantly.

On second thought…he could put the house up for sale, to buy time. If he set the price high, buyers would hang back and wait, because the Serjents were supposed to be broke. If the Navy bought the Wart metal soon enough…he’d have to take a lower price, but he’d be able to keep the house.

But what did the Belmys have in mind? What would a loan do for them? It would be eating interest — “What interest?”

“We’d pay fifteen percent until the next midyear, or take the same.”

That was high but not out of line. His first niggling suspicion began to look like the truth. “I’ll sleep on it,” he said.

Wickerwork ran around the inside of the glass bottle and across the center; wickerwork everywhere, but you had to look twice to see it beneath the plants and mud. The mud was at the interstices, held in place by nets. Plants grew from the mud, bearing red and yellow spheres and cylinders. Leafy vines strangled the wickerwork, the mud, and everything else in sight.

It was a jungle with curving corridors through it. Debby felt a sudden terrible homesickness for Carther States… but the jungle other childhood was drab compared to the Vivarium.

The old man who watched from within one of the openings was an elderly, undersized jungle giant. In the humid warmth he wore only a loose pair of short pants. His knees and elbows were knobby; his skin was yellow-brown, and there was something funny about his eyes. He watched the growing crowd in some surprise. He said, “Late, Adjeness.”

“Zakry, these are customers,” Adjeness Swart said firmly. “They’ve been living without earthlife since Checker knows when.”

“Have they.” The yellow man brightened. “Well, we can’t have that. Carlot Serjent, how good to see you! Adjeness, why don’t you show the crew what they’ve been missing?”

Carlot and the yellow man disappeared into the greenery. Adjeness Swart said, “Clave told me that. No earthlife crops. Is it true?”

“Almost,” Debby said. “We’ve got turkeys.”

Raym Wilby guffawed. Adjeness was suppressing a laugh. “Turkeys, stet. Try this.” She reached into a jun- gle of vines and plucked forth a red sphere. She sliced it apart with her knife and offered wedges around.

It was juicy. Its taste was strong. Debby chewed and swallowed, trying to decide if she liked it.

Rather plucked a slender yellow spike from the muck.

Adjeness intervened. “Not that. Rather. You have to cook that. Try this. Don’t eat the skin.” The sphere Adjeness sliced up for him was orange outside and in. Rather bit into a wedge, and his eyes got big.

Being back on Earth would be like this, Debby thought. Alien. She recognized almost nothing.

There were people darting among the plants. They glanced incuriously at the intruders, then went back to what they were doing. Some sprayed water at the mud globules or the plants themselves. One was pushing a plant ahead of him; muddy pale appendages waved naked at one end. An older man floated slowly along an aisle, turning as he flew, to see in all directions.

Debby tried a slice of the orange sphere. The sweetness, the wonder of it almost paralyzed her. “Treefodder!”

“That’s an orange. This—”

“I can see that.” Debby reached at random. “What’s this, a yellow?”

“Plum. Not quite ripe.”

It was bitter, sour. Adjeness gave her a dark-red spheroid from another part of the plant cluster. “This should be better.”

It was.

“You wouldn’t want to spend all your funds on fruit,”

Adjeness said. “You’ll want legumes too, but they have to be cooked. Let Carlot take you to Half Hand’s Steak House before you make any final decisions. Unless you’re really rich? Then you can buy everything.”

Clave said, “I’m not sure what we can afford. I haven’t heard any prices.”

Adjeness nodded. “Here. Eat everything but the center, and you can eat that if you want to. Apple.”

Rather asked, “Clave, did you eat like this in Quinn Tuft?”

“No. Hey, corn! We had corn before the drought. Here. Strip off the leaves. Now the silk too.” He smiled, watching Rather bite into it. “Just the outside, and it’s supposed to be cooked.”

“It’s okay this way. Leave the white stuff?”

“Stet.”

Raym’s hand sneaked into a bush as if without Raym’s knowledge. Three red objects each the size of his thumb went into his mouth all at once. Debby was nearly sure Adjeness had caught it. She only smiled.

Carlot and the slant-eyed man emerged from a leafy wall. Carlot’s voice was just slightly ragged. “Crew, Zakry Bowles is our host here. We’ll go look at the prices after we know some of what we want. How are you doing?”

“Carlot, it’s wonderful!” Rather burst out. “Oranges, plums, I think we want everything in sight. Zakry, can you eat everything here?”

“Almost. Every plant has something you can eat growing on it some of the time. These potatoes, you can’t eat what you see. The root’s down there in the mud. You don’t eat the inside of an ear of corn—”

“Clave told me.”

“Or the pit of a plum.”

“Oop.”

“What did you do, swallow it? It’ll come out all right in the end. Let me show you what else we’ve got—”

Bean vines grew mixed with the corn. They seemed to want to take over everything. “We stopped growing tobacco long ago,” Adjeness said. “Only the officers had fire handy, and they weren’t buying enough. This is lettuce.” Lettuce was leaves. It wasn’t as sweet as foliage.

Strawberries were as startlingly good as oranges. Squash looked like jet pods. Zakry was enjoying himself.

They went back to the entrance to examine a list of prices. Clave memorized the numbers he was interested in. “Why so much for strawberries and bananas?”

“Strawberries keep dying. I don’t have bananas. Can’t grow them here at all. They need tide. The Navy buys them off some tree dwellers east of here, when they get the chance. Clave, you haven’t established credit yet—”

“Credit?”

Zakry Bowles spoke slowly, enunciating. “You haven’t shown that you can pay. But you can pick out what you want now, then come back later, pay me and collect it.”

“What we want is stuff we can grow in a tree.”

They discussed that at length. Rather joined in; there were things he would not go home without. Debby eased over to Carlot. “What’s got you upset?”

“He won’t give me credit. We came in with a pod for our cabin and the Belmy log already in dock. Well, Dave Kon owes me money. I’ll go see him. Excuse me.”

Zakry was urging something else on them: a greenishyellow fruit with an obscene shape. He showed Debby how to remove the peel. Clave laughed when Debby bit into it, but it was good. Carlot was talking to the Lockheeds, and they were nodding.

She came back. “I have to talk to Dave Kon. You’d be bored—”

“You’re leaving us?”

“Stet. Stay with the Lockheeds. I’ll meet you at Half Hand’s Steak House.”

Half Hand’s was across the Market.

They flew through rain. Droplets flew from the edges of their wings. Rather breathed through his nose; from time to time he snorted out water. Debby and Clave were doing the same. The locals had donned masks of gauzy fabric, except for Raym, who breathed in the rain as if he cared not at all.

Half Hand’s was a faceted dome adjoining a smaller, less symmetrical structure. You could see through some of the facets on the big dome: they were starstuff fabric. The rest was gray concrete. One six-sided facet had been cut away, and a wooden door hinged into the opening.

Grag Maglicco, the Navy man, suddenly asked, “Have we all got sticks?” He assessed the blank looks correctly. “Go on in. I’ll join you, couple of breaths.” He swerved aside, headed for an angular hut twenty meters along the wheel.

The inside was concrete too: concrete troweled over a structure of starstuff, outside and in. The concrete bore paintings of intriguing complexity and a variety of styles, but Rather caught only glimpses of these through a wall of citizens.

Half Hand’s was full. Men, women, and children made a hemispherical shell around the newcomers, their toes clinging to two-meter poles protruding from the concrete. There were no foothold poles in the windows, so those stayed clear.

From an open hexagon on the far side drifted smoke and cooking odors. Nurse Lockheed led them that way. She called through the opening. “Half Hand?”

A man came out of the crowd behind her. “Hi, Nurse. You got money?”

“No. Put it on the Serjents’ tab. I have a party of eight.”

There was nothing wrong with Half Hand’s hands.

He was a jungle giant, mostly bald, and his arms and legs were corded with muscle. He said, “Serjents? I heard—” Pull stop. “Sure, I’ll give the Serjents credit. What do you want?”

“Let’s see the kitchen.”

“Nobody sees the kitchen.” Half Hand was peering past Nurse Lockheed. “Shorts?”

“Tree dwellers. They’ve never seen anything like your kitchen.”

“Nobody sees the kitchen.”

“I did,” Nurse said.

Debby pushed her way forward. “Half Hand? I’m Debby Citizen—”

“Pleasure,” he said gravely.

“I wonder if you’d be interested in a description of a kitchen in a tuft.”

Half Hand studied her; nodded. “Just you. Nurse, the special’s moby.”

“How old?”

“Eight days ago, shipful of Dark divers took a moby. Special is moby till we run out. Sausage cost you three times as much. No turkey today.”

“We want vegetables, lots, all kinds. Couple of kigrams of moby too, not too rare.”

“Moby’s ready now. Vegetables soon. You, Debby, you cooked in that tree?”

“Some.”

Half Hand beckoned her in.

Rather could feel the eyes. With a conscious effort he looked. Of the forty or so diners, only a dozen or so were watching what was happening at the kitchen entrance. Even those concentrated more on eating; their right hands kept pale wooden sticks in constant motion. The eye-pressure still made him flinch.

Grag Maglicco rejoined them. He passed out pairs of sticks of pale wood, no bigger than the branchlets a tree dweller was used to.

A woman brought them a two-kigram slab of meat, black on one side, pink on the other. John Lockheed took it on his knife. He flapped toward the wall, pushing the meat ahead of him. Diners edged aside to give him room or to avoid getting grease on their clothing.

Nurse had to urge them. “Come on.”

There were too many people.

But Clave followed Nurse, and Rather followed him.

There was room. Nurse talked to some of the locals around them. John carved chunks from the meat and passed them, knife to sticks. Moby meat was good. Tenderer than swordbird, richer than turkey.

Grag’s own sticks — like every Clump citizen’s — were ornately carved. Some were wood, more were bone. Grag caught Rather looking. He showed Rather his own bone sticks. “You carve them yourself. Circle would mean I’m married. Spiral means I’m looking. A bird would say who I work for. Outline around the bird would mean I own the company. What I’ve got is the rocket, ’cause I’m Navy. You’d want a honey hornet, for Serjent Logging. Change life style, start new sticks.”

John Lockheed pointed out a clump of customers to Clave. Tall men and women, a dozen or so, and a few infants; isolated, clustered close as if for protection. Peculiar footgear, thick-heeled sandals with toes protruding.

“They’re happyfeet. Half Hand should make them check those shoes at the door,” John said. “They’re for fighting, for kicking.”

“Lupoffs?”

“Yes. Why?”

“No reason,” Clave said.

Gourds of red liquid passed among the diners. One came within reach, and John took it. He drank, then passed it to Clave. “Fringe tea. Don’t take too much.”

It went from Clave to Rather. Its taste was bitter and sweet, not unpleasant. John stopped Rather from passing the gourd to Raym. “Too much in his blood already.”

Raym grinned and nodded.

Debby and Half Hand joined them; they made room.

Debby said, “He’s got four citizens doing the cooking, all women. There’’s a major fire against the back wall, held in by sikenwire. The kitchen’s got maybe twenty windows in it, and Half Hand closes some of them to get the breeze he wants, keep the fire going and the smoke out. He’s.roasting a slab of moby the size of two men. It’s black on one side and raw on the other, and he slices off the charred side.

“There’s also…” She waved a hand and a foot as if trying to describe without words. “I thought it was a ball of hard stuff like the Vivarium. Inside, a froth of water and live steam, and cut-up plants.”

“It’s a bag,” Half Hand said. “Keep it turning, the vegetables cook even. Draining the water is the tricky part.”

“I saw them do that. They open the bag and throw the whole glob of cookwater at the lee windows and catch the vegetables in a net.”

“Ho! Vegetables are ready then.” In fact three junglegiant women were already flying around the dome’s curvature, passing out what they carried.

“We use an open pot,” Debby told Half Hand. “Tide keeps it in, whatever you’re cooking. We cook meat and vegetables together. If you don’t keep stirring it, it all bubbles out.”

“M’shell!” Half Hand waved one long-toed foot in a half circle, and the nearest of the kitchen women came toward them. She served red and yellow and green vegetables into small-mouthed bowls. Half Hand said, “We only serve earthlife plants. A man wants foliage, he gets it at home. Meat’s different. We take what we get. Nothing turns up, Sanchiss has a turkey farm Darkward.”

The vegetables: some were good and some were not, and some you couldn’t decide right away. Clave was making notes as he ate. Food that wasn’t eaten went into a wooden barrel. From time to time one of the woman replaced the barrel.

Grag Maglicco was asking Debby, “Has Booce been wondering where his house is?”

“He hasn’t done anything about it yet.”

“Well, we saw Serjent House a few days ago. It was twenty degrees spinward of the Market and maybe fifteen klomters skyward. Doesn’t look like anyone’s disturbed it. Can you remember to tell him?”

“Stet. Tell me something else?”

“Sure.”

Debby waved around her. “I’m surrounded by teeth. How can so many of you keep most of your teeth?”

Grag fished in his tunic and produced a stick like a third eating stick, carved in the same way, with a tuft of bristly vegetable matter at the end. “Scrape your teeth after you eat,” he said, and grinned at the tree dwellers’ dubious looks.

Another gourd of fringe tea came past. Rather was thirsty; but nobody was taking more than a mouthful, and he didn’t either. He passed it to Grag, who drank deeply and sent it on.

“Why do they call you Half Hand?” Debby asked.

“My great-square grandfather was Half Hand. Stuff that moved the old CARM sprang a leak, froze his hand. Grandfather was Half Hand too. Got bit while he was Dark hunting. Now me. Soon or late, I lose it.” The idea didn’t seem to bother him. “Raym, sell me some walnutcushion?”

“Not this trip. Next time.”

“I need it. Goes good with potatoes. Green beans too.”

“Next time for sure,” Raym promised.

Nurse Lockheed laughed and said, “He can’t. He doesn’t have a ship.”

Carlot was shocked. “Raym? You lost your ship?”

Raym nodded without looking at her.

Half Hand quietly moved off toward the kitchen. Nurse reached out and lifted Raym’s chin. “Tell them the story, Raym!”

It was the last thing Raym Wilby wanted. Some of the locals were looking embarrassed. Clave was quick enough to catch it. “If it’s story time, I’ll tell you about the breakup of Dalton-Quinn Tree.”

Raym’s ship was forgotten as Clave talked.

Rather knew the tale too well. What he noticed was the rise in the noise level. Half Hand’s was turning boisterous. Clave’s words were just perceptibly slurred, as if he were sleepy; yet he was animated, frenetic, as he relived what had been the end of the world for him and for Rather’s parents. Rather himself was feeling strange.

Half Hand was back. “Look out the window or go outside,” he said. “See something.”

“Water,” Rather said clearly.

“What?”

“Water, not fringe tea. Does something to my head.”

“Oh. Get you water, stet. M’shell! I’ll fix it. Tree dwellers shouldn’t drink too much fringe. Get to a window, boy. Thank me later.”

The nearest window was crowded, but Rather managed to get his head into the grouping. He watched three kitchen women carry garbage barrels outside and fling their contents across the sky. Nothing happened for a time. Rather continued to watch. He felt as if he were dreaming. Fringe?

He dreamed that triunes abruptly converged from all directions, splitting into individuals as they came. Rather shouted: not a warning, just an incoherent yell.

The women heard. They looked at him in the window and laughed. Slender blue-and-orange torpedos dove among them. The wind of their passage sent them tumbling. In twenty breaths it was over. The triunes moved away, regathering their families. The garbage had vanished. The women kicked to stop their spinning — and not one had been touched by the predator birds.

All the strangers around Rather were laughing at him.

The only good thing about it (he decided as he returned to his pole) was that nobody else had gone to a window. Grag and Debby seemed mostly interested in each other, but the rest were held spellbound by Clave’s storytelling. He spoke of the foray into the Carther States jungle—

He was on the verge of describing the London Tree CARM! “Clave?”

“Me, I didn’t notice most of this, what with my broken leg. Yeah?”

“Drink some water. This fringe is strong.”

John Lockheed said, “Yes, you’re not used to it,” and passed Clave the water gourd. Clave drank, and drank again. Rather was given a gourd, and he couldn’t understand how he had become so thirsty.

Then Carlot was there and it was all right, and Rather was free to go to sleep.

Kendy saw them streaming toward the log like a covey of brightly colored birds: young men and women stretched like taffy. Wings patterned in primary colors flapped behind, making them seem even longer. Each pattern was different. Birds must find each other in the sky.

The helmet microphone picked up giggling and snatches of talk. Some flew with skewed clumsiness, drunk on alcohol or other recreational chemicals. Kendy ran the record again, but the noise factor was too great; the words wouldn’t come clear.

They passed out of the helmet’s view and were gone.

Chapter Sixteen High Finance

from the Citizens Tree cassettes, year 926 State

BOOCE STARTED TEA WHEN HE SAW THEM COMING. HE looked them over as they entered. Nurse Lockheed had the giggles. Her brother was furious.

Booce smiled at them. “Half Hand’s?”

“Right. Fringe tea.” Carlot wasn’t happy.

“It was strange,” Debby said. “We ate…well, we tried everything. Clave made a list—”

“I hope we can afford it all,” Clave said. “Where’ll we grow it? We’ll have to plant the out tuft and make the lift cables twice as long.”

The teapot went among the half-dozen dumpers who had returned with Logbearer’s crew. In a dozen breaths it was empty.

“Jonveev was kind enough to lend me some stuff,”

Booce said. “The teapot, some blackbrain, some cookware. Carlot… “He frowned. She should have brought supplies from the Vivarium and the Market shops.

She handed him a translucent blanket-leaf folded lengthwise. There was food within: vegetables, a slab of cold moby meat, and a baked sweet potato. “Half Hand gave us credit.”

“That’ll be breakfast. Jonveev fed me.”

John Lockheed sensed what was happening. “Many thanks, Booce, and we’d best be going.”

Raym showed his astonishment. “We just got here!”

“Raym, now. Come on, Nurse. Booce, we’re sorry about your trouble, but it didn’t ruin a good evening. It’s good to see you-back safe. Carlot—” He stretched his toes to clasp hers. Then the whole covey of dumpers moved out into the rain, shooing Raym and Nurse ahead of them.

“Now why did they do that?” Clave asked.

“They know we have to talk about money. You don’t do that in front of strangers,” Booce said. “All right, Carlot.”

“Zakry won’t give me credit. We’ll have to forage the trunk for food. I went to Dave Kon. He still owes for a klomter of wood from our last trip. He wouldn’t pay me. He offered full payment if we’d sell him a klomter off the new log at two times ten-square. I turned him down.”

“Right. That mutineer thinks we can’t afford to hire a judgment! See, Clave, the Admiralty won’t convene a civil court unless both sides can prove that they can pay court costs. Loser pays. But the Navy knows we have the Wart! One way or another, we’ll get money or credit. Carlot, I think I know what Hilar has in mind. Burl.”

Carlot thought it over. The tree dwellers watched with no sign of comprehension. She said, “Risky. Nobody knows how.”

“Hilar can afford to take the chance. He brought his tree in with the tuft still on. He asked for a loan and offered decent terms. Usually the tree dies, but sometimes—”

Debby suddenly said, “I remember. The idea is to let a tree grow without tide. The wood’s supposed to twist into knots?”

“Right. But trees aren’t really built for that. I wonder if Hilar knows something? If he can get money to live on, he can grow his burl while we sell our wood. He’d like to get the money from us, if we had it.”

“We should be asking Jeffer about this.”

Booce grimaced. Then: “Sorry. Debby, you’re tree dwellers, you should know a lot about them, but you’ve never seen a tree growing outside of tide.”

“You wouldn’t grow burl yourself, stet? Belmy’s not a fool or he wouldn’t be richer than you, stet?” Booce bridled, but Debby went on. “He knows something you don’t, something about burl. Jeffer the Scientist knows a lot we don’t. Let’s ask.”

“Burl,” Jeffer said musingly, watching the faces in the bow window. Debby was hiding anxiety. Booce had asked his question with some belligerence. This had been her idea, not his. Are you any good at all? Prove yourself, Scientist!

Blue lines of print scrolled across the faces.

INTEGRAL TREES GROW WELL IN A WIDE RANGE OF TIDES. LOW ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE KILLS THEM PASTER THAN LOW OR HIGH TIDE. IN DENSE AIR AND VERY LOW TIDE THEY MIGHT SURVIVE. IN FREE-FALL THEY DIE. OTHERWISE WE WOULD FIND TREES GROWING NATURALLY IN THE CLUMP.

Booce was talking. “Hilar thinks he’s got me by the seeds. He offered me a loan if I withdraw my tree from sale, but he’s not serious. It’d break me. I’d be paying interest, and no way to get it back. Of course he doesn’t know about the Wart metal.”

“Do you really need to know if he can grow burl?” Jeffer said. “Booce, you’re satisfied that he’s trying it. You only need a short-term loan till you can sell your metal. The Belmys aren’t your enemies, are they?”

“No, they’re friends. Who would I talk to if I couldn’t talk to other loggers? But Hilar would love to have me carving the dumbo on my sticks, and all the loggers want to be richer than, say, the architects. Jonveev won’t loan me money unless she thinks I can pay it back. Or if I’ve got some kind of collateral…hell.”

A TREE SHOULD CONTINUE TO GROW IF THERE IS SUFFICIENT TIDE TO PULL WATER AND NUTRIMENT INTO THE TREEMOUTH AND TO WORK THE INTERNAL VEINS WITHIN THE TRUNK. SPIN THE LOG, JEFFER.

“Tell them about the Wart,” Carlot was saying.

“I didn’t want to. I guess…I’ve got to. It’d be better if I knew exactly what Hilar’s planning.”

“He’ll spin the log,” Jeffer said.

“What? What for?”

“Spin tide. Clave. It’s a scientific thing. Here, pick up that pot or whatever and throw it round and round your head. Ann’s length…like that, stet. Feel the pull? Like tide, isn’t it? Belmy’ll use his steam rocket to start the log spinning, not enough to tear it apart, just enough to keep some pull inside the tuft. The tree needs tide to move its food around—”

“By the State, I believe you’re right.”

“But the, uh, growth patterns would still be screwed up, with Voy going round and round and weird Clump tides going every which way. I’ve never seen burl, but isn’t that what you want, Booce? Grain that doesn’t grow in straight lines? He’ll spin it just enough to keep water and fertilizer in the treemouth.”

“Yes. Okay.”

LOSING CONTACT.

Hilar and Jonveev waited, wearing polite smiles, until Booce had finished talking. “Burl,” Hilar said. “It sounds interesting but risky.”

“Hardly cost-effective,” Jonveev said.

Booce said, “There are other values. It would be indecently lucrative if it worked. You’d have done something nobody else could.” They did not comment, and he went on. “Let’s assume, just for talking purposes, that you’ve been considering a burl tree. Who else would you let in on the secret?”

The Belmys looked at each other.

“You’d need masses of tree food. Mud, say, from deep in the Dark. Would you buy it from Zakry? Or haul it yourselves, with Woodsman?”

Jonveev sighed. “All right, Booce. What have you got in mind?”

“Logbearer could haul the mud to feed the tree. The whole Market knows that my last trip failed. They won’t be surprised when Logbearer becomes a Dark diver. Let them think I’m looking for fringe and blackbrain while I haul mud for Zakry.”

“Mmm,” said Jonveev.

“One thing more. I’ve got eight kiltons of metal buried under the termites.”

Their faces were quite blank. After a moment Jonveev said, “That’s not portable money. You still can’t offer us a loan, not until you sell it.”

“An excellent point. Hilar, Jonveev, what I want is this. First, you do your damndest to turn that half tree into burl. Second, I need a loan—”

Hilar was laughing.

“A short-term loan to let me spend money like an old Dark diver while I wait for the Navy to buy my metal. I’ll pay twenty percent to the crossyear, and I need tento-third chits. I’ll pay part of it back in mud at the same price Zakry pays. The rest at the crossyear, and I’ll hand you another five times ten-to-third. That’ll save any project you had to shortchange. It’s not a loan, though. It buys me half the burl.”

“Half!” Jonveev exclaimed.

“So.”

Caught! Jonveev Belmy laughed and said, “We hadn’t thought of spinning the tree. But can you really afford to risk that many chits? You’re moderately rich now. Why not stay that way?”

“I like the odds. I’ve got some crew who think it might work, and they’re tree dwellers. I think you think it’ll work, and that helps.”

“Two-fifths of any burl, and we want five times tento-third chits. We’ll get you your loan, but at forty percent to the crossyear. Mmm…I’ll hand you our cash on hand and give you the rest in ten days.”

Booce said, “I’ll pay thirty percent to…to ten sleeps past the crossyear. The Navy might just hold me up for that long. And classify this. If the Navy knows I took a loan, they’ll know I’m still under pressure. I want them to move.”

Hilar laughed. “Where else could it have come from?”

“I’ll visit the house before I start throwing money around. They’ll think I had it in the house.”

And all of this was reported in garbled form, through Clave and then Jeffer, who had never dealt with finance, to Kendy, who never had either. But Kendy had sketchy records of the capitalistic societies that had died with the formation of the State, hundreds of years ago.

It was a hell of a way to run a civilization. These people needed him.

Jeffer, seated before the CARM camera, asked, “Do you understand any of this?”

“Yes, but it would be difficult to explain. What matters is that your citizens will have their earthlife seeds.”

“Yeah.” Jeffer stretched unself-consciously. “That’s good. We’ll have to talk fast when we get back to Citizens Tree. The seeds’ll help, and we’ll carry fresh food too, something they can eat right then. Are you getting what you wanted?”

What Kendy wanted was still beyond his reach. He said, “I’ve learned some things.”

“Tell me.”

“The Admiralty is self-sufficient. They’re a successful culture, but the crime rate must be high. Otherwise they would need fewer Navy ships, and the houses would have more openings.” Kendy displayed the picture the pressure-suit camera was sending from the Clump. Small green outlines flickered as Kendy pointed out ships, then the few but massive doors on nearby houses. “They’ve settled the outer shell of the Clump, but they only venture gingerly into the dark center. Their infant mortality rate must be as bad as yours. When they add up their population they don’t count children, any more than you do.”

“I never noticed that. Hmm…London Tree didn’t either. Is it because so many children die?”

“Yes. Wait a thousand years and the death rate will have diminished. There’s nothing else to be done.”

“I never thought there was. While I’ve got your attention, Kendy, I found a listing on the Clump. Lagrange points, it’s called. What do these words mean? Equipotential, saprophyte — Something’s happening.”

A steam rocket emerged from the fog and rain. It came to a halt fifty meters from the helmet camera. “Navy,” Jeffer said unnecessarily. “I wonder…that’s Booce. And a silver suit!”

“I see them. An equipotential is the curve on which some force or energy level is everywhere equal. It might be gravity or tidal force or magnetic force. A -saprophyte is a family of plants that don’t use light. We’ll see some if Clave can take the helmet into the Dark.”

Four men flew toward the camera: two in Navy armor, one standard-issue pressure suit, and Booce Serjent. The pressure suit was better kept, cleaner and shinier, than the Citizens Tree suit. There were big Navy-style fins at the ankles. The design painted on the back was repeated on one shoulder and on the fins: a broad green ring with a blue dot at the center.

Kendy tried to make contact with the suit radio. He found nothing. Either it wasn’t on, or the frequency had wandered over the centuries.

The helmet was thrown back on its hinge despite the rain. The face inside was a rounded anglo face, without the soft elfin look of most Smoke Ring citizens: a “dwarf” face, shaved, sprouting an Earth day’s worth of dark shadow.

The “dwarf” looked around him. “This was clever, Booce. Do you have torches?”

“I’m sorry, Captain-Guardian. We can make some up.”

“No need. How do I get through this muck?” The dwarf had no accent.

Kendy gloated. No accent! He spoke exactly as a State citizen would have. The officers must learn their speech from the Admiralty Library!

They were drifting out of view. Kendy switched to the fisheye lens. He and Jeffer watched the Captain-Guardian take his wings off and tether them to lines on his chest, shin-sticks uppermost. The two lower-rank Navy men pulled up an edge of the termite nest. The “dwarf” squirmed in. Sudden yellow light flashed through the hole.

Jeffer asked, “Does that light come from the pressure suit?”

“I’ll show you how to work the helmet light. Later.”

The “dwarf” popped out of the hole. “There’s a respectable store of metal here. We’ll have to wait for the Council to convene before we make an offer per kilton delivered. Unless you’re prepared to accept an immediate offer of, say, two times ten-to-fifth chits for the whole chunk?”

“I can get two or three times that on the Market.”

“Perhaps. If we come to an agreement I can give you payment within ten days.”

“No, thank you, Captain-Guardian. I’ll wait. Maybe I can earn some money Dark diving. Can I offer you tea?”

“You wouldn’t want to have to sell your new house. Two and a half.”

“No. I should point out that you’ve been seen coming here. There’s a happyfeet jungle in dock, and they might guess what that means. Also I’ll be expected to hire an exterminator. I can’t hide the metal much longer.”

The Captain-Guardian snorted and waved to his escort.

They departed.

Booce waited until they were well away. Then he moved face-on to the camera. “Jeffer?”

“Here.”

“That was Captain-Guardian Wayne Mickl. Officer by birth, but his effective rank is Guardian. Keeping him happy is a good idea.”

“He didn’t look happy.”

“If he’s too happy, we got robbed. Jeffer, how sure are you that spinning a tree will make burl?”

Jeffer laughed. “I never tried it myself.”

“Yeah. Are you all right?”

“It isn’t too bad. Something like being young again, just old enough to hunt alone. I’ve got the cassettes when I get bored. I miss Lawri.”

“Well, I’m going to move the silver suit. We can’t leave it here.”

“Where, then?”

“My house. I’ll set it up so you can see the commons room. We can talk any time, and when I have guests you’ll see them too.”

“That’s good,” said Jeffer.

VERY GOOD. LOSING CONTACT.

Chapter Seventeen Serjent House

from the Citizens Tree cassettes, year 6 SM:

DEBBY WAS IN A HURRY THE NEXT MORNING. IT SEEMED she’d arranged something at Half Hand’s: she was to meet Grag Maglicco for flying lessons. Booce drilled her to make sure she wouldn’t get lost in the sky, then sent her on her way.

The rest shared out the meal from Half Hand’s for their breakfast, then got to work. They fueled and fired Logbearer and set it steaming along the trunk. A half turn brought the rocket to a halt opposite the Wart.

Clave, Carlot, and Rather swarmed out and attacked the termite nest with matchets. When Logbearer blocked the Market, and floating chaff and chips of bark and wood blocked most of the sky. Clave and Rather ducked into the nest. Clave retrieved the body of the silver suit. Rather the helmet. Booce had kept the rocket hot. He jetted water into it, and away they went.

Secrets. Rather was starting to get the knack of it.

Half the termite nest had been scraped away, not by a hired team but by amateurs. What would the Market think? Booce must be hurting for money. His crew has exposed damage to the log: a gaping, ugly hole behind the termite nest. They’ve quit in disgust. Unlikely that anyone else would pry into that bug-infested darkness.

The house had drifted about the sky since its completion a year and a half since. Debby had relayed Grag’s message: it was fifteen klomters skyward and some degrees to spin from the Market. The house was closer than it had been when Grag spotted it, but it was still a threeday trip.

The house was five cubes arrayed around a concrete core. A small puff jungle grew on the roof. The main door was a huge slab of wood five meters long by four wide, half a meter thick. Booce set massive triangular braces to lock it vertical to the doorway. Mountings covered the inner surface: tethers for wings and cloaks, and coils of line, and big knobs to serve as moorings for winches and pulleys.

They tethered Logbearer to the door. In its shadow they moved the silver suit and helmet inside.

Secrets. What has been seen? Logbearer flies to Serjent House. The crew stays for some hours while Booce inspects his new home and shows it off to visitors. Presently Booce will be spending money.

Navy: Booce has retrieved funds from some hiding place. He can outwait the Navy to sell his metal.

Belmy House: Booce came as misdirection.

The Market: Any hiding place in Booce’s house must be empty now.

“Where do we put it?” Rather held the helmet like a severed head.

“Look around,” Booce said. “Something will occur to you.”

The citizens smiled at each other. They began to tour the house.

Doorways led from one section to another through the star-shaped concrete core. There were only two ways to move. Rather had to squeeze past Clave circling the other way.

The house was roomy: as big as a Citizens Tree hut, though much harder to build. The public room was lined with handholds and with hooks for outer garments and weapons, and a rack for a teapot.

The outer wall of the kitchen had long slots in it for ventilation, a concrete fireplace with a bellows attached, and racks for wood and cookware. Rather found Carlot making tea. He asked, “You already know?”

She nodded brightly.

The sleeproom: tethers and some wiry foliage padding four of the walls.

What was this next room? Curtains fixed across both interior doors, handholds and tethers mounted next to small windows with hatches over them…

Ah. This was the treemouth. And the fifth was a storage room, with another oversized door and moorings for tethers, but nothing stored yet.

Rather returned to the public room.

Debby was moving slowly around the perimeter. She seemed more cheerful than she had been lately. “Hi, Rather. Grag brought me back. I gather we’re looking for some secret hiding place. Any luck?”

“Not yet. Booce, how do you get rid of the treefodder after you feed the tree?”

Booce stared. “What? — Oh. The wind floats it away and fisher jungles gather it in. Now you know why everyone doesn’t just tether his house to the Market. Find anything?”

“I didn’t see any hiding places. I’ve never seen a house before.”

“You were all somewhere else, so I searched here,” Debby said. “Nothing. Booce, are there holes in the concrete?”

Booce laughed. “I could have done that. Access through the walls? Well, any burglar could tear the core apart and all he’d find is concrete and two chunks of sporing fringe buried along the hub. Meanwhile, what do you think of my door?”

“Thick. Like you’re afraid someone might kick his way through.”

“We tend to make them massive. Not just for burglars. It has to stand up to rough treatment when you’re moving heavy stuff.”

Clave shook his head in disgust. “We’d know who our thief is. We’d kick him into the sky. Booce, your trouble is, you’ve got too many people in the Clump.”

Booce was taken aback. “I never thought of it that way. Anyway, let me show you what I did—”

When the door was fully open, one could slide aside a panel in the edge that faced the hinges. The half-meter thickness of the wood had been hollowed out. The silver suit went in easily. The helmet was barely small enough.

“Now we need a hole,” Booce said.

“Kendy for the State. Jeffer, would you rather sleep?”

“Mpf? No. Hello, Kendy.” Jeffer stretched. “If I didn’t want you waking me up I’d sleep outside.” He looked at the view in the bow window. “Oho!”

It was dark, but Jeffer could make out Clave’s anxious face. His voice sounded faint, distant. “Jeffer? Talk to me, Jeffer.”

“Prikazyvat Relay to pressure suit. Scientist here.”

“What do you see?”

“You. And a ragged border. What did you do?”

“You’re looking through a hole in a door. Booce ripped a hook out. From here it looks like he just put too much tension on it.”

“Good enough. I take it we can talk. Rather, you there?”

Rather floated into view, smiled, and waved. Others joined, until five citizens floated in a star with their heads inward.

Booce said, “I’ve made a deal with the Belmys. Jeffer, would you like to learn something about the Dark?”

“You mean the Clump interior? Sure.”

“That’s good, because I’ve agreed to bring back some mud for Belmy’s burl tree.”

“You’re going? All of you? Logbearer?”

“Ah…no. I think I’d better stay here. I’ve been weaving financial threads into one very complicated net. Carlot, you can handle Logbearer alone, stet? And I gather Raym Wilby is at liberty. He can guide you.” Carlot was nodding eagerly. “Oh, and Hilar hadn’t thought of spinning the burl log, but he’s going to try it.”

“Sounds good. Carlot, will you take the helmet so I can see these marvels?”

Carlot looked to her father, who said, “Why not?”

“Good. Rather, tell me about the Navy. Take your time.”

Rather talked. Kendy guessed that the boy wasn’t hiding anything, but he kept jumping back and forth. Kendy printed questions across the bow window; Jeffer solicited descriptions of Petty Wheeler, Bosun Murphy, Navy armor, the Navy ship, Murphy’s description of Navy life, Wheeler’s offer…

“Is this standard, Booce? Anyone can join the Navy?”

“Not just anyone. They wouldn’t have Carlot because of her legs. Otherwise…well, any savage could join, but he might not get beyond Spacer First until they’ve watched him for years. The Navy wants loyalty. They take more men than women, and they won’t take you if you’re too old to be trained.”

“Loyalty?”

“If you’re loyal to your tribe, you’re not loyal to the Navy. Navy above all, even family.”

“The question is, if Rather goes in, can he get out? Booce?”

Booce mulled it. “Up to a point. It would be…convenient if Rather let Petty Wheeler make his pitch. Rather, the Navy could put certain kinds of pressure on me until I talk $ou into doing that. They want the Wart, but they can slow things down for me, and we don’t want the Navy taking a hard look at us.”

“No,” Clave said.

“But when Wheeler interviews you, he might leam that you’re simply not suited to Navy life. I can help you to help him reach that conclusion.”

Carlot said, “He could get out later than that. Rather, my cousin Grag says they treat you like a copsik in Basic, but after that you’re supposed to think you’re better than the citizens. They do think they’re better than us, and they don’t take just anyone. When you’re ready to leave, just do something wrong. Or get sick and stay sick. Tree dwellers do get sick in the Clump. They’ll bounce you out.”

“You think I should do this?”

She shrugged unhappily. “Whatever you want.”

Jeffer said, “’I’d really like to get him into the Library.”

Booce shook his head. “No dwarf gets beyond Guardian unless he was born an officer, and even then…well, Wayne Mickl is officer and dwarf. They need him as a Guardian, so he’ll never use his higher rank. Guardian is the lowest rank that can reach the Library, but they can’t use it because they aren’t taught to read. And you wouldn’t be a Guardian for years, Rather.”

Jeffer jumped on it. “But he could reach the Library. And Rather can read, and I can teach him how to use a CARM keyboard!”

Rather was feeling trapped. He knew how to talk to Jeffer the Scientist, but how could you argue with a door?

“I hate to pass up the chance,” Clave said. “Rather, you’re reluctant. How do the rest of you feel? Debby?”

“It feels like we’re selling him as a copsik. I’m against it.”

Thank you, Debby!

Clave stared at her. Then: “Rather, does it feel like that? I wouldn’t do that. We’re just talking now—”

“They want his loyalty, stet, Booce? They’ve been doing this for going on four hundred years,” Debby said. “Maybe they can get his loyalty—”

Clave snapped, “Treefodder, Debby. London Tree was keeping copsiks for about that long. When the chance came to bust loose, they did it!”

“Not all of them, Clave!”

“…Uh-huh. Booce?”

Booce said, “We’re talking about power. Navy power, and it cuts two ways. If Rather was Navy, the Serjents would see a certain friendliness emerge. I’d love to put a son in the Navy.”

“Carlot?”

She spoke to Rather, not Clave. “If you can stand it. Remember what I said about Basic. They worked Grag’s tail off…hey. You’re stronger than Grag. You lived in a tree. You just might give them a shock.”

“We know you can fit a silver suit,” Booce added. “Even Bosun Murphy doesn’t know that.”

“I’m scared.”

Clave just nodded, but Jeffer snarled like static. “Oh, Rather! We’re here already! Back in Citizens Tree, that was the time to be scared.” Pause. “What are you scared of?”

“It’s all too strange.” Rather was suddenly, unbearably homesick. This wooden house, all angles—

“It’ll keep being strange. Nobody fooled you on that.”

“Scientist, I came here looking for strange. I wouldn’t be here if it was going to be just like Citizens Tree—”

“Then—”

But Rather had the words straight in his mind now. “I followed you here, but the idea was to face the Admiralty in the company of my friends and my elders! And my father. Are we all going to join the Navy now? Is that what we’re talking about?”

Clave said, “Jeffer?”

The door said, “I’m for it, of course, but the boy’s got a point. It’s his risk, not ours.”

Rather wasn’t finished. “You’re asking me to swear to something that isn’t true. I am not loyal to the Navy. If you thought I was, you wouldn’t like it.”

Nobody wanted to answer.

“You can feed your secrets to the tree. I will not join the Navy. But I can go talk to Wheeler, if you think it’ll help. I’ll do that.”

“I go with him,” Debby said firmly.

“And Booce, you tell me how to look unsuitable.” A black depression was settling over him. He felt rejected by all of his companions save Debby; but Carlot wanted him out of the way. For Raff Belmy.

Chapter Eighteen Headquarters

from the Citizens Tree cassettes, year 384, day 2050:

HEADQUARTERS WAS A PILLBOX: A SHORT, WIDE CYLinder, blurred to Rather’s weeping eyes. The rim was dark wood. The nearer flat face was concrete covered with a variety of doors, platforms, winches, coils of line…and a broad strip of glittering stuff very like the hull of the CARM. Two rockets were moored near the hub. A third, larger, was being winched in nozzle-foremost.

Debby looked back. Rather was far behind. When she stopped flapping, a gust of wind caught her wings and turned her on a random axis. She sighed and flapped back to rejoin him. “I wish I could help,” she said.

Rather made himself laugh. “I did it to myself. Debby, you fly better than me.”

“I watched the crew when we went to Market. Keep up a steady kick. Don’t try too hard. If you kick with all your might the wings just bend and don’t take you anywhere.”

“What I need is longer legs.”

“Longer wings might do it. Try the Navy wings too. Now, what door did Carlot say?”

“I can’t tell. Pick one.”

“No, I—”

“Debby, pick one at random. I don’t mind if Wheeler thinks I got lost.”

“Oh. The one in the middle, with the guards. We’ll ask them.”

It was big and round and rimmed in scarlet paint. The four guards wore helmets and torso and leg armor and carried harpoons. Debby backpedaled to stop within a meter of the harpoon points. She said, “Looking to join up.”

One smiled and said, “I hope they take you, beautiful.” His harpoon pointed. “That one, just next to the rim.”

“Thanks.” She rejoined Rather. Half blind, he’d been afraid to fly close to sharp spears. “It’s over there. — Lovely beard on that one. Like goldenwire plant, and clean. The .crew keep themselves cleaner than Carther States people ever did. Maybe I’ll see him again.”

“Jeffer’d like that.”

“He would, wouldn’t he. He probably likes my seeing Grag too. I wonder what they’re guarding?”

The door they sought was a rectangle with curved sides, marked in print along one edge: RECRUITMENT.

The room within was sizable, but of the same odd shape. A man made marks on thin white sheets fixed to a slab of sanded wood. His pants and tunic were blue with Navy markings. No armor. He ignored them for a bit, then looked around. “Yes?”

Rather pointed to the wooden rectangle. There were clips along the edge, and stacks of paper leaves in the clips. “What would you call that?”

The man frowned. “You never saw a desk before? What do you want?”

“Petty Mart Wheeler wants to interview me for recruitment. I’m Rather Citizen.”

“I’ll see if he’s available.” The man kicked against the table and disappeared down a corridor. Lack of wings didn’t hamper him: he touched the wall and disappeared into a doorway in one smooth flow.

Debby smiled at Rather. “Easily distracted?”

“That’s why I did it, but look at how the grain of the wood curls around! I think it must be burl. How did they get it?”

“There had to be burl somewhere or Booce wouldn’t know it was possible.”

When the desk man reappeared, Rather was mopping at his eyes with his tunic. The man said, “Come with me.”

Debby said, “May I come too?”

“I’m afraid not. Would you be his mother?”

“Stepmother. I really think I ought to be with him.”

“That’s not permitted.”

The office was small, a cube with two curved walls. Petty Wheeler was at a desk, lightly gripping the rim while he talked to another man…and that one was Rather’s height.

Their talk stopped. Wheeler said, “Rather, good to see you. This is Captain-Guardian Wayne Mickl.”

Mickl nodded but said nothing. He seemed relaxed and disinterested. Wheeler said, “We want to ask you a few questions. You probably have questions too—”

“A hundred. Um, whereabouts is Bosun Murphy?”

“Mpf? Last I saw of her she was on her way to the Purser’s office. After that she’ll be on leave…Why?”

“I thought I might see her before I go.” (Booce had told him, “Try to talk to Bosun Murphy.Your interest in the Navy comes straight from your seeds. If you see her, make a pass.”)

(“What’s a pass? Do you mean propose marriage?”)

(“No…yes. That’s got just the right touch. All seeds and no judgment.”)

Wheeler asked, “Rather, is there something wrong with your eyes?”

“They get this way sometimes.”

“When?”

“Lack of sleep. Dry air.” His eyes were clearing up now, but they still hurt. To Wheeler they must appear pink and weeping. He was sniffling too.

Wheeler took writing implement in hand. “Where were you born?”

“Citizens Tree, year 370. It’s a tree sixty klomters long, six or seven hundred klomters west of the Clump.”

“What’s your height and mass?”

“One point nine meters. I don’t know my mass.”

“We’ll weigh you on the centrifuge. How did you know the year?”

“The Scientist keeps track. Was I off? This is 384, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. Put your arms straight forward, fingertips touching. Now your legs, big toes touching.” Wheeler made a note. “Symmetrical. How much do you know about the Admiralty?”

“Not much. We tasted some of the food you grow and had a wild dinner at Half Hand’s Steak House.” Wheeler laughed at that. Rather went on, “The Serjents told us a lot. I’ve seen houses and the Market. The ride on the steam rocket was — well, I’ve never been through anything like it.”

“Scary?”

“No, not that.” He knew instantly that he should have said yes.

“Why do you want to join the Navy?”

“I came to find out if that was true. Petty. And you asked if I had questions.”

Petty Wheeler stiffened a little. “Well?”

“I’ve seen the ships. They’re all over the sky. I think I ought to ask, if I become a Navy man, will I in fact be riding one of those ships?”

“More than one, I expect. Over the years you’ll fly every style.”

“Will I be flying them, or just riding them?”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“Yes sir. Once I thought I’d be a hunter for Citizens Tree.” No need to mention the silver suit. “When I joined Booce and went logging, that was a big jump. I didn’t know what I’d find here. The Market, it’s frightening to think such a thing could be built. So many people!”

Wheeler was smiling, nodding. (In the corner of Rather’s eye, Wayne Mickl was clinging to a wall tether, merely observing.) “Daunting, is it?”

Rather nodded.

“The ships, the Market, Headquarters, we built them all. And more. We built a civilization,” Wheeler said gently. “Now that you’ve seen it, how can you not be a part of it? Yes, you’ll fly a ship before you’re much older.”

“I want to know whether I’ll be able to visit Citizens Tree.”

“Mph. The answer’s yes, but I don’t know how often. We’ll want to contact Citizens Tree at once. Set up some form of trade. There’ll be visits, and you’ll be useful as an intermediate.”

It was the right answer, Rather thought, except for two things. The tree was in the wrong place; and if the Navy did find it, the citizens would have to hide the CARM every time the Navy came visiting.

So Rather only said, “That’s good. I’d hate to be cut off from my family.” (Booce had said, “They want your loyalty. They won’t like it if you’re loyal to your family, your tribe, me — “)

“How often do you get these allergy attacks?”

“Usually just when the air’s too thin. I had them while we were moving the log; we were too far in. It’s like knives in my eyes. I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately. It happens then too.”

“Would you describe yourself as sickly?”

Rather told himself that nobody would come to a recruitment office if he considered himself sickly, and said, “No. It’s just something that happens. A day later I’m fine. It’s almost over now.”

“I see. All right, Rather. Go ask Able Jacks to put you on the centrifuge. We’ll get in touch with you through Booce Serjent.”

Debby and the desk man were ignoring each other. Debby seemed nervous.

“Rather! How’d it go?”

“Fine. Are you Able Jacks?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re to take me to the centrifuge. What’s a centrifuge?”

“I’ll show you.”

The wicker structure resembled the treadmill that ran the elevator in Citizens Tree. It was wider: twenty meters across. Rather was instructed to cling to the rim and wait. Two ratings spun it up, timing it with a hand-held device. The wheel rolled eccentrically with his mass to throw it off. A rating measured the divergence of the hub. “Your mass is eighty-one kilgrams,” he said.

They locked the centrifuge in place and made him run.

Pushing himself round the rim gave him the sensation of tide. They had him run as fast as he could. It made him dizzy; the tide became fiercely strong. Then they made him slow down and run at a measured rate, until his legs burned and his eyes blurred. He would have stopped then if he had not noticed Bosun Murphy watching him.

He waved. The motion almost sent him tumbling. She didn’t respond. But she watched, and he ran.

It came to him that he was rolling around the centrifuge. He’d blacked out.

A rating snatched at his ankle and pulled him out. “Take a rest. Here.” He handed Rather a towel, and Rather, gasping for air, mopped a sheath of water from his body.

Murphy said, “That was quite a performance. I could win bets on you.”

“I grew up in a tree.”

“I know.”

There was no animation in her voice, her face, her body language. Navy thinks they’re superior, Carlot had said; but that wasn’t it. “Bosun, are you all right?”

“I’m a little down,” she said. “Call me Sectry, Rather. I’m not on duty.”

“Does down mean something like miserable?”

“Yeah. Guys, are you finished with him?”

“He’s all yours, Bosun. No need to be careful, he ain’t fragile.”

Sectry Murphy flashed them a fleeting smile. To Rather she said, “I can’t picture the Petty rejecting you after he hears about that performance.”

Treefodder. Booce hadn’t thought to tell him to hold back on a stamina test. “What’s got you down?”

“Not here, stet? I need someone to talk to, not Navy. I just came from the Purser’s and I’m ready to tie one on. Want to join me?”

“I’m with Debby. My stepmother.”

“Stet. Let’s go get her. How does Half Hand’s sound?”

Rather was coming down the corridor. There was a woman with him.

Once upon a time Debby had seen Rather and Mark talking in the Citizens Tree commons. Both dwarves, but they hadn’t looked at all alike: Mark’s face nearly square, Rather’s nearly triangular…She remembered it now, because Rather and the dwarf woman looked right together, though they were clearly from different branches of humankind.

And both, in different fashions, looked worn out.

Debby asked, “What happened to you?”

Rather said, “Centrifuge. They ran me to death. I could have lifted an elevator all the way to Discipline. Debby, you remember Sectry Murphy—”

Clasping toes felt odd: Sectry’s reach was so short, her toes so stubby and strong. “Hello, Sectry. I take it you’re off duty.”

“Right. On our way to Half Hand’s. Join us?”

“Sure.”

Sectry led them in. “The place is nearly empty,” she said.

It wasn’t. There were a good dozen people scattered around Half Hand’s. But windows were clear, and Sectry led them to one. “It’s nice to have a view,” she said over her shoulder.

Rather flinched. Debby grinned; she’d seen Rather watching Sectry’s kicking legs.

“Grab a pole, someone will come. You hungry?”

When one of the women from the kitchen appeared, Sectry said, “Fringe tea and sausages for three, Belind. You two should try the sausage.”

“Stet,” Rather said. “What’s got you down?”

The false gaiety ran out of her, and Debby saw pain. “I’ve been trying on pressure suits. I don’t fit.”

Debby said nothing. Rather said nothing.

“They don’t let you try the suit till you qualify for Guardian in all other respects. So they got me into the small one and I couldn’t breathe.” Murphy wasn’t wearing armor now. Her breasts stretched her tunic tight.

Debby had never had trouble feeding her children, but her own breasts didn’t have that vulnerable look. “I could have faked it, but the suits aren’t all quite the same size. So I tried the bigger suit. My feet wouldn’t reach the toes. There are controls in the boots. My fingers don’t quite reach either.”

“That leaves one,” Debby said.

“The large? It’s in use. It won’t fit. If my damn toes were longer! I’m out. I can’t be a Guardian.”

Belind was back.

Sausage was a tube seared around the outside, delicious inside: ground meat with bits of plants added. Fringe tea Debby knew from last night. She still had a trace of the morning headache.

The situation felt uncomfortable, and Debby was rehearsing excuses to leave. She asked, “Are you going to stay in the Navy?”

“I think so. I’ll never get further than Bosun, though.”

“You’ll be flying. More exciting than guarding the Library.”

“As a Guardian I could spend some time making a home! Get married, carry some guests!”

“Don’t they mind Navy people making babies?”

“You go to half pay when you’re showing, but you’ve got a mate working…and even if you don’t, Navy pay is good.” Sectry drank deep. She hadn’t touched her sausage.

Rather asked, “Sectry? Why would someone like the Captain-Guardian be interested in a recruit?”

“Wayne? That’s easy. If he can get enough dwarves at Guardian rank, he can move up to Captain. He’s got the rank but not the duties. Him, he’d be better off if he couldn’t fit a pressure suit.”

Debby took the rest of her tea in two gulps. “I’ve got to be going. Thanks, Sectry. I shouldn’t have come in. I’m supposed to be buying stuff at the Vivarium, now that we’ve got money.”

“Well, remember you’re on fringe,” the redhead said. “Watch the prices.”

“I’ll be careful.”

Outside, Debby let herself smile.

How would Rather handle it? Let Sectry believe that he’d come to the Navy only to get close to a lovely dwarf woman?

It might even be true.

A sheet of rainwater clung to the window. A blurred puff jungle drifted past.

Rather had finished his sausage. Sectry passed him half others. When Belind came past she ordered more fringe tea. She asked, “How do you like the Clump?”

“It’s mostly strange. Too wet, for one thing. I think I could get tired of boxes. Huts in a tree aren’t like that. Sectry, why did they build Headquarters round?”

“It was built to spin.”

“Spin?”

“The early officers, they thought we’d need tide to stay healthy. They gave that up early. They couldn’t dock a ship while Headquarters was spinning, and it tended to wobble. So they stopped the spin and they built the exercise room, centrifuge included. Those early Navy men must have been monstrously strong. But it turns out we don’t get sick. We still use the exercise room, though.”

The fringe tea was fizzing in his blood. Sectry Murphy seemed to glow. His mind was trying to follow a dozen paths at once. It suddenly seemed very natural that the early men would move a tree into the Clump, spin it, try to settle the tufts, get the benefit of tide and the clustered resources of the Clump…and produce the burl that later generations hadn’t been able to duplicate.

At the same time there was a strangeness in what Sectry had said…and then he had it. “How do you know all that? Booce told us about the Library. He said only officers’ children are taught there.”

“Wayne told me.”

“Oh.”

“We were together for a while. I never thought he’d marry me, I’m not an officer, but when he…What I was saying, he told me a lot of history. The Library used to be part of a starstuff rocket. We’ve never built anything like it.”

“What does it look like? Where—”

She shook her head; her hair spread around her like a flaming halo. “I never saw it myself. I’d like to. I wonder if I could talk my way past the guards…”

Guards. That door.

Voices and vision were turning strange. Sectry glowed; she was the Smoke Ring’s most beautiful living thing. Rather took a firm grip on his equilibrium. Offering to make babies with a high-ranking Navy officer now seemed presumptuous beyond insanity. Carlot had warned him: she might be badly offended. Yet he’d never seen a woman like her.

“Then he married a woman three meters tall and thin as a feathersnake. She’s got a face that would scare away a drillbit, and when she carries a guest she looks like a line with a knot in it. But she’s an officer.”

“Money.”

“Mmm? No. Rank.”

“Money,” Rather said distinctly, “is why Carlot is going to marry Raff Belmy.” He was losing control of his mouth.

“Oh. The dark girl, Serjent’s daughter?” A smile flickered and vanished, but Rather caught it. “That’s rank too.”

“You saw us.”

“Yeah.” The smile was back.

“Do you have rank?”

“I’m a Bosun. Crew.”

“Do I have rank?”

“No. What’s this all about? If you want rank you join the Navy. Then you’re crew.”

“Would you marry me then?” His mouth was running away with him. Fringe.

She laughed. She was trying to stop, and ultimately she succeeded. “We just met. How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“I’m twenty-eight. Where do you want to live?”

“Citizens Tree. Any tree.”

“Carlot probably wants to live in the Admiralty.”

“To the treemouth with Carlot.”

“I do too.”

“Make babies with me,” his mouth said.

She thought it over, while Rather tried to think himself invisible. She said, “Right.”

A score or so of puff jungles were in view. Some bore logos. They chose one that didn’t, and circled it to be sure. “Quietly now,” Sectry said.

“Nobody here but us flashers.”

“If we scare flashers out, some meat eater might come after them.”

He wiggled through the foliage in her wake. Nice to have a view. The puff jungle was hollow in the middle. A thousand flashers edged warily away, flashing blue and yellow wings at them.

They balled their clothes and threw them at the flashers, causing great excitement.

The birds perched in a shell around the hollow, watching them. She was just his size. She knew more than Carlot: delightful things. There were moments in which Rather resented that knowledge. Others in which he was shocked. His body knew things his mind hadn’t dreamed.

They rested…running hands and toes across the sweat-slick contours of stranger’s flesh, learning each other. Smooth muscle. Hair red everywhere. Fingers and toes stubby like his own. Either of Sectry’s breasts fit nicely into his two hands.

“We could go back and forth,” she said. “Live some in the Clump, some in your tree.”

“Do you mean that?’’ As the fringe died out of his brain he began to wonder what he had committed himself to.

“Who knows? Don’t ever make decisions when you’re on fringe.” Suddenly Sectry wriggled out of his arms. She snatched up her wings and eeled through the foliage and out. Rather followed, curious and horny.

Only her head poked into the sky. Flashers wheeled there, and something much larger circled thirty meters away. Sectry asked, “Want to see something funny?”

A wedge with teeth. “Get back.” He pulled at her ankle. She had donned her wings. “That’s a Dark shark. Carlot showed me.”

“We try to keep them out of the Market region.” She thrust herself into the sky, naked; waved her arms and yelled. The Dark shark froze. A window came open in a nearby cluster of cubes. The beast charged.

Rather didn’t have his wings. He called, “Sectry! Dark sharks aren’t funny!”

The long limber torso whipped back and forth too fast to see. The narrow triangular wing was a rippling blur. Sectry turned and kicked hard. She dived into the foliage, whooping, pulling Rather after her.

They were in the hollow center.

“Are you nuts?” he bellowed, and she laughed. Then the Dark shark burst through in a shower of leaves and splintered wood.

All Rather could see was teeth. His own wings were out of reach. He set his feet against a branch and watched the predator. Which way to jump? Flattened head and the forepart of a thrashing torso, three big crescent eyes, a thousand pointed teeth…the eyes beginning to show panic. Sectry couldn’t stop laughing.

The beast was stuck.

Rather asked, “You do this a lot?”

“Sure. We don’t like Dark sharks.” She wrapped her arms and legs around him and laughed into his face.

The predator snapped its teeth at them, raging and impotent. Sectry murmured in his ear. “Gives it a kick, doesn’t it?”

Debby was tired. She was flying blind, pushing bags of about her own mass, with no more than the strength of her legs. From time to time she stopped to look past her burden. The Serjent log grew larger.

Logbearer had dropped Debby and Rather near Navy Headquarters on its way to the Serjent log. Now Debby found the rocket moored near what had been the out tuft.

Two days’ time had wrought wonderful changes.

A skeletal cylinder perched atop the fuel pod. Men were all over it, placing planks, driving pegs into wood. Booce floated nearby, watching contentedly. When he saw Debby coming he donned wings and kicked to join her.

“No problems?”

“No problems,” she said. “Zakry wanted money. I just went down the list and paid him what I had. Here, there’s some left. I don’t think I got cheated. I’ve only got half the seeds here. We’re supposed to get the rest within five days. Where do we store all this?”

“Not in Logbearer. There’ll be paint fumes.”

They lined the seed bags along a crack in the bark and ran tethers across them.

More men approached, pushing a cylinder of wooden beams. Debby watched as they maneuvered the lumber toward Logbearer. She called, “Ho, Clave! Learning a new trade?”

Clave joined them. He smelled of hard work. “I’m learning it, but I don’t like it. Too nitpicking. Every board has to be just the right size, just the same thickness.”

“I got the seeds.”

“Good. Booce, isn’t this a bit of a luxury? Don’t we have other concerns?”

“Like selling my wood? This’ll show off its quality! I’ll paint my logo, but I’ll leave most of the wood bare. I’ll cruise past the Market and anyone can see I’ve got a good tree.”

The hired crew were fixing panels on the long cylinder. Clave, rested, resumed work. Some of the panels were on swivels: windows. The sun swung behind the Dark; the day turned gloomy. When the sun reappeared, passing within a degree of Voy, one whole flank of Logbearer was finished.

A shadow flapped out of the sun and became Carlot with her arms full of gear. Debby flew to help her. Carlot was pushing cooking utensils and a slab of smoke-blackened moby meat. She asked, “Where’s Rather?”

“I left him in Half Hand’s with Sectry Murphy.”

“Mmm.”

They stored the gear near the bags of seeds. “We’d better do our cooking here tonight,” Carlot told her father. “That paint’s awful stuff.” Booce agreed.

Carlot asked, “How did Rather do? I keep forgetting we want him to fail.”

“Yeah. The way Sectry Murphy was acting, he made some kind of endurance record on a big wheel. Somebody should have thought of that.”

“Me,” Booce muttered.

“Might not matter. They seem to want him bad.”

The cabin formed with remarkable speed. Now men were pegging crossbars across the bow…for pushing against a log? Two men produced gourds; wind brought a noxious chemical reek. Booce excused himself and went to supervise while they painted the finished flank of Logbearer.

Carlot asked, “What was he doing with Murphy?”

“You remember your father said—”

“Yes, and I said she might be seriously offended. He didn’t actually make a pass, did he?”

“Not while I was there. She’s in a rotten mood. They put her in a pressure suit and she didn’t fit.”

“That’s bad.”

“She wanted to blow her mind out on fringe tea, and she wanted company. I left them alone. Treefodder, Carlot, if he does get Murphy mad at him, what’ll she do? Keep him out of the Navy!”

“…Yeah.’’ Carlot began setting her gear up for cooking. She worked with furious energy.

Debby watched. Presently she asked, “Carlot, are you going to marry Raff Belmy?”

“I don’t know. I just spent a couple of days with Raff aboard Woodsman. He seems — he takes it for granted we’ll be married. He’s so sure, he hardly mentioned it.”

“So? It’s what you told Rather.”

“I know. Where is he?”

There were beams left over from the making of Logbearer. Clave brought them an armload. Carlot arrayed them and started a fire.

Booce paid off the hired crew and they departed. His own crew went to inspect the altered rocket. Booce was exuberant. Clave was proud. Debby made appropriate noises. Logbearer had been repaired in just four days.

The paint was well done, she thought. She wasn’t qualified to judge’ woodwork. The cabin was as big as the pod, roomy for half a dozen. Booce and Clave began the finishing touches: setting knobs and moorings into the hull, outside and in. Booce wanted particular patterns…

The fire was going well: a dim globe of heat, nearly invisible while both Voy and the sun bathed this side of the log. Carlot sliced the moby meat into two slabs. She set sliced vegetables between the slabs, locked them together with wooden pegs, and tethered it all within the fringe of the flame.

A distorted blue-fringed black man-shape swam across Voy.

“Rather! Where have you been?” Carlot shouted.

He reached the bark. “I’m in deep trouble,” he said. “Where’s the Chairman?”

“Working on the rocket. What kind of trouble?”

“Carlot, maybe you can tell me.” Rather looked bewildered, a little frightened. “I’m afraid I’ve gotten myself in deeper than I wanted.”