The Scientist tapped at yellow lights. The window sprouted a display. “Fuel tanks are damn near dry. We’ll be filling them for weeks. Otherwise…looks all right. Lawri, from you I do want a detailed report, but tell me now if anything happened.”
“He seemed to know what he was doing. I don’t love the treefeeder, but he didn’t bump any rocks. The foray team brought back these, and him.”
The Scientist took the plastic objects Lawri handed him. “A reader!” he breathed. “You bring me treasure. What’s your name?”
The Grad hesitated, then, “Jeffer.”
“Jeffer, I’ll wait for your story. We’ll get you cleaned up first. All these years I’ve been waiting for the Navy to lose my carm, reader and all. I can’t tell you what it means to have a spare.”
The tide was lighter. Otherwise Minya couldn’t tell London Tree from her own tuft. Here was the same green gloom, the same vegetable smells. Branching tunnels ran through foliage stripped bare by passersby. The tall women led them in silence. Jinny and Minya followed. They passed nobody.
They were still naked. Jinny walked hunched over, as if that would cover her. She hadn’t spoken since Jayan was taken away.
They had traveled some distance before Minya felt the wind. Minutes later the tunnel swelled out into a great cavity, lit by harsh daylight at the far end.
“Jinny. Was the Commons this big in Quinn Tuft?”
Jinny looked about her, dutifully, and showed no reaction. “No.”
“Neither was ours.” The cavity ran round the trunk and all the way to the treemouth itself. She could see the empty sky beyond. The shadows were strange, with the blue tinge of Voylight glaring from below. In Dalton-Quinn Tuft Voy had been always overhead.
All that foliage had had to be torn out. Weren’t the copsik runners afraid of killing the tree? Or would they only move to another?
Thirty or forty women had formed a line for food. Many were attended by children: three years old and younger. They ignored Minya and Jinny as they were marched past, toward the treemouth.
“Tell me what bothers you most,” Minya said.
Jinny didn’t answer for several breaths. Then, “Clave.”
“He wasn’t on the box. He must be still in the jungle. Jinny, his leg has to heal before he can do anything.”
“I’ll lose him,” Jinny said. “He’ll come, but I’ll lose him. Jayan’s got his child. I won’t be his anymore.”
“Clave loves you both,” Minya said, though she hadn’t the remotest idea how Clave actually thought.
Jinny shook her head. “We belong to the copsik runners, the men. Look, they’re already here.”
Minya frowned and looked about her. Was Jinny imagining…? Her eye picked up something in the green curve that roofed the Commons, a dark shape hidden in shadow and foliage. She found two more…four, five…men. She said nothing.
They were led to the edge of the treemouth, almost beneath the great reservoir mounted where branch merged into trunk. Minya looked downslope. Offal, garbage…two bodies on platforms, completely covered in cloth. When she turned away, their escorts had stepped out of their ponchos.
They took their charges by the arms and led them beneath the huge basin. One of the supervisors heaved on a cord, and water poured forth like a flood in miniature. Minya shuddered with the shock. The women produced lumps of something, and one began rubbing it over Minya’s body, then handed it to her.
Minya had never experienced soap before. It wasn’t frightening, but it was strange. The supervisors soaped themselves too, then let the flood pour forth again. Afterward they dried themselves with their garments, then donned them. They handed scarlet ponchos to Jinny and Minya.
The suds left her skin feeling strange, tingly. Minya had little trouble stepping into the poncho despite its being sealed between the legs; but it did seem uncomfortably loose. Was it made for the elongated jungle people? It bothered her more that she wore tuftberry-red. Copsik-red here, citizen-red at home. She had worn purple too long.
Their escorts abandoned them at the serving table. Four cooks—more of the elongated women—ladled a stew of earthlife vegetables and turkey meat into bowls whose rims curved inward. Minya and Jinny settled themselves into a resilient arm of foliage and ate. The fare was blander than what she was used to in Dalton-Quinn Tuft.
Another copsik settled beside them: two and a half meters tall, middle-aged, walking easily in London Tree’s tide. She spoke to Jinny. “You look like you know how to walk. You from a tree?”
Jinny didn’t answer. Minya said. “A tree that came apart. I’m Minya Dalton-Quinn. This is Jinny Quinn.”
The stranger said, “Heln. No last name, now.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Ten years, or something like. I used to be Carther. I keep expecting…well.”
“Rescue?”
Heln shrugged. “I keep thinking they’ll try something. Of course they couldn’t, then. Anyway, I’ve got kids now.”
“Married?”
Heln looked at her. “They didn’t tell you. Okay, they didn’t tell me either. The citizens own us. Any man who wants you owns you.”
“I…thought it was something like that.” She moved her eyes only, toward the shadows at the outskirts. And they’d watched her naked—“What are they doing, making their selections?”
“That’s right.” Heln looked up. “Eat faster if you want to finish.” Two shadowy men were coming toward them, drifting at leisure along the interlocked branchlets that formed the ground.
Minya watched them while she continued eating. They paused several meters away, waiting. Their ponchos fit more closely than hers and were a riot of colors. They watched the women and talked. Minya heard “—one with the bruises broke Karal’s—”
Heln ignored them. Minya tried to do the same. When her bowl was empty, she asked, “What do we do with these?”
“Leave them,” Heln said. “If no man takes you, take it back to the cooks. But I think you’ll have company. You look like citizens, the men like that.” She grimaced. “They call us ‘jungle giants.’”
Too many changes. Three sleeptimes ago, no man in her local universe would have dared to touch her. What would they do to her if she resisted? What would Gavving think of her? Even if they could escape later—
If she strolled toward the treemouth now, Minya thought, would anyone stop her? She’d be “feeding the tree.” A short sprint past the treemouth would put her into the sky before anyone could react. She’d been lost in the sky and survived…
But how could she alert Gavving to jump too? He might not have the chance. He might think it was a mad idea.
It was mad. Minya dropped it. And the men strolled over to join them.
The Grad’s first meal at the Citadel was simple but strange. He was given a gourd with a fair-sized slot cut in it, and a squeezegourd for liquids, and a two-pronged wooden fork. Thick stew, shipped from the out tuft, had cooled by the time it reached the Citadel. He could recognize two or three of the ingredients. He wanted to ask what he was eating, but it was Klance who asked the questions.
One of the first was, “Were you taught medicine?”
“Certainly.” The word was out of his mouth before his mind quite caught up.
Lawri looked dubious. Klance the Scientist laughed. “You’re too young to be so sure. Have you worked with children? Injured hunters? Sick women? Women carrying guests?”
“Not with children. Women with guests, yes. Injured hunters, yes. I’ve treated malnutrition sicknesses. Always with the Scientist supervising.” His racing mind told him what to tell Klance. In fact he had worked with children; he had inspected a pregnant woman, once; he had set the bone in Clave’s leg. The old copsik runner won’t let me practice on citizens, will he? He’ll try me out on copsik first! My own people…
Klance was saying, “We don’t get malnutrition here, thank the Checker. How did you come to be found in a jungle?”
“Inadverten
tly.” Eating strange food with strange implements in free fall took concentration. Not letting it make him sick took a distraction; the Grad was glad for the chance to talk. He ate what he was given and told the tale of Quinn Tribe’s destruction.
The Scientist interrupted with questions about Quinn Tuft, treemouth tending, musrums, flashers, the dumbo, the moby, the insects at the tree median. Lawri seemed fascinated. She burst in only once, demanding to know how one fought swordbirds and triunes. The Grad referred her to Minya and Gavving. Maybe she’d let them know where he was.
The meal ended with a bitter black brew which the Grad refused, and he continued to talk. He was hoarse when he finished.
Klance the Scientist puffed at his pipe—shorter than the one the Quinn Chairman had used—and clouds of smoke drifted sluggishly about the room and out. The room was more a cage of timber than a hut; there were narrow windows everywhere, and boards would swing to cover them. Klance said, “This giant mushroom had hallucinogenic properties, did it?”
“I don’t know the word, Klance.”
“The red fringe made you feel strange but nice. Maybe that was the reason they were protecting it?”
“I don’t think so. There were too many of those fan fungi. This one was big and nicely formed and had a special name.”
“The Checker’s Hand. Jeffer, have you ever heard that word Checker before?”
“My grandmother used to say, ‘Treefeeder must think he’s the Checker himself,’ when she was mad at the Chairman. I never heard anyone else—”
The Scientist reached for the Grad’s reader and one of his own cassettes. “I think I remember…”
CHECKER. Officer entrusted with seeing to it that one or a group of citizens remains loyal to the State. The Checker’s responsibility includes the actions, attitudes, and well-being of his charges. The Checker aboard Discipline was the recording of Sharls Davis Kendy in the ship’s master computer.
“This is strictly starman stuff. Hmp. The State…it took me four days to read the insert on the State. Have you seen it?”
“Yes. Strange people. I did get the feeling that they lived longer than we do.”
Klance snorted. “Your Scientist never tumbled to that? They had shorter years. They used one whole cycle of their sun for their year. We only use half a circle, but it’s still about seven-fifths of a State year. The truth is, we live a little longer than they do, and grow up more slowly too.”
To hear his teacher so slighted set the Grad’s ears burning. He barely heard Klance add, “All right, Jeffer, from now on you must think of me as your Checker.”
“Yes, Scientist.”
“Call me Klance. How do you feel?”
The Grad answered with careful half-truth. “I’m clean, fed, rested, and safe. I’d feel even better if I knew the rest of Quinn Tribe was all right.”
“They’ll get showers and food and drink and clothing. Their children may become citizens. The same goes for you, Jeffer, whether or not I keep you here; but I think you’d be bored in the tuft.”
“So do I, Klance.”
“Fine. For the time being I have two apprentices.”
Lawri exploded. “It’s unheard of for a freshly claimed copsik to be at the Citadel at all! Won’t the Navy—”
“The Navy can feed the tree. The Citadel is mine.”
Chapter Fifteen
LONDON TREE
Gavving was on the bicycle with three other copsiks.
There wasn’t tide enough to pull him against the pedals. Straps ran from the belt around his waist to the bicycle frame. Forcing his legs down against the pedals pushed him up against the belt. After the first session he’d thought he was crippled for life. The endless passage of days had toughened him; his legs no longer hurt, and the muscles were hard to the touch.
The bicycle gears were of old metal. They squealed as they moved and gave forth a scent of old animal grease. The frame was massive, of cut wood. There had been six sets of gears once; Gavving could see where two had been ripped out.
The frame was anchored to the trunk where the tuft grew thin. Foliage grew around the copsiks. Surrounded by sky, with most of the tuft below them, they could still snatch and eat a handful while pedaling. They worked naked, with sweat pooling on their faces and in their armpits.
High up along the trunk, a wooden box descended slowly. A similar box had risen almost out of sight.
Gavving let his legs run on while he watched the elevator descend. The mindless labor let his eyes and ears and mind run free.
There were other structures around the trunk. This level was used for industry, and here were all the men. Man’s work and woman’s work never seemed to intersect in London Tree, at least not for copsiks. Sometimes children swarmed through or watched them with bright, curious eyes. Today there were none.
The citizens of London Tree must have kept copsiks for generations. They were skilled at it. They had chopped Quinn Tribe apart. Even if opportunity came to run, how would he find Minya?
Gavving, pumping steadily, watched storms move sluggishly around a tight knot on the eastern arm of the Smoke Ring. Gold was nearer than he had ever seen it, save for that eerie time when he was a child, when Gold had passed so near and everything had changed.
The jungle hovered hundreds of klomters beyond the out tuft: a harmless-looking green puffball. How are you doing Clave? Did that broken leg save your freedom? Merril, were those shrunken legs finally good for something? Or have you become copsiks among the jungle people or are you dead?
Over the past eighty-five days or so, twenty sleeps, the tree had drifted to the eastern fringes of the cloud bank. He’d been told, during the trip across the sky to London Tree, that the tree could move by itself. He had seen no evidence of it. Rain swept across them from time to time…surely the tree had collected enough water by now…
The elevator had settled into its slot and was releasing passengers. Gavving and the others stopped pedaling. “Navy men,” Horse puffed. “Come for the women.”
Gavving said, “What?”
“Citizens live in the out tuft. When you see a boxful come down and it’s all men, they’re come for the women.”
Gavving looked away.
“Nine sleeps,” said Horse. He was in his fifties, three ce’meters shorter than Gavving, with a bald, freckled head and tremendously strong legs. He had driven the bicycles for two decades. “Forty days till we meet the women. You wouldn’t believe how rancy I get thinking about it.” By now Gavving was strangling the handbar. Horse saw the muscles standing out along his arms and said, “Boy, I forgot. I was never married, myself. I was born here. Failed the test when I was ten.”
Gavving forced himself to speak. “Born here?”
Horse nodded. “My father was a citizen; at least mother always said so. Who ever knows?”
“Seems likely. You’d be taller if—”
“Na, na, the jungle giants’ kids aren’t any taller than the citizens.”
So: children raised in the jungle grew taller, without tide to compress them. “What are the tests like?”
“We’re na supposed to say.”
“Okay.”
The supervisor called, “Pedal, you copsiks!” and they did. More passengers were coming down. Over the squeal of the gears Horse said, “I flunked the obedience test. Sometimes I’m glad I didn’t go.”
Huh? “Go?”
“To another tree. That’s where you go if you pass the tests. Heh, you are green, aren’t you? Did you think your kids would stay as citizens if they passed the tests?”
“That’s…yes.” He hadn’t been told that, he’d been allowed to assume it. “There are other trees? How many? Who lives in them?”
Horse chuckled. “You want to know everything at once? I think it’s four bud trees now, settled by any copsik woman’s kid who passes the tests. London Tree goes between them, trading for what they need. Any man’s kid has the same chance as a citizen’s, because nobody ever knows, see? I thought I
wanted to go, once. But it’s been thirty-five years.
“I did think I’d be picked for service in the outfit. I should’ve been. I’m second-generation…and when they turned me down for that, I damn near lost my testes for swatting a supervisor. Jorg, there”—Horse indicated the man pedaling in front of him—“he did. Poor copsik. I don’t know what the gentled ones do when the Holidays come.”
Gavving still hadn’t learned to shave without cutting himself. It was not his choice. All copsiks shaved. He had seen no man wearing a beard in London Tree, save one; and that one was Patry, a Navy officer. “Horse, is that why they make us shave? So the gentled ones won’t be quite so obvious?”
“I never thought of that. Maybe.”
“Horse…you must actually have seen the tree move.”
Horse’s laughter brought a supervisor’s head around. He lowered his voice. “Did you think it was just a story? We move the tree about once a year! I’ve been on water details too, to feed the carm.”
“What’s it like?”
“It’s like the tide goes slantwise. Going to the treemouth is like climbing a hill. You don’t want any hunting parties out when it happens, and you have to tilt the cookpot. The whole trunk of the tree bends a little…”
“Lawri,” said the Grad, “trouble.”
Lawri glanced back. The pond clung to the bark, a flattened hemisphere. The Grad had run the hose into the water. Now the water was flowing up the outside of the hose, forming a collar.
“Don’t worry about it. Just get to the bicycle and pedal,” Lawri told him. “And don’t call me that.”
The Grad strapped himself to the saddle and started the pedals turning. The gears moved a pump. It was all starstuff, metal, discolored with age. The collar of water shrank as water was sucked into the hose.
It was strange work for the Quinn Tuft Scientist, or for the London Tree Scientist’s Apprentice, for that matter. Hadn’t Klance suggested that he would be better off than the standard run of copsiks? He wondered what Gavving was doing now. Probably worrying about his new and alien wife…and with reason.