“But the citizens who didn’t get out of the tufts are still in trouble. Can you get word to other Navy ships?”
They caught themselves against the hull, caught their breath, then pulled themselves aft toward the cabin. Capability’s Harp looked him over as they passed. Her eyes were an intense and vivid blue. She was definitely interested. Curtz smiled back, admiring. A moment later she was gone.
Interest in him? Chances were that she’d never seen a silver suit.
Voices from the cabin: Harp was trying to describe Capability Tree’s situation and calm the climber boy from Brighton, simultaneously.
The blades spun. The ship moved forward. Vanes tacked and backed as the ship wove a path among half-hidden bark sheets and masses of ancient mud. Suddenly there were insects everywhere, in Curtz’s ears and hair and mouth. He slammed his helmet down and turned on the internal air, and breathed his first clean air in hours.
While he was at it…
He tongued a switch.
Colors went all wonky. He let the sky turn past him. Big crimson blotch: he switched the display off (and saw a huge gape-mouthed fish, a bug eater) and on. Three smaller brighter dots: switch off (a triune family swimming hard after Flutterby) and on. A cloud of tiny dots would be birds; he didn’t bother to look. The big crimson blotch would be the bug eater again. A smaller glare (off) was the triune family, now joined for cursorial hunting, not that they’d ever catch Flutterby.
…and a crimson glare in his peripheral vision. He switched the display off and turned.
She was there beside him on the twenty-ce’meter-wide ledge.
She wasn’t a dwarf. She was short and stocky, but longer than Maxell Curtz by ten or twelve ce’meters. As Curtz realized that, she smiled enchantingly, and dropped to one knee on the ledge. It brought them face to face.
“Thank you for my life,” she said. “I’m Harp.”
He opened his helmet and tilted it back. “Guardian Maxell Curtz. I’ve been looking for refugees with heat vision. All I’m finding is scavengers. How are you doing?”
“I’m all right. I’m worried about my people in the tufts.”
“Are they really in trouble?”
“Well, they’re not in good shape. They’ve got two short trees, each with one tuft, falling out of the median in opposite directions. The median’s where everything is, air and water and food. The out tuft has the steam rocket, but the others could all die before they’re blown back.”
Harp’s chin was pointed and her mouth was small, with a curve like a recurved bow. It would always look pursed for kissing. Curtz was having trouble concentrating. He said, “We’ll send them ships.”
“Thank you.”
Guardian Curtz smiled back. “Trust the Navy, and be glad you live this close to the Admiralty. Rescue is what we do best.”
The crew were in motion now, scampering over the hull, unrolling many square meters of silvered cloth onto a wire frame. Curtz said, “There, now, we’re out of that goop,” as if he were running the show. “Now we can send a mirror message to Headquarters. Four or five days, we’ll have ships at both tufts.”
“At what price, Guardian?”
Maxell was a bit jolted. Climbers didn’t know about bargains and money, did they? He would have preferred to talk in terms of gallantry and rescue and the benefits of belonging to a mighty empire, and…“Your credit’s good. Were you thinking of buying elsewhere?”
Her smile had faded. “It isn’t as if we could do without. My father saw a half-tree once, before we moved into the Grove. The tree was fine, very green and thriving, already growing another out tuft. It must have taken its own sweet time floating back into the Smoke Ring. Some of the tribe must have jumped. The rest looked like they’d suffocated. All dead.”
“Two ships can evacuate a whole tuft if there’s not enough air for them.”
“Your motor needs air, doesn’t it?”
Oops.
Captain Murphy was near the nose, dictating to Renho as he shifted the mirror. Curtz jumped along the hull, stopped himself with a jerk at his line. Behind him there was music. Harp had begun playing, using the wind from the propeller.
“It’s a matter now of pride!
We are after Nessie’s hide—”
“Captain?”
“Guardian. How’s our songbird?”
“Cool as a snow cloud. She must do this every day. In fact she’s got a suggestion.”
Murphy stared. “She’s just a climber, stet?”
“I want to tell Headquarters to send rockets to the half-trees. Spinner ships are air-breathing. The motor could run out of air.”
“Actually…good point, Guardian. Renho, you heard?”
Renho was already wobbling the mirror back and forth. The beam pulsed against the faint haze, pointing back into the Admiralty.
Chapter Two
YEAR 419 DAY 115
Triunes were hunting birds, ubiquitous throughout the Smoke Ring. The tribemark for London Tree had been triunes mated for distance flying, male and female and child all locked belly-to-belly into a three-lobed torpedo, seen nose-on.
Brighton Tree was a colony of London Tree. Brighton’s tribemark was a triune family just separating to hunt. Alin’s kites bore the same mark.
The tribemark glowed at the tree’s midpoint, scarlet and yellow dye on a black char background, nine meters across. Lift lines rose toward it from both tufts, and a pair of huts bracketed it. The dye was fading and half overgrown with bark. To Alin Newbry it was the sight of home, the certain knowledge that he was not lost in the sky.
Alin was decelerating, the free kite pulling in-and-east. His passengers led him westward toward the triune symbol. They had grown weary of terror during four days of flying. Now they only clung in silence. Alin had grown to hate their shifting, uneasy weight.
Somebody was waiting next to one of the huts.
Alin brought his passengers to a stop a few tens of meters short of the trunk. Better than smashing them against the bark. Tired men make mistakes. Alin started to bring the free kite around…almost no wind, and tricky too, distorted by the two-klomter thickness of the trunk…He gave up and stowed the kites instead, because Capability’s Captain Ling was kick-kick-kicking at the end of the line, towing them all toward the tree.
The man on the bark came flapping out to help. Alin recognized his younger brother David. David and Ling flew the line back to the trunk and began pulling in the rest.
One by one the refugees spread themselves across the bark, men and women and children, facedown, clawing and twitching as if trying to mate with the tree. Alin was the last to be reeled in. He tethered himself and let it go at that, for his dignity’s sake.
“You didn’t say you’d gone hunting,” David said.
“I’d gladly have shared the catch,” Alin answered. His mind was fuzzy with exhaustion.
“Captain Burns says they can have the in tuft.”
The in tuft had been empty for just over two years. Shortly after the tree arrived in the East Grove, most of the crops had died quite suddenly and for unknown reasons. Alin said, “Good. You can tell Captain Ling—him—but give him some time first.”
“I’d say he needs it! Are you all right?”
“Tired.”
“Bertam and Gilly got back without you. The others are still out.”
“There was a Navy ship. I sent Stevn there to get help.”
“Did you. What about Marlo?”
“He was flying nicely, last I saw him. He’s the oldest, he did fine on the tests…” Two boys missing out of four.
Ling and two others had recovered a little. They were examining the lift arrangements, tactfully out of earshot.
David was studying his face. “You and Natlee are having trouble, stet?”
Alin shrugged. “Nothing special.”
“She doesn’t smile anymore, and the kids don’t talk to each other. Now, what is it? She’s carried guests before.”
“Sure, Da
vid, and she turns mean as a snake. You never noticed?”
“No. Three children and, what, a dozen lost ones? She’d be used to it. Other women don’t have trouble carrying guests.”
“Nobody but Natlee. David, I’m too tired for this.”
“I would have noticed. This is something else, Alin. When Bertam and Gilly came down, and no Stevn, I saw Natlee’s face. Have you ever taken her flying?”
“Hah! I got her as far as the lift line. As soon as we…yeah.”
“Yeah, what?”
“Natlee is afraid of falling. There’s just no reasoning with that kind of fear.”
“She doesn’t want Stevn flying either. Stet?”
“As soon as the line lifted us clear of the foliage, as soon as she saw open sky, Natlee freaked. No, she doesn’t want Stevn flying. She doesn’t want me flying, and I’m the Kitemaster!”
“Look, if…” If Stevn doesn’t come back. “If you need help, come to me.”
“David, she’ll be all right as soon as our guest is born. And Stevn, he’s…” Had training? It was their first time in the sky. The boys had flown kites from the branch, they’d climbed to the midpoint and watched Alin flying. That wasn’t training. First time out, and he’d lost two students including his own son.
First things first. “Captain Ling, you can leave the children with me. Take whoever can travel and go down on the lift line. There’ll be a lift cage along for the children.”
Ling said, “I’ll wait for my people, Kitemaster.”
“Stet.” He was their Captain. “David, go home.”
“Alin, have you noticed?” David pointed east.
A rectangular fleck…a pair of yellow flecks. Marlo?
“That’s good. Now go down to your dinner.” Alin would not be stared at while he waited.
“Will you and Marlo join us? Shall I tell—”
“I’ll send Marlo down. The Navy ship—If Stevn—” And if it didn’t come, he’d still sleep better on the trunk. If he went down without Stevn, Natlee would make him fight before she’d let him rest.
David seemed to read his thoughts. He moved away to speak to Captain Ling, who was stringing refugees on the line to the in tuft. “Captain Burns begs you to make free of our unoccupied in tuft…”
Alin tuned him out. The kites did seem to be coming here. Yellow? He didn’t notice when David left.
Ling didn’t try to rush his people. Many needed more time to huddle against the bark. He asked, “Who’s running the treadwheel, Kitemaster?”
“No treadwheel, Captain. We’ve got a windmill moving the lift line.”
Ling nodded and changed the subject. “And you don’t seem to have a rocket. How on Earth did you get to the East Grove?”
“Classified, sir. You can examine the windmill, though.” Ling clearly hadn’t recognized the word.
The pair of kites was closer now. Yellow with a broad scarlet stripe. Alin felt the knot of his intestines sliding loose.
Ling was counting his citizens. Twenty citizens and eleven children: a big jump in Brighton Tree’s population. No wonder Burns wanted them in the empty tuft. But Ling must be counting the ones who were missing. He didn’t look happy…Hell, he looked as tired as they did, finally. He put them on the line and watched it carry them in. Adults only: a child might lose his grip.
The cage came up. Alin used a ratchet to disconnect it from the line. He helped Ling load the children in. While Captain Ling spoke to the children, Alin wandered away to wait for Marlo and his passengers.
Marlo was close now. His mouth was slack with exhaustion. His arms and legs moved in jerks. Two frightened older women clung to his tow line and each other.
An exhausted rage was trying to boil up inside Alin. He should be proud; perhaps he was…but it hurt his mind to watch his student trying to maneuver. His own musculature kept trying to help.
When Marlo thumped against the trunk, Ling and Alin were there to catch his line. They towed the women in. The old women wrapped themselves around Captain Ling. He made soothing noises and presently helped them into the lift cage.
“You were to come straight back to the midpoint,” Alin said.
“Kitemaster, I saved lives!”
“You saved them. Good. But I might have had to go looking for you. Do I look as tired as I feel?” Marlo didn’t answer. “I could go back and search through that cloud of bark and bugs. But you didn’t have orders to be there. Maybe you lost your kites. Maybe I should be looking east and in—”
“Stet, Kitemaster, stet.” I’m sorry. The boy was as tired as Alin.
“Look, when you get down, my wife will have questions. Tell her I didn’t send you to do rescue work. You’re a hero. It was all your own idea.”
That surprised Marlo through his fog of fatigue. “You’re not coming down?”
“No. I’ll sleep better falling. Tell the out-Captain…tell everyone I’ll be down for breakfast.”
Marlo took the outline and was carried away.
What he had taken for distant birds, and dismissed, weren’t. Four more refugees, winged, definitely headed for Brighton if exhaustion and exposure didn’t kill them first.
Ling hadn’t reconnected the lift cage yet. He called, “Kitemaster? Is that your Navy ship?”
Alin peered toward the darkened Clump.
“No, no, down!”
It still didn’t register. Various tribes used up and down in various ways, often obscene…but Ling was pointing along the trunk, in toward Voy.
A Navy spinner ship was landing in the tuft.
Alin said, “Hell, I thought they’d come to the midpoint. Captain, I think I’ll join you.”
YEAR 419 DAY 116
Flutterby moved into place and hovered above the in tuft of Brighton Tree. The dark trunk seemed a pure mathematical entity, a cylinder rising to a vanishing point. The foliage looked like a soft, billowy green cloud.
Captain Murphy chopped air with her hand. Dunninger turned off the fuel feed. The propeller blades unblurred, slowed, stopped.
The tide eased to nothing under Maxell’s feet: reassuring, until he realized…
Stevn Newbry, braced in the cabin doorway, said, “Hey…” and bit off further comment.
Capability’s Harp tightened her grip on the lines. “We’ll fall.”
“I’ve done this before,” Captain Murphy said briskly. “Can’t land on the bare branch. It’s only a meter wide.”
Harp’s voice went just a bit ragged. “Can’t you dock at the midpoint?”
“Oh, sure. And then ride forty klomters down to the tuft, hanging on to a line strung by somebody else? No, thank you.”
But Flutterby was definitely falling, and Maxell Curtz’s knuckles were white. Surely Captain Murphy wouldn’t risk the propeller. Of course not. And her smile was purely malicious.
The green billows caught them and buoyed them. A propeller blade bent, and recoiled. Murphy said, “All out. Renho, we’ll have refugees coming down at us pretty quick. How many did you see?”
“Hard to tell, Captain. Two kitemen pulling…somewhere around twenty, thirty?”
“They’ll need help. Renho, Dunninger, escort the climbers. Rabin, we’ll stay with the ship. Hey, boy…Stevn? Show us a way in.”
The young kiteman crawled out of the cabin and paused in the sunlight. Curtz had watched his fear dwindle as they approached the tree. Had seen his face light when they spotted one, then another pair of kites in flight. Now he watched him stretched like a growing plant as he savored the tide.
Curtz was feeling natural tide for the first time. It was weird but tolerable. He knew intellectually that he was under thrust, as in a ship’s cabin. Tension in the trunk was pulling the tuft outward against the inward pull of Levoy’s Star.
Stevn Newbry bounded across the greenery in shallow arcs. Against the constant whistle of the wind Renho called, “Hey!”
The boy called back, “Citizen Renho, the corridors are all choked off. Our whole tribe moved out of here
two years ago. I’ve got to…here, maybe…find an opening. Here!”
Renho jumped in a shallow arc toward Stevn. Harp followed. That decided Maxell Curtz. He braced against a submerged spine branch and jumped after her.
Too high. A touch of boot jets put him almost behind Harp. Stevn waited until they were close, then disappeared: poof and a puff of pollen, gone.
Harp landed, looked about her, than dived into the green billows.
Maxell found a dimple in the foliage. He pushed through—and was blind.
The Sun at nadir is only dimmer and more blurred than the Sun at zenith. Voy’s light never changes: it’s always at nadir. Darkness can be found inside a storm. The Dark is the sunless core of the Clump, a sluggish storm of matter squeezed close until it is almost solid…yet darkness is rare in the Smoke Ring.
Curtz might have guessed that it would be dim in the in tuft of Brighton Tree, too. But it was black!
Curtz moved by feel and by Harp’s rustling. Rustling behind him told him that Renho and Dunninger had found their way in. All the corridors had closed to the width of a child. Luxuriant foliage clogged everything, leaving no room for man. Man formed no part of an integral tree’s intent.
Ahead of him, the climber boy said, “It turns here. Everyone all right?” Voices answered him.
Maxell reached what must be the turn: lower pressure this way…
Behind him Renho asked, “You all right, Guardian?”
“I feel claustrophobic…and blind, of course.”
“Hungry?”
“That too. We’ll have to make a chance to hunt.”
Renho chuckled. Dunninger snickered. Stevn barked incredulous laughter, then tried to choke it back.
Renho had set him up. He should have remembered: he was buried in food! He stripped a branchlet of the fluffy stuff that covered it and brought it to his mouth. He licked it.
Renho was blind too. “Try some foliage, then, Silver Man.”
“Mmmm!”
Harp called back, “That’s the best thing about tree living. Eat all you want. It keeps the corridors open.”
“Mmmm! Twuss me. I ne’wer—’Ff thiss—Nemmine.”