The Integral Trees

When they reached the rivulet, it was smaller yet, but it was enough: they hung in the water and let it cool them and run into their faces and mouths. Clave shared out smoked meat. Gavving found himself ravenous.

The Grad watched the birds as he ate. Presently he burst out laughing. "Look, they've got a mating dance going."

"So?"

"You'll see."

Presently Gavving did see; and so did others, judging by Clave's bellowing laugh and the giggles from Jayan and Ji

"The Scientist told me about them once. Flashers," said the Grad. His smile died as he said, "I wonder what they eat?"

"What difference does it make?" Alfin demanded.

"Maybe none." The Grad made his way upward toward the birds.

The birds flew off, then returned to dive at him, shrieking obscenities.

The Grad ignored them. Presently he returned.

Alfin asked, "Well?"

"The wood's riddled with holes. Riddled. The holes are full of insects. The birds dig in and eat the insects."

"You're in love," Alfin challenged. "You're in love with the idea that the tree's dying."

"I'd love to believe it isn't," the Grad said, but Alfin only snorted.

They spiraled around to the western side while the sun dipped beneath Voy and began to rise again. The wind was less ferocious now. But they were getting tired; there was almost no chatter. They rested frequently in crevasses in the hark.

They were resting when Mcml called, "Ji

Jayan slashed where its body met the bark. The creature separated. It still clung to Merril's pack with idiot determination. Jayan levered the claw open with her harpoon and dropped the creature into her own pack.

When they had circled round to water again, Clave set water to boiling in the small, lidded pot. He made tea, refilled the pot, and boiled Merril's catch. It made one bite each for his team.

They wedged themselves into a wide crack with the shape of a lightning-stroke and moored themselves with lines. Together but separate, head to foot within the bark, they had no chance to converse, and no urge. Four days of climbing since breakfast left them too tired for anything but sleep.

At waking they ate more of the smoked meat. "Let's look for more of those hard-shelled things," Clave suggested. "That was good." He didn't have to urge them to get moving. He never would, Gavving realized, as long as they couldn't sleep where water flowed.

This time Jiovan was given the lead. He took them on a counterclockwise spiral that brought them back to lee within half a day. Again the wood was soft and riddled with holes, and flashers swarmed below them. Alfin and Glory tended to lose ground in the leeward regions. Jiovan remarked on it and earned a look of dull hatred from Alfin.

The thing was that Alfin took more care setting his spikes than the rest did. And Glory didn't, so she lost time slipping and catching herself. They moored themselves in the stream and drank and washed.

Alfin spotted something far above them: gray nubs reaching out from the bark on both sides of the rivulet. He climbed, doggedly pounding spikes into the wood, and caine back with a fan-shaped fungus, pale gray with a red frill, half the size of his pack. "It could be edible," he said.

Clave asked, "Are you willing to try it?"

"No." He started to throw it away.

Merril stopped him. "We're here to keep the tribe from starving," she said. She broke a red-and-gray chunk from the fringe and ate a meager mouthful. "Not much taste, but it's nice. The Scientist would like it. You could chew it with no teeth." She took another bite.

Alfin broke off a piece of the grayish white inside, and ate that, looking as if he were taking poison. He nodded. "Tastes okay."

At which point there were more volunteers, but Clave vetoed that. When they departed, Clave veered upward to pick a bouquet of the fanshaped fungi. A meter-square fan rode like a flag above his pack.

The sun was rising up the east.

It was below Voy-you could look straight down along the trunk, past the green fuzzball that was Qui

She was holding herself an arm's-length from the bark by a onehanded grip. He shouted down. "Merril? Are you all right?"

"I feel wonderful!" She let go and began to fall and reached out and caught herself "The Grad was right! We can fly!"

Gavving crawled toward her. Ji

She didn't resist. She crowed, "Gavving, why do we live in the tuft? There's food here, and water, and who needs legs? Let's stay. We don't need any nose-arm cave, we can dig out our own. We've got nose-arm meat and those shelled things and the fan fungus. I've eaten enough foliage to last me the rest of my life! But if anyone wants it, we'll send down someone with legs."

We'll have to be careful of that fan fungus, Gavving thought. He was pounding spikes into bark, on the other side of Merril, Jiovan was doing the same. Where was Clave?

Clave was with Alfin, high above them, in furious inaudible argument.

"Come on, let's get going! What are you doing?" Merril demanded while Gavving and Jiovan bound her to the bark. "Or, listen, I've got a wonderful idea. Let's go back. We've got what we want. We'll kill another nose-arm and we, we'll grow fan fungus in the tuft. Then set up another tribe here. Claaave!" she bellowed as Clave and Alfin climbed down into earshot. "How would I do as Chairman of a colony?"

"You'd be terrific. Citizens, we'll be here for a while. Moor yourselves. Don't do any flying."

"I never thought it could be this good," Merril told them. "My parents-when I was little, they were just waiting for me to die. But they wouldn't feed me to the treemouth. I thought about it too, but I never did. I'm glad. Sometimes I thought of me as an example, something people need to be happy. Happy they have legs. Even one leg," she whispered hoarsely to Jiovan. "Legs! So what?"

Jiovan asked Clave, "How long do we have to put up with this?"

"You don't. Take, ah, take the Grad and find us a better place to sleep."

Jiovan looked about him. "Like what?"

"A cave, a crack or a bulge in the bark…anything that's better than hanging ourselves here like smoking meat."

"I'll go too," Alfin said.

"You stay."

"Clave, you do not have to treat me like a baby! I only ate from the middle of the thing. I feel fine!"

"So does Merril."

"What?"

"Never mind. You feel grouchy, and that's fine. Merril feels fine, and that's—"

"Alfin, I am so glad you didn't stop me from coming." Merril smiled radiantly at him. In that moment Gavving thought her beautiful.

"Thank you for trying, though. Feel sleepy," Merril said and went to sleep.

Alfin saw questioning eyes. He spoke reluctantly. "I, I thought I could talk the Chairman out of this idiocy. Sending a, a legless woman up the tree! Clave, I do feel fine. Wide-awake. Hungry. I'd like to try some more."

Clave removed a fan from his pack. He tore away some of the scarlet fringe, then offered Alfin a hand-sized piece of the white interior. If Alfin flinched, it was for too short a time to measure. He ate the whole chunk with a theatrical relish that had Clave gri