The Integral Trees

The smoke of the disaster split the sky from end to end. Dense, flickering black clouds were pulling free of the paler smoke. The same insects that had eaten the tree apart were now casting loose to find other prey.

Other debris floated in the smoke trail. The Grad made out great fragments of torn wood and bark; a cloud of flashers whirling in panic; a flapping mote, perhaps a nose-arm fled from its burrow. In that confusion he could still see that the cloud of citizens and corpses was slowly drifting apart.

Far in toward Voy, Gavving maneuvered half his own weight in smoked meat. He'd be hard to reach. He'd gone far to save that meat, and the wind-wake must have pulled him further. Save Gavving for last, and hope.

The fan brushed against the Grad and he clutched it, fungus springy under his hands. Clave watched as if bemused. He asked, "What happened?"

Safe now. "The tree came apart. Clave, I'm going to dig in your pack. We've got to start rescuing citizens."

Clave neither helped nor resisted as the Grad searched through his pack. They could use the big fan as a base of operations…rescue Alfin first, because he was nearest…He took half a dozen pods. He slid to somewhere near the fan's center of mass and fired a jet pod, then another.

"The tree came apart?"

"You saw it."

"How? Why?"

The Grad was judging distances. He cast a line in a wide circle. It brushed Alfin's back, and Alfin convulsed and snatched the line in a deathgrip. He didn't try to reel it in. The Grad had to do that, while Alfin watched in near mindless terror. Alfin lunged across the last meter or so and wrapped himself around the stalk and buried his fingers in white fungus to the last knuckle.

A hand closed around the Grad's neck. Long, strong fingers overlapped the thumb, tightening like a steel collar. Clave's voice was a hot snarl in his ear. "You'll tell me now!"

The Grad froze. Clave had gone crazy.

"Tell me what happened!"

"The tree came apart."

"Why?"

"Maybe the fire set it off, but it was ready. Clave, everything in the Smoke Ring has some way of getting around. Some way to stay near the median…middle, where there's water and air. Where do you think jet pods come from?" The hand relaxed a little, and the Grad kept talking. "It's a plant's way of getting around. If a plant wanders out of the median, too far into the gas torus region—"

"The what?"

Alfin asked, "What on Earth is going on?"

"Clave wants to know what happened. Alfin, can you steer this thing and pick up some more of us? Here—" He passed across his store of jet pods.

Alfin took them. He took his time deciding what to do with them, and the Grad ignored him while he lectured. "The Smoke Ring runs down the median of a much bigger region. That's the gas torus, where the molecules…the bits of air have long mean-free-paths. The air is very thin in the gas torus, but there's some. It gets thicker along the median. That's where you find all the water and the soil and the plants. That's what the Smoke Ring is, just the thickest part of the gas torus, and that's where every living thing wants to stay."

“Where it can breathe. All right, go on."

"Everything in the Smoke Ring can maneuver somehow. Animals mostly have wings. Plants, well, some plants grow jet pods. They spit seeds back toward the median where they can grow and breed, or they spit sterile seeds farther into the gas torus, and the reaction pushes the plant back toward the median. Then there are plants that send out a long root to grab anything that's passing. There are kites—"

"What about the jungles?"

"I…I don't know. The Scientist never—"

"Skip it. What about the trees?"

"Now, that's really interesting. The Scientist came up with this, but be couldn't prove it—"

The hand tightened. The Grad babbled, "If an integral tree falls too far out of the median, it starts to die. It dies in the center. The insects eat it out. They're symbiotes, not parasites. When the center rots, the tree comes apart. See, half of it falls further away, and half of it drops back toward the median. Half lives, half dies, and it's better than nothing."

Clave mulled that. He said, "Which half?"

"East takes you out, out takes you west, west—"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to remember. We were too far in toward Voy, so our end—" It only hit him then. The revelation blocked his throat.

A moment later, so did Clave's fingers. "Keep talking, you copsik. I've had it up to here with you telling half a secret!"

Thickly the Grad said, "Mister Chairman, you may call me the Scientist."

The hand relaxed in shock.

"Qui

Alfin broke the long silence that followed that terrible declaration. "Are you happy, Grad? You were right. The tree was dying."

"Shut up," said Clave. He released the Grad's neck. Maybe that had been a mistake, maybe not; he'd have to apologize presently. For now, he clambered around to the edge of the fan. Jayan and Ji

He'd never felt like this, so helpless, so fearful of making decisions. It bothered him that Alfin and the Grad bad seen him like that. He tried his voice and found it normal:

"They're almost here. Good work, Alfin. Go for Merril next. I don't see Glory."

The Grad said, "I haven't seen her since…since." He rubbed his throat.

"She may not have jumped. Seven of us. Seven." He flung a line. Ji

They clung to Clave more in desperation than affection. Ji

Alfin demanded, "Why didn't the Scientist see that coming?"

"He did," said the Grad.

"Treefodder. Why did he stay, then?"

"He was an old man. He couldn't climb fifty klomters of tree."

Alfin gaped. "But…but that's the same as murdering everyone who could climb!"

There wasn't time for this. Clave said, "Alfin, pay attention to what you're doing."

Alfin set off two jet pods, then another. The fan drifted toward Mernil, who waited in what might have been stoic calm. He murmured, "The children!"

Somewhere off to the side, there was motion.

What Clave had taken for a purple-clad corpse was floundering in air. Clave pointed. "One killer left."

They watched. She wasn't floundering now. She'd tied a line to her long knife, and now she cast it out. She snagged a dead companion and reeled it in. She searched the corpse, then pushed off from it in the direction of the next.

She hadn't found much, but it must have been what she wanted. Now she fired two jet pods in turn. The thrust carried herintoward Voy. Alfin said, "She's not coming here. Or going home. What does she think she's doing?"

"Not our problem."

Merril caught a line thrown by Alfin and pulled herself close. By now there was no room to clutch the fan itself. Clave asked her, "Did you see any sign of Glory?"

"Hanging on to the bark for dear life, last I saw her. She was in the out section. Gavving's a good distance in."

"We'll go after him. I hope we get there in time."

By then it was obvious. The woman in purple had passed them and was heading toward Gavving.

Gavving watched her coming. There was little else he could do. When he could see her face he watched her watching him. The rictus of hate he'd seen earlier wasn't there. He saw close-cut dark hair, a triangular face with an oddly narrow chin, an expression that was thoughtful, judging.

She was going to go past.

He didn't know how to feel about that. He didn't want to die alone, but he surely didn't want to die with those mini-harpoons through him. She was close now. She reached behind her back for a tethered miniharpoon. He could only try to put the meat between them as she pulled her odd weapon apart, looking him in the eye, and released it.