The Integral Trees

"Maybe not," said the Grad. "We're aimed out from east and moving pretty fast. Gavving, remember? 'East takes you out, out takes you west, west takes you in, in takes you east, port and starboard bring you back."

"What the treefodder is that?" Clave demanded. Gavving remembered, but he said nothing. It was 'classified'…and the Grad had never told him what it meant.

But Minya was saying, "Every child learns that. It's supposed to be the way to move, if you're lost in the sky but you've got jet pods."

The Grad nodded happily. "We're being pulled east. We're moving too fast for our orbit, so we'll fall outward and slow down. I'll bet the moby is making for that cloud bank."

The moby's fins were spread and flapping slowly. There was nothing at all ahead of them, out to where the arch of the Smoke Ring formed from infinity. Minya moved her tether to bring herself alongside Gayving. They clung to the rim of the bark and watched the wisp of cloud out from them, and hoarded their thirst.

The sun circled behind Voy.

Again. Already they had moved many klomters outward; the daynight cycle had grown longer.

The cloud bank was growing. It was!

"It'll try to lose us in the fog," the Grad said with more hope than conviction.

The moby hadn't moved for some time. The spike that tethered the harpoon was working itself loose. Clave pounded another into the wood and wrapped the slack line around it. But the cloud bank was spreading itself across the sky.

Details emerged: streamlines, knots of stormy darkness. Lightning flashed deep within.

Jayan and Ji

Darkness brightened as the sun emerged below the edge of the cloud.

It continued to sink. They watched the first tenuous edge of mist envelop them and began flapping their shirts. Gavving asked, "Do you feel damp?"

Merril snarled, "I feel it, I smell it, I can't drink it! But it's coming!"

Lightning flashed, off to the west. Gavving felt the mist now. He tried to squeeze water out of his shirt. No? Keep swinging it. Now? He wrung the shirt tight and tried to suck it, and got sweaty water.

They were all doing it now. They could barely see each other. Gay ving had never in his life seen such darkness. The moby was invisibly far, but they felt the tugging of the tether. They swung their shirts and sucked the water and laughed.

There were big fat drops around them. It was getting hard to breathe.

Gavving breathed through his shirt and swallowed the water that came through.

Light was gaining. Were they emerging from the cloud? "Clave? Maybe you want to cut that tether. Do we want to stay in here?"

"Anybody still thirsty?" Silence. "Drink your fill, but we can't live in here, breathing through our shirts. Let's trust the moby a while longer."

The pale green light was getting stronger. Through thi

Clave bellowed, "Treefodder!" and swung his knife. The harpoon tether sang a deep note, cut short as Clave slashed again. The line whipped free; the bark sheet shuddered.

Then they were out of the mist, in a layer of clear air. Gavving glimpsed the moby flapping away, free at last, and spared it only a glance. He was looking at square klomters of textured green, expanding, growing solid. It was a jungle, and they were going to ram.

Chapter Eleven

The Cotton-Candy Jungle

THE CARM WAS LIKE NOTHING ELSE IN THE UNIVERSE. IT WAS all right angles, inside and out; all plastic and metals, unliving starstuff.

The white light that glowed from the dorsal wall was neither Voylight nor sunlight. Weirder lights crawled across the control panel and the bow window itself The carm was mobile, where London Tree moved only with the help of the carm. If London Tree was a living thing inhabited by other living things, then Lawri saw the cam' as a different form of life.

The carm was a mighty servant. It served Kiance the Scientist, and Lawri. Sometimes it went away into the sky with Navy men as its masters. This time it carried Lawri too.

It grated on her nerves that she was not the carm's master here.

Seen through the picture-window bow, the jungle was green, dotted with every color of the rainbow-including overlaid scarlet dots that were heat sources. The Navy pilot pushed the talk button and said, "Let go."

Several breaths went by before Lawri heard, "We're loose."

The pilot touched attitude jet keys. A tide pulled Lawri forward against her straps. Warriors had been clinging to nets outside the hull.

Now they swept into view of the bow window as the cam' decelerated.

A cloud of sky-blue men fell toward undulating clouds of green.

The pilot released the keys after (by Lawri's count) twelve breaths. She'd watched numbers flickering on a small display in front of him. He'd released at zero. And the jungle was no longer moving toward the carm's bow window.

"The savages haven't moved yet," he reported. He was ignoring

Lawri, or trying to; his eyes kept ificking to her and away. He'd made it clear enough: a nineteen-year-old girl had no place here, no matter what the First said. "They're just under the greenery. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"We don't know who they are." The ancient microphone put a squawk in the Squad Leader's voice. "If it's just fighters, we'll retreat. We don't need fighters. If it's noncombatants, hiding—"

"Right."

"Have you found any other heat sources?"

"Not yet. That greenery is a pretty good reflector unless you're looking right into it. We can pick up some meat. Flocks of salmon birds.”

“Squad Leader, I see something off to the side. Something's falling toward the jungle."

"Something like what?"

"Something flat with people clinging to it."

"I see it. Could they be animals?"

"No. I'm using science," the pilot said.

The display superimposed on the bow window showed scarlet dots clustered close. Warmer objects-salmon birds, for instance-showed more orange in that display. Ribbon birds showed as cooler: wavy lines of a darker, bloodier red…The pilot turned and caught Lawri looking.

"Learned anything, darling?"

"Don't call me darling." Lawri said primly/evasively.

"Pardon me, Scientist's Apprentice. Have you learned enough to fly this ship, do you think?"

"I wouldn't like to try it," Lawri lied. "Unless you'd like to teach me?" It was something she wanted very much to try.

"Classified," the pilot said without regret. He returned to his microphone. "That thing hit pretty hard. I'd say it's not a vehicle at all. Those people may be refugees from some disaster, just what we need for copsiks. Might even be glad to see us."

"We'll get to you when we…can." The Squad Leader sounded distracted, and with reason. Spindly savages taller than a man ought to be were boiling out of the green cloud, riding yellow-green pods bigger than themselves. They were clothed in green, hard to see.

There was a quick exchange of arrows as the armies neared each other. London Tree's warriors used long footbows: the bow grasped by the toes of one or both feet, the string by the hands. The cloud of arrows loosed by the savages moved more slowly, and the arrows were shorter.

"Cnossbows," the pilot murmured. He played the jets, kicking the carm away from the fight. Lawri felt relief, until he started his turn.

"You'll endanger the carm! Those savages could snatch at the nets!"

"Calm down, Scientist's Apprentice. We're moving too fast for them." The cam' curved back toward the melee. "We don't want them close enough for swordplay, not in free-fall."