The Integral Trees

You can heat water till it boils without it spewing all over the place, and that lets you cook things you never tasted. You always know where you are, by what a thing does if you let go of it. You can drop garbage—" From below their feet came an u

A tide pulled toward the Grad's feet. He was not surprised to see sky wheeling past: green forest, a strip of blue, billowing white. The textured green below his feet began to contract.

A wet wind blew past. Mist thickened around them. The panicky screams thi

Their guard waited for quiet. He said, "It's very impolite for a copsik to interrupt a citizen. I am a citizen. I'll forget it for the duration of this voyage, but you will learn. Questions?"

Minya screamed, "What gives you the right?"

"Don't ever say that again," the copsik ru

"They'll have the chance to be citizens. There's an initiation. Some won't want to take it. Some won't pass."

Mist enclosed them completely. The copsik ru

Nobody else seemed inclined to, so the Grad spoke. "Is London Tree stuck in this storm cloud?"

The copsik ru

"How?"

"Classified."

Gavving was just waking up. He looked left and right and found the Grad. "What's happening?"

"The good news is we're going to live in a tree."

Gavving tested his bonds while he absorbed that. "As what?"

"Copsiks. Property. Servants."

"Huh. Better than dying of thirst. Where are we? The flying box?"

"Right."

"I don't see Clave. Or Merril."

"Right again."

"I feel wonderful," Gavving said. "Why do I feel so good? Something was on those thorns, maybe, like the red fringe on a fan fungus."

"Could be."

"You're not saying much."

The Grad said, "I don't want to miss anything. If I know how we get to London Tree, maybe I could get us back. I had some Carther Tribe citizens convinced that we should join them."

Gavving turned to Minya. They spoke together at length. The Grad didn't try to hear. It was too noisy anyway. The whistling roar had faded, but the windsong was nearly as loud.

"Too many changes," Minya said.

"I know."

"I can't seem to feel anything. I want to get angry, but I can't."

"We're drugged."

"It's not that. I was Minya of the Triune Squad of Dalton Qui

"All right, I'm a little numb myself. We'll get over it. They can't keep us drugged forever. You're still Minya, the berserker warrior. Just forget it till you need it."

"What will they do with us?"

"I don't know. The Grad's talking escape. I think we'd better wait. We don't know enough."

She found a laugh, somewhere. "At least we don't die virgins."

"We met each other. We were dying, and now we're not dying at all. We're going to a tree, and it can move itself. We'll never see another drought. It could be worse. It's been worse…I wish I could see Clave, though."

It was dark and wet around them. Lightning marched a meandering path across the bow. The vehicle swung around. Npw the wind blew up from their feet. In that direction a' bushy shadow was forming.

"There," said Minya.

The roar of motors resumed.

Gavving watched for a time before he convinced himself that it was one tuft of an integral tree. He'd never seen any tree from such a vantage. They were coming up on the in branch. The tuft was greener and healthier-looking than Qui

The roar of science-in-action wavered, rose and fell, as the flying box settled toward the platform. A great arching gap had been chopped through the branch itseli linking this platform to one on the other side. At its west end, where foliage began to sprout, a large hut had been woven.

The whistling roar died.

Then things happened fast. People left the hut on the jump. More appeared from underneath, perhaps from inside the flying box. London Tree's citizens didn't have the incredible height of the forest denizens.

Some wore gaudy colors, but most wore tuftberry red, and the men had smooth faces scraped clean of hair. They swarmed to what was now the roof of the flying box and began pulling prisoners loose.

Ji

They took the women first. The drug on the needles still held him calm, but that bothered Gavving nonetheless. He couldn't see what was happening on the ledge. Presently he was pulled free of the net, lifted, and walked off the roof.

Somehow he had expected normal tides. Here was no more than a third of the tidal force at Qui

Alfin's eyes popped open when the copsik ru

They were closing again when he hit the platform. He grunted in protest, then went back to sleep. Two men in tuftberry red picked him up and carried him away.

A copsik ru

The Grad called from above Gavving's head; he was still falling.

"They're mine."

"Stay with me," she commanded. "Do you know how to walk?

You're short enough to be a tree dweller."

The Grad staggered when he touched down, but stayed upright. "I can walk."

"Wait with me. We'll use the carm to reach the Citadel."

Strangers were among them, leading Gavving and Alfin toward the big hut. The Grad's eyes followed them, and Gavving would have waved, but his wrists were still tied. A smallish, fussy-looking man in red pushed a bird's carcass into his hampered arms-it was nearly his own mass-and said, "Take this along. Can you cook?"

"Come." The copsik's hand shoved against the small of his back. He moved in that direction, toward where the fin flowered into tuft. But where were the women?

The flying box had blocked his view. Now he saw the women through the arch, on the other ledge. Minya began struggling, crying, "Wait! That's my husband!"

The drug slowed him down, but Gavving threw the bird into the copsik's arms, sending him tumbling backward under its mass, and tried to jump toward Minya. He never completed the first step. Two men stepped in from either side and caught his arms. They must have been waiting for just such a move. One clouted him across the head hard enough to set the world spi

The copsik was studying Lawri as she studied him. He was thin, with stringy muscles; three or four ce'meters taller than Lawri herself and not much older. His blond hair and beard were raggedly cut. He was dirty from head to foot. A line of dried blood ran from his right eyebrow to the corner of his jaw. He was very much the kind of copsik who might come spi