The Integral Trees

It had been strange for Minya. Her instincts were at war: a conditioned reflex that resisted sexual assault as blasphemy incarnate, versus the will to live.

Survival won. She would do nothing badly!

Ji

Minya screamed. She was too far to do anything but shout and point as she ran. A pair of supervisors, much closer, saw what was happening and ran too.

Ji

Minya kept ru

Minya reached the edge in time to see the stone at the end of Haryet's line spin round Ji

Haryet pulled her in.

Ji

Minya said, "Madam Supervisor, a moment of your attention."

Dionis looked around, surprised at the snap in Minya's voice. "Later," she said.

Ji

Then she spread a second poncho oven the girl and sat down to watch hen.

Dionis turned to Minya. 'What is it?"

"If Ji

"It might. Well?"

"Ji

"That's forbidden," the jungle giantess said wearily.

When citizens talked like that, Minya had learned to ignore them.

"These girls are twins. They've been together all their lives. They should be given some hours to talk."

"I told you, it's forbidden."

"That would be your problem."

Dlonis glared in exasperation. "Go join the garbage detail. No, wait.

First talk to this Ji

"Yes, Supervisor. And I'd like to be checked for pregnancy, at your convenience."

"Later."

Minya bent to speak directly into Ji

Ji

"Ji

Nothing.

"Just hang on, will you? Hang on. Something will happen. Talk to

Jayan. See if she's learned anything." Treefodder, there must be something she could say…"Find out where the pregnant women are kept. See if the Grad even comes down to examine them. He might. Tell him we're hanging on. Waiting."

Ji

"You're tougher than you think."

"If another man picks me, I'll kill him."

Some of them like women who fight, Minya thought. She said instead,

"Wait. Wait till we can kill them all."

After a long time, Ji

Chapter Sixteen

Rumblings of Mutiny

GAVVING WOKE TO A TOUCH ON HIS SHOULDER. HE LOOKED about him without moving.

There were three tiers of hammocks, and Gavving's was in the top layer. The daylit doorway made a black silhouette of a supervisor. He seemed to have fallen asleep standing up: easy enough in London Tree's gentle tide. In the dimness of the barracks, Alfin clung to Gavving's haimmock-post. He spoke in a whisper that wanted to shout in jubilation.

"They've put me to work at the treemouth!"

"I thought only women did that," Gavving said without moving at all. Jorg snored directly below him-a "gentled" man, pudgy and sad, and too stupid to spy on anyone. But the hammocks were close-packed.

"I saw the farm when they took us for showers. There's a lot they're doing wrong. I talked to a supervisor about it. He let me talk to the woman who runs the farm. Kor's her name, and she listens. I'm a consultant."

"Good."

"Give me a couple of hundred days and I might get you in on it too. I want to show what I can do first."

"Did you get a chance to speak to Minya? Or Ji

"Don't even think it. They'd go berserk if wq tried to talk to the women."

To be a treemouth tender again…seeing Minya, but not allowed to speak to hen. Meanwhile, maybe AliIn could carry messages, if he could be talked into taking the risk. Gavving put it out of his mind. "I learned something today. The tree does move, and it's the carm, the flying box, that moves it. They've settled other trees—"

"What does that do for us?"

"I don't know yet."

Alfin moved away to his hammock.

Patience came hard to Gavving. In the begi

The supervisors wouldn't answer questions. What did he know, what had he learned? The women farmed the treemouth and cooked; pregnant women lived elsewhere. Men tended machinery and wonked with wood, here in the upper reaches of the tuft. The copsiks talked of rescue, but never of revolt.

They wouldn't revolt now anyway, with the Holidays eight sleeps away. Afterward, maybe; but wouldn't the Navy know that from experience? They'd be ready. The supervisors were never without their truncheons, sticks of hardwood half a meter long. Horse said the women supervisors carried them too. During an insurrection the Navy might be given those instead of swords…or not.

What else? Bicycle works wore out. Damaging them-damaging anything made of starstuff-would hurt London Tree, but not soon. Here was where the elevators could be sabotaged, but the Navy could still put down a revolt by using the carm.

The carm did everything. It lived at the tree's midpoint, where the Scientist kept his laboratory. Was the Grad there? Was he pla

Was any of that worth anything? If we were together! We could plan something. He had learned that he might spend the rest of his life moving an elevator on pumping water up the trunk. He had not had an allergy attack since his capture. It was not a bad life, and he was dangerously close to becoming used to it. In eight sleeps he would be allowed to see his own wife.

Carther States was setting fires halfway around the biggest flower in the universe.

Clave flapped his blanket at the coals. His arms were plunged elbowdeep in the foliage to anchor him. His toes clutched the edge of the blanket. He undulated his legs and torso to move the blanket in waves, exerting himself just enough to keep the coals red.

Eighty meters away, a huge silver petal gradually shifted position, turning to catch the sun at a sharper angle.

A fire would die in its own smoke, without a breeze, and breezes were rare in the jungle. The day was calm and bright. Clave took it as a chance to exercise his legs.

There was a knot as big as a boy's fist where the break had been on his thighbone. His fingers could feel the hard lump beneath the muscles; his body felt it when he moved. Merril had told him it couldn't be seen.

Would she lie to spare him? He was disinclined to ask anyone else.

He was disfigured. But the bone was healing; it hurt less every day. The scar was an impressive pink ridge. He exercised, and waited for war.