The Integral Trees

Lawri tapped the blue button in a row of five.

Blue numbers flickered and steadied in the bow window. Blue lights appeared in the panel below: four clumps of four little vertical dashes each, in diamond patterns around a larger vertical bar. The array tickled at the Grad's memory. Lawri's hands hovered like Harp about to play.

"Strap in," Kiance said. Lawri looked back in a

Tide pulled the Grad back in his seat, then eased off. (It hadn't mattered in Qui

Not tide! This was thrust! It might feel the same, but causes and consequences were different. The dead Scientist's legacy: thrust!)

The bow window nestled snug against the trunk. A breeze had sprung up; eddies swirled through the airlock doors. The Grad couldn't see anything of import through the side windows.

Lawri activated green patterns and tapped at them. Within the bow window appeared a smaller window in which an edge of sky peeped around a glare of white light. An aft view within the forward view: disconcerting.

Klance was going for a better look. He made his way to the airlock, gripping chair backs as he went. The Grad followed. A few kilograms of tide…of thrust took the vibrating walls forward, past him, till he hit the aft wall with a solid thump.

Klance was braced in the outer door, all of his fingers and toes gripping the rim. "I'll let you see in a minute, Jeffer. Don't fall out. You might not get back." He craned his head out. "Damnation!"

"What is it?"

"It's the jungle. I had no idea they could move the jungle! Hah. We'll give them a surprise. We'll just move away from them." Kiance gri

The Grad's foot lashed out and caught the Scientist above the hip.

Klance yelled and flew outward. Long fingers and toes still clung. The Grad's heel smashed at a hand and a foot. Kiance disappeared.

He moved into the outer door and leaned out. The drive screamed in his ears.

The tree was massive, but it was moving. Klance drifted slowly aft, thrashing, trying to reach the nets on the carm's hull. In his terror he seemed to have forgotten his line. He saw the Grad leaning out and shrieked at him: curses or pleading, the Grad couldn't tell. He looked away.

The tree now had a slight curve to it, like Minya's bow. The carm thrust in the center, and the tufts trailed behind, not very far. A stronger thrust might break the tree in the middle. But the carm was so much tinier than the tree; it was probably thrusting at full power now.

Klance was a thrashing black shadow against a brilliance like Voy brought close. The carm's main motor sprayed blue-white fire, pushing the carm forward against the mass of the tree. Klance was floating into the flame.

Ordon, halfway to the elevator, had seen them.

The jungle had become half the sky. Scores of objects moved alongside it: shapes like those he'd seen before the bark raft crashed into the jungle. Jungle giants on jet pods! But they wouldn't arrive if the carm continued to push the tree away. He had to turn off the main motor, now!

So he hadn't been premature, hadn't murdered Klance for nothing.

Lawri! He reentered the carm and leapt toward the bow. Lawri hadn't seen him. She stiffened suddenly and half rose, staring aghast at the rear window display. A shadow was thrashing in the flame, dissolving.

She whirled about. She was staring him in the eye when the Grad lashed out at her jaw.

Her head snapped back; she bounced against her straps and hung limp. The Grad used his line to tie her to one of the chairs. He sat down at the controls and studied them.

Yellow governed life support systems, including interior lights and the airlock. Green governed the carm's senses, internal and external.

Blue had to do with what moved the carm, including the motors, the two flavors of fuel supply, the water tank, and fuel flow. White read the cassettes.

What had Lawri done to activate the drive? His mind had gone blank. He tapped the blue button. No good: the blue displays disappeared, but the motor's roar continued. He restored the display.

Through a side window he glimpsed patches of Navy blue cloth moving across the bark. No time. Think Blue vertical bar surrounded by blue dashes…in a pattern like the motors at the stern. He tapped the blue bar.

The roar and the trembling died to nothing. The tree recoiled: he felt himself pulled forward. Then it was quiet.

Kendy was prepared to beam his usual message when the source of hydrogen light disappeared.

That was puzzling. Normally the CARMs main motor would run for several hours. That, or the attitude jets would send it jittering about like the ball in a soccer match. Kendy held his attention on a drifting point within the Smoke Ring maelstrom, and waited.

A dozen Navy men were making their way toward the carm, using lines and the lineholds, wary that he might start the drive again. Ordon was far ahead of the rest, mere meters from the window. There was murder in his face.

Quick, now! Hit the yellow button. The display was too cluttered: turn off the blue. Yellow display: interior lights showed dim, internal wind on, temperature shown by a vertical line with numbers and a notch in the middle; here, a complicated line thawing of the carm's cabin seen from above. The Grad closed lines that should represent the doors, with a pinching motion of his fingertips. Behind him the airlock sealed itself.

Lawri stirred.

He heard muted clanging from the doors.

The Grad began playing with the green displays, summoning different views from the carm's cameras. He had precious little time to learn to fly this starstuff relic. He felt Lawri's eyes on him, but would not look.

The clanging stopped, then resumed elsewhere. Ordon snarled through a side window. He must be clinging to the nets, pounding at the glass.

The Grad moved to the window. He spoke a word. Ordon reacted — puzzled — he couldn't hear. The Grad repeated it, exaggerating the motions of his lips the word that would justify murdering his benefactor Kiance, assaulting Lawri, betraying his friend Ordon, leaving London Tree helpless against attack.

"War, Ordon! War!"

Chapter Eighteen

The War of London Tree

CLAVE WAS BEING LEFT BEHIND. THE CARTHERS HAD JUDGED him a novice, and he was: he hadn't known how to choose among these strange pods. They had let him pick a slow one. He'd flown past the trunk, his path was curving back now. He would be among the last halfdozen to land.

Lines ran along the trunk of London Tree, and wooden boxes were rising toward the center from both ends. Clave saw both boxes break open almost simultaneously, spilling men in blue, eight to a box. The copsik ru

Toward the carrier. Twenty-odd copsik ru

The Carthers had passed the trunk in a gust of jet pods. Now they were returning, coming up on the western side of the trunk, drastically spread out. Feathered harpoons flew from the copsik ru

The jungle was tremendous, a green world passing less than a klomter away. Clave had wondered if it would actually hit the tree, but it seemed to be going past. The steam jet had stopped firing. The jungle trailed a curdled line of cloud an a storm of birds trying to catch up, and two dark masses: Lizeth's and Hild's clusters of twenty jet pods each.