The Integral Trees

But it's killing me!

The screen of clouds swept past and away.

Gold was to left of center in the bow window. The Smoke Ring trailed left of Gold. They were accelerating east and a little out.

East takes you out.

They were leaving the Smoke Ring.

I knew it. That crazy Jeffer's killed us all.

With his head pulled far back, with the points of what should have been a neck rest digging savagely into his shoulder blades, Gavving looked along his nose and tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

The skyflowed away at the edges of the bow window. A triune family split and fluttered and were gone before they could move. A small, flattish green jungle drifted close, accelerated, whipped past. A fluffy white cloud showed ahead. Closer. White blindness, and the carm shuddered and rang with the impact of water droplets. Something tiny struck the bow window a terrific blow and left a pink film a quarter meter across. In a breath the rain had pounded it clear.

The cloud was gone, and the sky ahead was clear of further obstructions. Gold and the Smoke Ring showed like a puffball on a stem, against blue sky…a deep, dark blue sky, a color he'd never seen in his life.

He rolled his head to look at Minya. The agony in his neck shifted the pressure was easier to take this way. She looked back at him.

Lovely Minya, her face fuller than he remembered. He tried to speak and couldn't. He could barely breathe.

She sighed, "Almost."

The light of the CARM's main drive was back, and blueshifting!

A shift in its spectral line, and he'd caught it. Lucky. Kendy aborted his usual message. The CARM's time-eroded program would be busy enough without distraction. For the CARM was in flight. It must have been accelerating for some minutes already. By the frequency shift, it was building up enough velocity to take it out of the Smoke Ring… within a few thousand kilometers of Discipline itself!

When the light went out, Kendy began his message. The air was already thi

"Kendy for the State. Kendy for the State. Kendy for the State."

The sound stopped, the terrible tide was gone, all in a moment. Bodies bent like bows recoiled. Citizens who had not had the breath for screaming, screamed now.

As the reflexive screams died to groans, the Grad heard Lawri say, wearily, "Jeffer. Never use the main motor unless you're pushing the tree."

The Grad could only nod. He'd captured the carm, he'd. treefodder, everyone he knew, if he hadn't murdered him he'd put him aboard the carm! And then he'd touched the blue bar. He said, "Lawri, I'm open to suggestions."

"Feed it to the tree."

The Grad heard full-throated laughter aft…from Anthon. Debby swatted him hard across the belly. The blow snapped him into a U, but he kept laughing, and she joined him.

They had reason! They had been flat against the back wall, protecting Ilsa from what should have been mild jolting. The killer chairs would have snapped their backs, but none of the jungle giants had been in them.

Others were groaning, stirring, moving from pain to fear. Ilsa was begi

Clave's voice was a carrying one, and it filled the carm's cabin to overflowing. "Calm down, citizens. We're not in that much trouble. Remember where we are."

Other sounds stopped. Clave said, "The carrier was built for this. It came from the stars. We know it operates inside the Smoke Ring, but it was built to operate anywhere, wasn't it, Grad?"

That simply hadn't occurred to him. "Not anywhere, but…Outside the Smoke Ring, that's certain."

"Good enough. What's our status?"

"Give me a breath." The Grad was ashamed. It had taken Clave to get his mind working again. We're not in tmuble-Luck, that Clave didn't have the training to know what nonsense that was.

The blue display was on. Thrust: 0. Acceleration: 0. The big blue rectangle had a border of flickering scarlet: main motor on, fuel exhausted. He tapped it off, for what that was worth. 02: 211. H2:0. H20:1,328. "Plenty of water, but no fuel. We can't maneuver. I don't know how to find out where we're going. Lawri?"

No answer.

"But we're bound to fall back sooner or later." Green display: "Pressure's way down outside. We're—" This could start a riot; but they'd have to know. "We're leaving the Smoke Ring. That's why the sky's that peculiar color." Yellow display: "Life support looks okay." Window displays: "Oh, my."

In the aft and side views, all detail had become tiny: integral trees were toothpicks, ponds were drops of glitter, everything seemed embedded in fog. Gold had become a bulge within a larger lens of cloud patterns that trailed off to east and west: a storm pattern that spread across the Smoke Ring. The hidden planet seemed indecently close.

"Sorry, Clave, I got hung up. Citizens, don't miss this! Nobody's seen the Smoke Ring from outside since men came from the stars."

Others were craning forward to see the displays or peering out through the side windows. But Gavving said, "I think Horse is dead."

Horse? The old man Gavving had brought with him. Horse certainly looked dead enough; small wonder if the tide had stopped an old man's heart. Poor copsilc the Grad thought. He had never met Horse, but what human could have wanted to die before seeing this? "Check his pulse."

Lawri said, "Port view, Jeffer."

Something in her voice…the Grad looked. Off to the edge: a flash of silver? "I don't—"

"It's Mark! He's still out there!"

"I don't believe it."

But the silver pressure suit was crawling into view. The dwarf must have clung to the nets throughout that savage acceleration.

"Jeffer, let him in!"

"What a man! I…Lawri, I can't. The pressure's too low outside. We'd lose our air."

"He'll die out there!…Wait a minute. Open the doors one at a time. Hall that's why Klance calls it an airlocki So did the cassettes—"

"Sure, two doors to lock the air in. Okay." Muffled thumps sounded aft. The silver man wanted in. "Anthon, Clave, he may be dangerous. Take the spitgun away from him when he comes in." The Grad cleared all but the yellow display. No fast decisions from now on. He pinched both lines together-make sure they're closed tightl-then opened the outer door with a forefinger.

The silver man disappeared from view, into the airlock.

Good. Now close the outer line, wait-no red borders? Open the i

In her heart of hearts, Lawri may have hoped for a last-breath countermutiny from the Navy's toughest warrior. She gave up that hope when she saw his face. Mark was a dwarf, of course, and the bones of his face were massive, brutal; but his jaw hung slack and his breath came fast and his face was pale with shock. His eyes wavered about the cabin, seeking reassurance. "Minya?"

A dark-haired woman answered. "Hello, Mark."

Her voice was flat and her face was hostile. Mark nodded unhappily. Now he recognized Lawri. "Hello, Scientist's Apprentice. What now?"

"We're in the hands of mutineers," Lawri said, "and I wish they were better at flying what they've stolen."

The mutineers' First Officer said, "Welcome to Qui

"Navy, point man, armor. Name's Mark. Citizen doesn't sound too bad. Where we going?"

"Nobody seems to know. Now, we don't quite trust you, Mark, so we're going to tie you to a seat. That must have been quite a ride. Maybe you really are made of starstuf."