The Integral Trees

The CARM filed it.

It had worked! At least he could look them over, get to know them a little, before they were gone. After five hundred and twelve years!

The cold had gotten to the jungle giants. Anthon and Debby and Ilsa were curled into a friendly, cuddling, shivering ball, with the spare ponchos pulled around them.

The other passengers were taking it better. There were ponchos for everyone but Mark, and two to spare. One they tore into scarves. Ji

The silver man seemed cheerful enough, despite the lines that held him immobile in his chair. "Fine, thanks."

"Is that suit thick enough?"

"Damn it, woman, you're the one who's shivering. This suit keeps its own temperature, just like the carm. If anyone needs my scarf. you want it?"

Ji

"Of course, I'd be even better off with my helmet closed," Mark said, and they laughed as if he'd said something fu

The Grad had made a torch from one of the scarves plus fat scraped from the skin of the salmon bird. He was about to light it when he noticed mist before his face. He blew…white smoke. Everyone save Horse was breathing white smoke, as if they were all using tobacco.

"If you think something's leaking, breathe on it!" he a

"Watch your breath. No, Jayan, forget the doors. Voice has sensors there."

Lawri did something to the controls "I'm turning up the humidity-the wetness in the air. More fog that way."

Citizens took their turns at the control panel to find the blank spots in the yellow diagram. The Grad began the uncomfortable job that others might miss: he crawled between the seats, edging around the cold corpse of Gavving's friend, blowing mist where the floor joined the starboard wall.

Merril called, "I've got it. It's the bow window."

A crowd of citizens crawled around the rim of the bow window, blowing, watching the pale smoke form streamlines where the window joined the hull. The window was loose around the ventral-port corner.

"Keep looking," Lawri ordered. "There may be more."

She herself made her way aft. The Grad joined her at the back wall. "What have you got in mind? Is there a way to plug the leaks?"

Voice began a countdown. Lawri waited while small jets fired. The cluster of jungle giants sagged against the aft wall without falling apart. Ilsa giggled. She must be still floating from the spitgun drug.

The burn ended. Lawri said, "Maybe. Have we got something to hold water?"

The Grad called, "We need squeezegourds!"

They found three. Merril collected them and brought them back. Jayan and Ji

Lawri turned a valve. Brown water oozed from the aft wall, formed a growing globule.

"It's mud!" Merril said in disgust.

Lawri said, "We put pond water in. The carm breaks the pure water into hydrogen and oxygen, but it leaves the goo behind. Every so often we have to clean it out. That's why there's an eject system, and you can be damn glad of it."

"We can't drink that stuff. We should have picked up Minya's water supply."

"Say that if we live long enough to get thirsty." Lawri took the gourds and filled them from the brown globule. Merril winced, watching each of their water gourds become fouled.

Lawri went forward with the gourds. Would she plug the leak with mud? He could do it himself, now, if Lawri balked; but he wanted her on his side, as far as that was possible.

Lawri squeezed muddy water along the rim of the bow window.

Mist showed outside. The glass began to frost. The water stayed where she put it, in a long brown bubble. Over the next several minutes-while Lawri alone watched the controls-the water dwindled and thickened to a darker brown. Presently it began to turn hard.

Clave said, "Grad? Is it working?"

The Grad had read of ice. It was no more real to him than the liquefied gases in the tanks. He looked to Lawri.

Lawri met his eyes and said, "I will not accept the position of Scientist's Apprentice."

After such a performance, was she quitting on them? Clave spoke first, and in haste. "I'm certain there's room in Qui

"I've saved you. Now I want to go home to London Tree. That's all I want."

She's earned it, the Grad thought, but— Clave said, "Point to it."

The carm was nose-down to the Smoke Ring. Closest was the storm pattern that surrounded and cloaked Gold, a turbulent spiral of cloud, humped in the middle. The whole pattern drifted west at a speed that looked sluggish, but must be quick beyond imagination. The arms of the Smoke Ring reached away in both directions. They could see the flow of cloud currents, faster toward Voy, drifting backward near the carm. Minor details-like integral trees-were invisibly small.

"You're the Scientist," Clave said. "Could you get us back to London Tree?"

Lawri shook her head. She began to shiver; and once begun, she couldn't stop. Minya got her the last of the ponchos and they wrapped it around her, then tied a strip of cloth round her head and throat. She said, "We're not losing air anymore. Leave the humidity up and we won't get thirsty so fast. Jeffer, I'm cold and tired and lost. I can't make decisions. Don't bother me."

They weren't human.

Kendy had watched them for a bit. They had the temperature turned far down. Kendy was going to fix it, until he realized that the lowered temperature had slowed the leak.

They must have kept some of the old knowledge. But the cold was killing them too. He watched the really strange ones succumb first and crawl into a ball to wait for their deaths.

The CARM's medical sensors indicated a corpse and twelve citizens, not one of them quite normal. One had no legs. If lethal recessive genes were appearing in the Smoke Ring, it might point to inbreeding. Otherwise they seemed healthy. He saw no scars or pockmarks, no sign of disease-which was reasonable. Discipline had carried none of the parasites or bacteria that had adapted over the millions of years to prey on humanity. They didn't even show the sores that came with insufficient bathing.

The abnormal height, the long, vulnerable necks and long, fragile fingers and long, long toes, must be evolution at work, an adaptation to the free-fall environment.

He would have his problems, bringing these back into the State. In its way this small group was a perfect test sample. He could make his mistakes here and never pay a penalty. In time the CARM would be found by other savages.

Time to make his appearance.

Lawri was eating raw salmon bird, clearly hating it, but eating. Jayan and Ji

Something was happening to the bow window: a pattern like a colored shadow, occluding the view.

"Lawri? Have you done something?"

"Something's wrong…I've never seen anything like…" she trailed off.

The carm was silent. A ghostly face filled the bow window. It took on color, huge and transparent, with the storms around Gold showing through.

It was brutal, with bushy brown hair and brows; thick brow ridges and cheekbones; a square, muscular jaw; a short neck as thick in proportion as a man's thigh. A face that resembled Mark's or Harp's. A gigantic dwarf. It spoke in Voice's voice.