The Integral Trees

How did she feel? Her impregnation was part of her past. The past was dead for anyone, but stone dead for these citizens, with hundreds of thousands of klomters and the storms of Gold itself between them and their homes. She would have a child. Time was when she had given up hope of that…but how did Gavving feel?

Merril said, "Nobody's talking about Sharls Davis Kendy."

"What for?" Debby wondered. "He never bothered us before and he never will again."

"Still, it's something to have seen the Checker, isn't it? Something to tell our children. Someone that old must have learned a lot—"

"If he wasn't lying, or crazy."

"He had the facts right," the Grad said. "We did take him at his word, didn't we? Maybe he only had cassettes, like me. A dwarf Scientist, stuck out there in a carm, like we almost were. He's not all that bright, either. He swallowed Mark's story—"

"Come on, I was brilliant!" the silver man bellowed.

"You tell a fine story. Mark, why did you back me up?"

It was a breath or two before the dwarf answered. "You understand that I can't support a bloody copsik revolution."

"Okay. Why?"

"It was none of this Kendy's business. Whoever he is. Whatever he is.”

"Yeah…He did have some interesting machinery. Maybe he got stuck aboard Discipline itself, somehow. I'd have liked to see Discipline."

Lawri hadn't even tried pumping. She flexed her fingers, wondering if they would heal. She had smelled the stink of fear on herself. That at least was gone.

She said, "I wouldn't deal with Sharls Davis Kendy if he gave me Discipline. Ugly, arrogant treefeeder. He wanted Mark dead like you'd kill a turkey, because it's time. Convenient. And he ordered us around like copsiks!"

They laughed at that. Even Mark.

At the end of three hours their forearms were distilled pain. The blue indicator inside read H20: 260. The Grad asked Lawri, "Enough?"

"For what we've got in mind—"

"We wondered about going home," Debby said.

Clave snorted, but they waited for Lawri's reply. She said reluctantly,

"I'd never find London Tree again. Carther States is even smaller, and they're both on the wrong side of Gold. We'd have to accelerate west, drop in from the Smoke Ring, and let Gold pull us around. Do you want to go for Gold again?"

She smiled at their reactions. "Me neither. I'm tired. We can get to another tree and moor the carm. We'll build a pump before we need more water than that."

"We'd prefer a jungle, of course," Ilsa said.

One of the women bristled. "Nine of us and three of you! If—"

Clave said, "Hold it, Merril. Ilsa, are you sure? You can move a jungle, and that's good, right?"

Ilsa nodded cautiously. Anthon said, "That's one of the things we like about jungle life."

"But you can only do it every twenty years or so. We can moor the carrier…carm to the middle of an integral tree and move it when and where we like."

"Why not do that with a jungle?"

"Where would you mount the carm?"

Anthon thought it over. "The fu

There was a grove of eight small trees, thirty to fifty kilometers long.

The Grad chose the biggest, without asking. He hovered on the forward jets at the western reach of the in tuft.

It was a wilderness. A stream ran down the trunk and directly into the treemouth. He looked for the rounded shapes of distorted old huts, and they weren't there. The foliage around the treemouth had never been cut; there were no paths for burial ceremonies or moving of garbage. No earthlife showed, not even as weeds.

It was daunting. He said cheerily, "It seems we're the first here. Lawri, have you thought of a way to land this thing?"

"You have the helm."

He'd thought it through in detail. "I'm afraid our best move is to moor at the trunk and go down."

"Climb?"

"We did it before. Clave could lead most of us down while, say, Gavving and I wait. We'd have the carm for rescue operations. After the rest of you get down, Gavving and I can follow. We've climbed before—"

"Hold it," Clave said. "This is taking too treefeeding long. Grad, quit fooling around and just land in the treemouth."

"We might set it on fire!"

"Then we try again with another tree!"

Lawri had gone berserk at the suggestion of landing in the treemouth of London Tree. Now she just rubbed her eyes. Tired.

They were all too tired. They'd had enough of shocks and strangeness. Clave was right, delay would be torment, and there were trees to waste.

There was no kind of landing site in that wilderness. Everything he saw was green; there was no drought here. Would it burn?

He went in over the treemouth and rammed the carm into the foliage hard enough to stick. Still shaken by the impact, they forced their way through the doors, fast, and flailed with ponchos at the smoldering fires until they went out.

Then, finally, they had time to look around.

Minya stood panting, gri

Gavving laughed. "I didn't know you liked copter plants."

"I didn't either. But in London Tree they weeded out the copter plants and flowers and anything else they couldn't use." She tapped at one, two, three ripe plants, and the seed pods buzzed upward. Suddenly she was looking into his eyes, close. "We did it. Just like we pla

"Six of us. Six out of Qui

"Twelve of us. More to come."

She had fought the fire with a predatory grace unhampered by the thickening around her hips. Mine, Gavving thought. Whether it looks like me or some copsik ru

He'd tell her when the mood was right. But that was too serious for now. "Okay, everything you see is ours. What shall we call it?"

"The thing I like best…I can say citizen and mean all of us. I'm no copsik and I'm not a triune. Citizens' Tree?"

The foliage tasted like Qui

He became aware that Lawri was watching him from the dappled shadows. She looked cold, or just twitchy, hugging her elbows, cringing as if from a blow. He snapped, "Can't you relax? Eat some foliage."

"I did. It's good," she said without inflection.

It was irritating. "All right, what's got you worried? Nobody's ever going to call you a copsik ru

Now she wouldn't meet his eyes. "Jeffer, how does this sound? There are only two London Tree citizens for at least ten thousand kiometers around. Doesn't it stand to reason that we'd…get along best together?"

He sat back on his haunches. Why ask him? "I suppose it does."

"Well, Mark thinks so too."

"Okay."

"He didn't have to say so. We talked a little about building huts, that's all, but he looks at me like he knows. Like, he's too polite to broach the subject yet, but where else can I go, who else is there? Jeffer, don't make me marry a dwarf!"

"Uh…huh."

She turned, convulsively, to see his face. He held up a hand to stop her from speaking. "In principle, two Scientists ought to make good mates too. Does that make sense? But you watched me murder Klance. I didn't warn him. I didn't make any speeches about copsiks and freedom and war and justice. I just killed him the first good chance I got. I'd have killed you too to get us free of that place."

She didn't nod, she didn't speak.