The Smoke Ring

“To move. You know the rule? West takes you in, in takes you east. I want the tree to move east, back to the Clump. So I cut the in tuft. Now I’ve got a west wind blowing on the out tuft, and nothing at the in stump to catch the wind. The tree accelerates west. It drops toward Voy. Things move faster when their orbits are closer to Voy, so the tree moves east. After a while I’m in from the Clump and still moving. That’s when I need the rocket. I have to cut off the other tuft, then fire the rocket to move the tree into the Clump.”

The dwarf boy asked, “What then?”

“Then I sell the log for what I can get, and hope nobody else brought a log in at the same time. If there are two of us competing, we might not get enough to pay us for the work.”

Most of the children looked puzzled. The dwarf asked, “What went wrong this time?”

Booce’s throat closed up. His decision! With some re- r lief he heard Ryllin say, “We were in a hurry. We thought we could get more water for the rocket. So we set the rocket going before the tuft dropped off. That started a fire. Wend was trying to get out of the huts when the water tank — well, it got too hot and—”

Booce jumped in, hastily. “The water tank split open. Wend got caught. Carlot and I were burned pulling her out of the steam. We were steering the log for that pond out there, and your tree moved in front of it, so it was the closest. So we made for it. And you found six of us clinging to the trunk like toes in hair, and — and Wend was dead, and the rest of us were ready to die, I think.”

The adults had all been served. The children drifted toward the cookpot. Booce ate. He’d let his stew get cold.

Likely he would never see the Clump again. It was as well. He and his family would be paupers there. He had never owned anything but Logbearer itself, and even that was gone. But was it really beyond belief that these people could build another Logbearer?

When all the adults were eating, the children drifted into line at the cookpot. Rather was just ahead of three tall and dark young women, and just behind his brother Harry.

“Take Jill’s place,” Rather told Harry.

“Why should I?”

“Beats me. Will you do it?”

“All right.”

The favor would be repaid. Rather would take Harry’s place at the cookpot or in the treadmill, or show him a wrestling trick; something. These things didn’t need discussion. Harry stepped out of line and talked to Jill where she was serving stew. Jill served herself and Harry took her place.

The blond girl joined Rather. “What’s that for?” she asked; but she seemed pleased.

“I’ve been listening to the old ones. Now I want to talk to the girls. Come along?” If they wouldn’t talk to a dwarf boy, maybe they’d talk to a girl.

They followed the Serjent girls as they made their exaggeratedly careful way across the commons’ wicker floor. The refugees settled slowly into the foliage, keeping their eyes fixed on their bowls. Stew still slopped over the edge of Carlot’s bowl. “The hole’s too big,” she said.

“You just need practice. — I’m Jill, he’s Rather.”

“How do you eat when you’re at the midpoint?”

Jill and Rather settled across from them. Rather stripped four branchlets for chopsticks. Jill said, “I’d take a smoked turkey along. What do you use? Bowls with smaller holes?”

“Yes, and we carry these.” Carlot produced a pair of bone sticks, ornately carved. “You’re lucky. You’ve always got…spine branches?”

“These are branchlets. The spine branches are the big ones.”

The third girl, Karilly, had not spoken. She was concentrating fully on her bowl.

Mishael said, “You seem to be happy.”

Rather found the comment disconcerting. “What do you mean?”

“You, all of you. You’ve got your tree and it’s all you need. Lumber from the bare end of the branch. The clothes you wear, the cloth comes from branchlet fibers, doesn’t it?”

“It’s foliage with the sugar washed out.”

“And the dye is from berries. Water comes ru

“Right.” Rather thought, We don’t know how to do that. The CARM is all that keeps us from being savages. Is that how they see us? “We had to leave the tree to get our lines. And “the adults keep talking about earthlife crops. They couldn’t bring seeds and eggs with them.”

“You could buy them in the Market if you were rich enough.”

Jill said, “We don’t know those words. Rich? Buy?”

Carlot said, “Rich means you can have whatever you want.”

“Like being Chairman?”

“No—”

Mishael took over. “Look, suppose you want earthlife seeds or pigeons or turkeys. Stet, you go to the Market and you find what you want. Then you’ve got to buy it. You need something to give the owner. Metal, maybe.”

“We don’t have much metal,” Rather said. “What are the people like? Like you?”

“Sometimes,” Carlot said. “What do you mean? Tall? Dark? We get dark and light, short and…well, mostly we’re about as tall as me, and the men are taller.”

“No dwarves?”

“Oh, of course there are dwarves. In the Navy.”

“What do you think of dwarves?” He hadn’t meant to ask so directly; he hadn’t realized how important the question was to him.

Carlot asked, “What do you think of my legs?”

Rather blushed. “They’re fine.” They were hidden anyway; Carlot was wearing the scarlet tunic and pantaloons of Citizens Tree.

“One’s longer than the other. My teacher’s got one leg longer than mine and one leg like yours, and it never bothers him. And the Admiral’s got an arm like a turkey wishbone. I’ve seen him. We’re all kinds. Rather.”

It was Mark’s habit to eat near the cauldron, where others might find him. Rarely did he get company. This day he was mildly surprised when Clave and Minya settled themselves across from him. They plucked branchlets and ate. Presently Clave asked, “What do you think of the Serjents?”

“They’re doing all right.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Clave said, while Minya was saying, “What will they do to Citizens Tree?”

“Oh.” Mark thought it over. “Half of you came from the in tuft of a broken tree. You were from the out tuft, Minya. Three from Carther States. Lawri and me from London Tree. London Tree used to raid Carther States for copsiks. Fourteen years we’ve been living here, and nobody’s killed anyone yet. We can live with the Serjents too.”

Clave said, “Oh, we can live with them—” while Minya wondered, “What do they think of us?”

Clave snorted. “They think we’re a little backward, and they’d like to talk us into going to the Clump.”

Where was this leading? Mark asked, “Are you thinking they want the CARM?”

“No, not that. Not impossible either…Have you talked to Gavving or Debby lately?”

“They don’t like my company. Neither do you, Minya.”

Minya ignored that. “They’re trying to figure out how to build a steam rocket, starting with just the metal tube they brought back!”

“Uh-huh” Mark saw the point now. “They can build us a machine that moves trees around. They can tell us why we should all go to the Clump. So you’re a little nervous. Chairman? We could lose half the tribe. Lawri keeps saying there aren’t enough of us now.”

“And what do you want. Mark?”

Mark would have wished for a wife or three, but he saw no point in telling Clave or Minya that. “I want nothing from the Clump. We’re here. Twelve adults, twenty children, happy as dumbos in Citizens Tree. We shouldn’t be a

Clave nodded. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”