The Smoke Ring

Chapter Nine

The Rocket

from Logbearer’s log. Captain Booce Serjent speaking:

YEAR 384, DAY 1280. TEN DEGREES WEST OF THE CLUMP. WE’VE FOUND A GROVE AND CHOSEN A SHORT ONE, 30 KLOMTERS.

DAY 1300. REFUELED IN A RAINCLOUD. EVERYTHING’S WET.

DAY 1310. ANCHORED AT MIDPOINT OF TREE.

DAY 1330. RYLLIN AND KARILLY MUST HAVE LAID THE HONEY TRACK BY NOW. BUGS ARE FOLLOWING THEM DOWN TO THE TUFT. I’LL TAKE LOGBEARER IN TO PICK THEM UP. WE’RE ALL EAGER TO RETURN TO THE ADMIRALTY, BUT THERE’S NO WAY TO HURRY THE BUGS.

DAY 1335. RYLLIN AND KARILLY ARE ABOARD. FROM THE IN TUFT THEY SPOTTED A POND 50 KLOMTERS WEST AND A LITTLE IN. THE WOMEN ARGUE THAT WE CAN FIRE UP THE ROCKET AND START OUR RETURN WITH OUT WAITING FOR THE BUGS. THE POND WILL LET US REFILL THE WATER TANK. IT WOULD GAIN US TWENTY TO THIRTY DAYS.

NOW IT’S MY CHOICE. THERE’S A RISK, BUT I’VE NEVER YET HELD OUT AGAINST THE WOMEN. I’LL GIVE UP EARLY, SAVE TIME.

DAY 1360. THE BUGS HAVE REACHED THE HONEY BAND AROUND THE IN TUFT. ORDINARILY I WOULD BE DOWN THERE SUPERVISING, BUT I CAN’T DO THAT WHILE WE’RE UNDER ACCELERATION. 

WE MAINTAIN STAGGERED WATCHES AGAINST HAPPYFEET. IF THEY FIND US WE CAN READY LOGBEARER FOR INDEPENDENT FLIGHT IN HALF A DAY. THE ROCKET IS HOT AND RUNNING.

DAY 1370. I’LL STOP FEEDING THE PIPEFIRE SOON. LET IT BURN OUT BEFORE THE BUGS CUT THE TUFT LOOSE. I CAN GUIDE US INTO THE POND ON THE LAST OF OUR STEAM.

IF THE ROCKET RUNS DRY IT’LL TEACH THE GIRLS CAUTION. WE’LL STILL FILL THE TANK BEFORE WE REACH THE CLUMP . YOU ALWAYS BUMP A POND OR TWO WHEN YOU’RE MOVING.

DAY 1380. A MATURE TREE IS DRIFTING TO BLOCK OUR PATH. DAMMIT. MAYBE IT’LL MOVE PAST.

NO FURTHER ENTRIES.

THE CARM PICKED THEM UP ON THE BRANCH AND REturned to its dock with the cabin half filled with foliage. Rather suspected that they would not eat foliage again, nor sleep in decent tide, for a long time.

He heard the argument when Clave wanted to restart the motor. “There’s no point,” Jeffer told him. “We’d be using fuel to fight wind. We’re doing fine.”

Booce added his voice to Jeffer’s. “We’ll sail even further in after the tuft severs. Leave us something to breathe!”

Had anyone else seen Clave glance aft? Clave had taken less than a breath to read the faces of his crew, but Rather had caught it.

Not so long ago, far away in Citizens Tree, Gavving had spoken thus to his eldest son: “You’re a citizen now. Watch Clave during a meeting. He leads where we’ll go. He always has. You don’t have to go Clave’s way just because Clave says so…”

The motor stayed off.

The tree moved ponderously west and in. Its westward motion slowed over several days. The days were shorter, and Voy had come nearer. The smallest children learned never to look directly at Voy; but Rather could tell. In the corner of his eye the violet-white pinpoint was more intense, closer and smaller, with less sky to blur and distort it.

It took six days to make a sleep; then seven. Time whirled around them until they stopped caring. The journey had become more important than their destination.

The crew lived on the bark, all but Jeffer. They found the CARM too strange. Even Rather left the CARM after a few sleeps. He had learned that he liked strangeness; but he sensed that Jeffer saw him as an intruder. The Scientist captains the CARM.

Debby and Booce disappeared down the trunk to monitor the progress of the bugs. They returned with smoked dumbo meat and two cured skins, which Booce shaped into armor that looked remarkably like the silver suit.

“We won’t use it this trip, but it’s standard gear. The Navy will expect us to have it.”

A grove of integral tree sproutlings passed Voy-ward of the tree, the first the citizens had ever seen. They were a few scores of meters long, tufted only at the out end.

“The seeds drop away, out and in,” Booce told them. “After they sprout, they have to sail back to the median. They’ll grow the other tuft when there’s enough to feed them.”

The day came when Carlot called her father and pointed outward. “Isn’t that a pod grove?”

Backlit by the sun, the cluster might almost have been a miniature tree grove hundreds of klomters out. “Small …yes. Too far, though.”

“Why?” Debby asked.

“Well, it’d take too long to…I’d forgotten the CARM. Let’s ask Jeffer.”

Jeffer summoned up his windows-within-windows. “Sure, we can get there. Clave, want to take a trip?”

“Can we find our way back? The tree looks big when you’re tied to it, but from six hundred klomters away—”

“Trust me.”

Forty plants grew in a loose cluster, all much alike.

From a fibrous cup that faced west, a long, limp leaf trailed eastward, waving sluggishly in the wind. A thick vine reached a hundred meters out from the boll, ending in a kind of collar. Each collar held a brown egg-shape.

“Those are jet pods,” Debby realized suddenly. “We used to ride them in Carther States.”

Booce directed Rather to one of the largest plants. Carlot and Debby hung back. Rather the Silver Man circled the pod, cautious in the face of a new thing: a fibrous brown egg as big as the common room in his father’s hut.

There was tide enough to pull the vine taut. Smaller pods grew in a spiral around the stem end, ranging from fistsized to man-sized. Replacements, he surmised, that would grow after the ripe one dropped away.

Satisfied, Rather wrapped his legs around the stem for leverage and swung his matchet.

The sound blasted his whole body. The sky spun round him. Tide was pulling him apart. His fingers and toes felt like they were inflating as spin pulled blood into them.

Against the tide that was pulling him rigid, Rather forced his legs vertical to his torso, pulled an arm against his chest, and fired the ankle jets. The spi

Battered and deafened, he pulled his helmet open to hear what Booce was shouting at him.

“That one was ripe! Try another plant!”

Rather jetted toward the grove. Booce guided him from a distance. “No, that one’s stunted. We want a big one.”

“Aren’t the big ones likely to be riper?”

“That’s why we use armor! Try there—”

The pod exploded, blowing him west and away, while seeds sponged off the silver suit. The spin was less this time; the blow had been more direct. Rather opened his helmet. “I think I had more fun on the tree!”

“It’s too wet here. The pods like to spread their seeds when there’s water around. Try that one. Close your helmet!”

Rather seriously considered telling the alien merchant to go feed himself to the tree. But he was already moving toward a third vine. There isn’t any other Silver Man, he thought. He swung viciously at the base of the pod. And what am I, if I’m not the Silver Man?

The pod dropped out and away. Carlot and Debby flapped after it.

The next one didn’t explode either. Rather chased the seed pod down, with Booce chasing him. They braced their shoulders against the pod and started back. They were near the CARM when Rather’s jets died.

He fiddled with the throttle wheels. Nothing.

“Booce! Don’t leave me!”

“What’s wrong?”

“The suit won’t move!”

Booce laughed. “Are we going to have to put wings on that thing?”

“Can you push me—”

“Can and will. Here comes Debby. I’ll push you and the ladies can have the pods.” Booce seemed indecently cheerful, and Rather was a long time understanding why. Booce had found a flaw in Citizens Tree’s intimidating science.