The Smoke Ring

Booce answered from inside. “Stet. Spread the honey.”

Debby waved at Booce and Rather, but that was all the attention she gave them. She began spreading red sticky honey around the rim of the crater.

The swarm of insects followed her. When she closed the circle, most of the insects had migrated to the honey.

“Done!”

“Good. Get aboard. Clave, Rather, I’ve got to moor this thing. Want a ride?”

Clave bellowed, “Booce, you get out here and answer some questions!”

Booce’s head popped out. He thought it over, then flapped to join them. He looked indecently self-satisfied.

“It’s a termite nest,” he said before Clave could ask. “We’ll say we didn’t have any choice, it was the only tree around and we had to get back to the Clump because… I’ll think of something.”

“Uh-huh. The honey?”

“Encouragement. When the termites run out of honey they’ll eat wood. They’ll bond the nest to the Wart.”

“What about the silver suit? Were you just going to leave it?”

“Where would it be safer?”

“Jeffer’s all alone in the sky. He’d go crazy!”

Booce’s grimace told it all. Clave said, “He’s the Citizens Tree Scientist, and he is not a crazy murderer. He was in a fight with our lives at stake, Booce, and he used what he had. It was more powerful than he thought it was—”

“He used it twice.”

“Booce, if you’ve ever been a happyfeet bandit yourself, tell me now.”

Booce was astonished, then amused. “Oh, really! No, I’m not protecting my own kind. I’m not defending bandits that prey on loggers. Granted they’d generally rather attack some tribe of helpless savages. Your suspicions are right there, Clave, but it doesn’t mean I like bandits. I wouldn’t have burned a whole damn tribe either!”

“Uh-huh. You would have sent them away without hurting them so much. How? Describe the procedure in detail.”

“I can’t do that. Jeffer hasn’t told any of us how to fly the CARM! Clave, the Scientist is not to burn any tribe, ever again. I’m telling you, not him. You are to stop him.”

“I’ll tell him. Now what?”

“Oh…we’ll leave everything but the helmet where it is. Jeffer’s scientific eyes are in the helmet, right? Those little windows in the forehead? We’ll moor it in the nest. He’ll have a view. We’ll be spending enough time around the Wart; we’ll talk to him then.”

The CARM with its cameras was hidden in a dark place, the pressure suit was in another, the incoming recordings were days old, and in present time Jeffer wasn’t present. Kendy skimmed the recordings. He was learning more through Disciplined own senses.

Logbearer was easy to follow: forty kilometers of tree with tufts missing and a metal mass off-center, now rounding the starward limb of the L4 whorl. Maintaining contact wasn’t going to be easy here. Discipline’s new orbit had twice the period of Goldblatt’s World, with Voy periodically falling north of the L4 point. Tilting his orbit out of the Smoke Ring allowed his instruments to penetrate less of the garbage in the Clump; but the log and the CARM and all of Kendy’s citizens would be circling that center on long kidney-shaped paths.

At least he wouldn’t have to burn more fuel. If he could establish relations with the Admiralty, his present orbit might suffice for hundreds of years.

Savages in a thriving civilization would find trouble sooner or later. Patience. Some emergency would force Jeffer to bring the CARM into the L4 point. Then he must open the airlock to the Navy…

One problem at a time. Wait. Learn.

Jeffer entered the cabin before Kendy passed out of range. There was fresh pink blood on his tunic and more on his hands.

“Kendy for the State—”

“Hello, Kendy. How can we—”

“Jeffer, if Rather has an offer from the Navy, I want him to accept.”

“You would. Rather didn’t sound too enthusiastic. Neither am I. How can we get away with not hiding the silver suit?”

“An excellent question.” Kendy was using light amplification, but it only showed him iron ore and chewed wood. Clave and Rather had departed the hiding place. “If the Navy has pressure suits, they’ll recognize yours. I thought of disassembling it, but they’d know the helmet too. We would ruin the camera if we tried to dismount it, and the electrical source is in the helmet.”

“So?”

“Patience.”

“Feed your patience to the tree, Kendy. I’ve got a cryptic entry under ‘Lagrange Points’—”

“I’ve had three hundred and eighty-four years to leam r patience. You are almost out of range. Can you feed yourself there?”

“Sure. There’s hand fungus, and flashers living on the bugs, and some other things. In a way it’s like learning to hunt all over again…” The link was lost.

A chance to examine the Admiralty’s military arm from inside! But Rather wasn’t enthusiastic. And Kendy would have to talk Jeffer around before his arguments could even reach the boy.

Patience…

Chapter Fourteen

Docking

from Logbearer’s log. Captain Booce Serjent speaking:

YEAR 384, DAY 1700. THIS TRIP WE NEED NOT FEAR HAPPYFEET.

I FEAR JEFFER THE SCIENTIST. I FEAR THE SECRETS WE HIDE FROM THE ADMIRALTY AND THE SECRETS THE SCIENTIST KEEPS FROM ME. BUT I OWE A MAJOR DEBT TO CITIZENS TREE.

DAY1710. WE’VE FOUND A SIMPLE WAY TO HIDE OUR EMPTY CREWMEMBER. MAY I NEVER HAVE THE CHANCE TO THANK THE HAPPYFEET FOR MAKING IT POSSIBLE.

DAY 1780. WE’VE GONE FOR MORE PODS. ONE HAS BECOME OUR CABIN, ONE STORES EXTRA WATER IN CASE A FIRE SPREADS. RETURNING WITH A POD FOR LOG-BEARER’S CABIN GRATES IN MY SOUL, BUT IT WILL SURELY HIDE THE WEALTH WE CARRY.

DAY 1810. MAKING PAINTS GAVE MORE TROUBLE THAN I EXPECTED. THE COLORS ARE STILL POOR, BUT WILL SUFFICE. WE’VE PAINTED THE HONEY HORNET LOGO ACROSS LOGBEARER’S CABIN. NOW WE’LL SEE WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT MY CREW’S WINGS.

DAY 1996. ENTERED ADMIRALTY SPACE. GYRFALCON HAS REGISTERED LOG AND METAL FOR CUSTOMS. ASSESSMENT TO FOLLOW.

DAY 2000. LOG NEARING MARKET. METAL CONCEALED FROM ALL BUT NAVY. CONDITIONS OPTIMAL.

DAY 2015. DOCKED. SENT THE CREW OFF WITH CARLOT. WOULD HAVE GONE WITH THEM IF I COULD. I NEVER DEALT WITH TREE DWELLERS BEFORE. I CAN’T GUESS HOW THEY’LL REACT.

I MISS RYLLIN. I NEVER IN MY LIFE HAD TO WEAVE SO MANY THREADS AT ONCE.

A FAT, BABY-BLUE TORPEDO CRUISED SLOWLY ALONG the Serjent log, moving closer to where Rather and Carlot stood watch. Suddenly it split along its length, and four slender blue-and-orange triunes dived on some tree-dwelling life form.

Rather pointed. “Four?”

“Sometimes triunes have twins.”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“You never saw one of those either.” She pointed out a triangular shadow. “That’s a Dark shark. They don’t usually come this far skyward. They’re dangerous. All teeth, no brain.”

“Skyward?”

“Dark, skyward, spin, and antispin. We use all the normal directions too.”

“How do you keep it all straight?” Rather reached to wrap his legs lightly around her waist. She did not respond.

A ball of green fluff stretched a quarter klomter of curly tail toward a passing sphere of water.

Booce, Debby, and Clave were around the log’s horizon, ready to use the rocket if anything came near. Carlot and Rather kept watch from the east. “We can still keep our eyes on the sky,” Rather pointed out.

Carlot pounded his kneecaps with her fists, briskly.

“Who’s watching us?”

“I don’t mind triunes watching. Maybe I even like it.”