He retrieved his bow and quiver, made his way to the rope he’d left dangling, and prepared for the first stage of his descent. He passed the rope through a metal figure-of-eight ring, clipped the ring to his belt, and stood up in his webbing stirrups. He slid easily downwards, controlling the run of the rope through the ring with his hand. The figured-eight ring, scuffed and worn with use, rang softly as he descended.
The canopy, fifty yards above the forest floor, was a twenty-yard-deep layer of vegetation. Arrow Maker was soon screened from the breeze of the topmost level, and the air grew moist, humid, comfortable.
He found a liana and cut it open; water spurted into his mouth. On his last visit to the canopy, Arrow Maker had spotted a fig-tree which had looked close to fruiting; he decided to take a detour there before returning to Uvarov. He wrapped his rope around his waist, tucked his climbing gear into his belt, and clambered across the canopy, working his way from branch to branch.
Moss and algae coated the bark of the trees and hung from twigs in sheets, making the wood dangerously slippery. Lianas, fig roots and the dangling roots of orchids, bromeliads and ferns festooned the branches like rope. Leaves shone in the gloom, like little green arrow-heads. Some of the flowers, designed to catch the attention of hummingbirds and sunbirds, gleamed red in the gloom; others, pale, fetid, waited patiently for bats to eat their fruit and so propagate their seeds.
Beyond the clutter of life, Maker could see the branchless trunks of the canopy trees. The trunks rose like columns of smoke through the greenery, smooth and massive.
The fig-tree was an incongruous tangle sprouting from the trunk of a canopy tree, a parasite feeding off its host tree. As he approached the fig he knew he’d been right about the fruiting. A parrot hung upside down from a branch, its feathers brilliant crimson, munching at a fig it held in one claw. The rich smell of ripe figs wafted from the leaves, and the branches were alive with animals and birds.
There was even a family of silver-leaf monkeys. Maker got quite close to one female, with a baby clinging to her back. For a few moments Maker watched her working at the fruit; she seemed to sniff each fig individually, as if trying to determine from the perfume if it was ready to consume. At last she found a fig to her liking and crammed it whole into her mouth, while her baby mewled at her neck.
The female suddenly became aware of Arrow Maker. Her small, perfect head swiveled toward him, her eyes round, and for an instant she froze, her gaze locked with Maker’s. Then she turned and bounded away through rustling leaves, lost to his sight in a moment.
He worked his way toward the fig, shouting and clapping his hands to scare the scavengers away. He even roused a cluster of fruit bats, unusually feeding during the day; they scattered at his approach, their huge, loose, leathery wings rustling.
At length he reached the bough of the canopy tree, which was wrapped around with fig roots. This was actually a strangler fig, he realized; the crown of the fig was so dense that it was blocking out the light from its host and would eventually take its place in the canopy.
“Arrow Maker.”
His name was whispered, suddenly, close behind him. He turned, startled, and almost lost his grip on the algae-coated branch below him; his bow rattled against his bare back, clumsily.
It was Spinner-of-Rope. Her face was round in the gloom as she grinned at him. Spinner, his older daughter, was fifteen years old, and her short, slim body was as lithe as a monkey’s. She bore a full sack at her back. A bright smear of scarlet dye crossed her face, picking out her eyes and nose like a mask; her hair was shaven back from her scalp and dangled in a fringe over her ears down to her shoulders, rich black. Her metal spectacles shone in the green light.
“Got you,” she said.
He tried to recover his dignity. “That was irresponsible.”
She snorted and rubbed at her stub of a nose. “Oh, sure. I saw you creeping up on that poor silver-leaf. With her baby, too.” Squatting in the branches, she moved toward him menacingly. “Maybe I should climb on your back and see how you like it — ”
“Don’t bother.” He settled against the bough of the tree, pulled a fig from a branch and bit into it. “What’s in the sack?”
“Figs, and honeycombs, and a few tubers I dug up earlier from the floor… I breakfasted on beetle grubs from inside a fallen trunk down there.” She looked remote for a moment as she remembered her meal. “Delicious… What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were down with old Uvarov.”
“I am. In principle. It’s my turn…”
The tribe’s fifty people lived out most of their lives in the canopy. So Garry Uvarov had instituted a rota, designating folk who had to spend time with him on the floor below. Uvarov raged if the rota was broken, insisting that even the rota itself was older than any human alive, save himself.
“Uvarov sent me up top — to the giant kapok — to see if the stars had changed.”
Spinner grunted; she took a fig herself and ate it whole, like a monkey. She wiped her lips on a leaf. “Why?”
“I don’t know…”
“Then he’s an old fool. And so are you.”
Arrow Maker sighed. “You shouldn’t say things like that, Spinner. Uvarov is an old man — an ancient man. He remembers when the ship was launched, and — ”
“I know, I know.” She picked seeds from her teeth with her little finger. “But he’s also a crazy old man, and getting crazier.”
Arrow Maker decided not to argue. “But whether that’s true or not, we still have to care for him. We can’t let him die. Would you want that?” He searched her face, seeking signs of understanding. “And if you — and your friends — don’t take your turns in the rota — ”
“Which we don’t.”
” — then it means that people like me have to carry more than our fair share.”
Spinner-of-Rope grinned in triumph, her face paint vivid. “So you admit you resent having to tend for that old relic down there.”
“Yes. No.” With a few words she’d made him intensely uncomfortable, as she seemed to manage so often, and so easily. “Oh, I don’t know, Spinner. But we can’t let him die.”
She bit into another fig, and said casually, “Why not?”
“Because he’s a human being who deserves dignity, if nothing else,” he snapped. “And — ”
“And what?”
And, he thought, I’m afraid that if Uvarov is allowed to die, the world will come to an end.
The world was so obviously artificial.
The forest was contained in a box. It was possible to shoot an arrow against the sky. There were holes in the floor, and whole levels — the domain of the Undermen — underneath the world. Hidden machines brought light to the sky-dome each day, caused the rain to fall over the waiting leaves, and pumped the air around the canopy tops. Perhaps there were more subtle machines too, he speculated sometimes, which sustained the little closed world in other ways.
The world must seem huge to Spinner. But it had become small and fragile in Arrow Maker’s eyes, and as he grew older he became increasingly aware of how dependent all the humans of the forest were on mechanisms that were ancient and inaccessible.
If the mechanisms failed, they would all die; to Arrow Maker it was as simple, and as unforgettable, as that.
Garry Uvarov was an old fool in a wheelchair, with no obvious influence on the mechanisms which kept them all alive. And yet, it seemed undoubtedly true that he was indeed as old as he claimed — that he was a thousand years old, as old as the ship itself — that he remembered Earth.