"Sure. You're not crippled, though."
"Thank you for taking care of me yesterday. I'm really grateful. I'm going to get better at this, I promise."
The Grad spoke without trying to move. "We'll all get better. The higher we get, the less we weigh. Pretty soon we'll be floating."
Clave trod carefully among citizens who were awake but not mobile. Gavvmg felt a stab of envy/anger. Clove didn't hurt. From the back of the nose-arm's burrow he selected a slab of smoked. meat ragged with harpoon wounds. "Take your time over breakfast," he instructed them.
"Eat. It's the easiest way to carry provisions—"
"And we burned a lot of energy yesterday," the Grad said. He moved like a cripple to join Clave and began tearing into a meter's length of what had been the nose-arm's rib. It made sense to Gavving, and he joined them. The meat had an odd, rank flavor. You could get used to it, he thought, if your life depended on it.
Clave moved among them, gnawing at his huge slab of meat. He sliced a piece off and made Merril take it. He listened to Jiovan describing his symptoms, then interrupted with, "You've got your wind back.
That's good. Now eat," handing him more of the steak. He cut the rest in half for Jayan and Jinny and spent a minute or two doing massage on their shoulders and hips. They winced and groaned.
Presently, when all had eaten something, Clave looked around at his team. "We'll circle to the east and get water half a day after we start. There's no room in here to do warm-up exercises; we'll just have to start moving. So saddle up, citizens. We'll have to 'feed the tree' in the open, and whether you actually feed the tree is up to the tide and the wind. Alfin, take the lead."
Alfin led them on an upward spiral, counterclockwise. Gavving found his aches easing as they climbed. He noticed that Alfin never looked down. Not surprising if Alfin didn't give a damn for those following him-but he never looked down.
Gavving did, and marveled at their progress. Two extended hands would have covered all of Quinn Tuft.
They delayed to repair the Q in a 1x_ mark. The sun had been horizontal in the east when they started. It was approaching Voy before they reached water-smoothed wood.
A rivulet flowed down a meandering groove. This time there was no natural perch. Nine thirsty citizens pounded spikes into the wood and hung by their lines to drink, wash, soak their tunics, and wring them out.
Gavving noticed Clave speaking to Alfin a little way below. He didn't hear what was said. He only saw what Alfin did.
"And suppose I don't?"
"Then you don't." Clave gestured upward, where the rest of them hung. "Look at them. I didn't choose them. What do I do if one of my citizens turns out to be a coward? I live with it. But I have to know."
Alfin looked white with rage. Not red with fury. There isn't any "white with rage"; white means fear, as Clave had learned long ago. A frightened man can kill…but Alfin's hands were clenched on his line, and Clave's harpoon was over his shoulder, easily reached.
"I have to know. I can't put you in the lead if you can't make yourself look down to see how they're doing. See? I'll have to put you where you don't hurt anyone else if you funk it. Tail-end Chancy. And if you freeze, I want to be sure nobody—"
"All right." Alfin dug in his pack, produced a spike and a rock. He pounded the spike in beside the one he was hanging from.
"Make sure you can depend on it. It's your life."
The second spike was in deeper than the first. Alfin tied the loose end of his line to both spikes and knotted it again. "And I leave you next to it?"
"You take that chance too. Or you don't. I have to know."
Aim leapt straight outward, trailing loops of line. He thrashed, then threw his arms over his face.
He fell slowly. We're all lighter, Gavving realized. It's real. I thought I was just feeling better, but we're lifting less-And Alfin was still falling, but now he'd uncovered his face. His arms windmilled to turn him on his back. Gavving noticed Clave's hand covering the spikes that moored Alfin's line. The line pulled taut and swung Alfin in against the tree.
Gavvmg watched him climb up. And watched him jump again, limbs splayed out as if he were trying to fly. It seemed he might make it, he fell so slowly; but presently the tide was pulling him down against the tree again.
"That actually looks like fun," Jayan said.
Jinny said, "Ask first."
Alfin didn't jump again. When he had climbed back up to Clave's position, and both had climbed to rejoin the team, Jinny spoke. "Can we try that?"
Alfin sent her a look like a harpoon. Clave said, "No, time to get moving. Saddle up."
Alfin was in the lead again when they set out. He made a point of pausing frequently to look back. And Gavving wondered.
Yesterday Alfin had swarmed all over the nose-arm, hacking like a berserker maniac, like Gavving himself. It was hard to believe that Allin was afraid of Clave, or of heights, or of anything.
The sun circled the sky, behind Voy and back to zenith, before they came to lee again. The water-smoothed wood was soft here, soft enough that they could cross with a spike in each hand, jab and yank and jab. They veered down to avoid scores of birds clustered on the wood. Scarlet-tailed, the birds were otherwise the grayish-brown of the wood itself.
When they reached the rivulet, it was smaller yet, but it was enough: they hung in the water and let it cool them and run into their faces and mouths. Clave shared out smoked meat. Gavving found himself ravenous.
The Grad watched the birds as he ate. Presently he burst out laughing. "Look, they've got a mating dance going."
"So?"
"You'll see."
Presently Gavving did see; and so did others, judging by Clave's bellowing laugh and the giggles from Jayan and Jinny. A gray-brown male would approach a female and abruptly spread his gray wings like a cloak. Under the gray was brilliant yellow, and a tube protruding from a splash of crimson feathers.
"The Scientist told me about them once. Flashers," said the Grad. His smile died as he said, "I wonder what they eat?"
"What difference does it make?" Alfin demanded.
"Maybe none." The Grad made his way upward toward the birds.
The birds flew off, then returned to dive at him, shrieking obscenities.
The Grad ignored them. Presently he returned.
Alfin asked, "Well?"
"The wood's riddled with holes. Riddled. The holes are full of insects. The birds dig in and eat the insects."
"You're in love," Alfin challenged. "You're in love with the idea that the tree's dying."
"I'd love to believe it isn't," the Grad said, but Alfin only snorted.
They spiraled around to the western side while the sun dipped beneath Voy and began to rise again. The wind was less ferocious now. But they were getting tired; there was almost no chatter. They rested frequently in crevasses in the hark.
They were resting when Mcml called, "Jinny? I'm hung up." A pincer the size of Clave's fist gripped the fabric of Merril's nearly empty pack. Merril pulled back against it. From a hole in the bark there emerged a creature covered in hard, brown, segmented plates. Its face was a single plate with a deeply inset eye. The body looked soft behind the last plate.
Jayan slashed where its body met the bark. The creature separated. It still clung to Merril's pack with idiot determination. Jayan levered the claw open with her harpoon and dropped the creature into her own pack.
When they had circled round to water again, Clave set water to boiling in the small, lidded pot. He made tea, refilled the pot, and boiled Merril's catch. It made one bite each for his team.
They wedged themselves into a wide crack with the shape of a lightning-stroke and moored themselves with lines. Together but separate, head to foot within the bark, they had no chance to converse, and no urge. Four days of climbing since breakfast left them too tired for anything but sleep.