At waking they ate more of the smoked meat. "Let's look for more of those hard-shelled things," Clave suggested. "That was good." He didn't have to urge them to get moving. He never would, Gavving realized, as long as they couldn't sleep where water flowed.
This time Jiovan was given the lead. He took them on a counterclockwise spiral that brought them back to lee within half a day. Again the wood was soft and riddled with holes, and flashers swarmed below them. Alfin and Glory tended to lose ground in the leeward regions. Jiovan remarked on it and earned a look of dull hatred from Alfin.
The thing was that Alfin took more care setting his spikes than the rest did. And Glory didn't, so she lost time slipping and catching herself. They moored themselves in the stream and drank and washed.
Alfin spotted something far above them: gray nubs reaching out from the bark on both sides of the rivulet. He climbed, doggedly pounding spikes into the wood, and caine back with a fan-shaped fungus, pale gray with a red frill, half the size of his pack. "It could be edible," he said.
Clave asked, "Are you willing to try it?"
"No." He started to throw it away.
Merril stopped him. "We're here to keep the tribe from starving," she said. She broke a red-and-gray chunk from the fringe and ate a meager mouthful. "Not much taste, but it's nice. The Scientist would like it. You could chew it with no teeth." She took another bite.
Alfin broke off a piece of the grayish white inside, and ate that, looking as if he were taking poison. He nodded. "Tastes okay."
At which point there were more volunteers, but Clave vetoed that. When they departed, Clave veered upward to pick a bouquet of the fanshaped fungi. A meter-square fan rode like a flag above his pack.
The sun was rising up the east.
It was below Voy-you could look straight down along the trunk, past the green fuzzball that was Quinn Tuft, and see Voy's bright spark at the fringe of the soft sun-glow-and the west wind was blowing almost soffly across the ridges of the bank, when Gavving heard Merril shout, "Who needs legs?"
She was holding herself an arm's-length from the bark by a onehanded grip. He shouted down. "Merril? Are you all right?"
"I feel wonderful!" She let go and began to fall and reached out and caught herself "The Grad was right! We can fly!"
Gavving crawled toward her. Jinny was already below her, pounding in a spike. When Gavving reached them, Jayan was using the spike for support, with her line ready in her other hand. They pulled Merril back against the tree.
She didn't resist. She crowed, "Gavving, why do we live in the tuft? There's food here, and water, and who needs legs? Let's stay. We don't need any nose-arm cave, we can dig out our own. We've got nose-arm meat and those shelled things and the fan fungus. I've eaten enough foliage to last me the rest of my life! But if anyone wants it, we'll send down someone with legs."
We'll have to be careful of that fan fungus, Gavving thought. He was pounding spikes into bark, on the other side of Merril, Jiovan was doing the same. Where was Clave?
Clave was with Alfin, high above them, in furious inaudible argument.
"Come on, let's get going! What are you doing?" Merril demanded while Gavving and Jiovan bound her to the bark. "Or, listen, I've got a wonderful idea. Let's go back. We've got what we want. We'll kill another nose-arm and we, we'll grow fan fungus in the tuft. Then set up another tribe here. Claaave!" she bellowed as Clave and Alfin climbed down into earshot. "How would I do as Chairman of a colony?"
"You'd be terrific. Citizens, we'll be here for a while. Moor yourselves. Don't do any flying."
"I never thought it could be this good," Merril told them. "My parents-when I was little, they were just waiting for me to die. But they wouldn't feed me to the treemouth. I thought about it too, but I never did. I'm glad. Sometimes I thought of me as an example, something people need to be happy. Happy they have legs. Even one leg," she whispered hoarsely to Jiovan. "Legs! So what?"
Jiovan asked Clave, "How long do we have to put up with this?"
"You don't. Take, ah, take the Grad and find us a better place to sleep."
Jiovan looked about him. "Like what?"
"A cave, a crack or a bulge in the bark…anything that's better than hanging ourselves here like smoking meat."
"I'll go too," Alfin said.
"You stay."
"Clave, you do not have to treat me like a baby! I only ate from the middle of the thing. I feel fine!"
"So does Merril."
"What?"
"Never mind. You feel grouchy, and that's fine. Merril feels fine, and that's—"
"Alfin, I am so glad you didn't stop me from coming." Merril smiled radiantly at him. In that moment Gavving thought her beautiful.
"Thank you for trying, though. Feel sleepy," Merril said and went to sleep.
Alfin saw questioning eyes. He spoke reluctantly. "I, I thought I could talk the Chairman out of this idiocy. Sending a, a legless woman up the tree! Clave, I do feel fine. Wide-awake. Hungry. I'd like to try some more."
Clave removed a fan from his pack. He tore away some of the scarlet fringe, then offered Alfin a hand-sized piece of the white interior. If Alfin flinched, it was for too short a time to measure. He ate the whole chunk with a theatrical relish that had Clave grinning. Clave broke off the rest of the red fringe and pouched it separately.
Jiovan and the Grad returned. They had found a rQ mark overgrown with fungus like a field of gray hair. "Infected. We'll have to burn it out," the Grad said.
"Suppose it keeps on burning? We don't have any water," Clave said. "Never mind. Let's have a look. Jayan, Jinny, stay with Merril. One of you come get me if she wakes up."
They examined the fungus patch dubiously. Scraping out all that gray hair would be a dull job. Clave pulled up a wad and set fire to it. It burned slowly, sullenly.
"Let's try it. But get some of our packs emptied in case we have to beat it out."
The fungus patch burned slowly. The west wind wasn't strong at this height, and the smoke tended to sit within the fungus "hairs," smothering the fire. It kept putting itself out. Yet it crept around in glowing fringes, restarting itself. They had to back away as foul-smelling smoke built up in the vicinity.
The smoke was dissipating. Gavving moved in and found most of the fungus gone, the rest left as black char. The Q was two meters deep.
Clave made a torch from a chunk of bark and burned out some remaining patches. "Scrape that out and I think we can all sleep in it. Gavving, Jinny, you go back for Merril."
When they started to move her, Merril woke instantly, happy and active and bubbling with plans. They coaxed her across the bark, ready for anything, and presently moored her in the scraped-out bottom of the Q.
Then there was nothing for it but to settle into the Q for early sleep.
Merril slept like a baby, but others shifted restlessly. Desultory conversations started and stopped. Presently Clave asked, "Jiovan, how are you doing?"
"How do you mean?"
"I mean the whole trip. How are you doing?"
Jiovan snorted. "I'm hungry. I hurt a lot, but I'm used to that. I can climb. Do you mean how are we doing? We won't know that till we get home. Merril's out of her head right now, but she could be right too."
Clave was startled. "You mean, live here?"
"No, that's crazy. I mean go back now. Kill something and smoke it and collect more fan fungus and go home. We'd be heroes, as much as any hunt party that comes home with meat, and I don't mind telling you, I'm ready. I'm treefeeding sick of being one of the-the lames. I used tobethe one whofedthe tribe…and if thefan fungus will grow in the tuft—"