The Grad jumped in. "Don't you see, we can't fight and we can't negotiate! We've got one good fighter, and two cripples and a boy and four women and a treemouth tender, and all of us thrown out of Quinn Tuft, we can't even make promises—"
Clave broke in. "Alfin, you're for leaving too?"
"Jiovan?"
"What are we running from?"
"Maybe nothing. That mark wasn't tended for a long time. Treefodder, the drought could have killed them off! We could settle the far tuft—"
Merril broke in, though she was puffing from the climb. "Oh no. if everyone died there…we won't want to…go anywhere near it. Sickness."
"Are you for going back or going on?"
"I don't…back, I guess, but…let's get that…big fan fungus first. Wouldn't that impress the citizens! And smoke another nosearm…if we can. Far as that goes…we know there's meat to be hunted on the trunk. We should tell the Chairman that."
"Jayan? Jinny?"
"She makes sense," Jinny said, and Jayan nodded.
"Gavving?"
"No opinion."
"Treefodder. Glory?"
"Go back," Glory said. "I haven't tasted foliage in days and days."
Clave sighed. "If I was sure I was right, we'd go on. Aaall right." His voice became fuller, more resonant. "We'll have enough to carry anyway, what with the giant fan and whatever meat we find. Citizens, we've done very well for ourselves and Quinn Tuft. We go home as heroes. Now, I don't want to lose anyone on the way down, so don't take the tide for granted! It'll get stronger with every klomter. Most of the way down we'll need lines for the meat and the fan fungus—"
Their goals had become Clave's own. Gavving noticed, and remembered.
The flashers had come back. Minya watched them at their mating dance. Two males strutted before. the same femhle with their wingcloaks spread wide, and the female's head snapped back and forth almost too fast to see. Decisions, decisions… "Something's been worrying you, woman."
Decisions. Was it any of Smitta's business? Minya made a swift decision: she had to talk to someone, or burst. "I've started wondering if-if I'm right for the Triune Squad."
Smitta showed shock. "Really? You were eager enough to join eight years ago. What's changed?"
"I don't know."
But she did, and suddenly Smitta did too. "Don't talk to Sal about this. She wouldn't understand."
"I was only fourteen."
"You looked older…more mature. And maybe the loveliest recruit we ever got."
Minya grimaced. "Every man in the tuft wanted to make babies with me. I must have heard every possible way of saying that. I just didn't want to do that with anyone. Smitta, that's what the Triune Squad is for!"
"I know. What would I be without the Triune Squad? A woman born as a man, a man who wants to be a woman…”
"Do you ever want—" What was the right word? Not make babies, not for Smitta.
"I used to," Smitta said. "With Risher — he was a lot prettier once — and lately with Mik, the Huntmaster's boy." Minya flinched. Maybe Smitta noticed. "We give all that up when we join. You just have to hold it inside. You know that."
"Does anyone ever…"
"What? Quit? Cheat? Alse jumped into the sky, a little after I joined, but nobody really knows why. That's the only way to quit. If you get caught cheating, I can name some would tear you apart. Sal's one."
Tight lips and clenched teeth held back Minya's secret. Now Smitta did notice. "Don't get caught cheating," she repeated. "Maybe you don't know how citizens feel about us. They tolerate us. We won't give the tribe babies, so we do the most dangerous jobs anyone can think of, and pay the debt that way. But you don't ask any ordinary man to, you know, help you be in both worlds."
Minya nodded. Lips pressed together, teeth clenched: if only she had kept them that way when she was with Mik! Mik had been impossible to get rid of, eight years ago. How had he changed so much? Would he tell?
"Smitta—"
"Drop it, Sal's coming."
Minya looked. There were four figures down there, four women rising on jets of sprayed gas and seeds; and they carried no water. Sal shouted something the wind snatched away.
"They're wasting jet pods," Smitta observed.
They were closer now and in range to snag the bark. This time Minya heard Sal's joyful bellow.
"Invaderrrsss!"
Chapter Seven
The Checker's Hand
THE TWO TRIADS MOVED INWARD, STAYING IN CRACKS IN THE bark where they could. Every minute or so Denisse, a tall, dark woman of Thanya's triad, would pop up, look around fast, and drop back into the bark.
"We counted six of them around the tribemark," Thanya said. "Dark clothes. Maybe they're from the Dark Tuft."
"Intruders on the tree." Sal's voice was eager, joyful. "We've never fought invaders! There were some citizens thrown out for mutiny, long ago…some of them killed the Chairman, and the rest went with them. Maybe they settled in the Dark Tuft. Mutineers…Thanya, what kind of weapons were they carrying?"
"We couldn't go ask them, could we? Denisse says she saw things like giant arrows. I couldn't even tell their sexes, but one had no legs."
They veered to avoid a crack clogged with old-man's-hair. Smitta said, "Six of them, six of us, you may have missed a few…shall we send someone back for Jeel's triad?"
Sal grinned wolfishly. "No."
"And no," said Thanya for her triad.
Minya said nothing-her triad leader spoke for her-but she felt a fierce joy. Right now there was nothing she needed more than a fight.
Denisse dropped back from her next survey. Her voice was deadly calm. "Intruders. We have intruders, three hundred meters in and a hundred to port, moving outward. At least six."
"Let's go slow," Thanya said suddenly. "I'd like to question one. We don't know what they want here."
"Do we care? What they want isn't theirs."
Thanya grinned back. “We're not a debating team. We're the Triune Squad. Let's go look."
They worked their way along the bark. Presently Denisse poked her head up, dropped back. "Intruders have reached the Checker's Hand."
Clearing the trunk of parasites was one of the Triune Squad's duties. Fan fungi were dangerous to the tree and edible besides; but one large and perfect fan had special privileges. Found twenty-odd years ago, it had been left to grow even larger. Minya had only heard of the squad's unusual pet. She eased her head above the bark. They were there: men, women, looking entirely human. "More than six. Eight, nine, dressed like dirty civilians. Sooty red clothes, no pockets…they're chopping at the stand. They're killing it, the Checker's Hand—"
Smitta screamed and launched herself across the bark.
No help for it now. Sal cried, "Go for Gold!" and the Triune Squad leapt toward the intruders
The fan fungus reached out from the trunk like a tremendous hand, white with red nails. Its stalk, disproportionately narrow and fragilelooking from a distance, was still thicker than Gavving's torso. He set to chopping at it with his dagger. Jiovan worked the other side.
"We'll get it down the trunk," Jiovan puffed, "but how will we ever get it through the tuft to the Commons?"
"Maybe we don't," said Clave. "Bring the tribe to the fungus. Let them carve off pieces to suit themselves."
"Tear the fringe off first," Merril said.
The Grad objected. "The Scientist will want some of the red part."
"And try it on who? Oh, all right, save some fringe for the Scientist. Not a lot, though."
The stalk was tough. They'd made some progress, but Gavving's arms were used up. He backed away, and Clave took over. Gavving watched the cut deepen.
Maybe they'd weakened it enough?