The bark still shuddered, the sound filled tree and sky, the purpleclad killers were nowhere to be seen, and…nobody had gone after the fan fungus. Clave hurled himself at the stalk.
The fan bent under his weight, then tore loose and was turning end for end. Clave's fingers were sunk into white fungus. The tumbling thing seemed to be picking up speed. Faster, the bark raced beneath the tumbling fan fungus, faster…a fiery wind rushed past him and was gone before he could draw breath.
It wasn't possible. Bewildered, Clave saw tufts of flame receding in both directions. No tree. Citizens floundered in the sky. Even Alfin had jumped at last. But the tree, where was the tree? There wasn't any tree. Fistfuls of fungus turned to mush in aave's closing fists, and he screamed and wrapped his arms around the stalk. They were lost in the sky.
Chapter Eight
Quinn Tribe
WOOD SNAPPED EXPLOSIVELY, SPATTERING GAVVING WITH splinters as he leapt across the bucking, tearing bark. A million insects poured from a sudden black gap that must have reached a klomter into the heartwood. Gavving cried out and waved his arms through the buzzing cloud, trying to clear enough air to breathe.
The tree was everything that was, and the tree was ending. If he'd stopped to think, his fear would have frozen him fast. He held to the one thought: Get the meat and get out!
The nose-arm legs tumbled loose within a cloud of burning coals. One haunch was in reach. Gavving caught a line to pull it free of the coals, then jumped to catch it against his shoulder. Hot grease burned his neck. He yelled and thrust himself away.,
Now what? He couldn't think in this end-of-the-world roar. He doffed his backpack, tied it against the nose-arm leg, braced against the pack, and pushed himself into the sky.
Clouds of insects and pulverized wood half hid the shuddering, thundering tree. Dagger-sized splinters flew past.
Gavving braced one of his jet pods against the pack and twisted the tip. Seeds and cold gas blasted past him. The pod ripped itself free of his hands, spat seeds into the flesh of his face, and was gone.
His hands shook. Beads of blood were pooling on his cheek and his neck. He dug out his remaining jet pod and tried again, his tongue between his teeth. This time the pod held steady until it had gone quiet
The world came apart.
He watched it all while his terror changed to awe. Fiery wind swept past him and left him in the open sky. Two fireballs receded in and out, until the home tree had become two bits of fluff linked by an infinite line of smoke.
Awesome! Nobody could hope to live through a bigger disaster. All of Quinn Tribe must be dead… the idea was really too big to grasp… all but Clave's citizens, and they'd lost Jiovan too, and who was left? He looked about him.
Nobody?
A cluster of specks, far out.
He'd used both his jet pods, and now he was lost in the sky. At least he wouldn't starve.
Thrashing his arms didn't stop the Grad's spin. He wasn't willing to use his jet pods for only that. He settled for spreading his arms and legs like a limpet star, which slowed him enough to search for survivors.
The left side of his face was wet. His fingertips traced a bloody gash that ran from temple to chin. It didn't hurt. Shock? But he had worse to worry him.
Three human shapes tumbled slowly nearby: purple marked with scarlet His stomach lurched. It was their own doing; he hadn't come here to kill.
The giant fan fungus floated free, turning, turning to reveal Clave clutching the stalk. Good. Clave still wore his backpack: very good.
That was their store of fresh jet pods. Then why wasn't Clave doing something about rescue?
Feet outward, Jayan and Jinny rotated slowly around their two pairs of clasped hands. It looked almost like a dance. Spreading out like that greatly reduced their spin. Good thinking, and no sign of panic.
Merril was a fair distance in. Her arms hadn't pushed her far, and the tree's wind-wake had caught her.
The world's-end roar had dwindled, allowing lesser sounds. The Grad heard a thin wail. Alfin had leapt free after all. He was thrashing and spinning and crying, but he was safe.
The Grad couldn't find Gavving, nor Glory, nor Jiovan. Jiovan's corpse must have gone with the tree, but where were the others? And why wasn't Clave doing something? He and the fan were drifting away. The Grad sighed. He shrugged out of his backpack and searched out his jet pods. Old jet pods, from Quinn Tuft stores. Were they still active? He'd never fired a jet pod. He knew nobody who had. Hunters carried them in case they fell into the sky; but no hunter lost in the sky had ever returned in the Grad's lifetime. He did it carefully: he donned his pack again, then clutched a jet pod in both hands over his navel. When Clave was approximately behind him, he twisted the tip, smartly.
The pod drove into his belly. He grunted. He maneuvered the point, hoping to kill his spin. The push died; he released the pod, and it jumped away on the last of its stored gas.
Looking over his shoulder, he found the fan fungus drifting toward him. Clave still wasn't doing anything constructive, and he hadn't noticed the Grad.
The smoke of the disaster split the sky from end to end. Dense, flickering black clouds were pulling free of the paler smoke. The same insects that had eaten the tree apart were now casting loose to find other prey.
Other debris floated in the smoke trail. The Grad made out great fragments of torn wood and bark; a cloud of flashers whirling in panic; a flapping mote, perhaps a nose-arm fled from its burrow. In that confusion he could still see that the cloud of citizens and corpses was slowly drifting apart.
Far in toward Voy, Gavving maneuvered half his own weight in smoked meat. He'd be hard to reach. He'd gone far to save that meat, and the wind-wake must have pulled him further. Save Gavving for last, and hope.
The fan brushed against the Grad and he clutched it, fungus springy under his hands. Clave watched as if bemused. He asked, "What happened?"
Safe now. "The tree came apart. Clave, I'm going to dig in your pack. We've got to start rescuing citizens."
Clave neither helped nor resisted as the Grad searched through his pack. They could use the big fan as a base of operations…rescue Alfin first, because he was nearest…He took half a dozen pods. He slid to somewhere near the fan's center of mass and fired a jet pod, then another.
"The tree came apart?"
"You saw it."
"How? Why?"
The Grad was judging distances. He cast a line in a wide circle. It brushed Alfin's back, and Alfin convulsed and snatched the line in a deathgrip. He didn't try to reel it in. The Grad had to do that, while Alfin watched in near mindless terror. Alfin lunged across the last meter or so and wrapped himself around the stalk and buried his fingers in white fungus to the last knuckle.
A hand closed around the Grad's neck. Long, strong fingers overlapped the thumb, tightening like a steel collar. Clave's voice was a hot snarl in his ear. "You'll tell me now!"
The Grad froze. Clave had gone crazy.
"Tell me what happened!"
"The tree came apart."
"Why?"
"Maybe the fire set it off, but it was ready. Clave, everything in the Smoke Ring has some way of getting around. Some way to stay near the median…middle, where there's water and air. Where do you think jet pods come from?" The hand relaxed a little, and the Grad kept talking. "It's a plant's way of getting around. If a plant wanders out of the median, too far into the gas torus region—"
"The what?"
Alfin asked, "What on Earth is going on?"
"Clave wants to know what happened. Alfin, can you steer this thing and pick up some more of us? Here—" He passed across his store of jet pods.