"When I first met you I thought…no, don't move. Remember the guard."
He nodded and stayed where he was. She said, "Grad…my guest I hope it's Gavving's, but it's already there, no matter whose. Let's—" She sought words, but the Grad was already moving. She finished in a breathless laugh. " — Solve your problem."
The poncho was ludicrously convenient. It need only be pulled aside. He had to bite hard on his tongue to hold his silence. It was over in a few tens of breaths; it took longer to find his voice. "Thank you. Thank you, Minya. It's been…she's…I was afraid I'd be giving up women."
"Don't do that." Minya's voice was husky. She laughed suddenly.
"She?"
"The other apprentice is a citizen who treats me like a thieving copsik. Either I'm dirt for the treemouth or I'm a spy. Anyway, it's my problem. Thinks."
"It wasn't a gift, Grad." She reached down to squeeze his hands.
"I'm sick of being treated like a copsik too. When do we get loose?"
"Quick. It has to be. The First Officer has spoken. We move the tree as soon as possible."
"When's that?"
"Days, maybe less. I'll know when I get back to the Citadel. Lawri's up there counting-down the carm's motor systems. I'd give either testicle to be in two places at once, but I couldn't miss the chance to talk to you. Can you pass a message to Gavving?"
"No way at all."
"Okay. There's a cluster of huts under the branch, and that's where the women stay when they carry guests, for more tidal pull while the baby's developing. So. Is there anyone at the treemouth that you want fighting beside you?"
"Maybe." She thought of Heln.
"Maybe isn't good enough. Skip the treemouth. if something happens, grab Jayan and anyone else you think you need and go up. A lot of the men spend their time at the top of the treemouth. We can hope Gavving and Alfin are there. But wait till something drastic happens."
Chapter Seventeen
"When Birnham Wood…"
THE HUGE SILVER PETALS WERE RISING, FOLDING INWARD. THE funnel at their center faced east and out, and the sun was moving into line with the funnel. Gold was eastward and seemed close. The sluggish whorl of storm was a strange sight, neither mundane nor scientific, but mind-gripping.
Clave and Kara were alone. The other fire-tenders had gone elsewhere after the fires were quenched. The Sharman asked, "Do you know the law of reaction?"
"I'm not a baby."
"When the steam spits from the funnel, the jungle moves in the opposite direction. That would be back to moister surroundings, back into the Smoke Ring, if we weren't…meddling. Afterward something must be regrown: fuel, perhaps. It takes twenty years."
"That's why they've been getting away with the raids."
"Yes. But no more."
The petals stood at thirty degrees from vertical. The sun shone directly into the funnel, and the petals were shining into it too. The funnel cupped an intolerable glare.
Kara said, "The jungle-heat spits when the sun shines straight into the blossom. It's not easy to make it spit at a chosen time, but…this day, I think."
It came as if by the Sharman's command: a soft, bone-shaking fumf from the funnel. Clave felt heat on his face. The jungle shuddered. Kara and Clave clung tight with hands and feet.
A cloud began to form between himself and the sun. A column of steam, racing away from him. He felt a tug, a tide, pulling him toward the sky.
"It works," he said. "I didn't…How long till we reach the tree?"
"A day, maybe less. The warriors are gathering now."
"What? Why didn't you tell me?" Without waiting for an answer, Clave dove into the foliage. His thoughts were murderous. Had she cost him his place in the coming battle? Why?
Four copsiks were running the elevator lines with their legs, and the Grad's eye caught Gavving among them. The elevator had almost reached its cradle. Was there no way to tell him? Minya's with the pregnant women. She's fine. I'm in the Citadel. Ordon said, "So you couldn't wait for the Holidays."
The Grad jumped violently. For a moment he was actually floating. Ordon bellowed laughter. "Hey, forget it, it's nothing. With a chance like that, how could you not? That's why Dloris got a little upset when she saw you weren't Lawri."
The Grad grinned a sickly grin. "Did you watch the whole time?"
"No, I don't need to get my kicks that way. I can visit the Commons. I just poked my head in and saw what you were poking and pulled it back out again." He put the Grad into the elevator with a friendly, forceful shove in the small of his back and followed him in.
He seemed friendly enough, but first and last he was the Grad's guard. The Grad was not to be harmed, the Grad was not to escape. He liked to talk, but…They had come to the pregnant women's complex the long way round, by way of the Navy installation on the fin. They had returned by the same route. Presumably Ordon had some business on the fin. The Grad had asked about it. Ordon had become coldly suspicious. He would not talk to a copsik about his work.
The tuft sank away. This was far easier than the four-day climb up Dalton-Quinn Tree. A flock of small birds was veering wide of the trunk. "Harebrains," Ordon said. "Good eating, but you have to use the carm to chase them down. The old Scientist used to let us do that. Klance won't."
A streamer of rain was blowing across the out tuft. Was that why the First was so eager to move the tree? Wet citizens?
A mobile tree: it boggled the mind. Find your own weather! A fluffy green bauble hung east of the out tuft, with a strange spreading plume of white mist behind it. Within a day or two London Tree would have put it from sight. The Grad wondered if he was being unreasonably antsy. The carm could reach Carther States across any distance. if he couldn't capture the carm, he would be here forever; and if he could, what was the hurry?
But time had a choke hold on his throat.
Life was not intolerable for the Scientist's Apprentice. In a hundred sleeps he might grow into this new life. When the time came he feared he would move too slowly, or not at all.
Clave found Merril in the Commons. She was dipping the points of crossbow bolts in the evil-smelling brew the Carthers made from poison fern.
The increasing tide caught Clave jumping toward her. He paused, then floated back, laughing. "It's real! I sure wasn't going to call her a liar, but—"
"Clave, what's happening?" Merril was drifting too, arrows all about her. She managed to catch the poison pot and cap it before it spilled.
"We're on our way. The warriors are on the surface." Clave jumped to his pack against the pull of the strange tide. He had readied it some sleeps ago.
Merril barked, "What? How long have we got?"
She had spent her days learning how to make arrows, twist bowstrings, shape a crossbow and fire it. Clave had watched her at target practice. She was as good as most of the Carthers, and her powerful arms were faster at resetting the crossbow.
He said it anyway. "Merril, you're in Carther States whether you go or not. A lot of Carthers aren't citizens."
"You don't have to go."
"You can feed that to the tree, 0 Chairman!"
Clave shoved a handful of the freshly poisoned bolts into his quiver.
"Then grab your gear and go!"
The tide was about like that in Quinn Tuft. Using the tunnels was almost like walking. But it was strange. Every branchlet and foliage tuft had the tremors.
Clave pulled himself through crackling branchiets and soft green turf through to the sky. A column of cloud raced outward from beyond the jungle's horizon. The surface was nearly vertical. He took care for his handholds.
Skeletal warriors emerged like earthworms out of the green billows.