"You like it here?"
"Oh…treefodder. Maybe I don't really like it anywhere. I took orders in Dalton-Quinn too. I'm seeing a supervisor, a nice woman even if she towers over me. I didn't have that in Quinn Tuft. Kor's a year or two old for the citizens, but we get along…and I don't like that box."
"I do." It was Horse who bad spoken. "Gavving, cede me Alfin's place."
The carm was falling straight at them. Those had better be friends aboard! He could only die fighting if they were not. He told Horse, "It's not my decision. Just do what I do, and we'll see what Clave says."
"Done."
"Alfin. Last chance—"
"Why?"
Alfin met his eyes. "There's tide here."
Gwen's shriek of terror had started her baby screaming. He was quieter now. Gwen's awareness was in the hands that stroked and patted the child. There was none in her eyes.
The conspirators ignored Gwen as she ignored them. Ilsa led her back, once, when she tried to return to the huts. They didn't want Gwen talking to the others.
Jayan asked, "Ilsa, are you sure you want in on this?"
Jinny wasn't pregnant; Jayan and Minya were qot obtrusively so. Ilsa was. She said, "My baby won't be born a copsik either."
The branch shuddered with the force of a tremendous blow. Ilsa said,
"The second elevator. Karal said two."
Jayan said, "Minya, you've talked to the Grad. What did he say?"
"The Grad said to go up. He'll try to capture the carm. If he can't get the carm—"
"Then he's dead," Ilsa concluded, "and all the Carther States warriors are going to die, and we'll never get loose at all. So he's got to have the carm. He's got the carm and as many Carther States warriors as he can get aboard, and he's trying to reach us. Who goes with us?"
Nobody suggested a name. Jayan said, "We're the only new copsiks. Let the rest run their own revolt."
"You can't go up."
They turned, surprised. Dloris's eyes shied from their potentially lethal attention. She repeated doggedly, "You can't go up. The tunnels lead to the fin and the treemouth. There isn't any connecting tunnel to the top of the tuft; that's where the men live. None of you are in shape to tunnel through foliage, and if you got to the top you'd stand out like so many mobies in a stewpot."
"Then what?"
"Stay here till your friends come for you."
Ilsa shook her head. "The children's complex? Karal must have the upper reaches evacuated by now."
"Ilsa, it's big and complicated and it doesn't connect to the top. The most you'd do is get lost."
"What's your stake in this, Dloris?"
"Let me live. Don't tell anyone I helped."
"Why?"
"I wanted to escape once myself. Now I've been a supervisor too long. Somebody would be sure to want me dead. But you can't go up. Stay here and wait."
They looked at each other. Minya said, "You did that. For thirty years? No. I think I know what we have to do."
The Grad tapped at the motor controls…tricky. They had to be used in pairs and clusters or they'd spin the carm. He dropped into the foliage several meters from the platform, with a horrendous crashing, and opened the doors at once.
Three men jumped toward the door. Gavving gripped an older man's arm. The third man wore blue, and he was swinging a sword. Debby took careful aim and put a crossbow bolt through him.
Gavving and the stranger pulled themselves inside. The older man was gasping. "Get us moving," Gavving said. "This is Horse. He wants to join Quinn Tribe. Alfin isn't coming. He likes it here."
A feathered harpoon ricocheted through the doors. The Grad closed them. He said, "I left Minya and Jayan in the pregnant women's compound—"
"What? Minya?"
"She's carrying a guest, Gavving. Your child. And men aren't permitted there." Later the Grad would tell bim the truth…part of it. For now, for witnesses and the record, Minya is carrying her husband's child. "Ilsa's there too, Anthon. I told Minya to gather them all and go up. We'll have to wait for them."
Clave nodded. Gavving stared with open mouth. He said, "Grad, don't you know the men's tunnels don't connect to the women's?"
"What?"
"They'd have to go all the way to the fin or the treemouth, and back!
Or break trail-Grad, they're sure to be captured!"
Clave had a hand on Gavving's shoulder. "Calm down, boy. Grad, where would they go?"
The Grad tried to think. It was Horse who spoke. "Not the fin. That's Navy. Maybe nobody would notice some extra women at the Commons or the schools. Or maybe they'd just stay where they are and wait."
"Jinny'll be at the treemouth anyway. Okay." The Grad fired the forward motors.
The carm lifted tail-first from the tuft, leaving fires in its wake. Lawri screamed, "You're setting the tree on fire!"
She was ignored. "I've been to the pregnant women's complex," the Grad said. "I haven't been in the Commons."
"Aifm has," Gavving said. "It's big, and it reaches to the treemouth. If we can get the carm into the treemouth—"
Lawri writhed. "You can't! You can't burn the treemouth, what are you? This isn't mutiny anymore, it's just wanton destruction!"
Anthon asked mildly, "Will London Tree trade with copsik mutineers?"
Lawri was silent.
"Lying wouldn't have helped. You were too convincing before. We'll go get our people."
The cam moved sideways above the tuft, accelerating sluggishly.
Then there was clear sky below, and the Grad swung the carm around. They were dropping past the treemouth. The carm slowed, hovered.
The Grad touched paired yellow dots. Light flared into the Commons in twin beams, as if the carm were a tethered sun.
Women were running…away. Jungle giants all, leapfrogging across the woven spine-branch floor. None were the right size, nor dark enough, to be Jinny.
"Drop it," Clave said as if his voice hurt him. "Go for the pregnant women's compound. How do we get there?"
The Grad let the carm sink. They were below the tuft now: blue sky below, green passing above. "It's under the branch. I think our best move is to go up into it. I may not hit it exactly, and the Navy may have figured out what we're doing by now. Are you ready for a fight?"
"Yes," said several voices.
The Grad grinned. "Maybe I can scrape off the silver man too. I notice he's still with us…Now what's that?"
Things were falling from the foliage. A bundle of cloth tied with line. Long loaves of bread. A bird carcass, cleaned and skinned. Then the green sky was raining women. Jayan, Jinny, and a jungle giant: Ilsa?
"They jumped," Gavving said in wonder. "What if we hadn't come?"
"We did," Merril said. "Get 'em!"
Two big leather bags fell, and then another woman, leaping head-down to catch up with the rest: Minya.
The Grad cut the motors and took a moment to think. He was aware of voices yelling at him but was able to ignore the intrusive noises.
Got to catch them in the airlock What about the silver man? He was still clinging to the dorsal surface. The Grad rotated the carm to put it between the pressure-suited dwarf and the falling women.
They were separating. It would be three operations. Jayan and Jinny first. They faced each other across clasped hands, as they had after Dalton-Quinn Tree caine apart. They seemed calm enough under the circumstances. The cam eased toward them.
The silver man was crawling around to the airlock.
"Hang on," the Grad said, and he started the cam spinning. Faster. His head spun too; he could see sickness in the faces behind him. The silver man, caught rounding a corner, was hanging by his hands. The Grad used the motors again, against the spin, and slapped the silver man hard against the hull. He flew free.