“One’s longer than the other. My teacher’s got one leg longer than mine and one leg like yours, and it never bothers him. And the Admiral’s got an arm like a turkey wishbone. I’ve seen him. We’re all kinds. Rather.”
It was Mark’s habit to eat near the cauldron, where others might find him. Rarely did he get company. This day he was mildly surprised when Clave and Minya settled themselves across from him. They plucked branchlets and ate. Presently Clave asked, “What do you think of the Serjents?”
“They’re doing all right.”
“That wasn’t what I meant,” Clave said, while Minya was saying, “What will they do to Citizens Tree?”
“Oh.” Mark thought it over. “Half of you came from the in tuft of a broken tree. You were from the out tuft, Minya. Three from Carther States. Lawri and me from London Tree. London Tree used to raid Carther States for copsiks. Fourteen years we’ve been living here, and nobody’s killed anyone yet. We can live with the Serjents too.”
Clave said, “Oh, we can live with them—” while Minya wondered, “What do they think of us?”
Clave snorted. “They think we’re a little backward, and they’d like to talk us into going to the Clump.”
Where was this leading? Mark asked, “Are you thinking they want the CARM?”
“No, not that. Not impossible either…Have you talked to Gavving or Debby lately?”
“They don’t like my company. Neither do you, Minya.”
Minya ignored that. “They’re trying to figure out how to build a steam rocket, starting with just the metal tube they brought back!”
“Uh-huh” Mark saw the point now. “They can build us a machine that moves trees around. They can tell us why we should all go to the Clump. So you’re a little nervous. Chairman? We could lose half the tribe. Lawri keeps saying there aren’t enough of us now.”
“And what do you want. Mark?”
Mark would have wished for a wife or three, but he saw no point in telling Clave or Minya that. “I want nothing from the Clump. We’re here. Twelve adults, twenty children, happy as dumbos in Citizens Tree. We shouldn’t be announcing that all over the sky. Even if the Clump doesn’t keep copsiks, maybe somebody out there does. Things aren’t perfect here, but they’re good. I wouldn’t want to wind up as somebody’s copsik.”
Clave nodded. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Minya said, “We worked so hard to make this our home. Gavving knows how close we came to dying. How can he risk what we’ve got?”
“We seem to be agreed,” Clave said briskly. “Well? What do we do about it?”
Lawri and Jeffer were missing dinner. Lawri had led her husband east along the branch, beyond the region of the huts. In a dark womb of foliage and branchlets, they were making babies.
Resting, relaxed for the first time in many days, Lawri plucked foliage and put it in Jeffer’s mouth. He talked around it, indistinctly. “Does this remind you of being young?”
She lost her smile. “No.”
He leered. “Little London Tree boys and girls never snuck off into the foliage — ?”
She shook her head violently. “It isn’t like that for a girl in London Tree. When boys get old enough, they don’t need us. They go to the in tuft. Copsik women belong to any male citizen. Jeffer, you know that much!”
“I should. That’s how Mark got Minya pregnant, before we got loose.”
She changed position to lie along his length. “If he did. Any man can father a dwarf.”
“Even Rather doesn’t believe that.”
“Bother him?”
“Yeah…But women had children in London Tree, didn’t they? And married?”
“Yes, if we were willing to act like copsiks ourselves. How else could we compete? I would’ve been some man’s copsik if I wanted to make babies. So I never made babies.”
Jeffer looked into her eyes as if seeing her for the first time. “Are you glad I came?”
She nodded. Perhaps he couldn’t see her blushing in the near-darkness.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
That was a stupid question. Knowing how she needed him, he’d use his advantage to win arguments! “This wasn’t what we came to talk about.”
“Did we come to talk?”
“What did you find on the burned tree?”
“We didn’t keep any secrets. — That’s right, you weren’t there when Booce was telling us what we had. Well, we got a pot full of charred stuff — honey, he said — and a metal thing for cutting wood, and hooks…miscellaneous stuff. And the metal pipe. Everything else that burned — I’ve forgotten what he called it all, but it can all be replaced, except the — what did Booce call it? The sikenwire.”
“I want to go to the Clump,” Lawri said.
“Me too. Clave would never let both Scientists go.”
Jeffer kissed her cheek. “Let’s wait till the last minute and then fight about it.”
“What about the sikenwire?”
“We’ll think of something. Do you think Clave will let us take the CARM?”
“…No.”
She felt him shrug. “Okay. We go as loggers?” She nodded (their foreheads brushed) and he said, “I’d guess Clump citizens will all look like jungle giants. We should have a few. Anthon and Debby’ll come. A couple of the Serjents for guides. Defenses…we wouldn’t want to risk the CARM in the Clump, but we could take the silver suit.”
“Wrong. A lot of citizens don’t want anything changed. Clave thinks we’re too close to the Clump already. He wants to take us farther west. Mark agrees with him.”
“Yeah, I’ve talked to Mark. Treefodder. Without him we can’t use the silver suit…Lawri? Clave wants to move us west?”
“What are you thinking?”
“We don’t know enough yet. Forget it. Look what you missed when you were a little girl…”
Whatever the disagreements now roiling through Citizens Tree, there was at least this bone of consensus: they all wanted to fly.
The Serjent girls were willing. From branchwood sticks and from cloth that was made on the looms below the branch, they made wings. Karilly worked quietly and skillfully and without words. Mishael and Carlot explained as they went, and corrected the mistakes of the children who emulated them. The work went fast. Citizens would wear their old tunics and pants for half a year longer, for cloth was not made quickly; but twenty-four wings were ready within twelve days.
Jeffer took Mishael, Minya, Gawing, and eight of the older children to the midpoint via the lift. Other children ran with zeal in the treadmill, knowing that theirs would be the next flight.
Jeffer had chosen with some care. These were the children who had not shied back from crossing to the pond on the day of the firetree. Yet there had been lines to cling to then. Today there was only bark, and some of them clung to that.
Rather flew, and was instantly in love with wings. Jill looked like she was facing death, but when wings were bound to her ankles and Rather was already in the sky, she flew. Mishael served as instructor. Jeffer learned how to kick, how to turn. When the sky was filled with winged adults and children, the rest gulped hard and loosed their hold on the bark and flew.
They were in the sky for one full circle of the sun. The adults had their hands full herding them back to the lift.
Arth made a game of it, fleeing across the sky until Jeffer and Gawing closed in on him and pulled his wings off.
The sun was rising up the east before they had the children rounded up.
Then Jeffer sent the others down without him. He told Minya, “I want to do some maintenance. Start the lift again after you’re down.”
“Kendy for the State. Hello, Scientist.”
“Hello, Kendy.”
“How are your refugees?”
“Four of the Serjents recovered. One of the girls, Karilly, looks okay but she doesn’t talk.”