“We just have to stay in the shade for a while. Fluff needs sunlight.”
“Yeah.”
From eastward, his first mother’s voice called above the wind-roar. “Rather!”
Rather bounded toward Minya across the floor of braided, live-spine branches. Carlot gave him a good head start, then bounded after him. Her asymmetric legs gave her an odd run, a pleasure to watch: boundBOUND, boundBOUND, low-flying flight. Soon she’d be faster than Jill. She reached Minya a good six meters ahead of Rather, turned and flashed a grin at him. She lost it immediately.
“—Crawled too far toward the treemouth, and now he can’t—” Minya stopped and began again. “Rather! It’s the children. Harry and Qwen and Gorey went crawling around in the old west rooms. Gorey went too far, and Harry and Qwen can’t reach him, and he can’t get out.”
“You can’t get to him?”
“I didn’t try. Rather, we don’t know how long it was before Harry came to get us.”
“Oh.” Harry would have tried to rescue Gorey himself, then spent more time working up the nerve to tell his mother. And Gorey was only five! “I’ll need some kind of knife,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m no narrower than you are, First Mother. I’m just shorter. I may have to cut through some spine branches.”
The wind didn’t reach Mark’s long hair and beard.
They held the sweat like two sponges. The slab of hard branchwood strapped to his back massed as much as he did. He scrambled up the slope of the treadmill, panting, trying to stay higher than Karilly and seven children. With a weight on his back, Mark was the equal of any two adults.
The treadmill was six meters across and four wide, a fragile wheel of branchwood sticks. Water running down the trunk helped to spin it, but runners were still needed.
It was getting easier; the treadmill was spinning faster.
The cages must be almost passing each other. “Out!”
Mark panted. “Runners, out!” Seven laughing children jumped from both sides of the treadmill, until only Mark and Karilly were left.
Above was a sudden glare as the sun passed into view.
Karilly’s dark skin shone with sweat; she breathed deeply as she bounded uphill alongside him. He knew she could understand him. “Karilly. When the up cage is at the top it…doesn’t weight anything. It takes all of us…to lift the down cage. Right now…the cages are next to each other. I can run by myself. In a little while…the down cage will be falling. I’ll have to get out. Use the brake. Slow it down.” She watched him as if she were listening. “So you jump out now.”
Then he saw that she was afraid.
“Okay.” He let the cage carry him around. Inverted, he scrambled down the other side. “I’m slowing it. Can you get out now?”
Karilly scrambled out.
Twenty klomters over his head, Lawri and her student flyers must be wondering what had gone wrong. Mark started the cage spinning again, letting his body do its accustomed work while his mind drifted.
Long ago and far away, there had been civilization.
London Tree had had stationary bicycles to run the elevators to the tree midpoint, and copsiks to run the bicycles. Citizens Tree was primitive. They had London Tree’s CARM, of course: a thing of science dating from the day men came from the stars. Otherwise they must build everything.
Mark had shown the refugees how to build a lift. Mark had wanted to make bicycles, but the Scientists had built the treadmill instead. They kept the silver suit next to the treadmill with its helmet open. Citizens at the CARM could call for the lift through the radio in the suit.
Below him he could see the hollow space of the commons, and two children bounding east. The tall, dark girl was far ahead of the smaller boy, who moved in slower, shorter steps, as if tide were heavier for him.
His son. His size proved it. Mark would not have wished that on him; yet Rather would be the next Silver Man. Mark wondered if the citizens would appreciate their fortune. In the short lifetime of Citizens Tree there had been no need for an invulnerable fighter, and the silver suit had become a mere communications device.
Had it not been for one stupid, stubborn act, Mark would still be a citizen of London Tree. But he would never have seen the stars, and he would never have seen his son.
The treadmill was spinning by itself. Mark jumped out.
He set the branchwood slab down. He looked up along the trunk, but he couldn’t see the down cage yet. “We’ll let it run for a bit.”
If Karilly could talk, would she still smile at him like this? He took her hand. “Lawri wanted you with them.
You were afraid to go up, weren’t you?” He had known a London Tree citizen who was afraid of falling. It was instinct gone wrong. If such a woman were born in a place like Carther States, would she be afraid all the time? Until the added terror of a fire pushed her over the edge.
“Lawri wanted me up there too. I wonder what it’s like. Flying.”
But the silver suit caught his eye. No.
His business in London Tree had been war. Were there copsik runners in the Clump? Karilly would know. “I wish you could talk. The Scientists can’t marry us till you can say the words. The key word is yes. Will you try? Yes.”
“Mark!”
He jumped. “Debby?”
She called from below. “Yeah. Shall we relieve you?”
Mark swallowed his irritation. “The empty’s coming down. You want to brake when the sun’s at about eleven.”
“We’ll do it.” Debby and Jeffer climbed up to join them. “Hello, Karilly.”
Jeffer said, “You didn’t go flying? You should try it.”
“Not me. I’m the Silver Man. I fly with the silver suit. Come on, Karilly.” Maybe somebody would need muscle at the cookpot platform.
The tunnels ran through the tuft like wormholes in an apple. Unused tunnels tended to close up; but passersby ate from the foliage as they passed, so the tunnels in normal use stayed open. One such tunnel ran past Rather’s home.
At its west end Rather could have circled the hut with his legs. This was the oldest section. As the spine branches migrated west along the branch, eventually to be swallowed by the treemouth, enclosures tended to shrink. The newest sections were the largest.
This disappearing section had been small when new.
It had housed only Gavving and Minya and the baby Rather. Other children had come, and Gavving wove new rooms eastward, faster than the treemouth could swallow them. By now there were seven children, and a new wife for Gavving, and a far bigger common room; for the Citizens Tree populace was growing too. The original rooms had disappeared into the treemouth. These that he was passing now, wicker cages alongside the tunnel, were still less than Rather’s height. The children tended to claim these for their own.
Rather found a deformed door. As he crawled inside he heard Minya saying, “Keep going, Carlot. Go to the common room and get my old matchet off the wall and bring it back. Hurry.”
Harry, eight years old and Rather’s height, was crying into Mishael’s chest. Rather nodded to Mishael. “Second Mother. Which way did he go? Straight west?”
Mishael, seven years older than Carlot, had Carlot’s dark, exotic beauty in fully developed form, and legs that caused even Rather to stare: long and slender and perfectly matched. She’d cut her trousers into loose shorts, odd-looking in Citizens Tree. The low roof cost her some dignity. She had to crouch. She looked uncomfortable and annoyed. “Straight on in. And he’s stopped talking. I think he’s mad at us.”
Rather said, “You know this is no big deal, don’t you? It happens all the time.”
“I don’t know. Rather, I still get the shivers in your crawling huts! Your parents just don’t understand that. And poor Gorey, he is frightened.”