Rather answered for the others. “It’s a little frightening. Who are those people?”
“Friends. Traders. I’ll introduce you. Raym! Crew, this is Raym Wilby—”
He was an older man, a jungle giant with pale skin and dark, curly hair and beard. He shouted at the sight of Carlot, bounced into her a little too hard, and wrapped her in his arms. As he examined her companions the wide, goofy smile was lost to a look of comical amazement.
“Carlot? Shorts?”
She rebuked him. “Raym, these are some of the citizens who saved our lives when our tree caught fire. Hey, John, hey. Nurse!” Others were arriving. Carlot squirmed loose; clasped hands or toes; chattered introductions. John and Nurse Lockheed were brother and sister, and looked it, with angular faces (shaved, in John’s case) and white-blond hair. Long-headed Grag Maglicco was in the Navy as a Spacer First. Adjeness Swart was small for a jungle giant. Her hair was black and straight, her nose curved and sharp. She worked in the Vivarium, Carlot said.
Half a dozen others reached them and Rather started to lose track. Raym would be thirty to forty years old; Grag would be a little younger. The rest were around Carlot’s age. Jungle giants all, and expert flyers.
Carlot told her tale as they flew toward the Market.
Other strangers joined them and she had to start over.
Now there were a dozen jungle giants among them, and all were strangers to all but Carlot. She stuck to her father’s story, and made no mention of Wart or CARM or silver suit.
The citizens were uncharacteristically quiet. There was too much to see, and they were surrounded by as many strangers as there were adults in Citizens Tree.
Debby was finally ready to admit that it had been a mistake. She wanted to go home.
She hadn’t been with Anthon in hundreds of days. Booce was afraid of his wife, Jeffer seemed to be married to the CARM, and Clave…the best she could tell, Clave was vastly enjoying his vacation from his wives. She was in a sexual desert.
She had other reasons for being on edge. The Market covered a quarter of the sky. No bigger than a small tree, it was obtrusively a made thing, made by the ancestors of this crew.
They didn’t look that powerful. They flew a little closer together than Debby found comfortable. Easy to guess why: they’d been flying all their lives. Raym Wilby was chattering to Rather. “The bugeyes, they get whistling drunk when the fringe blooms. You just reach out and pop ’em in a bag—” Debby tried to follow it, but she couldn’t. The Lockheeds stayed together, off to one side.
Maybe they were shy?
Adjeness Swart flew alongside Debby. Cheerfully she called, “How do you like the Market?”
“Impressive.”
“Your first visit to civilization?”
“We like to think we’ve got a civilization too,” Debby said. We must be gawking like fools.
Adjeness laughed and waved around her. They had passed the rim of the Market and were crossing the central gap. “If you’ve got anything like this, the Admiralty would like to know it.” And as Debby was throttling the urge to tell this smug Clump dweller about the CARM, Adjeness asked, “How much can you see of the Admiralty from your tree? Why haven’t any of you come here before?”
“Some didn’t want us to come at all. We didn’t know what we’d find. Maybe things we wouldn’t like. Excuse me.” Debby kicked hard to reach Carlot.
Chattering companions surrounded Carlot. Debby tried to ease inconspicuously among them, just to listen…but she hadn’t counted on Admiralty manners. The locals drifted away from Debby and Carlot and left them to talk.
Carlot looked at her questioningly. Debby said, “I’m afraid I’ll say too much.”
“Adjeness?”
“Yeah. It isn’t just the questions, it’s her treefeeding superior attitude. Carlot, I feel so small.”
“Can’t help you there, but…go fly next to Raym. He won’t let you talk at all.” Carlot held her voice low. “Raym Wilby is an old Dark diver. It’s gotten to his brain.”
“What’s he doing with us?”
“He’s an old friend of Mother’s. I’d hate to have her see him now! I could get rid of him, but it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Either I’d hurt his feelings or it’d take forever.”
“Stet. What’s a Dark diver?”
“Ask him. Or just listen.”
Debby dropped back. Raym was telling Rather, “It isn’t the dark that bothers you, it’s the thick. Your eyes get used to the light in there. It’s kind of gray, and the colors bleach out. I never heard of a diver getting wrecked unless he was a damn fool, because things don’t move fast in there. But you can’t move fast either. You drift. Sometimes you get lost, you forget which way is out. You come out never knowing how many days you were in.”
Rather asked, “Why do you — ?”
“Credit. On a bad trip you only come out with mud, but Zakry pays high for mud. A good trip, you can come out with your hull covered with blackbrain or walnutcushion or fringe.” Raym grinned, and Debby realized what it was that bothered her about Adjeness’s toothy smile.
Rather said, “This makes you—”
“No. You never hold onto it.”
“ — Rich?”
Teeth. Raym was an older man, yet he still had half his teeth. Adjeness must be Debby’s age, but her smile was all teeth, with only three or four gaps. The rest were youths: no teeth missing at all.
Angular huts surrounded her. Debby fought vertigo. Down in all directions; no tide. The Admiralty crew were forming a line as Carlot led them toward a huge transparent cylinder. They had flown all their lives. Their grace made Debby feel clumsy.
Debby eased into line behind Rather. The starstuff cylinder had an opening at one end. Debby brushed it with her wings as she went through. None of the others did.
Chapter Fifteen
Half Hand’s
from the Citizens Tree cassettes, year 80 SM:
WE’VE FOUND A FUNGUS WITH IMPORTANT MEDICINAL PROPERTIES…
WOODSMAN’S DOOR HAD BEEN BRACED HOSPITABLY open. A guest need only grip the rounded edge as he flew past, set his wings in the racks, and swing himself in.
Booce entered an atmosphere rich with blackbrain tea.
Jonveev Belmy was a small woman, not much more than Clave’s height. Booce had watched her auburn hair turn gray over the years, but it was still long and thick. She was busy at a turning cookglobe. She stretched a foot to meet Booce’s hand.
Her grip was strong. “Booce, I’m so sorry about Wend. Is Ryllin all right?”
“She’s fine, Jonveev. We’re doing business with Citizens Tree, and that’s where she is now.” He wondered what Jonveev was thinking. Her concern was real, of course; but she had never dealt with Booce himself. In business matters Ryllin and Jonveev did the talking.
Jonveev swung the big globular teapot round her head to settle the water, then quickly opened the spigot. Steam puffed. Hilar wrapped the teapot in cloth and passed it to Booce. “I never saw a log come home like that. Do you want to talk about it?”
Booce sipped and swallowed. He liked his tea hot, and this was just off the boil. He savored old memories as much as the powerful, bitter taste. He said, “Not a lot—”
Hilar waved it off. “Oh, then we’ll—”
“I have no wish to drive you crazy at this time.”
“Tell us a story,” Jonveev said.
He told it long. Carelessness and bad luck; the fire; Wend dead, Karilly mute with shock. “There was a tuft tribe waiting to rescue us. They helped rebuild Logbearer. We found a tree.” Booce hesitated. “We were only half a thousand klomters from the Clump, Hilar, and we might’ve had to go halfway to Gold to find a better choice. It was big and it was close and we wanted to go home.”