“I never saw termites on a tree before.”
“A new breed, maybe. They’re dying now. They haven’t done that much damage, and it’s a lot of wood.”
“That it is. We have a problem,” Jonveev said.
The tea had come round again. Booce sipped and passed it on. “I notice you managed to sell some of your wood.”
“Some. Then the whole Market saw you coming and the orders dried up. I could have sold at a loss, but Jonveev thought—”
“I thought we might reach an agreement,” she said. “The merchants can’t whiplash us if one of us announces that his wood isn’t for sale.”
Booce smiled. Such things had been done. “We’d have to give them time to believe we mean it. Thirty sleeps or so. That’ll cost one of us.”
“We’re willing,” Jonveev said. “We’ll want something in return, of course.”
“Speak further.” He sipped. The bitter taste of blackbrain fungus was the taste of civilization and hospitality and homecoming. He wished with all his heart that Ryllin were here. If Hilar was tiptoeing round the edges of a risky venture, Ryllin would have known at once.
Jonveev said, “Booce, we’ll agree not to sell our tree until the next midyear. What I want is a loan at reasonable interest. Or I’ll offer you the same deal.”
Booce was silent.
“The loan would be, say, ten-to-fourth chits. Enough to keep one of us going for nearly a year.” She affected not to notice Booce’s sudden mirthless smile.
“I don’t have that much on hand. And you, I suspect, don’t need that much—”
“We’d need it if we don’t want to short-change some of our other concerns. But we can float such a loan and recoup it by selling our wood. On the other hand, whatever you’re doing with…what was it. Citizens Tree? It’s bound to bring you money, but not soon, stet? But you have a house that’s never been lived in.”
The tea caught in his throat. Booce swallowed carefully, managed not to sputter. He said, “Ryllin would wring my neck.”
“Well, then, you can’t do it,” Jonveev said instantly.
On second thought…he could put the house up for sale, to buy time. If he set the price high, buyers would hang back and wait, because the Serjents were supposed to be broke. If the Navy bought the Wart metal soon enough…he’d have to take a lower price, but he’d be able to keep the house.
But what did the Belmys have in mind? What would a loan do for them? It would be eating interest — “What interest?”
“We’d pay fifteen percent until the next midyear, or take the same.”
That was high but not out of line. His first niggling suspicion began to look like the truth. “I’ll sleep on it,” he said.
Wickerwork ran around the inside of the glass bottle and across the center; wickerwork everywhere, but you had to look twice to see it beneath the plants and mud. The mud was at the interstices, held in place by nets. Plants grew from the mud, bearing red and yellow spheres and cylinders. Leafy vines strangled the wickerwork, the mud, and everything else in sight.
It was a jungle with curving corridors through it. Debby felt a sudden terrible homesickness for Carther States… but the jungle other childhood was drab compared to the Vivarium.
The old man who watched from within one of the openings was an elderly, undersized jungle giant. In the humid warmth he wore only a loose pair of short pants. His knees and elbows were knobby; his skin was yellow-brown, and there was something funny about his eyes. He watched the growing crowd in some surprise. He said, “Late, Adjeness.”
“Zakry, these are customers,” Adjeness Swart said firmly. “They’ve been living without earthlife since Checker knows when.”
“Have they.” The yellow man brightened. “Well, we can’t have that. Carlot Serjent, how good to see you! Adjeness, why don’t you show the crew what they’ve been missing?”
Carlot and the yellow man disappeared into the greenery. Adjeness Swart said, “Clave told me that. No earthlife crops. Is it true?”
“Almost,” Debby said. “We’ve got turkeys.”
Raym Wilby guffawed. Adjeness was suppressing a laugh. “Turkeys, stet. Try this.” She reached into a jun- gle of vines and plucked forth a red sphere. She sliced it apart with her knife and offered wedges around.
It was juicy. Its taste was strong. Debby chewed and swallowed, trying to decide if she liked it.
Rather plucked a slender yellow spike from the muck.
Adjeness intervened. “Not that. Rather. You have to cook that. Try this. Don’t eat the skin.” The sphere Adjeness sliced up for him was orange outside and in. Rather bit into a wedge, and his eyes got big.
Being back on Earth would be like this, Debby thought. Alien. She recognized almost nothing.
There were people darting among the plants. They glanced incuriously at the intruders, then went back to what they were doing. Some sprayed water at the mud globules or the plants themselves. One was pushing a plant ahead of him; muddy pale appendages waved naked at one end. An older man floated slowly along an aisle, turning as he flew, to see in all directions.
Debby tried a slice of the orange sphere. The sweetness, the wonder of it almost paralyzed her. “Treefodder!”
“That’s an orange. This—”
“I can see that.” Debby reached at random. “What’s this, a yellow?”
“Plum. Not quite ripe.”
It was bitter, sour. Adjeness gave her a dark-red spheroid from another part of the plant cluster. “This should be better.”
It was.
“You wouldn’t want to spend all your funds on fruit,”
Adjeness said. “You’ll want legumes too, but they have to be cooked. Let Carlot take you to Half Hand’s Steak House before you make any final decisions. Unless you’re really rich? Then you can buy everything.”
Clave said, “I’m not sure what we can afford. I haven’t heard any prices.”
Adjeness nodded. “Here. Eat everything but the center, and you can eat that if you want to. Apple.”
Rather asked, “Clave, did you eat like this in Quinn Tuft?”
“No. Hey, corn! We had corn before the drought. Here. Strip off the leaves. Now the silk too.” He smiled, watching Rather bite into it. “Just the outside, and it’s supposed to be cooked.”
“It’s okay this way. Leave the white stuff?”
“Stet.”
Raym’s hand sneaked into a bush as if without Raym’s knowledge. Three red objects each the size of his thumb went into his mouth all at once. Debby was nearly sure Adjeness had caught it. She only smiled.
Carlot and the slant-eyed man emerged from a leafy wall. Carlot’s voice was just slightly ragged. “Crew, Zakry Bowles is our host here. We’ll go look at the prices after we know some of what we want. How are you doing?”
“Carlot, it’s wonderful!” Rather burst out. “Oranges, plums, I think we want everything in sight. Zakry, can you eat everything here?”
“Almost. Every plant has something you can eat growing on it some of the time. These potatoes, you can’t eat what you see. The root’s down there in the mud. You don’t eat the inside of an ear of corn—”
“Clave told me.”
“Or the pit of a plum.”
“Oop.”
“What did you do, swallow it? It’ll come out all right in the end. Let me show you what else we’ve got—”
Bean vines grew mixed with the corn. They seemed to want to take over everything. “We stopped growing tobacco long ago,” Adjeness said. “Only the officers had fire handy, and they weren’t buying enough. This is lettuce.” Lettuce was leaves. It wasn’t as sweet as foliage.
Strawberries were as startlingly good as oranges. Squash looked like jet pods. Zakry was enjoying himself.