“Right. That mutineer thinks we can’t afford to hire a judgment! See, Clave, the Admiralty won’t convene a civil court unless both sides can prove that they can pay court costs. Loser pays. But the Navy knows we have the Wart! One way or another, we’ll get money or credit. Carlot, I think I know what Hilar has in mind. Burl.”
Carlot thought it over. The tree dwellers watched with no sign of comprehension. She said, “Risky. Nobody knows how.”
“Hilar can afford to take the chance. He brought his tree in with the tuft still on. He asked for a loan and offered decent terms. Usually the tree dies, but sometimes—”
Debby suddenly said, “I remember. The idea is to let a tree grow without tide. The wood’s supposed to twist into knots?”
“Right. But trees aren’t really built for that. I wonder if Hilar knows something? If he can get money to live on, he can grow his burl while we sell our wood. He’d like to get the money from us, if we had it.”
“We should be asking Jeffer about this.”
Booce grimaced. Then: “Sorry. Debby, you’re tree dwellers, you should know a lot about them, but you’ve never seen a tree growing outside of tide.”
“You wouldn’t grow burl yourself, stet? Belmy’s not a fool or he wouldn’t be richer than you, stet?” Booce bridled, but Debby went on. “He knows something you don’t, something about burl. Jeffer the Scientist knows a lot we don’t. Let’s ask.”
“Burl,” Jeffer said musingly, watching the faces in the bow window. Debby was hiding anxiety. Booce had asked his question with some belligerence. This had been her idea, not his. Are you any good at all? Prove yourself, Scientist!
Blue lines of print scrolled across the faces.
INTEGRAL TREES GROW WELL IN A WIDE RANGE OF TIDES. LOW ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE KILLS THEM PASTER THAN LOW OR HIGH TIDE. IN DENSE AIR AND VERY LOW TIDE THEY MIGHT SURVIVE. IN FREE-FALL THEY DIE. OTHERWISE WE WOULD FIND TREES GROWING NATURALLY IN THE CLUMP.
Booce was talking. “Hilar thinks he’s got me by the seeds. He offered me a loan if I withdraw my tree from sale, but he’s not serious. It’d break me. I’d be paying interest, and no way to get it back. Of course he doesn’t know about the Wart metal.”
“Do you really need to know if he can grow burl?” Jeffer said. “Booce, you’re satisfied that he’s trying it. You only need a short-term loan till you can sell your metal. The Belmys aren’t your enemies, are they?”
“No, they’re friends. Who would I talk to if I couldn’t talk to other loggers? But Hilar would love to have me carving the dumbo on my sticks, and all the loggers want to be richer than, say, the architects. Jonveev won’t loan me money unless she thinks I can pay it back. Or if I’ve got some kind of collateral…hell.”
A TREE SHOULD CONTINUE TO GROW IF THERE IS SUFFICIENT TIDE TO PULL WATER AND NUTRIMENT INTO THE TREEMOUTH AND TO WORK THE INTERNAL VEINS WITHIN THE TRUNK. SPIN THE LOG, JEFFER.
“Tell them about the Wart,” Carlot was saying.
“I didn’t want to. I guess…I’ve got to. It’d be better if I knew exactly what Hilar’s planning.”
“He’ll spin the log,” Jeffer said.
“What? What for?”
“Spin tide. Clave. It’s a scientific thing. Here, pick up that pot or whatever and throw it round and round your head. Ann’s length…like that, stet. Feel the pull? Like tide, isn’t it? Belmy’ll use his steam rocket to start the log spinning, not enough to tear it apart, just enough to keep some pull inside the tuft. The tree needs tide to move its food around—”
“By the State, I believe you’re right.”
“But the, uh, growth patterns would still be screwed up, with Voy going round and round and weird Clump tides going every which way. I’ve never seen burl, but isn’t that what you want, Booce? Grain that doesn’t grow in straight lines? He’ll spin it just enough to keep water and fertilizer in the treemouth.”
“Yes. Okay.”
LOSING CONTACT.
Hilar and Jonveev waited, wearing polite smiles, until Booce had finished talking. “Burl,” Hilar said. “It sounds interesting but risky.”
“Hardly cost-effective,” Jonveev said.
Booce said, “There are other values. It would be indecently lucrative if it worked. You’d have done something nobody else could.” They did not comment, and he went on. “Let’s assume, just for talking purposes, that you’ve been considering a burl tree. Who else would you let in on the secret?”
The Belmys looked at each other.
“You’d need masses of tree food. Mud, say, from deep in the Dark. Would you buy it from Zakry? Or haul it yourselves, with Woodsman?”
Jonveev sighed. “All right, Booce. What have you got in mind?”
“Logbearer could haul the mud to feed the tree. The whole Market knows that my last trip failed. They won’t be surprised when Logbearer becomes a Dark diver. Let them think I’m looking for fringe and blackbrain while I haul mud for Zakry.”
“Mmm,” said Jonveev.
“One thing more. I’ve got eight kiltons of metal buried under the termites.”
Their faces were quite blank. After a moment Jonveev said, “That’s not portable money. You still can’t offer us a loan, not until you sell it.”
“An excellent point. Hilar, Jonveev, what I want is this. First, you do your damndest to turn that half tree into burl. Second, I need a loan—”
Hilar was laughing.
“A short-term loan to let me spend money like an old Dark diver while I wait for the Navy to buy my metal. I’ll pay twenty percent to the crossyear, and I need tento-third chits. I’ll pay part of it back in mud at the same price Zakry pays. The rest at the crossyear, and I’ll hand you another five times ten-to-third. That’ll save any project you had to shortchange. It’s not a loan, though. It buys me half the burl.”
“Half!” Jonveev exclaimed.
“So.”
Caught! Jonveev Belmy laughed and said, “We hadn’t thought of spinning the tree. But can you really afford to risk that many chits? You’re moderately rich now. Why not stay that way?”
“I like the odds. I’ve got some crew who think it might work, and they’re tree dwellers. I think you think it’ll work, and that helps.”
“Two-fifths of any burl, and we want five times tento-third chits. We’ll get you your loan, but at forty percent to the crossyear. Mmm…I’ll hand you our cash on hand and give you the rest in ten days.”
Booce said, “I’ll pay thirty percent to…to ten sleeps past the crossyear. The Navy might just hold me up for that long. And classify this. If the Navy knows I took a loan, they’ll know I’m still under pressure. I want them to move.”
Hilar laughed. “Where else could it have come from?”
“I’ll visit the house before I start throwing money around. They’ll think I had it in the house.”
And all of this was reported in garbled form, through Clave and then Jeffer, who had never dealt with finance, to Kendy, who never had either. But Kendy had sketchy records of the capitalistic societies that had died with the formation of the State, hundreds of years ago.
It was a hell of a way to run a civilization. These people needed him.
Jeffer, seated before the CARM camera, asked, “Do you understand any of this?”
“Yes, but it would be difficult to explain. What matters is that your citizens will have their earthlife seeds.”
“Yeah.” Jeffer stretched unself-consciously. “That’s good. We’ll have to talk fast when we get back to Citizens Tree. The seeds’ll help, and we’ll carry fresh food too, something they can eat right then. Are you getting what you wanted?”