What Kendy wanted was still beyond his reach. He said, “I’ve learned some things.”
“Tell me.”
“The Admiralty is self-sufficient. They’re a successful culture, but the crime rate must be high. Otherwise they would need fewer Navy ships, and the houses would have more openings.” Kendy displayed the picture the pressure-suit camera was sending from the Clump. Small green outlines flickered as Kendy pointed out ships, then the few but massive doors on nearby houses. “They’ve settled the outer shell of the Clump, but they only venture gingerly into the dark center. Their infant mortality rate must be as bad as yours. When they add up their population they don’t count children, any more than you do.”
“I never noticed that. Hmm…London Tree didn’t either. Is it because so many children die?”
“Yes. Wait a thousand years and the death rate will have diminished. There’s nothing else to be done.”
“I never thought there was. While I’ve got your attention, Kendy, I found a listing on the Clump. Lagrange points, it’s called. What do these words mean? Equipotential, saprophyte — Something’s happening.”
A steam rocket emerged from the fog and rain. It came to a halt fifty meters from the helmet camera. “Navy,” Jeffer said unnecessarily. “I wonder…that’s Booce. And a silver suit!”
“I see them. An equipotential is the curve on which some force or energy level is everywhere equal. It might be gravity or tidal force or magnetic force. A -saprophyte is a family of plants that don’t use light. We’ll see some if Clave can take the helmet into the Dark.”
Four men flew toward the camera: two in Navy armor, one standard-issue pressure suit, and Booce Serjent. The pressure suit was better kept, cleaner and shinier, than the Citizens Tree suit. There were big Navy-style fins at the ankles. The design painted on the back was repeated on one shoulder and on the fins: a broad green ring with a blue dot at the center.
Kendy tried to make contact with the suit radio. He found nothing. Either it wasn’t on, or the frequency had wandered over the centuries.
The helmet was thrown back on its hinge despite the rain. The face inside was a rounded anglo face, without the soft elfin look of most Smoke Ring citizens: a “dwarf” face, shaved, sprouting an Earth day’s worth of dark shadow.
The “dwarf” looked around him. “This was clever, Booce. Do you have torches?”
“I’m sorry, Captain-Guardian. We can make some up.”
“No need. How do I get through this muck?” The dwarf had no accent.
Kendy gloated. No accent! He spoke exactly as a State citizen would have. The officers must learn their speech from the Admiralty Library!
They were drifting out of view. Kendy switched to the fisheye lens. He and Jeffer watched the Captain-Guardian take his wings off and tether them to lines on his chest, shin-sticks uppermost. The two lower-rank Navy men pulled up an edge of the termite nest. The “dwarf” squirmed in. Sudden yellow light flashed through the hole.
Jeffer asked, “Does that light come from the pressure suit?”
“I’ll show you how to work the helmet light. Later.”
The “dwarf” popped out of the hole. “There’s a respectable store of metal here. We’ll have to wait for the Council to convene before we make an offer per kilton delivered. Unless you’re prepared to accept an immediate offer of, say, two times ten-to-fifth chits for the whole chunk?”
“I can get two or three times that on the Market.”
“Perhaps. If we come to an agreement I can give you payment within ten days.”
“No, thank you, Captain-Guardian. I’ll wait. Maybe I can earn some money Dark diving. Can I offer you tea?”
“You wouldn’t want to have to sell your new house. Two and a half.”
“No. I should point out that you’ve been seen coming here. There’s a happyfeet jungle in dock, and they might guess what that means. Also I’ll be expected to hire an exterminator. I can’t hide the metal much longer.”
The Captain-Guardian snorted and waved to his escort.
They departed.
Booce waited until they were well away. Then he moved face-on to the camera. “Jeffer?”
“Here.”
“That was Captain-Guardian Wayne Mickl. Officer by birth, but his effective rank is Guardian. Keeping him happy is a good idea.”
“He didn’t look happy.”
“If he’s too happy, we got robbed. Jeffer, how sure are you that spinning a tree will make burl?”
Jeffer laughed. “I never tried it myself.”
“Yeah. Are you all right?”
“It isn’t too bad. Something like being young again, just old enough to hunt alone. I’ve got the cassettes when I get bored. I miss Lawri.”
“Well, I’m going to move the silver suit. We can’t leave it here.”
“Where, then?”
“My house. I’ll set it up so you can see the commons room. We can talk any time, and when I have guests you’ll see them too.”
“That’s good,” said Jeffer.
VERY GOOD. LOSING CONTACT.
Chapter Seventeen
Serjent House
from the Citizens Tree cassettes, year 6 SM:
SHARON LEVOY SPEAKS OF THE ARCHETYPAL REBELLIOUS COMPUTER, HAL 9000, FROM GILLESPIE’S OPERA 2001. CAROL BURNES CLAIMS FRANKENSTEIN AND FAUST TO BE OLDER AND MORE APPROPRIATE IMAGES. ONE-UPMANSHIP IS ALIVE AND WELL IN THE SMOKE RING. ONE AND ALL, THEY EXPECT ME TO TELL THEM HOW IT HAPPENED.
FOR THE RECORD: I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S WRONG WITH KENDY.
DEBBY WAS IN A HURRY THE NEXT MORNING. IT SEEMED she’d arranged something at Half Hand’s: she was to meet Grag Maglicco for flying lessons. Booce drilled her to make sure she wouldn’t get lost in the sky, then sent her on her way.
The rest shared out the meal from Half Hand’s for their breakfast, then got to work. They fueled and fired Logbearer and set it steaming along the trunk. A half turn brought the rocket to a halt opposite the Wart.
Clave, Carlot, and Rather swarmed out and attacked the termite nest with matchets. When Logbearer blocked the Market, and floating chaff and chips of bark and wood blocked most of the sky. Clave and Rather ducked into the nest. Clave retrieved the body of the silver suit. Rather the helmet. Booce had kept the rocket hot. He jetted water into it, and away they went.
Secrets. Rather was starting to get the knack of it.
Half the termite nest had been scraped away, not by a hired team but by amateurs. What would the Market think? Booce must be hurting for money. His crew has exposed damage to the log: a gaping, ugly hole behind the termite nest. They’ve quit in disgust. Unlikely that anyone else would pry into that bug-infested darkness.
The house had drifted about the sky since its completion a year and a half since. Debby had relayed Grag’s message: it was fifteen klomters skyward and some degrees to spin from the Market. The house was closer than it had been when Grag spotted it, but it was still a threeday trip.
The house was five cubes arrayed around a concrete core. A small puff jungle grew on the roof. The main door was a huge slab of wood five meters long by four wide, half a meter thick. Booce set massive triangular braces to lock it vertical to the doorway. Mountings covered the inner surface: tethers for wings and cloaks, and coils of line, and big knobs to serve as moorings for winches and pulleys.