“I had some trouble finding the tree,” Jeffer said.
“Your problem,” Gavving answered. “After all, you took the silver suit. How were we supposed to tell you where we were?”
“Yeah, but you moved the tree, didn’t you? That thing next to the lift, is that what I think it is?”
“Yes. Lawri’s doing, mostly.”
“Hah. Scientist, I thought you’d be twiddling your toes waiting for me to come home.”
“We found ways to occupy ourselves, Scientist.” Lawri’s pregnancy was growing conspicuous. The formality between her and her husband did not seem unfriendly.
Gavving said, “I hope you brought something to make us look good.”
The rest of them laughed; but Clave said, “Trouble?”
“Treefodder, yes, trouble! I’d have flown to a new tree if I’d been sure they’d let me have wings. One thing, the children are on our side. They’ve been crazy with waiting to see what you bring back. And Minya stuck with me.”
“She did? Good,” said Clave.
“She did, in public.”
Clave reached into a bag. He sliced an apple in half and passed it to Gavving and Lawri. They bit, distrustfully, and continued eating. “That’ll do it,” Gavving said.
“Fine. Here. Don’t eat the hull.” He’d cut an orange into quarters.
They gnawed the insides out of the oranges. Lawri chewed and swallowed a bit from the peel, but did not take another. Gavving said, “Yeah!”
“We’ve got seeds,” Clave said. “This and a lot of other earthlife. We’ll plant them in the out tuft.”
Faces like afield of flowers below the falling cage. Two meteor-trails of golden blond hair: Jill next to Anthon, she a meter shorter than her father, both scanning the faces in the lift cage. Rather knew when -Till’s eyes met his, but her face didn’t change.
The cage thumped into its housing. Children piled out of the treadmill, and Mark with them. Everyone in Citizens Tree was here.
They looked short: a field of dwarves in which Anthon and the Serjent women stood out as normal. Rather had become used to giants. Children and some adults crowded around the cage. Jill and Anthon hung back, not quite hostile, but suspending judgment. Mark had that look too.
For all these hundreds of days Rather had wondered what the tribe would think of his mutiny. He’d almost managed to forget that he had never told Jill, could not have told her that he was going to leave the tree.
His mothers were crowding close around the lift, and Karilly and Ryllin with them. The Serjent women hugged Carlot, then Carlot’s new husband. Karilly hung back a little. She was conspicuously carrying a guest. Raff beamed like sunlight at seeing someone he knew. They fell into rapid conversation, moving away, taking Karilly with them. “Damn, but I missed oranges…Booce had to stay? I’m not surprised, but…”
Karilly was silent.
Clave folded his wives into his arms and forced apples on them.
Anthon slapped an orange from Debby’s hand. Rather heard: “You took this Admiralty man aboard the carmT’ before his First Mother picked him up to hug him.
“You treefeeding fool,” Minya whispered. “You fool mutineer, you. Drillbits in your brains, both of you, you and your father. He never stopped wishing he’d gone too. Are you all right?”
“I’m in good shape. Mostly.” She pulled back to look into his face. He tried to look earnest. “First Mother, I’m allergic to dry, thin air. Not enough sleep does it too. It’s like knives in the eyes. I go blind. It lasts for hours.”
She started laughing. She said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” and hugged him hard, still laughing. There were tears in her eyes. She put him down and saw him smiling slyly. She said, “It’ll never happen again. We’ll keep the tree where the air’s thick. You’d better go talk to Jill.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Talk to her first. Then I think—”
Jeffer shouted for attention. “I here present Raff Belmy. Raff and Carlot are married by Admiralty law. The record is in the cassettes.”
Over the heads of his brothers and sisters, Rather saw thejudging-look fade from Jill’s face. She moved forward at last. Rather said, “Harry, can you give me some privacy? Take them along?”
Harry said, “Oh. Sure.” Somehow he got his siblings moving away before Jill reached him.
The judging look was back. She said, “Rather. How are you?”
“Fine. Nobody made me a copsik. I didn’t get killed. Jill, I wanted to tell you.”
“Were you afraid I’d run tell my father?”
“If I wasn’t, the rest of us would have been. I couldn’t, Jill.”
He saw her reject that. She asked, “What was it like?”
“I’ll be a lot of days telling you that!” And suddenly it was a pain in him, that he couldn’t tell her about the raid, ever.
“What’s wrong now?”
“Nothing,” he lied. “I was remembering how close I came to joining the Admiralty Navy. I got out of it though. Jill, dinner has to be something special. Is there time to cook some of this earthlife?”
“Couple of days yet.”
“I’ll show you what to do.” Take the kids too? He’d thought he wanted to be alone with Jill, but now he knew he didn’t. “Harry! Gorey! Bring those bags to the cookpot.”
The Admiralty slid west below him. Kendy began his burn, then turned to his instruments. Neudar and the telescope array caught Admiralty Headquarters as it emerged from behind the Dark. The Library didn’t respond. It must be turned off. CARM #6 was nowhere in evidence. No pressure suit responded to his query.
Sharls Davis Kendy had made more than one mistake.
For half a thousand years he had been frantic to begin guiding his citizens in the Smoke Ring. Now he could begin, and now he almost knew how. Opportunities would come.
A part of his attention scanned his growing file on RESOURCES, LOCAL USAGE: Debby described Half Hand’s kitchen for Jeffer’s benefit. Clave carried the helmet on a slow trip through Serjent House.
The camera viewpoint spun erratically through a cloud of children. Children had knocked the helmet off its usual perch at the lift, then played with it like a basketball. Kendy viewed the commons as a series of stills. Corridor openings, the water trap, the communal cooking area, children laughing as they bounded in slow arcs.
A series of angular Clump houses, wildly various.
Mark’s hut in various stages of construction. The silver suit had been housed there for a time.
Abruptly the CARM #2 control board came to life.
Kendy sent his signal. Records came back: stills of various bored Guardians in their shared pressure suits, culminating in (present time) six jungle-giant men in a half circle around the control board, wearing anxious faces and spotless new uniforms. These must be officers; and now Kendy had their insignia.
The signal disintegrated with distance.
He rounded forty degrees of Smoke Ring before he made contact with CARM #6.
The vehicle was in its wooden dock at the midpoint of Citizens Tree. It was empty of citizens and cargo. That was Logbearer next to the left cage, and some smaller structure next to that. Kendy “stared”: he enlarged the image and examined it in detail.
They’d built a steam rocket.
They didn’t have a metal pipe or sikenwire, so they’d used ceramics. Fired mud! The laundry vat was part of it!
Records: the CARM on its way home. Logbearer was strapped along the hull. Booce was missing. Rather was present(!). The jungle-giant stranger matched the still of Hilar Belmy’s son.
Raff Belmy’s medical readings, originally ominous, settled down over passing days. Carlot must have helped to calm him down. Rather was being abnormally polite to both, and keeping his distance. The two spent considerable time out of sight aboard Logbearer.