His approximate height now was nine hundred and seventy feet, and the tree had tapered to the proportions of the long extinct American elm. He moved in on the limb to the trunk, fashioned a safety belt out of his saddle-rope and snubbed himself into “walking” position. Then, leaning back at a forty-five degree angle, he “walked” around the trunk till he could obtain a clear view of the overhead branches.
He chose a centrally located crotch, about seventeen feet up, for the limbline, then coiled the first nine or ten feet of the line into a lineman’s loop and pulled up about thirty feet of slack. He had to turn sideways on the trunk to make the throw, but he got it off perfectly, and the coil, which comprised the nucleus of the loop, soared through the crotch and unwound down to where he could easily reach the ringed end.
He returned to the limb, untied his safety belt, and climbed the double line to the crotch. Omicron Ceti 18’s lighter gravity had reduced his 180 pounds Earth-weight to a feathery 157 ½: he did not even draw a deep breath.
After notifying Wright, he settled himself comfortably, detached the V-shaped Timken-unit from his belt and clamped it into place in the crotch. He opened the unit and laid the limb line over the near-frictionless bearings, then closed the unit and locked it. Although he could not see what was taking place on the ground, he knew that Wright was directing the relocating of the winch, the sinking of new winch-anchors, and the substitution of the limbline for the winch-cable. The winch-cable, unneeded for the moment, would be secured to the base of the tree by means of a tree-peg.
After testing the Timken-unit by pulling the limbline back and forth several times, Strong attached the tree-tongs to the line’s ringed end. Then he looked around for a good saddle-crotch. He found one presently. It was about fifteen feet above him and its location promised him excellent access to the area he was concerned with—the section ninety feet down from the top of the tree where the limbs began exceeding the one hundred foot limit Wright had set as maximum crest-length.
After making the throw, he “snaked” the rope down till he could reach it, and tied his saddle. The instruction manual they gave you at treeschool had a lot to say about saddles: about the double bowline tied on the shorter length that provided you with a seat, and the tautline hitch—tied round the longer length with the slack from the bowline—that gave you maneuverability. The manual had a lot to say about saddle-technique, too: told you how to descend by putting your weight in the seat and exerting pressure on the top of the hitch; warned you always to feed the slack through the hitch after you climbed to a higher level or when you were walking in from a tonging. If you used it right, the manual said, your saddle was your best friend.
Strong didn’t slip into the seat right away. He declared a ten-minute break instead. Leaning back in the limbline crotch, he tried to close his eyes; but the sun got in them, the sun and the leaves and the tree flowers, and the bright blue patches of sky.
The saddle-rope hung down like a silvery liana from the lofty crotch of his choosing, swayed gently in the morning breeze. The crotch was about twenty feet below the highest point of the tree, or over a thousand feet above the ground.
The figure was hard to assimilate. He had climbed a good many tall trees; some of them had even run as high as five hundred feet. But this one made them seem insignificant. This one was over a thousand feet high.
A thousand feet!…
The swaying saddle-rope took on a new meaning. He reached over and touched its knurled surface. He glanced up along its double length. Almost before he knew it, he was climbing; hand over hand at first, then intertwining his feet in the rope and letting it glide between them as he raised his body, “standing” in it while he obtained new hand-holds. Enthusiasm joined his exertion; his blood coursed warmly through his body; his senses sang. He climbed leisurely, confidently. When he reached the crotch, he pulled himself into it and looked upward.
The trunk rose into a final bifurcation some ten feet above. He pressed the tiny studs that released the steel spurs contained in the insteps of his tree-boots and stood up. He placed his hands on the dark gray bark. At this height the trunk was less than a foot in diameter and was as smooth as a woman’s throat. He raised his left foot and brought it down on an angle. Hard. The spur sank deep into the wood. He put his weight on his left foot and raised his right. He sank the second spur.
He began to climb.
Even if you closed your eyes, you could tell when you were nearing the top of a tree. Any tree. The crest swayed more and more as your height increased; the trunk grew smaller beneath your hands; the warmth of the sun intensified as the foliage thinned out around you; your heart beat in ever faster cadence…
When he reached the final crotch, Strong slipped one leg through it and looked down upon the world.
The tree was a green cloud, seen from above now rather than from below—a vast green cloud that obscured most of the village. Only the outlying houses were visible along the lacy periphery. Beyond them the “Great Wheat Sea”—as he had come to call it in his mind—rolled soundlessly away to the horizon.
“Archipelago” would have been a better metaphor than “sea.” For there were “islands” wherever you looked. “Islands” of rotted villages, sometimes surmounted by the gaunt gray lighthouse of a dead tree, sometimes littered with the gray debris of a fallen one. “Islands” of storage bins built of durable steel-foil; “islands” of equipment sheds built of the same material and filled with the sowing-copters and lightweight combines the colonists had leased from the Department of Galactic Lands.
Nearer the village there were other, smaller “islands”: the sewage disposal plant; the incinerator; the crematory. Finally there was the brand new “island” of the lumber mill, where the colonists hoped to salvage the wood from this tree.
In a way the tree would be a harvest in itself, for wood was dear on Omicron Ceti 18—almost as dear as it was on Earth. But they wouldn’t be getting it for nothing, Strong thought; not if you figured the goodly sum they were going to have to shell out to Tree Killers, Inc. for the tree’s removal.
He laughed. He had little sympathy for the colonists. He knew as well as Blueskies what they were doing to the soil, what Omicron Ceti 18 would look like half a century in the future. Sometimes he hated them.
But he found it hard to hate them now. He found it difficult to hate at all, with the morning wind fluttering his tree-shirt and the morning sun fingering his face and the vast blue sky spread out around his shoulders and the whole world spread out beneath his feet.
He lit and smoked a cigarette, and it tasted good on the top of the world, in the wind and the alien sun. He smoked it down till it stung his fingers, then ground it out on the instep of his boot.
When he raised his hand, there was blood on his forefinger and thumb.
At first he thought he had cut himself, but when he wiped the blood away there was no sign of a cut or even a scratch. He frowned. Could he possibly have injured his foot? He leaned forward… and saw the redness of his instep and the bloody, dripping spur. He leaned farther forward… and saw the bloody trail his spurs had left on the smooth gray trunk. Finally he realized that it wasn’t his blood at all.
It was the tree’s.
The foliage twinkled in the sun and the wind, and the trunk swayed lazily back and forth. And back and forth and back and forth.
Sap!