He was able to remove eight limbs before it became necessary to move the winch to the opposite side of the tree. After the winch-shift he removed eight more. An excellent afternoon’s work in any treeman’s book.
At quitting time Wright made the traditional offer: “Want to come down for the night?”
Strong made the traditional refusaclass="underline" “Like hell!”
“The custom of staying in a tree till it’s finished shouldn’t apply to a tree the size of this one,” Wright said.
“Just the same, it does,” Strong said. “What’s for chow?”
“The mayor’s sending you over a special plate. I’ll send it up in the lift. In the meantime, climb in, and as soon as we change cables, you can ride down as far as your tree-tent.”
“Will do.”
“We’re going to sleep at the hotel. I’ll keep my eareceiver on in case you need anything.”
The mayor didn’t arrive for half an hour, but the plate he brought proved to be worth waiting for. Strong had spent the time setting up his tree-tent, and he ate, now, sitting cross-legged before it. The sun had set, and the hahaha birds were wearing scarlet patterns in the foliage and screaming a raucous farewell to the day.
The air grew noticeably colder, and as soon as he finished eating, he got out his heating unit and turned it on. The manufacturers of outdoor heating units took a camper’s morale as well as his physical comfort into consideration. This one was shaped like a small campfire and by adjusting a dial you could make its artificial sticks glow bright yellow, deep orange, or cherry-red. Strong chose cherry-red, and the heat emanating so cheerfully from the tiny atomic batteries drove away some of his loneliness.
After a while the moons—Omicron Ceti 18 had three of them—began to rise, and their constantly changing patterns on leaf and limb and flower had a lulling effect. The tree, in its new mood, was lovely. The hahaha birds had settled down for the night, and as there were no singing insects in the vicinity, the quiet was absolute.
It grew rapidly colder. When it was so cold he could see his breath, he withdrew into his tent and pulled his “campfire” into the triangular doorway. He sat there cross-legged in cherry-red solitude. He was very tired. Beyond the fire, the limb stretched out in silver-patterned splendor, and silver-etched leaves hung immobile in the windless night…
He saw her only in fragments at first: an argent length of leg, a shimmering softness of arm; the darkness where her tunic covered her body; the silvery blur of her face. Finally the fragments drew together, and she was there in all her thin pale loveliness. She walked out of the shadows and sat down on the opposite side of the fire. Her face was much clearer now than it had been those other times—enchanting in its fairy-smallness of features and bluebird-brightness of eyes.
For a long while she did not speak, nor did he, and they sat there silently on either side of the fire, the night all around them, silver and silent and black. And then he said:
You were out there on the limb, weren’t you?… And you were in the bower, too, and leaning against the trunk.
In a way, she said. In a way I was.
And you live here in the tree.
In a way, she said again. In a way I do. And then: Why do Earthmen kill trees?
He thought a moment. For a variety of reasons, he said. If you’re Blueskies, you kill them because killing them permits you to display one of the few heritages your race bequeathed you that the white man was unable to take away—your disdain for height. And yet all the while you’re killing them, your Amerind soul writhes in self-hatred, because what you’re doing to other lands is essentially the same as what the white man did to yours… And if you’re Suhre, you kill them because you were born with the soul of an ape, and killing them fulfills you the way painting fulfills an artist, the way creating fulfills a writer, the way composing fulfills a musician.
And if you’re you?
He discovered that he could not lie: You kill them because you never grew up, he said. You kill them because you like to have ordinary men worship you and pat you on the back and buy you drinks. Because you like to have pretty girls turn around and look at you on the street. You kill them because shrewd outfits like Tree Killers, Inc. know your immaturity and the immaturity of the hundreds of others like you, and lure you by offering to provide you with a handsome green uniform, by sending you to treeschool and steeping you in false tradition, by retaining primitive methods of tree-removal because primitive methods make you seem almost like a demigod to someone watching from the ground, and almost like a man to yourself.
Take us the Earthmen, she said, the little Earthmen, that spoil the vineyard; for our vineyards are in blossom.
You stole that from my mind, he said. But you said it wrong. It’s ‘foxes,’ not ‘Earthmen.’
Foxes have no frustrations. I said it right.
…Yes, he said, you said it right.
Now I must go. I must prepare for tomorrow. I’ll be on every limb you cut. Every falling leaf will be my hand, every dying flower my face.
I’m sorry, he said.
I know, she said. But the part of you that’s sorry lives only in the night. It dies with every dawn.
I’m tired, he said. I’m terribly tired. I’ve got to sleep.
Sleep then, little Earthman. By your little toy fire, in your little toy tent… Lie back, little Earthman, and cuddle up in your warm snug bed.
Sleep…
The Second Day
The singing of hahaha birds awakened him, and when he crawled out of his tent, he saw them winging through arboreal archways and green corridors; through leaf-laced skylights, and foliaged windows pink with dawn.
He stood up on the limb, stretched his arms and filled his chest with the chill morning air. He tongued on his transmitter. “What’s for breakfast, Mr. Wright?”
Wright’s voice came back promptly: “Flapjacks, Mr. Strong. We’re at table now, stashing them away like mad. But don’t worry: the mayor’s wife is whipping up a whole batch just for you… Sleep good?”
“Not bad.”
“Glad to hear it. You’ve got your work cut out for you today. Today you’ll be getting some of the big ones. Line up any good dryads yet?”
“No. Forget the dryads and bring around the flapjacks, Mr. Wright.”
“Will do, Mr. Strong.”
After breakfast he broke camp and returned tent, blankets and heating unit to the lift. Then he rode the lift up to where he’d left off the preceding day. He had to lower both the saddle-rope and the limbline; the saddle rope because of its limited length, the limbline because its present crotch was, too high to permit maximum leverage. When he finished, he started out on the first limb of the day.
He paced off ninety feet and knelt and affixed the tongs. Then he told Wright to take up the limbline slack. Far below him he could see houses and backyards. At the edge of the square the timber-carriers were drawn up in along line, ready to transport the new day’s harvest to the mill.
When the line was taut, he told Wright to ease off, then he walked back to the trunk and got into delimbing position. He raised the cutter, pointed it. He touched the trigger.