The Integral Trees

Chapter Seventeen "When Birnham Wood…"

THE HUGE SILVER PETALS WERE RISING, FOLDING INWARD. THE funnel at their center faced east and out, and the sun was moving into line with the funnel. Gold was eastward and seemed close. The sluggish whorl of storm was a strange sight, neither mundane nor scientific, but mind-gripping.

Clave and Kara were alone. The other fire-tenders had gone elsewhere after the fires were quenched. The Sharman asked, "Do you know the law of reaction?"

"I'm not a baby."

"When the steam spits from the funnel, the jungle moves in the opposite direction. That would be back to moister surroundings, back into the Smoke Ring, if we weren't…meddling. Afterward something must be regrown: fuel, perhaps. It takes twenty years."

"That's why they've been getting away with the raids."

"Yes. But no more."

The petals stood at thirty degrees from vertical. The sun shone directly into the funnel, and the petals were shining into it too. The funnel cupped an intolerable glare.

Kara said, "The jungle-heat spits when the sun shines straight into the blossom. It's not easy to make it spit at a chosen time, but…this day, I think."

It came as if by the Sharman's command: a soft, bone-shaking fumf from the funnel. Clave felt heat on his face. The jungle shuddered. Kara and Clave clung tight with hands and feet.

A cloud began to form between himself and the sun. A column of steam, racing away from him. He felt a tug, a tide, pulling him toward the sky.

"It works," he said. "I didn't…How long till we reach the tree?"

"A day, maybe less. The warriors are gathering now."

"What? Why didn't you tell me?" Without waiting for an answer, Clave dove into the foliage. His thoughts were murderous. Had she cost him his place in the coming battle? Why?

Four copsiks were running the elevator lines with their legs, and the Grad's eye caught Gavving among them. The elevator had almost reached its cradle. Was there no way to tell him? Minya's with the pregnant women. She's fine. I'm in the Citadel. Ordon said, "So you couldn't wait for the Holidays."

The Grad jumped violently. For a moment he was actually floating. Ordon bellowed laughter. "Hey, forget it, it's nothing. With a chance like that, how could you not? That's why Dloris got a little upset when she saw you weren't Lawri."

The Grad grinned a sickly grin. "Did you watch the whole time?"

"No, I don't need to get my kicks that way. I can visit the Commons. I just poked my head in and saw what you were poking and pulled it back out again." He put the Grad into the elevator with a friendly, forceful shove in the small of his back and followed him in.

He seemed friendly enough, but first and last he was the Grad's guard. The Grad was not to be harmed, the Grad was not to escape. He liked to talk, but…They had come to the pregnant women's complex the long way round, by way of the Navy installation on the fin. They had returned by the same route. Presumably Ordon had some business on the fin. The Grad had asked about it. Ordon had become coldly suspicious. He would not talk to a copsik about his work.

The tuft sank away. This was far easier than the four-day climb up Dalton-Quinn Tree. A flock of small birds was veering wide of the trunk. "Harebrains," Ordon said. "Good eating, but you have to use the carm to chase them down. The old Scientist used to let us do that. Klance won't."

A streamer of rain was blowing across the out tuft. Was that why the First was so eager to move the tree? Wet citizens?

A mobile tree: it boggled the mind. Find your own weather! A fluffy green bauble hung east of the out tuft, with a strange spreading plume of white mist behind it. Within a day or two London Tree would have put it from sight. The Grad wondered if he was being unreasonably antsy. The carm could reach Carther States across any distance. if he couldn't capture the carm, he would be here forever; and if he could, what was the hurry?

But time had a choke hold on his throat.

Life was not intolerable for the Scientist's Apprentice. In a hundred sleeps he might grow into this new life. When the time came he feared he would move too slowly, or not at all.

Clave found Merril in the Commons. She was dipping the points of crossbow bolts in the evil-smelling brew the Carthers made from poison fern.

The increasing tide caught Clave jumping toward her. He paused, then floated back, laughing. "It's real! I sure wasn't going to call her a liar, but—"

"Clave, what's happening?" Merril was drifting too, arrows all about her. She managed to catch the poison pot and cap it before it spilled.

"We're on our way. The warriors are on the surface." Clave jumped to his pack against the pull of the strange tide. He had readied it some sleeps ago.

Merril barked, "What? How long have we got?"

She had spent her days learning how to make arrows, twist bowstrings, shape a crossbow and fire it. Clave had watched her at target practice. She was as good as most of the Carthers, and her powerful arms were faster at resetting the crossbow.

He said it anyway. "Merril, you're in Carther States whether you go or not. A lot of Carthers aren't citizens."

"You don't have to go."

"You can feed that to the tree, 0 Chairman!"

Clave shoved a handful of the freshly poisoned bolts into his quiver.

"Then grab your gear and go!"

The tide was about like that in Quinn Tuft. Using the tunnels was almost like walking. But it was strange. Every branchlet and foliage tuft had the tremors.

Clave pulled himself through crackling branchiets and soft green turf through to the sky. A column of cloud raced outward from beyond the jungle's horizon. The surface was nearly vertical. He took care for his handholds.

Skeletal warriors emerged like earthworms out of the green billows.

Fifty or sixty Carthers had already chosen and boarded pods. Clave was annoyed. The Sharman had told him late, and nobody had told Merril.

Why? To give them a chance to back out? "Sure I'd have fought, but I didn't get the word in time—"

Maybe the Carthers needed copsiks more than citizens.

He helped Merril through the foliage. The light of battle was in her eye. She said, "The copsik runners left us behind. Not worth their time."

"I had a broken leg." Clave got it then, and bid his grin. "They made a terrible mistake leaving you, though."

"They'll find out. Don't you laugh!" She shook a harpoon; its point was stained with evil yellow. "This goop will drive you crazy if it doesn't kill you."

The sky was a vast sheet of cloud. Lightning flashed in dark rifts. Clave searched the western fringe until he found a thin line of shadow. London Tree was too big to hide in a cloud: fifty klomters or so, half the length of Dalton-Quinn, but five times the long axis of this puffball jungle.

The Comlink's chosen leader, Anthon, already had his legs wrapped around the largest pod. Anthon was brawnier than the average Carther man, and darker. To Clave he might have had a fragile look, with long bones that could be snapped at whim. But he was festooned with weaponry, crossbow and bolts and a club with a knot on the end; his nails were long and sharp; scars showed here and there on his body; and in fact he looked savage and dangerous.

The stem-ends of the jet pods had been pierced by wooden stakes that now served as plugs. A warrior would nestle into the inner curve of the pod and move his weight to guide it. Clave had used up a few pods practicing.

There were more pods than warriors, a hundred or so spaced wide apart and tied down with light line. Merril chose one and boarded it. Clave asked, "Shall I tether you?"

"I'll handle it." She swung her coil of line below her and caught it coming up. Clave shrugged and chose his own pod. It was bigger than he was but less massive: thirty kilos or so.

Men outnumbered women, but not by a lot. Merril said, "Notice the women? You fight for citizenship in Carther States. A citizen makes a better wife. The family gets two votes."

"Clave, how are they doing this?"

"Classified." He grinned and ducked the butt of her harpoon. "I can't tell you everything. The Sharman says the jungle will pass the tree at an angle, about midpoint, with a klomter to spare. By then we'll have launched. We'll match speed with the tree and come in while they're still terrified."

"How do we get back?"

"I asked that too." Clave's brows furrowed. "Lizeth and fluid are bringing extra pods. They'll hover in the sky till they see the battle's over…but they'll just be caught with the rest of us if the copsik runners use the carm. We've got to take the carm."

"What are we trying to do, exactly? I mean you and me."

"Gather Quinn Tribe. We want to look good to Carther States, but Quinn Tribe comes first. I wish I knew where they all are."

Mist was drifting over them, seeping into the foliage. A wind was rising. Storm blurred the sky. He kept his eyes on the faint, shadowy line of London Tree…which was nearer and growing.

The out tuft was nearest: the citizens' tuft. Citizens would be first to see the oncoming terror: a green mass klomters across flying at the trunk, green warriors coming out of the sky. Not much chance of surprise here. The jungle too was too big to be hidden.

Realistically, they hadn't a ghost of a chance of rescuing anybody. They would do as much damage as possible and die. Why not attack the out tuft first? Kill some citizens and they'd remember better.

Too late now. The Sherman was klomters away, tending a pillar of fiery steam, aiming it to send the jungle a fingernail's width from the tree. Fat chance of getting to her with a change in plan!

The line within the fog had solidified into a tremendous integral sign tufted at the ends. Every Carther now held a sword. Clave drew his.

"Warriors!" Anthon bellowed. He waited for silence, then cried,

"Our attack must be remembered! It's not enough to break some heads.

We must damage London Tree. London Tree must remember, for a generation to come, that offending Carther States is dangerously stupid. Unless they remember, they will come when we cannot move.

"Let them remember the lesson!"

"Launch!"

Sixty swords slashed at the lines that tied them to the jungle. Sixty hands pulled the plugs from the stem-ends of sixty jet pods. Pods jetted away in a wind that smelled of rotted plants. At first they clustered, even bumping into each other. Then they began to separate. Not all jet pods thrust alike.

Clave clung with arms and legs, tight against the screaming pod. He was wobbling a little, more than the others. Unskilled. Blood was drain. ing from his head. The tide was ferocious.

The sky was dark and formless, and lightning flashed nearby. They were approaching the center of the tree, as planned. There at the midpoint was the carrier, its nose against the trunk. Its tail was on fire.

Lawri tapped the blue button in a row of five.

Blue numbers flickered and steadied in the bow window. Blue lights appeared in the panel below: four clumps of four little vertical dashes each, in diamond patterns around a larger vertical bar. The array tickled at the Grad's memory. Lawri's hands hovered like Harp about to play.

"Strap in," Kiance said. Lawri looked back in annoyance, then tapped rapidly. The Grad got it then. He was in a chair when the carm roared and trembled and lunged.

Tide pulled the Grad back in his seat, then eased off. (It hadn't mattered in Quinn Tuft, but the Scientist had drummed it into his head.

Not tide! This was thrust! It might feel the same, but causes and consequences were different. The dead Scientist's legacy: thrust!)

The bow window nestled snug against the trunk. A breeze had sprung up; eddies swirled through the airlock doors. The Grad couldn't see anything of import through the side windows.

Lawri activated green patterns and tapped at them. Within the bow window appeared a smaller window in which an edge of sky peeped around a glare of white light. An aft view within the forward view: disconcerting.

Klance was going for a better look. He made his way to the airlock, gripping chair backs as he went. The Grad followed. A few kilograms of tide…of thrust took the vibrating walls forward, past him, till he hit the aft wall with a solid thump.

Klance was braced in the outer door, all of his fingers and toes gripping the rim. "I'll let you see in a minute, Jeffer. Don't fall out. You might not get back." He craned his head out. "Damnation!"

"What is it?"

"It's the jungle. I had no idea they could move the jungle! Hah. We'll give them a surprise. We'll just move away from them." Kiance grinned over his shoulder. He saw the Grad brace himself too late.

The Grad's foot lashed out and caught the Scientist above the hip.

Klance yelled and flew outward. Long fingers and toes still clung. The Grad's heel smashed at a hand and a foot. Kiance disappeared.

He moved into the outer door and leaned out. The drive screamed in his ears.

The tree was massive, but it was moving. Klance drifted slowly aft, thrashing, trying to reach the nets on the carm's hull. In his terror he seemed to have forgotten his line. He saw the Grad leaning out and shrieked at him: curses or pleading, the Grad couldn't tell. He looked away.

The tree now had a slight curve to it, like Minya's bow. The carm thrust in the center, and the tufts trailed behind, not very far. A stronger thrust might break the tree in the middle. But the carm was so much tinier than the tree; it was probably thrusting at full power now.

Klance was a thrashing black shadow against a brilliance like Voy brought close. The carm's main motor sprayed blue-white fire, pushing the carm forward against the mass of the tree. Klance was floating into the flame.

Ordon, halfway to the elevator, had seen them.

The jungle had become half the sky. Scores of objects moved alongside it: shapes like those he'd seen before the bark raft crashed into the jungle. Jungle giants on jet pods! But they wouldn't arrive if the carm continued to push the tree away. He had to turn off the main motor, now!

So he hadn't been premature, hadn't murdered Klance for nothing.

Lawri! He reentered the carm and leapt toward the bow. Lawri hadn't seen him. She stiffened suddenly and half rose, staring aghast at the rear window display. A shadow was thrashing in the flame, dissolving.

She whirled about. She was staring him in the eye when the Grad lashed out at her jaw.

Her head snapped back; she bounced against her straps and hung limp. The Grad used his line to tie her to one of the chairs. He sat down at the controls and studied them.

Yellow governed life support systems, including interior lights and the airlock. Green governed the carm's senses, internal and external.

Blue had to do with what moved the carm, including the motors, the two flavors of fuel supply, the water tank, and fuel flow. White read the cassettes.

What had Lawri done to activate the drive? His mind had gone blank. He tapped the blue button. No good: the blue displays disappeared, but the motor's roar continued. He restored the display.

Through a side window he glimpsed patches of Navy blue cloth moving across the bark. No time. Think Blue vertical bar surrounded by blue dashes…in a pattern like the motors at the stern. He tapped the blue bar.

The roar and the trembling died to nothing. The tree recoiled: he felt himself pulled forward. Then it was quiet.

Kendy was prepared to beam his usual message when the source of hydrogen light disappeared.

That was puzzling. Normally the CARMs main motor would run for several hours. That, or the attitude jets would send it jittering about like the ball in a soccer match. Kendy held his attention on a drifting point within the Smoke Ring maelstrom, and waited.

A dozen Navy men were making their way toward the carm, using lines and the lineholds, wary that he might start the drive again. Ordon was far ahead of the rest, mere meters from the window. There was murder in his face.

Quick, now! Hit the yellow button. The display was too cluttered: turn off the blue. Yellow display: interior lights showed dim, internal wind on, temperature shown by a vertical line with numbers and a notch in the middle; here, a complicated line thawing of the carm's cabin seen from above. The Grad closed lines that should represent the doors, with a pinching motion of his fingertips. Behind him the airlock sealed itself.

Lawri stirred.

He heard muted clanging from the doors.

The Grad began playing with the green displays, summoning different views from the carm's cameras. He had precious little time to learn to fly this starstuff relic. He felt Lawri's eyes on him, but would not look.

The clanging stopped, then resumed elsewhere. Ordon snarled through a side window. He must be clinging to the nets, pounding at the glass.

The Grad moved to the window. He spoke a word. Ordon reacted — puzzled — he couldn't hear. The Grad repeated it, exaggerating the motions of his lips the word that would justify murdering his benefactor Kiance, assaulting Lawri, betraying his friend Ordon, leaving London Tree helpless against attack.

"War, Ordon! War!"