Most of the warriors were armed with bows and arrows, but a number carried bazookas. These would have to dismount, however, to be effective, since the bazooka handler could not touch off the rocket himself. The tops of the wagons were platforms on which rocket tubes were mounted on swivelling columns.
Ulysses gave the order to advance, and the wedge started at a trot toward the canines. That a numerically inferior force would dare attack them on their home grounds seemed to paralyse the canines for a few minutes. But the chiefs finally got them going, and they came running at Ulysses' party. Their ranks got progressively less organised the nearer they came to the horsemen, and by the time the two had almost met, the canines were in a state of chaos. Every man — or every dog-like man — for himself.
Ulysses stopped the cavalry, the bazooka men dismounted, and the archers fired a volley. This was followed by six more volleys, each under the direction of sergeants who watched Ulysses for signals. It was an excellent exercise. The training paid off, and about two hundred Kurieiaumea went down with arrows in them.
Then, as they broke and ran, rockets struck among them and exploded. Though the warheads carried stone chips as shrapnel, the main effect of the missiles was panic. They threw away their weapons and fled. The cavalry advanced slowly and then stopped while a number retrieved the arrows and cut the ears off the dead and the wounded for trophies.
Two hours later, the dog-men, reorganised, their courage renewed by the scorn of the chiefs, attacked. And again they were cut down and sent running.
It was a great day for the felines, who had usually lost whenever they encountered the canines on their own grounds. They wanted to push on, burn the dog-men's villages, and massacre the females and children, but Ulysses forbade this.
Two days later, the blackish mass ahead became a dark green. Later, they saw blooms of many colours and hues. Grey streaks appeared in the green. These hardened into immense trunks and branches and roots.
Wurutanawa s a tree, the mightiest that had ever existed. Ulysses, thinking of Yggdrasil, the world tree of Norse religion, thought that here was one to match it. It was a world tree if he were to believe Ghlikh's and Ghuakh's description. It was like a banyan tree ten thousand feet high in many places and spreading out for thousands of square miles. It extended branches which eventually dropped to the earth, dived into the earth, and re-emerged as new trunks and new branches. It was a solid mass, all continuity. Somewhere in that vast octopus of tree the original trunk and branches were still living.
When they came to the first branch, which plunged from a great distance into the ground before them, they paused in awe. Then they rode around the grey corrugated-bark pillar and estimated that this branch was at least five hundred yards in diameter. The bark was so thick and fissured and indented, it looked like a heavily eroded cliffside.
They were all silent. Wurutana was overwhelming, like the sea, a great earthquake, a flood, a hurricane, a cyclone or a huge meteorite falling.
'Look!' Awina said, pointing. 'There are trees growing on The Tree!'
Dirt had collected in many of the deep fissures, and seeds had blown or been dropped by birds, and trees had taken root in the earth in the fissures. Some of them were over a hundred feet tall.
Ulysses looked inside the gloom at the bottom. So thick was the vegetation above, very little sun penetrated down here. But Ghlikh had said that it was easier to travel in the upper terraces than on the bottom. So much water dripped from the tree onto the ground that it formed vast swamps. There were also quicksand and poisonous growths that did not seem to need the sun, and snakes that were venomous and cared not at all for the light. The caravan would disappear in the bogs and marshes within a few days.
Ulysses did not trust the bat-man, but he could believe this account. A dank unwholesome odour was breathed out from the roots. It stank of decay and pale furtive things and soil under water that would suck up anybody who was foolish enough to venture on it.
He looked up along the nearest branch. It came down at a forty-five degree angle from somewhere in that green and multicoloured welter several miles away.
'We'll ride on to the next one,' he said, 'and look around.'
It was already evident that they would have to leave the horses behind. It was too bad they were not domesticated goats. He had seen goats bounding from the edge of one bark-ledge to another. They were orange- haired creatures with doubly curved horns and little black chin whiskers.
There were other animals, too. Black-bodied, yellow-faced monkeys with long ringed tails. A baboonish monkey with a green posterior and a scarlet coat. A tiny deer with knobby horns. A coatimundi-type animal. Something hog-like and grunting. And birds, birds, birds!
They rode for a half-mile until they came to the next branch — or root — entering the earth. Water flowed down a channel, a deep groove, on its back and into a creek bed. Ghlikh had said that there were many springs, creeks and even small rivers in the grooves on the tops of the branches. Now Ulysses could believe it. What a mighty pump this tree was! It must send its roots deep into the earth, driving through stone, and it sucked up the water contained in the rock and tapped domes of water far underground. It might even tap the ocean and turn its water into fresh liquid, rejecting the salts. Then it exuded the water at various places, and springs, creeks and riverlets ran.
'This is as good a place as any,' he said. 'Unpack the horses. And let them go.'
'All that good meat!' Awina said.
'I know. But I don't like to kill them. They've been of service to us; they have a right to live.'
'They'll get eaten up before the week's over,' Awina grumbled, but she relayed the order.
Ulysses watched the two bat-people while the unloading was taking place. They sat by themselves under the shade of a projection of bark and talked in low tones. They had been allowed to come this far because they were useful as scouts and they talked so much that they provided information even when they were trying to conceal it. They had warned the party about the dog-men, and they had given Ulysses enough data to piece together some partial pictures of what lay ahead.
But they also were probably detailed to spy on the invaders, and they would betray the party at the best time. At least, Ulysses had to proceed on that assumption.
He paced back and forth for several minutes and then decided that he would allow them to accompany them for a few more days. The Tree was an environment with which everybody except the two bat-people was totally unfamiliar. The party needed all the advice it could get. And although The Tree did not have so many open places, it had enough for the two to fly through. They could make scouting trips ahead of the party. The only trouble was, what if they went ahead to notify somebody that Ulysses and party were coming?
He would take a chance on that for a few days.
He went back to the pile of material and picked out what they should take. Climbing around on this tree would be like climbing a mountain most of the time; they could take only the most essential things. At the moment there did not seem to be much use for the heavy bazookas and rockets. He hesitated for a few minutes and then decided to get rid of them. He would, however, keep a number of the bombs.
He did not want the bat-people to come here and pick up the rockets, so he emptied them and set fire to powder. The resultant explosions shook up The Tree for miles. Hours passed before the monkeys and birds quit squawking and chattering.
After making sure that everything was properly bundled and strapped on, he signalled for them to follow him. He went up alongside the stream, leaping from projection to projection of the bark as if he were crossing a creek on stones. He was glad that he carried four extra pairs of moccasins. The rough bark would wear out the toughest leather in a short time. The others had calluses on their soles like iron. The two bat-people, however, had to be carried. Their weak bandy legs could not get them far along the branch. When he heard their carriers complain, he decided that the bat-men should not be burdens. He made them fly on ahead and wait for them. But he used the excuse that he needed scouts. This was an environment where ambush was fearfully easy.
They spent the rest of the afternoon toiling alongside the stream. The groove running down the spine of the branch was about fifty feet wide and ten deep in the middle. Coming down at a forty-five degree angle, its force was too much for anyone to wade in it. But Ghlikh said that higher up, where the branch was horizontal, the flow was slow enough for bathing. There were also fish, frogs, insects and plants in the stream and, of course, the creatures that ate these. And nearby would be the creatures that ate those predators.
A half hour before dusk, they came to the horizontal part. Here they rested while Ulysses studied the situation. They were partly in a gloom here, and when the sun was directly overhead they would be in complete
