Dark hair, lovely pale heart-shaped face-purple clothing. Gavving thrust a harpoon at her eyes.
'The fire!' Thanya screamed. 'It'll block us from the tuft! We've got to get past it!' She blew jet pods and was skimming outward across the bark.
Minya heard, but she didn't pause. Smitta was dead, and Sal was dead, and a single invader boy had killed them both. Minya stalked him.
The boy wore scarlet clothing, citizen's garb; his blond hair curled tightly as a skullcap; his beard was barely visible. His face was set in a rictus of fear or killing-rage. He thrust at her, threw himself back from her sword's counterthrust, lost his toe-grip on the bark. For an instant Minya was minded to go after him. Pierce him, kill him for the honor of Sal's triad, then go!
There wasn't time. Thanya was right. The fire could block them all, maroon them away from Dalton-Quinn Tuft…and there was Sal's bow to be recovered. Minya whirled and leapt away, and fired a jet pod for extra speed.
Sal's corpse floated free, her dead hand clutching the tribal treasure. Behind Minya the blond youth gripped bark to set himself and hurled his hand-arrow. Minya kicked to alter her course and watched the weapon whisper past her. She turned back as a shape popped up directly in front of her.
The shape was wrong, not human. It froze her for an instant. Minya hadn't quite grasped what was happening when a fist exploded in her face.
Gavving had ignored the yells from the purple-clad women. Now two were fleeing, firing jet pods to carry them outward along the trunk.
Another leapt in a zigzag pattern along the bark. But the dark-haired woman who had tried to kill him was now moving crosswise, back to where Gavving had left…left a burly red-haired corpse clutching a curve of silver metal.
Merril popped out of a crack just in front of her. Merril's fist smacked into the stranger's jaw with a sound Gavving heard even above the bass ripping sound he'd been ignoring while he fought for his life: a sound like the sky tearing apart. Now he heard the Grad shrilling like a cricket, a sound of panic, the words drowned in the roar.
But Gavving didn't need to hear. He knew.
'Clave! Claaave!'
Clave popped out of a deep crack and shouted, 'Ready. What do you need?'
'We have to jump!' the Grad screamed. 'All of us!'
'What are you talking about?'
'The tree's coming apart! That's how they survive!'
'What?'
'Get everyone to jump clear!'
Clave looked around. Jiovan was dead, floating tethered, but dead.
The Grad was already loose in the sky, with line coiled! Gavving…
Gavving moved across the shuddering bark, ripped something loose from a purple-clad corpse, continued in along the trunk. Jayan and Jinny weren't visible. Alfln snarled as he watched his enemies disappear into the outward smoke cloud. Glory and Merril watched too, not believing it.
Make a decision. Now. You don't know enough, but you've got to decide. It has to be you, it's always you.
Gavving. Gavving and the Grad were old friends. Did Gavving know something? He'd captured an invader weapon, and now he was far in along the trunk…headed for the meat they'd left when they went after the mushroom. Of course, they'd need food if they were to cast loose from the tree.
The Grad's mind could have snapped. But Gavving trusted him. and everything was happening at once: fire blazing on the tree, the trunk shuddering and moaning, strangers killing and then fleeing…
There were jet pods in Clave's pack. He could get his citizens back once things settled down. He bellowed, 'Grad! Lines to the tree?'
'Nooo! Treefodder, no!'
'All right.' He bellowed above the end-of-the-world roar. 'Jayan! Jinny! Glory, Alfin, Merril! Everybody jump! Jump away from the tree! Do not moor yourselves!'
Reactions were various. Merril stared at him, thought it over, pushed herself free. Glory only stared. Jayan and Jinny emerged from hiding like a pair of birds taking wing. Alibi clutched the bark in a deathgrip. Gavving? Gavving was working to free one thick leg of nose-arm meat.
The bark still shuddered, the sound filled tree and sky, the purpleclad killers were nowhere to be seen, and…nobody had gone after the fan fungus. Clave hurled himself at the stalk.
The fan bent under his weight, then tore loose and was turning end for end. Clave's fingers were sunk into white fungus. The tumbling thing seemed to be picking up speed. Faster, the bark raced beneath the tumbling fan fungus, faster…a fiery wind rushed past him and was gone before he could draw breath.
It wasn't possible. Bewildered, Clave saw tufts of flame receding in both directions. No tree. Citizens floundered in the sky. Even Alfin had jumped at last. But the tree, where was the tree? There wasn't any tree. Fistfuls of fungus turned to mush in aave's closing fists, and he screamed and wrapped his arms around the stalk. They were lost in the sky.
Chapter Eight
Quinn Tribe
WOOD SNAPPED EXPLOSIVELY, SPATTERING GAVVING WITH splinters as he leapt across the bucking, tearing bark. A million insects poured from a sudden black gap that must have reached a klomter into the heartwood. Gavving cried out and waved his arms through the buzzing cloud, trying to clear enough air to breathe.
The tree was everything that was, and the tree was ending. If he'd stopped to think, his fear would have frozen him fast. He held to the one thought: Get the meat and get out!
The nose-arm legs tumbled loose within a cloud of burning coals. One haunch was in reach. Gavving caught a line to pull it free of the coals, then jumped to catch it against his shoulder. Hot grease burned his neck. He yelled and thrust himself away.,
Now what? He couldn't think in this end-of-the-world roar. He doffed his backpack, tied it against the nose- arm leg, braced against the pack, and pushed himself into the sky.
Clouds of insects and pulverized wood half hid the shuddering, thundering tree. Dagger-sized splinters flew past.
Gavving braced one of his jet pods against the pack and twisted the tip. Seeds and cold gas blasted past him. The pod ripped itself free of his hands, spat seeds into the flesh of his face, and was gone.
His hands shook. Beads of blood were pooling on his cheek and his neck. He dug out his remaining jet pod and tried again, his tongue between his teeth. This time the pod held steady until it had gone quiet
The world came apart.
He watched it all while his terror changed to awe. Fiery wind swept past him and left him in the open sky. Two fireballs receded in and out, until the home tree had become two bits of fluff linked by an infinite line of smoke.
Awesome! Nobody could hope to live through a bigger disaster. All of Quinn Tribe must be dead… the idea was really too big to grasp… all but Clave's citizens, and they'd lost Jiovan too, and who was left? He looked about him.
Nobody?
A cluster of specks, far out.
He'd used both his jet pods, and now he was lost in the sky. At least he wouldn't starve.
