Thrashing his arms didn't stop the Grad's spin. He wasn't willing to use his jet pods for only that. He settled for spreading his arms and legs like a limpet star, which slowed him enough to search for survivors.
The left side of his face was wet. His fingertips traced a bloody gash that ran from temple to chin. It didn't hurt. Shock? But he had worse to worry him.
Three human shapes tumbled slowly nearby: purple marked with scarlet His stomach lurched. It was their own doing; he hadn't come here to kill.
The giant fan fungus floated free, turning, turning to reveal Clave clutching the stalk. Good. Clave still wore his backpack: very good.
That was their store of fresh jet pods. Then why wasn't Clave doing something about rescue?
Feet outward, Jayan and Jinny rotated slowly around their two pairs of clasped hands. It looked almost like a dance. Spreading out like that greatly reduced their spin. Good thinking, and no sign of panic.
Merril was a fair distance in. Her arms hadn't pushed her far, and the tree's wind-wake had caught her.
The world's-end roar had dwindled, allowing lesser sounds. The Grad heard a thin wail. Alfin had leapt free after all. He was thrashing and spinning and crying, but he was safe.
The Grad couldn't find Gavving, nor Glory, nor Jiovan. Jiovan's corpse must have gone with the tree, but where were the others? And why wasn't Clave doing something? He and the fan were drifting away. The Grad sighed. He shrugged out of his backpack and searched out his jet pods. Old jet pods, from Quinn Tuft stores. Were they still active? He'd never fired a jet pod. He knew nobody who had. Hunters carried them in case they fell into the sky; but no hunter lost in the sky had ever returned in the Grad's lifetime. He did it carefully: he donned his pack again, then clutched a jet pod in both hands over his navel. When Clave was approximately behind him, he twisted the tip, smartly.
The pod drove into his belly. He grunted. He maneuvered the point, hoping to kill his spin. The push died; he released the pod, and it jumped away on the last of its stored gas.
Looking over his shoulder, he found the fan fungus drifting toward him. Clave still wasn't doing anything constructive, and he hadn't noticed the Grad.
The smoke of the disaster split the sky from end to end. Dense, flickering black clouds were pulling free of the paler smoke. The same insects that had eaten the tree apart were now casting loose to find other prey.
Other debris floated in the smoke trail. The Grad made out great fragments of torn wood and bark; a cloud of flashers whirling in panic; a flapping mote, perhaps a nose-arm fled from its burrow. In that confusion he could still see that the cloud of citizens and corpses was slowly drifting apart.
Far in toward Voy, Gavving maneuvered half his own weight in smoked meat. He'd be hard to reach. He'd gone far to save that meat, and the wind-wake must have pulled him further. Save Gavving for last, and hope.
The fan brushed against the Grad and he clutched it, fungus springy under his hands. Clave watched as if bemused. He asked, 'What happened?'
Safe now. 'The tree came apart. Clave, I'm going to dig in your pack. We've got to start rescuing citizens.'
Clave neither helped nor resisted as the Grad searched through his pack. They could use the big fan as a base of operations…rescue Alfin first, because he was nearest…He took half a dozen pods. He slid to somewhere near the fan's center of mass and fired a jet pod, then another.
'The tree came apart?'
'You saw it.'
'How? Why?'
The Grad was judging distances. He cast a line in a wide circle. It brushed Alfin's back, and Alfin convulsed and snatched the line in a deathgrip. He didn't try to reel it in. The Grad had to do that, while Alfin watched in near mindless terror. Alfin lunged across the last meter or so and wrapped himself around the stalk and buried his fingers in white fungus to the last knuckle.
A hand closed around the Grad's neck. Long, strong fingers overlapped the thumb, tightening like a steel collar. Clave's voice was a hot snarl in his ear. 'You'll tell me now!'
The Grad froze. Clave had gone crazy.
'Tell me what happened!'
'The tree came apart.'
'Why?'
'Maybe the fire set it off, but it was ready. Clave, everything in the Smoke Ring has some way of getting around. Some way to stay near the median…middle, where there's water and air. Where do you think jet pods come from?' The hand relaxed a little, and the Grad kept talking. 'It's a plant's way of getting around. If a plant wanders out of the median, too far into the gas torus region—'
'The what?'
Alfin asked, 'What on Earth is going on?'
'Clave wants to know what happened. Alfin, can you steer this thing and pick up some more of us? Here—' He passed across his store of jet pods.
Alfin took them. He took his time deciding what to do with them, and the Grad ignored him while he lectured. 'The Smoke Ring runs down the median of a much bigger region. That's the gas torus, where the molecules…the bits of air have long mean-free-paths. The air is very thin in the gas torus, but there's some. It gets thicker along the median. That's where you find all the water and the soil and the plants. That's what the Smoke Ring is, just the thickest part of the gas torus, and that's where every living thing wants to stay.'
“Where it can breathe. All right, go on.'
'Everything in the Smoke Ring can maneuver somehow. Animals mostly have wings. Plants, well, some plants grow jet pods. They spit seeds back toward the median where they can grow and breed, or they spit sterile seeds farther into the gas torus, and the reaction pushes the plant back toward the median. Then there are plants that send out a long root to grab anything that's passing. There are kites—'
'What about the jungles?'
'I…I don't know. The Scientist never—'
'Skip it. What about the trees?'
'Now, that's really interesting. The Scientist came up with this, but be couldn't prove it—'
The hand tightened. The Grad babbled, 'If an integral tree falls too far out of the median, it starts to die. It dies in the center. The insects eat it out. They're symbiotes, not parasites. When the center rots, the tree comes apart. See, half of it falls further away, and half of it drops back toward the median. Half lives, half dies, and it's better than nothing.'
Clave mulled that. He said, 'Which half?'
'East takes you out, out takes you west, west—'
'What are you doing?'
'I'm trying to remember. We were too far in toward Voy, so our end—' It only hit him then. The revelation blocked his throat.
A moment later, so did Clave's fingers. 'Keep talking, you copsik. I've had it up to here with you telling half a secret!'
Thickly the Grad said, 'Mister Chairman, you may call me the Scientist.'
The hand relaxed in shock.
'Quinn Tribe is dead. We are Quinn Tribe.'
Alfin broke the long silence that followed that terrible declaration. 'Are you happy, Grad? You were right. The tree was dying.'
'Shut up,' said Clave. He released the Grad's neck. Maybe that had been a mistake, maybe not; he'd have to apologize presently. For now, he clambered around to the edge of the fan. Jayan and Jinny were coming near, watching his approach alternately as they spun.
He'd never felt like this, so helpless, so fearful of making decisions. It bothered him that Alfin and the Grad bad seen him like that. He tried his voice and found it normal:
