'Don't pull in yet. Is she armed?'
'She was.'
'I want her weapons.' Clave cast another line. An impressively thick bundle came back. Clave studied the haul: a knife the length of his own arm, a smaller knife, a bundle of mini-harpoons, and two of the pull-itapart weapons, one of wood and one of metal. He preferred the look of the wooden one. The metal thing looked like it had been made from something else. By now he'd guessed how they must work, and he liked the idea.
Alfin said, 'She tried to kill us all.'
'True.' Clave handed the Grad his last jet pod, not without reluctance. 'Stop our spin. Wait. See that sheet of bark, out from us and not moving very fast? See if you can stop our spin and move us that way too.'
Alfin persisted. 'What are you going to do?'
'Recruit her, if she'll stand for it,' Clave answered. 'Seven citizens in a tribe is ridiculous.'
'There isn't room to guard her.'
'Where do you want to spend the rest of your life?'
The jet pod sprayed gas and seeds. The Grad said, 'We won't reach the bark this way. Not enough push.'
Alfin still hadn't answered. Clave told him, 'Unless you've learned to like falling, I'd guess you want to live in an integral tree tuft. We now have a prisoner who lives in a tuft. We have the chance to earn her gratitude.'
'Bring her in.'
Chapter Nine
The Raft
THE POND WAS A SMALL, PERFECT SPHERE, TWENTY KLOMTERS out from the Checker's Rand: a giant water droplet trailing a tail of mist in the direction away from the sun. When the sun shone through from behind, as it did now, Minya glimpsed shadows wriggling within it.
It was going to drift past.
The ends of the tree were far away and still separating: Dalton-Quinn Tuft drifting out and west, the Dark Tuft in and east. The smoke trail that joined them was growing faint, save for dark streamers that were indecisive clouds of insects.
Something surged from the pond, and the pond rippled and convulsed in its wake. The creature was big even at this distance. Hard to judge its size, but it seemed little more than a mouth with fins. Minya watched it uneasily. It didn't seem to be coming toward them. It was flapping toward the smoke trail.
A loose cluster of citizens floated about the Checker's Hand. They couldn't all cling. There wasn't room, and the fungus wasn't holding together that well, either. They used spikes and tethers and showed a reluctance to approach Minya too closely.
The old one, Alfin, clung to the stalk. His look of terror had smoothed out, but he wouldn't talk and he wouldn't move.
The Grad studied her. He said, 'Meen Ya. Have I got that right?'
'Close enough. Minya.'
'Ah. Mineeya-if we could reach your end of the tree, could you help us join your tribe?'
Their eyes were on her. The old one's seemed desperate. Well, it had had to come. She said, 'We have a drought. Too many mouths to feed already.'
The Grad said, 'Your drought's probably ending about now. There'll be water.'
'You're the Quinn Tribe Scientist's apprentice?'
'That's right.'
'I accept what you say. How long before that new water grows new food? In any—'
'There'll be meatbirds in the wind now—'
'I don't want to go back!' There, it was said.
Clave asked, 'Did you commit a crime?'
'I was thinking about committing a crime. I would have had to. Please!'
'Leave it then. But if we spend our lives here, they're likely to be short. Any passing triune family would think we're some kind of mushroom tidbit. Or that flying mouth that came out of the pond a minute ago—'
'Can't we get to another tree, one with nobody in it? I know we can't go anywhere now, but if we could get to Dalton-Quinn Tuft, we could get to another tree, don't you think?' They weren't buying it. Distract them? 'Anyway, we can do better than we're doing now. We should be eating the Hand, not clinging to it. It won't last long now that it's been picked. We need a place to moor ourselves.'
She pointed. 'That.'
That was a ragged sheet of bark, ten meters long and half that wide, a couple of hundred meters away. Most of its spin had by now been lost to air friction, Clave-the Chairman?-said, 'I've been watching it for the past day. It isn't getting any closer. Treefodder, if we could move ourselves, I'd go for the pond!'
The Grad said, 'Maybe the tree left a partial vacuum. That might pull it in. We can hope.'
'We can do more than that. The bark may be close enough.' Minya reached for the weapons.
A hand clamped on her wrist, the fingers circling almost twice around. 'What do you think you're doing?'
Long, strong fingers, and no qualms about touching another citizen. There were men like this Clave in Dalton-Quinn Tuft. They had driven Minya into the Triune Squad…Minya shook her head, violently.
She was his prisoner, and she had come as a killer. She spoke slowly, carefully.
'I think I can put a tethered arrow into that wood.' He hesitated, then released her. 'Go ahead and try.' She used Sal's metal bow. The arrow slowed as it flew, and presently drifted. She tried another. Now two arrows floated at the ends of slack lines. There were murmurs of disgust as the boy Oavving reeled the lines in.
'I'd like to try that,' Clave said and took the bow. When he released it, the string brushed his forearm, and he cursed. The arrow stopped short.
Minya never dithered. She made decisions fast, important or no: that too had helped to put her in the Triune Squad. Now she said, 'Hold your left arm straight and rigid. Pull as hard as you can. Swing the string a little right and you won't hit your arm. Look along the arrow. Now don't move.'
She picked up the loop of line and hurled it as hard as she could in the direction of the sheet of bark. Now the arrow wouldn't pull so much weight. 'Whenever you feel ready.'
The arrow sped away. It ticked a corner of the bark and stayed. Clave put pressure on the line, slowly, slowly…it was coming…the arrow worked itself free.
Clave repeated the exercise with no sign of impatience. The bark was meters closer now. He reached it again and pulled line in as if he were fighting some huge meatbird.
The bark came to them. Clave fired another arrow deep into the wood. They crossed on the line. Minya noticed Alfin's shuddering breath once he was safely moored to the bark.
And she noticed Clave's, 'Well done, Minya.' But he kept the bow.
'We'll used the other side of the bark for privacy,' Clave instructed. 'Now, the bark is all we've got, so there's no point in getting it dirty. When you feed the tree, the fertilizer should go outward.'
'It'll float around us,' Alfin said, his first words in hours. He must have seen how they looked at him. 'Yes, I do have a better idea. Be at the rim when you feed the tree. The spin will throw it away from us. Won't it, Grad?'
'Yes. Good thinking.'
Minya chewed on fan fungus. It was fibrous and nearly tasteless, but there was damp in it, and the damp was delicious. Minya looked longingly toward the pond, which was no closer. So near, so far
They had eaten the smoked dumbo meat down to the bone, to prevent its spoiling. Maybe that had been a mistake. Their bellies were full, even overfull, but they were left thirstier yet. They could die of thirst here.
Aside from that, things were going well.
The golden-haired boy, Gavving: she had made a good choice there. Perhaps he thought he owed her his
