noticed when the thing stopped moving. He only came to himself when Clave shouted, 'Gavving, Glory, dinner's on you. You killed it, you clean it.'
You killed it, you clean it was an easy honor to dodge. You only had to admit that your prey had hurt you.
Jayan and Jinny worked at building a fire in the creature's lair. They worked swiftly, competently, almost without words, as if they could read each other's minds. The others were outside, chopping bark for fuel. Gavving and Glory moored the corpse with lines and spikes, just outside the hole, and went to work.
The Grad insisted on helping. Strictly speaking, he didn't have the right, but he seemed eager, and Glory was tired. They worked slowly, examining the peculiar thing they had killed.
It had a touch of trilateral symmetry, like many creatures of the Smoke Ring, the Grad said. A smaller third wing was placed far back: a steering fin. The forward pair were motive power and (as the Grad gleefully pointed out) ears. Holes below each wing showed as organs of hearing when the Grad cut into them. The wings could be cupped to gather sound.
It was a digger. Those little wings would barely move it. Everything in the Smoke Ring could fly in some sense; but this one would prefer to dig a hole and ambush its prey. Even its trunk wasn't all that powerful. The Grad searched until he found the sting that had been in its tip. The size of an index finger, it was embedded in Glory's pack. Glory nearly fainted.
They kept the claws. Clave would use them to tip his grapnels. They cut steaks to be broiled and passed to the rest, who by now were moored on spikes outside. They set bigger slabs of meat to smoke at the back of the wooden cave.
Gavving realized that his eyes were blurry with exhaustion. Glory was streaming sweat. He put his arm over her shoulders and announced, 'We quit.'
'Good enough,' Clave called in. 'Take our perches. Alfin, let's carve up the rest.'
Clave's team was well fed, overfed. They drifted on lines outside the cave. Meat smoked inside. The carcass, mostly bones now, had been set to block the entrance.
Clave said, 'Citizens, give me a status report. How are we doing? Is anyone hurt?'
'I hurt all over,' Jiovan said and scowled at the chorus of agreement.
'All over is good. Glory, did that thing break any of your ribs?'
'I don't think so. Bruises.'
'Uh-huh.' Clave sounded surprised. 'Nobody's fallen off. Nobody's hurt. Have we lost any equipment?'
There was a silence. Gavving spoke into it. 'Clave, what are you doing here?'
'We're exploring the trunk, and renewing the Quinn markings, and stopping a famine, maybe. Today's catch is a good first step.'
Gavving was prepared to drop it, but Alfin wasn't. 'The boy means, what are you doing here? You, the mighty hunter, why did you go out to die with the lames?'
There was muttering, perhaps, but no overt reaction to the word lame Clave smiled at AIim. 'Turn it around, Quinn Tribe's custodian of the treemouth. Why was the tribe able to spare you?'
The west wind had softened as they climbed, but it was still formidable; it blew streamers of smoke past the carcass. Alfin forced words from himself 'The Chairman thought it was a good joke. And nobody nobody wanted to speak up for me.'
'Nobody loves you.'
Alfin nodded and sighed as if a burden had been lifted from him.
'Nobody loves me. Your turn.'
Gavving grinned. Clave was stuck, and he knew it. He said, 'Mayrin doesn't love me. I traded her in for two prettier, more loving women.
Mayrin is the Chairman's daughter.'
'That's not all of it and you know it.'
'If you know better than I do, then keep talking,' Clave said reasonably.
'The Grad can back me up. He knows some tribal history. When things go wrong, when citizens get unhappy, the leader's in trouble. The Scientist himself almost got drafted! The Chairman is scared, that's what. The citizens are hungry, and there's an obvious replacement for the Chairman. Clave, he's scared of you.'
'Grad?'
'The Scientist knows what he's doing.'
'He blamed it all on you!' Alfin cried. 'I was there!'
'I know. He had his reasons.' The Grad noticed the silence and laughed. 'No, I didn't cause the drought! We rounded Gold, and Gold swung us too far in toward Voy, down to where the Smoke Ring thins out. It's a gravity effect—'
'Many thanks for explaining it all,' Clave said with cheerful sarcasm. Gavving was irritated and a bit relieved: nobody else understood the Grad's gibberish either. 'Is there anything else we should settle?'
Into the silence Gavving said, 'How do we cause a flood?'
There was some laughter. Clave said, 'Grad?'
'Forget it.'
'It'd solve everybody's problems. Even the Chairman's.'
'This is silly…well. Floods come when a pond brushes the tree, somewhere on the trunk. A lot of water clings to the trunk. The tide pulls it down. Usually we get some warning from a hunting party, and we all scurry out along the branch. The big flood, ten years ago. most of us got to safety, but the waterfall tore away some of the huts, and most of the earthlife crops, and the turkey pens. It was a year before we caught any more turkeys.
'And I wish we'd have another flood,' the Grad said. 'Sure I do. The Scientist thinks the whole tree-never mind. You can't catch a pond. We're too far into the gas torus region—'
'There,' Gavving said and pointed east and out, toward a metalcolored dot backed by rosy streamers of cloud. 'I think it's bigger than it was.'
'What of it? It'll come or it won't. If it did come floating past, what would you do, throw lines and grapnels? Forget it. Just forget it.'
'Enough,' Clave said. 'That meat's probably done. Let's get the smoke out and get inside.'
Gavving woke in the night and wondered where he was.
He half remembered the sounds of groans. Someone in pain? It had stopped now. Sound of wind, sound of many people breathing. Warm bodies all around him. Rich smells of smoke and perspiration. Aches everywhere, as if he'd been beaten.
A woman's voice spoke near his ear. 'Are you awake too?'
And another, a man's: 'Yes. Let me sleep.' Alfin?
Silence. And Gavving remembered: the cave was just large enough to accommodate nine exhausted climbers, after they flung the nose-arm's bones into the sky. By now the offal might have reached Quinn Tuft, to feed the tree.
They huddled against each other, flesh to flesh. Gavving had no way to avoid eavesdropping when Aim spoke again, though his voice was a whisper. 'I can't sleep. Everything hurts.'
Glory: 'Me too.'
'Did you hear groaning?'
'Clave and Jayan, I think, and believe me, they're feeling no pain.'
'Oh. Good for them. Glory, why are you talking to me?'
'I was hoping we could be friends.'
'Just don't climb near me, all right?'
'All right.'
'I'm afraid you'll knock me off.'
'Alfin, aren't you afraid to be so high?'
'I am.'
Pause. 'I'm afraid of falling off. I'd be crazy not to be.' There was quiet for a time. Gavving began to notice his own aching muscles and joints. They must be keeping him awake…but he was dozing when Alfin spoke
