By the time he climbed out of the pool, the fading light told him it was time to find a safe place to spend the night. There was still nothing edible in sight, but he could safely go several days without food as long as he had enough water. Remembering those claw marks, he studied the trees on the far bank, then swam across the pond and started climbing the largest one. The rough bark gave him plenty of foot- and hand-holds, and also did some work on Blade's skin. Before long Blade felt as if he'd been rubbed all over with fine sandpaper.
The tree was a giant, taller than its neighbors, with the crotch between its main branches at least a hundred feet above the ground. The last light of sunset showed Blade a sea of treetops, stretching away endlessly almost everywhere he looked. Toward the west and southwest the treetops seemed to change color. They looked golden-orange instead of green, but that was probably a trick of the sunset light.
To the northwest a cliff nearly a mile high leaped straight up out of the trees, with a range of rugged mountains curving away into the distance beyond it. Blade studied the mountains, and his brief thoughts of climbing over them rather than tramping through the jungle vanished. The cliff would be impossible without rock-climbing gear, and most of the summits beyond it showed snowcaps. Climbing over those mountains in his bare skin would mean nearly certain death from frostbite or exposure.
The sun had dipped below the horizon now, and seemed to be sucking the rest of the light after it. Blade pulled down all the leaves within reach and spread them out to make a thin cushion between his skin and the bark. Then he stretched out and fell asleep.
The bird chorus which greeted the dawn jerked Blade awake so violently he nearly fell off his perch. Some birds whistled, others screeched, whooped, boomed, or chattered. There was even one that sounded so much like a London fire engine that Blade found himself looking around for signs of smoke.
When he looked west he stared. It hadn't been a trick of the light! The trees there blazed golden-orange in the dawn. Were they flowering trees, like Home Dimension's dogwoods or cherry trees? Blade doubted it. The color was too solid and there was too much of it. Blade tested his muscles, then crawled off his perch and began climbing down the tree.
By the time he reached the ground the bird chorus was dying away. There was still a long day ahead of him and he could be sure of hitting the golden-orange trees sooner or later. They'd stretched halfway across the western horizon.
Five hundred yards brought him to a small spring. He drank, then set off again. He was so eager to satisfy his curiosity about the trees that he had to force himself to slow down, so he wouldn't work up a sweat or lose his direction. He remembered one of his early instructors in MI6A telling him, «Mr. Blade, you've got enough bloody curiosity for half a dozen cats. I only hope you've got as many lives!»
Blade tramped past an endless succession of gnarled trunks. At last he came to a trunk that was thick and smooth, and he was sure that he had found the trees he'd been looking for. The gold-orange color was definitely in the leaves-and what leaves! Most were at least six feet long and half that wide, and some were twice as big. All of them stuck out from the branches as stiffly as if they'd been made of solid wood. The canopy they made overhead was so dense and so brightly colored that Blade felt as if he'd stepped into a vividly dyed circus tent.
Once he'd got used to the spectacle of the leaves, Blade started noticing other details. The branches and trunks of the trees seemed to be covered with blue-black rubber rather than bark, and they twisted and curled in ways Blade didn't like. Hanging from some of the branches were immense seed pods, larger than the KALI capsule. They seemed to be completely covered with short, bright green hair.
From the bases of the blue-black trunks, a dense mass of creepers stretched toward Blade. They didn't have any seed pods, but otherwise they looked like a ground-dwelling version of the trees. Halfway to Blade they thinned out and disappeared among the ferns and grass, but Blade suspected they stretched considerably farther.
Suddenly he was very careful where he put his feet. There was something unnatural about the plants here. The colors, the leaves, the seed pods, the creepers Blade could have accepted any one of them, but together they gave him the impression of something dangerous.
Something went chirrr among the creepers, and three shiny green beetles the size of Blade's hand crept out into view. He took a cautious step, relieved to see something living among the trees. His relief vanished as he saw more beetles crawling over a whitened skeleton and chopping off pieces of bone with their pincers. The skeleton looked like a huge bird's. Blade saw a curved beak and a four-clawed foot.
Blade held out his club and prodded the undergrowth. He would almost have preferred something jumping out at him, but nothing happened. He took a step forward, prodded again, step, prod, step, prod…. He found each step a little harder than the one before, but he'd be damned if he was going to turn aside from a bunch of circus-colored plants!
Seven steps, eight, nine. The club came down again-and with the speed of striking snakes, three of the creepers reared out of the undergrowth. They wavered in mid-air; then, before Blade could pull the club back, two wrapped themselves around it. When Blade pulled, the creepers pulled harder. The wood split with a sharp crack, the creepers curled back with half the club, and Blade lurched backward holding the other half.
As he fought for balance, he couldn't watch where he stepped. His foot came down on another of the creepers. It writhed like a drunken boa constrictor, then wound itself around Blade's left leg. Another creeper lashed the air, then curled around his right thigh. Blade tried to pull free, but it was like trying to pull free from a pair of steel cables.
Whatever came next, it would not be a quick escape.
Chapter 3
Creepers were writhing and twisting toward Blade from all directions. They seemed to move faster the more he struggled with the ones holding him. He tried standing still. The new creepers also stopped. Blade gave an experimental heave, and they came on again. This time he not only stopped moving but held his breath. The creepers stopped, and by the time Blade had to breathe again some of them were lying down. He stood motionless until all the creepers except the two wound around his legs were limp and quiet. Those two, however, still clung as if they'd been glued in place.
Apparently the creepers judged their prey by the amount of resistance it put up. The more it struggled, the bigger it was, and the more creepers came to hold it. Hold it for what? If it was something that came at the prey so fast they had no chance to avoid it, there wouldn't have been a need for the creepers. The creepers themselves were tight enough so that they might cut off his circulation if they held him long enough, but otherwise they weren't particularly uncomfortable. Blade carefully kept his arms crossed high on his chest. The creepers didn't reach more than four feet into the air, so his hands and arms were free.