“Hello, tree-pilot.” The voice was insolent and unpleasantly familiar. Pallis turned. Gover stood facing him, hands on hips, a grin on his thin face.
“Gover. Well, surprise, surprise. I should have expected you here. You know what they say, eh?”
Gover’s smile faded.
“Stir a barrel of shit: what rises to the top?”
Gover’s lower lip trembled. “You should watch it, Pallis. Things have changed on this Raft.”
Pallis inquired pleasantly: “Are you threatening me, Gover?”
For long seconds the younger man held his gaze; then he dropped his eyes — just a flicker, but enough for Pallis to know he had won.
He let his muscles relax, and the glow of his tiny triumph faded quickly. Two threatened fist-fights in as many minutes? Terrific.
Gover said, “You took long enough to get here.”
Pallis allowed his gaze to roam. He murmured, “I’ll not speak to the puppet if I know whose hand is working him. Tell Decker I’m here.”
Gover flushed with frustration. “Decker’s not in charge. We don’t work like that—”
“Of course not,” Pallis said tiredly. “Just fetch him. All right?” And he turned his full attention on the excited group near the edge.
Gover stalked away.
His height allowed Pallis a view over the milling crowd. They were clustered around a crude breach in the Platform’s glass wall. A chill breeze swept over the lip of the deck; Pallis — despite his flying experience — found his stomach tightening at the thought of approaching that endless drop. A metal beam a few yards long had been thrust through the breach and out over the drop. A young man stood on the beam, his uniform torn and begrimed but still bearing Officer’s braids. He held his head erect, so bloodied that Pallis failed to recognize him. The crowd taunted the Officer, laughing; fists and clubs poked at his back, forcing him to take one step after another along the beam.
“You wanted to see me, tree-pilot?”
Pallis turned. “Decker. Long time no see.”
Decker nodded. His girder-like frame was barely contained by coveralls that were elaborately embroidered with black thread, and his face was a broad, strong mask contoured by old scars.
Pallis pointed to the young Officer on the beam. “Why don’t you stop this bloodiness?”
Decker smiled. “I have no power here.”
“Balls.”
Decker threw his head back and laughed.
Decker was the same age as Pallis; they had grown up boyhood rivals, although Pailis had always considered the other his superior in ability. But their paths as adults had soon parted. Decker had never been able to accept the discipline of any Class, and so had descended, frustrated, into Infrastructure. With time Pallis’s face had grown a mask of tree scars, while Decker’s had become a map drawn by dozens of fists, boots and knives…
But he had always given more than he had taken. And slowly he had grown into a position of unofficial power: if you wanted something done fast you went to Decker… So Pallis knew who would emerge smiling from this revolt, even if Decker himself hadn’t instigated it.
“All right, Pallis,” Decker said. “Why did you ask to see me?”
“I want to know why you and your band of bloodthirsty apprentices dragged me from my tree.”
Decker rubbed his graying beard. “Well, I can only act as a spokesman for the Interim Committee, of course—”
“Of course.”
“We have some shipments to be taken to the Belt. We need you to lead the flight.”
“Shipments? Of what?”
Decker nodded toward the huddle of Scientists. “That lot for a start. Labor for the mine. Most of them anyway; we’ll keep the young, healthy ones.”
“Very noble.”
“And you’re to take a supply machine.”
Pallis frowned. “You’re giving the Belt one of our machines?”
“If you read your history you’ll find they have a right, you know.”
“Don’t talk to roe about history, Decker. What’s the angle?”
Decker pursed his lips. “The upswelling of popular affection on this Raft for our brothers on the Belt is, shall we say, not to be opposed at present by the prudent man.”
“So you’re pleasing the crowd. But if the Raft loses its economic advantage over the Belt you’ll lose out too.”
Decker smiled. “I’ll make that leap when I come to it. It’s a long flight to the Belt, Pallis; you know that as well as anybody. And a lot can happen between here and there.”
“You’d deliberately lose one of our machines? By the Bones, Decker—”
“I didn’t say that, old friend. All I meant was that the transportation of a machine by a tree — or a fleet of trees — is an enormous technical challenge for your woodsmen.”
Pallis nodded. Decker was right, of course; you’d have to use a flight of six or seven trees with the machine suspended between them. He’d need his best pilots to hold the formation all the way to the Belt… names and faces passed through his thoughts…
And Decker was grinning at him. Pallis frowned, irritated. All a man like Decker had to do was throw him an interesting problem and everything else went out of his head.
Decker turned to watch the activities of his co-revolutionaries.
The young Officer had been pushed a good yard beyond the glass wall. Tears mingled with the blood caked over his cheeks and, as Pallis watched, the lad’s bladder released; a stain gushed around his crotch, causing the crowd to roar.
“Decker—”
“I can’t save him,” Decker said firmly. “He won’t discard his braids.”
“Good for him.”
“He’s a suicidal idiot.”
Now a figure broke out of the ranks of cowering Scientists. It was a young, dark man. He cried: “No!” and, scarred fists flailing, he launched himself at the backs of the crowd. The Scientist soon disappeared under a hail of fists and boots; at last he too was thrust, bloodied and torn, onto the beam. And through the fresh bruises, dirt and growth of beard, Pallis realized with a start that he recognized the impetuous young man.
“Rees,” he breathed.
Rees faced the baying, upturned faces, head ringing from the blows he had taken. Over the heads of the crowd he could see the little flock of Scientists and Officers; they clung together, unable even to watch his death.
The Officer leaned close and shouted through the noise. “I ought to thank you, mine rat.”
“Don’t bother, Doav. It seems I’m not ready yet to watch a man die alone. Not even you.”
Now fists and clubs came prodding toward them. Rees took a cautious step backwards. Had he traveled so far, learned so much… only for it to end like this?
… He recalled the time of revolution, the moment he had faced Gover outside the Bridge. As he had sat among the Scientists, signifying where his loyalties lay, Gover spat on the deck and turned his back.
Hollerbach had hissed: “You bloody young idiot. What do you think you are doing? The important thing is to survive… If we don’t resume our work, a revolution every other shift won’t make a damn bit of difference.”
Rees shook his head. There was logic in Hollerbach’s words — but surely there were some things more important than mere survival. Perhaps when he was Holleibach’s age he would see things differently…
As the shifts had worn away he had been deprived of food, water, shelter and sleep, and had been forced to work on basic deck maintenance tasks with the most primitive of tools. He had suffered the successive indignities in silence, waiting for this darkness to clear from the Raft.
But the revolution had not failed. At last his group had been brought here; he suspected that some or all of them were now to be selected for some new trial. He had been prepared to accept his destiny—