That was bad enough. The other staff members would be rushing back to their bosses with the news that Brazil was alive, that he was actively shoving an entire planetary civilization through—and who knew what else?
It took several hours to handle the whole operation. Still uncertain as to his immediate course of action, Ortega called the Czillian Embassy, explained the situation, and advised that race of scholarly plant creatures to activate the Crisis Center at their computer-laden central research complex. The others would have to be briefed, and soon, before they started jumping to the wrong conclusions and taking even worse action unilaterally than they would collectively. A Council meeting, a great conference call of all the seven hundred and one ambassadors, who currently kept embassies at Zone, would have to be called. Ortega was about to order it when his intercom buzzed.
“Yes?” he snapped, annoyed. He needed time to set this all up, time to get everything together, and, most of all, he needed time just to think.
“Sir! It’s incredible! No sooner did we clear the last group than an identical group appeared! At least as many as before! Sir! What do we do now?”
Ortega sighed. No time, damn it all. No time at all. “I wish I knew,” he told the panicked aide. “I really wish I knew.”
Awbri
She awoke with a start. The last thing she remembered was stepping into that blackness, and now, as if waking from a long sleep, here she was—where?
On a damned tree branch, she realized suddenly, and pretty precariously balanced. All around her an enormous forest grew, a jungle, really, stretching out on all sides as well as above and below her. No sunlight seemed to penetrate the dense growth, although some must, she knew, in order for there to be so much green.
She knew immediately that her body had changed. The fact that she was grasping the thick branch with clawed hands and with feet that felt very much like hands told her as much.
She had never been particularly fond of great heights, but this was somehow different. She felt no vertigo and had a fair sense of confidence; the limb seemed almost a natural place to be.
Almost without thinking about it she let loose the branch and looked at one hand. Very long, thin fingers of tough skin covered with light reddish-brown fur. Moving the hand up and over generated other movement, and she felt a slight drag on her right side. She twisted her head and saw that there were tremendous folds of skin starting at her wrist and down the length of her body. She couldn’t imagine what the skin was for, but some flexing showed that it was tough and also covered in the reddish-brown fur yet stretchable, almost like rubber.
She risked movement on the branch and realized almost immediately that she had a tail. Trying to keep a good hold on the branch she twisted around to see it. Broad, flat, and squared off at the end, it was not one tail but a series of bones that, fanlike, she could open or close, to widen or narrow the tail. Between was the same rubbery membranous skin.
She was still staring, trying to figure out what to do next, when she heard a sudden tremendous noise and the tree shook. Frightened, she tightened her grip with all four hands.
“You there! Just what the hell do you think you’re doing in my tree?” snapped an odd, high nasal voice just above her.
She started and looked up to see who was speaking. It was easy to see him—but a shock as well, for she knew instantly that she now looked much like the creature who stared at her angrily.
His head was small and flat, almost like a dog’s except for the mouth, which resembled the bill of a duck. A long neck led to a rodent’s body, soft and lithe, looking as if it were capable of bending in any several directions all at once. He too had the flat fanlike tail and the long, thin, powerful-looking arms and legs. The thing was also almost a quarter larger than she, and its fur was a mottled gray.
“I’m sorry, but I’m new here. I came in at Zone and was sent through the Gate and woke up here as this. I’m afraid I don’t know where I am or what I am. I don’t even know how to get down from here.”
The creature’s feline eyes widened slightly in surprise. “So you’re an Entry, huh? You must be, otherwise you’d never make crazy statements like that. Get down? Why in the world would you want to get down?”
“Well, I have to get somewhere, “she responded, a little irritated at the man.
“You can’t stay here, that’s for sure,” the creature snorted. “Hell, I have too many mouths to feed now.”
“But I don’t know where to go,” she said. “I just woke up here on this branch. If you’ll just tell me something. ”
He seemed to be considering things. “Don’t have time to dawdle over your problems,” he told her. “Right now you just get off my tree and that’ll be the end of my problem.”
“I don’t think you’re being very friendly at all,” she huffed. “And, besides, I’d love to get off this diseased old tree if only I knew how.”
“Diseased!I’ll have you know that this tree is one of the best in all Awbri! Why, alone, all year it supports twenty-two people! Now what do you think of that? ”
“To be honest,” she said truthfully, “I couldn’t care less. I’m sorry I called your tree diseased, but I would very much like to know how to get off it and where to go from there. Don’t you have some sort of government here, some kind of authority?”
He cocked his head slightly, as if thinking about something. “Well, I suppose you can go to the local Council. We don’t need much here in Awbri; no big government or things like that. The Council’s the biggest thing about here, so that’s where you should go. The cowbrey bush in the center of the glade yonder, maybe half a kilometer that way.” He pointed with a foot, idly, index finger outstretched. Truly there were no differences between hands and feet on these people.
She looked in the indicated direction but could see nothing but trees and undergrowth.
“How do I get there?” she asked him. “Walk along the branches from tree to tree?”
He gave a sound that sounded like spitting. “If you want to, sure. But you can fly through a lot easier. The way’s been cut, as you can see.”
She stared. It was true. Openings had been cut, trimmed through the lush growth like roadways in the air. But—fly?
“I—I don’t know how to fly,” she told him.
He made that sound again. “Damn! Well, I don’t have time to teach you. Crawl along, then; you’ll get there sooner or later.”
And suddenly he was off, before she could say another word, shaking the tree again as he leaped into the air, spreading hands and feet and opening his fan tail, sailing off down one of those avenues.
She sighed and started to make her way along the branches in the direction he’d indicated. She couldn’t say much for the manners of these people but there were some possibilities here that were exciting. Never had she felt so keen a sense of balance nor fantastic depth perception! To fly, like that—man?—had flown!
She would learn, she told herself. She would soar effortlessly through space with confidence someday. She could hardly wait.
The journey was not without its problems. The branches were often several meters apart and she was a long time getting the confidence to jump from one to another over such a wide gap. She always made it, though, with unerring accuracy.
She met other—people—too. Most ignored her or looked at her strangely but none bothered to stop and talk. They jumped from every limb of every tree and they flew all over the place, mostly going to and fro on errands that were unclear to her. A few were more obvious; they scampered up and down thick trunks and off onto limbs great and small, spraying and cutting and pruning their trees. Clearly these trees were life in them, they ate their leaves and fruit, they lived symbiotically.