I FEAR JEFFER THE SCIENTIST. I FEAR THE SECRETS WE HIDE FROM THE ADMIRALTY AND THE SECRETS THE SCIENTIST KEEPS FROM ME. BUT I OWE A MAJOR DEBT TO CITIZENS TREE.
DAY1710. WE’VE FOUND A SIMPLE WAY TO HIDE OUR EMPTY CREWMEMBER. MAY I NEVER HAVE THE CHANCE TO THANK THE HAPPYFEET FOR MAKING IT POSSIBLE.
DAY 1780. WE’VE GONE FOR MORE PODS. ONE HAS BECOME OUR CABIN, ONE STORES EXTRA WATER IN CASE A FIRE SPREADS. RETURNING WITH A POD FOR LOG-BEARER’S CABIN GRATES IN MY SOUL, BUT IT WILL SURELY HIDE THE WEALTH WE CARRY.
DAY 1810. MAKING PAINTS GAVE MORE TROUBLE THAN I EXPECTED. THE COLORS ARE STILL POOR, BUT WILL SUFFICE. WE’VE PAINTED THE HONEY HORNET LOGO ACROSS LOGBEARER’S CABIN. NOW WE’LL SEE WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT MY CREW’S WINGS.
DAY 1996. ENTERED ADMIRALTY SPACE. GYRFALCON HAS REGISTERED LOG AND METAL FOR CUSTOMS. ASSESSMENT TO FOLLOW.
DAY 2000. LOG NEARING MARKET. METAL CONCEALED FROM ALL BUT NAVY. CONDITIONS OPTIMAL.
DAY 2015. DOCKED. SENT THE CREW OFF WITH CARLOT. WOULD HAVE GONE WITH THEM IF I COULD. I NEVER DEALT WITH TREE DWELLERS BEFORE. I CAN’T GUESS HOW THEY’LL REACT.
I MISS RYLLIN. I NEVER IN MY LIFE HAD TO WEAVE SO MANY THREADS AT ONCE.
A FAT, BABY-BLUE TORPEDO CRUISED SLOWLY ALONG the Serjent log, moving closer to where Rather and Carlot stood watch. Suddenly it split along its length, and four slender blue-and-orange triunes dived on some tree-dwelling life form.
Rather pointed. “Four?”
“Sometimes triunes have twins.”
“I’ve never heard of that.”
“You never saw one of those either.” She pointed out a triangular shadow. “That’s a Dark shark. They don’t usually come this far skyward. They’re dangerous. All teeth, no brain.”
“Skyward?”
“Dark, skyward, spin, and antispin. We use all the normal directions too.”
“How do you keep it all straight?” Rather reached to wrap his legs lightly around her waist. She did not respond.
A ball of green fluff stretched a quarter klomter of curly tail toward a passing sphere of water.
Booce, Debby, and Clave were around the log’s horizon, ready to use the rocket if anything came near. Carlot and Rather kept watch from the east. “We can still keep our eyes on the sky,” Rather pointed out.
Carlot pounded his kneecaps with her fists, briskly.
“Who’s watching us?”
“I don’t mind triunes watching. Maybe I even like it.”
“What about the houses?”
“Houses?”
“You’d say huts. Look—”
Beyond the Market, beyond Carlot’s pointing chin, six cubes were strung along a spire of wood with a rocket tank and nozzle at one end. “That’s Captain-Guardian Wayne Mickl’s household,” Carlot said. “He’s one of the richest officers.”
“It isn’t close.”
“That one is.”
A structure floated against the Dark, a cube festooned with platforms, extrusions for tethers, water pods, and other things for which he had no name.
“That’s the Hillards, I think. And that puff jungle is the Kerians.”
The sky was full of puffballs. The one Carlot pointed out bore a big K with other letters within, too small to read. Carlot said, “Crew live in those if they’re too poor to buy wood. Usually they clip a logo in the foliage.”
Rather laughed. “Okay, I’m convinced.” Another puff jungle was marked with a slender figure-eight. “If you’re rich, you build with wood?”
“Yes.”
“Your family has a house.”
“We find our own wood! I’ll show you if it comes around. It wasn’t finished when we left, but I know the design.”
“We’re poor; aren’t we? Citizens Tree is poor.”
“You live poor. The CARM makes you rich, except that you can’t use it…and there’s your share of the Wart, once Father sells it. Rather?”
“Speaking.”
“I think I’m going to marry Raff.”
Rather turned to look at her. The sudden black emptiness in his belly was entirely new to him, yet he couldn’t feel any surprise. He got his lips working. “Would you be better off if I went somewhere else?”
She was having trouble meeting his eyes. “I haven’t seen Raff in three years. Rather, I think he’d be happier if he didn’t know we’ve been…”
“Making babies. I won’t announce it.”
“All right. But I wouldn’t push you into the Navy just to get rid of you! Don’t ever think that! I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not. I don’t think for Citizens Tree, and I don’t do your thinking either. Don’t give up the idea just to stay near me.”
“I have no intention of joining the Navy.” Rather turned back to the sky. He was still on watch.
Now that he knew what to look for, the sky danced with structures. Puff jungles were everywhere, more of them toward the Dark, and some were marked. There were wooden cubes and clusters of cubes, elaborately colored in bright primaries. He could pick out wind-curdled lines of steam crossing the Dark.
He said, “People change in three years.”
Carlot said, “Sure. Maybe we won’t like each other. We’ll see. I’m telling you. Rather, if we get along I’ll marry him. Belmy was the first of the logging concerns, and it’s the most powerful.”
The helmet had been in place in the termite nest for some twenty hours. Kendy ran the record through his mind, classifying, deducing, making notes. When he reached present time he went back to the beginning.
His mental model of the Admiralty was shaping up nicely.
There were more new plants than new animals. Animals showed the same modified trilateral symmetry here as they did in the Smoke Ring proper. There was a clear absence of tide-stabilized plants: hardly surprising.
The buildings were interesting. Everything less primitive than a carved-out cotton-candy plant was built in rectangular solids. It was as if they still built to resist gravity …but not quite, for addenda sprouted at any angle, and openings might appear in any of the six walls. They looked like Escher had designed them.
Some houses had a big square fin sticking out from one corner. The Clump was turbulent. In infrared Kendy could see little whirlwinds, “dust devils” with no dust in them. A house would tumble and keep tumbling without that fin.
Unless it was attached to some larger structure.
Why was there only one Market? It didn’t look difficult to construct. Houses were scattered through the outer Clump. Most would have no neighbors at all most of the time. There was no need for such isolation. It was inefficient and lonely.
The tree’s attitude changed continually. The view through the helmet camera wavered with it. Kendy was getting only glimpses of the Market, but he could integrate them.
Many of the structures were moored by concrete to the Market frame. Too bad. Kendy would have liked to offer them concrete. If he ever got their attention he’d have to have something to offer, some bit of knowledge to make their lives better. He knew the pattern that would make them a thriving. Smoke Ring-girdling State in a hundred years; but there had to be something quicker.
Electricity? The Clump never had true night either. How did they light their houses?
He recognized a glass tank from one of Discipline’s seeding missiles,’ emitting a sharp spike in the light spectrum: chlorophyll. They’d made it into a hydroponics tank. The faceted hemisphere nearby was an old survival tent sheathed with wood, with transparent facets left open. Other structures on the ring were made from Smoke Ring materials: mostly wood, but one was a cotton-candy jungle tethered to a mast.