Chapter Nineteen

The Silver Man

THE LAUNDRY VAT WAS A TALL GLASS CYLINDER. IT HUNG from the underside of the branch, from lines pounded into the black bark over Minya's head. Around it ran an extensive wickerwork platform woven from live spine branches. A layer of rocks beneath the vat supported a bed of coals. A pipe ran all the way from the treemouth reservoir to supply the water: an impressive achievement, had Minya not been too tired to appreciate it.

Minya and lisa stirred dirty clothing in a matrix of foaming water with a paddle two meters long. It took skill and fine attention. Left to itself, the laundry-soup would have foamed right out of the vat, clothing and all. The supervisor Haryet kept popping out to see how they were doing.

Minya wasn't t~eling awkward yet, but there was the sense of a guest building inside her. lisa's pregnancy looked ludicrous, a bulge on a straight-edge. Like the others, she seemed to have adjusted to her new status with little difficulty. Once she had told Minys, "We know all our lives that the copsik runners might come for us. Well, they came."

A chain of huts ran along the underside of the branch. Moat of the women preferred to stay inside. They weren't all pregnant. Some were nursing their erstwhile guests. They all had w9rk: knitting sewing preparation of food to be cooked at the treemouth.

The quiet was broken by a hurried rustling.

Then four people burst from the tunnel that led down from the examination hut: Jayan and Jinny, the supervisor Dloris, and a Navy man with his arm in a sling. Karal spotted her, ran to her, gripped her aim. She shied from his wildness.

"You're all right." He was gasping. "Good. Minya. Stay under the branch. Don't let anyone... anyone else go wandering."

"We don't tend to. We're too awkward. I thought men weren't allowed...

"I'm not staying. Minya, it's both elevators and at least one man, they're falling from thirty klomters up, and we don't know just where they'll hit. I've got to warn the children in the school complex." He pointed a finger at the tip of her nose. "Stay here!" And he sprinted for the tunnel, wobbling chest heaving.

If something happens, the Grad had said. Something was happening all right, but what? Would Dloris know?

Minya guessed where the supervisor would be. She moved down the line of huts and entered the last one as Dloris came through with Haryet. 'We've been counting," Dloris said. "Gwen's missing. Have you seen her? Three meters tall and pale as a ghost, with a year-old guest?"

"Not lately. What's happening?"

"Get those clothes out and drying and then put the fire out. Do you have lines? Good. Keep them handy." The two supervisors moved on.

Minya turned to Jayan and Jinny. "Give us a hand. Jinny, we're lucky you were around. We're all together now. Do you know what's happening?"

"No. Karal looked scared stiff~"

"Is it war'?"

"Better stick to our task till we're sure," lisa said.

They pulled the clothing from the vat in a geld mass, manipulating it with poles. Some water remained. They inverted the vat and moved back while the water-glob flowed sluggishly out onto the fire. Live steam didn't rise fast enough in London Tree's feeble tide. It tended to expand in an invisible globe, scalding hot.

Minys had never seen that fire go out. Dioris must be expecting something drastic!

They continued to work. They set the laundry in the press and cranked two great wooden slabs together. Water squeezed out around the edges of the wad of clothing, then began to slide downward.

Something smashed through foliage, somewhere nearby.

They from Then Minya plunged into the branchiets with Jmny and lisa behind. They made their way toward the sound. Minya angled above where she thought it had stopped.

There, a trail of broken branchlets. She followed it down to the broken and twisted rempins of what had been a Navy officer. The corpse wore a sword, scabbarded, and a quiver that was still full, though the bow was missing.

"Now it's war," Minya said.

"We'll have to kill the supervisors," lisa said.

Minya jumped. "What?" It was as if a stone had spoken. "Never mind, you're right. I thought you were... I thought you'd given up."

lisa only shook her head.

West takes you in. In takes you east. At first the Grad held the bow window pointed straight down. They dropped smoothly....aster he swung the cairn to point west and fired aft jets to correct as it drifted away from the trunk.

His passengers were rigid with terror, save for Lawn, who was rigid with fury.

They still had a passenger on the hull.

Anthon's voice wanted to stutter. He wouldn't let it. "I want to point out that we could go back to Carther States now. We've got the silver man and the cairn. These copsik runners don't own anything they value more. We can trade for your copsiks."

That actually sounded sensible. The Grad said, "dave?"

"Feed it to the tree."

Anthon said, "You want to kill some copsik runners. AU right, I can underst-"

"I want to rescue them myself! I am the Quinn Tribe Chairman.

They are entitled to my protection." Clave spat the word: "Trade! They attacked us, we attacked them. We've got the carm and we'll have our people too. All right, Grad-Scientist--have you got an opinion?"

They were dropping too fast. The Grad swung the carm nosedown and fired forward jets. He said, "Nice of you to ask. We've got the Scientist's Apprentice and the silver suit and the only man alive who can fit into it. Maybe they would trade. We keep the carm."

"Never," said Lawn. "Trade with copsiks!"

Anthon and dave looked at each other. The Grad said, "Never mind," and they laughed. Lawri's~tone of voice said it all.

Minya stopped and looked out through a screen of branchiets.

The supervisors had found Gwen. Haryet was scolding her as they led her toward the huts. Haryet was second-generation copsik, shorter than Minya; she looked tiny beside her very pregnant captive.

They'll have heard us coming Minya thought. Jinny must have realized that too. She stepped out through the crackling foliage, ten meters east of Minya's position. Good! They'll think they heard one not two- Dioris came toward Jinny with thunder in her face. Breaking new paths was strictly forbidden.

Minya emerged behind Haryet and stabbed her.

Gwen turned with her baby in her arms and shrieked. Dloris whirled and stared. Perhaps this place of mothers and babies had given the supervisor a false sense of safety. She reacted slowly. Before she could reach her truncheon, Jinny was pinning her arms and Minya was running at her in long, low leaps.

Dioris flipped forward. Jinny flew over her back: and came spinning at Minya, who lost a moment sidestepping. Then Dioris held half a meter of hardwood at guard, but she faced a Navy sword.

"Wait," she said. "Wait."

"My child will not be born a copsik!" Minya screamed and lunged.

Dloris danced backward. The tunnel was behind her, and Minya knew she bad to stop the supervisor from reaching it. She ran at her, ready to bat the truncheon aside. Then Jayan and lisa were moving into place behind Dloris. Jayan held the big paddle well up the haft, blade first, like a two-handed sword.

Dioris dropped her truncheon. "Don't kill me. Please."

"Dioris, tell us what's happening."

"Carther States is all over the trunk. I don't know who's winning."

"Have they got the carm?"

"The cairn?" Dioris showed nothing but astonishment.

They tied her with line. lisa wanted to do more; Minya knew Dioris too well to allow it. She wouldn't have killed Haryet either, if... if.

Gavving watched the carm descend in fire. Patry was talking to his box, too far away for Gavving to hear; but the Navy officer looked furious and frightened.

He caught Gavving watching him. "You! All of you! Stay where you are! Move and you'll be shot. Do you understand? Amy, take cover."

The two Navy men disappeared into the foliage. Presently Alfin said,

"We're bait."

"There's only two."

Horse asked, "Do you really think your friends have the carm? What will they do with it?"

"Rescue us," Gavving said with more assurance than he felt. "Alfin, when it comes down, jump for the doors and hope they open."

Alfin snorted. "You've got to be out of your mind. Look at that thing, you want to ride in it?"

"I'll ride anything to get out of here, if I can take Minya."

"You don't have Minya. Listen, Gavving. I remember you with your eyes red and half-closed and crying in rivers. They make their own weather here! Nobody starves, nobody goes thirsty. It's a good, healthy tree with a good crop of earthilfe. I've got a responsible position-"

"You like it here?"

"Oh... treefodder. Maybe I don't really like it anywhere. I took orders in Dalton-Quinn too. I'm seeing a supervisor, a nice woman even if she towers over me. I didn't have that in Quinn Tuft. Kor's a year or two old for the citizens, but we get along... and I don't like that box."

"I do." It was Horse who bad spoken. "Gavving, cede me Alfin's place."

The carm was falling straight at them. Those had better be friends aboard! He could only die fighting if they were not. He told Horse, "It's not my decision. Just do what I do, and we'll see what dave says."

"Done."

"Alfin. Last chance-"

"Why?"

Alfin met his eyes. "There's tide here."

Gwen's shriek of terror had started her baby screaming. He was quieter now. Gwen's awareness was in the hands that stroked and patted the child. There was none in her eyes.

The conspirators ignored Gwen as she ignored them. lisa led her back, once, when she tried to return to the huts. They didn't want Gwen talking to the others.

Jayan asked, "Lisa, are you sure you want in on this?"

Jinny wasn't pregnant; Jayan and Minya were qot obtrusively so. Lisa was. She said, "My baby won't be born a copsik either."

The branch shuddered with the force of a tremendous blow. lisa said,

"The second elevator. Karal said two."

Jayan said, "Minya, you've talked to the Grad. What did he say?"

"The Grad said to go up. He'll try to capture the carm. If he can't get the carm-"

"Then he's dead," Lisa concluded, "and all the Carther States warriors are going to die, and we'll never get loose at all. So he's got to have the carm. He's got the carm and as many Carther States warriors as he can get aboard, and he's trying to reach us. Who goes with us?"

Nobody suggested a name. Jayan said, "We're the only new copsiks. Let the rest run their own revolt."

"You can't go up."

They turned, surprised. Dloris's eyes shied from their potentially lethal attention. She repeated doggedly, "You can't go up. The tunnels lead to the fin and the treemouth. There isn't any connecting tunnel to the top of the tuft; that's where the men live. None of you are in shape to tunnel through foliage, and if you got to the top you'd stand out like so many mobies in a stewpot."

"Then what?"

"Stay here till your friends come for you."

lisa shook her head. "The children's complex? Karal must have the upper reaches evacuated by now."

"LIsa, it's big and complicated and it doesn't connect to the top. The most you'd do is get lost."

"What's your stake in this, Dloris?"

"Let me live. Don't tell anyone I helped."

"Why?"

"I wanted to escape once myself. Now I've been a supervisor too long. Somebody would be sure to want me dead. But you can't go up. Stay here and wait."

They looked at each other. Minya said, "You did that. For thirty years? No. I think I know what we have to do."

The Grad tapped at the motor controls... tricky. They had to be used in pairs and clusters or they'd spin the carm. He dropped into the foliage several meters from the platform, with a horrendous crashing, and opened the doors at once.

Three men jumped toward the door. Gavving gripped an older man's arm. The third man wore blue, and he was swinging a sword. Debby took careful aim and put a crossbow bolt through him.

Gavving and the stranger pulled themselves inside. The older man was gasping. "Get us moving," Gavving said. "This is Horse. He wants to join Quinn Tribe. Alfin isn't coming. He likes it here."

A feathered harpoon ricocheted through the doors. The Grad closed them. He said, "I left Minya and Jayan in the pregnant women's compound-"

"What? Minya?"

"She's carrying a guest, Gavving. Your child. And men aren't permitted there." Later the Grad would tell bim the truth... part of it. For now, for witnesses and the record, Minya is carrying her husband's chikL "Lisa's there too, Anthon. I told Minya to gather them all and go up. We'll have to wait for them."

Clave nodded. Gavving stared with open mouth. He said, "Grad, don't you know the men's tunnels don't connect to the women's?"

"What?"

"They'd have to go all the way to the fin or the treemouth, and back!

Or break trail-Grad, they're sure to be captured!"

Clave had a hand on Gavving's shoulder. "Calm down, boy. Grad, where would they go?"

The Grad tried to think. It was Horse who spoke. "Not the fin. That's Navy. Maybe nobody would notice some extra women at the Commons or the schools. Or maybe they'd just stay where they are and wait."

"Jinny'll be at the treemouth anyway. Okay." The Grad fired the forward motors.

The carm lifted tail-first from the tuft, leaving fires in its wake. Lawn screamed, "You're setting the tree on fire!"

She was ignored. "I've been to the pregnant women's complex," the Grad said. "I haven't been in the Commons."

"Aifm has," Gavving said. "It's big, and it reaches to the treemouth. If we can get the carm into the treemouth-"

Lawn writhed. "You can't! You can't burn the treemouth, what are you? This isn't mutiny anymore, it's just wanton destruction!"

Anthon asked mildly, "Will London Tree trade with copsik mutineers?"

Lawn was silent.

"Lying wouldn't have helped. You were too convincing before. We'll go get our people."

The cam moved sideways above the tuft, accelerating sluggishly.

Then there was clear sky below, and the Grad swung the carm around. They were dropping past the treemouth. The carm slowed, hovered.

The Grad touched paired yellow dots. Light flared into the Commons in twin beams, as if the carm were a tethered sun.

Women were running... away. Jungle giants all, leapfrogging across the woven spine-branch floor. None were the right size, nor dark enough, to be Jinny.

"Drop it," Clave said as if his voice hurt him. "Go for the pregnant women's compound. How do we get there?"

The Grad let the carm sink. They were below the tuft now: blue sky below, green passing above. "It's under the branch. I think our best move is to go up into it. I may not hit it exactly, and the Navy may have figured out what we're doing by now. Are you ready for a fight?"

"Yes," said several voices.

The Grad grinned. "Maybe I can scrape off the silver man too. I notice he's still with us... Now what's that?"

Things were falling from the foliage. A bundle of cloth tied with line. Long loaves of bread. A bird carcass, cleaned and skinned. Then the green sky was raining women. Jayan, Jinny, and a jungle giant: lIsa?

"They jumped," Gavving said in wonder. "What if we hadn't come?"

"We did," Merril said. "Get 'em!"

Two big leather bags fell, and then another woman, leaping headdown to catch up with the rest: Minya.

The Grad cut the motors and took a moment to think. He was aware of voices yelling at him but was able to ignore the intrusive noises.

Got to catch them in the airlock What about the silver man? He was still clinging to the dorsal surface. The Grad rotated the carm to put it between the pressure-suited dwarf and the falling women.

They were separating. It would be three operations. Jayan and Jinny first. They faced each other across clasped hands, as they had after Dalton-Quinn Tree caine apart. They seemed calm enough under the circumstances. The cam eased toward them.

The silver man was crawling around to the airlock.

"Hang on," the Grad said, and he started the cam spinning. Faster. His head spun too; he could see sickness in the faces behind him. The silver man, caught rounding a corner, was hanging by his hands. The Grad used the motors again, against the spin, and slapped the silver man hard against the hull. He flew free.

The Grad opened the doors. The twins were flying at him. He jetted flame to slow the carm; stopped just alongside them, backed and moved sideways. Then they were crawling into the carm.

Blue shapes crawled within the green sky. Armed Navy men, carrying jet pods and footbows and a massive thing that took three men to handle.

The reunion would have to wait. "Get 'em into chairs," he called back to Clave. Minya next. He was flying the carm like he'd done it all his life. He got a little careless; Minya thumped the hull, then came in with a bloody nose. "Sorry," he said. "Gavving, never mind that, get her to a chair! Who's the other one?"

"It's lisa," Anthon said. "They're shooting at her! Grad, get her!"

"I'm doing that. Do we need the food and other stuff'?" He was alongside LIsa now, between her and the failing Navy men. Voy glared behind her. Footbow arrows ticked off the hull....ut that thump had no place in his scheme. What-?

Lisa's look of terror and determination faded into blissful sleep. He knew before he looked: the silver man was back, spitgun and all. He was on the dorsal surface, out of reach of the doors, and Anthon had thrown a line round lisa's waist and was pulling her in.

"Get her into-" The chairs were full. "Get her against the back wall and stay with her. Don't turn any fixtures. Debby, put a tethered bolt in that carcass and we'll pull it in."

Anthon said, "The silver man-"

"These are close quarters. if he gets through the door, swarm him. The spitgun doesn't kill, but if he shoots us all, he owns us."

Jinny called to the Grad, "We brought a stack of clean laundry and a water supply."

"We've got water. Laundry... why not? Hey, I told Minya to go up. You did it right, we'd never have found you-"

Minya said, "if you had the carm, you could find us in the sky. So we grabbed what we could and went down."

The Navy men had not left the branch's green underside. Hardly surprising. if they failed to capture the cam, how would they reach the tree again? They would have looked futile, the Grad thought, were it not for the bulky starstuff thing they handled like a weapon.

The salmon bird carcass was a black silhouette with Voy painfully bright behind it. Anthon and Debby had to squint....ut their tethered arrows nailed it and they reeled it in. Maybe the silver man was hoping someone would show his head, none did. He tried to enter with the stack of ponchos, and the Grad almost managed to catch him in the closing door. That left the laundry outside top, and a red border around the yellow diagram. "I never saw red before. What's it mean?"

Lawn deigned to answer, contemptuously. "Emergency. Your line's holding the airlock open."

The Grad opened the door (the red warning disappeared) and Debby pulled the mass in. The silver man didn't try to follow. The door may have scared him. It was his last chance: the Grad closed the doors and sighed with satisfaction.

His sigh chopped off when his ventral view flared pure, diizzling red, then disappeared from the bow window.

From other displays he caught glimpses of painfully bright scarlet. "Can that thing hurt us?" Anthon demanded, while Lawri cried, "Now you'll see! They'll cut us in half!" and Clave said, "They're almost on us. We'll have them all over the hull if-"

"Feed it to the tree!" the Grad shouted at them all. He couldn't think. What could that light do to them? Neither Klance nor Lawri had ever mentioned such a thing.

We've got what we need~ Forget the bread~. forget the water. Get out! They'll never catch the carm.

Lawri saw his hand move and screamed, "Wait!" The Grad didn't.

He tapped the center of the big blue vertical bar.