Diagrams appeared: CARM and silver suit, side by side. Parts of the schematics blinked blue as Kendy talked. Jeffer saw that tanks along the calves of the silver suit were what made the legs so bulky. “Hydrogen here, oxygen here. There’s hose under these little panels. The spigots are recessed, here and here, under these covers on the hull. You open them from the control panel. Bring up the schematic, then twist above these dots, this way.” An arrowhead circled.
“Good.”
“Remember. Oxygen line from here to here. Hydrogen from here to here. Getting it wrong may cause an explosion.”
“What keeps the gases cold?”
“In a pressure suit? No, the gases are just under pressure. That’s why the tanks go dry so fast.” Kendy’s face was back in the bow window. “Did you find six metric tons of metal ore?”
“Yes. Thanks. Booce says it makes us rich.”
“Good. I see you’ve been building a steam rocket. Is it finished?”
“Booce still has to build cabins. We’ll go to the out branch for the wood. He still doesn’t know how to hold the pipefire—”
“Here’s the CARM,” a voice said. “Feel the airlock walls? Treefodder!”
Clave was in the airlock with Rather behind him. The display went blank, a breath too late.
Clave got his mouth closed. “First things first. Scientist, Rather’s having an allergy attack. You remember how Gavving was during the drought? Rather, you need thick wet air. So, we’ll close the airlock and turn up the pressure and humi…um, wetness. Do it, Jeffer.”
Jeffer let his fingers dance. Close both doors, humidity up, pressure up. Pressure in his ears. He worked his jaw. He untethered himself and moved aft.
Rather’s eyelids were puffy; the eyes were scarlet. Jeffer said, “It goes away after a while no matter what you do. This might help. Or not. Work your jaw to pop your ears.” He turned to Clave. “Well?”
“How long has the Checker been back?”
“Since the Serjents reached the trunk.”
“Why didn’t you tell someone? Me!”
“Let’s go outside.”
He opened the inner airlock door and gestured Clave in. From the look of him Clave might explode any minute; but he came. They were nose to nose while the inner door closed and the outer opened.
“Keeps the pressure in,” Jeffer said. “That’s why it’s called airlock.” He kicked out into the sky.
Clave followed on mismatched wings. “You’re stalling.”
“No. Kendy can’t reach us except when the sun is dead east, but anything that goes on in the carm, Kendy hears it later. He can’t hear us now.”
“He wouldn’t have heard us in the Citizens’ Tree commons!”
“Yeah. Clave, the truth is that I didn’t trust anyone else to talk to Kendy. I don’t trust Kendy, and he’s very persuasive.”
“Am I too fluff-brained to say no?”
“Clave…all right, so I was arrogant and wrong-headed. Now let’s go tell the Serjents.”
“Uh—”
“Hey, citizumf!” It wasn’t really a shout, but Clave’s long fingers closed over Jeffer’s face. After a moment the palm lifted to expose an evil grin.
Clave said, “You still should have told me. Rather didn’t see anything. Did you tell Lawri?”
“No.”
“What does Kendy want?”
“He wants the Clump. He wants to know everything about the Clump.”
“This trip was his idea, wasn’t it?”
“I told you he’s persuasive. Clave, we have to tell Rather about this before he talks to anyone. He already knows too much. Nobody else, right?”
“Right. Then I want to talk to Kendy.”
“He comes in range every four days lately. Four days from now, when the sun is dead east.”
Jeffer found Rather in the Scientist’s seat, hands poised above the controls. “Freeze,” he said. “Now move away.”
Rather obeyed. “I was trying to open the airlock.”
“Use the little lights on the doors. Rather, any citizen knows better than to fiddle with the controls. Once I nearly killed us all with one ill-considered tap of one finger. But I don’t have to explain that to you. I only have to say, Jeffer captains the carm, keep your treefeeding hands off the controls. Stet?”
“Stet. Sorry, Jeffer. I’ve seen you open the doors, and I was feeling shut in.”
“How are your eyes?”
“Okay.”
He held still while Jeffer looked. Rather’s eyes were pink and the lids were puffy, but he didn’t blink. “From now on you sleep in the carm with me. I should have someone here anyway in case we get shaken up when the tuft tears loose.”
Rather had already summoned the blue diagram of the carm’s cabin. Jeffer opened his fingers over the lines that represented the airlock. The doors opened behind him. He said, “Help me get the hose linked up. Then take it outside.”
Booce met them at the door. “I’ll take that, Rather. We’re filling the rocket. How are you doing?”
“Better.”
Debby, Clave, and Carlot waited at the rocket. Booce and Rather crawled along the bark, dragging the hose after them. Booce spoke quietly. “Did you know that Carlot was a crossyear child?”
“No. What’s it mean? The crossyear is when Voy crosses the sun—”
“Children born at the crossyear are unpredictable. They can go any way at all. Rather, I’m trying to tell you that you and Carlot are not to marry. She’ll marry a logger.”
Rather didn’t answer. Carlot’s expression was unreadable until the moment Booce’s back was turned. Then she winked. Rather felt his face glowing.
To work. Booce forced the hose into the rocket nozzle. “Jeffer says he can fill it without anyone sucking on the end. Clave, give us a hand here. Now push. Jeffer! Ready!”
The three were braced to hold the hose in place. Clave said, “There’s a signal Jeffer uses that tells the carm to push what’s in the water tank back out. It gets rid of mud—”
The hose writhed. Water sprayed out around the joint. Rather could feel the power of the water trying to tear the hose out of his hands.
They held it, held it…and suddenly the hose bucked loose and thrashed like a live thing. Rather dodged and was flailing in the sky. Booce bellowed, “Enough! Jeffer, it’s full!”
They were soaked before the hose went limp. Jeffer called cheerily from the airlock. “When do we see a test?”
Booce looked embarrassed. “I still don’t know how to substitute for the sikenwire. We’ve got time—”
“Yeah. Well, we’ve used up too much water, one way and another. I want to refuel the carm. Clave, Rather, come along. We won’t be long, Booce. The rest of you can start dinner.”
The three of them returned to the carm. Clave asked, “What do we do for a pump?”
Jeffer was smiling. “I’ve thought of something. There’s a pond thirty klomters out and a little east…”
The sun wasn’t much past zenith. A pinpoint diamond blazed next to it, out and a bit west: sunlight focused through a pond. Jeffer set the carm moving straight out.
The out tuft ran at them and past them. The pond wasn’t far beyond, and not much bigger than the carm. Jeffer set the forward jets firing when they were close. They came to a stop just in from the water globule.
Jeffer opened the airlock. He told Rather, “Get into your wings and follow us. Bring the silver suit. We’ll refuel the jets.”
Jeffer led them outside and around to the carm’s dorsal surface. Rather followed, tugging the silver suit by its limp wrist. There Jeffer took the suit from him. He watched as Jeffer produced narrow hoses from under a hatch…
Clave said, “Forget the suit for a while. Let Jeffer do it. Rather, you missed something during the allergy attack. What do you think happened then?”
“All I know is, you caught Jeffer at something.”
Jeffer grunted. He had the hoses hooked to holes in the suit’s legs.
Clave said
, “You missed your chance to see Sharls Davis Kendy. You’ll get it again in, what, half a day?”
Jeffer looked at the sun: past two o’clock, a few degrees out from west. “A little more than that. The thing is, this is a secret, Rather.”
“Everybody’s got secrets…Kendy? The Checker?”
“Tell him, Jeffer.”
Jeffer said, “Kendy’s back. He pointed out the Wart for us. He talked to me the day we rescued the Serjents. We’ve talked since. I gather it costs him something, maybe shortens his life, and he still can’t reach us more than once every two days.”
Rather said, “The tales Mark and Gavving tell, Kendy would have killed you all if he’d known you stole the carm.”
“I don’t think he could have done that,” Jeffer said, “but he might have wanted to. We stole the carm to get away from London Tree. We had Lawri tied to her seat, and Mark the Silver Man too. Kendy might have called it mutiny. You know some of this.”
Rather said, “You were copsiks. They owned you. I never understood how you could live with Lawri and Mark after that.”
Clave said, “What were we supposed to do, throw them into the sky? They earned their citizenship. Rather. When the air was leaking out of the carm, Lawri found the way to plug the leak. When Kendy was asking questions, Mark covered for us. We could have told Kendy we were escaped copsiks, but I’m not sure how he would have felt about that. Maybe Kendy’s people kept copsiks.”
“Kendy.”
“Yeah. He—Scientist, you understand this better than I do.”
Jeffer said, “Give me a minute.” He was moving the hoses. “Need to refuel the legs one at a time…”
“Stet. Now, Sharls Davis Kendy claims to be the recording of a man. I don’t understand that. Neither does Lawri. We don’t even know how cassettes work, really. I wondered if he was just some madman who reached the old starship, like we almost did, and was living aboard. But it’s been fourteen years, and he doesn’t sound any older. He wanted to know all about us. Whether we were mutineers. Well, treefodder, we did steal the carm, we were mutineers, much as I hate the word.”
“That’s all in the past,” Clave said.
“Yeah. Now he wants to see the Clump. Clave, remember how he talked fourteen years ago? I think he still wants everyone in the Smoke Ring to be one big happy tribe taking orders from Sharls Davis Kendy.”
The dark pond blazed at its eastern edge. Rather wondered if there would be time for a swim. He was not comfortable in this maze of secrets. “Kendy isn’t the Chairman. We don’t have to do what he says.”
“No.”
“Well, we want to see the Clump too. And if he can’t touch us—Why not tell the Serjents?”
“Boy’s got a point,” Clave said.
“You didn’t tell them either.”
“Maybe that was just reflex.”
“Just talk to Kendy, Chairman, and then I’ll point out something.”
Clave merely nodded. To Rather, he said, “One more thing. Kendy hears everything anyone says aboard the carm.”
Rather laughed.
Jeffer asked, “Anything else to discuss? I think I’m finished here. Now let’s refuel the carm. Go back in and strap down.”
“We still don’t have a pump.”
The Scientist’s answering grin was a little mad. Clave sighed.
Jets grumbled, then died. Rather watched a wind-riffled wall of water move toward the bow window.
Clave asked, “Shouldn’t you close the doors?”
Jeffer grinned and shook his head.
Clave said, “I wish to point out, Captain, that we’re going to hit that pond.”
“Yeah.”
The pondlet struck. Rather sagged in his straps. Clave grunted. He asked, “Do you honestly know what you’re doing?”
“I honestly do.”
Through the great window the interior of the pondlet was open to view. A flock of tiny silver torpedoes sped away through the murk and disappeared through the shivering silver surface.
“The carm’s hundreds of years old and nothing’s hurt it yet. Now I reduce the interior pressure.” Jeffer’s fingers moved; the air system hissed; water entered the airlock in an expanding silver bubble.
The doors closed. Water remained inside, flowing over the aft walls, the curve of it becoming more and more concave. Waves curled and sloshed as Jeffer turned the carm away from the pond.
He grinned at them. “Now I set the pressure back to normal and turn down the humidity. That tells the carm to make the air dry by taking water out of it. The water goes to the tank. See? We can’t run out of fuel now. It’s something Lawri never thought of.”
“It’s treefeeding wet in here, Scientist!”
“But you don’t have to pump. Next on the agenda is Kendy. Checker, when you hear this, please introduce yourself.”
Clave asked, “What if he’s not there?”
“He’ll hear it when he runs the record—”
There was a face in the bow window.
Kendy was a dwarf. Rather had expected that, but he was still taken aback. Deepset eyes examined him, judged him, within a face like carved rock. A giant’s gravelly voice said, “Kendy for the State. Hello, Chairman Clave. Hello, Rather the Silver Man. Scientist, your manner of refueling the CARM is likely to destroy it. If the impact had torn away the solar cell arrays, how would you break up water? A CARM doesn’t fly on water.”
Jeffer looked nettled. Clave said, “Welcome back, Kendy.”
“Thank you, Chairman.”
“Why did you hide from me?”
“I felt that Jeffer was better equipped to judge his political situation than I.”
Clave bridled. “And I’m not?”
“If Jeffer had told you, he would surely have had to tell his wife. Do you trust Lawri’s judgment?”
“I give up. Between you, you…stet.”
“I watched your nonmutiny with some interest. You’re a natural leader, Clave. You should be ruling many more than your thirteen citizens.”
“Thank you, Checker. Where do you propose I find another thousand citizens, all of whom are inclined to trust a tree-living outsider?”
The language was cold and stiff. Jeffer and Clave did not trust Kendy, and Kendy clearly knew it. He said, “You need not turn a compliment into a policy statement, Clave. I can’t force you to obey my orders. You can’t stop me from observing through the CARM’s instruments. You know that I know things you do not. Can’t we work together?”
“Maybe. Thanks for showing us the Wart.”
“You’re welcome. Has Booce found a way to confine the pipefire?”
“Not yet.”
“Even with sikenwire, the pipefire is dangerous. You do have a source of metal. You can make a firebox from the Wart.”
Clave grinned. “What a good idea.”
“You probably don’t have the facilities to make a smelter—”
“What?”
“A smelter refines metal. It melts metal ore and burns away impurities. You shape the metal by pouring the liquid into forms. Gravity is needed, or tide, or spin. The Admiralty may have such technology, but I gather you do not.”
“We do not. You’d set the tree on fire for sure!”
“But you do have a saw. It was moored in the cargo section. Use it to cut slices from the Wart.”
“Kendy, you’d ruin the teeth.”
“No. That saw was taken from Discipline. Most of the tools aboard Discipline were made to last. Even with trivial items, the major cost was transportation. The chicken wire must have been made in the Admiralty, but your hose is reinforced with hullmetal alloy. The pipe is hullmetal. So is the saw. You won’t damage it by sawing slices from a mass of soft iron. Here—”
Kendy’s angular visage was replaced by a line drawing of the steam rocket, then another line drawing: a rectangle with tabs at its edges. “Cut three of these. Use the first as a template—”
“How do we hold the parts together? Tether
s would burn.”
“Set the plates in place and pound on the tabs until they bend down. They’ll fold over each other.” Three rectangular plates formed a triangular prism. The tabs along the edges blinked green, then bent themselves over to interlock. Logbearer reappeared, and the three-sided box now enclosed the pipe and pipefire.
Clave said, “I’ll ask Booce. You won’t get much air flow to the coals.”
“Mount the rocket two or three kilometers in or out from the center of mass. The wind will keep the coals alight. You couldn’t make a completely closed box anyway. It will leak.”
“Mmm…yeah. You’ve been thinking hard about this.”
“I can solve simple mechanical problems. What will you do with the CARM when you reach the Clump?”
Clave was still studying the diagram. “We’ll hide it before we get there. Take the log in with the steam rocket. Take our time selling it.”
“You’ll want to keep the CARM safe, but near enough for rescue if something goes wrong. Now, the Clump is more crowded than the Smoke Ring in general, but one may still think of it as mostly empty space. Two thousand people won’t crowd a region the volume of the Earth’s Moon! You’ll find plenty of hiding space.”
“Kendy, we can’t steer the carm into the Clump and just look around! We’d be seen!”
“I have a better view of the Clump than you do, even if it’s not a good view. If you approached from north or south of the Clump—”
“What we’ll do is take the log in, then look around while we’re selling the wood. If we find a safe way in, we’ll take it.”
“Another thing you might consider,” Kendy said. “The CARM is power. There may come a time when we’ll want to use that power…” Kendy’s voice and picture faded.
“Well, that’s that.” Jeffer left his seat. He stretched elaborately. “Let’s go out. Take some spears. We’ll get us some waterbirds before we turn back.”
They moved out. Clave said, “Well?”
“Now do you see what I mean? He wants the carm inside the Clump. He wants it bad. If he can get some Admiralty citizens into the carm, he could look them over and question them.”
“He didn’t say anything unreasonable,” Clave said.
“Persuasive, isn’t he? All right, think about this. There occurred an accident that allowed Chairman Clave to see the Checker talking to the Scientist. That happened after Kendy was sure he couldn’t talk me into this.”