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  Born studied the huge bulk with concern. “Sure you can make it all right? It’s a long way Home, and we may have to fight.” The load was considerable even for a mature furcot as big as Ruumahum.

  The latter snorted. “Can make … not sure of fighting.”

  “All right, don’t worry about it. Kill or no kill, if we get into any real trouble I’ll cut you free.” He grinned. “Just don’t go to long sleep on me halfway between here and Home.”

  “Sleep? What is sleep?” Ruumahum snorted. The furcots possessed a peculiar sense of humor all their own that only occasionally coincided with that of persons. As Born was a bit peculiar himself, he understood their jokes better than most.

  “Let’s go, then.”

  Back to the hiding place to retrieve the snuffler and sling it snugly across his back. Then there was only one more thing to do. Born walked back past the heavily laden Ruumahum and stopped at the brim of the bromeliad which had attracted such excellent prey. He ran his hands caressingly over the broad leaves and strong petals. Hands cupped, he bent to drink deeply from the clear pool that the unlucky grazer had sought. Finishing, he shook the droplets free and wiped wet palms on his cloak. He stroked the nearest leaf again in silent tribute to the plant, and then he and Ruumahum started the arduous trek Homeward.

  It was a green universe, true; but its stars and nebulae were brilliantly colored. Cauliflorous air-trees growing on the broad branches of the Pillars and emergents bristled with fragrant blossoms of every conceivable shape and color, some exuding fragrances so pungent they had to be avoided lest olfactory senses be smothered forever. These perfumed blooms Born and Ruumahum avoided assiduously. Their localized miasmas were as deadly as they were sensuous. Vines and creepers put forth flowers of their own, and in places aerial roots bloomed with their own flowerings. There were color and variety to make Earth’s richest jungles seem pallid and wan in comparison.

  Although plant life held dominance, animal life was also abundant and lush. Ornithoid, mammaloid, and reptiloid arboreals glided or flew through winding emerald tunnels. They were outnumbered by creatures that swung, crawled, and jumped along gravity-defying highways of wood and pulp.

  The steady cycle of life and death revolved around Born and Ruumahum as they made their way over crosshatched tuntangcles and cubbies and winding woody paths back toward the village. A drifter with helical wings pounced upon an unwary six-legged feathered pseudolizard, was swallowed in turn when it chose to land on a false cubble. The false cubble looked almost identical to the thick wooden creepers Born and Ruumahum strode across. Had Born stepped on it he would have lost a foot at the least. The false cubble was a continuous chain of interlocking mouths, stomachs, and intestines. Both drifter and pseudolizard vanished down one link of the toothed branch.

  It was close to noon. Occasional shafts of light reached the Third Level, some digging even deeper to the Fourth and Fifth. Mirror vines shone everywhere, their diamond-shaped reflective leaves bouncing the sun and sending life-giving light ricocheting hundreds of meters down green canyons to places it otherwise would never reach. Noontime was the crescendo of the hylaeal symphony. Comb vines and resonators formed a verdant vocal background for the songsters of the animal kingdom. They would have astonished a curious botanist, as would the mirror vines.

  Born was no botanist. He could not have defined the term. But his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather could have. That knowledge had not kept him from dying young, however.

  Eventually the damp night mist slid about them with feline stealth. The cheerful raucousness of the creatures of light gave way to the sounds of awakening nightlings, whose grunts were darker and deeper, their cries closer to hysteria, the booming howls of the nocturnal carnivores a touch more menacing. It was time to find shelter. Born had spent much of the last hour searching for a wild Home tree. Such trees were rare and he had encountered none this afternoon. They would have to settle for less accommodating temporary quarters. One such lay ten meters overhead, easily reached through the interwoven pathways of the forest canopy.

  What disease or parasite had caused the great woody galls to form on the branch of the Pillar tree neither Born nor Ruumahum could guess, but they were grateful for their presence. They would serve to gentle the night. Six or seven of the globular eruptions were clustered together on the branch. The smallest was half Born’s size, the largest more than spacious enough to accommodate man and furcot.

  He tested the biggest with his knife, found it far too tough for the sharpened bone—just as he had hoped. If his skinning blade could not penetrate the woody gall, the chances of some predator coming in on them from behind were small. He untied the dead grazer—it was already beginning to smell—from Ruumahum’s back, slid the hulk onto the branch. Ruumahum stretched delightedly, fur rippling as the muscles in his back popped. He yawned, revealing multiple canines and two razor-sharp lower tusks.

  Under Born’s direction, the furcot went to work on the gall with both forepaws, ripping open nearly all of one side. Together they wrestled the carcass into the cavity. Working carefully and smoothly, Born tied his remaining jacari thorns into the length of vine until they formed a crude barricade across the opening. Any scavenger who tried to sneak in now risked a fatal pricking. The barbed thorns crisscrossed the opening neatly. An intelligent scavenger could work around them easily, but they would stop anything that was not a man.

  Their kill safely secured for the night, Ruumahum went to work on the gall next in line, cutting a smaller opening in it for them to enter. Born knelt, peered inside. It was long dead—dry and black. As he entered, he pulled a packet of red dust from his belt; Ruumahum was already scraping some of the dust-dry gall lining into a pile near the opening they had made. Born poured a little of the red powder on a thin scrap of wood and pressed his thumb into it. A few seconds of contact with his body heat was enough to cause the dust pile to explode in flame just as the hunter withdrew his thumb. The incendiary pollen served as an especially effective form of defense for a certain parasitic tuber. Born’s people had discovered its usefulness the hard way.

  He built the tiny blaze into a modest fire that burned freely on the smooth, dead floor of the gall. Its dance and crackle was a great comfort in the blackness of night. Only one more thing to do. He had to shake Ruumahum violently to awaken him long enough to cut a tiny hole two-thirds of the way up the far side of the gall. Circulation and smoke exit assured, Born took a piece of dark jerky from his belt pouch and chewed at the spicy, rock-hard meat.

  The evening rain began. It would rain all night—not an occasional downpour, but a steady, even rain that would cease two hours before dawn. With few exceptions, it had rained every night Born could recall. As sure as the sun rose in the morning, the rain came down at night. Water drummed steadily on the roof of the gall, flowed down its curved sides to drip away to depths unseen. Ruumahum was fast asleep.

  Born studied the fire for several minutes. Putting the rest of the jerky away for the next night, he nestled himself into Ruumahum’s flank. The furcot stirred slightly in sleep, pressing against the inner wall of the gall, his head curved into his chest. Born sighed, stared at the solid wall of blackness beyond the fire. He was satisfied. They had met no scavengers on this first day of return, and Ruumahum had handled the massive load of the great grazer without falling asleep even once. He stroked the furcot’s fur appreciatively, running his fingers through the thick green coat.

  A warm, dry shelter for the night, too. Many nights spent in wetness made him appreciate the dry gall. Pulling the green fur cloak tightly about him, he turned on his side. His knife was close to his right hand, the snuffler ready at his feet. Relatively content and more or less confident of not waking up in the belly of some nightcrawler, he fell into a sound, dreamless sleep.

  It had been a fairly hard rain, Born reflected as he stared out through the hole cut in the gall. Behind him, Ruumahum slept on oblivious. The furcot would continue to do so until Born woke him. Lef
t to his own devices, a furcot would sleep all but a few hours a day.

  Droplets still fell from the green sky above, though the rain had long since ceased. A couple struck Born in the face. He shook the tepid moisture away. Walking would be slippery and uncertain for a while, but they would start immediately anyway. He was anxious to be Home. Anxious to see the look on Brightly Go’s face when he dumped the grazer at her feet.

  Rising, he booted Ruumahum in the ribs a couple of times. The furcot moaned. Born repeated the action. Ruumahum got to his feet two at a time, grumbling irritably.

  “Already morning …?”

  “Long day’s march, Ruumahum,” Born told him. “Long rain last night. There should be red berries and pium out before midday.”

  Ruumahum brightened at the thought of food. He would have preferred to sleep, but … pium, now. A last stretch, extending forepaws out in front of him and pulling, digging eight parallel grooves into the alloy-tough dead base of the gall. Persons, he had to admit, were sometimes useful to have around. They had a way of finding good things to eat and making the very eating more enjoyable. For such rewards Ruumahum was willing to overlook Born’s faults. His triple pupils brightened. Humans flattered themselves with the idea that they had done an awesome job of domesticating the first furcots. The furcots saw no need to dispute this. The reality of it was that they had stuck with the persons out of curiosity. Human persons were the first beings the furcots had ever encountered who were unpredictable enough to keep them awake. One could never quite predict what a person might do—even one’s own person. So they kept up the pact without really understanding why, knowing only that in the relationship there was something worthwhile and good.

  Keeping hearts of pium in mind enabled Ruumahum to arrange the grazer carcass on his back without falling asleep more than once in the process. So Born lost little of his precious time.

  Either no scavenger had blundered into their camp, or else they had elected not to risk those deadly interlocking thorns. Born recovered all the vine-entwined jacaris, reset the poison darts in the bottom of his quiver, looped the vine around his belt, and started off again.

  “Close Home,” Ruumahum muttered that evening, pausing to send a thick curving tongue out to groom the back of a forepaw.

  Born had been recognizing familiar landmarks and tree blazes for over an hour. There was the stormtreader tree that had killed old Hannah in an unwary moment. They gave the black and silver bole a wide berth. Once they had to pause as a Buna floater drifted by, trailing long stinging tentacles. As they waited, the floater let out a long sibilant whistle and dropped lower, perhaps to try its luck on the Fourth Level where scampering bushackers were more common.

  Born had stepped out from behind a trunk and was about to remove his cloak when above them sounded a shriek sufficient to shatter a pfeffermall, more violent than the howl of chollakee hunting. So sudden, so overpowering was the scream that the normally imperturbable Ruumahum was shocked into a defensive posture, backing up against the nearest bole despite the restrictive mass of the grazer, fore-paws upraised and claws extended.

  The scream dropped to a moan that was abruptly subsumed by an overpowering, frightening roar of crackings and snappings. Even the branch of the nearby Pillar tree shook. Then the branch they stood on rocked fiercely. With his great strength, Ruumahum was able to maintain his perch, but Born was not so secure. He fell several meters, smashing through a couple of helpless succulents before he hit an unyielding protrusion. He started to bounce off it before he got both arms locked around the stiff form. The vibrating stopped, and he was able to get his legs around it, too.

  Shaking, he pulled himself up. Nothing felt broken, and everything seemed to work. But his snuffler was gone; its restraining tie had snapped, sending it bouncing and spinning into the depths. That was a severe loss.

  The crashing and breaking sounds faded, finally stopped. As he had fallen, Born thought he had seen in the distance through the green an impossibly wide mass of something blue and metallic. It had passed as swiftly as he had fallen. As he stared that way now there was nothing to be seen but the forest.

  Peepers and orbioles came out of hiding, called hesitantly into the silence. Then bushackers and flowerkits and their relatives joined in. In minutes the hylaea sounded and resounded normally again.

  “Something has happened,” Ruumahum ventured softly.

  “I think I saw it.” Born stared harder, still saw only what belonged. “Did you? Something big and blue and shining.”

  Ruumahum eyed him steadily. “Saw nothing. Saw self falling to Hell and gone. Concentrated on staying here with grazer weight pulling there. No time for curious-looking.”

  “You did better than I, old friend,” Born admitted, as he climbed up toward the furcot. He tested a liana, found it firm, and started off in the direction of the murderous sounds. “I think we’d better—”

  “No.” A glance over his shoulder showed the furcot with his great head lowered and moving slowly from side to side in imitation of the human gesture of negation. Three eyes rolled toward the path they had been following.

  “So far, lucky be we, person Born. Soon though, others grazer to smell will begin. We will fight have to every step to Home. To Home go first. This other”—and he nodded in the direction of the breaking and crashing—“I would talk of first with the brethren, who know such things quickly.”

  Born stood thinking on the woody bridge. His intense curiosity—or madness, if one believed many of his fellows—pulled him toward the source of the sounds, however threatening they had been. For a change, reason overcame. Ruumahum and he had been through much in the killing and carrying of the grazer. To risk losing it now for no good reason was unsound thinking.

  “Okay, Ruumahum.” He hopped back onto the bigger branch and started toward the village again. A last look over his shoulder still showed only speckled greenery and no unnatural movement. “But as soon as the meat’s disposed of, I’m coming back to find out what that was, whether or not you or anyone else comes with me.”

  “Doubt it not,” Ruumahum replied knowingly.

  III

  THEY REACHED THE BARRIER well before darkness. In front of them, the hylaea seemed to become a single tree—the Home-tree. Only the Pillars themselves were bigger, and the Home-tree was a monstrously big tree for certain. Broad twisting branches and vines-of-own shot out in all directions. Air-trees and cubbies and lianas grew in and about the tree’s own growth. Born noted with satisfaction that only plants which were innocuous or helpful to the Home-tree grew on it. His people kept the Home-tree well and, in turn, the Home-tree kept them.

  The vines-of-own were lined with flowers of bright pink, with pollen pods which sat globelike within them. These pods were akin to the yellow tank seeds that made the snufflers such deadly weapons, but far more sensitive. A single touch on the sensitive pink surface would cause the paper-thin skin to rupture, sending a cloud of dust into the air that would kill any animal inhaling it, whether through nostril, pore, or other air exchanger. The vines entangled and crossed the tree in the middle of the Third Level—the village level—forming a protective net of deadly ropes around it.

  Born approached the nearest, leaned over and spat directly into the center of one of the blossoms, avoiding the pod. The blossom quivered, but the pod did not burst. The pink petals closed in on themselves. A pause, then the vines began to curl and tighten like climbing vines hunting for a better purchase. As they retracted, a clear path was formed through which Born and Ruumahum strode easily. Even as Ruumahum was through, the outermost vines were already relaxing once again, expanding, coming together and shutting off the pathway. The bloom into which Born had spat opened its petals once more to drink the faint evening light.

  A casual observer would note that Born’s saliva had disappeared. A chemist would be able to tell that it had been absorbed. A brilliant scientist might be able to discover that it had been more than absorbed—it had been analyzed and identified.
Born knew only that carefully spitting into the bloom seemed to tell the Home-tree who he was.

  As he walked toward the village proper he tried to whistle happily. The song died aborning. His mind was occupied with the mysterious blue thing that had come crashing down into the forest. Rarely, one of the greater air-trees would overreach its rootings, or overgrow its perch, and fall, bringing down creepers and lesser growths with it. But never had Born heard such a smashing and shattering of wood. This thing had been far heavier than any air-tree. He knew that by the speed with which it had fallen. And there was that half familiar, metallic gleam.

  His thoughts were not on his expected triumph as he entered the village center. Here, the enormous trunk of the Home-tree split into a webbing of lesser boles, forming an interlocking net of wood around a central open space, before joining and growing together high above to form once more a single tapering trunk that rose skyward for another sixty meters. With vines and plant fibers and animal skins the villagers had closed off sections of the interweaving trunklets to form homes and rooms impervious to casual rain and wind. For food, the Home-tree offered cauliflorous fruits shaped like gourds, tasting like cranberry, which sometimes grew within the sealed-off homes themselves.

  Small scorched places lay within the houses and beneath the canopy in the central square. These minute burns did not affect the enormous growth. Each home also possessed a pit dug into the wood itself. Here, many times daily, the inhabitants of the tree offered thanks for its shelter and protection, mixing their offerings with a mulch of dead, pulpy plants gathered for the purpose. The mulch also served to kill strong odors. When the pits were full they were cleaned out. The dry residue was thrown over the side of the Home-tree into the green depths, so that the pits could be used again. For the tree accepted and absorbed the offerings with great speed and matchless efficiency.