Beginnings
from the Citizens Tree cassettes:
YEAR 384, DAY 2250. BOOCE RECORDED OUR
HOLDINGS BEFORE WE LEFT. HE’S APPALLED THAT WE NEVER ASKED. BAD BUSINES8PERSONS, HE CALLS US. WE DON’T USUALLY BOTHER TO SPELL OUT WHO OWNS WHAT IN CITIZENS TREE. IT DRIVES BOOCE CRAZY.
WE SPENT A LOT ON SEEDS AND POOD AND WIDGETS, BUT WE STILL HAVE CREDIT-IMAGINARY MONEY-IN SOME VAGUE AMOUNT THAT DEPENDS ON WHAT BOOCE ACTUALLY GETS FOR THE WOOD AND THE METAL. WE’LLLEARNTHATWHEN, AND IF, WERETURN TO THE ADMIRALTY.
JEFFER THE SCIENTIST
THE LIFT CAGE DROPPED. IT WAS CROWDED WITH EIGHT people and several bags from the CARM. Lawri and Gavving, Scientist and Chairman Pro Tern, seemed distinctly uncomfortable. It wasn’t hard to guess why. Raff Belmy was uncomfortable too. Carlot clung tight to his arm, possessively, protectively.
“I had some trouble finding the tree,” Jeffer said.
“Your problem,” Gawing answered. “After all, you took the silver suit. How were we supposed to tell you where we were?”
“Yeah, but you moved the tree, didn’t you? That thing next to the lift, is that what I think it is?”
“Yes. Lawn’s doing, mostly.”
“Hah. Scientist, I thought you’d be twiddling your toes waiting for me to come home.”
“We found ways to occupy ourselves, Scientist.” Lawn’s pregnancy was growing conspicuous. The formality between her and her husband did not seem unfriendly.
Gavving said, “I hope you brought something to make us look good.”
The rest of them laughed; but Clave said, “Trouble?”
“Treefodder, yes, trouble! I’d have flown to a new tree if I’d been sure they’d let me have wings. One thing, the children are on our side. They’ve been crazy with waiting to see what you bring back. And Minya stuck with me.”
“She did? Good,” said Clave.
“She did, in public.”
Clave reached into a bag. He sliced an apple in half and passed it to Gavving and Lawri. They bit, distrustfully, and continued eating. “That’ll do it,” Gavving said.
“Fine. Here. Don’t eat the hull.” He’d cut an orange into quarters.
They gnawed the insides out of the oranges. Lawri chewed and swallowed a bit from the peel, but did not take another. Gavving said, “Yeah!”
“We’ve got seeds,” Clave said. “This and a lot of other earthlife. We’ll plant them in the out tuft.”
Faces like afield of flowers below the falling cage. Two meteor-trails of golden blond hair: Jill next to Anthon, she a meter shorter than her father, both scanning the faces in the lift cage. Rather knew when -Till’s eyes met his, but her face didn’t change.
The cage thumped into its housing. Children piled out of the treadmill, and Mark with them. Everyone in Citizens Tree was here.
They looked short: a field of dwarves in which Anthon and the Serjent women stood out as normal. Rather had become used to giants. Children and some adults crowded around the cage. Jill and Anthon hung back, not quite hostile, but suspending judgment. Mark had that look too.
For all these hundreds of days Rather had wondered what the tribe would think of his mutiny. He’d almost managed to forget that he had never told Jill, could not have told her that he was going to leave the tree.
His mothers were crowding close around the lift, and Karilly and Ryllin with them. The Serjent women hugged Carlot, then Carlot’s new husband. Karilly hung back a little. She was conspicuously carrying a guest. Raff beamed like sunlight at seeing someone he knew. They fell into rapid conversation, moving away, taking Karilly with them. “Damn, but I missed oranges ... Booce had to stay? I’m not surprised, but ... ”
Karilly was silent.
Clave folded his wives into his arms and forced apples on them.
Anthon slapped an orange from Debby’s hand. Rather heard: “You took this Admiralty man aboard the carmT’ before his First Mother picked him up to hug him.
“You treefeeding fool,” Minya whispered. “You fool mutineer, you. Drillbits in your brains, both of you, you and your father. He never stopped wishing he’d gone too. Are you all right?”
“I’m in good shape. Mostly.” She pulled back to look into his face. He tried to look earnest. “First Mother, I’m allergic to dry, thin air. Not enough sleep does it too. It’s like knives in the eyes. I go blind. It lasts for hours.”
She started laughing. She said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” and hugged him hard, still laughing. There were tears in her eyes. She put him down and saw him smiling slyly. She said, “It’ll never happen again. We’ll keep the tree where the air’s thick. You’d better go talk to Jill.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Talk to her first. Then I think-“
Jeffer shouted for attention. “I here present Raff Belmy. Raff and Carlot are married by Admiralty law. The record is in the cassettes.”
Over the heads of his brothers and sisters, Rather saw thejudging-look fade from Jill’s face. She moved forward at last. Rather said, “Harry, can you give me some privacy? Take them along?”
Harry said, “Oh. Sure.” Somehow he got his siblings moving away before Jill reached him.
Thejudging-look was back. She said, “Rather. How are you?”
“Fine. Nobody made me a copsik. I didn’t get killed. Jill, I wanted to tell you.”
“Were you afraid I’d run tell my father?”
“If I wasn’t, the rest of us would have been. I couldn’t, Jill.”
He saw her reject that. She asked, “What was it like?”
“I’ll be a lot of days telling you that!” And suddenly it was a pain in him, that he couldn’t tell her about the raid, ever.
“What’s wrong now?”
“Nothing,” he lied. “I was remembering how close I came to joining the Admiralty Navy. I got out of it though. Jill, dinner has to be something special. Is there time to cook some of this earthlife?”
“Couple of days yet.”
“I’ll show you what to do.” Take the kids too? He’d thought he wanted to be alone with Jill, but now he knew he didn’t. “Harry! Gorey! Bring those bags to the cookpot.”
The Admiralty slid west below him. Kendy began his bum, then turned to his instruments.
Neudar and the telescope array caught Admiralty Headquarters as it emerged from behind the Dark. The Library didn’t respond. It must be turned off. CARM #6 was nowhere in evidence. No pressure suit responded to his query.
Sharls Davis Kendy had made more than one mistake. For half a thousand years he had been frantic to begin guiding his citizens in the Smoke Ring. Now he could begin, and now he almost knew how. Opportunities would come.
A part of his attention scanned his growing file on RESOURCES, LOCAL USAGE:
Debby described Half Hand’s kitchen for Jeffer’s benefit.
Clave carried the helmet on a slow trip through Serjent House.
The camera viewpoint spun erratically through a cloud of children. Children had knocked the helmet off its usual perch at the lift, then played with it like a basketball. Kendy viewed the commons as a series of stills. Corridor openings, the water trap, the communal cooking area, children laughing as they bounded in slow arcs.
A series of angular Clump houses, wildly various.
Mark’s hut in various stages of construction. The silver suit had been housed there for a time.
Abruptly the CARM #2 control board came to life. Kendy sent his signal. Records came back: stills of various bored Guardians in their shared pressure suits, culminating in (present time) six jungle-giant men in a half circle around the control board, wearing anxious faces and spotless new uniforms. These must be officers; and now Kendy had their insignia.
The signal disintegrated with distance.
He rounded forty degrees of Smoke Ring before he made contact with CARM #6.
The vehicle was in its wooden dock at the midpoint of Citizens Tree. It was empty of citizens and cargo. That was Logbearer next to the left cage, and some smaller structure next to that. Kendy “stared”: he enlarged the image and examined it in detail.
They’d built a steam rocket.
They didn’t have a metal pipe or sikenwire, so they’d used ceramics. Fired mud! The laundry vat was part of it!
Records: the CARM on its way home. Logbearer was strapped along the hull. Booce was missing. Rather was present(!). The jungle-giant stranger matched the still of Hilar Belmy’s son.
Raff Belmy’s medical readings, originally ominous, settled down over passing days. Carlot must have helped to calm him down. Rather was being abnormally polite to both, and keeping his distance. The two spent considerable time out of sight aboard Logbearer.
Records: moving toward the Citizens Tree midpoint. The ceramic rocket returned ahead of the CARM. It puffed toward the in tuft, pushing a huge glob of black mud, and passed out of range.
Records: “Year 384, day 2400, Jeffer speaking as Scientist. Carm and Logbearer are both docked at Citizens Tree. This will be my last log entry until Kendy calls.
“Kendy, for your information, Rather got out of Headquarters safely. We refueled the jets on an Admiralty pressure suit and returned it. Captain-Guardian Mickl could have had the other suits refueled too, but he never brought them. Now he’s got a pressure suit with jets. We gave him some time to play, and then we told him what to do when they run out of fuel.
“We’ve had no further trouble. Booce got a good offer on the metal. The Navy was carving it up when we left.
“Rather suggests that Mickl wants the flying suit for himself. It’s something even the Admiral doesn’t have. He’s got a secret now, and we know it, and he’ll need us to keep it flying. That gives us a certain edge with the Captain-Guardian if we ever want to exploit it.
“We have some wealth and some influence in the Admiralty. We got it without your help. We do not appreciate your abandoning Rather in the middle of the raid.
“I’ve spent as much time waiting for your call as I care to. I’ll be back from time to time. If you haven’t called by the crossyear, which is three hundred and ninety-one days from now, I will turn Voice off.”
Nobody was near the CARM. The lift wasn’t running.
The CARM drifted out of range. Kendy scanned the far arc of the Smoke Ring out of habit; he had never seen signs of industrial activity there.
The Admiralty flowed below him. The Library had been turned off again.
Their ancestors hadn’t listened to him either. They’d turned off the Voice subsystems; they’d cut the fibers that allowed Kendy to fly a CARM by remote. He’d been completely cut off for half a thousand years. As he was now.
Rather was scrubbing his teeth and thinking about breakfast when the Silver Man came into the bach hut. He spit and said, “Mark?”
“Who else?” Mark threw back his helmet. The silver suit was filthy and stank of smoke. “I tried that. I felt silly.”
“Sure, silly. Mark, I saw their teeth. The older Admiralty citizens still have half their teeth! I bet Ryllin and Mishael have been scrubbing their teeth all along.” Rather remembered that this man wasn’t his father ... and didn’t know it, and had a legitimate grievance. All in a rush he said, “I stole it. We thought we needed it and we did. It was right to go. Treefodder, Mark, you’re from a bigger tree! Don’t you feel cramped here?”
“Fifteen years I’ve felt cramped. Relax. You brought back some wonderful things. You brought back the CARM and the suit and you didn’t ruin the suit.”
“You looked mad enough to kill when we came down.”
“That was three good dinners ago. I never thought I’d taste potatoes again. I know a better way to cook them.”
“You forgive me? Mark, I’m really glad.”
“What are my choices? Sure I forgive you. We’re firing the new laundry pot.”
“Is it that late? I slept like a rock. Needed it too. These first few sleeps I just lay there wondering why one of the walls was pushing against me.”
“I’ve spent some sleepless nights here myself,” Mark said. “It’s lonely in the bach hut. We built it too big. Big enough for the next crop of men.”
“Maybe that’s it.”
“Have you talked to Jill?”
“Minya asked me that. We’ve talked. Why?”
“Yeah. Well.” Mark sometimes had trouble finding words. “Citizens Tree is strange. None of us grew up the way you did. There are adults and children and a big gap in between, so you couldn’t tell much from just watching older children grow up. Maybe there are things we should have said-“
“I know about sex, if that’s what you mean ... Maybe I need to know more. Two women have told me to feed the tree. It hurts. What could you have told me about that?”
Mark whistled. “You started young. Well, someone could have said, There’s only one suitable mate for you and there’s only one for Jill in this whole tuft, and she thinks she owns you, and maybe she’s right.’”
Rather let that percolate through his head. “Jill wants to make babies with me? Did she tell you that, or are you guessing?”
“I’m guessing. All I know is, when Instant Chairman Gavving told us you’d gone off with all the wealth of Citizens Tree, Jill was madder than I was, and that took some doing. She wanted you thrown into the sky with no wings. A hundred sleeps later she was sure you’d all be killed and she couldn’t see for crying.”
“I’ll go see her. Where is she?”
“Go easy, stet? You know you can find other mates. Jill doesn’t.”
“I don’t either. Sectry wants no part of me-“ He couldn’t say why. Secrets. “And Carlot married someone else. You can’t imagine how bad that was. All the way home, Carlot and Raff. They spent most of their time in Logbearer. It wasn’t any better when I couldn’t see them.”
Mark said, “When nobody wants you in the first place, that’s worse. Trust me.”
“Mark, I’ve gotten very good at lying. I’m trying to stop.”
“Good. Go talk to Jill.”
“Where is she?”
“Everybody’s watching us fire the laundry vat except Jill. I’ve got to go back and see if anything needs doing. Try the miz hut. Then the commons.”
The deep voice hailed him as he entered. “Hello, Jeffer the Scientist. This is Kendy.”
Shouldn’t that have been Kendy for the Statel Jeffe*said, “Uh-huh. You missed all the excitement.”
“Not all. A large Navy ship is moving toward your position. They’ll reach you in eighty standard days.”
Jeffer took a moment to absorb the shock. He should have known. It wasn’t over; it never would be. There was no going back from the Clump expedition. No going back from knowing about the Admiralty.
He pulled himself forward to the control board. “That gives us some time to talk.”
The square, hard face in the bow window had always lacked expression. It said, “A bad thing happened to me, Jeffer. I learned too much about myself. There was no way I could communicate until now.”
“Lie to me, Kendy. Say there was something wrong with Voice.”
Kendy said, “The glitch was in myself. I think I have it fixed. Machines go bad, Jeffer. I left you a file under HISTORY. It’s selected records from the settling of the Smoke Ring. It explains some of what went wrong. Play it after I’m out of range.”
“Can you tell me about it?”
“No.”
“Your timing was lousy. We thought you’d left Rather for treefodder. If you ever-“
“I can’t talk about it. It hurts my mind. Damage might be permanent. Do you seek vengeance against me?”
The trouble was that Kendy looked and sounded as calm as death. Kendy never showed anger, nor relief, love, pain. It was hard to believe he was hurting ... yet he was not a man. Maybe. Maybe.
Jeffer said, “Well, we got home. I assume you got most of it from the log. The earthlife food stopped most of the arguments. Now all the reunited couples are busy making babies. The arguments haven’t gone away, though. They’re just simmering. It won’t help if there’s a Navy ship coming.”
“It’s coming. I couldn’t resolve details of design. There’s alcohol in the exhaust, and it’s coming from the Clump. Definitely Navy. What have you done with the seeds?”
“Seeds? We’ll plant them in the out tuft. Mark’s talking about building an extension to the lift before anything gets ripe enough to pick.”
“Cut some foliage so the sunlight can reach the plants.
I can show you how to use water flow to move the lifts with less effort. You haven’t mentioned the fired mud rocket.”
“That’s nice, isn’t it? We don’t need the Admiralty’s treefeeding pipes.”
“You don’t need me,” Kendy said. He knew the risk he was taking. It was acceptable. “I’ve been looking at records. Most of what can be done with materials from Discipline can also be done with Smoke Ring resources. Lifts, housing, clothing, food, domestic animals. Now rockets. The Admiralty even has a heliograph.”
“No, we don’t need you,” Jeffer said, “but I never thought you’d know it.”
“A bad thing happened to me. I don’t trust my judgment any more. My intention has always been to make a civilization in the Smoke Ring, modeled on the State that shaped your ancestors. The Smoke Ring will never be that. How can I make a State in a place where I can’t even make maps?”
“Would we even like your State? Skip it. What do we do about that ship? I hope Sectry Murphy’s aboard. We’ll get some notion of what they want if Rather talks to her-“
“Hide the CARM in another tree. Tear out the dock too, or put the ceramic rocket there. Show them that. It’s not advanced, but it doesn’t need starstuff resources. It may impress them. Keep the CARM manned. There are two ways you might need it-“
“I won’t burn them!”
“One way, then. You can’t ignore the Admiralty. You’d really like to join as officers. You may have to show them the CARM before they’ll listen to that. Demand officer status, but they may settle for giving it to just the Chairman and Scientist-“
Jeffer laughed. “For a man who doesn’t trust his own judgment, you certainly-“
“I think fast. I plan fast. I make mistakes.”
“Anything else?”
“Mark might want to join the Navy. Sound him out. See if the Navy personnel might want him. I gather they don’t like older recruits, but Mark was trained in London Tree. Karilly may benefit from going back. Is she still mute?”
“Yes, but she’s also pregnant and happy. I’m not sure I want to fiddle.”
“I’m almost out of range. Back in two days. The code is HISTORY. Tell nobody of what you are about to learn.”
“K-“
“Unless in your judgment it would be beneficial.”
Kendy had never talked like this. “Stet.”
The face faded. Jeffer didn’t move for some time. Finally he tapped the white button. “Prikazyvat Voice.”
“Hello, Jeffer the Scientist.”
“Link to the pressure suit.”
“Done.”
“This is Jeffer calling anyone. Anyone home?”
“Hello? Scientist?” It was Jill’s voice.
“I want to talk to my wife.”
“I’ll get her. She’s on the branch.”
That would take most of a day. Jeffer started the HISTORY file and listened to it all the way through. Then he started it again.
Lawri climbed in through the airlock. “I didn’t have anyone but Rather and Jill for a treadmill team. Everybody else is on the branch. Now, what’s all the excitement, Scientist?”
“Prikazyvat Voice. Run HISTORY.”
Dead voices spoke. Discipline’s crew reported the discovery of a weird cosmological anomaly. Some of what followed was familiar from the cassettes. Some was entirely cryptic.
“How long have you had this?” Lawri demanded.
“Kendy only just filed it. I ... I’ve been in contact with him since before we left for the Clump.”
Lawri was coldly angry.’ ‘That was mutiny! How could you not trust meT’
“I’m trusting you now. Listen.”
They heard a highly formalized quarrel. Some of the participants argued for settling the Smoke Ring; some were for moving on to an unnamed destination. Kendy spoke in favor of staying, then tried to terminate the argument. It continued.
There were parts of a broadcast from Discipline to Earth: it had been decided that they would settle the Smoke Ring environment.
There was a message from Earth: Retrieve your crew.
“And that’s it. Kendy got conflicting orders,” Jeffer said. “It tangles his mind. He can’t go for new orders because Earth is too far away, and he can’t make up his own mind because he’s a machine, and he can’t talk about it because it drives him nuts. If that’s all true, he must be close to crazy all the time. The question is, what do we do now?”
Lawri said, “We can play it through the silver suit. Play it for the whole tribe. Tell everyone.”
“It’ll start some fights.”
“Feed the-“
He rode her down. “There’s a Navy ship coming. The fights’U have to be over when it gets here. A hundred days.”
“Stet. Play it at dinner.”
“ ... Stet.”
The situation was ideal in its way. They were together, but they couldn’t talk. There were only the two of them to run the lift. It took all their breath. Jill scrambled over the rungs, keeping up with him. Her tuftberry-red tunic was dark with sweat at chest and armpits. Her hair was a golden halo, as interesting and as beautiful as Sectry’s scarlet.
After the cages passed each other, they let the treadmill carry them round and round. Then it was time to throw their weight on the brake. The lower cage settled. Rather and Jill dropped into soft foliage and panted.
Rather found his breath ... and found Jill watching him solemnly.
He said briskly (he hoped), “Mark says you own me. This is a thought that never crossed my mind.”
“He says that?”
“Yes. He says I own you too. What do you think?”
“I think Mark doesn’t have the right to say it.”
He was an arm’s length away. He couldn’t read her expression. He said, “It’s not just Mark. My parents- all four, or all three and a half, and everyone else too, including you, Jill. You all seem to know just where I fit and what I’m supposed to do for the rest of my life.”
“Well, you don’t take orders worth treefodder.” He was not sure that was a smile. “What’s bothering you, Rather? You came home on purpose. You’re on the cookpot because you volunteered to cook the earthlife. You’re the Teller because you’ve got stories and you like telling them. It gets you offtreemouth duty.”
“I like all of that. But I’m told where to sleep and I’m told who to marry, and everyone looked at me funny till I changed back into tuftberry red, and the whole damn tribe sent me to talk to you.”
“Okay. Talk.”
“Rather doesn’t take orders worth treefodder. You talk. Are you unsatisfied with me?”
“You went into the sky and left me behind.”
“I did.”
“Is that over now? Are you back for keeps?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Rather sighed. “I like coming home. I like seeing new things too. Some of us will have to go back to the Admiralty anyway, Jill. Ryllin wants to join Booce. Then there’s a whole sky out there! Lawri says our gene pool is too little. Fine. We’ll go find some other trees and get mates there.”
“Should I do that?”
Running endlessly up the treadmill, he’d had some time to think. “Maybe. Or you could marry me, but I’ll take trips, and you’d have to put up with that-“
She flared. “You’d be making babies with every woman who talks funny!”
That was manifestly unfair. Rather let it pass. “Or you could come with me.”
“Stet.”
“That quick? Are you sure?”
“Sure.”
This was working out better than he’d hoped. “Did you work on that new rocket?”
“No. Why?”
He hadn’t thought it all the way through after all. “We’ve got time. In a couple of years a dozen kids will be ready to find mates. That’s when we’ll start visiting other trees-“
“I see it. I’d have to know the rocket inside out, how to steer it, how to fix anything that goes wrong, because I’m the oldest.”
“You and the rest of the crew too. Can you fly?”
“Sure. Oh, all right, I don’t do much flying. Rather?”
“Here.”
“You seem to have a very good idea of where I fit and what I’m supposed to do.”
It was a smile. “Sorry.”
“Maybe this is what being married is like. Anyway ... I’ll go on the next trip. That’ll tell us everything we need to know. Whether I can stand it. Whether citizens can stand my company aboard a rocket. Whether I’m any good. Whether I want a mate from somewhere else. Whether you do.”
“Next trip will be the Admiralty.”
“Stet,” said Jill. She stood up. “Let’s go flying.”
“There’s nobody to run the lift for us.”
“Off the branch,” said Jill. “Fly to the midpoint. Surprise Lawri.”
It would do that! Rather began to understand that Jill would go where he would, and try to beat him there too. “We’ll have to fly more than thirty klomters out. Can you handle it?”
“Sure. We’ll go off the branch and put wings on afterward. Otherwise someone’11 stop us. Come on.”
Kendy had assembled the HISTORY file with some care. It was unaltered records, but it gave the distinct impression that Discipline’s crew had themselves decided to settle the Smoke Ring.
The population of the Smoke Ring was between two and three thousand (Kendy included children). By his original orders, Kendy must consider that they might now be the entire human race. The temptation to meddle was very strong.
He would not shape them. They were shaping themselves, and they were doing it well. For agonizing moments he had even considered severing communications entirely.
But he had things to teach them!
The Library was off when he passed the Admiralty. It wouldn’t stay that way, though. Day 2791 was the midpoint of the crossyear, three hundred and fifty-odd days away. If Kendy knew his citizens, they would celebrate, and the Library would be involved. Perhaps he c< reach Wayne Mickl. Kendy had a handle of sorts on Captain-Guardian.
Meanwhile a Navy ship was moving on Citizens T He’d see what terms he could arrange.
Plenty of time. Kendy waited.