"1 The Integral Trees" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

Alfin spoke. "I take it you're our leader?"

"Right."

"Just what are we supposed to be doing with all this?"

"We go up along the trunk. We renew the Quinn markings as we go. We keep going until we find whatever it takes to save the tribe. It could be food-"

"On the bare trunk?"

Clave looked him over. "We've spent all our lives along two klomters of branch. The Scientist tells me that the trunk is a hundred klomters long. Maybe more. We don't know what's up there. Whatever we need, it isn't here."

"You know why we're going. We're being thrown out," Alfln said. "Nine fewer mouths to feed, and look at who-"

dave rode him down. He could outshout thunder when he wanted to. "Would you like to stay, Alfin?" He waited, but Alfin didn't answer. "Stay, then. You explain why you didn't come."

"I'm coming." Alfln's voice was almost inaudible. dave had made no threats, and didn't have to. They had been assigned. Anyone who stayed would be subject to charges of mutiny.

And that didn't matter either. If Clave was going, then. . . Alfin was wrong, and Gavving's stomach had been wrong too. They would find what the tribe needed, and they would return. Gavving set to assembling his pack.

Clave said, "We've got six pairs of claw sandals. Jayan Jinny, Grad

Х Gavving. I'll take the extras. We'll find out who else needs them. Everyone take four mooring spikes. Take a few rocks. I mean it. You need at least one to hammer spikes into wood, and you may want some for throwing. Has everybody got his dagger?"

It was night when they pulled themselves out of the foliage, and they still emerged blinking. The trunk seemed infinitely tall. The far tuft was almost invisible, blurred and blued almost to the color of the sky.

Clave called, "Take a few minutes to eat. Then stuff your packs with foliage. We won't see foliage again for a long time."

Gavving tore off a spine branch laden with green cotton candy. He stuck it between his back and the pack, and started up the trunk, Clave was already ahead of him.

The bark of the trunk was different from the traveling bark of the branch. There were no spine branches, but the bark must have been meters thick, with cracks big enough to partly shield a climber. Smaller cracks made easy grip for fingers.

Gavving wasn't used to claw sandals. He had to kick a little to seat them right, or they slipped. His pack tended to push him over backward. Maybe he wanted it lower? The tide helped. It pulled him not just downward, but against the trunk too, as if the trunk sloped.

The Grad was moving well but puffing. Maybe he spent too much time studying. But Gavving noted that his pack was larger than the others'. Was he carrying something besides provisions?

Merril had no pack, just her line. She managed to keep up using her arms alone. Jiovan, with two arms and a leg, was overtaking Clave himself, though his jaw was clenched in pain.

Jayan and Jinny, above Gavving on the thick bark, stopped as by mutual accord. They looked down they looked at each other; they seemed about to weep. A sudden, futile surge of homesickness blocked Gavving's own throat. He lusted to be back in the bachelors' hut, clinging to his bunk, face buried in the foliage wall...

The twins resumed their climb. Gavving followed.

They were moving well, dave thought. He was still worried about Merril. She'd slow them down, but at least she was trying. She'd find it easier, moving with just two arms, when they got near the middle of the trunk. There would be no tide at all there; things would drift without falling, if the Scientist's smoke dreams were to be believed.

Alfin alone was still down there in the last fringes of tuft. Clave had expected trouble from Alfin, but not this. Alfin was the oldest of his team, pushing forty, but he was muscular, healthy.

Appeal to his pride? He called down, "Do you need claw sandals, Aifin?"

Alfin may have considered any number of retorts. What he called back was, "Maybe."