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

MORE DANGEROUS THAN WE ANTICIPATE, ESCAPE IS EASY.

WE NEED ONLY JUMP AND WAIT TO BE PICKED UP.


The Grad looked up. "They really didn't know very much about the
trees, did they?'
"No. But, Jefi'er, they had seen trees from outside."
That was an awesome thought. While he chewed it, the Scientist said, "I'm afraid you may have to start training your own Grad, and soon."

Jayan sat cross-legged, coiling lines. Sometimes she looked up to watch the children. They had come like a wind through the Commons,
and the wind had died and left them scattered around Clave. He wasn't getting much work done, though it seemed he wa~ trying.
The girls loved Clave. The boys imitated him. Some just watched, others buzzed around him, trying to help him assemble the harpoons and the spikes or asking an endless stream of questions. "What are you doing? Why do you need so many harpoons? And all this rope? Is it a hunting trip?"
"I can't tell you," Clave said with just the proper level of regret. "King, where have you been? You're all sticky."
King was a happy eight-year-old painted in brown dust. "We went underside. The foliage is greener there. Tastes better."
"Did you take lines? Those branches aren't as strong as they used to be. You could fall through. And did you take a grownup with you?"
Jill, nine, had the wit to distract him. "When's dinner? We're still hungry."
"Aren't we all." Clave turned to Jayan. "We've got enough packs, we won't be carrying food, we'll find water on the trunk . . . claw sandals
jet pods, I'm glad we got those . . . hope we've got enough spikes what else do we need? Is Jinny back?"
"No. What did you send her for, anyway?"
"Rocks. I gave her a net for them, but she'll have to go all the way to the treemouth. I hope she finds us a good grindstone."
Jayan didn't blame the children. She loved Clave too. She would have kept him for herself, if she could . . . if not for Jinny. Sometimes she wondered if Jinny ever felt that way.
"Mmm . . . we'll pick some foliage before we leave the tuft-"
Jayan stopped working. "Clave, I never thought of that. There's no foliage on the trunk! We won't have anything to eat!"
"We'll find something. That's why we're going," Clave said briskly. "Thinking of changing your mind?"
"Too late," Jayan said. She didn't add that she had never wanted to go at alL There was no point, now.
"I could bust you loose. Jinny too. The citizens like you, they wouldn't let-"
"I won't stay." Not with Mayrin and the Chairman here, and Clave gone. She looked up and said, "Mayrin."
Clave's wife stood in the half-shadows on the far side of the Cornmona. She might have been there for some time. She was seven years older than dave, a stocky woman with the square jaw of her father, the Chairman. She called, "Clave, mighty hunter, what game are you play-
ing with this young woman when you might be finding meat for the citizens?"
"Orders."
She approached, smiling. "The expedition. My father and I arranged it together."
"If you'd like to believe that, feel free."
The smile slipped. "Copsik! You've mocked me too long, dave. You and them. I hope you fall into the sky."
"I hope I don't," Clave said mildly. "Would you like to assist our departure? We need blankets. Better have an extra. Nine."
"Fetch them yourself," Mayrin said and stalked away.

Here in the main depths of Quinn Tuft there were tunnels through the foliage. Huts nestled against the vertical flank of the branch, and the tunnels ran past. Now Harp and Gavving had room to walk, or something like it. In the low tidal pull they bounced on the foliage as if it and they were made of air. The branchiets around the tunnels were dry and nude, their foliage stripped for food.
Changes. The days had been longer before the passing of Gold. It used to be two days between sleeps; now it was eight. The Grad had tried to explain why, once, but the Scientist had caught them at it and whacked the Grad for spilling secrets and Gavving for listening.
Harp thought that the tree was dying. Well, Harp was a teller, and world-sized disasters make rich tales. But the Grad thought so too... and Gavving felt like the world had ended. He almost wanted it to end, before he had to tell the Chairman about his son.
He stopped to look into his own dwelling, a long half-cylinder, the bachelors' longhut. It was empty. Quinn Tribe must be gathered for the evening meal.
"We're in trouble," Gavving said and sniffled.
"Sure we are, but there's no point in acting like it. If we hide, we don't eat. Besides, we've got this." Harp hefted the dead musrum.
Gavving shook his head. It wouldn't help. "You should have stopped him~'
"I couldn't." When Gavving didn't answer, Harp said, "Four days ago the whole tribe was throwing lines into a pond, remember? A pond no bigger than a big hut. As if we could pull it to us. We didn't think that was stupid till it was gone past, and nobody but Clave thought to go for the cookpot, and by the time he got back-"
"I wouldn't send even Clave to catch a swordbird."
"Twenty-twenty," Harp jeered. The taunt was archaic, but its meaning was common. Any fool can foresee the past.
An opening in the cotton: the turkey pen, with one gloomy turkey still alive. There would be no more unless a wild one could be captured from the wind. Drought and famine.. . Water still ran down the trunk sometimes, but never enough. Flying things still passed, meat to be drawn from the howling wind, but rarely. The tribe could not survive on the sugary foliage forever.
"Did I ever tell you," Harp asked, "about Glory and the turkeys?"