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effective predator. And its mouth, though tiny, was ringed by jagged, ripping teeth.
The ray slid over the four humans for several heartbeats, apparently unaware of their presence. Then,
still silent, it floated away into the shadows of the forest.
Dura counted to a hundred before pushing herself away from the tree trunk.
The vortex lines were dense here, almost tangled together among the trees. The Star, its rotation
continually slowing, gradually expelled the vortex lines from the Mantle... until a fresh Glitch struck,
when the lines crumbled into deadly fragments before renewing.
The Air was noticeably thinner. Dura felt her chest strain at the stuff and her heart pumped as it
sought to power her muscles; from various points in her body she heard the small pops of pressure
equalizing. She knew what was happening, of course. The Air had two main components, a neutron
superfluid and an electron gas. The neutrons were thinning out; more pressure here was supplied by
the gas of free electrons. When she held up her hand before her face she could see the ghostly
sparkle of electrons around her fingers, bright in the gloom and evoking dim highlights from the
crowding leaves.
But now her vision seemed to be failing. The Air was growing poor at carrying the high-frequency,
high-velocity sound waves which allowed her to see. And, worse, the Air thin as it was was
losing its superfluidity. It started to feel sticky, viscous; and as she moved she began to feel a breeze,
faint but unquestionably present, plucking at her face and hair-tubes, impeding her motion.
She found herself trembling at the thought of this sticky stuff congealing in the fine network of
capillaries which powered her muscles the network which sustained her very being.
Human Beings weren't meant to live up here. Even pigs spent no more time close to the Crust than
they had to. She heaved at the sludgelike Air, feeling it curdle within her capillaries, and longed for
the open space of the Mantle beneath the roof-forest, for clean, fresh, thick Air.
In all directions around her the tree trunks filled the world. As it became progressively more difficult
to see, the trunks, parallel, curving slightly to follow the Magfield, seemed suddenly artificial,
sinister in their regularity, like the threads of some huge Net around her. She found herself gripped
by a slow panic. Her chest heaved at the unsatisfying Air, the breath noisy in her throat. It took a
strong, conscious effort to keep moving, an exercise of will just to keep her hands working at the
tree trunk.
She was concerned for Farr. Even in the gloom she could see how distressed he was: his face was
white and seemed to be bulging, his eyes half-closed; he seemed barely aware of where he was, and
he moved along the trunk stiffly.
Dura forced herself to look away, to carry on. There was no help she could give him. Not now. The
best she could do was to move on, to bring home the results of a successful hunt. And as Adda had
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said, the boy was probably safer with her than anywhere else...
At least Adda was close to Farr. Dura found herself offering up a simple, childlike message of
thanks to the watchful Xeelee for the old man's presence and support.

When the climb ended it was with a suddenness that startled her.
The tree trunk she'd followed had broadened only gradually, at last reaching a width just too great
for her to stretch her arms around. Now, suddenly, the clean lines of the trunk exploded into a
complex tangle of roots which formed a semicircular platform over her head. Peering up, she could
see the roots receding into the dim, translucent interior of the Crust itself; they looked almost like
human arms, reaching deep into the gossamer solid in search of neutron-rich nuclei of molybdenum,
strontium or krypton.
Looking around, she saw how the root system of the tree merged with those of its neighbors in the
forest, so that a carpet of wood formed an impenetrable ceiling over the forest. A few strands of
purplish grass sprouted among the roots. The tree trunks, following the Magfield lines, met the root
ceiling at an oblique angle.
Soon the others had joined her. The four Human Beings huddled together, clinging to loose roots for
stability. It was so dim now that Dura could barely make out the faces of her companions, the
outlines of their thin bodies. Philas's eyes were dull with exhaustion and apathy; Farr, trembling, had
his arms wrapped around himself, and his mouth was wide as he strained at the residual Air. Adda
was as uncomplaining as ever, but his face was set and pale, and Dura could see how his old
shoulders were hunched over his thin, heaving chest. Adda took leaves from the bulging pack at his
waist. Dura bit into the food gratefully. Insubstantial and unsatisfying as it was, the food seemed to
boost what was left of her strength. Farr continued to shiver; Dura put an arm around him and drew
him closer to her, hoping to transmit enough of her body warmth to stop the trembling.
Farr asked, "Are we at the Crust?"
"No," Adda growled. "The true Crust is still millions of mansheights above us. But we've reached
the roots; this is as far as we can go."
Philas's voice was low and harsh in the thin Air. "We can't stay here for long."
"We won't need to," Dura said. "But maybe we should open up a trunk and start some nuclear
burning again, before we congeal here. Adda, could you..."
The old man raised a hand, curtly. "No time," he breathed. "Just listen... all of you."
Dura frowned but said nothing. The four fell into a silence broken only by the rattle of their uneven
breaths. Dura felt small, vulnerable, isolated, dwarfed by the immensities of the root systems over
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their heads. Every instinct ordered her to bolt, to slide back down the tree and plummet through the
wall of treetops to the open Air where she belonged; and she could see the same urges in the set
faces of the others.
There. A rustle, a distant grunting... It came from the root systems, somewhere to her left.
Adda's face crumpled with frustration. "Damn it all," he hissed. "I can't hear; my ears are turning to
mush."
"I can hear them, Adda," Farr said.
Dura pointed. "That way."
Adda nodded, his good eye half-closed with satisfaction. "I knew it wouldn't take long. How many?"
Dura and Philas looked at each other, each seeking the answer in the other's face. Dura said, "I can't
tell, Adda... more than one, I think." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]