The tuft sank away. This was far easier than the four-day climb up Dalton-Quinn Tree. A flock of small birds was veering wide of the trunk. "Harebrains," Ordon said. "Good eating, but you have to use the carm to chase them down. The old Scientist used to let us do that. Klance won't."

A streamer of rain was blowing across the out tuft. Was that why the

First was so eager to move the tree? Wet citizens?

A mobile tree: it boggled the mind. Find your own weather! A fluffy green bauble hung east of the out tuft, with a strange spreading plume of white mist behind it. Within a day or two London Tree would have put it from sight. The Grad wondered if he was being unreasonably antsy. The carm could reach Carther States across any distance. if he couldn't capture the carm, he would be here forever; and if he could, what was the hurry?

But time had a choke hold on his throat.

Life was not intolerable for the Scientist's Apprentice. In a hundred sleeps he might grow into this new life. When the time came he feared he would move too slowly, or not at all.

Clave found Merril in the Commons. She was dipping the points of crossbow bolts in the evil-smelling brew the Carthers made from poison fern.

The increasing tide caught Clave jumping toward ~her. He paused, then floated back, laughing. "It's real! I sure wasn't going to call her a liar, but-"

"Clave, what's happening?" Merril was drifting too, arrows all about her. She managed to catch the poison pot and cap it before it spilled.

"We're on our way. The warriors are on the surface." Clave jumped to his pack against the pull of the strange tide. He had readied it some sleeps ago.

Merril barked, "What? How long have we got?"

She had spent her days learning how to make arrows, twist bowstrings, shape a crossbow and fire it. Clave had watched her at target practice. She was as good as most of the Carthers, and her powerful arms were faster at resetting the crossbow.

He said it anyway. "Merril, you're in Carther States whether you go or not. A lot of Carthers aren't citizens."

"You don't have to go."

"You can feed that to the tree, 0 Chairman!"

dave shoved a handful of the freshly poisoned bolts into his quiver.

"Then grab your gear and go!"

The tide was about like that in Quinn Tuft. Using the tunnels was almost like walking. But it was strange. Every branchlet and foliage tuft had the tremors.

Clave pulled himself through crackling branchiets and soft green turf~ through to the sky. A column of cloud raced outward from beyond the jungle's horizon. The surface was nearly vertical. He took care for his handholds.

Skeletal warriors emerged like earthworms out of the green billows.