"Still, it's something to have seen the Checker, isn't it? Something to tell our children. Someone that old must have learned a lot-"

"If he wasn't lying, or crazy."

"He had the facts right," the Grad said. "We did take him at his word, didn't we? Maybe he only had cassettes, like me. A dwarf Scientist, stuck out there in a carm, like we almost were. He's not all that bright, either. He swallowed Mark's story-"

"Come on, I was brilliant!" the silver man bellowed.

"You tell a fine story. Mark, why did you back me up?"

It was a breath or two before the dwarf answered. "You understand that I can't support a bloody copsik revolution."

"Okay. Why?"

"It was none of this Kendy's business. Whoever he is. Whatever he is.',

"Yeah . . . He did have some interesting machinery. Maybe he got stuck aboard Disc~pline itself, somehow. I'd have liked to see Dlxipline."

Lawri hadn't even tried pumping. She flexed her fingers, wondering if they would heal. She had smelled the stink of fear on herselL That at least was gone.

She said, "I wouldn't deal with Sharls Davis Kendy if he gave me Discipline. Ugly, arrogant treefeeder. He wanted Mark dead like you'd kill a turkey, because it's time. Convenient. And he ordered us around like copsiks!"

They laughed at that. Even Mark.

At the end of three hours their forearms were distilled pain. The blue indicator inside read H20: 260. The Grad asked Lawri, "Enough?"

"For what we've got in mind-"

"We wondered about going home," Debby said.

Clave snorted, but they waited for Lawri's reply. She said reluctantly,

"I'd never find London Tree again. Carther States is even smaller, and they're both on the wrong side of Gold. We'd have to accelerate west, drop in from the Smoke Ring, and let Gold pull us around. Do you want to go for Gold again?"

She smiled at their reactions. "Me neither. I'm tired. We can get to another tree and moor the carm. We'll build a pump before we need more water than that."

"We'd prefer a jungle, of course," lisa said.

One of the women bristled. "Nine of us and three of you! If-"

Clave said, "Hold it, Merril. Usa, are you sure? You can move a jungle, and that's good, right?"

lisa nodded cautiously. Anthon said, "That's one of the things we like about jungle life."

"But you can only do it every twenty years or so. We can moor the carrier. . . carm to the middle of an integral tree and move it when and where we like."

"Why not do that with a jungle?"

"Where would you mount the carm?"

Anthon thought it over. "The funnel? No, it might suddenly blow

live steam-" He smiled suddenly. "There are more of you than us anyway. Sure, pick a tree."

There was a grove of eight small trees, thirty to fifty kilometers long.