Falling water had carved a channel along the eastern side of the trunk. The channel was fifty meters across and nearly dry over most of its water-smoothed surface. But the tree still passed through the occasional cloud; mist still clung to the bark; wind and Coriolis force set it streaming around to the east as it fell; and water ran in a few pitiful streams toward Quinn Tuft below.

"Watch yourselves," Clave told them. "Use your spikes if you have to. This is slippery stuff."

"Here," the Grad called from over their heads.

They worked their way toward him. A hill of rock must have smacked into the tree long ago, half embedding itself. The trunk had grown to enclose it. It made a fine platform, particularly since a stream had split to run round it on both sides. By the time Merril and Jayan had worked their way up, Clave had hammered spikes into the wood above the rock and attached lines.

Merril and Jayan worked their way onto the rock. Mcml lay gasping while Jayan brought her water.

Glory lay flat on the rock with her eyes closed. Presently she crawled to the portside stream. She called to Clave. "Any limit?"

"What?"

"On how much we drink. The water goes-"

Clave laughed loudly. Like the Chairman hosting a midyear celebration, he bellowed, "Drink! Bathe! Have water fights! Who's to stop us9 If Quinn Tribe didn't want their water secondhand, we wouldn't be here." He worked their single cookpot from his pack and threw streams of water at selected targets: Merril, who whooped in delight; Jiovan,

who sputtered in surprise; Jayan and Jinny, who advanced toward him with menace in their eyes. "I dare not struggle on this precarious perch," he cried and went limp. They rolled him in the stream, hanging onto his hands and feet so that he wouldn't go over.

They climbed in a spiral path. They weren't here just to climb, Clave said, but to explore. Gavving could hear Jiovan's monotonous cursing as they climbed into the wind, until the wind drowned him out.

Gavving reached up for a fistful of green cotton and stuffed it in his

mouth. The branch that waved above his pack was nearly bare now. The sky was empty out to some distant streamers of cloud and a dozen dots that might be ponds, all hundreds of klomters out. They'd be hurting for food when sleeptinie came.

He was crossing a scar in the bark, a puckering that ran down into the wood itself An old wound that the bark was trying to heal. . . big enough to climb in, but it ran the wrong way. Abruptly the Grad shouted, "Stop! Hold it up!"

"What's the matter?" Clave demanded.

"The Quinn Tribe markings!"