"That's not all of it and you know it."

"If you know better than I do, then keep talking," dave said reasonably.

"The Grad can back me up. He knows some tribal history. When things go wrong, when citizens get unhappy, the leader's in trouble. The Scientist himself almost got drafted! The Chairman is scared, that's

what. The citizens are hungry, and there's an obvious replacement for

the Chairman. dave, he's scared of you."

"Grad?"

"The Scientist knows what he's doing."

"He blamed it all on you!" Alfin cried. "I was there!"

"I know. He had his reasons." The Grad noticed the silence and laughed. "No, I didn't cause the drought! We rounded Gold, and Gold swung us too far in toward Voy, down to where the Smoke Ring thins out. It's a gravity effect-"

"Many thanks for explaining it all," Clave said with cheerful sarcasm. Gavving was irritated and a bit relieved: nobody else understood the Grad's gibberish either. "Is there anything else we should settle?"

Into the silence Gavving said, "How do we cause a flood?"

There was some laughter. dave said, "Grad?"

"Forget it."

"It'd solve everybody's problems. Even the Chairman's."

"This is silly. . . well. Floods come when a pond brushes the tree, somewhere on the trunk. A lot of water clings to the trunk. The tide pulls it down. Usually we get some warning from a hunting party, and we all scurry out along the branch. The big flood, ten years ago. most of us got to safety, but the waterfall tore away some of the huts, and most of the earthlife crops, and the turkey pens. It was a year before we caught any more turkeys.

"And I wish we'd have another flood," the Grad said. "Sure I do. The Scientist thinks the whole tree-never mind. You can't catch a pond. We're too far into the gas torus region-"

"There," Gavving said and pointed east and out, toward a metalcolored dot backed by rosy streamers of cloud. "I think it's bigger than it was."

"What of it? It'll come or it won't. If it did come floating past, what would you do, throw lines and grapnels? Forget it. Just forget it."

"Enough," Clave said. "That meat's probably done. Let's get the smoke out and get inside."

Gavving woke in the night and wondered where he was.

He half remembered the sounds of groans. Someone in pain? It had stopped now. Sound of wind, sound of many people breathing. Warm bodies all around him. Rich smells of smoke and perspiration. Aches everywhere, as if he'd been beaten.

A woman's voice spoke near his ear. "Are you awake too?"

And another, a man's: "Yes. Let me sleep." Alfin?

Silence. And Gavving remembered: the cave was just large enough to accommodate nine exhausted climbers, after they flung the nose-arm's bones into the sky. By now the offal might have reached Quinn Tuft, to feed the tree.