The tree fed a myriad parasites, and the parasites fed Clave's team. They had killed another nose-arm, easily, chopping through its nose, then jabbing harpoons into its den. There were patches of fan fungus everywhere. Merril had slept a full eight days after eating from the red fringe of a fan fungus. The subsequent throbbing headache didn't seem to affect her climbing, and presently it went away. So the fan fungus served them as food, and they had found more of the shelled burrowers and other edibles

The Grad saw it all as evidence of the tree's decline.

They had found a jet pod bush, like a mass of bubbles on the bark.

Clave had packed a dozen ripe pods in a pouch of scraped nose-arm hide.

They had taken to camping just outside the water-washed wood.

Clave laughed and admitted that they should have been doing that all along. They'd slept three times more on the tree: last night in a nosearm's den, twice before in deep wounds in the wood, cracks overgrown with "fuzz" that had to be burned out first. The char had turned their clothing black.

They had learned not to try to boil water. The bubbles just foamed it out in a hot, expanding mass.

Tidal gravity continued to decrease until they were almost floating up the trunk. Merril loved it. Recovering from the fan fungus hadn't changed that. You couldn't fall; you'd just yell for help, and someone would presently throw you a line. Glory loved it, and Alfin smiled sometimes.

But there were penalties. Now water had grown scarce too. There was no wind this high, and thus no leeward stream of water. Sometimes you found wet wood, wet enough to lick dry. There was water in fan fungus flesh.

Here was the i~ mark Jinny had found. Good: it looked nearly clean.

And half a klomter farther up the trunk, a fan-shape showed like a white hand against the sky. It must be huge. The Grad pointed. "Dinner?"

Clave said, "We'll find smaller ones around it."

"But wouldn't it look grand," Merril asked, "coming into the Commons?"

The Grad was pulling himself toward the tribal mark when Clave said, "Hold it."

"What?"

"This mark isn't overgrown like the others were. Grad, doesn't it look funny to you? Tended?"

"There's some fuzz growing, but maybe not enough." Then the Grad was close enough to see the real discrepancy. "There's no takeout mark.

Citizens, this isn't Quinn territory."

Gavving and Jiovan had been left behind to tend the smokefire.

Hard-learned lessons showed here. Bark torn from the rim of a patch

of fuzz served as fuel. Healthy bark resisted fire. A circle of coals surrounded the meat, all open to the fitful breezes. A sheltered fire wouldn't burn. The smoke wouldn't rise; it would stay to smother the fire. Even here in the open, the smoke hovered in a squirming cloud.