Gavving moved across the shuddering bark, ripped something loose from a purple-clad corpse, continued in along the trunk. Jayan and Jinny weren't visible. Alfln snarled as he watched his enemies disappear

into the outward smoke cloud. Glory and Merril watched too, not believing it.

Make a decision. Now. You don't know enough, but you've got to

decide~ It has to be you, it's always you.

Gavving. Gavving and the Grad were old friends. Did Gavving know something? He'd captured an invader weapon, and now he was far in

along the trunk . . . headed for the meat they'd left when they went after the mushroom. Of course, they'd need food if they were to cast

loose from the tree.

The Grad's mind could have snapped. But Gavving trusted him.

and everything was happening at once: fire blazing on the tree, the trunk shuddering and moaning, strangers killing and then fleeing...

There were jet pods in dave's pack. He could get his citizens back once

things settled down. He bellowed, "Grad! Lines to the tree?"

"Nooo! Treefodder, no!"

"Ail right." He bellowed above the end-of-the-world roar. "Jayanl Jinnyl Glory, Alfin, MerriL everybody jump! Jump away from the tree! Do not moor yourselves!"

Reactions were various. Merril stared at him, thought it over, pushed herself free. Glory only stared. Jayan and Jinny emerged from hiding like a pair of birds taking wing. Alibi clutched the bark in a deathgrip. Gavving? Gavving was working to free one thick leg of nose-arm meat.

The bark still shuddered, the sound filled tree and sky, the purpleclad killers were nowhere to be seen, and . . . nobody had gone after the fan fungus. dave hurled himself at the stalk.

The fan bent under his weight, then tore loose and was turning end for end. dave's fingers were sunk into white fungus. The tumbling thing seemed to be picking up speed. Faster, the bark raced beneath the tumbling fan fungus, faster.. . a fiery wind rushed past him and was gone before he could draw breath.

It wasn't possible. Bewildered, Clave saw tufts of flame receding in both directions. No tree. Citizens floundered in the sky. Even Alfin had jumped at last. But the tree, where was the tree? There wasn't any tree. Fistfuls of fungus turned to mush in aave's closing fists, and he screamed and wrapped his arms around the stalk. They were lost in the sky.

Chapter Eight - Quinn Tribe

WOOD SNAPPED EXPLOSIVELY, SPATFERING GAVVING WITH

splinters as he leapt across the bucking, tearing bark. A million insects poured from a sudden black gap that must have reached a klomter into the heartwood. Gavving cried out and waved his arms through the buzzing cloud, trying to clear enough air to breathe.

The tree was everything that was, and the tree was ending. If he'd stopped to think, his fear would have frozen him fast. He held to the one thought: Get the meat and get out!