The wheel was ten to twelve klomters in diameter, and a hundred meters broad. The inner surface was partly covered with . . . houses? They surely weren't proper huts. They glowed with color. Most were cubes and oblongs, but there were other, stranger shapes: a faceted hemisphere, a wooden cylinder, a larger cylinder as transparent as the CARM's bow window.

Carlot shouted back at them as they flew. "We leam all about the Market in school. It started out as a beam carved along the entire length of a log, three hundred years ago. The Admiralty ran it through a pond to soak it. Then they used tethers to bend it in a circle. Before that, the Market was only shops tethered together."

This tremendous made thing . . . this was wealth. Rather felt the fear and the awe of any savage approaching a civilized city.

People were flying to meet them.

"The older shops are funny shapes. Balls and geodesies. That glass cylinder is the Vivarium. Vance Limited grows earthlife there." Carlot noticed that all three of her charges were dropping behind. She turned in a half circle and rejoined them. "Are you all right? Tired?"

Rather answered for the others. "It's a little frightening. Who are those people?"

"Friends. Traders. I'll introduce you. Raym! Crew, this is Raym Wilby-"

He was an older man, a jungle giant with pale skin and dark, curly hair and beard. He shouted at the sight of Carlot, bounced into her a little too hard, and wrapped her in his arms. As he examined her companions the wide, goofy smile was lost to a look of comical amazement. "Carlot? Shorts?"

She rebuked him. "Raym, these are some of the citizens who saved our lives when our tree caught fire. Hey, John, hey. Nurse!" Others were arriving. Carlot squirmed loose; clasped hands or toes; chattered introductions. John and Nurse Lockheed were brother and sister, and looked it, with angular faces (shaved, in John's case) and white-blond hair. Long-headed Grag Maglicco was in the Navy as a Spacer First. Adjeness Swart was small for a jungle giant. Her hair was black and straight, her nose curved and sharp. She worked in the Vivarium, Carlot said.

Half a dozen others reached them and Rather started to lose track. Raym would be thirty to forty years old;

Grag would be a little younger. The rest were around Carlot's age. Jungle giants all, and expert flyers.

Carlot told her tale as they flew toward the Market. Other strangers joined them and she had to start over. Now there were a dozen jungle giants among them, and all were strangers to all but Carlot. She stuck to her father's story, and made no mention of Wart or CARM or silver suit.

The citizens were uncharacteristically quiet. There was too much to see, and they were surrounded by as many strangers as there were adults in Citizens Tree.