Clave said, "It isn't the risk that bothers me. It's the fact that I'm not taking it. Feels like this should be my job."

Rather didn't answer, but Carlot did. "Oh, you're taking a risk. If Rather gets caught, the Navy'11 want us all. Clave, it's not too late to change our minds!"

"Yeah. I know how persuasive Kendy is. And I think I should have been consulted." Rather started to speak.

Clave snapped, "Yes, Rather, it couldn't be done. Besides, Kendy's right. It gets us everything we came for. Rather, if you don't come back in a decent time, we're leaving. I've got the seeds. We'll just bum straight out and let Jeffer find us in the sky."

"Stet," said Rather.

"And what about Dad?" Carlot demanded. "Why should the Navy believe him when he tells them he didn't know?"

"I won't get caught. One big risk and we go home."

"I don't owe you this," Carlot said, as she had said before. This time nobody answered. (But Jeffer had said, "You owe Citizens Tree for your life," and it was true.)

"I think we've gone far enough," Clave said. "Nobody's going to see us from the Market."

Rather nodded. "But there's still Raym."

"He's easily distracted."

The rocket had slowed considerably. They were drifting, not flying. The murky sky was busy with soft, shadowy shapes. Once there was a jagged rock the size of Logbearer, half covered by ... Rather stared. That had to be a fungus. But it was convoluted like the moby's brain Half Hand had tried to serve them.

Raym pointed through the net of lines. "You can eat that."

Clave said, "Treefodder! I mean literally. That's a tuft off an integral tree!"

It could have been, Rather thought. There was the curved blade of the branch. But where foliage should have been, now there was a great misshapen lump of soft gray curves. "I pushed one of those home once," Raym said. "Had to. My nets were torn up. It was all the food I had left, and I barely made a dent in it getting home. Half Hand served slices of it for the next twenty days, but he didn't pay much . .'."

Rather tuned him out.

The orange tinge ahead grew gradually stronger. Orange light shining through shadows. Rather had grown used to the wet, musty smell, but something else was in it now. "Raym, what's that?"

"I've been living with Exec ever since the accident. My son, Exec Wilby. He only went into the Dark but once- What?"

"That."

"That's the fire. Carlot, we have to turn."

Carlot jerked around. "Fire?"

Now Rather knew that smell. Fire burning in something wet and rotten.

"It's been burning down here since ... I don't know when. All my life, anyway. Never gets much bigger, never gets much smaller. Now, don't hurry. Look around and find a pond and steer for that. We need more water anyway."