Jeffer said, "When a tree drifts too far away from the Smoke Ring median, it starves. It saves itself by coming apart. The tide takes half of it out, half in. One half falls back to where the water and fertilizer are. The other half dies, I guess."

"I still don't see any bugs," Clave said. "It's the bugs that eat a tree apart, isn't it? The tree isn't getting fed, so the bark lets the bugs get inside-"

"I don't know everything, Clave."

"Pity."

They were close enough now to make out black lumps at the center of the charred region. There: a shape like a huge seed pod split open from inside. There: a thin shell of char, a bell shape not unlike the fire-spitting nostrils at the CARM's aft end. A ridge of white ash joined the bell to the split pod. Beyond: several fragile sheets of charred wood, the remains of an oblong hut with interior walls.

Clave reached for the wings he'd bound to cargo hooks.

"Scientist, can you hold the CARM here? We'll go see what there is to see. If the tree breaks in half, you'll still have us tethered."

Jeffer stifled a protest. He ached to explore that ruined structure, but- "I can handle it. Take lines too."

The sun would be dead east in a few tens of breaths. A stick protruded from the butt end of each fan-shaped wing. After some experimentation they settled for lining the stick along their shins and binding them with the straps. The wings tended to hang up on things even when folded. Clave and Anthon wriggled through the airlock and flapped into the sky.

Jeffer tapped the white button. "Prikazyvat Voice," he said.

The CARM said, "Ready, Jeffer the Scientist." Clave and Anthon fluttered erratically through the air. Suddenly Anthon moved purposefully toward the blister of charred machinery, moving easily, as if he had always been a bird. Clave moved after him, fighting a tendency to veer left.

They swept away the white ash that lay between the bell and the tank. The ash enclosed them in cloud. When the cloud dispersed, they had exposed a length of tube and a loose webbing of metal strands around it.

"Kendy for the State. Hello, Jeffer."

Jeffer didn't jump. "Hello, Kendy. What do you make of all this?"

"You'd know more about the injured plant than I. I've been studying the machinery." Within the bow window the metal strands and the enclosed pipe began blinking, an outline of red light. "These, the pipe and the chicken wire, are metal. The ruptured tank-" another blinking outline "-appears to have been a large seed pod. The cone is half of a similar seed pod. The ash around the pipe appears to be wood ash.