Mishael, seven years older than Carlot, had Carlot's dark, exotic beauty in fully developed form, and legs that caused even Rather to stare: long and slender and perfectly matched. She'd cut her trousers into loose shorts, odd-looking in Citizens Tree. The low roof cost her some dignity. She had to crouch. She looked uncomfortable and annoyed. "Straight on in. And he's stopped talking. I think he's mad at us."

Rather said, "You know this is no big deal, don't you? It happens all the time."

"I don't know. Rather, I still get the shivers in your crawling huts! Your parents just don't understand that. And poor Gorey, he is frightened."

"Sure. Carlot's coming with Mother's matchet. Send her after me. I need it to cut my way through." It didn't feel odd to be speaking thus peremptorily to his second mother. Mishael wasn't that much older than Rather; she was new to all this, and it showed.

Rather crawled west.

Memories tried to surface around him. His parents' bedroom: he'd lived in a basket, in a corner too small for a baby now. The private dining area, and ghosts of wonderful smells: were they in his nose, or in his mind? The common room, and too many strangers: he'd cried and had to be taken away. The spaces were distorted and tiny, a green-black womb. The spine branches were still growing. He tore them away with his fists; tore through an old partition.

He didn't like this. His past was too small to hold him. "Gorey!"

From west by north, Gorey yelled piercingly. He sounded more angry than frightened. How had he gotten thereat What had been a kitchen wall had crumpled and grown half a meter thick! He must have found some way around-

"Rather?"

Carlot, behind him. He reached far back and took what was pushed into his hand. "Thanks." He pulled it to the level of his face, turned it with some difficulty and pushed the blade further.

"Can you get to him?"

"One way or another."

For years the matchet had been no more than a part of the wall. He'd never really looked at it. The handle was long and a bit too wide for his short fingers. The blade was sixty ce'meters of black metal, tinged red by time. Time and use had serrated the edge. It had once belonged to a Navy man of London Tree.

In this restricted space he must use it as a saw. He didn't try to cut the wall. He cut branchlets west of him.

He turned starboard, still sawing through miscellaneous branchlets. "Gorey?"

Cautiously, doubtfully: "Rath?"

"Here. Give me your hand. Can you reach me?"

"I can't move!"