"I... yes."

"By the Bones, you're dry, aren't you? No wonder you stole that water. You did, didn't you? And the food?"

The boy nodded hesitantly. "I'm sorry. I'll pay you back--"

"When? After you return to the Belt?"

The boy shook his head, a glint in his eye. "No. I'm not going back."

Pallis frowned. "What about your parents?"

"They're dead. Both of them."

Pallis bunched his fists and rested them on his hips. "Listen to me. You'll have to go back. You'll be allowed to stay on the Raft until the next supply tree; but then you'll be shipped back. You'll have to work your passage, I expect..."

Rees shook his head again, his face a mask of determination.

Pallis studied the young miner, an unwelcome sympathy growing inside him. "Well, I'm stuck with you for now. Come on."

He led the boy across the tree surface, towards his little stock of rations.

After a dozen yards they disturbed a spray of skitters; the little creatures whirled up into Rees's face and he stepped back, startled. Pallis laughed. "Don't worry. Skitters are harmless. They are the seeds from which the trees grow..."

Rees nodded. "I guessed that."

Pallis arched an eyebrow. "You did?"

"Yes. You can see the shape's the same; it's just a difference of scale..."

Pallis arched an eyebrow. Smart lad.

The boy ate, as if he'd never been fed.

After letting the boy sleep for a quarter shift Pallis put him to work. Soon Rees was bent over a fire bowl, scraping ash and soot from the iron with shaped blades of wood. Pallis found that his work was fast and complete, supervised or un-supervised. Gover suffered by comparison... and by the looks he shot at Rees, Pallis suspected Gover knew it.

Rees joined Pallis and collected his shift-end rations. The young miner peered absently around at the empty sky. As the tree climbed up towards the Raft, away from the Core and towards the edge of the Nebula, the air was perceptibly brightening.

"Come on," Pallis said. "Let me show you something."

He led the boy towards the trunk of the tree.

Surreptitiously he watched as the boy half-walked across the foliated platform, his feet seeking out the points of good purchase and then lodging in the foliage, so allowing him to "stand" on the tree. The contrast with Gover's clumsy stumbling was marked. Pallis found himself wondering what kind of woodsman the lad would make.

They reached the trunk. Rees stood before the tall cylinder and ran his fingers over the gnarled wood. Pallis hid a smile. "Put your ear against the wood. Go on."

Rees did so with a look of puzzlement -- which evolved into an almost comic delight.

"That's the bole turning, inside the trunk. You see, the tree is alive, right to its core."

Rees's eyes were wide.