Then he raised a heavy head and found himself staring at a battlefield. "By the Bones."

"Welcome to the Raft's seat of government, Rees," Pallis said grimly.

Something crackled under Rees's tread; he bent and picked up a smashed bottle, its gla.s.s scorched and half-melted. "More fire bombs? What's happened here, pilot? Another revolt?"

Pallis shook his head. "Miners, Rees. We've been at this futile war since we lost the supply machine we sent to the Belt. It's a stupid, b.l.o.o.d.y affair... I'm sorry you have to see this, lad."

"Well. What have we here?" A vast belly quivered, close enough for Rees to feel its gross gravity field; it made him feel weak, insubstantial. He looked up into a broad, scarred face.

"Decker..."

"But you walked the beam. Didn't you?" Decker sounded vaguely puzzled, as if pondering a child's riddle. "Or are you one of those I sent to the mine?"

Rees didn't answer. He studied the Raft's leader; Decker's face was marked by deep creases and his eyes were hollow and restless. "You've changed," Rees said.

Decker's eyes narrowed. "We've all b.l.o.o.d.y changed, lad."

"Mine rat. I thought I recognized you, clinging to that whale." The words were almost a hiss. Gover's thin face was a mask of pure hatred, focused on Rees.

Rees suddenly felt enormously tired. "Gover. I never imagined I'd see you again." He looked into Gover's eyes, recalling the last time he had seen the apprentice. It had been at the time of the revolt, he supposed, when Rees had silently joined the group of Scientists outside the Bridge. Rees remembered his contempt for the other man - and recalled how Gover had recognized that contempt, and how his thin cheeks had burned in response"He's an exile." Gover sidled up to Decker, his small fists clenching and unclenching. "I saw him approaching on the whale and had him brought to you. You threw him off the Raft. Now he's back. And he's a miner..."

"So?" Decker demanded.

"Make the b.a.s.t.a.r.d walk the beam."

Stray emotions chased like shadows across Decker's complex, worn face. The man was tired, Rees realized suddenly; tired of the unexpected complexity of his role, tired of the blood, the endless privations, the suffering...

Tired. And looking for a few minutes' diversion.

"So you'd have him over the side, eh?"

Gover nodded, eyes still fixed on Rees.

Decker murmured, "Shame you weren't so brave while the miners were in the sky." Gover flinched. A cruel smile surfaced through Decker's tiredness. "All right, Gover. I agree with your judgment. But with one proviso."

"What?"

"No beam. There's been enough cowardly killing this shift. No. Let him die the way a man is meant to. Hand to hand." Gover's eyes widened, shocked. Decker stepped back, leaving Rees and Gover facing each other. A small crowd gathered around them, a ring of bloodstained faces eager for diversion.

"More b.l.o.o.d.y games, Decker?"

"Shut up, Pallis."

From the corner of his eye Rees saw the two heavies - Plath and Seel - clamp the tree-pilot's arms tight.

Rees looked into Gover's twisted, frightened face. "Decker, I've come a long way," he said. "And I've something to tell you... something more important than you can dream."

Decker raised his eyebrows. "Really? I'll be fascinated to hear about it... later. First, you fight."

Gover crouched, hands spread like claws.

It seemed he had no choice. Rees raised his arms, tried to think himself into the fight. Once he could have taken Gover with one arm behind his back. But - after so many shifts with the Boneys and riding the whale - now he wasn't sure...

Gover seemed to sense his doubt; his fear seemed to evaporate, and his posture adjusted subtly, became more aggressive. "Come on, mine rat." He stepped toward Rees.

Rees groaned inwardly. He didn't have time for this. Come on, think; hadn't he learned anything on his journey? How would a Boney handle this? He remembered the whale-spears lancing through the air with deadly accuracy"Watch it, Gover," someone called. "He's got a weapon."

Rees found the half-bottle still in his hand... and an idea blossomed. "What, this? All right, Gover - hand to hand. Just you and me." He closed his eyes, felt the pull of the Raft and Platform play on the gravitational sense embedded in his stomach - then he hurled the gla.s.s as hard as he could, not quite vertically. It sparkled through the starlit air.

Gover showed his teeth; they were even and brown.

Rees stepped forward. Time seemed to slow, and the world around him froze; the only motion was the twinkling of the gla.s.s in the air above him. Everything became bright and vivid, as if illuminated by some powerful lantern within his eyes. Detail overwhelmed him, sharp and gritty: he counted the beads of sweat on Gover's brow, saw how the apprentice's nostrils flared white as he breathed. Rees's throat tightened and he felt the blood pump in his neck; and all the while the half-bottle, small and graceful, was...o...b..ting perfectly through the complex gravitational field...

Until, at last, it dipped back toward the deck. And slammed into Gover's back.

Gover went down howling. For some seconds he writhed on the deck, the blood pooling over the metal around him. Then, at last, he was still, and the blood ceased to flow.

For long moments n.o.body moved, Decker, Pallis and the rest forming a shocked tableau.

Rees knelt. Gover's back had been transformed into a mash of blood and torn cloth. Rees forced his hands into the wound and dug out the gla.s.s, then he stood holding aloft the grisly trophy, Gover's blood trickling down his arm.

Decker scratched his head. "By the Bones..." He half-laughed.

Rees felt a cold, hard anger course through him. "I know what you're thinking," he told Decker quietly. "You don't expect the likes of me to fight dirty. I cheated; I didn't follow the rules. Right?"

Decker nodded uncertainly.

"Well, this isn't a b.l.o.o.d.y game!" Rees screamed, spraying Decker's face with spittle. "I wasn't going to let this fool kill me, not before I make you hear what I've got to say.

"Decker, you'll destroy me if you want to. But if you want any chance of saving your people you'll hear me out." He brandished the gla.s.s in Decker's face. "Has this earned me the right to be heard? Has it?"

Decker's mask of scars was impa.s.sive. He said quietly, "You'd better take this one home, tree-pilot. Get him cleaned up." With one last, narrow glare, he turned away.

Rees dropped the gla.s.s. Abruptly his fatigue crashed down. The deck seemed to quiver, and now it was rising to meet his faceArms around his shoulders and waist. He raised his head wearily. "Pallis. Thanks... I had to do it, you see. You understand that, don't you?"

The tree-pilot would not meet his eyes; he stared at Rees's b.l.o.o.d.y hands and shuddered.

12.

THE BELT WAS A SHABBY TOY hanging in the air above Pallis. Two plate craft hovered between Pallis's tree and the Belt; every few minutes they emitted puffs of steam and spurted a few yards through the clouds. Miners glared down from the craft across the intervening yards at the tree.

The craft were motes of iron in a vast pit of red-lit air. But, Pallis reflected with a sigh, they marked a wall as solid as any of wood or metal. He stood by the trunk of his tree and stared up at the sentries, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Well, it's no use hanging about here," he said. "We'll have to go in."

Jaen 's broad face was smudged with soot from the fire bowls. "Pallis, you're crazy. They're obviously not going to let us past." She waved a muscular arm at the miners. "The Raft and the Belt are at war, for goodness' sake!"

"The trouble with having you Science rejects as apprentice woodsmen is that you argue at every d.a.m.n thing. Why the h.e.l.l can't you just do as you're told?"

Jaen 's broad face split into a grin. "Would you rather have Gover back, pilot? You shouldn't complain if the revolution's brought you such a high caliber of staff."

Pallis straightened up and dusted off his hands. "All right, high caliber; we need to work. Let's get these bowls stoked."

She frowned. "You're serious? We're going on?"

"You heard what Rees said... What we have to tell these miners is possibly the most important news since the Ship arrived in the Nebula in the first place. And we're going to make those d.a.m.n miners listen whether they like it or not. If that means we let them blast us out of the sky, then we accept it. And another tree will come, and that will be destroyed too; and then another, and another, until finally these d.a.m.n fool mine rats work out that we really do want to talk to them."

Throughout his awkward speech Jaen had kept her head down, fiddling with the kindling in a fire bowl; now she looked up. "I suppose you're right." She bit her lip. "I just wish-"

"What?"

"I just wish it wasn't Rees who had come back from the dead to save the human race. That little mine rat was pompous enough as he was..."

Pallis laughed. "Fill your bowl, apprentice."

Jaen set to work. Pallis took a silent pleasure in working with her. She was a good woodsman, fast and efficient; somehow she knew what to do without being told, and without getting in his d.a.m.n way...

The blanket of smoke gathered beneath the platform of foliage. The tree rotated faster and surged up at the Belt, the air rushing through its foliage evoking sharp, homely scents in Pallis's nostrils. The sentry craft were immobile shadows against the red sky. Pallis braced his legs against the trunk of his tree, the strength of the wood a comforting base below him, and cupped his hands to his mouth. "Miners!"

Faces scowled over the rim of each craft. Pallis, squinting, could make out weapons held ready: spears, knives, clubs.

He held his hands wide. "We come in peace! You can see that, for the love of the Bones. What do you think I've got, an armada tucked under my branches?"

Now a miner called down. "p.i.s.s off home, woodsman, before you get yourself killed."

He felt a slow anger suffuse his scars. "My name is Pallis, and I'm not about to p.i.s.s off anywhere. I've got news that will affect every man, woman and child on the Belt. And you're going to let me deliver it!"

The miner scratched his head suspiciously. "What news?"

"Let us through and I'll tell you. It comes from one of your own. Rees-"

The miners conferred with each other; then the spokesman turned back to Pallis. "You're lying. Rees is dead."

Pallis laughed. "No, he isn't; and his story is what my news is all about-"

With shocking suddenness a spear arced over the rim of the plate. He called a sharp warning to Jaen; the spear slid through the foliage and dwindled into the depths of the Nebula.

Pallis stood, hands on hips, and glared up at the miners. "You're lousy listeners, aren't you?"

"Woodsman, we're starving here because of Raft greed. And good men are dying trying to put that right-"

"Let them die! No one asked them to attack the Raft!" Jaen roared.

"Shut up, Jaen," Pallis hissed.

She snorted. "Look, pilot, those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are armed and we aren't. They're obviously not listening to a d.a.m.n word we say. If we try to get any closer they'll probably just torch the tree with their jets. There's no point in suicide, is there? We'll just have to find another way."

He rubbed his beard. "But there is no other way. We have to talk to them." And, without letting himself think about it, he reached out with one foot and kicked over the nearest fire bowl. The kindling spilled out, smoking, and soon tiny flames were licking at the foliage.

Jaen stared, motionless, for perhaps five seconds; then she broke into a flurry of motion. "Pallis, what the h.e.l.l - I'll get the blankets-"

He wrapped her forearm in one ma.s.sive hand. "No, Jaen. Let it burn."

She stared into his face, her expression blank and uncomprehending.

The flames spread like living things. Above them the miners stared down, evidently baffled.

Pallis found he had to lick his lips before he could speak. "The foliage is very dry, you see. It's a consequence of the failing of the Nebula. The air is too arid; and the spectrum of starlight now isn't suitable for photosynthesis in the leaves..."

"Pallis," Jaen said firmly, "stop babbling."

"...Yes. I'm gambling they'll pick us up. It's the only choice." He forced himself to study the blackened and twisting wood, the scorched leaves blowing in the air.

Jaen touched his scarred cheek; her fingertips came away damp. "This is really hurting you, isn't it?"

He laughed painfully. "Jaen, it's taking all my willpower to keep from the blankets." Suddenly anger coursed through his grief. "You know, of all the lousy, terrible things human beings do in this universe, this is the worst. People can do what they like to each other and I'll turn away; but now I'm forced to destroy one of my own trees..."

"You can let go of my arm."

"What?" Surprised, he glanced down to find he still gripped her forearm. He released it. "I'm sorry."

She rubbed her flesh ruefully. "I understand, tree-pilot; I won't try to stop you." She held out her hand. With grat.i.tude he took it, gently this time.

The platform lurched, making them both stumble. The flames at the heart of the blaze now stood taller than Pallis. "It's happening fast," he murmured.

"Yes. Do you think we should grab hold of some supply pods?"

The thought made him laugh out loud. "What, so we can take light snacks on our way down to the Core?"

"OK, stupid idea. Not as stupid as setting fire to the b.l.o.o.d.y tree, though."

"Maybe you've a point."

A complete section of the rim gave way now, disappearing in a shower of burning embers; truncated branches burned like fat candles. "I think it's time," Pallis said.

Jaen peered about. "I guess the best strategy is to run to the rim and jump for it. Get as much speed as we can, and hope that that plus the rotation of the tree will take us far enough from all this debris."

"OK."

They looked into each other's eyes - and Pallis's feet were pumping over the crisp foliage; the rim approached and he fought the instincts of a lifetime to stop and then the rim was under his feet and-and he was sailing through the empty, bottomless air, his hand still locked to Jaen's.

It was almost exhilarating.

They tumbled, their flight slowing rapidly in the smoky air, and Pallis found himself hanging in the sky, feet toward the Belt, Jaen to his right, the tree before him.