A Princess of The Linear Jungle

rope wrapped around a tree trunk thick as one of the columns on the NikThek portico.
    A lush carpet of blue-green moss speckled with white florets completely covered the surface of the Slip. It provided solid footing, Merritt was pleased to learn.
    Soon the whole party, twelve souls all told, had disembarked. Captain Canebrake gave the order to cast off.
    “If you don’t radio for pickup sooner, I’ll be back every ten days, as we arranged!”
    All twelve ashore silently watched their link to civilization dwindle. Even though the River was full of other traffic, Merritt felt isolated and bereft.
    Slinging his rifle on one shoulder, Scoria said, “I’ll call Base Camp, and tell them we’ve landed.”
    But the radio had died, and no amount of amateur tinkering could get it to work again.
    Professor Vinnagar offered a hypothesis and a practical assessment of their situation. “The Wall could be creating interference. Or perhaps whatever caused the transformation of these three Boroughs initially is responsible. In either case, contact with Base Camp, while a pleasantly homey link, was always of little real utility.”
    “Agreed,” Scoria said. “Let’s move inland.”
    The plan, already discussed, involved reaching Broadway, where, presumably, the going would be easier.
    Ransome, Scoria, Vinnagar and Merritt took up their machetes to cut a path through the dense vegetation. Cady Rachis had the duties of mission photographer, and had already accumulated half a roll of photos—many of which, however, featured Cady herself striking glamorous poses, as taken by Pivot. Peart marshalled the gun-toting bearers in a line. He looked up at the Daysun and Seasonsun, as if to cannily remind everyone of his earlier speculation about the heat.
    Merritt thought the two orbs indeed burned more vigrouslyvigorously here than in Hakelight. Sweat had sprung from her brow, and her armpits were drenched. And she had not yet even swung her machete.
    Their first tentative whacks at the Jungle soon disclosed the former Cross Street leading from the Slip. On either side of the Cross Street, the rampant, towering vegetation had pulled down whatever buildings had once stood there, leaving behind a mere jumble of bricks and metal. All wooden components were long gone to rot. Three centuries of organic strangulation seemed to have evaporated even the window-glass.
    Merritt hacked left and right, severing lianas, shrubs and saplings alike. Their progress down the Cross Street was diverted in zigzag fashion by every large, insurmountable bole. And despite the shade, the heat was unrelenting. Soon Merritt’s shirt was plastered to her body.
    Scoria called a halt for water, and canteens came out.
    “Are we at Broadway yet?” asked Cady Rachis.
    Professor Vinnagar consulted a pedometer. “Halfway.”
    “Manasa be damned! And how far are we planning to go in this gruesome salad bowl?”
    “Until we contact the natives,” Scoria replied irritably. “They could be around the next tree, or fifty miles onward. Now, take your photos and keep quiet.”
    Cady Rachis looked as if she’d like to say something fierce. But the grim surroundings deterred her from alienating her protector.
    Resuming their trek, the party beat on through the fantastical, colorful growths. Strangely shaped and textured leaves and bark, fruits and nuts, predominated over any species that Merrit could recognize, no common trees of Wharton or Stagwitz. The Jungle seemed composed of a thousand strange cultivars unique to this district.
    After what seemed forever, Vinnagar announced that they had reached Broadway. The twelve explorers paused in a small, humidly respirating, polychromatic pocket they had hacked out. It was as if they stood in the dead-end, claustrophobia-inducing toe of a sock whose narrow tube-like length stretched back to the River. Looking around, Merritt could discern no difference in their surroundings from their Cross Street passage.
    Without the omnipresent human noises of the Linear City, no voices or traffic, music or construction sounds, their environment seemed somehow sterile, despite the profuse foliage.
    Peart broke the tense and awkward silence. “Anyone seen a rat yet. Pigeon? Roach?”
    Those three named creatures shared with humanity every niche of the Linear City. Yet here they made no appearance.
    “Could there be something that eats all three in this cursed Jungle?” asked Cady.
    No one felt capable of answering her highly