A Princess of The Linear Jungle

Manasa-knew-where, before she too was deeply unconscious.

    Around noon on the Expedition’s third day in Vayavirunga, when they had by dint of great effort attained a distance of some sixty Blocks from the Hakelight Wall, out of a total possible distance of some three hundred enclosed between the borders of the Jungle Blocks, all without encountering any living thing save plant life, the lead men on machete duty—Ransome and Scoria—called out, “A trail! We’ve hit the head of a trail!”
    The electric effect on the rest of the morose party was instant. Merritt felt her own spirits soar. The unvarying uniformity of their trek, combined with the brute exertions involved in hacking a path, had dulled all their initial anticipation and thrill at being the first civilized visitors to this fabled land. Every hour, Merritt mentally reviled the name of primitivist artist Rosalba Lucerne.
    Those trailing behind the point men rushed through the sap-redolent tunnel to see what had been found.
    Ransome Pivot and Arturo Scoria stood in a spot that, anywhere else, would have been the center of bustling Broadway. Here, however, occurred merely a deep channel in the surrounding vegetation that allowed four people to stand abreast with some generous elbow room. Floored smoothly with a tough fescue, the empty green-walled trough extended down Broadway as far as the eye could see: in effect, a narrow grassy street.
    Cady Rachis laughed with a touch of hysteria. “The sky! Look at the sky! It’s still there!”
    Indeed, the blue sky, dotted with a sparsity of Pompatics, appeared grander than any magnificent work of art.
    Ransome and Arturo were resheathing their machetes. Bare-chested, their skins flecked with spatters and chips of vegetation, they resembled, Merritt thought, some kind of fantastical vegetable deities. She felt a stirring in her loins, for the first time since her arrival in Vayavirunga.
    Donning his dirty shirt and wiping his brow with a bandanna, Scoria said, “All right, people, it’s no time to slack off. We have to maintain our discipline. Plainly, this artificial passage is maintained by the inhabitants of Vayavirunga, and we must be ready to meet them. Although we come in peace and assume a reciprocal friendly welcome, we must likewise anticipate other types of reception.
    “Peart—I want three of your men up front, guns at the ready, and three covering us from the rear. The rest of us will keep our weapons stashed, but at the ready. Is this understood? Fine! Now, if we all—Durian! What in Manasa’s name are you up to?”
    Professor Vinnagar was on his hands and knees, studying the turf with a magnifying glass. Ignoring Scoria until he had finished, Vinnagar got to his feet with some measure of agility.
    “I immediately questioned how this boulevard was maintained. By rudimentary scything, perhaps? Or was the grass a self-limiting variety? But close inspection reveals, in my best estimation, that neither is the case.”
    Vinnagar paused for dramatic effect, but Scoria would not give his rival the satisfaction of a prompt, and so the savant eventually came forth unaided with his revelation.
    “It’s been chewed. The marks of tearing and mastication are unmistakable.”
    Merritt studied the wide long trail. Peart spoke her thoughts for her.
    “Mighty lot of chewing, Professor. If you’re right.”
    The party soon assembled in the defensive order denominated by Scoria and moved down the green street, warily but with some relief at the easier passage.
    Merritt noted right away that narrower side trails forked left and right off the main branch, toward Tracks and River. Not every Cross Street featured such, but only random ones. She directed Art’s attention to this fact, and received an “attagirl” that caused Cady Rachis to sniff in exaggerated fashion.
    When the Daysun was directly overhead, Scoria called a stop for lunch.
    One of the bike boys, a wiry blond chap, spotted a novel-looking fruit tree showing boldly along the alley’s perimeter. Before he could be cautioned otherwise, he had scrambled up its bole and had his hand upon a globular crimson pod.
    “No!” shouted Durian.
    Too late.
    The thin-skinned pod burst, drenching the lad. He fell screaming to the turf.
    Merritt and the others raced to the boy, but hung back at Vinnagar’s command.
    “Don’t touch him, or you’ll suffer the same fate!”
    The skin of the writhing lad bubbled and melted. His throat collapsing inward