Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

when you haven’t had the experience of living aboard a tree, things like that don’t matter to you. But they’d better learn fast.”
    “How are they going to get to the Nar sector?”
    “There’s a transportation system through the tracheids and dry ducts. Not continuous, because the treefitters used existing channels, but it won’t take them long to find the transfer points.”
    “How long will it take them to reach the Nar sector?”
    “With a gang that size and the need to maintain surprise, probably ten or twelve hours. They’ll be doing a lot of it on foot, taking detours. If you or I were to go straight up by crawlbubble and cable pod, we could do it in an hour.”
    “If there were only some way to warn the Nar.”
    Jao shook his fiery mane. “The communication line’s under guard, and all the radios’ve been confiscated.”
    “The Nar they took prisoner!” Bram said desperately. “He’ll be missed.”
    “Maybe,” Jao said. “After six or seven hours. If he was due back, that is. And by the time they spend the next few hours looking for him, it’ll all be over. As for me, I’m going to get myself a bowl of soup over at that pot they’ve got going and let the big brains worry about what happens next. Coming with me?”
    “Not right now,” Bram said. “I’m going to see if I can get permission to help that Nar prisoner.”
     
    The decapod’s name was Sesh-akh-sesh, and he was in a bad way. Bram propped him at an angle and poured a trickle of water down his gullet from a bucket he had found. After a while a little color came back to the ciliated lining, and Bram felt the tentacles stiffen a little.
    “Thank you,” the Nar said. A couple of the primary eyes focused cloudily on Bram. Bram could see the burn marks from the electrical device Pite had used near the lower waist: a circle of round dots that were raw purple against the yellow skin.
    “I’m sorry, but there’s no food here that you’d be able to eat,” Bram said. “I’ll see what I can do about that later on.”
    The food, Bram thought somberly, would have to come from the Nar sector of the tree. One way or the other.
    “I do not desire to eat,” Sesh-akh-sesh said. “But you are thoughtful.”
    “I’ll try to get something from the human medical supplies to treat that burn, though. A nonorganic ointment ought to be all right.”
    He wondered how much success he’d have persuading his captors to get him a medical kit from the living quarters. They had allowed him to drag Sesh-akh-sesh to a spot where he’d be more comfortable and to do for him whatever he could, but they had declined to give him a hand. They didn’t seem to care at all what happened to the injured Nar. And Bram’s fellow detainees were skirting this section of the platform or looking on furtively from a distance, afraid to get involved.
    The decapod struggled to raise himself slightly. “You are the Bram who is the prot é g é of Voth-shr-voth, are you not?” he said.
    “Yes,” Bram said, startled. “I am that Bram.”
    “He spoke to me of you, and from the core. You are as harmonious as he said you are. One has the illusion almost of touch behind your words in the Small Language.”
    “You know Voth, then?”
    “I have that honor. We both were chosen as members of the certification commission making final inspection of this tree.”
    “What? Voth here, on the tree?”
    “Surely you knew that?”
    “N-no. I mean I didn’t realize …” Bram remembered that Voth had said something to that effect, but he hadn’t paid much attention at the time. All of a sudden a terrible thought struck him.
    “Sesh-akh-sesh,” he said urgently. “The humans who attacked you said there were two of you. That you were the lucky one. Is Voth … did they …”
    The decapod began trembling. His nervous system had been overtaxed by the electrical shocks. He must have been under considerable strain trying to preserve the normal Nar amenities with Bram.
    “I don’t understand …” Sesh lost control of voice production for a moment, and there was that peculiar wailing sound again as his vocal syrinx went flabby and wind sighed at random through its air passages. “We saw the humans and greeted them, but they did not reply, and then they were on us like omophage beasts with sticks and sharp things. My touch fellow tried to flee, and they hacked him down. I tried to speak in comity, but then, at the touch, I was helpless …”
    “You got a