Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

yell out to you, but I was able to keep your little glow in sight until you covered it up, and I figured I’d catch up with you sooner or later.”
    “Now what?” Bram said bitterly. “Penser’s probably halfway to the Nar sector by now, and we’re off the main routes.”
    “Don’t give up, my friend. I thought you might need help. I know the tree inside out. Remember, I’ve been living here for the last couple of months.”
    “Where does this channel go?”
    “It’s an old resin duct they’re converting into a secondary thoroughfare. They can bore through to the adjoining tracheids like this one for apartments and workshops. Eventually it’ll intersect a vascular ray with a bucket shaft in it. First, though, let’s find ourselves some transportation.”
     
    The crawlbubble Jao found for them had seen a lot of hard use, but it was still in operating condition. Workmen had been using it to explore some of the branching vascular rays and had left it parked in a hollowed-out cell that was being used as a toolshed.
    “Not the most elegant way to travel, but it’ll get us there,” Jao said cheerfully. “You know how to drive one of these things?”
    Bram shook his head. He had seen crawlbubbles in operation on the Father World on projects where rough or hilly terrain made other work vehicles impractical, but he had never actually ridden in one. They were squat, six-legged things with a transparent cab big enough for one Nar or two cramped humans. Essentially they were a larger and more sophisticated version of a tripod walker—a form of pseudolife operated by synthetic reselin protein.
    “Nothing to it,” Jao said. “Just point it where you want it to go. It can’t tip over—there’s always three legs in contact with a surface—and it feels out its own footholds.”
    He twanged one of the tendons anchored in the metal-framed control pyramid, and the little biomachine scuttled forward. The basic control was a sort of tiller shaped for a Nar tentacle, but a human being could operate it one-handed by fitting an elbow into the groove at one end; the tiller worked on a universal joint, and one could steer and tilt it forward for more speed at the same time or tilt it backward for reverse. A synthetic electroluminescent organ, focused by a lens and mirror, cast a high-intensity beam forward.
    The resin duct grew steeper, and the crawlbubble dug in and braced itself as it climbed. “Hang on,” Jao said. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.” After another hour of climbing, the duct abruptly came to an end, plugged up by a hardened amber material. “There should be an opening about here,” Jao said. “They hadn’t gotten around to enlarging it yet. There it is!”
    A jagged hole in the smooth wall was just big enough for the crawlbubble to squeeze through. The electroluminescent headlamp threw its light down a long, bare horizontal passage.
    “There ought to be a bucket stage a couple of miles in that direction,” Jao said. “We’d better leave the crawlbubble here and walk the rest of the way. We don’t want to give ourselves away in case they’ve posted a guard there.”
    “I hate to think of what I might have done if you hadn’t come along,” Bram said. “I probably would have just gone blundering onward.”
    “I don’t know,” Jao said. “You might have blundered your way to the Nar sector by yourself. Then again, you might not have. That’s why I followed you. It was a chance I didn’t want to let you take.”
    “Well, thanks,” Bram said.
    “Don’t thank me,” Jao said with a gesture of dismissal. “It’s my tree.”
    They climbed out of the crawlbubble and stared down the length of the transverse passage. Lighting had not been installed, but there was a dim, pearly visibility anyway. “This tunnel’s still alive,” Jao said. “That’s sunlight we’re seeing, what’s left of it after being pumped through the tree’s own optical fibers. A plant the size of this one has to figure out new ways of carrying on its photochemistry.”
    Bram, after a moment’s hesitation, took his spear with him. Jao produced a wicked-looking curved knife from under his clothing.
    “Where did you get that?” Bram said.
    “It’s a garden tool. From the farm chamber. I was able to lift it without being noticed.”
    “Could—could you use it?”
    “I don’t know. But it feels good in the hand. We’re killers, you know. That’s what you learn if you take a hard