Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

look at the literature our unedited forebears sent along with us. Maybe it wasn’t apparent to the Nar when our numbers were small and we still hadn’t formulated anything resembling a real human society. But maybe the Pensers are going to be the natural order of things from now on.”
    “I don’t believe it,” Bram said. “I wouldn’t want to believe anything like that.”
    “Suit yourself.” Jao shrugged. “But you have to admit that Penser wouldn’t have been possible if there hadn’t been large numbers of people dissatisfied with the shape of things in their happy little enclosures down below.”
    Bram was surprised at the unhappiness that suddenly showed in the jovial, redbearded visage; then he realized that Jao would not have become one of the Juxt One Emigres in the first place if he had been entirely content with his lot.
    “Not so many people,” Bram said. “I still think Penser’s an aberration.”
    They moved down the dim corridor, their unfamiliar weapons at the ready. It was a long walk in an echoing silence. You couldn’t see all the way ahead; the slight irregular curvatures limited visibility to a few hundred yards at a time. But after a mile or so, something—a change in the illumination, a change in the echoes, a different feel to the air currents—told Bram that they were approaching an open space. He and Jao moved more cautiously and pressed closer to the wall on the inside curve. Another few minutes of walking brought them to a tremendous hollow space with the squarish cross section of a tracheid. They stepped out onto a wide natural platform rimming the xylem cell all the way around. A yawning abyss stretched beneath their feet; muted yellow light filtered from somewhere high above. There was no guardrail, and they both instinctively drew back a little.
    “It’s a bucket station, just as I thought,” Jao said. He pointed across the chasm to where a series of filaments were threaded through circular holes in the rim on the opposite side. Buckets rested in several of the wells.
    “They’ve passed through here,” Bram said, looking at the charred pits in the living wood where Penser’s army had carelessly lit cooking fires and at the litter that surrounded them. “But how long ago?”
    “Not too long,” Jao said, sniffing the ashes. “They had a head start of three or four hours on us, but they must have used most of it up. Stopping to eat. Being held up by the discontinuities in the shaft, then hoisting people a few at a time and regrouping. Sending out scouts along the side passages to make sure they’re not seen.”
    They hurried around to the opposite side of the great shaft, where the bucket cables were stretched.
    “Look, one of them’s moving,” Bram said.
    He could see the slight telltale vibration blurring one of the threads. It was the trailing cable, the one that was anchored to a winch below to keep the bucket from swinging out of control; the hoisting cables were triple, with a pair of safety cords to catch the bucket in case the viral monofilament ever were to snap. That meant that the moving bucket was overhead, not somewhere below.
    “There’s your answer,” Jao said. “You’re looking at the last bucketful of stragglers.”
    “Then there’s still time to warn the Nar!” Bram cried.
    “There ought to be a communications line on the platform.” Jao looked around at the natural pits lining the tracheid walls. “Ah, there’s one with a door on it.” He disappeared into the hole, holding his knife, and reappeared a moment later. “Line’s cut,” he announced. “I guess they didn’t want to bother leaving a guard behind.”
    Bram stared hopelessly at the bucket cable. It had stopped vibrating. “If there were only some way to get past them,” he said.
    “There is,” Jao said.
    “Huh?”
    “Come on.” Jao took him by the arm. “How do you think they traveled before they hung the buckets? There’re some leftover climbers through there. I hope you’re not afraid of heights.”
    He pulled Bram through the pit opening he had emerged from and led him through the cell wall to an adjoining tracheid. The climbers were there—simple, round-bottomed cups with stiff wiry limbs radiating horizontally in two rows, at brim and waist. The nearer ones stirred as Bram and Jao approached.
    “I guess there’s still a few breeding colonies of them here and there,” Jao said. “They have a commensal relationship with the tree—live on water