Donald Moffitt - Genesis 02

was driven out of him. Methuselah went head over heels, caught a strand in his tiny paws, and scrambled back to Bram’s shoulder.
    They hauled themselves and the curator’s wriggling form toward the open air lock door while Lydis positioned the tug for the return journey. She hardly looked up as they came squeezing through into the cabin.
    “Strap yourselves down,” she said. “We’re going back in a hurry.”
     
    The tug skimmed bare miles above Yggdrasil’s branches as Lydis followed the curve of the crown. Close—too close to the tree’s edges—was the vanguard of the dragonfly force. Bram saw the lead bubble, a whitish orb a half mile in diameter, floating to a landing in the treetop.
    “Lydis,” came Jun Davd’s strained voice through the radio. “We’re about to start fusion. Smeth’s evacuated the probe, and all his technicians are aboard Yggdrasil. What are you doing?”
    “Go ahead and start up,” she said through clenched jaws.“Don’t worry about us.”
    “Get in to the trunk,” he said. “A docking crew’s waiting for you.”
    “I can set down anywhere, even if we lose the tug. With no spin on the branches, I don’t need to rendezvous with the trunk. That’s the problem. Neither do those dragonfly hatcheries out there. How close is the first of them?”
    Jun Davd hesitated. “We’ll be under way before it makes contact,” he admitted reluctantly, “but not by much of a fraction of a g.”
    Lydis gave Bram an inquiring glance. He nodded.
    “That’s not good enough,” she said. “If any of those … things … get inside Yggdrasil and start to breed …”
    She shuddered, and Bram shuddered with her. The thought of a bubble alighting in the branches and disgorging thousands of voracious nymphs was too horrible to contemplate.
    “Yes, the same thought had occurred to me,” Jun Davd admitted. “We have a number of armed groups waiting outside around the likeliest points of contact. But we’re no match for them.”
    Bram leaned over Lydis’s shoulder and told Jun Davd about the glass helmets.
    “Thank you, Bram,” Jun Davd said. “That ought to help. We can throw missiles. Humans are good at playing ball, at least. But we’re spread too thinly through the branches. We’ll be vastly outnumbered at any given attack site, until we can rush reinforcements—and that’s going to take too long under acceleration, using the internal transport system.”
    “That’s why I’m doing this,” Lydis said.
    “Good luck,” Jun Davd said simply.
    “What’s going on?” the frightened curator asked. “Why aren’t we landing?”
    Bram tried to calm him down. The little man drew himself up. “You don’t understand ,” he said with mustered dignity. “I’m not concerned for myself. But nothing must be allowed to happen to these Rembrandts.”
    “If the dragonflies get into the tree, they’ll use them for napkins,” Jao said. “So shut up.”
    The curator assumed an aggrieved expression. “If I can help…”
    “I’ll let you know,” Bram said. “In the meantime, hang on to that portfolio.”
    The tug rounded the curve of the treetop with a virtuoso application of lateral jets by Lydis. Ahead, the dragonfly bubble rose into view. Its pilot was applying the brakes with a skill that matched Lydis’s. It hovered a bare quarter mile above the crown of leaves, its chemical jets scorching the branches. The other bubbles were some tens of miles away, not yet a threat.
    The opalescent sphere crowded the viewport. With sickening clarity, Bram saw hundreds of space-suited nymphs crawling over its surface, ready to swarm over the branches at the instant of touchdown.
    The tug hit it broadside with its cushioned nets. The work vehicle was a mere speck next to the sphere, but its powerful engines had moved comets larger than this.
    Bram saw a shower of nymphs wriggling against the void, shaken loose by the impact. The pilot of the bubble frantically tried to bring his own maneuvering jets into play—either to try to burn the tug or to slip out of its clutches. He and Lydis dueled, two masters of the pilot’s art. But Lydis anticipated every parry. Slowly she drove the hovering bubble off its landing pattern, moving it farther and farther along a tangent away from Yggdrasil.
    The bubble’s main thruster was pointed down toward the tree, still spouting fire and helping Lydis. There was only one way the pilot could hope to break away from the mite that was pushing so hard