The integral trees by Larry Niven

Author:Larry Niven [Niven, Larry]
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction, General, Fiction, Science fiction; American, Non-Classifiable, Space colonies, Nonfiction - General, Reduced gravity environments
ISBN: 9780345312709
Publisher: New York : Ballantine Books, 1984, c1983.
Published: 1984-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen - The Scientist's Apprentice

LASSITUDE . . . AN ODD, PLEASANT SENSATION LIKE FIZZING IN

the blood. . . constriction and resistance at his wrists and anldes... memories drifting into place, sorting themselves. The Grad waited until his mind was straight before he opened his eyes.

He was bound again, tension at wrists and ankles holding his body straight. Getting to be a habit~ His bonds gave as he tugged at them. He was tied to netting, face down to a wall that was hard and cold and smooth, and translucent to a millimeter's depth, over a gray substrate.

He'd never seen the like before; but from a distance this stuff might look like metal.

It was the flying box. He was tied to the flying box. He twisted his

head left and saw others: Minya, Gavving, Jayan (already awake and trying to hide it), Jinny. To his right, a row of dead salmon birds and ribbon birds, Alfin smiling in his sleep, and one of the Carther Tribe women, the pregnant one, ilsa. Her eyes were open and empty of hope.

A jovial voice boomed at them. "Some of you are awake by now-"

The Grad arched his back to see over his head. The copsik runner was big, burly, cheerful. He clung to the net near the windowed end. "Don't try to wriggle loose. You'll just get lost in the sky, and we won't come back for you. We don't want fools for copsiks."

Minya called to him. "May we talk among ouzselves?"

"Sure, if you don't interrupt m~ Now, you're wondering what's going to happen to you. You're going to join London Tree. There's tide when you're in a tree. You'll have to get used to the pull on things, and balancing on your feet without falling, and so forth. You'll get to like it.

You can heat water till it boils without it spewing all over the place, and that lets you cook things you never tasted. You always know where you are, by what a thing does if you let go of it. You can drop garbage-" From below their feet came an unnerving whistling roar. The copsik runner's voice rose "-and know it won't float back at you." He stopped talking because some of his prisoners were screaming.

A tide pulled toward the Grad's feet. He was not surprised to see sky wheeling past: green forest, a strip of blue, billowing white. The textured green below his feet began to contract.

A wet wind blew past. Mist thickened around them. The panicky screams thinned to whimpers, and the Grad heard Alfin's, "Treefodder! We're going back into the treefeeding storm cloud! Whose bright idea-" and he must have silenced himself, because nobody else could have reached him.

Their guard waited for quiet. He said, "It's very impolite for a copsik to interrupt a citizen. I am a citizen. I'll forget it for the duration of this voyage, but you will learn. Questions?"

Minya screamed, "What gives you the right?"

"Don't ever say that again," the copsik runner said. "Anything else?" Minya seemed to calm herself in an instant.

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