"I wonder how this tree could have grown so large," Jason said. "In the torus where I grew up, the trees grew to a certain height only, and then no more."
"Trees lift their nourishment from their roots," said Orpheus, who had an answer for everything, "and they can only lift it so far against the pull of gravity. In Arcadia, Atalanta's home isle, the trees grow tall and willowy, like the lovely girl herself, for the gravity is slight; at Tiryns they are all short and thick of trunk, like Hercules, for the gravity is powerful. Here, there's no reason for a tree to stop growing. It doesn't even have to support its own weight."
"Besides," said Atalanta, "it would never be dormant. There are always some leaves in sunlight, even when others are in shadow."
"Imagine," Castor laughed. "A tree so huge it stretches from day into night, from winter into summer."
"Do you see that?" asked Orpheus, pointing into the green depths before them. "Do you see how the limb turns? We've been following the curve for some time. It grew toward the light, and as the sun worked its way round, it grew in a great spiral."
"Iolcos was a fascinating place," said Jason, "but I'm glad to be back in the trees again. This is just like my own forest, only without the danger of falling."
"Too thick for my taste," said Atalanta. "Arcadia is all parkland--tall thin trees and plenty of room to run down game beneath. My bow-arm feels hampered here, and there’s no firm ground for my feet."
"Arcadia sounds beautiful," said Jason. "You must miss it terribly."
"I suppose I am a bit homesick," Atalanta said. "I've never really been away from home before, except for the last boar-hunt, in which I won nothing--not even honourable mention. My sisters took the name of Atalanta long ago and my parents were in despair; they thought I would have to get married. If this berth had not come up, I might never have had a chance to win my name."
It was the first time Atalanta had spoken more than a few words, and Jason found himself liking the lanky girl very much, but he failed to understand what she had said. "You have to compete for your name?" he asked.
The others looked at him in astonishment.
"You really did grow up in isolation, didn't you?" Orpheus laughed. "How do you think I came to be called Orpheus? I assumed the name along with my guild membership after being initiated into the Orphic mysteries. Then I was able to leave home in search of a position. Didn't you assume the name of Jason on deciding to challenge Pelias for the throne?"
"I have always been Jason. The goddess Hera named me. And I have no interest in the throne of Iolcos. I'm after the Golden Fleece."
The others fell silent, impressed perhaps by the Guardian's favour of their young Captain, or realizing that this was no ordinary trade voyage or pirate raid they had signed onto.
"I believe you," Orpheus said, and turned to the others. "You should have seen him, stomping into the throne-room of Pelias with one shoe missing. I was there."
"I saw you," Jason said. "Standing between two guards."
Atalanta laughed out loud. "You were under arrest, Bard, weren't you? And you signed on to this voyage to escape prison."
"A misunderstanding in the marketplace. Nothing important. But Jason was magnificent. Pelias was about to order his arrest, when Hera suddenly flickered into view beside him. You should have seen the Prince's face. The young Pelias in training--useless little..."
Suddenly, Pollux reached out and pushed hard against Jason's shoulder. They flew away from each other in the weightlessness. As Jason clutched at a tree-limb and stared at Pollux in astonishment, he perceived an object hurtling past. It was spherical and covered with sharp spikes, spinning as it plunged through the foliage--a vicious weapon that would have wrought terrible damage had it struck him.
As he watched, it unrolled and spread out, extending four limbs and revealing itself to be a small animal with spines on its body. It struck a limb and gripped the rough bark with tiny feet, glancing about with a hurried swivelling of the head.
"It's a hedgehog," said Orpheus. "But I've never seen one fly before."
There came the sound of many squeaking voices and six or seven huge rats erupted from the foliage and dove past them, limbs spread out to reveal flaps of skin stretching from forelegs to hind legs, with which they guided their free fall. Their tiny red eyes and sharp teeth gave them a menacing look, but they ignored the Argonauts as prey too large and numerous to attack and plummeted after the hedgehog.
It thrust away from the limb, rolled into a ball, and spun into the midst of its attackers. Two or three were unable to swerve out of the way and received wounds in passing from the creature's spines as it careened off them. They squealed in pain and tumbled away, twisting to lick themselves and trailing pink clouds of blood. The hedgehog vanished into the green depths as the remaining rats reversed direction as well as they could, scrambling among the branches and plummeting in pursuit. The Argonauts watched with open mouths.
"Dangerous creatures," said Jason.
"Rats are everywhere," Orpheus told him. "All the islands are infested with them. I've never seen this particular flying variety, but I'm not surprised. They change very quickly over the generations, perhaps because they live near sources of radiation and poison that other creatures avoid."
Jason was silent. He had been referring to the hedgehog.
They paid rather more attention to animal life after that, and indeed discovered that the tree was alive with creatures. They were surrounded by birds, which hovered and darted and filled the foliage with their raucous calls. Lizards and squirrels and mice scampered everywhere, clinging to the bark with sharp claws or leaping from limb to limb, somersaulting in the air to land feet-foremost, like cats. In fact, there were cats as well. They saw one come sailing out of the foliage, spread-eagled, tail swinging like a rudder, in pursuit of a bird. It peered at them quizzically as it dove past and disappeared into the greenery.
They happened upon birds' nests--curious affairs of woven twigs that bore no resemblance to the nests Jason had raided as a child. He was particularly fascinated and paused to examine one with great attention. It was spherical, totally enclosed except for one small opening, through which the incubating partner could be fed. The nest was surrounded by deadly thorn-twigs. He could see a bird inside, curled up in a fluffy ball, using its wings and tail to clutch its eggs to its bosom, peering out at Jason with beady eyes. Finally, Jason was driven away by the frantic attacks of its mate.
The party moved on, always following the great spiralling limb, and entered a great shadow. The air became chill, and an icy wind rose, tumbling dead leaves in little swirling tempests in their faces. They made their way through a network of bare limbs, a stark tracery through which they could see sunlit greenery in the distance. It grew so cold that the vapour in the air froze and they were enveloped by an eerie, icy fog that made them shiver in their brief leathers. There were no animals or birds--only black limbs looming out of the mist.
Thus, it was that they came suddenly upon the cylinder's circumference, the vast window-panels appearing out of the mist before them without warning. The limb ran parallel to the window for a while and then vanished into foliage some distance away, where they could see bright sunlight pouring through the glass. But here it was dark, the great misaligned mirror outside blocking their view of the sun, so that the only light was the green illuminated forest in the distance, and the shimmering stars.
"Why are the stars twinkling?" Orpheus wanted to know. "There's only a few fathoms of atmosphere."
"I don't know," said Jason, and pushed off from the limb toward the window.
The others followed, feeling the cold of space as they approached. A stream of ice-cold water was running along the glass, making the stars appear to shimmer. Jason touched the glass and a little bow-wave crawled up his finger, until he had to snatch it away from the cold, scattering droplets in little silver spheres in all directions.
"In the shadow," Orpheus pontificated, "the glass is cold, and water condenses out of the air, clinging to the surface in a film. In the sunlight, the glass is warm, and the water evaporates. Look, you can see the mist in the distance. So, the water flows along the glass from shadow into light." He put his cupped hand into the flow and in a moment a shining sphere of water clung to his palm. He lifted it to his face, sniffed, tasted, and sucked it down. "It seems clean. That comes as a great relief. I was afraid only still, stagnant water would exist here, without gravity to make it flow."
They filled their waterbags by dipping them in the flow of the stream. Without gravity, water clings to water, and it seemed anxious to flow into their bags.
"If we follow the window," Jason suggested, "we can make good time without getting lost." They worked their way along the limb as it ran parallel to the window for a league or so, until they crept into sunlight. The air was warm again, the light was on their backs, and a fine mist swirled over the surface of the glass. Jason suddenly halted and spread out his arms to stop the column behind him, as a figure loomed out of the mist before them. Slowly, they crept forward along the limb.
It was a cat, drifting perpendicular to the glass, its paws folded neatly against its belly as it lapped up the water. Jason admired the way it used its tail and supple body to remain motionless despite the movement imparted to its body by its darting tongue. It spotted them and vanished in a twinkling, twisting to bring its hind feet in contact with the glass, pushing off with a quick thrust, and diving into the foliage.
The great limb curved away from the window and they were forced to follow it, for the foliage was thick against the glass and without weight they were unable to push their way through it. But the sunlight came always from the same direction, and they found it was not difficult to maintain their orientation, even in the lush foliage that grew in the moisture evaporating from the window. There were vines and orchids and growth of all kinds clinging to pockets of soil cemented into the crotches of limbs.
Suddenly, Atalanta cried out and pointed as a hairy face appeared in the foliage, followed by another and another. She rushed to nock an arrow but could not move in the tangle and only succeeded in fouling her bow. The creatures began to howl insanely and to shake the limbs about them in a whirlwind of leaves. They beat their breasts and grinned horribly.
"What are they?" she demanded. "Men or spirits?"
"They're only monkeys," Jason laughed. "Have you never seen one before?"
"There are no such animals in Arcadia."
"I've seen them," said Orpheus, who had seen everything. "They adapt well to low gravity and a lot of sailors keep them as pets."
"They make me shiver," said Atalanta. "Too much like a mockery of Man. And that screech!"
"They're actually quite clever," said Orpheus with a shrug. "They can be taught all kinds of useful tricks. Some people eat them, but others claim they can teach them to communicate."
"Preposterous," said Atalanta.
One monkey turned to the others and signed three words: Strangers! Return! Report! And they vanished. Jason was about to tell his companions what he had seen but realized he would not be believed.
"They may bring reinforcements," he told them instead. "They can be dangerous in large numbers. We'd better move on."
They did so, with the uncomfortable feeling that they were being observed by the invisible creatures. Sometimes a bit of half-eaten fruit or a foul dropping would fly out of the foliage and strike someone. The twins were much amused, but Atalanta's fragile dignity was injured by a particularly well-aimed missile, and she was furious.
Suddenly there was silence, unbroken even by the call of birds. Everyone in the party looked about in surprise and uneasiness. There was somewhat more room to move about now, as the foliage was thinner, and Atalanta was ready. She had a tree-limb gripped behind her knee for anchor and had drawn her bow.
"I wouldn't advise..." Jason began.
With a cry of satisfaction, she let an arrow fly. They heard it thud home and there was a horrible screech. The party rushed into the foliage and found the victim's body drifting limply, blood pouring like smoke from an obviously fatal wound.
The creature was lean of body and long of limb, but it was not a monkey. It was a man.
For a while the Argonauts were frozen in stunned silence, staring at the unfortunate native. He was tall--even taller than Atalanta--and his arms and legs were muscular and supple. His toes were long and splay--not as prehensile as a monkey's, but nearly so. His body was grey with smeared ashes and there were feathers in his hair.
Pollux was the first to recover from shock. "What do we do now?"
Jason shook his head. "I know nothing of society. What does one do?"
"The death was accidental," said Orpheus. "Under normal conditions, one appears before the island oracle, speaks the truth, for they can always tell if we lie, and performs the expiation decided upon. But there is probably nothing like an oracle here, and these people seem to be primitive. They will be out for revenge."
"Then we take our water and leave," Jason decided. "Watchfully."
The column began to move on, except for Atalanta, who remained frozen in place, gazing at her unintended victim. Orpheus put a gentle arm about her shoulder and pulled her away. She looked at him.
"I've never killed a human being," she said, with the same stunned expression.
"It was an accident. We all saw that. Come. There's nothing you can do for him."
She glanced back until the body could no longer be seen. Jason watched her sadly, blaming himself. Hera had insisted on him leading the expedition, despite his lack of experience in human society, but he wondered if someone else might not have done a better job of keeping this motley crew under control. In a moment, he had more blame to accept.
"We're lost," he said.
The others looked about and realized suddenly that the limb they had been using as a highway was growing thicker and more massive. After another few fathoms, it was joined by other limbs of comparable size and they found themselves at the trunk. They heard the sound of a great rustling and the light flickering through the leaves was brighter. Soon they were peeking out through the foliage into open space.
Jason clung to the bark with his first real fear of heights, for the huge trunk stretched what seemed like leagues across the sunlit gap to vanish, much shrunken in perspective, into foliage again. Birds wheeled in the wind-currents and patches of mist drifted by like clouds, sometimes rendering the far end of the trunk entirely invisible.
He peered one way and the other but saw neither window-panel nor superstructure in the distance--only rolling greenery, rustling leaves, and flickering shafts of light that seemed to come from all directions. He gazed deep into the foliage on the other side of the gap. Was he looking at undergrowth about the tree's roots, or simply lower branches beyond a bare spot along the trunk? Were they heading toward the end of the island, or the centre? There was no way to know.
"Mirrors," he said. "We're surrounded by mirrors and there's no way to know which way to the sun. No wonder we're lost."
There was a shriek behind him, and Jason turned to see an arrow protruding from Castor’s back. He slipped from the trunk and tumbled slowly into space. A volley of arrows flew from the foliage behind them, some thudding into the trunk, others missing and sailing off in perfectly straight lines across the open space. Faces painted in bright colours appeared. Pollux turned, screaming defiance as he drew his knife, but the sound died as an arrow thudded into his open mouth. The twins tumbled away into open space.
Atalanta thrust with her powerful legs and did a perfect swan-dive into nothingness. In mid-air, she drew up her legs and wrapped her arms about them, contracting into a spinning ball that flew faster than before. Just before Jason, gathering his wits, dove after her, he saw her thrust out one arm and one leg. The movement sent her spinning off in a new direction, as a volley of arrows whistled by her, narrowly missing their mark.
Jason had no time to be impressed by her skill. He shot off into space, twisting and turning to make himself as difficult a target as possible. He saw Orpheus plunging after him, saw him struck in the thigh with an arrow, the impact of which set him spinning, trailing a thin spiral of blood in the air behind him as he tumbled. Ironically, the impact of the arrow caused another volley to miss him entirely, saving his life. Jason saw him clutch his lyre to his breast to protect it as he plunged into the foliage; he saw a dozen painted and mud-daubed figures emerge from cover and dive in pursuit, tumbling expertly to control their fall; and he saw the tree-limbs rushing toward him at great speed.
He plunged into the foliage, slapped in the face by branch after branch, and collided with Atalanta in a great tangle of bare arms and legs, knocking the wind from both of them. Before Atalanta could careen away from him, he grabbed her wrist with one hand and clutched at a tree-limb with the other. Both of them were scratched and bruised and panting with exhaustion, but not seriously hurt. He glanced about, instinctively calling upon years of tree-climbing experience, and saw a great hole in the trunk.
"In here. Quickly."
Atalanta looked dubiously at the black opening, laced with spider-webs, but the sound of bodies plunging into the foliage all about them made up her mind, and she darted inside, parting the webs before her face and hair as best she could with her thin arms. Jason dove after her and they scrambled along the inside of the hollow limb into darkness and the scent of rotting wood. They waited, hardly daring to breathe.
There was a rustling sound, and a body covered the hole, blocking the shaft of light that poured in. They could barely make out a human figure thrusting in his head and torso and looking about. They heard words in a language similar to their own, but more mellifluous, with more vowels. There came a great thumping on the trunk all about them, the sound echoing hollowly for leagues, and then a moment of silence, in which an answer came from a great distance. The intruder vanished and light poured into the hole again.
They waited, listening to the rustle of leaves and their own seemingly deafening heartbeats. Jason looked down past his dangling feet and saw a distant light in the gloom. It seemed the tree was hollow for a great distance, and light appeared at intervals through holes and cracks at various points along its length. It was a highway much more efficient than the tangled greenery outside, and much less noisy than scrambling through the rustling foliage. Where this highway might lead Jason did not know, but they could not stay where they were. He tugged at Atalanta's wrist and pointed.
"We must go before they return with torches," he whispered, then kicked off into the darkness. As he glanced back, he saw her falling behind him, silhouetted against the light above.
They fell rapidly, accelerating by slapping at the rotted wood as they passed. It was like falling down an interminable hole in the dark, though every once in a while, an opening went by with a flash of greenish light and a whisper of foliage. They heard a scraping and squealing sound and glanced at each other in fear and perplexity until, in a flash of light as they fell past a hole, they saw a moving carpet of grey, furry bodies coming toward them up the walls.
Atalanta shrieked and threw her arms over her face as the tide of rats washed over them. Jason threw himself over her, but he knew that the rats were not going to attack them; they were on their way to the bleeding bodies above. He hoped that Orpheus, if he still lived, had managed to get away from the scene, for rats would attack an injured animal as quickly as a dead one. When the squealing grey wave had passed over them, he took Atalanta's trembling wrist and pulled her after him.
This was the rats' highway, not the natives’, and there were other users as well--great roaches and beetles that rustled as they passed, and spiders whose webs they plunged through at intervals, and sometimes invisible fluttering things whose identity Jason could not guess. In the distance a misty light was barely discernible. Jason strained his eyes to see, and suddenly there was a human being coming toward him, racing up out of the depths as swiftly as he was falling into them. At the last moment before impact, he realized it was his own reflection on a watery surface.
He plunged, gasping and spluttering, into its green depths. All about him were great tangled root-systems clutching like talons, illuminated by shafts of shimmering light. He twisted about, holding his breath, and saw Atalanta struggling among the roots, her hair and clothing entangled in the bones of a human skeleton. Jason swam toward her, pulled her free with the ripping of cloth, and together they darted up a shaft of light. Their heads broke through a layer of mud and filth and moss into cool air, and they breathed deeply, filling their lungs.
The surface undulated about them, green scum as far as they could see, the ripples of their movement spreading beneath the trees. They were normal trees, mere saplings compared to the Great Tree, whose exposed roots encircled and embraced them as a mother's arms would embrace her children. If the Great Tree's crown had not been leagues away in all directions, it would have created a shadow in which nothing could have grown.
Atalanta finally caught her breath. "We must get as far from the roots as possible. That skeleton means they bury their dead in the water, to feed the Great Tree. Sooner or later a funeral party will be here with the man I killed. His shade could ask no better revenge than taking us with him."
Extrication was not simple--the water sucked at them and seemed not to want to let them go--but they finally pulled themselves up onto an exposed root and clung to it, half-naked and covered with mud. They used the root as a highway, for it wandered back and forth over the water for a great distance. Grass grew on the surface of the water in places where soil had collected, looking like solid ground but rippling when disturbed by the frogs and snakes that fled their passage. Saplings grew in hummocks, and scummy ponds bubbled in between. Finally, the forest became thicker, the larger trees holding each other rigid with their roots entangled in the water. They darted up a tall tree into the lower limbs of the Great Tree once again.
From there, Jason saw a strange landscape below, like a small green world, but convex instead of concave. It was a spherical pool of water, covered in green scum. The trunks of not just one but many Great Trees rose from it in all directions into a sky of green foliage, pierced with shafts of light. Jason realized that there was a forest of such trees, rooted in several collected spheres of water and soil, entwining their outer branches to lock the entire three-dimensional forest into rigidity. It was strange to see the landscape below curving away and down instead of up and around the way it should be. Perhaps, he thought, the worlds where men lived on the outside were like this--drops of water collected into spheres, with greenery sprouting and growing outward from it. Could the great trees be so tightly interlocked in those worlds as to hold in the air without a greenhouse roof? But then, how would sunlight get in? It was all very puzzling.
Atalanta broke his train of thought by gripping his arm. "Look at the angle of those shafts of light. I think one of the windows is there, just beyond view. Once we reach the circumference, we might be able to see the Argo. Or follow the window to the end-cap."
Jason nodded agreement. Atalanta gripped a limb and swung off into open space, grabbed another branch as it flashed by, and swung off again, like a monkey. Jason followed her example. It was much like the way he had travelled through the treetops in his home torus, purposely falling out of a tree in the light gravity and breaking his fall by snatching other limbs. The only difference here was that he had to grab branches to keep from being flung back in the other direction, and when he tumbled through the green sky, he could control his spin by shifting his weight and spreading his arms, like a flying rat.
Suddenly the circumference was before them, and a great expanse of star-studded sky. Atalanta kicked off toward the glass, put out her hands to break her fall, struck with a thump and rebounded into Jason. That broke their inertia somewhat and they clung together in the foliage before the window. The stars shimmered in the water-vapour drifting over the cold glass.
"Which way?" Jason asked, glancing first one way and then the other along the glass panel as he searched for the Argo.
Atalanta did not reply. She was staring at their reflection. Jason looked and saw a hunting party emerging from the canopy behind them--a dozen daubed and painted figures flying with artificial wings. He whirled about, splashing into the water, and watched them swoop down out of the green sky.
For an instant he was almost overcome with the urge to flee: to kick off from the window, curl up into a ball of little wind-resistance, and dive into the trees. But he quickly saw that such action would be fruitless.
The natives glided as expertly as any bird, pushing against the air with membranes attached to arms and waist, then folding their wings to dive, one behind the other in perfect formation. At the last moment, they spread their arms and thrust forward, slowing their plunge until they were hovering directly over their prey. It was then that Jason saw the vicious-looking talons attached to their feet.