With Friends Like These... Part 21

"Oh but they can," the old woman broke in. "I can make them."

Caitland started to object, managed to stifle his natural reaction. He forced himself to think more slowly, more patiently than was his wont. This was a big thing. If this old bat wasn't looney from living alone out in the back of nowhere, and if she had found a way to make the chimers reproduce in captivity, then she could make a lot of people very very wealthy. Or a few people even wealthier. Caitland knew of at least one deserving candidate.

"I hadn't heard," he said warily, "that anyone had 216.

Ye Who Would Sing found a way to make the trees even grow after replanting."

"That's because I haven't told anyone yet," she replied crisply. "I'm not ready yet. There are some other things that need to be perfected for the telling first.

"Because if I announce my results and then demonstrate them, I'll have to use this forest. And if the eaters find this place, they'll transplant it, rip it up, take it apart, and sell it in pieces to the highest bidders. And then I won't be able to make anything reproduce, show anybody anything.

"And that will be the end of the chimer tree, because this is the last forest. When the oldest trees die a couple of thousand years from now there'll be nothing left but recordings, ghosts of shadows of the real thing. That's why I've got to finish my work here before I let the secret-and this location-out."

It made things much simpler for the relieved Caitland. She was crazy after all. Poor old b.i.t.c.h. He could understand it, the loneliness and constant alien singing of the trees and all. But she'd also saved his life. Caitland was not ungrateful. He would wait.

He wondered, in view of her long diatribe, if she'd try to stop him from leaving.

"Listen," he began experimentally, "when I'm well enough I'd like to leave here. I have a life to get back to, myself. I'll keep your secret, of course ... I understand and 'sympathize with you completely. How about a-?"

"I don't have a power flitter," she said.

"Well then, your fanship."

She shook her head, slowly.

"Ground buggy?" Another negative shake. Cait-land's brows drew together. Maybe she didn't have to worry about keeping him here. "Are you trying to tell me you have no form of transportation up here whatsoever?"

"Not exactly. I have Freia, my horse, and the wagon she pulls. That's all the transportation I need- 217.

that and what's left of my legs. Once a year an old friend airdrops me necessary supplies. He doesn't land and he's no botanist, so he's unaware of the nature of this forest. A miner, simple man, good man.

"My electronic parts and such, which I code-flash to his fan on his yearly pa.s.s over, const.i.tute most of what he brings back to me. Otherwise," and she made an expansive gesture, "the forest supplies all my needs.'*

He tensed. "You have tridee or radio communication, for emergencies, with the-"

"No, young man, I'm completely isolated here. I like it that way."

He was wondering just how far off course the storm had carried him. "The nearest settlement-Vaan-land?"

She nodded. That was encouraging, at least. "How far by wagon?"

"The wagon would never make it. Terrain's too tough. Freia brought me in-and out one tune, and back again, but she's too old now, I'd say."

"On foot, then."

She looked thoughtful. "A man your size, in good condition, if he were familiar with the country . . . I'd say three to four months, barring mountain predators, avalanche, bad water, and other possibilities,"

So he would have to be found. He wasn't going to find his way out of here without her help, and she didn't seem inclined to go anywhere. Nor did threats of physical violence ever mean much to people who weren't right in the head.

Anyhow, it was silly to think about such things now. First, his leg and ribs had to mend. Better to get her back on a subject she was more enamored of. Something related to her delusions.

"How can you be so sure these trees can be made to reproduce after transplanting?"

"Because I found out why they weren't and the answer's simple. Any puzzle's easy to put together, provided none of the pieces fall off the table. If you're 218.

Ye Who Would Sing well enough to walk in a few days, I'll show you. The crutches I've got are short for you, but you'll manage."

The forest valley was narrow, the peaks cupping it between their flanks high and precipitous. Ages ago a glacier had cut this gorge. Now it was gone, leaving gray walls, green floor, and a roof of seemingly perpetual clouds, low-hanging clouds which shielded it from discovery by air.

The old woman, despite her disclaimers, seemed capable of getting around quite well. Caitland felt she could have matched his pace even if he weren't burdened with the crutches, though she insisted any strenuous climbing was past her.

Despite the narrowness of the valley, the forest was substantial in extent. More important, the major trees were an astonishing fifty-percent chimer. The highest density in the records was thirty-seven percent. That had been in the great Savanna forest on the south continent, just below the capital city of Danover. It had been stripped several hundred years ago.

Katie expounded on the forest at length, though resisting the obvious urge to talk nonstop to her first visitor in-another question Caitland had meant to ask.

Chimer trees of every age were here, mature trees at least fifteen hundred years old; old trees, monarchs of the forest that had sung their songs through twice that span; and youngsters, from narrow boles only a few hundred years old down to sprouting shoots no bigger than a blade of gra.s.s.

Everything pointed to a forest that was healthy and alive, a going biological concern of a kind only dreamed about in botanical texts. And he was limping along in the middle of it, one of only two people in the universe aware of its existence.

It wasn't the constant alien music, or the scientific value that awed him. It was the estimated number of chimer trees multiplied by some abstract figures. The lowest estimate Caitland could produce ran into the hundreds of millions.

219.

He could struggle into Vaanland, register claim to this parcel of backland, and-and nothing. One of the things that made Caitland an exceptional man among his type was that he respected his own limitations. This was too big for him. He was not a developer, not a front man, not a Big Operator.

Very well, he would simply take his cut as discoverer and leave the lion's share for those who knew how to exploit it. His percentage would be gratefully paid. There was enough here for everyone.

He listened to the music, at once disturbing and infectious, and wished he could understand the scientific terms the old woman was throwing at him.

The sun had started down when they headed back toward the house-cabin, Caitland had discovered, with an adjoining warehouse. Nearly there, Katie stopped, panting slightly. More lines showed in her face now, lines and strain from more than age.

"Can't walk as far as I used to. That's why I need Freia, and she's getting on, too." She put a hand out, ran a palm up and down one booming young sapling. "Magnificent, isn't it?" She looked back at him.

"You're very privileged, John. Few people now alive have heard the sound of a chimer forest except on old recordings. Very privileged." She was watching him closely. "Sometimes I wonder..." "Yeah," he muttered uncomfortably. She left the tree, moved to him and felt his chest under the makeshift shirt she'd sewn him. "I mended this clothing as best I could, and I tried to do the same with you. I'm no doctor. How do your ribs feel?"

"I once saw a pet wolfhound work on an old steak bone for a couple of weeks before he'd entirely finished with it. That's what they feel like."

She removed her hand. "They're healing. They'll continue to do so, provided you don't go falling out of storms in the next couple of months." She started on again.

He followed, keeping pace with ease, taking up great s.p.a.ces with long sweeps of the crutches. His bulk 220.

Ye Who Would Sing dwarfed her. Towering above, he studied the wasted frame, saw the basic lines of the face and body. She'd been a great beauty once, he finally decided. Now she was like a pressed flower to a living one.

What, he wondered, had compelled her to bury herself in this wilderness? The forest kept her, but what had brought her hi the first place?

"Look," he began, "it looks like I'm going to be here for a while." She was watching him, and laughed at that. She was always watching him, not staring, but not looking away, either. Did she suspect something? How could she? That was nonsense. And if she did, he could dispose of her easily, quickly. The ribs and leg would scarcely interfere. He could...

"I'd like to earn my keep." The words shocked him even as he mouthed the request "With those ribs? Are you crazy, young man? I admit I might have thought of much the same thing, but-"

"I don't sponge off anyone, lady-Katie. Habit." She appeared to consider, replied, "All right. I think I know an equally stubborn soul when I see one. Heaven knows there are a lot of things I'd like to have done that this body can't manage. I'll show them to you and when you feel up to it, you can start in on them."

He did, too, without really knowing why. He told himself it was to keep his mind occupied and lull any suspicions she might develop-and believed not a word of his thoughts.

He hauled equipment, rode with her in the rickety wagon to check unrecognizable components scattered the length and breadth of the valley, cut wood, repaired a rotting section of wall in the warehouse, repaired the cabin roof, tended to Freia and the colt- and tried to ignore those piercing eyes, those young-old blue eyes that never left him.

And because he wouldn't talk about himself much, they spent spare moments and evenings talking about her, and her isolation, and the how and why of it.

221.

WITH FBIENDS LIKE THESE .. *.

She found the forest nearly thirty years ago and had been here constantly, excepting one trip, ever since. In that tune she'd confirmed much that was suspected, all that was known, and made many new discoveries about the singing trees.

They began to make music when barely half-meter high snoots, and retained that ability till the last vein of sap dried in the aged trunk. They could grow to a height of eight meters and a base diameter of ten.

Chimers had been uprooted and transplanted since their music-making abilities had been first discovered. At one time it seemed there was hardly a city, a town, a village, or wealthy individual that didn't own one or two of of the great trees.

Seemingly, they thrived in their new environments, thrived and sang. But they would not reproduce- from seeds, from cuttings, nothing. Not even in the most controlled greenhouse ecology, in which other plants from Chee survived and multiplied. Only the chimer died out.

But few of those wealthy music lovers had ever heard a whole forest sing, Caitland reflected.

The song of the forest, he noticed, varied constantly. The weather would affect it, the cry of animals, the time of day. It never stopped, even at night.

She explained to him how the trees sang, how the semiflexible hollow trunk and the rippling protrusions inside controlled the flow of air through the reverberating bole to produce an infinite range of sound. How the trunk sound was complemented by the tinkling bells-chimes-on the branches. Chimes which were hard, shiny nuts filled with loose seeds.

With the vibration of the main trunk, the branches would quiver, and the nuts shake, producing a light, faintly bell-like clanging.

"And that's why," she finally explained to him, "the chimers won't reproduce in captivity. I've calculated that reproduction requires the presence of a minimum of two hundred and six healthy, active trees.

222.

Ye Who Would Sing "Can you think of any one city, any one corporation, any one system that could afford two hundred and six chimers of a proper spread of maturity?"

Of course he couldn't. No system, not even Terra-Sol, could manage that kind of money for artistic purr poses.

"You see," she continued, "it takes that number of trees, singing in unison, to stimulate the bola beetle to lay its eggs. Any less and it's like an orchestra playing a symphony by Mahler. You can take out, say, the man with the cowbell and it will still sound like a symphony, but it won't be the right symphony. The bola beetle is a fastidious listener."

She dug around in the earth, came up with a pair of black, stocky bugs about the size of a thumbnail. They scrambled for freedom.

"When the nuts are exactly ripe, the forest changes to a specific highly intricate melody with dozens of variations. The beetles recognize it immediately. They climb the trees and lay their eggs, several hundred per female, within the hollow s.p.a.ce of the nuts. The loose seeds inside, at the peak of ripeness, provide food for the larvae while the hard sh.e.l.l protects them from predators. And it all works out fine from the bola's point of view-except for the tumbuck.

"That small six-legger that looks like an oversized guinea pig?"

"That's the one. The tumbuck, John, knows what that certain song means, too. It can't climb, but it's about the only critter with strong enough teeth to crack a chimer nut. When the ripe nuts drop to the ground, it cracks them open and uses its long, thin tongue to hunt around inside the nut, not to scoop out the seeds, which it ignores, but the insect eggs.

"It's the saliva of the tumbuck, deposited as it seeks out the bola eggs, which initiates the germinating process. The tumbuck leaves the nut alone and goes off hi search of other egg-filled ones. Meanwhile the seed is still protected by most of its sh.e.l.l.

"Stimulated by the chemicals and dampness of the 223.

tumbuck saliva, the first roots are sent out through the crack in the sh.e.l.l and into the ground. The young plant lives briefly inside the sh.e.l.l and finally grows out through the same crack toward the light.

"It's the song of the ma.s.sed trees that's the key. That's what took me twenty years to figure out. No wonder bola beetles and tumbucks ignored the nuts of the transplanted chimers. The music wasn't right. You need at least two hundred and six trees-the full orchestra."

Caitland sat on the wooden bench cut from a section of log and thought about this. Some of it he didn't understand. What he could understand added up to something strange and remarkable and utterly magnificent, and it made him feel terrible.

"But that's not all, John Caitland. My biggest discovery started as a joke on myself, became a hobby, then an obsession." There was a twinkle in her eyes that matched the repressed excitement in her voice. "Come to the back of the warehouse."

A metal cabinet was set out there, one Caitland had never seen her open before. Leads from it were connected, he knew, to a number of complex antennae mounted on the warehouse roof. They had nothing to do with long-range communications, he knew, so he'd ignored them.

The instrumentation within the cabinet was equally unfamiliar. Katie ran her hand up and down the bole of a young chimer that grew almost into the cabinet, then moved her hands over the dials and switches within. She leaned back against the tree and closed her eyes, one hand resting on a last switch, the other stroking the trunk, like a cat, almost.

"Now look, John, and tell me what you feel." She threw the switch.

For long seconds there was nothing different, only the humming of the bat-winged mammals that held the place of birds here. And that familiar song of the forest.

But even as he strained all his senses for he knew 224.

Ye Who Would Stng not what, the song changed. It changed unabashedly and abruptly, astoundingly, fantastically.

Gloriously.

_ Something grand thundered out of the forest around him, something too achingly lovely to be heard. It was vaguely familiar, but utterly transformed by the instrument of the forest, like a tarnished angel suddenly made clean and holy again.

To Caitland, whose tastes had never advanced beyond the basal popular music of the time, this sudden outpouring of human rhythm couched in alien terms was at once a revelation and a mystery. Blue eyes opened and she stared at him as the music settled into a softer mode, rippling, pulsing about and through them.

"Do you like it?'*

"What?" he mumbled lamely, overpowered, awed.

"Do you like it?'*

"Yeah. Yeah, I like it." He leaned back against the wall of the cabin and listened, let the new thing shudder and work its way into him, felt the vibrations in the wood wall itself. "I like it a lot It's . . ." and he finished with a feeling of horrible inadequacy, "... nice."

"Nice?" she murmured, the one hand still caressing the tree. "It's glorious, it's G.o.dlike-it's Bach. The 'Toccato and Fugue in D Minor,' of course."

They listened to the rest of it in silence. After the Jast thundering chord had died away and the last echo had rumbled off the mountainsides, and the forest had resumed its normal chant, he looked at her and asked. "How?"

"Twelve years of experimentation, of developing proper stimulus procedures and designing the hardware and then installing it. The entire forest is weird. You've helped me fix some of the older linkages yourself. Stimulus-response, stimulus-response. Try and try and try again, and give up in disgust, and go" back for another try.

"My first successful effort was 'row, row, row your 225.

boat.* It took me nine years to get one tree to do that. But from then on response has been phenomenal. I've reduced programming time to three months for an hour's worth of the most complex Terran music. Once a pattern is learned, the forest always responds to the proper stimulus signal. The instrumental equivalents are not the same, of course."

"They're better," Caitland interrupted. She smiled.