The getaway special (37 page)

So the big trees were shepherds, eh? Or maybe alpha males. Judy wondered if they kept all the female trees to themselves, and for a moment she had the ludicrous image of two trees locked in a coital embrace. Then she remembered what she and Allen had done beneath one of them right after they had arrived, and she felt her body temperature skyrocket. They didn't need to imagine anything about human sexuality.

Nor, unfortunately, about the danger humanity posed for them.

She said, "So if the forest that the French landed in is protected by guardians . . ."

"Just so. I believe they are defending their herd."

Her mouth tasted awful. She unzipped the sleeping bag and felt along the edge of the tank until she found one of the beer cans full of water that she had wedged into a corrugation. The ice had melted, but it was still cold enough to make her teeth ache. That and its crisp, fresh flavor helped her wake up. She thought about retrieving the walkie-talkie and bringing it inside, but she could hear it well enough where it was, and Tippet was still using it to talk with the tree. She cleared her throat. "Why did they wait until now to go after the French camp?" Tippet said, "As you guessed, the trees are nocturnal. When they wake and when they sleep is not a choice, as with our animals, and presumably with yours. From what I understand, they can't even remain sentient in daylight."

"So they woke up at dusk and found a couple dozen of their friends murdered."

"Worse," said Tippet. "Some of them were on fire. Nothing seems to scare the trees worse than fire."

"Yeah, we saw that." And no wonder, if even green branches would burn.

"There's no animals," Allen said.

"What?"

His voice was distant, distracted, the way he got when he was thinking just a few words ahead of his mouth. "Without animals, there's no balance. Atmospheric oxygen builds up until something catches fire. The only renewable carbon source is the same vegetation that produces the oxygen, so it's always living right on the edge of burning up." He whistled softly. "I'll bet their ability to move around evolved as a way to turn oxygen back into carbon dioxide at least as much as a way to run from fires." Tippet said, "Perhaps. There could be other explanations."

"What about the French landing party?" Judy asked. If she let these two start speculating on the evolution of the local flora, it could be hours before they remembered that someone else was in deep trouble.

One nice thing about Allen: he could switch gears in a heartbeat. He pushed himself up beside Judy, pulling the sleeping bag up around both of them again, and said, "Tippet, can you speak enough of the tree language to talk to the ones that're attacking the camp?"

"No," Tippet replied. "And even if I could, it's not likely that they speak the same language on a separate continent."

"Good point. Well, we should at least radio the submarine and tell them what we've learned. You could bust in on the same frequency they're using to communicate with the ground, right?"

"That much would be easy," said Tippet.

"Judy? What do you think?"

She thought it over for a few seconds. They probably should have done that as soon as they saw the French cutting down trees in the first place, but the landing party had seen for themselves that the trees could move, which was about all she and Allen could have told them at the time. She hadn't thought the trees could fight back. It certainly hadn't looked like it then. Besides, the French were supposed to be America's enemies. Neither side had actually declared war, but even talking to them felt like fraternizing with the enemy. And this particular batch of them had brought their troubles on themselves. On the other hand, she and Allen had managed to get in trouble with the forest, too; and Allen, at least, had been trying to reduce international tension with his hyperdrive. Maybe it was time to consider anyone who made it beyond the Solar System simply "human" and leave nationality out of it.

"Yeah, what the hell, go for it," she said.

"Okay," Allen said. "Tippet, how do we go about this?"

"Simply speak," said Tippet. "I will relay your words to the submarine." All the while, his conversation with the tree had never wavered.

Allen said, "Okay, here goes. Hello, this is Allen Meisner calling French submarine. Allen Meisner calling French submarine. Do you read, over?"

There was a pause, then an astonished voice came over the walkie-talkie. "Allo? Allen Meisner?

Vraiment?"

He gave Judy a quick squeeze. She knew just what he was thinking: International celebrity! "Yes, it's me," he said. "Does anybody there speak English?"

She imagined the tangled web of communications that were flying back and forth: from Allen to Tippet to the hive mind to the sub, and who knew what further relays on board before the final link in the chain up there replied down the same pathway.

"Yes," a different voice replied. "I speak English, but you must wait. We have an . . . urgent situation to attend to." The man's accent was as cliched as Inspector Clouseau's.

"We know," said Allen. "And we've got some information you need. The trees are intelligent, and you've pissed them off by cutting down their buddies. They're not going to back off."

"The trees? Intelligent? You joke."

"They're running roughshod all over your base camp, aren't they?"

"How do you know this?"

"We've got friends in high places. Look, the shepherd trees aren't going to stop until your people are out of there. They've got to jump back into orbit."

"They try. Not everyone can make it to the capsules." There was a moment of dead air, then, "We must leave this frequency open for the rescue effort. Go up ten kilocycles and we will talk more, yes?"

"Tippet, can we do that?" Allen asked.

"Yes," Tippet replied. "No problem."

"Okay, moving up."

Tippet had only been giving them the signal from the submarine, but Judy could imagine what it must be like on the ground, with trees stomping around all over the place and people running for cover. The human instinct would be to run
toward
the trees, but that would be the exact wrong thing to do now. She felt a moment of disorientation, as if she were there herself, her head spinning with confusion. She fought it down, but the sensation wouldn't go away completely. Apparently the sight of moving trees had affected her more than she thought.

"Are you there?" the Frenchman asked.

"Yes," Allen replied. "Tell your ground crew to try spotlights. The trees don't seem to like bright light."

"No!" Tippet said. "That terrifies them. It puts them to sleep against their will."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Allen asked.

At the same time, the Frenchman asked, "Who is that?"

"His name's Tippet," Allen said. "He's, uh, been studying the trees." Tippet said, "A spotlight isn't bright enough to put a tree to sleep unless you surprise it. The tree can fold its leaves back in order to stay awake. In the meantime, it becomes desperate to stop the threat." More dead air, then, "Oui, that fits what we have seen. But what can we do?" The guy probably had no idea he was talking to an alien. Judy wasn't ready to give away that much information, either. But Tippet apparently didn't care. "Use a bigger spotlight," he said. "Tell your people to shield their eyes."

"What do you mean? What are you going to do?"

"You will see. Allen, Judy, prepare for thrust."

"What?" Judy said. "Wait a—"

The disorientation she'd been feeling for the last few seconds stopped, then there was a deep rumble that she felt more than heard, followed by thumps and rattles as all the floating debris inside the
Getaway
drifted toward Judy's feet. She reached out to grab the walls to keep herself from sliding under the hyperdrive to the other side of the tank. Fortunately the thrust was only a tenth of a gee or so; she and Allen were in way too awkward a position to hold themselves up in full gravity.

"Mon Dieu!" the Frenchman said. A babble of voices rose up in the background, then cut off. She would have killed for an outside view, but she could see it clearly enough in her mind's eye: The butterflies had turned their ship, then lit the drive. The huge engines at the back were no doubt aimed at the planet, spraying their exhaust directly at the French encampment. Not that they'd have to be that accurate. With the kind of power those engines could unleash, the whole night side of the planet was probably lit up like day, and auroras would be flashing like neon lights from pole to pole even so. And the trees would be freezing in place like bugs caught in amber.

"Move quickly," Tippet said. "We can't keep this up for long." The Frenchman they'd been speaking to didn't reply for a moment, and when he did it was only to say, "Just a few more seconds."

Something thumped hard against the
Getaway
, or perhaps that was the
Getaway
smacking up against the aft wall. "Down" was along the axis of the ship, and they had been resting against a wall when the drive had come on line. They were lucky they hadn't tumbled.

"How's the tree?" Judy asked. "Is it hanging on?"

"They have stopped moving," the Frenchman said, then Tippet said, "Oh. I relayed that before I realized you were asking me. It is hanging on. But we must cut our thrust soon. We had no time to prepare the ship for it; we will cause damage if we persist."

"Just a few more seconds," the French radio operator said. "They are loading the wounded."

"Ten," Tippet said. "Nine. Eight." He counted on down to zero, then the thrust let off.

"Are your people away?" he asked.

"Oui! Yes. Merci, merci! You have—how did you do that?"

Before Tippet could reply, Judy said, "Answer me a question first. What were you guys trying to do down there?"

"Who is this?"

"Judy Gallagher." She felt a small shot of smug satisfaction at the knowledge that they would know who she was, too. "That didn't look like any exploration party. What were you trying to do, set up a military base?"

"No! We—" The radio went silent, save for Tippet's continuing conversation with the tree, then a few seconds later the Frenchman said, "We attempt to start the colony." Had he been checking the official story, or just checking to see how much of the truth he could tell?

She would probably never know. She said, "That's a damned strange way to set up a colony. And you're a long ways from home, too. Alpha Centauri s a hell of a lot closer."

"We did not want to be close. We wanted someplace our enemies would not find until well after the holocaust."

A shiver ran up Judy's spine, and it had nothing to do with the air temperature. "Holocaust?" she asked. "What holocaust?"

"The one that will surely engulf the Earth before the week is finished," the Frenchman replied.
43

"Wait a minute," Judy said. "We've only been gone for two days, and it wasn't looking that bad when we left. What the hell have you people been doing?"

"Fleeing for our lives," the Frenchman replied. "Since Monsieur Meisner gave everyone the hyperdrive, we have all been waiting for bombs to appear over our cities. Until now, the threat of—how do you say—of mutual assured destruction has prevented war, but once our enemies build colonies elsewhere, mutual destruction is assured no more."

"So you're rushing to build a colony of your own," Judy said.

"Yes."

"Thereby triggering the very war you're trying to avoid."

"It doesn't work that way," Allen said, his voice filled with the same disdain he'd shown Carl Reinhardt back on board the shuttle. "As soon as people see that there's room enough for everybody—"

"They will strike first to prevent their enemies from establishing a presence outside their control." That was Tippet.

"They—the United States wouldn't," Allen said.

"Of course they would," the Frenchman replied.

"It is the logical thing to do," Tippet said. "Once your enemies escape your grasp, you have no more influence over their actions. Their beliefs and their way of life will spread unchecked. If you truly consider them enemies, then the most logical course of action would be to eradicate them before they can escape."

"But . . . but . . ." Judy felt him quiver beside her in the sleeping bag. "That's insane!"

"Perhaps," Tippet said. "But it is the most logical course of action for beings who cannot subvert their enemies as we do."

"Jesus H. Christ!" Allen shouted. "What the
fuck
is wrong with everyone? Nobody has to fight anybody ever again! That was the whole
point
of this whole goddamned
thing
." He pounded the side of the tank with his fist. "The
logical
thing to do is to spread out until we're not in each other's faces anymore. There's more than enough room! People should be dancing in the streets, but everyone who even hears about the hyperdrive seems hell-bent on making the absolute worst of it at every turn." Judy put her arms around him, as much for her own protection as to comfort him. In the dark, he couldn't see where he was swinging his fists.

The Frenchman said, "We understand reality. The frottement—the friction—between nations is not always about land. It is often the idea. How do you say—the culture." Judy muttered, "Yeah, right. We're going to snuff ourselves because I say tomato and you say what? Pommes frites?"

The Frenchman laughed softly. "Pommes frites are what you call French fries," he said. "And you serve them in your despicable fast-food restaurants as an insult to our national cuisine. To a chef, that is cause enough to go to war."

"All right, bad example," she admitted, "but still. We're not going to wipe out the planet to keep food snobs from getting a toehold somewhere else, and you're not going to bomb us because we eat fried potatoes, are you?" She slid out of the sleeping bag and began feeling around for her clothes. It didn't look like she would be sleeping again for a while.

The accented radio voice said, "Perhaps not. Who knows what madness lies at the root of our own government, much less someone else's? But we have been ordered to carry at least one egg out of the nest just in case. We were supposed to establish our colony far enough away that we would not be found, but we obviously didn't go far enough. We will not be so conservative on our next attempt."