Up a Tree p.3
"Doctor, can't we just go back to the Tardis?" Rory said. "They're going to shove us out of a tree!"
"We are not going to shove you out of the tree," Sondherson said. "But if you don't want to follow our safety precautions, you're welcome to leave."
They were standing on a giant tree limb, thousands of feet from the ground. Leagues and leagues of empty air all around them beyond the branches.
"Doctor..." Rory pleaded.
"Rory..." Amy said in a hurt voice, looking at him as if he'd betrayed her.
Rory crumpled at the disappointed look in her eyes. "Fine. But if we fall to our deaths, don't say I didn't warn you."
"Don't be so glum," the Doctor said. He pirouetted, his arms wide. "Just look at where we are!" The leaves rustled in counterpoint, the wind soughed past, and Rory saw a Trelwin peeking at them from between the branches.
"Come on, Rory," Amy cajoled. She bumped him companionably with her shoulder.
"Don't you want to look around?" the Doctor asked, eyebrows innocently elevated. "It's not every day you find someplace like this. Believe me, I've looked." He stood there, his tweed jacket jammed haphazardly under his visitor's jacket, his hands in his pockets, leaning forward entreatingly.
Rory rolled his eyes, outnumbered again. "Yes, yes. Fine. Whatever."
"Yes!" Amy squealed, practically dancing.
"Well, if you're all decided. I'd prefer you wait in my office until your parachute instructor arrives." Sondherson herded them back into the safety of the tree bole.
-----
Rory had expected the office to smell like sawdust, or shaved wood, but it didn't. The room had obviously been hewn out of the tree, the lines and grain of the tree was clearly visible in the walls, but it looked nothing like panelling. The heartwood walls had been smoothed down, and apparently coated with some sort of sealant or varnish. It didn't smell like a growing tree, but like well cared for old furniture.
Outside, one of the Trelwin climbed down the tree bole, upside down, hands gripping the ridges of giant treebark. He peered in the top of one of the windows, dark eyes studying the strangers.
"How long has the colony been here?" the Doctor asked as he leaned comfortably against the administrator's desk. Rory slumped in the one chair and Amy took up her post at the door again.
Sondherson looked back and forth between them all in disbelief. "Didn't you read any of the orientation material?"
The Doctor shrugged. "I prefer to get my information first hand."
"Yes, well, 'first hand' can get it bitten off on this planet." Sondherson hitched a hip on the edge of his desk and prepared to give them the lecture.
"Yblis was colonized 300 years ago when our ancestors' colony ship was drawn off course through a wormhole to this uncharted system. They weren't able to get back through the wormhole, the ship wasn't designed for it, so they headed for the temperate fourth moon of this system's supergiant, the next planet out. Unfortunately, they crashed here instead.
"It was two generations before our distress call reached the homeworld and they developed wormhole capable craft and could send us aid. By that time, this was home. Fortunately, we found valuable resources on this world that would allow us to maintain some trade, such as pharmaceuticals. Hence our arrangement with Neale Biological College and your presence."
The Doctor nodded sagely, "How many people live on Yblis?" he asked. Sondherson answered, and it led to the inevitable more questions. Rory started looking glassy-eyed from information overload. Amy stared out the window at the incredible vista, and all the people streaming past.
-----
"What's this I hear about pupils?" said a voice from the doorway.
They all turned their heads.
The woman in the door was hugely fat, completely round, had a winsome smile, iron grey curls, and the arms of a lumberjack.
"Ah, Emma," Sondherson said, sounding like a man gaining a reprieve. "We've got a new group of biologists here, someone forgot to teach them the basics," unvoiced went the weary word, again.
The Doctor grinned at her, at Sondherson's disgusted tone. Emma grinned back. "Come along then, children," she said, waving a meaty arm, "Let's go see if you've got any tree legs."
"That's our parachuting instructor?" Rory said quietly from several stairs farther down as they followed the large, energetic Emma up the stairs around the curve of the tree. Amy, in front of them, noticed the woman had a reinforced panel sewn across the bum of her wide coverall. She supposed that made sense, the straps would pinch more on a heavier person.
"Rory!" the Doctor hissed, frowning at him severely, "That's not nice. And besides it makes complete sense. Greater mass means greater stability in the air. She can probably fly rings around you."
"That wouldn't be hard," Rory said morosely.
They followed their elderly instructor up the stairs around the curve of the tree. They got another surprise when they rounded the curve.
She led them up onto a broad public plaza of a platform. Amy's mouth fell open and she looked up, and down, and all around like a child at Christmas seeing the worlds largest Christmas tree.
They were in a huge atrium. There wasn't one giant tree, but three.
The three gigantic trees formed an interweaving network of branches and bridges, forming a cavernous protected atrium at its center. Sunlight speared down the huge shaft. Semicircular platforms sprouted out of all three trees like some sort of gigantic tree fungus.
Shops were cut into all three trees with beautifully carved covered archways. They debouched onto the busy plazas built of planks. Colorful pots filled with flowers edged the plazas and windowsills. And the atrium was so far across that no one could throw anything from one plaza to the next, yet was near enough that people could yell back and forth.
She saw two people casually floating down through the center of the atrium on their parachutes, the gaily colored chutes looking like drifting flowers, before their owners landed deftly on a platform and trotted off about their business.
"This way!" Emma waved them across the broad deck, the Doctor followed, turning to walk backward as he bent over and peered into the shops, trying to see what he could see. People were going about their daily routine, a mother and son shopped for normal looking apples in a bushel, a tall, white-haired man wandered past, muttering to himself in some absorbing thought, a pale, slate gray Trelwin ambling along beside him.
The Doctor spun back around as he heard Rory's "Eep!" and found Emma waiting for them at the mouth of a rope bridge at the edge of the platform. Rory gulped, looking down over the edge at the deep well of space below them. The green at the bottom was so far away it was misty. But at least the platform had a slightly raised edge a few inches high, things couldn't just roll off.
Somehow that little lip wasn't at all comforting.
"Over you get now," Emma said, waving all three of them across. "Classroom's on the other side."
Amy bounced happily out on the rope bridge, eager to get started.
Rory stepped forward and Emma reached up and thumped him ungently on top of the head with a heavy thumb. He stared at her in shock, scalp stinging, he rubbed his head. "What was that for?!"
"I'm fat, young man. But I have excellent hearing. You watch your manners."
He gulped. "Yes, ma'am."
She nodded, her face was fleshy, but her grey eyes were sharp. "On your way now," she nodded him across the bridge.
Heart gripping the back of his throat, Rory grabbed the rope railings tightly and edged out onto the shivering bridge, determined not to prove a coward in front of this woman.
After a few steps he felt the Doctor join the bridge behind him. "Don't look down," he muttered to himself. "Don't look down." Misty nothingness peered up at him through the slats in the bridge.
Amy bounded along ahead of him, setting the bridge to swaying. "Don't look down, Oh god, we're gonna die, we're gonna die," he muttered to himself.
He felt the Doctor's hand on his shoulder and almost jumped out of his skin. He craned his neck backward to look at the Time Lord, the bridge swaying alarmingly beneath him.
"It's all right, Rory. I don't like heights either," the Doctor said, smiling faintly.
"Why not?" Rory said, trying to get his heart back down out of his throat.
The Doctor looked down, studying the depths. "I once fell to my death from a lower height than this," he said, matter of factly.
Rory's skin shivered. "That's not helping."
The Doctor looked back at him. "Just keep going, don't look down, you're halfway there," the Doctor said.
"Great," Rory muttered. "I'm turning into Donkey from Shrek."
"Just keep going," the Doctor said. Rory could hear the grin in his voice.
"Yes, Shrek."
He felt the bridge sag as Emma stepped on it behind them. He gripped the rope rails, cold sweat popping out under his shirt. His heart stuttered, fearing the rope bridge wouldn't hold all of them. But then, surprisingly, he realized the footing was firmer underneath him. He walked faster as she kept tension on the lines, and he bolted off the end of the bridge feeling like he'd just run a marathon. Amy gave him an exuberant hug. She was enjoying this.
-----
Emma took them to an area off to one side of the main atrium. In a lee of the main shaft, a smaller shaft was formed by side branches, nets had been strung between several of the lower branches, forming a huge net bowl. Eight stories down.
They stood on one of the "smaller" side branches, only twenty feet in diameter. It was obviously used as a staging area for parachute school. The top of the branch was worn level and wide, a small office was carved in the bole of the tree at the head of the branch, its door polished smooth by the brush of many young hands.
Emma finished giving them an obviously well-rehearsed safety speech, showing them how to tighten their jacket straps and demonstrating the use of the "screamer button" sewn into the collar of the jacket, which could be activated with their chin in case of emergencies.
Every local in the main atrium stopped and stared when the Doctor tried his. It was very loud.
"As you can see," Emma yelled over the piercing noise as the Doctor fluttered to turn it off. "We're all trained to respond to that sound." She showed him how to turn it off, and all the locals, seeing no falling bodies, and apparently used to the sound coming from the training branch, resumed their tasks.
Amy grinned at the Doctor. He flushed and straightened his bow tie.
"Now," Emma said, lining them all up against a line carved at the edge of the branch. "Just jump forward to clear the branch and thrust both hands forward to deploy the chute. Don't try to land, just let yourself fall into the net, you can crawl out. We'll practice landing once you've gotten the hang of the chutes. One at a time now," the very fat older woman told them stepping back.
Rory looked down dubiously at the nets several stories below them. "Are you sure those are secure?" he asked.
"This is what we use to train our own children. We're not likely to be lax about the safety nets."
Rory nodded, trying not to give offense.
"Me first!" Amy said, practically skipping. She wiggled her chute down comfortably over her shoulders and suffered patiently as the instructor checked and tightened it one last time, giving instructions all the time.
"Steer with your hands and your body weight. Trust the chute to support you. Relax and keep calm..."
Amy nodded, bouncing on her toes like a little girl. The Doctor grinned watching her, seeing the Amelia in her peeking out.
"Be careful!" Rory admonished.
"Piece of cake," Amy said. And jumped.
Rory gave out a little involuntary scream and clamped his mouth shut. Amy's chute deployed, popping out elegantly from the placket at the back of her shoulders.
She floated down serenely, turning this way and that, getting the hang of the device. Rory could hear her whooping from here. He shook his head and grinned resignedly at his daredevil wife.
"You next or me, Rory?" the Doctor asked, watching Amy indulgently.
"It better be me," Rory said, tightening his shoulder straps. "I'll never hear the end of it if I turn lily-livered now."
Both men watched as Amy swirled down toward the net, and both men gasped as her chute collapsed on one side. The culprit gust of wind blew up at them, forcing them backward on the branch.
"Amy!" Rory screamed. He watched helplessly as his wife floundered, rocking, falling faster, suddenly the chute billowed out full again. She was jerked up, slewing toward the edge of the net. She tried to correct and turn back toward the center, but overcompensated and flew out over the edge of the safety net, away from the atrium, nothing beneath her but sharp branches and thousands of feet of empty air.
"Amy!" the Doctor roared. He sprinted down the length of the school branch and launched himself off the end, aiming for a lower branch from the next tree. If he could get far enough out, he could get ahead of her, deploy his own chute and knock her back into the safety net.
He fell toward the next branch, ready to catch and swing himself upright on the smaller branches above it when he felt long, strong hands grab him under the armpits. He looked up in surprise and found one of the Trelwins had caught him in its lower hands.
The Trelwin, Chitchi if he was any judge, grabbed the smaller branches he'd been aiming for and slung him up onto the nearest large branch. The Doctor landed with a grunt. He pushed himself up, waved a hand behind him in gratitude, "Thank you!" and sprinted forward. He could still see Amy below him, leaning hard on one side of her chute, trying to turn it.
She wasn't looking where she was going and hit a smaller, especially green branch with a resounding crunch, sprawling over it and half disappearing in the foliage. She was three stories below him.
The Doctor pelted down the spiral staircase rammed into the tree and bolted out onto the branch Amy was on. And ran smack into a small wiry man. They both went down in a tangle of limbs.
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