Up a Tree p.9
Sondherson left to make arrangements for the morning, Emma took Cindy and disappeared in the tunnels in the back of the hall and the Doctor went and joined Amy and Rory for breakfast.
Axel strolled in through the big double doors, sunlight flooding in around him, as the last of the crowd disbursed. He sauntered over to the bar and ordered himself a morning pint.
He took his mug and turned around, tipping his straw hat up. He sipped his drink. “I heard about your exhibition,” he said, drawing all three of their gazes.
He leaned casually on the bar. “Is that how your people deal with getting sick? By getting drunk and picking a fight?”
“What?” the Doctor said, affronted. “No!”
Axel grinned. “Don’t worry, done the same thing myself many a time. Not, I’ll admit, for bug bites. So,” he set his mug back on the bar. “Since I hear you won’t be be recovering your transfer pod until tomorrow, that leaves you at loose ends today. How about cashing in that rain check?” Axel asked.
“Yes!” The Doctor jumped up, excited, brushing bread roll crumbs off his jacket, ready to go immediately.
“Doctor” Rory said repressively, “You were just very sick...”
The Doctor waved that off. “It was nothing.”
“Nothing!” Rory protested, “You almost died! How long were you sick before you woke us up anyway?”
The Doctor shrugged.
“Doctor,” Rory said warningly.
“I don’t know. Couple of hours. I went for my walk before I fixed our chutes.”
“So you were sick for hours, but never noticed,” Rory said repressively.
“No! I don’t know. Some things don’t always show up immediately. Things take time to develop, or my immune system was fighting it off until then. I didn’t know anything was wrong until you pointed it out.”
“So it was psychosomatic?”
“Could be. It’s like a paper cut, you don’t notice you have one, then when you do, it’s agony!” He shook his head at Rory, and turned pleading puppy dog eyes on him. “I’m okay now.”
“I don’t know...” the nurse hedged.
“Rory, he’s fine.” Amy cut him off, setting aside her breakfast roll, resignedly. “Besides,” she said quietly, “do you really want to be trapped in here with him all day?” She nodded around the hall which suddenly looked much smaller.
“Good point.”
“Excellent!” the Doctor said, clapping his hands. He pivoted to Axel and grinned. “Lead on!”
-----
Axel led them out, around the edge of the plaza, and across a wooden branch bridge to the northernmost of the three trees in the group.
They were crossing another large plaza, this one looking much more like a rural gathering place with benches and tables scattered around and a low, intimate canopy of foliage overhead to keep off the sun, when the Doctor saw a familiar figure go strolling past.
“Who’s that?” the Doctor asked, nodding at a tall, lean, ascetic looking man with white hair and a kindly face.
“That’s Aaron, our local genius,” Axel answered. “He’s responsible for a lot of the innovations that make tree living possible. Why?”
“I saw him yesterday, that Trelwin was following him then too,” the Doctor indicated the dove-white Trelwin ambling at the man’s side. “I thought you said Trelwin weren’t pets.”
“They aren’t. That’s Nelda. I suppose you could say he adopted her. Her parents were killed in a storm when she was just a chubbling. He’s been teaching her sign language. Part of his attempts to discover just how sentient the Trelwin are.”
“Oh?” the Doctor’s eyebrows popped up with interest. “I’d like to talk to him, that sounds interesting,” he said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
Axel grunted. “I’m sure he’d be happy to talk your leg off about it,” he said. “After you see the farms.”
-----
“Wow.” Rory blinked in the bright sunlight.
They were standing on a supervisor's platform, out at the farthest edge of the tree. Jungle spread out all the way to the horizon. Sunlight poured down through the branches, the branches were thinner here, many less than a dozen feet thick, and everywhere they looked were nets and wires and guylines, farmers zizzing back and forth on fragile strands, the whole thing sparkling with dew and shining like a fairytale garden.
Bushes grew on some limbs, low lying plants on others, vines grew in a tangle on uprights and whole fruit trees grew out of giant branches, all the way around, like bristles on a brush.
A farmer zizzed down an angled line right beside the platform, he slowed to a halt, hanging from his chute harness, sitting as comfortably as a man in a swing, completely oblivious of the thousand foot drop below him.
“Ho! Axel!”
“Ho, Jeremy. How’s the cleanup coming?”
“We're getting there. You showing the biologists around?”
“Yeah, tell everyone to keep an eye open, they’re still not used to treewalking,” Axel warned.
“Will do. Morning folks. Enjoy!” With a jaunty wave he pressed something on his handgrip and zizzed off down below them. Amy leaned over the railing and watched him. “That looks like fun!”
Rory looked over the edge and felt his stomach flipflop. “Uh huh.”
“Come on, let me show you around.” Axel led them down a spiral staircase, this one had a metal cable for a handrail, the upright it was built from hung out over nothing. The stairs were only four feet wide.
Everywhere around them the farmers were busy cleaning up storm debris, repairing nets, gathering the ripe and almost ripe fruit that had been shaken loose into the nets, and repairing the nets themselves. Farm workers whizzed around on guy wires, dangled below branches in harnesses, and used a webwork of winches, pulleys, and tackle to move everything from deadfall branches to barrels of produce.
“Why not just toss the dead branches over?” Rory asked.
Axel gave him a dismissive look. “Why waste a valuable source of wood? Anything that’s usable will go to the carpenters or into the seasoning sheds, the rest will go to the charcoal burners.”
“Isn’t fire dangerous in a tree?” Amy asked.
The Doctor answered before Axel could. “Humans have been living in wooden homes for millennia, that never stopped them using fire. You just have to be careful.”
Axel nodded. “Exactly. Plus, we spend a fortune on fire suppression equipment." He led them out onto a narrow maintenance platform, cluttered with agricultural tools. "Come over here, Doctor, I think you’ll be interested in this.”
He took them to show them the orchards. Trees growing out of trees.
The trees grew all around their main branch. Some Trelwin were crawling through the mass of branches, dropping ripe fruit into the net held by humans below.
“I didn’t expect to see Trelwins helping you,” Rory said. “I thought they’d be more likely to steal from the farms.”
“Oh, they do. But they help too. They make great scarecrows, keep the birds off a treat. It’s no problem them taking their fair share. And they don’t generally harm the crops. I’ve actually seen adult Trelwins correcting young ones who damage the plants when they’re playing.”
“So, they have jobs?” Rory asked.
“Oh, no,” Axel waved that away as he led them down another level and out onto a larger branch in the shade of a large upright. “You can’t make a Trelwin do anything. They do as they please.”
“Like cats,” Rory said.
“Or Time Lords,” said Amy.
The Doctor gave her a supercilious look, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Rory sniggered.
Axel grinned at their byplay. He waved a hand out at the farming branches, there were Trelwins everywhere, of every color and pattern, light and dark, grey and red, dappled and spotted and pinto splotched. There seemed to be one Trelwin for every two humans.
“They’re good neighbors,” Axel said with satisfaction. “They do their share and they don’t bother anyone. They tend to live farther out in the fringes of the tree anyway, so we see more of them in the farms than in town.”
Something passed over Amy and rubbed across her head like a heavy silk blanket. She screamed.
She crouched and batted at it, blinded by her hair, it felt like a net, but solid, muffling. Rory grabbed her to keep her from falling.
“Careful! Careful, it’s all right!” Axel yelled. “Shoo!”
Amy looked up, her heart beating a hole in her chest. “What was it!” she demanded, eyes wide. Axel grabbed her arm in a hard grip and he and Rory dragged her back to the center of the branch. She sat, hands frantically gripping the bark.
“It’s okay,” Rory said quietly.
She pushed her tangled hair out of her eyes.
“Oh, Amy. Look,” the Doctor said in reverent tones.
She looked at him then up to where he was staring. On the next higher branch, less than 20 feet away, perched a huge stained glass window made of living flesh.
Sunlight streamed through delicate membranes, all the colors of the rainbow. Geometric shapes and swirling colors formed a sculpture of light. “What is it?” Amy said, crawling to her feet, all her fear forgotten. She couldn’t take her eyes off it.
“It’s a Sunsail,” Axel said. “Sorry, I should have warned you.”
“Giganteroptera,” the Doctor murmured in wonder.
“What?” Rory asked.
The Doctor looked at him and grinned. “Really, really big butterfly.”
“Why’s it just sitting there?” Amy asked.
“It’s milking time.”
“What!” Rory asked with a yelp.
“Come on,” Axel grinned. “I’ll show you.”
-----
They worked their way up to the next branch which had apparently been set up as a milking station. It was a bit shadowy here, cooler. The farming proper was taking place farther out on the sunlit branches.
Axel reached up and scratched the Sunsail on its furry chest. The whole torso, some 10 feet of it, was covered with wooly gray fur.
There was a little stool and a line of pails set up in front of it.
The creature shivered and fluttered its wings, each wing a good ten to twelve feet in diameter.
“Why do you need to milk a butterfly?” Rory asked in disbelief. He stared up at the giant insect, it stared back down at him with huge, multifaceted, doelike eyes.
“Sunsails secrete a polymerlike substance that they use to spin their cocoons and night threads. We use it to weatherproof decks and seal interior walls,” Axel explained.
“What’s a 'night thread'?” Rory asked.
Axel pulled up a stool. He sat down. “Sunsails hang upside down when they sleep. They use these spinners here to weave a strong silk rope to hang by.” He tapped what looked like a stinger at the base of the Sunsail’s abdomen. “It comes in handy, we harvest the night threads and use them for ropes and chute lines.”
“How did you domesticate them?” the Doctor asked, squatting down beside the farmer and scratching the Sunsail’s belly with one longfingered hand. The butterfly wiggled with delight.
Amy grinned. The Doctor had been unusually silent, but he’d been looking at everything, soaking it all in like a living sponge. And, of course, he had to pet the butterfly. She rolled her eyes.
“Sunsails are territorial and migratory. They tend to have a home tree and migrate on a set route through a selection of others. They help pollinate the great trees,” Axel waved a hand around them. “They were here when we got here, we just took advantage of their nature. They’re as reliable as homing pigeons. We even use them to transport light goods, they’re very handy.”
“You mean you ride them?” Rory asked, eyes wide.
Axel turned to look at him. “No, humans are far too heavy.” He turned and gave the Doctor a conspiratorial look. “Not that that’s stopped younguns trying.” He admitted, a grin crinkling his craggy face.
“No,” he turned back to Rory, “We just take advantage of their inborn nature. We make sure to imprint new pupae on our home trees as soon as they hatch. That’s part of what the safari tomorrow is for. We always lose a few Sunsails to predators and whatnot over the year, so Erik will be looking for replacements, late hatchers. They tend to be the strongest. As well as finding as many cocoons as possible.”
“Why does he have to go into the jungle for that?” Rory asked, waving at the Sunsail standing right there.
“Sunsails lay their eggs in the ground, don’t ask me why,” Axel said. “But fortunately they stay close to their home tree, so the hunters only have about 40 square miles to cover.”
“Only?” Amy said in disbelief, staring at the Amazonian carpet below them.
Axel shrugged. “Could be worse.
“Now,” he grabbed Rory by the arm and sat him down on the stool. “How about you have a try at milking a Sunsail?”
“Me?” Rory squeaked.
Axel pointed. “Just squeeze those two pinchers together,” he encouraged.
Gingerly, Rory reached forward and touched the two curved horns that ran down each side of the central spinner. They twitched and he jerked back, heart pounding, almost falling off his stool. The Doctor laughed and caught him, he righted him and stood directly behind him, bracing him with his knees.
“Try again, Rory,” he encouraged.
“Why don’t you try it?” Rory demanded
“I already milked a giant bat, this is your turn.”
“Great,” Rory grumbled and reached forward again, trying to ignore the large, furry, warm, breathing creature towering over him. He squeezed the two curved horns together and a stream of white stringy fluid flowed down the central straight “horn” and into the bucket.
The Sunsail, Axel explained, used the two curved spinners to pick up the stringy fluid that flowed along the horn, and knit them into a strand. The substance stretched out and dried on contact with oxygen.
Saying that, he leaned forward and unstoppered a small vial that was strapped to the side of the bucket. He squeezed a dropperful into the bucket as Rory got into the rhythm of the milking. It was rather like pumping up a tire. He looked askance at Axel.
“Enzymes," the farmer explained, replacing the stopper. "It keeps it in a liquid state until we’re ready to use it.”
Rory had almost a full bucket now. The stuff had a shiny, silky look, like liquid pearls. “How much do you need?” Rory asked.
“We’ve bred them to increase the yield, so we’ll get a couple of pails per sunsail, on a good day.” He stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly. The sunsail twitched and ruffled its wings at the sound. A young woman on a lower limb trotted up at the summons.
“Yeah, Axel?”
“Take over here, Alexis,” the old farmer nodded down at Rory. Rory scrambled up with alacrity. Axel covered the pail with a metal lid and locked it down competently. The girl took Rory’s seat and drew up another pail. Axel shooed them all back toward the stairs. “Come on, still lots more to see.”
Over the course of the day, as the sun climbed higher in the sky, Axel took them all over the outer branches, proudly showing off his farms.
The Doctor was fascinated by the fruit tree orchards. Mature fruit trees grew directly out of one giant branch, growing all the way around it so that the trees at the bottom were growing upside down. Axel strode out sideways, walking on the trunk of one laterally growing tree and picked one of the fruit, he tossed it to the Doctor.
The Doctor examined it briefly then grinned, he held it up and waved it at Amy and Rory, who’d stayed at the base of the branch. “Look! Plums!”
One orchard limb could hold as many as thirty mature trees, the gnarled roots of the trees completely encasing the limb. Trelwins and Human farmers were crawling through the cagelike tangle of fruit tree branches, pruning, harvesting, and untangling wind tossed branches.
When the Doctor saw the human farmers dangling under the limb, harvesting over their heads, he had to try it too. With Axel’s help he attached his chute harness and was soon dangling underneath the orchard, giggling and laughing as he accepted a handful of plums from a red and white splotched Trelwin, before dropping them down into the gathering net below him.
All sorts of fruits and vegetables and nuts were grown on the farms. Rory was conscripted to help remove a large deadfall branch which had fallen into a branch patch of red bell peppers, Rory steadying one end as farmers at the other end attached a hoist and swung it away.
Amy found herself swinging from her harness, harvesting bunches of grapes, a golden baby Trelwin taking the severed bunches from her and scampering along the branch to drop them in a bushel, ready for collecting.
They all got tanned. And the Doctor somewhere acquired a broad brimmed straw hat.
-----
“Ugh!” Amy plopped down in her chair. “I’m bushed!”
“I’m starving!” Rory said, grunting down into a chair beside her.
The Doctor rubbed his hands and sat down in the final chair, at one of the small outdoor tables that had been set up on the platform in front of the single’s hall. “I could eat an elephant!” he said briskly. Grinning hugely as he looked around the atrium.
The air was cooler here, the canopy affording more afternoon shade than out on the farms.
“Well, Axel did say we could get lunch here,” Rory said.
“I hope we can get more ripper fruit,” said Amy. “It’s funny, I would have thought they’d grow on trees, not those curly vines. And Doctor, please, take off that stupid hat.”
The Doctor pouted but took off his hat and sat it on the chair beside him. “I think it suits me. Ah, Cindy!” he said expansively. “My saving angel! Thank you!” He took the mug of juice the girl held out to him, taking a big comedy gulp.
Cindy set the tray she was carrying on the table, almost at her shoulder height. She was wearing a small towel tied around her waist and had the no nonsense attitude of a waitress.
Cindy slapped down Amy’s mug on the table, sloshing juice onto her shorts. “Hey!” Amy brushed at her shorts. “Careful!”
Cindy glared up at her. “You hurt my grandma,” she said in an iron-hard little voice. The girl had obviously not forgotten the events of the morning.
Rory took one look between the stubborn little girl and his own red-haired wife, and buried his face very firmly in his own mug.
The Doctor was grinning.
Amy looked at her boys’ extremely innocent faces and scowled, no help there. She turned back to the little girl, who was still glaring at her.
“Yes. I did. I’m sorry.”
“You made her bleed!” Cindy slapped her on the knee. Amy jumped. Startled. “That was bad! You don’t hurt people!” The little girl wagged a stern finger at her.
Rory snorted into his drink. Amy ignored him.
“You’re right,” Amy said. “You shouldn’t hurt people. I only did it to defend the Doctor.” She waved a hand at him. The Doctor smiled and looked cherubically innocent. Amy scowled at him.
She turned back to the frowning little girl. “You understand that I couldn’t let your grandma take him to the doctor? She was trying to help, but it would have hurt him.”
Cindy nodded. “Because he’s not human. And he healed grandma’s ear after. So that’s okay.” She looked up sternly at Amy again, “But you be nice.” She wagged that finger again. Rory was snorting with suppressed laughter behind her, bouncing in his chair. Amy ignored him.
“I promise.”
Cindy nodded decisively. She laid their spoons on the table. “I’ll go get your soup.” She turned and marched off.
Amy turned around and smacked Rory in the back of the head.
-----
Lunch was delicious, the soup was thick with fresh vegetables and crunchy nuts. There was a huge round of bread that Cindy set in the middle of the table. After looking around at the other diners they realized they were intended to simply rip off hunks. The Doctor tore into it, and they passed it back and forth, tearing off hunks and smearing it with raspberry preserves and some sort of sweet, salty spread that tasted like butter but wasn’t butter.
They stared around, feeling like tourists at a Paris cafe, a colorful chute floated down past the landing, hanging bridges jiggled as people trotted across, leaves fluttered in a soft breeze, it picked up the Doctor’s hat and blew it away before the Doctor could grab it.
“Aw!” he stared down as the hat disappeared into the haze at the bottom of the atrium. “I liked that hat.”
“Never mind that, Doctor. Here, have one of these.” Amy held out a small brown square of confectionery. Distractedly the Doctor took it and took a bite.
“Ooh! Blueberry fudge!” He sat back down and reached for another piece.
“Doctor, look.” Rory nodded down, across the atrium at a lower platform on the next tree. Some workers were building a side room out onto the deck, using what looked like interlocking wooden bricks.
“I used to have play bricks like that when I was a kid,” Rory commented. Amy leaned over him to see.
“Makes sense,” the Doctor said, swallowing his fudge and licking his fingers. “They can’t build rigid structures up here, they’d crack when the tree sways, it’s all mortise and tenon, tongue and groove construction. I’d be surprised if there’s a nail up here anywhere.”
“What’s he doing?” Amy asked, pointing down where an old, dappled gray Trelwin had swung down, grabbed up a couple of bricks in each hand and walked over and started adding them to the wall.
Cindy wandered up behind them and collected their dishes. She looked down over the platform to where they were staring. “That’s Zeke,” she said, and wandered off again.
The Trelwin wasn’t just placing the bricks on the wall like an animal might, in imitation of what the humans were doing. It interlocked the bricks correctly, went back and forth from brick pile to wall, waddling around its human co-workers with that bent-kneed gait monkeys used when they couldn’t balance on their hands.
It wasn’t until they’d watched for several minutes that it became apparent it was building a pattern into the wall. When one of the human workers tried to remove a brick in an odd location and replace it, the Trelwin reached out with a long arm and wrapped its long fingers around the human’s wrist. It didn’t apparently apply any pressure, and it didn’t make any aggressive move, in fact it remained completely impassive, but it didn’t remove its hand until the man nodded and took his hand away, leaving the brick behind.
“Confident old bird,” Rory commented. Amy had moved her chair up beside him and was hunched forward, chin in her hands as they watched.
Once the wall was done, the Trelwin sat back on a small branch that overhung the platform and looked at it for a while, without expression.
“That’s interesting,” the Doctor muttered to himself.
Amy and Rory stared back at the newly constructed wall and realized the Trelwin had woven a pattern into the brickwork, not a recognizable picture, but a pattern that imitated the tree bark of the tree behind the addition. With the pattern included, the addition faded away, perfectly camouflaged against the bark of the tree.
“They have an artistic sense?” Rory asked, surprised.
"Hmm," the Doctor murmured, noncommittally.
“Look, Doctor,” Amy said, “It’s that inventor you wanted to talk to.”
The white haired old inventor they’d seen before, was standing stock still at the side of the platform below, staring intently at the Trelwin-constructed wall. The workers were laughing around him, sweeping up the wood dust. His white Trelwin was investigating a barrel full of apples at the side of the small store in the bole.
The Doctor stood up, he tossed his napkin on the table. “Yes, I think I'll just have a word with...”
“What the hell?” Rory jumped up. He was staring below.
-----
Aaron stood, fixated on the Trelwin design, his brow furrowed with the intensity of his thoughts.
Suddenly Zeke looked up at the man. A silent snarl curled the Trelwin’s lips back over its large teeth and it threw itself at the hapless inventor, beating its fists against his head.
The workers gasped in horror at the unprovoked attack. Aaron fell over backward, hitting the deck like a slab of meat, unmoving.
Zeke slammed him on the chest, hard enough to make the whole body bounce with the blow. He grabbed the man’s arm and bit, drawing blood.
The humans screamed in horror and outrage. One of the construction workers threw a wooden brick, hitting the Trelwin in the head. Zeke looked up. He saw the angry workers and the crowd from the store surge forward brandishing whatever weapons came to hand.
The Trelwin spun and swung off through the trees.
-----
“Come on!” the Doctor yelled and pelted over the rope bridge, he pounded down the spiral staircase, Amy and Rory on his heels.
By the time they arrived on the opposite platform a mob had already formed to hunt down the rogue Trelwin, men and women were streaming off into the trees, others were bringing in weapons, Sondherson was racing in across the rope bridge above them. “What the hell’s going on?” he yelled down to the mob below. An incomprehensible multiple answer floated back up, covering the sound of the Doctor, Amy and Rory thumping down onto the deck.
“Let us through!” Rory yelled. “I’m a nurse!” The crowd parted, and the Doctor, Amy, and Rory fought their way through the huddle around Aaron. Nelda, was crouched by her mentor, rocking back and forth, patting his still face, there was the most awful reek of burnt cinnamon rolling off her.
The Trelwin looked up at them with brokenhearted eyes. The Doctor knelt down and patted her on the shoulder. “It’s all right.” He whipped out the sonic screwdriver and scanned the body as Rory conducted his own quick examination.
“He’s not breathing,” The nurse immediately cocked the old man’s head back, swept his tongue out of the way, pinched his nose and started artificial respiration. “Any heartbeat?” he asked between breaths.
“No,” the Doctor said, sounding strangely subdued. Amy looked at him. Rory nodded, sat back on his heels, traced his thumb up the old man’s rib cage to his sternum, folded his hands and started CPR, rocking backward and forwards, pumping the chest with the heels of his hands.
“We need a medic here!” he yelled over his shoulder before switching back to artificial respiration. Amy, helplessly, sat back and stroked the white Trelwin's trembling shoulders, trying to calm her down. Trying to breath through her mouth at the tear-stinging cinnamon smell.
“What’s wrong with him, Doctor?” she asked, as the villagers milled around in confusion. In the background she could hear Sondherson trying to restore order. “Is he dead?”
Rory looked up as he switched back to CPR.
“No, he’s not dead,” the Doctor said in consternation, consulting his sonic screwdriver.
“Heart attack? Stroke?” Rory asked. “Coma?”
“No.” The Doctor shut the tines of his sonic screwdriver with a snap. “Every neural pathway in his body has been frozen,” the Doctor said, with a tinge of disbelief. Amy looked up at his tone.
“Every neural impulse, every sensory nerve, every autonomic function has been halted in mid-stream.”
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