The Talkative Tree Read online

me going space happy too."

  "What's your hurry?" demanded the voice. "I can talk to you just as easyall the way down, you know. Airholes in my bark--I'm not like an Earthtree."

  Kolin examined the bark of the crotch in which he sat. It did seem tohave assorted holes and hollows in its rough surface.

  "I never saw an Earth tree," he admitted. "We came from Haurtoz."

  "Where's that? Oh, never mind--some little planet. I don't bother withthem all, since I came here and found out I could be anything I wanted."

  "What do you mean, anything you wanted?" asked Kolin, testing thefirmness of a vertical vine.

  * * * * *

  "Just what I said," continued the voice, sounding closer in his ear ashis cheek brushed the ridged bark of the tree trunk. "And, if I do haveto remind you, it would be nicer if you said 'Mr. Ashlew,' consideringmy age."

  "Your age? How old--?"

  "Can't really count it in Earth years any more. Lost track. I alwaysfigured bein' a tree was a nice, peaceful life; and when I rememberedhow long some of them live, that settled it. Sonny, this world ain'tall it looks like."

  "It isn't, Mr. Ashlew?" asked Kolin, twisting about in an effort to seewhat the higher branches might hide.

  "Nope. Most everything here is run by the Life--that is, by the thingthat first grew big enough to do some thinking, and set its roots downall over until it had control. That's the outskirts of it down below."

  "The other trees? That jungle?"

  "It's more'n a jungle, Sonny. When I landed here, along with the othersfrom the _Arcturan Spark_, the planet looked pretty empty to me, justlike it must have to--Watch it, there, Boy! If I didn't twist thatbranch over in time, you'd be bouncing off my roots right now!"

  "Th-thanks!" grunted Kolin, hanging on grimly.

  "Doggone vine!" commented the windy whisper. "_He_ ain't one of mycrowd. Landed years later in a ship from some star towards the center ofthe galaxy. You should have seen his looks before the Life got in touchwith his mind and set up a mental field to help him change form. Helooks twice as good as a vine!"

  "He's very handy," agreed Kolin politely. He groped for a foothold.

  "Well ... matter of fact, I can't get through to him much, even with theLife's mental field helping. Guess he started living with a differentway of thinking. It burns me. I thought of being a tree, and then hecame along to take advantage of it!"

  Kolin braced himself securely to stretch tiring muscles.

  "Maybe I'd better stay a while," he muttered. "I don't know where I am."

  "You're about fifty feet up," the sighing voice informed him. "You oughtto let me tell you how the Life helps you change form. You don't _have_to be a tree."

  "No?"

  "_Uh_-uh! Some of the boys that landed with me wanted to get around andsee things. Lots changed to animals or birds. One even stayed a man--onthe outside anyway. Most of them have to change as the bodies wear out,which I don't, and some made bad mistakes tryin' to be things they sawon other planets."

  "I wouldn't want to do that, Mr. Ashlew."

  "There's just one thing. The Life don't like taking chances on wordabout this place gettin' around. It sorta believes in peace and quiet.You might not get back to your ship in any form that could tell tales."

  "Listen!" Kolin blurted out. "I wasn't so much enjoying being what I wasthat getting back matters to me!"

  "Don't like your home planet, whatever the name was?"

  "Haurtoz. It's a rotten place. A Planetary State! You have to think andeven look the way that's standard thirty hours a day, asleep or awake.You get scared to sleep for fear you might _dream_ treason and they'dfind out somehow."

  "Whooeee! Heard about them places. Must be tough just to live."

  Suddenly, Kolin found himself telling the tree about life on Haurtoz,and of the officially announced threats to the Planetary State's plannedexpansion. He dwelt upon the desperation of having no place to hide incase of trouble with the authorities. A multiple system of such worldswas agonizing to imagine.

  * * * * *

  Somehow, the oddity of talking to a tree wore off. Kolin heard opinionsspouting out which he had prudently kept bottled up for years.

  The more he talked and stormed and complained, the more relaxed he felt.

  "If there was ever a fellow ready for this planet," decided the treenamed Ashlew, "you're it, Sonny! Hang on there while I signal the Lifeby root!"

  Kolin sensed a lack of direct attention. The rustle about him wasnatural, caused by an ordinary breeze. He noticed his hands shaking.

  "Don't know what got into me, talking that way to a tree," he muttered."If Yrtok snapped out of it and heard, I'm as good as re-personalizedright now."

  As he brooded upon the sorry choice of arousing a search by hiding wherehe was or going back to bluff things out, the tree spoke.

  "Maybe you're all set, Sonny. The Life has been thinkin' of learningabout other worlds. If you can think of a safe form to jet off in, youmight make yourself a deal. How'd you like to stay here?"

  "I don't know," said Kolin. "The penalty for desertion--"

  "Whoosh! Who'd find you? You could be a bird, a tree, even a cloud."

  Silenced but doubting, Kolin permitted himself to try the dream on forsize.

  He considered what form might most easily escape the notice of searchparties and still be tough enough to live a long time without renewal.Another factor slipped into his musings: mere hope of escape wasunsatisfying after the outburst that had defined his fuming hatred forHaurtoz.

  _I'd better watch myself!_ he thought. _Don't drop diamonds to grab atstars!_

  "What I wish I could do is not just get away but get even for the waythey make us live ... the whole damn set-up. They could just as easymake peace with the Earth colonies. You know why they don't?"

  "Why?" wheezed Ashlew.

  "They're scared that without talk of war, and scouting for Earth fleetsthat never come, people would have time to think about the way they haveto live and who's running things in the Planetary State. Then the gravytrain would get blown up--and I mean blown up!"

  The tree was silent for a moment. Kolin felt the branches stirmeditatively. Then Ashlew offered a suggestion.

  "I could tell the Life your side of it," he hissed. "Once in with us,you can always make thinking connections, no matter how far away. Maybeyou could make a deal to kill two birds with one stone, as they used tosay on Earth...."

  * * * * *

  Chief Steward Slichow paced up and down beside the ration crate turnedup to serve him as a field desk. He scowled in turn, impartially, at hiswatch and at the weary stewards of his headquarters detail. The latterstumbled about, stacking and distributing small packets of emergencyrations.

  The line of crewmen released temporarily from repair work was transientas to individuals but immutable as to length. Slichow muttered somethingprofane about disregard of orders as he glared at the rocky ridgessurrounding the landing place.

  He was so intent upon planning greetings with which to favor the tardyscouting parties that he failed to notice the loose cloud drifting overthe ridge.

  It was tenuous, almost a haze. Close examination would have revealed itto be made up of myriads of tiny spores. They resembled those cast forthby one of the bushes Kolin's party had passed. Along the edges, the hazefaded raggedly into thin air, but the units evidently formed a cohesivebody. They drifted together, approaching the men as if takingintelligent advantage of the breeze.

  One of Chief Slichow's staggering flunkies, stealing a few seconds ofrelaxation on the pretext of dumping an armful of light plastic packing,wandered into the haze.

  He froze.

  After a few heartbeats, he dropped the trash and stared at ship and menas if he had never seen either. A hail from his master moved him.

  "Coming, Chief!" he called but, returning at a moderate pace, hemurmured, "My nam
e is Frazer. I'm a second assistant steward. I'll thinkas Unit One."

  Throughout the cloud of spores, the mind formerly known as Peter Kolincongratulated itself upon its choice of form.

  _Nearer to the original shape of the Life than Ashlew got_, he thought.

  He paused to consider the state of the tree named Ashlew, half immortalbut rooted to one spot, unable to float on a breeze or through spaceitself on the pressure of light. Especially, it was unable to insinuateany part of itself into the control center of another form of life, as asecond spore was taking