The Core was very near now; shafts of hellish light glared through the shell of debris, illuminating the rubble. Ahead of him he could see whales expelling air through their mouths in great moist plumes; their bodies contracted like slowly collapsing balloons.

The rotation of Rees's whale slowed. Soon it would enter the deepening throat of the Core's gravity well… and surely Rees would die. As rapidly as it had grown his bubble of hope disintegrated, wiping away the last traces of his false contentment. He had perhaps minutes to live, and locked in his doomed head was the secret of the survival of his race.

A howl of despair broke from his throat, and his hands clenched convulsively around the cartilage of the face.

The whale shuddered.

Rees stared unbelieving at his hands. Up to now the whale had shown no more awareness of his presence than would he of an individual microbial parasite. But if his physical actions had not disturbed the whale, perhaps his flood of despair had impacted on that vast, slow brain a few yards away…

And perhaps there was a way out of this.

He closed his eyes and conjured up faces. Hol-lerbach, Jaen, Sheen, Pallis tending his forest; he let the agony of their anticipated deaths, his longing to return to and to save his people flood through him and focus into a single, hard point of pain. He physically hauled at the whale's face, as if by brute force he could drag the great creature from its path into the Core.

A monstrous sadness assailed Rees now, a pleading that this human infection should leave the whale be to follow its herd to safety. Rees felt as if he were drowning in sorrow. He fixed on a single image: the wonder on the face of the young Third, Nead, as he had watched the beauty of the Nebula's rim unfold in the Telescope monitor; and the whale shuddered again, more violently.

11

The assault of the mine craft on the Raft had been under way for only thirty minutes, but already the air around the Platform was filled with the cries of wounded.

Pallis crawled through the foliage of his tree, working feverishly at the fire bowls. A glance through the leaves showed him that his blanket of smoke was even and thick. The tree rose smoothly; he felt a warming professional satisfaction — despite the situation.

He raised his head. The dozen trees of his flight were arrayed in a wide, leafy curve which matched the arc of the Raft a hundred yards above: they were just below the Platform, according to his charts of the underside. His trees rose as steadily as if attached by rods of iron; in a few minutes they would sweep over the Raft's horizon.

He could see the nearer pilots as they worked at their fires, their thin faces grim.

"Can't we speed it up?" Nead stood before him, his face stretched with anxiety and tension.

"Keep at your work, lad."

"But can't you hear them?" The young man, blinking away tears, shook a fist toward the thin battle noise drifting down from the Platform.

"Of course I can." Pallis willed the temper to subside from his scarred mask of a face. "But if we go off half-cocked we'll get ourselves killed. Right? On the other hand, if we stick to our formation, our plan, we've a chance of beating the buggers. Think about it, Nead; you used to be a Scientist, didn't you?"

Nead wiped his eyes and nose with the palm of his hand. "Only Third Class."

"Nevertheless, you've been trained to use your brain. So come on, man; there's a job of work to be done here and I'm relying on you to do it. Now then, I think those bowls near the trunk need restocking…"

Nead returned to work; for a few moments Pallis watched him. Nead's frame was gaunt, his shoulder blades and elbows prominent; his Scientist's coverall had been patched so many times it was barely recognizable as a piece of cloth, let alone a uniform. When his eyes caught Pallis's they were black-ringed.

Nead was barely seventeen thousand shifts old. By the Bones, Pallis thought grimly, what are we doing to our young people?

If only he could believe in his own damn pep talks he might feel better.

The flight swept out of the shadow of the Raft, and leaves blazed golden-brown in the sudden starlight. Pallis could feel the tree's sap churn through its branches; its rotation increased like an eager skitter's and it seemed to leap up at the star which hung in the Raft's sky.

The Rim was mere yards above him now. He felt a growl building in his throat, dark and primeval. He raised a fist above his head; the other pilots waved their arms in silent salute.

…And the line of trees soared over the Platform.

A panorama of blood and flames unfolded before Pallis. People ran everywhere. The deck was crowded with blazing awnings and shelters; where the roofs had been blasted away Pallis could see papers burning in great heaps. The sudden down-wash from the trees' branches caused the fires to flicker and belch smoke.

Three mine craft — iron plates fitted with jets — hovered a dozen yards above the Platform. Their jets spat live steam; Pallis saw Raft men squirm, the flesh blistering away from incautious limbs. Miners, two or three to a craft, lay belly down on the plates, dropping bottles which bloomed fire like obscene flowers.

This was the worst assault yet. Previously the miners had targeted the sites of the supply machines — their main objective — and had largely been beaten off, with low casualties on either side. But this time they were striking at the heart of the Raft's government.

There was little sign of organized defense. Even Pallis's flight had been near the end of its patrol of the underside when the miners attacked; if not for a pilot's sharp eyes the Raft might have been unable to mount any real counter-thrust. But at least the Platform's occupants were fighting back. Spears and knives lanced up at the hovering plate craft, forcing the miners to cower behind their flying shields—

— until, as Pallis watched, one spear looped over a craft and made a lucky strike, driving through a miner's shoulder. The man stared at the bloody tip protruding from his muscle, grabbed it with his good hand, and began to scream.

The craft, undirected, tipped.

The other occupants of the craft called out and tried to reach the controls; but within seconds the plate, swaying, had fallen to within a few feet of the deck. Raft men braved live steam to force their way to the craft; a hundred hands grabbed its rim and the steam jets sputtered and died. The miners were hauled, screaming, from the plate, and were submerged by the flailing arms of the Raft men.

Now the tree flight was perhaps a dozen yards above the Rim and was noticed for the first time by the combatants. A ragged cheer spread through the chaotic ranks of the defenders; the miners turned their heads and their faces went slack. Pallis felt a crude pride as he imagined how this awesome dawn of wood and leaves must look to the simple Belt folk.

Pallis turned to Nead. "Almost time," he murmured. "Are you ready?"

Nead stood by the trunk of the tree. He held a bottle of fuel; now he lit the wick with a crude match and held the burning lint before his face. His eyes were deep with hatred. "Oh, I'm ready," he said.

Shame surged through Pallis.

He turned to the battle. "All right, lad," he said briskly. "On my count. Remember, if you can't hit a miner douse your flame; we're not here to bomb our own people." The tree swept over the melee; he saw faces turn up to his shadow like scorched skitter flowers. The nearest plate ship was mere yards away. "Three… two…"

"Pallis!"

Pallis turned sharply. One of the other pilots stood balancing on the trunk of his tree, his hands cupped to his mouth. He turned and pointed skywards. Two more mine craft flew above him, their ragged edges silhouetted against the sky. Squinting, Pallis could make out miners grinning down at him, the glint of glass in their hands; the miners were obviously trying to get above his trees.