Ishmael and S’glya were emerging from the tent to stand next to her.

“Cold,” said S’glya as a greeting. She vibrated vestigial wing cases.

Leah turned to point over the edge, as Ishmael flowed and fluttered to form a living blanket around her legs. “Is that a solid layer of leaves? I can’t see a thing below it.”

“You will not,” said S’glya. “The vegetation of this planet is structured in dense and continuous strata. We are looking down at one of them.”

“The lower regions must be in complete darkness.”

“Certainly. Even the microwave signals were somewhat damped in the first kilometer. We must evolve methods to work together in the dark.”

“Where do the lower levels of vegetation get their energy?”

S’glya raised a clawed forelimb and gestured around her. “From here. Where else?” She leaned far over the edge, oblivious to the chasm below, and touched a half-meter shaft of bright yellow trunk. “I believe that we could follow this all the way down, five kilometers, and find its roots set in the soil of Travancore. As for its width at the base …” The Pipe-Rilla pirouetted on the brink. “Who knows? Many, many meters.”

Behind them the Angel had come creeping out onto the lip of the tent. When it reached full sunlight the Chassel-Rose extended all its fronds and turned to face Talitha’s morning beams. “We have been performing … confirming analysis,” said the translation unit, after half a minute of silent sun-bathing. “From the data of the orbital survey, we now have an estimated location for the Morgan Construct.”

There was a flutter through Ishmael’s whole composite, but the Tinker held together.

“Where is it?” asked Leah.

“About three thousand kilometers from here, to the north-east. It is deep in the vegetation, and probably down on the surface itself.”

“So we are safe enough here.”

“Unless the Construct has chosen to move since the time that the survey was performed. We do not judge that as unlikely. The probability is high that the Construct was able to monitor our descent from orbit. We believe that it knows we are here.”

“But we must go closer,” objected S’glya. “We are supposed to meet the Construct, and then we are supposed to — to …”

Leah found the other three waiting expectantly. On every question of pursuit, they deferred to her without hesitation. And when the subject was the destruction of the Construct, they would do anything rather than mention it.

“We have to kill it.” Leah said the forbidden word, and watched them cringe and edge away from her. “We’ll have to go closer at some point. But not yet. We need to know more about this planet. The Construct has been here for months, with nothing to do but explore Travancore.”

“And it is supposed to be very intelligent. We should not go near.” S’glya changed her mind quickly, when Leah made her think the unthinkable.

“And we have been here less than four days,” added Ishmael. “We should not hurry. We should not seek out the Construct until we are ready.”

“Better safe than sorry,” said the Angel. “Look before you leap.”

The three aliens fell silent. Leah knew the problem. The others had agreed to become part of the pursuit team. But in their hearts (if the Angel had a heart) they had not expected to be asked to kill. That was a task only for a human.

Talitha rose higher in the sky. At last S’glya, rubbing her midlimbs against her side, spoke almost too softly to hear. “But if we do not now go to the Construct, then what should we be doing?”

Was it so difficult? Leah turned to the Angel. “We need to learn more about this place, especially what lies under all the vegetation. Can you determine from the orbital survey data how far we are from the nearest entry shaft?”

“That is known to us already. We are less than two kilometers from a spiral tunnel.”

“Then that’s where we go next. We must take a trip down, and learn what conditions are like on the lower levels of Travancore. We’ve been thinking of this as just a vertical forest, but that’s pure speculation.”

“And we should all go?” asked S’glya.

Leah hesitated. She thought she had heard uncertainty in the Pipe-Rilla’s tone, and with reason. It might be wise to leave one member of the team on the upper levels, for a possible rescue. But if so, who? S’glya would have to carry Angel, while Ishmael was easily the most mobile. More and more, Leah was convinced that the team had power because it was a team. Every element was important.

“There is safety in numbers,” said the Angel slowly, as though it had been reading Leah’s mind. “Many hands make light work.”

“All right.” But Leah was still not sure. If Angel were right, and the Construct had monitored their arrival …

“I guess we all go,” she said at last.

“When?” asked Ishmael.

“I see no advantage in waiting.” Leah was surprised that her decision was accepted so instantly. The team members were all equal — and yet she was the boss. “As soon as we can all be ready, we head for the shaft. Don’t bring a lot of equipment with you. On the first trip we travel light.”

“Yes, said S’glya.

“Yes,” echoed Ishmael.

“Never do tomorrow,” said the Angel, “what can be done today.”

The deep shafts noted during the first orbital survey were far more than simple gaps in Travancore’s vegetative cover. Closer inspection revealed a true tunnel, with well-defined and continuous walls of ribbed leaves plaited into tight hoops. “Artificial,” said S’glya, running a sensitive antenna lightly over the surface. “Nature does not braid so. The sign of intelligence?”

“Not necessarily. We have insects on Earth that build systems far more complex than this, and they are not intelligent.”

“In your terms,” said Ishmael. “Which others suspect.” But the Tinker was making a feeble attempt at a joke, and Leah was pleased to hear it. Morale was recovering.

Overflow tubes set into the tunnel walls every twenty meters or so would be enough to carry off heavy rain. They were very necessary. Lean had expected near-vertical tunnels, mine shafts plunging straight down to Travancore’s solid surface. Instead the openings were more like spiral roadways, curving down at a constant and moderate angle. It was possible to walk along the shallow gradient without supporting lines. At these angles, a rain storm would impose a massive load on the tunnel’s curving floor.

Leah took a last look round before she led the way deeper into the tunnel. With Travancore’s thirty-seven hour day they would have ten more hours of light. But how much use would that be, as soon as they were a couple of hundred meters down?

Ishmael followed close behind. The Tinker was very nervous, with clouds of components constantly leaving and returning to the main body. Leah had given up long ago on the question of how Ishmael preserved any continuity of thought — if it didn’t worry the Tinker, she wasn’t going to let it worry her.

The Pipe-Rilla came last. S’glya had the Angel tucked easily under her midlimbs. She sang softly to herself, until Leah asked her to be quiet. They did not, she reminded all of them, want to attract attention — no matter what was on Travancore to be attracted. The Construct might not be the only danger.

The light slowly faded. At two hundred meters they were moving through a green twilight, floating alone in light gravity as though underwater. A rare upward kink in the tunnel, followed by a more steeply plunging section, took them through a curtain of pulpy leaves. The light level dropped abruptly. The temperature was noticeably higher. By the time they were down three hundred meters they were shrouded in an intense emerald gloom.

Leah stopped and turned to the others. “I can’t see a thing, but I don’t want to use my light. S’glya, you take over the lead. Carry Angel with you. Angel, I want you to use a thermal band and see what you can find out about the path ahead.”