“Okay, you’ve got a point.” He opened the hatch. While he was at it, he turned off the locator beacon. “Don’t know who’ll be looking for us, do we?” he asked. Through the open hatch, they saw periwinkle blue sky, lacy fronds of vegetation, one sun and half a dozen moons simultaneously, and some large and very beautiful birds with blue and green iridescent plumage soaring above them.
“How could you fall asleep -when the Khieevi were after us and maybe even got Khornya and Aari, too?”
“I couldn’t do anything about it, could I? When you are older and more experienced, youngling, you will learn to utilize whatever quiet moments you can grab from the constant excitement of a spacefarer’s life to conserve your energy and mend any damage done by life’s travails.”
“Right,” she said, and tried to sit up. The pod moved under her, bouncing up and down. “Whoa, stop!” she said, and looked over the edge to see what was causing the motion. Lacy, fernlike growth held them in the air. “Thariinye, look. These are the tallest bushes I have ever seen!” All around them and high above them, blocking off the view in most directions, other lacy fronds fanned briskly back and forth.
He sat up, too, and the pod rocked even more perilously.
“They’re not bushes, youngling. These are treetops. Can you climb down? If the branches support your weight, then maybe they’ll support mine. I don’t think we’re up very high. All of the other trees appear to be higher.”
She leaned over the edge and touched something solid, big enough it let her spread her whole hand. Thariinye leaned against the opposite side of the pod to balance it as she felt her way along. When she was sure the support was wide enough for her to step out on, she did, slithering her belly, pelvis, and legs over the side to follow her outstretched hands and arms.
She crawled along the limb on hands and knees, peering through the fronds to try to find more sturdy branches. When she reached the trunk, she had to lift more fronds to find the way down. “No wonder it wasn’t very tall,” she crawled back to Thariinye.
“Be careful, you’ll …” “Oooops!” she cried, windmilling her arms as she let her legs shoot out from under her.
“Maati!” Thariinye cried, and toppled the pod reaching for her. It fell from the nest of fronds and landed below-about three feet below. Thariinye had covered his head with both hands anticipating the crash.
Maati laughed and laughed, and stood up. The fronds and the part of the trunk still in the ground rose only as high as her waist. “Gotcha!” she cried, clapping her hands. “We broke the tree when we landed and its branches cushioned our fall!” “Brat,” Thariinye grumbled, extricating himself from the pod.
“Now what, 0 experienced spacefarer?” Maati asked cheekily.
“Standard protocol is to stay near your pod,” Thariinye told her. “Which would be a good idea if Khornya and her crewmates are looking for us.”
‘But a bad idea if they lost out to the Khieevi, and it’s the monsters who are looking for us,” Maati said.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I know what we can do,” Maati said. “Oh, you do? Who put you in charge of the mission?” “The same power that put you in charge,” she replied, We’re in this together. If I get saved, you get saved. If I get caught, you’ll-”
If I get caught I’ll try to make sure they don’t know you’re alive,’ Thariinye told her with unexpected gravity.
Right. Well, all I need to do is climb up one of the taller “ees, if it’s climbable, and look around. I can maybe see where the wreckage of our ship is and if anybody is checking it out. That is the first place anyone will look for us, and it isn’t like we can’t tell our friends from our enemies in this situation. One look, and we’ll know what to expect.”
“Why, that’s a very good idea. You learn quickly, youngling.”
Climbing these trees was easier said than done, however unless you were one of the small blue-furred scampering things constantly running up and down trunks and through the underbrush. The trunks were smooth and thick-it was the broken off end of the trunk that Maati had crawled along when she first left the pod. But the frond branches were not very strong and snapped under the pressure of even Maati’s small feet.