Children of the Comet Read Free Page A

second valve outside to drain the small reservoir.
    Once again, the stovebeast attached itself to the small of his back, where it would recharge the suit’s heatholder in the bargain. He would be glad to get out of the sleeping sack. The furry little firebelly, finding itself in an enclosed space, had lessened its heat output to compensate, but it was still uncomfortably hot inside the sack.
    His weapons and the coil of fine silk rope were lying where he had left them on the branch’s upper surface, held in place by the iceball’s miniscule gravity, though they had fetched up against a protruding twig because of the even slighter force imparted by the Tree’s ponderous rotation. That force would become greater as one proceeded outward along a branch, but here, close to the trunk, it was inconsiderable.
    He thought it over and decided he didn’t really need a climbing rope at this early stage; a spear that could be used as a harpoon would be more useful. He untied the grappling hook and passed the rope end through the small loop at the butt of the spear. Then he recoiled the rope carefully and fastened the other end to his belt.
    Next he folded the sleeping sack flat and tucked it under his belt. He shouldered his bow and quiver, took a cautionary look around for wildlife, and resumed his Climb.
    He climbed without stopping for a couple of hours. He was making good progress and thinking about taking a break when he saw the flutterbeast. It was hunting in the upper branches, and it saw him too.
    It was huge—larger than a meatbeast—a dull black in color, with huge wings for enfolding its prey. The wings also helped the flutterbeast move from branch to branch, slapping those blanketing members against anything they touched. If it drifted out of reach of the Tree, it would turn its narrow face spaceward and spit a gob of reaction mass. There were wicked claws like grappling hooks at the first joint of the membrane’s leading edges, for grasping a branch or a victim.
    Instinctively, Torris pressed himself back against the shelter of the trunk—a useless move, because the flutterbeast could still get to him. The creature was flapping its way downward from branch to branch, its pink mouth opening and closing to show its fangs.
    Slowly and deliberately, Torris drew an arrow from the quiver, nocked it, and pulled back the bowstring. He tracked the flutterbeast as it made its way closer.
    Then it sprang. Its spreading wings blotted out the stars, and its pink mouth gaped wide. Torris let the arrow loose. The creature’s wings jerked at the impact and brushed against his faceplate before it was sailing outward, impelled by the force of the arrow.
    Quickly, it twisted its neckless head and spat. But the momentum imparted by the arrow was too great for it to overcome. Torris watched as it grew smaller against the background of stars until it shrank from sight.
    He gave himself a few moments to recover, and when his heart finally slowed down, he continued his Climb.

CHAPTER 4
    Four turns of the world later, the climbing had become almost routine. It was one handhold after another in a mind-numbing­, repetitive rhythm, an occasional wriggle of his lower body keeping his straying legs aligned. There was no detectable up or down here on the great wall of the trunk; you’d have to proceed laterally at least a mile or so along a branch before you’d begin to have any sensation of weight—and then your “down” was outward, not in the direction that your eye and positional memory told you it ought to be.
    Despite the advantage that near-weightlessness gave him, Torris was exhausted at the end of each long day of climbing. At dark, he crawled stiffly into his sleeping sack with his muscles screaming and his hands turned to cramped claws. He estimated that he’d made about forty miles so far. Four times now, he’d stopped to make camp. He was on his third