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weaving, he walked unaided into the room from
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which a host of smells issued. Joyla held him steady
on the other side.
108
T
"Mind you do not overload your roots with too
much nourishment too soon," she advised him, and
then she grinned. "Or I will have this room to clean
yet again. And you will have to start afresh."
Bom nodded without really hearing her. He stum-
bled into the room, where fruit, fresh meat, and pre-
served pulp was laid out in abundance on the eating
mat. Joyla beckoned to Cohoma and Logan, indicating
they might as well eat too.
"Thanks," Logan replied.
"You can watch him as he eats and restrain him."
"Why don't you?" Logan asked, as she sat down at
the edge of the mat and selected a bright yellow gourd-
shaped fruit with blue striping.
Joyla shook her head, studied Bom, who was shov-
ing food into his mouth at an appalling rate. "I
have already eaten, and there is much to be done
now that the Longago can proceed." Her'smile be-
came sad. "Tonight I will return many old friends to
the forest, and a daughter as well." She started to say
something else, reconsidered, and left through the leaf-
leather curtain behind her.
Logan continued thinking on this Longago that now
seemed of paramount importance to these people. She
bit into the gourd, found it had a taste like sugared
persimmon. How did Bom's people dispose of their
dead, anyway, with no earth to bury them in? Crema-
tion, maybe, in the firepit at the village's center.
She said as much to Bom. He mouthed contradic-
tions through mouthfuls of food. "The earth? Would
you offer up the souls of your own friends to hell?
They will be returned to the world."
"Yes, Joyla mentioned that," she replied impa-
tiently, "but what ex actly does that mean?"
But Bom had returned to his food. She continued
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to prod him, arguing that the rest between eating
would do him good. Bom still showed no inclination
to talk, but the giant's constant pestering compelled
him to satisfy her. "It is plain," he finally mum-
bled, "that you know nothing of what happens to
people after they die. I cannot describe the Longago
to you. You will see it tonight."
109
Born had demonstrated a remarkable ability to re-
cover from a totally debilitating experience, Cohoma
mused. He avoided a hump in the funtangcle, hard to
see by torchlight.
The tribe was leading them through one turn after
another in the black forest. Well, this was the kind of
strength you could expect from people who lived in as
harsh an environment as Bom's did. Only, such re-
gression seemed impossible. He told Logan as much.
"These people," he said, with a nod at the marching
column ahead and behind, "aren't that primitive.
They're the descendants of some long-lost colony ship.
Physically, except for those prehensile toes, they're as
advanced as we are, but I don't see how their propor-
tions could change so much in a few centuries." He
stepped over a tiny dark flower growing in the tun-
tangcle. It held an explosive, poisonous spine. "In less
than, oh, at the maximum, ten generations, they've
lost a sixth of their size, developed those toes, under-
gone tremendous expansion of the latissimus dorsi and
the pectoral muscles, acquired uniform coloration of
skin, eyes, and hair. Evolution just doesn't work that
fast!"
Logan merely smiled softly, gestured ahead. "That's
fine, Jan. I agree. So, how do we explain this?"
"I refuse to believe it's parallel development. The
differences are too minor."
"How about rapid mutation," Logan finally hypoth-
esized, "induced by consumption of local chemicals
in their foodstuffs?" She eyed an exquisite grouping of
globular chartreuse fruit surrounded by lavender
blooms.
"Possible," Cohoma finally conceded. "But the scale,
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and the speed"
"Yes, that," Logan interrupted, "coupled with the
need to adapt rapidly or die, could force some ex-
traordinary physiological accommodations. The body
is capable of some remarkable changes when survival
is at stake. Though I admit this would be the most radi-
cal case ever discovered. Still"she waved a hand lei-
surely at the forest"if you'd seen some of the reports
coming out of Tsing-ahn's or Celebes' labs . . ." She
shook her head wonderingly.
110
"This planet is a googaplex of new forms, unusual
molecular combinations, combination proteins. There
are structures of local nucleic acids that defy con-
ventional classification. And we've only scratched the
surface of this forest, barely probed at the upper levels.
We've no idea what the surface itself is like. But as
we dig deeper, I'm sure we'll find"
Cohoma silenced her. "I think something's going to
happen."
They were approaching a brown wall, a monolithic
trunk so vast as to belie its organic origin. Surely
nothing so enormous could growit had to have been
built.
The party was beginning to fan out along one of the
big emergent's major branches, torches flashing umber
off the meters-thick bark.
"The trunk must be thirty meters thick at this point,"
Logan whispered, impressed. "Wonder what it's like
at the base." She raised her voice. "Bom!"
The hunter turned from his place in the line of march
and waited politely for them to catch up.
"What do you call this one?" She indicated the
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