Rainbow Mars by Larry Niven Page B

foliage—
    â€œHave a look here,” Miya said.
    He saw her below, by pink Marslight. He wriggled down beside her. They’d left most of the tree above them now, and Mars was close below. They peered down through a hole in the sky.
    The lower sixty klicks of the tree was swarming with troop carriers and cargo vehicles. Miya said, “I’m wondering—”
    The tree shuddered. They had that instant’s warning, and then the trunk lashed like a whip.
    It was worse than any earthquake. Svetz was totally disoriented. His arms and legs strangled a black branch that was trying to fling him into the sky. His grip was being shaken loose.
    Eerily calm was Miya’s voice. “Hanny, I’ve lost my flight stick. Can you come and get me?”
    â€œWhat was that?” The tree was shuddering still. Miya was nowhere in sight.
    â€œDon’t know. Don’t care yet. Come and get me.”
    She was falling!
    Stop a moment. Think. “Was it lifting?”
    â€œMy flight stick? No. Maybe it stayed in the tree.”
    Svetz saw it wedged in branches. He reached, and the tree shook it and him out like overripe fruit. He was spinning down, dizzy and disoriented, with his own flight stick in one hand and the other falling with him.
    A flare of rockets sent him close enough to grab.
    â€œI’ve got them both. Wait one.” He wrapped himself around his flight stick, gripped the other in an armpit, and barely stopped himself from twisting the lift throttle. He’d lose her if he lifted!
    â€œMiya, you’ve got your rocket pack. Find me and come get your flight stick. Do it before we both burn up.”
    â€œUnderstood. Can you see me?”
    â€œNo! You’re the same color as Mars! Who picks your wardrobe? Look for me; I’m green and I’m turning on my blinks.”
    â€œBlinks, aye aye.”
    â€œWe’ll make great targets. Oh, futz! ” He screamed in terror as the tree ripped loose.
    Whatever was happening below was half hidden in a cloud of chaff. Some of that chaff was vehicles and men. The tree’s lateral surge must have shaken most of its parasites loose. The torn base of the rising tree trailed wood chaff and artifacts: twisted silver rails, pressure suits of human and nonhuman shape, falling sky ships. A falling lift cage: men and green giants and big crabs were swarming out and over it, and what they hoped to accomplish was beyond Svetz.
    Svetz’s emergency suit lights were scintillating in preprogrammed panic. He was a clear and vivid target. Maybe Miya—
    â€œI see you, Hanny.”
    â€”Maybe Miya would get to him before anyone else. And there she was, a flickering orange flare rising past him. Svetz twisted the flight stick throttle hard over. “Do not make your burn. I’m chasing you,” he called.
    She was there again, coming down, and he twisted again to kill the lift, rockets too close. “Let me do the docking—”
    â€œJust give me the flight stick!” she screamed. He hadn’t guessed how frightened she was. She snatched at the brush discharge with both hands, and had it.
    The tree’s torn base rose past them, big as a wooden moon. He glimpsed Miya again, high above him on the flight stick, and lost her. They were falling fast. Already he could hear a whisper of wind. They’d burn as meteors if they couldn’t kill their velocity.
    It was not a time to worry about staying together.
    Her voice was clear, almost calm. “Too much weight on the tree. They overloaded it.”
    â€œAre you all right?”
    â€œDecelerating. I lost it for a moment there, Hanny. Look out overhead, there’s a lot of futz falling at us.”
    He looked up at men falling silent in vacuum.
    A sky ship dropped past him, slowed and rose again.
    His hand scrabbled at his back. He must have dropped the blaster, but he was instinctively reaching for the needle gun, and he found that.
    The vessel was