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toward her.
"You went out hi that storm by yourself?" She nodded, watching him, "You live
here along?" Again the nod. "And you hauled me all the way several
kilometers up here, and have been watching me for two days?"
"Yes."
Caitland's mind was calibrated according to a certain scale of values. Within that
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scale decisions on any matter came easy. None of this fit anywhere, however.
"Why?" he finally asked.
She smiled a patronizing smile that he ordinarily wouldn't have taken from
anyone.
"Because you were dying, stupid, and that struck me as a waste. I don't know
anything about your mind yet except that it doesn't include much on bad weather
navigation, but you're fairly young and you've got an excellent body, still. And
mine, mine's about shot. So I saw some possibilities. Not that I wouldn't have
done the same for you if you'd been smaller than me and twenty kilos lighter. I'm
just being honest with you, whoever you are."
"So where's the catch?" he wondered suspiciously. She'd been ladling something
into a large bowl from the big kettle. Now she brought it over.
"In your pants, most probably, idiot. I might have expected a thank-you. No, not
now. Drink this."
Caitland's temper dissolved at the first whiff of the bowl's contents. It was hot,
and the first swallow of the soup-stew seared his insides like molten lead. But he
finished it and asked for more.
By the fourth bowl he felt transformed, was even able to sit up slightly, carefully.
He considered the situation.
This old woman was no threat. She obviously knew nothing about him and
wouldn't have been much of a threat if she had. His friends might not find him
for some time, if ever, depending on the condition of the
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Ye Who Would Sing
radiocom broadcaster. And just now there was the distinct possibility that
representatives from the other side of the law would be desirous of his company.
He could just as soon do without that. Lawyers and cops had a way of tangling
your explanations about things like self-defense.
So hi many respects this looked like a fine place to stay and relax. No one would
find him in the Silver Spars and there was nowhere to walk to. He leaned back
into the pillow.
Then he heard the singing.
The melody was incredibly complex, the rhythm haunting. It was made of organ
pipes and flutes and maudlin bassoons, mournful oboes and a steadying
backbeat, all interwoven to produce an alien serenity of sound no human
orchestra could duplicate. Scattered through and around was a counterpoint of
oddly ; metallic, yet not metal bells, a quicksilver tinkling like little girl-boy
laughter.
Caitland knew that sound. Everyone knew that sound. The chimer tree produced
it. The chimer tree, a mature specimen of which would fetch perhaps a hundred
thousand credits.
But the music that sounded around the house was wilder, stronger, far more
beautiful than anything Caitland in his prosaic, uncomplicated existence had ever
imagined. He'd heard recordings taken from the famed chimer quartet in Geneva
Garden. And he knew that only one thing could produce such an over-, powering
wealth of sound a chimer tree forest.
But there were no more chimer forests. Those scattered about the Chee world had
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long since been located, transplanted tree by tree, bartered and sold hi the first
heady months of discovery by the initial load of colonists. And why not,
considering the prices that were offered for them?
Chimer forests hadn't existed for nearly a hundred years, as best he could
remember. And yet the sound could be of nothing else.
"That music," he murmured, entranced.
215
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE . . .
She was sitting in a chair nearby, ignoring him in favor of the thick book in her
lap. He tried to get out of bed, failed. "The music," he repeated.
"The forest, yes," she finally replied, confirming his guess. "I know what you're
thinking: that it's impossible, that such a thing doesn't exist anymore. But it's
both possible and true. The mountains have protected this forest, you see the
Silver Spars' inaccessibility, and also the fact that all the great concentrations of
chimers were found far, far to the south of Holda-mere. Never this far east, never
this far north.
"This forest is a freak, but it has survived, survived and developed in its isolation.
This is a virgin forest, never cut, Mr...."
"Caitland, John Caitland."
"An untouched forest, Mr. Caitland. Unsoiled by the excavators or the predators,
unknown to the music lovers." Her smile disappeared. ". . . To the music eaters,
those whose desire for a musical toy in their homes destroyed the chimers."
"It's not their fault," Caitland objected, "that the chimers don't reproduce when
transplanted. People will have what they want, and if there's enough money to
pay for what they want, no mere law is going to prevent . . ." He stopped. That
was too much already. "It's a damned shame they can't reproduce in captivity, but
that's "
"Oh but they can," the old woman broke in. "I can make them."
Caitland started to object, managed to stifle his natural reaction. He forced
himself to think more slowly, more patiently than was his wont. This was a big
thing. If this old bat wasn't looney from living alone out in the back of nowhere,
and if she had found a way to make the chimers reproduce in captivity, then she
could make a lot of people very very wealthy. Or a few people even wealthier.
Caitland knew of at least one deserving candidate.
"I hadn't heard," he said warily, "that anyone had
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Ye Who Would Sing
found a way to make the trees even grow after replanting."
"That's because I haven't told anyone yet," she replied crisply. "I'm not ready yet.
There are some other things that need to be perfected for the telling first.
"Because if I announce my results and then demonstrate them, I'll have to use
this forest. And if the eaters find this place, they'll transplant it, rip it up, take it
apart, and sell it in pieces to the highest bidders. And then I won't be able to
make anything reproduce, show anybody anything.
"And that will be the end of the chimer tree, because this is the last forest. When
the oldest trees die a couple of thousand years from now there'll be nothing left
but recordings, ghosts of shadows of the real thing. That's why I've got to finish
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my work here before I let the secret and this location out."
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