humid green shadows a trictra swung, long hooked limbs
finding purchase on branches, heavy vines and creeping
webs, descending into the well of gloom. Catriona
Macreadie clung to its dumbbell-shaped torso, strapped
firmly into a woven harness and uncomfortably warm in
a grey concealing robe, feeling slight waves of vertigo as
the creature dipped and swooped in the moon's lower
gravity. In front, Pgal the herder sat easily in the notch
behind the trictra's head, directing it with prods to either
of its frontal joints or with single-syllable cries.
Periodically, Pgal glanced back with his doleful eyes in a
wordless query but Catriona, despite her discomfort,
would shake her head and point onward and downward.
The hunt was on and she was not for turning back.
Clouds of insects parted and swirled in their wake
while innumerable creatures noticed the disturbance of
their passing, mammalian kizpi, their large eyes staring
from leafy niches, or umisk lizards startled and darting
away. It was an exhilarating display of Segrana's biodi-
versity, which Catriona had charted and studied for
nearly two years, filling scores of datacubes with pro-
files, reports and commentaries, as well as hundreds of
images. She had seen how liexaformity was a trait
common to different species, and how some subspecies
exhibited tripartite or even quadripartite life cycles,
changing their physical attributes as they aged, while
others did not. She understood how the vast, continent-
spanning biomass of Segrana shielded its multifarious
denizens from the moon Nivyesta's weather patterns,
regulating the many microclimates found beneath its
canopy, while the lower gravity aided the growth of
wider, taller trees and other plants.
She also knew that the map was not the territory and
that Segrana hid many secrets. Satellite surveys con-
firmed that while Segrana's topmost extremities grew
to nearly a mile above sea level, some of the unseen val-
leys fell to almost two miles below, which implied that
the forest's roots went even deeper, an ancient and ubiq-
uitous grasp. Almost half an hour after receiving the
trip signal it was down there that Catriona was headed,
seeking proof for a wild theory.
To either side massive trunks sloped up towards the
light, some spiralling around each other for strength and
support, others criss-crossing to form junctions where
Uvovo villages nestled, glowing clusters of lamps and
conical roofs, indistinct figures walking or climbing
from dwelling to dwelling amid the entwining dimness.
One such township lay directly below, but Catriona had
given Pgal clear instructions earlier and he was swift to
guide their trictra off to one side, behind a dense screen
of cultivated symbiotic flora. She tugged on the cowl of
her baggy robe, keeping her human features concealed
from any chance Uvovo observer. Yet they were still
taking risks, since only Listeners went about the under-
forest swathed in this manner.
Moments later the village was behind them as they
plunged on into the depths. From beneath her robe she
took a small direction-finder orb then tapped Pgal's
shoulder.
'Leftward a little,' she said.
The Uvovo herder just nodded and guided the spidery
trictra down one of several long, thick vines. Like the
mooring hawsers of some immense ship they curved
away into the gloom, bearded with lichenous webs.
Others snaked up the gnarled, mossy sides of trunks
and branches like veins, leaching away moisture and
nutrients which in turn served to feed a further array of
parasitic plantlife. As the trictra clambered down one of
these great living towers, Catriona looked from side to
side, smiling as she spotted a familiar beetle or reptiloid,
reflexively matching them against the entries in her
codex memory. Whenever she caught sight of something
apparently new she stored it away in her reminder file
for later reference.
All the memory advantages of Enhanced genes, she
thought, without the self-programming skills which
would have earned me a well-paid, high-level research
post. Hoiv tiresome would that have been . . .
Catriona was a failed Enhanced. Her germ plasm
came from the Hyperion's cryostocks and had been
genetically re-engineered to increase memory capacity
and allow conscious, detailed control of information.
The refined higher functions allowed an Enhanced to
use their own cortex as a programmable computer , to
from any chance Uvovo observer. Yet they were still
taking risks, since only Listeners went about the under -
forest swathed in this manner.
Moments later the village was behind them as thev
plunged on into the depths. From beneath her robe she
took a small direction-finder orb then tapped Pgal's
shoulder.
'Leftward a little,' she said.
The Uvovo herder just nodded and guided the spidery
trictra down one of several long, thick vines. Like the
mooring hawsers of some immense ship they curved
away into the gloom, bearded with lichenous webs.
Others snaked up the gnarled, mossy sides of trunks
and branches like veins, leaching away moisture and
nutrients which in turn served to feed a further array of
parasitic plantlife. As the trictra clambered down one of
these great living towers, Catriona looked from side to
side, smiling as she spotted a familiar beetle or reptiloid,
reflexively matching them against the entries in her
codex memory. Whenever she caught sight of something
apparently new she stored it away in her reminder file
for later reference.
All the memory advantages of Enhanced genes, she
thought, without the self-programming skills which
would have earned me a well-paid, high-level research
post. Hoiv tiresome would that have been . . .
Catriona was a failed Enhanced. Her germ plasm
came from the Hyperion's cryostocks and had been
genetically re-engineered to increase memory capacity
and allow conscious, detailed control of information.
The refined higher functions allowed an Enhanced to
use their own cortex as a programmable computer, to
run macros and test their own and others' theories; the
best of them could illuminate solutions with their own
flashes of insight. But Catriona had been part of the
third and final generation, brought to term by surrogate
mothers at a time when anomalies still emerged at
unpredictable stages of development. She had begun to
lose the ability to self-initiate neural pathways at fifteen
years old, after which the pathway net she had already
created in her head began to desync. By the time she was
seventeen, her peers were strides ahead and she saw her-
self as being no better than an ordinary kid with an
excellent memory.
And that just wasn't good enough for the martinets
who ran Zhilinsky House, she thought bitterly.
Yet this, combined with her obsessive interest in the
ecologies of Darien and Nivyesta, gave her something to
hold on to after leaving the Enhanced programme. It led
her along a career path that proved fruitful and satisfy-
ing, as well as aggravating when it came to putting in
equipment requisitions.
Still, occasionally she yearned for that long-gone
fledgling talent, especially when trying to get her head
around the astonishing complexity of the forest Segrana
and the Uvovo's place in it. There was an underlying
story or relationship to it all which she had only caught
glimpses of so far. Of course, deducing the Uvovo con-
nection to the temple on Giant's Shoulder had opened
entire new areas of possible inquiry, but it had also
made the speculation wilder and more tantalising. If she
had been a full Enhanced, rather than a cripple, she
would have seen through to the truth by now, she was
sure of it.
The descent to the deep valley floor took another
half-hour, including pauses to rest the trictra. All he
chirping, whirring sounds of the underforest, vhere
most of the species lived, faded to a high, distant
murmur. Down here the light was filtered and grainy,
and the air was still, warm and very humid. The Uvovo
almost believe it - this forest moon is itself an anomaly
and its all-encompassing ecology constitutes a strange,
beautiful world. Sometimes, it's almost as if I can hear it
singing, feel it watching . . .
Following the glowing pointer in her direction-finder,
they at last came to the base of one of the forest
Segrana's oldest and biggest trees, a titan measuring
almost 200 feet across. Massive knotted roots showed
through the layer of decomposing foliage that blanketed
the forest floor. Quiet streamlets trickled among some of
the roots, pouring down towards a still deeper part of
the valley. A family of dumpy six-legged baro grubbed
for roots a short distance away, while ophidian pasks
hunting bugs in the mat of decaying leaves made rustling
sounds.
But Catriona's attention was fixed on a point about
20 feet up the side of the giant tree. She pointed across
at it and the herder Pgal nodded, urging the trictra
across the surrounding root tangle and up the tree's
rough, dripping flank. Catriona could feel her heart
beating as she spotted the cam's stalk lens protruding
from the surrounding snarl of fibrous lichen, rootless
and creepers, and once their mount was close enough
she reached into the wet foliage and retrieved the device.
She grinned as she studied it, blew away waterdrops
and leaf fragments, then looked over her shoulder at
what it had been observing.
Several yards away, six tall triangular stones stood in
a circle on a flattened mound oddly free of saplings and
bushes. Her first visit here had been brief and tense as
her guide, an outcast Uvovo scholar called Amilo, had
been terrified of being discovered by the Listeners. He
had been equally edgy on their second visit two days ago
when she had secreted the cam on the tree, setting it to
record anything over a certain size moving in or near the
stone circle. When she called Amilo yesterday, though,
he refused to help a third time but did put her in touch
with Pgal, a young cladeless trictra herder who was
unconcerned about anything as fanciful as Pathmasters.
She weighed the little cam in her hand for a moment,
then pushed the lens stalk into its socket before tucking
it away in a shoulder pouch. Yes, with any luck she
might have something to prove that the Uvovo did
indeed have a third stage in their life cycle after Scholars
and Listeners, namely the Pathmasters, who were sup-
posedly no more than folk tales. She turned to tell Pgal
to head back to the canopy but paused when she saw
him looking up, eyes wide. She followed his unblinking
gaze to see a larger trictra hanging several yards over-
head, clinging to the tree with a large garment-swathed
figure perched on its back, one hand holding a herding
stave.
'Ah, Mistress-Doctor Catriona,' said the newcomer.
'A pleasant surprise to meet you here in Segrana's field
of birth and decay' As he spoke he tugged aside his
cowl to reveal the ageing, bony features of a male Uvovo
she knew very well.
'Greetings, Listener Weynl,' she said. 'Seen any
Pathmasters today?'
The Uvovo Listener's smile made his elongated face
seem skull-like, but his demeanour was full of patient
good humour.
'None yesterday, Mistress-Doctor, and none today.
For they are only a ssu-ne-ne, a kind of myth or . . .' He
frowned. 'There is another word in your Noranglic
tongue - ah, yes, fable, an instructional tale, nothing
more.'
'As I've heard before,' she said. 'Not least from your-
self, and yet I have come across other tales that give
different accounts.'
'Some of the handfolk of the Benevolent Uvovo have
a more literal understanding of the ssu-ne-ne. They are
often led astray by such things as that ruined stone ring,
which was a very old but very ordinary meeting place
and hub of a marketplace . . .'
As they conversed, the Listener urged his trictra down
and found that there were another three trictra-mcamed
Uvovo waiting below, all displaying on their beaded
tunics the circular symbols of the Warrior Uvovo.
'. . . and so such imaginings should be considered
with care. We of the Warrior Uvovo retain a more re il-
ist approach to these matters.' Then he indicated the
others with his herding stave. 'Ah, these are my way-
kin - we were returning from a vudron contemplation
when we chanced upon you here.'
Catriona nodded, not believing him for a moment.
'So you feel that I am wasting my time chasing this . . .
arassu?
It was the Uvovo word for 'sad ghost', and as she
said it astonishment flashed across the features of two of
Weynl's companions. The Listener, however, only smiled.
'Just so,' he said. 'Now, since our destination is
Starroof Upper-Way, we would be honoured to escort
you back, Mistress-Doctor, if you wish.'
Part of her wanted to rebel and refuse, but common
sense reminded her of the minicam in her shoulder
pouch, so she graciously consented to the Listener's
offer.
The journey back up the green canyons of Segrana
seemed to take for ever. The weight and shape of the
minicam teased her constantly as Pgal's trictra laboured
from branch to vine-cluster to crossed-trunk. Listener
Weynl stopped
for a rest at a junction village that just
happened to be the one that Catriona and Pgal had
bypassed on the way down. As the Listener talked
jovially with his way-kin she wondered if this was an
example of Uvovo humour.
At last the light grew brighter as they neared the
canopy, and when gantries, ladders and platform
dwellings became frequent she knew that they were
near the town of Starroof. Insects glittered in the shafts
of sunlight that angled down through the foliage and
wafts of cool, fresh air brought the fragrance of day-
blooms.
'Our courses must part here, Mistress-Doctor
Catriona,' Listener Weynl said. 'My vudron lies further
above, in the Highsonglade. Please remember that if
you wish to seek knowledge at the roots of Segrana,
you should ask for guidance from myself or any
Listener.'
'My apologies, Listener,' she said. 'I never intended to
give offence.'
'It is more your safety that is of concern,' Weynl said.
'Some of the darker corners below harbour predators
that could devour a Human in a bite or two.'
T understand your concerns, Listener,' she said. I
assure you that I will take them very seriously'
The elderly Uvovo regarded her for a moment, his
amiable smile never wavering, then he nodded.
'Seek with care, Doctor,' he said before tapping his
trictra's side carapace with his herding stave.
Even as the Listener and his companions continued
up the braided cable-ladders, Catriona told Pgal to
hurry. The herder guided the trictra up hanging ne;s
and across leafy curtains, reaching the hammock plat-
form nearest to the cluster of adapted native dwellings
that constituted the enclave of Human scientists.
Unstrapping herself from the saddle restraints, she
climbed out onto the springy matting, stripped off the
bulky robe and turned to Pgal. But he spoke first:
'I not carry you again.'
Astonished, she stared. 'Why, Pgal? Has someone
threatened you?'
It was the herder's turn to be surprised. 'No! - I go to
Highsong vudron. Rejoin Warrior clade.' He smiled.
'Very happy'
Catriona nodded, understanding. Vudrons were
large, spherical chambers fashioned from huge, empty ·
seed husks which grew only at the highest places of
Segrana. Bonded to a branch or trunk near a Uvovo