Earthfall Page 0,74

footprints."

The diggers' prints were lost almost at once in the mess that their own feet had made when they ran in response to Eiadh's scream. It didn't help that Rasa was leading the women in gathering the little children out of their beds and into the schoolhouse. Despite the tumult, though, Volemak managed to get lanterns distributed to the men and the older boys, and in a few minutes Protchnu gave a cry. "Here!" he shouted. "They weren't dodging or anything, they just ran in a straight line."

It was true-the trail picked up just where it might have been expected from the direction the diggers first ran upon leaving Elemak's and Eiadh's door. The others ran to join Protchnu, but stayed behind as he led the way toward the edge of the woods.

"Wait," said Volemak. "Nafai, Oykib-you spread out to the sides and keep watch. I don't want Protchnu walking head down into a trap."

Carrying lanterns in one hand, gardening tools as makeshift weapons in the other, the ragtag little army entered the verge of the forest. Four adult men, a bunch of little boys, and the young women who had no children yet-that would strike terror in their enemies. As soon as they entered the woods, the tracking became harder-leaves on the forest floor didn't hold footprints very clearly. It took Protchnu a while to get even six meters into the woods, and then he lost the trail.

Moving slowly and carefully, they all scouted an ever-widening circle, trying to pick up the trail again. Then Oykib heard a low cry from Protchnu, standing only a few paces off. The boy was looking up into the branches. "I'm so stupid!" he said, and immediately ran back to where he had lost the trail.

Oykib followed him. "You think they carried the baby through the trees?"

"Up into one tree," said Protchnu. "Remember the hollow stumps we found when we were felling trees?"

"Shedemei said it wasn't impossible for some disease to have... ."

By then, though, Protchnu had clambered up the tree and was pressing against the trunk here and there, pressing hard. "Protchnu, you aren't looking for secret passages, are you?"

"We burned the hollow trees because we couldn't use them for construction," said Protchnu. "We should have studied them. The prints lead right to this tree and disappear. They went somewhere."

Protchnu suddenly stopped and grinned. "It gave a little here. Hold your torch up, Uncle Oykib. I found me a door." Using the blade of the hoe he was carrying, Protchnu pried into a fissure in the bark and sure enough, an oblong patch of trunk opened up like a door. It had been a seamless part of the trunk until that moment.

"Protchnu, remind me never to call you stupid," said Oykib.

Protchnu barely heard him. He had already turned around and had his legs into the opening.

Oykib set down his lantern and fairly leapt up the trunk to grab Protchnu's arm. "No!" he cried. "We don't need to be trying to rescue two of Elemak's children!"

"I'm the only one who can fit through the door!" Protchnu yelled, struggling to get free of Oykib's grip.

"Proya, you've been brilliant, so don't turn stupid on me!" Oykib shouted back. "You can't go feetfirst into their den! You don't know whether there'll even be room down there to use the hoe. Come on, get your legs out before they cut off your feet!"

Reluctantly, Protchnu backed out of the door.

By now, the others had gathered. Nafai was carrying an axe, as was Oykib. When Protchnu was out of the tree, they began to work quickly, chopping into the trunk. In only a few minutes, they had torn away so much of the surviving trunk that the tree toppled.

Now the opening wasn't just a tiny doorway. It was large enough that any of the adults could drop down into the hole. And, lowering his lantern as far down into the opening as he could, Nafai announced that the chamber was tall enough for a human to stand, and the tunnels large enough for hurnans to use them-on all fours.

"I don't think that's a good idea at the moment," said Volemak.

"We don't have time to waste, Father," said Nafai.

"Stand up and look around you, Nyef."

They raised their lanterns and looked. In the trees, on the ground, hundreds of diggers surrounded them, brandishing clubs and stone-tipped spears.

"I think they've got the numbers on us," said Issib.

"They're ugly," said Sevet's son Umene. "Their skin's all pink and hairless."

"Ugly is the least of