warily about, but nothing
appeared to threaten him.

"It's time to end this scout," he told himself. "It's dangerous. One
good look and I'm jetting off! What I need is an easy tree to climb."

He considered the massive giant. Soaring thirty or forty meters into the
thin fog and dwarfing other growth, it seemed the most promising choice.

At first, Kolin saw no way, but then the network of vines clinging to
the rugged trunk suggested a route. He tried his weight gingerly, then
began to climb.

"I should have brought Yrtok's radio," he muttered. "Oh, well, I can
take it when I come down, if she hasn't snapped out of her spell by
then. Funny ... I wonder if that green thing bit her."

Footholds were plentiful among the interlaced lianas. Kolin progressed
rapidly. When he reached the first thick limbs, twice head height, he
felt safer.

Later, at what he hoped was the halfway mark, he hooked one knee over a
branch and paused to wipe sweat from his eyes. Peering down, he
discovered the ground to be obscured by foliage.

"I should have checked from down there to see how open the top is," he
mused. "I wonder how the view will be from up there?"

"Depends on what you're looking for, Sonny!" something remarked in a
soughing wheeze.

Kolin, slipping, grabbed desperately for the branch. His fingers
clutched a handful of twigs and leaves, which just barely supported him
until he regained a grip with the other hand.

The branch quivered resentfully under him.

"Careful, there!" whooshed the eerie voice. "It took me all summer to
grow those!"

Kolin could feel the skin crawling along his backbone.

"Who _are_ you?" he gasped.

The answering sigh of laughter gave him a distinct chill despite its
suggestion of amiability.

"Name's Johnny Ashlew. Kinda thought you'd start with _what_ I am.
Didn't figure you'd ever seen a man grown into a tree before."

Kolin looked about, seeing little but leaves and fog.

"I have to climb down," he told himself in a reasonable tone. "It's bad
enough that the other two passed out without me going space happy too."

"What's your hurry?" demanded the voice. "I can talk to you just as easy
all the way down, you know. Airholes in my bark--I'm not like an Earth
tree."

Kolin examined the bark of the crotch in which he sat. It did seem to
have assorted holes and hollows in its rough surface.

"I never saw an Earth tree," he admitted. "We came from Haurtoz."

"Where's that? Oh, never