The mulefa made many kinds of rope and cord, and Mary Malone spent a m iing aing the oals family had in their stores before choosing what she wahe principle of twisting and winding hadnt caught on in their world, so all the cords and ropes were braided; but they were strong and flexible, and Mary soon fouly the sort she wanted.
What are you doing? said Atal.
The mulefa had no term for climb, so Mary had to do a lot of gesturing and roundabout explaining. Atal was horrified.
To go into the high part of the trees?
I must see what is happening, Mary explained. Now you help me prepare the rope.
On California, Mary had met a mathemati who spent every weekend climbing among the trees. Mary had done a little rock climbing, and shed listened avidly as he had talked about the teiques and equipment. She had decided to try it herself as soon as she had the ce. Of course shed never expected to be climbing trees in another universe, and climbing solo didnt greatly appeal, either, but there was no choice about that. What she could do was make it as safe as possible beforehand.
She took a coil long enough to reach over one of the branches of a high tree and back down to the ground, and strong enough to bear several times her weight. The a large number of short pieces of a smaller but very tough cord and made slings with them: short loops tied with a fishermans knot, which could make hand- and footholds wheied them to the main line.
Then there was the problem of getting the rope over the bran the first place. An hour or twos experimenting with some fiough cord and a length of springy branch produced a bow; the Swiss Army k some arrows, with stiff leaves in place of feathers to stabilize them in flight; and finally, after a days work, Mary was ready to begin. But the sun was setting, and her hands were tired, and she ate and slept, preoccupied, while the mulefa discussed her endlessly in their quiet, musical whispers.
First thing in the m, she set off to shoot an arrow over a branch. Some of the mulefa gathered to watch, anxious for her safety. Climbing was so alien to creatures with wheels that the very thought of it horrified them.
Privately Mary knew how they felt. She swallowed her nervousness and tied an end of the thi, lightest lio one of her arrows, a it flying upward from the bow.
She lost the first arrow: it stu the bark part and wouldnt e out. She lost the sed because, although it did clear the branch, it didnt fall far enough to reach the ground oher side, and pulling it back, she caught it and s. The long line fell back attached to the broken shaft, and she tried again with the third and last, and this time it worked.
Pulling carefully and steadily so as not to snag the line and break it, she hauled the prepared rope up and
over until both ends were on the ground. Theied them both securely to a massive buttress of one of the roots, as thick around as her own hips. So it should be fairly solid, she thought. It had better be. What she couldnt tell from the ground, of course, was what kind of branch the whole thing, including her, would be depending on. Unlike climbing on rock, where you could fasten the rope to pitons on the cliff face every few yards so you never had far to fall, this business involved one very long free length of rope, and one very long fall if anythi wrong. To make herself a little more secure, she braided together three small ropes into a harness,