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flung into the undergrowth.
A moment later Romee heard a rough grating noise coming from the spot where
the mass had landed.
This noise was sickening rather than frightening. In a little while she felt
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much better, and her curiosity was aroused. She crept forward, pushed into the
undergrowth, and stared at what was happening.
* * *
The ground there was covered by what looked like misshapen boxes with open
tops, all packed tightly against each other. Each box was twisting in place,
back and forth, rubbing against the sides of the neighboring boxes. Their top
edges were sharp, and their motion made them cut anything touching them, the
same way the power knives sold by the Earthmen cut.
They were chopping the greenish-brown mass to bits. The shredded pieces of it
were forming a pulpy mess in the areas between the blades. Romee shuddered
hard, thinking how close her own body had come to that same fate, and of how
many people had been chopped up to feed that kind of . . .
. . . that kind of tree.
Because she could see it was a tree. The slim trunk rose from the middle of
the blade-edged boxes (they were really something like roots, she realized),
and by changing position slightly while she looked up, she could follow the
trunk to where it divided into three down-looping limbs, one of which had a
splintered, bedraggled look. And no mass on the end of it like the other two.
Romee giggled. For the first time since she was a tiny hatchling. She giggled.
Then she laughed.
It was so funny!
She had tricked the noisemaker into eating part of itself!
She was laughing like a drunken Earthman. It was a strange sensation,
laughing, but nice. She squatted comfortably to enjoy it while it lasted.
Finally she grew quiet. The way she felt was puzzling, but she couldn't figure
out what it was. Well, no matter. Life was full of mysteries she couldn't hope
to solve.
She rose, looked at the noise tree for a moment, toying with the idea of
tricking it into eating its
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remaining two masses. That would be a foolish and useless risk to take, she
decided. She retrieved her sack of shoots, returned to the trail, and began
the trip back to the Cultural Exchange Center.
There she would tell the Earthmen about the noise tree, and how it was killing
and eating the chimos and chimees who went into the jungle for natsacher
shoots. The Earthmen would know some way to kill off the noise trees so that .
. .
No.
The Earthmen would pay her no attention. They would just say that chocolate .
. . or bleep-bleep . . . was the culprit. And besides, they would say, they
could not think of upsetting the jungle ecology of Notcid by exterminating a
predator species.
Romee wished again that the exploiter Earthmen were still running things.
They would have given the noise trees a real scorching. After which there
would have been plenty of Notcidese on the plains once more, to go hunt
natsacher shoots. Plenty of natsacher for Earth, and plenty of chocolate for
Notcid.
But as things stood, whatever was done about the noise trees would have to be
done by the Notcidese themselves . . .
She paused on the trail. If a noise tree was tricked into eating all three of
its masses, would it die?
Perhaps. Certainly it would be harmless. Why not go back and finish off that
one she had started on? She decided against it. That was something to try when
she had no new hatchlings and a chimo heavy with milk . . . and when she was
not herself heavy with eggs, of course.
* * *
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The seasons passed at the bower on West Hill with the Flat Rock on the Brook.
The new hatchlings grew rapidly. There was plentiful milk for them, because
Romee and her chimo Pipak enjoyed the secondary sex act frequently, keeping
Pipak's mammaries well stimulated.
And certainly there was no shortage of meat animals, although their flesh was
tougher and less tasty than it had been when the animals were fewer and the
grass taller. There was also enough redroot, even though it was almost
impossible to keep the meat animals from raiding the garden and nibbling away
the tops before the redroots could become mature.
And there was damn-television. And chocolate.
But the time came when Pipak's breasts were empty, and the hatchlings were
weaned. And the chocolate was running out.
Romee had dreaded this moment, but knew it had to come. She had, of course,
told Pipak about her experience with the noise tree, and how it could be
outwitted. Also, she had told her neighbors, and they in turn had told theirs.
Most everyone on the plains knew about it, but still natsach gatherers went
into the jungle not to return when the noise sounded.
Telling them to fall flat rather than jump wasn't enough, Romee realized. They
needed the Earthman
Truit to train them, as she had been trained, to modify their reaction. But
Truit and Miss McGuire were long gone.
Romee mentioned to Pipak once that she, not he, should go to the jungle, but
he would not hear of it. He had his masculine pride, and it was his turn to
go. She could not cross him.
One morning she set out for the Cultural Exchange Center, after promising him
faithfully that she would not enter the jungle, that she merely wanted to find
out about her damage money. She meant to keep her promise, but her trip had
another purpose aside from the damage money.
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As she neared the Center, she left the main path and angled off across the
rolling grassland until she reached the flat hilltop where Truit had conducted
his experiment. She had some trouble deciding exactly where the hovercar had
landed, but finally figured it out. Then she picked a spot and began digging.
The device . . . the noisemaker . . . was still there, barely covered with a
clump of loose sod. She put it in her sack and paced back past the place where
the hovercar had sat. In a moment she found the second noisemaker.
She squatted and studied them for a while, but, as she had expected, she did
not know how to make them work. She put both of them in her sack and headed
for the Cultural Exchange Center.
The same man was still running the damn-TV repair shop. He grinned at her and
called her "honey"
because he didn't remember her name. It was strange, she reflected, that the
exploiters had, like this man, always been friendly but hardly ever polite,
while the new people were polite but hardly ever friendly.
Romee put the noisemakers on the counter. "I want to stand in one place, and
make either of these work in two other places," she said to him.
He examined the devices. "No problem," he grunted.
* * *
She walked home through the dark that night, partly because she wanted to get
the noisemakers in place while Pipak and the young ones were sleeping, and
partly because she wanted to get back so quickly that
Pipak would be sure she had not gone to the jungle. The Earthman Grandolph had
surprised her by having her damage money ready for her, and she did not want
Pipak to doubt her word when she told him how she had raised the price of a
large sack of chocolate and a power knife as well.
She was squatting outside the bower, eating a redroot, when he woke at dawn
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and came outside. He smiled as soon as he saw her.
"You're back."
"Yes, I hurried."
Almost reluctantly she pressed the button on the little box concealed in her
hand. In a way, this was a mean trick.
KRO-O-OMM!
Pipak went flying through the air, and there was a scurrying and scuffling
inside the bower. In a moment six young furry faces were peering out the entry
at her.
"Come outside, children," she ordered, "and stand facing that way."
When she had the young positioned so neither noisemaker would be behind them,
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