Chapter 20 20. Climbing

i get it so by climbing slowly Catch Grow in Bliss between me branch — Emily Dickinson Murfa makes all kinds of rope and thread.Mary Malone spent the morning looking at and examining the ropes in the Attar house before choosing the one she liked.They had not yet mastered the principles of twisting and winding, so all the threads and ropes were braided, but strong and soft, and Mary soon found the rope she wanted. what are you doing?Attar asked. Murfa had no word for crawl, so Marie had to do a lot of gestures and roundabout explanations, and Atal was terrified. To go high up in the tree?

I have to see what's going on, Mary explained, and now you can help me prepare the rope. Mary once met a mathematician in California who spent every weekend climbing trees.Mary, who had done a little rock climbing before, listened with interest to his tree-climbing techniques and equipment, and decided to try it herself whenever she got the chance.Of course, she never expected to climb trees in another world, and climbing alone wasn't much fun, but it wasn't a choice, and all she could do was try to be as safe as possible beforehand. She took a long coil of rope, large enough to be tied to a branch of a tall tree, and then down to the ground, and strong enough to bear several times her weight; Cut into many lengths to make rings, short loops tied with a fisherman's knot, tied to the main rope to serve as grips and footholds.

The next problem was to get the rope to the branch; she made a bow out of some rough string and a stretchy branch, and experimented with it for an hour or two; then she whittled some arrows with a Swiss Army knife, Hard leaves are used instead of feathers to increase arrow stability when flying.After a day's work, Mary was finally ready to start, but the sun was almost setting and her hands were too tired for her hands.After dinner she went to sleep with deep thoughts, while the Murfas discussed her endlessly in their quiet, musical whispers. The first thing she did next morning was to shoot an arrow into a branch.Some of the Murfas gathered to watch, worried for her safety.Climbing is such an incredible activity for animals on wheels that the mere thought of it terrifies them.

Knowing how they felt, Mary fought back her nervousness, tied the thinnest and lightest thread to one of her arrows, and shot it through the bow. The first arrow was unsuccessful: it went halfway into the bark and could not be pulled out.The second arrow was not successful, for although it cleared the branch, it did not fall far enough to hang on the ground there, and when it was pulled back the arrow was broken by jamming, and it was fastened to the broken arrow. The long rope fell down.She tried it again with a third one, and this time it finally worked. In order not to let the rope get caught or snapped, she pulled the rope carefully, one by one, until both ends fell to the ground.Then she tied both ends firmly to a large swell at the root of a tree, as round as her hip.She thought it should be pretty solid.On the ground, of course, she couldn't figure out what kind of branch the rope was on.When climbing, you can tie the rope firmly to the pitons on the rock face every few meters, so if something goes wrong you don't fall too much.But now she has only this unfettered rope, and if something goes wrong, she will fall from a high place.To make herself a little more secure, she made a saddle of three small ropes, and passed it through the dangling ends of the main rope with a loose knot, so that she could tighten it if it slipped.

Mary put her foot in the first ring and began to climb. She climbed to the top of the tree, faster than she expected, with clean movements; the rope held obediently in her hand; at first she didn't think much of how to get to the top of the first branch, but she found that the deep holes in the bark The slits helped her keep her footing and felt secure.In fact, it took her only fifteen minutes to stand on the first branch and plan to climb to the next. She also carried two coils of rope with her, intending to make a shaped net to serve as pitons, anchors, "helpers" and other implements similar to those found in rock climbing.It took her a few more minutes to secure them, and once she had settled for safety, she chose a branch that would fit best, recoiled her remaining rope, and set off.

After climbing cautiously for ten minutes, she came to the thickest part of the canopy, where the long leaves were within reach; and she saw beige flowers, strangely scented, each bearing Seed pods the size of a coin grow into those gigantic seed pods that are as hard as iron.She climbed to a comfortable place where three branches crossed, tied the ropes, fastened the saddle, and rested.Through the gaps in the leaves she could see the blue sea stretching to the shimmering horizon; The black road winds through it. A slight breeze lifted the fragrance of the flowers, shook the stiff leaves and rustled, and Mary imagined a great vague benevolence lifting her up like giant hands.Lying among the great branches, she relived that sweetness she had experienced only once before—when she took her vows as a nun.

The pinching pain in her right ankle finally brought her back to reality, and her right foot was pinned in the right corner.She slowly removed it and turned her attention to her current task, but she was still dizzy with the sea of ​​joy that surrounded her. She had explained to Murfa how she would place the two slabs of resin paint a palm's width apart so they could see the Slav, and they immediately saw that this was inconvenient and painted the amber paint with a short piece of bamboo. The varnish flakes fastened at the ends like a telescope, which she had tucked into her breast pocket and which she now took out.When she looked through the amber binoculars, she saw those elusive golden lights, slavs, shadows, Lyra's dust, a cloud of fine matter floating in the wind.They float aimlessly much like dust in a beam of light or particles in a glass of water.

very similar. But the longer she looked, the more she began to see a different kind of movement, a deeper, slower, unified movement beneath the aimless float, rising from the ground and drifting out to sea. Oh, this is amazing.Securing herself to a fastened rope, she climbed out along a flat branch, looking carefully at all the buds she could find, and presently she saw what was going on.She watched, waited, until she was absolutely sure, and then began to climb the considerable distance back, carefully and laboriously. Mary found Mulfa nervous about climbing so high, and worried about her.

Atal Youqi heaved a sigh of relief, groped her nervously from head to toe with his nose, and when he found that she was safe and sound, he hissed softly and happily, and together with a dozen other Murfas quickly put her away. Take it back to your place of residence. As soon as they had crossed the brow, the assembly order had spread among the Murfas of the village, and by the time they reached the lecture hall, the crowd was densely packed.Mary guessed many had come from elsewhere to hear what she had to say. She wished she had better news for them. That old Zalif Satmax stepped up to the podium and gave her a warm welcome.She responded with all the Murfa politeness she could remember.As soon as the meeting ceremony was over, she began to speak.

After a pause, and with many roundabout explanations, she said: My dear friends, I climbed to the high canopies of your trees, and examined the leaves and tender flowers, and the pods. I could see a slavic current on top of a tall tree, she continued, it was moving against the wind, the air was moving inland from the sea, but the slavic was moving against it slowly, from the ground you can see that?I am invisible. No, said Suttermax, this is the first we've heard of it. Well, she went on, the trees filter the Slavs as they pass through them.Some Slavs are attracted to the flowers, and I can see this process happening: the flowers are facing upwards, and if the Slavs fall vertically, it enters their petals and fertilizes them like pollen from the planet.

But the Slav is not falling, it is moving towards the sea.When a flower happens to be facing the ground, the Slav is able to get into it, which is why there are still some seed pods growing, but most are facing upwards, and the Slav just floats by without getting in.Flowers must have evolved that way, because in the past, all Slavs fell vertically.Something is wrong with the Slavs, not the tree.You can only see that current from a high place, that's why you never know it. So, if you want to save the lives of these trees and Murfa, we have to find out why the Slavs are doing this, I can't think of a way yet, but I will try. She saw them mostly crane their necks up to look at the floating dust, but from the ground you couldn't see it: she looked through the telescope herself, but all she could see was the clear blue sky. They discussed it for a long time, trying to remember if there was any mention of this Slavic wind in their legends and history, but no, all they knew was that the Slavs came from some planets, and it has always been that way. Finally, they asked her if she had any more ideas, and she said: I need to do more observations, I need to find out if the wind always blows in that direction, or if it changes from day to night like an air current, so I need to More time in the top of the tree, sleep there at night and observe, I will need your help to build a platform so I can sleep safely, but we do need more observation. The practical Murfa was eager to find out why, and immediately offered to build her anything she needed, and they knew the art of using pulleys and wheels, and it was not long before one of them suggested a way of taking Mary with ease. to the top of the tree, so that she would not have to climb dangerously up and down all the time. Glad to have something to do, they immediately set about gathering materials, weaving, tying spars, rope and thread with her guidance, gathering everything she needed to build a tree top observation deck. After talking to the old couple next to the olive grove, Father Gomez lost her whereabouts. He spent several days searching and poking around everywhere, but the woman seemed to have disappeared completely.He would never give up, and as disheartening as it was, the cross around his neck and the rifle on his back signaled absolute determination to complete the task. But it would have taken him longer had it not been for the change in the weather, which was hot and dry in his world, and he was getting thirstier, seeing a wet rock on top of a pebble-strewn slope, He climbed up to see if there was a spring there, and there wasn't.But there had just been a shower in the world of wheel-pods, so that was how he found the window and where Mary was going.