Free Luana by Alan Dean Foster Page A

untrue, of course, but nothing was to be gained by seeming to think otherwise.
    The bearers too, said nothing, but their attitudes had changed radically. Neither Albright nor Kobenene bothered to talk dissension to them anymore. That was now an unprofitable avenue of approach to their own special problem.
    Some of the bearers were still frightened, yes. But to their way of thinking, yesterday’s demonstration had established Barrett’s competency to lead beyond any reproach.
    The village sat on the border between the high veldt and the mountainous jungles of the Rift Valley. Not that there were thousands of kilometers of empty territory stretching away in all directions. Pavement had come to Africa with a vengeance born of overlong neglect. But the roads stuck to easy right-of-way, for the most part.
    One could go a kilometer from the certain road carrying daily, heavy traffic, and never find civilization or that road again without professional help and elaborate survival gear.
    The semi-rain forest they were entering now was utterly unroaded, unsurveyed, and unexplored. In a land where elephants still blocked traffic and an occasional lion prowled the streets of major cities, it was hardly surprising.
    The jungle itself was enough of a factor to discourage exploration. What was there to see a hundred meters on, except another hundred meters of jungle? The deadly Wanderi were only an added factor. Civilization would come to this end of the Earth too, some day, but right now the followers of Nyerere had enough trouble trying to civilize themselves.
    In the lead, Barrett studied the jungle as it approached. It always seemed that way to him, as though he were standing still, watching, while the great trees marched towards him. Isabel jogged a few steps, came up alongside him.
    “Is it always this hot here?”
    Barrett smiled at her while watching the trees.
    “Hot, here? Izzy, in a little while we’re going to start to go downhill. And then up, and then down, and then up, and after a while you’re going to find yourself wishing, praying, to be back here in the nice cool sunshine. I take it you haven’t been in real jungle before?”
    “No. I’ve only flown over it.”
    He chuckled. “You must understand when you look into it that nothing’s what it seems to be. The most beautiful plants are parasites. Twigs are insects. The biggest bugs are harmless and beautiful, while the tiny ones do the real killing. Every branch, every tree root can have scales and fangs and can murder. What seems to be solid ground is mud, and what looks like mud is razor sharp lava that can cut right through the toughest boots.”
    “Do you hate it so much, then?” she asked as the trees started to close over them.
    “Hate it? I can’t hate the jungle any more than a sailor can hate a storm, I suppose, or a pilot an adverse wind. He thought a moment.
    “ ‘. . . where highest woods impenetrable, to star or sunlight, spread their umbrage broad.’ Milton. Paradise Lost.”
    “Why, Mr. Barrett, you hypocrite, you! I’d never take you for the poetic type.”
    “Don’t think you’re going to take me at all,” he quipped. “And I’m not. I read it on a travel folder.”
    “But you remembered it.” Her look of admiration was disgusting.
    “Have it your way, then. I’m poetic. Say, did you ever hear this one? ‘There was a young lady from Gaul, who—”
    “Please, Mr. Barrett, leave me with Milton.” He grinned, and she smiled back. They were in among the first trees now.
    “You know,” said Barrett idly, “a forest has its own profile, just like a high-rise apartment. The lower story runs from zero to about twenty meters. From there to forty they call it the Canopy. Any tree that rises above that is classed as an Emergent. And in addition to those there’s the forest floor, which is a separate system in itself.
    “Each level has its own quota of plant and animal life, all different from those above or below. Like going up