Apparently, some ten thousand or so years ago, the Lords had split. Each had gone off to his or her own little world to rule it. And they'd become enemies, out to get each other's ass.

Which explained why Urthona and Ore, Anana's own uncles, had tried to kill her and each other.

Then there was Kickaha. He'd been born Paul Janus Finnegan in 1918 in some small town in Indiana. After World War II he'd gone to the University of Indiana as a freshman, but before a year was up he was involved with the Lords. He'd first lived on a peculiar world he called the World of Tiers. There he'd gotten the name of Kickaha from a tribe of Indians that lived on one level of the planet, which seemed to be constructed like the tower of babel or the leaning tower of Pisa. Or whatever. Indians? Yes, because the Lord of that world, Jadawin, had populated various levels with people he'd abducted from Earth.

It was very confusing. Jadawin hadn't always lived on the home planet of the Lords or in his own private cosmos. For a while he'd been a citizen of Earth, and he hadn't even known it because of amnesia. Then... to hell with it. It made McKay's head ache to think about it. But some day, when there was time enough, if he lived long enough, he'd get it all straightened out. If he wasn't completely nuts before then.

KlCKAHA SAID, "I'm a Hoosier appleknocker, Angus. So I'm going to get us some fresh fruit. But I need your help. We can't get close because of those tentacles. However, the tree has one weak point in its defense. Like a lot of people, it can't keep its mouth shut.

"So, I'm going to shoot an arrow into its mouth. It may not kill it, but it's going to hurt it. Hopefully, the impact will knock it over. This bow packs a hell of a wallop. As soon as the thing's hit, you run up and throw this axe at a branch. Try to hit a cluster of apples if you can. Then I'll decoy it away from the apples on the ground."

He handed Anana's light throwing axe to McKay.

"What about those?" McKay said, pointing at three trees which were only twenty feet below their intended victim. They were coming slowly but steadily.

"Maybe we can get their apples, too. We need that fruit, Angus. We need the nourishment, and we need the water in them."

"You don't have to explain that," McKay said.

"I'm like the tree. I can't keep my mouth shut," Kickaha said, smiling.

He fitted an arrow to the string, aimed, and released it. It shot true, plunging deep into the O-shaped orifice. The plant had just raised the two tentacles to take another step upward and then to fall slightly forward to catch itself on the rubbery extensions. Kickaha had loosed the shaft just as it was off balance. It fell backward, and it lay on its hinder part. The tentacles threshed, but it could not get up by itself. The branches extending from its side prevented its rolling over even if it had been capable, otherwise, of doing so.

Kickaha gave a whoop and put a hand on McKay's shoulder.

"Never mind throwing the axe. The apples are knocked off. Hot damn!"

The three trees below it had stopped for a moment. They moved on up. There had not been a sound from their mouths, but to the two men the many rolling eyes seemed to indicate some sort of communication. According to Urthona, however, the creatures were incapable of thought. But they did cooperate on an instinctual level, as ants did. Now they were evidently coming to assist their fallen mate.

Kickaha ran ahead of McKay, who had hesitated. He looked behind him. The two male Lords were standing about sixty feet above them. Anana, beamer in hand, was watching, her head moving back and forth to keep all within eye-range.

Urthona had, of course, told McKay to kill Anana and Kickaha if he ever got a chance. But if he hit the redhead from behind with the axe, he'd be shot down by Anana. Besides, he was beginning to think that he had a better chance of survival if he joined up with Anana and Kickaha. Anyway, Kickaha was the only one who didn't treat him as if he was a nigger. Not that the Lords had any feeling for blacks as such. They regarded everybody but Lords as some sort of nigger. And they weren't friendly with their own kind.

McKay ran forward and stopped just out of reach of a threshing tentacle. He picked up eight apples, stuffing four in the pockets of his levis and holding two in each hand.

When he straightened up, he gasped. That crazy Kickaha had leaped onto the fallen tree and was now pulling the arrow from the hole. As he raised the shaft, its head dripping with a pale sticky fluid, he was enwrapped by a tentacle around his waist. Instead of fighting it, he rammed his right foot deep into the hole. And he twisted sideways.

The next moment he was flying backward toward McKay, flung by a convulsive motion of the tentacle, no doubt caused by intense pain.

McKay, instead of ducking, grabbed Kickaha and they both went down. The catcher suffered more punishment than the caught, but for a minute or more they both lay on the ground, Kickaha on top of McKay. Then the redhead rolled off and got to his feet.

He looked down at McKay. "You okay?"

McKay sat up and said, "I don't think I broke anything."

"Thanks. If you hadn't softened my fall, I might have broken my back. Maybe. I'm pretty agile. Man, there's real power in those tentacles."

Anana was with them by then. She cried, "Are you hurt, Kickaha?"

"No. Black Angus here, he seems okay, too."

McKay said, "Black Angus? Why, you son of a bitch!"

Kickaha laughed. "It's an inevitable pun. Especially if you've been raised on a farm. No offense, McKay."

Kickaha turned. The three advance scouts were no closer. The swelling hill had steepened its slopes, making it even more difficult for them to maintain their balance. The horde behind them was also stalled.

"We don't have to retreat up the hill," Kickaha said. "It's withdrawing for us."

However, the slope was becoming so steep that, if its rate of change continued, it would precipitate everybody to the bottom. The forty-five degree angle to the horizontal could become ninety degrees within fifteen minutes.

"We're in a storm of matter-change," Kickaha said. "If it blows over quickly, we're all right, If not..."

The tree's tentacles were moving feebly. Apparently, Kickaha's foot had injured it considerably. Pale fluid oozed out of its mouth.

Kickaha picked up the axe that McKay had dropped. He went to the tree and began chopping at its branches. Two strokes per limb sufficed to sever them. He cut at the tentacles, which were tougher. Four chops each amputated these.

He dropped the axe and lifted one end of the trunk and swung it around so that it could be rolled down the slope.

Anana said,"You're wasting your energy."

Kickaha said, "Waiting to see what's going to happen burns up more energy. At this moment, anyway. There's a time for patience and a time for energy."

He placed himself at the middle of the trunk and pushed it. It began rolling slowly, picked up speed, and presently, flying off a slight hump, flew into a group of trees. These fell backward, some rolling, breaking their branches, others flying up and out as if shot out of a cannon.

The effect was incremental and geometrical. When it was done, at least five hundred of the things lay in a tangled heap in the ravine at the foot of the slope. Not one could get up by itself. It looked like the results of a combination of avalanche and flood.

"It's a logjam!" Kickaha said.

No log jam, however, on Earth featured the wavings of innumerable octopus-tentacles. Nor had any forest ever hastened to the aid of its stricken members.

"Birnam Wood on the march," Kickaha said.

Neither Anana nor McKay understood the reference, but they were too tired and anxious to ask him to explain it.