Moments later, a nearer, louder voice found her.

The woman sounded big—a creature of meat and wind—and she was screeching at other people, telling them to hurry and leave those damned things, to get themselves into the air now.

“There’s no more time,” she swore.

Quest tried to guess why time was done, and then a blimp engine roared, wiping away the woman’s voice.

Quest began hunting for a third voice.

There might have been dozens of heart-seared warnings. She never heard them. But with her attention fixed on everything nearby and everything above, Quest noticed a few hard noises almost washed out of existence by distance and the intervening trees. Far overhead, in places where few creatures went, machines of a particular size and character were at work. Maybe they had been at work for a little while, and she hadn’t noticed. Generators were coughed as they fired along, and capacitors hummed with a high keening noise. Measuring directions, estimating distances, Quest made careful counts until she was certain from where each sound was falling. But she still didn’t understand. Experience hadn’t prepared her for this puzzle. Only fear had. The fear that never stopped tugging at Quest was suddenly a vast weight, malicious and sharp, eager to yank her into the oblivion below.

She couldn’t imagine what was happening, and neither could the forest.

The magic sloths continued dancing along their branch, and human babies complained with tears, and a few more aircraft than usual were flying quickly. Then each of the capacitors gave a tone, loud and almost pretty, signaling to someone that they were fully charged. And since fear was a good enough reason, Quest spawned a thousand new arms, grabbing hold of her dobdob branch.

The first explosion was enormous.

But the next detonations made that first blast seem like the dry pop of a cricket rubbing his favorite legs together.

The forest outside her skin was changing its shape.

And the forest inside her terror-stricken mind could only struggle to keep pace.

The monkey bit down on Diamond’s nose, bringing blood, and then Good slapped the boy’s cheek, shouting, “Leave go fast go.”

Every bird in Creation was flying. Save for the frantic beating of wings, there was no sound. The world had turned furious and silent. Every insect, from speck to thunderfly, was flinging itself into the open air. Wild monkeys and bark rats and broad little ribbon snakes abandoned their homes, giving up nests and treasured hiding places, eggs and babies. Thought was left behind. Speech too. Breath fed muscle, nothing else. Consideration and fear were abandoned. What mattered was an instinct riding on thousands of surviving generations—leaping into the air before Doom won.

Having given his warning, Good jumped back to the window, desperately kicking at the screen. The children stared at him. An instant passed when nobody moved. Then the classroom floor began to slowly tilt, the well-loved tree swinging just enough that even stupid humans had to notice.

Diamond was sitting at his desk, bleeding.

Seldom rose slowly, and Elata was already on her feet.

“No,” said Seldom, staring at his feet. As if arguing with the floor, he said it again. “No.”

The other students were finding their feet.

But Master Nissim remained behind his desk. He looked strangely passive—affected but unresponsive. Just from his expression, it was possible to believe that this was an elaborate drill and he already knew about it and he had stubbornly decided not to play along. His hands were spread on top of his desk, flanking the opened book. The Master’s eyes were fixed on the green thunderfly chrysalis. He looked ready to speak to somebody, to give directions or small encouragements. But he said nothing. Then in a subtle way, the man appeared almost angry. That was Diamond’s next thought. Nissim’s morning lesson had been interrupted, and someone would have to be reprimanded.

The boy grabbed hold of his shredded nose, pressing the bloody edges close, trying to make his mind believe that this was nothing but a foolish training exercise.

Above the classroom door was a bell, and the bell began to rattle.

Bits was on his feet, walking rapidly while shouting, “Calm calm calm. We know what to do.”

Good was attacking the screen, trying to reach the open air. His little hands were bleeding, sliced by torn wires, and using incisors, he started yanking at the edges of a tiny useless hole.

The screen had an emergency latch. Seldom grabbed the latch, but his hands forgot what to do.

Elata was beside him. The other children began pushing behind them. With two fingers, Elata neatly freed the screen, and then she thought to grab Good by an arm. The monkey started to fall and came back again. Springs drove the screen away from the window frame, out where the next breeze ripped it loose—a rectangle of dark wire and bright air tumbling from view, and gone.

The school’s emergency bells could rattle in different ways. This was the very worst sound, very loud and faster than a racing heart.

“Today is no exercise,” said the bells.

Bits was standing beside Diamond. The big hand felt warmer than the boy expected, and the man’s voice was quick and sure of itself. “Let’s stand back,” he said. “Let the others pull out the drop-suits.”

“We don’t need suits,” Seldom said.

There was a horn perched on the bow of the small black blimp, and it had a different voice. That horn sounded once, the clear shrill roar of it tearing at the air, at the exposed ears. Its warning fell and rose again, fell and rose quickly, and the blimp’s two engines coughed and came awake, propellers carved from corona bones beginning to spin.

“We won’t jump,” Seldom said. “We have the blimp.”

The Master still sat behind his desk. His hands were out of sight. He was working with something, using both hands as he looked at everybody, dragging his tongue across his lower lip.

His tongue stopped. His hands stopped.

Then Nissim called out, “But others might need our suits. Get them ready, children. Get busy.”

The red sacks were easy to yank open. Bright clothes spilled out in folded heaps, each size wearing its special color. Every student knew how to put on a drop-suit. On his second day in class, a school-wide drill was held on Diamond’s behalf, and he learned which suit to wear and how to jump through the open window. The drills were universally enjoyed—the one time when students were required to be fearless. The little fabric wings under the arms helped steer them to safer air. Of course inhabited trees never fell, not that anyone could remember. The likeliest danger was fire. Schools were full of dried wood and careless people. Everybody knew that Marduk was strong, healthy and sound. Classmates told the new boy not to worry, that the great tree would outlive them and their children’s great-grandchildren too.

But despite every promise, the tree was suffering. The massive trunk swung like the slow pendulum inside a gigantic metronome, relentless stresses shifting and the bark shredding while the heartwood screeched in misery. Storms made Marduk sway, but this was no storm. Violent blows were coming from above, not below. Diamond felt each impact. One blow and another and then two more pummelings rolled down from the darkness where gigantic roots clung to the roof of the Creation.

The blimp’s engines were running strong, propellers becoming blurred white discs, and the machine pulled out and then bounced back again, still firmly moored to the school and the tree.

Bits yanked at Diamond’s shoulder.

“Step back more,” he said.

Almost no time had passed since Good went wild. Every event happened inside the same recitation, and even Diamond had trouble following the rapid, overlapping actions.

The monkey was perching on the windowsill, cursing with his voice and fingers. The moorings kept the blimp from moving. Four policemen were crowded together in the nose, pushing a flexible walkway toward the window, but the morning breeze was putting up a fight. Every bird had vanished, but the tiny insects were thick as a fog. Alarms were screaming up and down the school, and sometimes a young voice shouted louder than all the others, and sometimes people laughed with a weird joyless sound, out of nerves, and then suddenly quick legs were running in the hallway, coming their way.