Blade tramped past an endless succession of gnarled trunks. At last he came to a trunk that was thick and smooth, and he was sure that he had found the trees he'd been looking for. The gold-orange color was definitely in the leaves-and what leaves! Most were at least six feet long and half that wide, and some were twice as big. All of them stuck out from the branches as stiffly as if they'd been made of solid wood. The canopy they made overhead was so dense and so brightly colored that Blade felt as if he'd stepped into a vividly dyed circus tent.

Once he'd got used to the spectacle of the leaves, Blade started noticing other details. The branches and trunks of the trees seemed to be covered with blue-black rubber rather than bark, and they twisted and curled in ways Blade didn't like. Hanging from some of the branches were immense seed pods, larger than the KALI capsule. They seemed to be completely covered with short, bright green hair.

From the bases of the blue-black trunks, a dense mass of creepers stretched toward Blade. They didn't have any seed pods, but otherwise they looked like a ground-dwelling version of the trees. Halfway to Blade they thinned out and disappeared among the ferns and grass, but Blade suspected they stretched considerably farther.

Suddenly he was very careful where he put his feet. There was something unnatural about the plants here. The colors, the leaves, the seed pods, the creepers Blade could have accepted any one of them, but together they gave him the impression of something dangerous.

Something went chirrr among the creepers, and three shiny green beetles the size of Blade's hand crept out into view. He took a cautious step, relieved to see something living among the trees. His relief vanished as he saw more beetles crawling over a whitened skeleton and chopping off pieces of bone with their pincers. The skeleton looked like a huge bird's. Blade saw a curved beak and a four-clawed foot.