This was it. His opportunity to escape from the Belt…
The supply trees were the only known means of traveling from Belt to Raft, and so after his moment of decision following the foundry implosion Rees had resolved to stow away on the next tree to visit the Belt. He had begun to hoard food, wrapping dried meat in bundles of cloth, filling cloth globes with water—
Sometimes, during his sleep shifts, he had lain awake staring at his makeshift preparations and a thin sweat had covered his brow as he wondered if he would have the courage to take the decisive step.
Well, the moment had come. Staring at the magnificent tree he probed at his emotions: he knew he was no hero, and he had half-expected fear to encase him like a net of ropes. But there was no fear. Even the nagging pain in his hands subsided. There was only elation; the future was an empty sky, within which his hopes would surely find room.
He hurried to his cabin and collected his bundle of supplies, which was already lashed together; then he climbed to the outer wail of his cabin.
A rope had uncoiled from the tree trunk and lay across the fifty yards to the Belt, brushing against the orbiting cabins. A man came shimmering confidently down the rope; he was scarred, old and muscular, almost a piece of the tree himself. Ignoring the watching Rees the man dropped without hesitation across empty air to a cabin and began to make his way around the Beit.
Rees clung to his cabin by one hand. The rotation of the Belt carried the cabin steadily towards the tree's dangling rope; when it was a yard from him he grabbed at it and swarmed without hesitation off the Belt.
As always at shift change the Quartermaster's was crowded. Pallis waited outside, watching the Belt's pipes and boxy cabins roll around the star kernel. At length Sheen emerged bearing two drink globes.
They drifted to the relative privacy of a long stretch of piping and silently raised their globes. Their eyes met briefly. Pallis looked away in some confusion — then felt embarrassed at that in turn.