The alien beckoned to her with the same limp-handed gesture, dark green ripples passing over its body. Juna shook her head and backed farther up the branch.

The alien turned bright yellow and leaped lightly across the gap. The impact of its landing shook the branch. Juna cried out and dug into the tree limb with her claws, fighting for balance. The alien reached out to her. She reached up and grasped its hand. Despite the cold wetness of its touch, the strength of the alien’s grip reassured her. The sick dizziness began to ease.

“Thank you,” she said, knowing it didn’t understand her.

Before Juna realized what it was doing, the alien levered her onto its back. She started to struggle, then froze, afraid she would knock them both off the narrow branch. The alien leaped across the gap between the trees with Juna on its back. It released her as soon as they were across. Beckoning her to follow, it set off again.

Juna followed the alien. She wanted to get down onto safe, firm ground where she could cry and shake for an hour or so, but that wasn’t an option. This is no harder than the obstacle course at the Survey Academy, she told herself. She focused on the details of the climb, finding footholds, pulling herself up, proving both to the alien and herself that she was capable of surviving.

The alien waited for her by the main trunk. As she drew closer, it leaped nimbly up the trunk to another branch about six meters higher and about a quarter of the way around the tree. It paused again, watching, as Juna clambered up the massive trunk. As soon as she reached the limb where the alien waited, it bounded to the end of the branch, pausing at the gap between the trees.

Several thick vines bridged the space between the branch they were on and the next tree. The alien purpled and raised its ears in what was becoming a familiar, inquisitive gesture. It swung hand over hand across the gap, as though the sixty-meter drop didn’t exist, then sat waiting for her on the other side. Juna looked at the vines, and then up at the alien, then back at the bridge of lianas.