A couple of aliens watched as she walked up the ramp toward the giant tree’s exit. She tensed, waiting for them to sound an alarm or try to stop her. They merely watched her incuriously. Juna didn’t stop to question her good luck. She reached the entrance hole and climbed out. It was night, and a heavy rain was falling as she emerged into the great bowl of the crotch. It was almost totally dark.

Juna paused. Her initial, driving terror had subsided and now she could think. Once she was free of the aliens, what then? The Survey base camp was located on the coast. The flyer had been 600 kilometers north and east of the base when it went down. A sudden solar storm had blocked radio reception, making it impossible to contact base camp. After several days with no sign of abatement, they decided to try to walk out. They had walked about ninety klicks toward the coast. The aliens couldn’t have carried her very far. She was probably within a few kilometers of where she had collapsed.

Juna closed her eyes, remembering the photo maps of the region. A large river lay to the north. They had crossed it in the flyer. The streams in this area drained into it. If she followed a stream, it would lead her to the river. She would follow the river to the sea and then head north up the coast until she reached the base camp. It was a long shot, but if she didn’t starve or get killed by a predator, it might work.

First, though, she had to reach solid ground. She wanted to travel as far as she could by daylight, in case the aliens came after her.

Juna groped her way down the tree, feeling with her hands and feet for footholds. It was a long, terrifying climb. The humid, velvety blackness of the night was easing toward dawn by the time her feet touched the damp leaf litter of the forest floor.

She stood for a long moment embracing one of the massive buttress roots of the tree, her face resting against the bark, her heart hammering, not quite believing she had actually made it. She turned and groped through the dim gloom of the pre-dawn forest, then worked her way downhill until she came to a small stream. There she knelt and drank deeply, then bathed her face and hands.