At first, Kolin saw no way, but then the network of vines clinging to the rugged trunk suggested a route. He tried his weight gingerly, then began to climb.
"I should have brought Yrtok's radio," he muttered. "Oh, well, I can take it when I come down, if she hasn't snapped out of her spell by then. Funny … I wonder if that green thing bit her."
Footholds were plentiful among the interlaced lianas. Kolin progressed rapidly. When he reached the first thick limbs, twice head height, he felt safer.
Later, at what he hoped was the halfway mark, he hooked one knee over a branch and paused to wipe sweat from his eyes. Peering down, he discovered the ground to be obscured by foliage.
"I should have checked from down there to see how open the top is," he mused. "I wonder how the view will be from up there?"
"Depends on what you're looking for, Sonny!" something remarked in a soughing wheeze.
Kolin, slipping, grabbed desperately for the branch. His fingers clutched a handful of twigs and leaves, which just barely supported him until he regained a grip with the other hand.
The branch quivered resentfully under him.
"Careful, there!" whooshed the eerie voice. "It took me all summer to grow those!"
Kolin could feel the skin crawling along his backbone.