"Call them! Call them now."
The old Ganelon bowed his head. Moments slid by. With a sense of terror Joel was conscious of their passing. What had become of Priscilla? Who was the mysterious man behind the uprising of the Unfit? Why didn't the Thinkers act?
"Do something!" Joel burst out savagely. "Don't just stand there! Do something!"
The elder Ganelon smiled. "Patience, my son. The trees are being called."
Alpha Centauri B hung just above the treetops, casting long orange rays across the rebels' camp. Joel and Thorp and Tamis lay side by side in the shrubbery at the edge of the clearing.
The endless procession of cars still rolled into Eden down the muddied highway. Another line of cars returned, bringing exhausted men, wounded men, loot and prisoners.
"Where are the trees?" Joel asked.
Tamis said, "Shhh."
Joel heard a crackling of branches behind him, stiffened. Then he caught sight of a moving trunk. More and more of them appeared, blending with the jungle until they were scarcely discernable.
They smelled like carbolic acid! It was the weirdest march he'd ever witnessed, the massed shuddering movement of herd after herd of the carnivorous nigel trees. The balls of thread-like roots at their bases squirmed like Medusa's heads, thrusting the ungainly plants forward.