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.

"Who are you?" he gasped.

The answering sigh of laughter gave him a distinct chill despite its suggestion of amiability.

"Name's Johnny Ashlew. Kinda thought you'd start with what I am. Didn't figure you'd ever seen a man grown into a tree before."

Kolin looked about, seeing little but leaves and fog.

"I have to climb down," he told himself in a reasonable tone. "It's bad enough that the other two passed out without me going space happy too."

"What's your hurry?" demanded the voice. "I can talk to you just as easy all the way down, you know. Airholes in my bark—I'm not like an Earth tree."

Kolin examined the bark of the crotch in which he sat. It did seem to have assorted holes and hollows in its rough surface.

"I never saw an Earth tree," he admitted. "We came from Haurtoz."

"Where's that? Oh, never mind—some little planet. I don't bother with them all, since I came here and found out I could be anything I wanted."

"What do you mean, anything you wanted?" asked Kolin, testing the firmness of a vertical vine.

"Just what I said," continued the voice, sounding closer in his ear as his cheek brushed the ridged bark of the tree trunk. "And, if I do have to remind you, it would be nicer if you said 'Mr. Ashlew,' considering my age."

"Your age? How old—?"

"Can't really count it in Earth years any more. Lost track. I always figured bein' a tree was a nice, peaceful life; and when I remembered how long some of them live, that settled it. Sonny, this world ain't all it looks like."

"It isn't, Mr. Ashlew?" asked Kolin, twisting about in an effort to see what the higher branches might hide.

"Nope. Most everything here is run by the Life—that is, by the thing that first grew big enough to do some thinking, and set its roots down all over until it had control. That's the outskirts of it down below."

"The other trees? That jungle?"

"It's more'n a jungle, Sonny. When I landed here, along with the others from the Arcturan Spark, the planet looked pretty empty to me, just like it must have to—Watch it, there, Boy! If I didn't twist that branch over in time, you'd be bouncing off my roots right now!"

"Th-thanks!" grunted Kolin, hanging on grimly.

"Doggone vine!" commented the windy whisper. "He ain't one of my crowd. Landed years later in a ship from some star towards the center of the galaxy. You should have seen his looks before the Life got in touch with his mind and set up a mental field to help him change form. He looks twice as good as a vine!"

"He's very handy," agreed Kolin politely. He groped for a foothold.

"Well … matter of fact, I can't get through to him much, even with the Life's mental field helping. Guess he started living with a different way of thinking. It burns me. I thought of being a tree, and then he came along to take advantage of it!"

Kolin braced himself securely to stretch tiring muscles.

"Maybe I'd better stay a while," he muttered. "I don't know where I am."

"You're about fifty feet up," the sighing voice informed him. "You ought to let me tell you how the Life helps you change form. You don't have to be a tree."

"No?"

"Uh-uh! Some of the boys that landed with me wanted to get around and see things. Lots changed to animals or birds. One even stayed a man—on the outside anyway. Most of them have to change as the bodies wear out, which I don't, and some made bad mistakes tryin'