The Namboo Canopy
A hundred metres up in a storm-lashed jungle, cat fourteen's grief is growing wild through the trees themselves — and only a song called between the treetops can bring her down before the vines bring the whole village with her.
Vivek, Siru Agar and Marcus Gray climb into Namboo Guardian territory to bring down Irina, the fourteenth Good Luck Cat, who has hidden in the high canopy since she was found — terrified that if the Bridge network never wakes, giving up her hidden life will have meant nothing. In Namboo belief the forest answers feeling: her fear is feeding a runaway overgrowth that is tearing apart the tribe's rope-bridges and closing on the Cradle, the platform where the youngest of the tribe are raised. While the party splits to fight the vines and reach her, the Namboo call the ancestral canopy song — a rite sung from treetop to treetop that only works if the truth is sung into it. Irina sings her fear; the tribe sings it back changed, and the forest turns with her. She comes down, fourteen are now gathered — and a Namboo runner arrives with word that a component ship is already loading on the coast, its weather window closing fast.