Titan

by John Varley

  "Remember, don't call a blimp if you've got a fire going."

  "How optimistic you are."

  "You'll make a fire soon enough. Uh, I was wondering... do you want me to take August off your hands? She might feel better if she was with me. We can cover more ground looking for April."

  "We can take care of our own casualties," Cirocco said, coldly. "Whatever you think is best."

  "She's barely aware that you're leaving, anyway. just get out of my sight, will you?,'

  August proved to be not as comatose as Cirocco had thought. When she heard Calvin was leaving, she insisted on joining him. After a brief battle, Cirocco gave in, though with even more misgivings than before.

  Whistlestop came in low and began spinning a cable. They watched it whip and twist in the air.

  " Why is he willing to do this?" Bill asked. " What does he get out of it?"

  "He likes me," Calvin said, simply. "Also, he's used to carrying passengers. The sentient species pay for their rides by moving food from his first stomach into the second. He doesn't have the muscles for it. He has to save on weight."

  "Does everything here get along so well?" Gaby asked. "We haven't seen anything like a carnivorous animal so far."

  "There are carnivores, but not many. Symbiosis is the basic fact of life. That, and worship. Whistlestop says all the higher life forms owe allegiance to a godhead, and the scat of divinity is in the hub. I've been thinking of a goddess that rules the whole circle of the land. I call her Gaea, for the Greek mother."

  Cirocco was interested, in spite of herself. "What is Gaea, Calvin? Some sort of primitive legend, or maybe the control room of this thing?"

  "I don't know. Themis is a lot older than Whistlestop, and a lot of it is unknown to him, too."

  "But who runs it? You said there were many races in here. Which one? Or do they cooperate?"

  "Again, I don't know. You've read the stories of generation ships where something went wrong and everybody slipped back to savagery? I think something like that might he going on here. I know something's working somewhere. Maybe machines, or a race that stays in the hub. That may be the source of the worship. But Whistlestop is sure there's a hand on the wheel."

  Cirocco scowled. How could she let him go, with all that in- formation in his head? It was spotty and they had no way of knowing how much of it was true, but it was all they had.

  But it was too late for second thoughts. His foot was in the stirrup at the end of the long line. August joined him and the blimp reeled them in.

  "Captain!" he shouted, just before they disappeared. "Gaby shouldn't have called this place Themis. Call it Gaea."

  Cirocco brooded about their departure, plunging into a black depression during which she sat on the side of the river and thought about what she should have done. No course seemed right.

  "What about his Hippocratic oath?" she asked Bill at one point. "He was sent along on this trip for one damn thing, to take care of us if we needed it."

  "It changed us all, Rocky." All but me, she thought, but did not say. At least, as far as she could tell, she had suffered no lasting effects from her experience. In a way, that was stranger than what it had done to the others. It should have driven them all catatonic. Instead, there was an amnesiac, an obsessive personality, a woman with an adolescent crush, and a man in love with living airships. Cirocco's was the only level head.

  "Don't kid yourself," she muttered. "You probably look as crazy to them as they do to you." But she discarded that notion, too. Bill, Gaby, and Calvin all knew they had been changed by their experience, though Gaby would not admit that her love for Cirocco was a side-effect. August was too distracted by her loss to think about anything at all.

  She wondered again about April and Gene. Were they still alive, and if so, how were they taking it? Were they alone, or had they managed to link up?

  They had a regular routine of listening and broadcasting, trying to contact the two, but nothing came of it. No one heard a man crying again, and no one heard anything from April.

  Time drifted by, all but unmarked. Cirocco had Calvin's watch to tell them when to sleep, but it was hard to adjust to the unfailing light. She would never have suspected it of a group of people who had lived in the artificial environment of Ringmaster, where the day was set on the ship's computer and could be varied at will.

  Life was easy,. All the fruit they tried was edible, and seemed to be nourishing them. if there were vitamin deficiencies they had yet to make themselves known. Some fruits were salty, and others had a tang they hoped was vitamin C. Game was plentiful, and easy to kill.

  They were all used to the strict time-lines of an astronaut, where every chore is assigned by ground control and the chief pastime is bitching about how it was impossible and yet doing it anyway. They had been prepared to struggle for survival in a hostile environment, but Hyperion was about as hostile as the San Diego Zoo. They had expected Robinson Crusoe, or at least the Swiss Family Robinson, but Hyperion was a creampuff. They had not yet adjusted enough to think in terms of a mission.

  Two days after Calvin and August left, Gaby presented Cirocco with clothes she had made from the discarded chutes. It touched Cirocco deeply to see the expression on Gaby's face when she tried it on.

  The outfit was half toga and half loose pants. The material was thin, but surprisingly tough. It had taken Gaby a lot of hard work to cut it into usable sizes and sew it together with thorn needles.

  "If you can work out something for mocassins," she told Gaby " I'll promote you three grades when we get home."

  " I'm working on it." Gaby glowed for a day after that, and was frisky as a puppy, brushing against Cirocco and her fine clothing at the slightest excuse. She was pathetically eager to please.

  Cirocco was sitting by the side of the river, alone for once, and glad of it. Being the bone of contention between two lovers was not to her taste. Bill was starting to get annoyed by Gaby's behavior, and seemed to feel he should do something.

  She reclined easily with a long limber pole in one hand and watched a small wooden float bob at the end of her line. She let her thoughts drift over the problem of aiding any rescue party -that might come for them. What might he done to make rescue easier?

  It was a certainty that they couldn't get out of Gaea on their own. The best she could do would be to try contact the rescue party. She had no doubt one would arrive, and few illusions that its primary purpose would be rescue. The messages she had managed to send during the break-up of Ringmaster described a hostile act, and the implications of that were enormous. Ring- master's crew would certainly be presumed dead, but Themis- Gaea would not be forgotten. A ship would arrive soon, and it would be loaded for bear.

  "All right," she said. "Gaea should have some communications facilities somewhere."

  Probably in the hub. Even if the engines were there too, its central location seemed the logical place for controls. There might be people up there running things, and there might not. There was no way to make the trip look easy, or the destination safe. It could be carefully guarded against entry and sabotage.

  But if there was a radio up there, she should see what she could do about getting to it.

  She yawned, scratched her ribs, and idly moved her foot up and down. The float bobbed in and out of the water. it seemed a good time for a snooze.

  The float jerked, and vanished beneath the muddy waters. Cirocco looked at it for a moment, then realized with mild surprise that something had taken the bait. She stood and began pulling in the line.

  The fish had no eyes, no scales, and no fins. She held it up and looked at it curiously. It was the first fish any of them had caught.

  "What the hell am I doing?" she asked aloud. She tossed it back into the water, coiled her fishing line, and started around the bend in the river toward camp. Half-way there, she began to run.

  "I'm sorry, Bill, I know you put a lot of work into this place. But when they come to get us, I want to be working as hard as I c
an toward getting ourselves out," Cirocco said.

  "I agree with you, basically. What's your idea?"

  She explained her thinking about the hub, the fact that if there was a central technological control for this vast construct, it would be up there.

  "I don't know what we'd find. Maybe nothing but cobwebs and dust, and everything down here is still going by sheer inertia. Or maybe the Captain and a crew waiting to blow us to pieces for invading their ship. But we have to look."

  "How do you propose to get up there? "

  "I don't know for sure. I'm assuming the blimps can't do it or they would know more about this goddess they talk about. There may not even be any air in the spokes."

  "That would make it a bit tough,"Gaby pointed out.

  "We won't know until we look. The way to get up the spokes is the support cables. They should go all the way up the insides, right to the top."

  "My God," Gaby muttered. "Even the slanted ones are a hundred kilometers high. And that just brings you to the roof. From there it's another 500 kilometers to the hub."

  "My aching back," Bill groaned. "What's the matter with-you?" Cirocco demanded. "I didn't say weld climb them. We'll decide that when we get a good look. What I'm trying to tell you is that we're ignorant of this place. For all I know, there's an express elevator sitting in the swamp that would take us all the way to the top. Or a little man selling helicopter tickets, or magic carpets. We'll never know unless we start looking around."

  "Don't get excited," Bill said. "I'm with you." "Mat about you, Gaby? "

  "I go where you ga," she said, matter-of-factly. "You know that."

  "All right. Here's my thinking. There's a slanted cable to the west, toward Occanus. But the river flows the other way, and we could use that for transportation. We might even get to the next row of cables faster that way than beating through the ~Ie. I think we should head cast, toward Rhea."

  "Calvin said we should stay out of Rhea," Bill reminded. "I didn't say weld go into it. if there's anything that would be harder to take than this perpetual afternoon, it would have to he perpetual night, so I'm not anxious to go there anyway. But there's a lot of country between here and there. We could take a look at it."

  "Admit it, Rocky. You're a tourist at heart." She had to smile. "Guilty. I thought a while ago, here we axe in this incredible place. We know there are a dozen intelligent races in here. What do we do? Sit around and flsh. Well, not me. I feel like nosing around. It's what they were paying us for, and bell, it's what I like. Maybe I want some adventure."

  "My god," Gaby said again, with a hint of chuckle. "What more could you ask? Elasn't enough happened?"

  "Adventures have a way of t~ around and biting you," Bill said.

  "Don't I know it. But we're heading down that river, anyway. I'd like to get going after the next sleep period. I feel like I've been drugged."

  Bill considered that for a moment. "Do you think that's possible? Something in one of the fruits?"

  "Huh? You've been reading too much sci-fi, Bill.,,

  "Listen, you don't knock my reading habits and I won't knock your old black and white flat films. "

  "But that's art. Never mind. I guess it's possible we've eaten something that tranquilizes but I really think it's just old-fashioned laziness."

  Bill stood and reached for his non-existent pipe. He looked annoyed to have forgotten yet again, then dusted off his hands.

  "It'll take a while to knock a raft together," he said.

  "My a raft? What about those big seed pods we've seen float- ing down the river? They're big enough to hold us."

  Bill frowned. "Yes, I guess they are, but do you think they'll handle well in rough water? I'd like to get a look at the bottoms before----"

  "Handle? You think a raft would be better?" He looked startled, then chagrined.

  "You know, maybe I am getting slow. Lead on, Commander."

  CHAPTER TEN

  The seeds grew from the tops of the tallest trees in the forest. Each tree produced only one seed at a time, and when it reached maturity it exploded like a cannon shot. They had heard them going off at long intervals. What was left after the explosion was something like a walnut shell, evenly and smoothly divided.

  When they saw a large one float by, they swam out and pulled it to shore. it rode high in the water when empty. Loaded, it still had plenty of freeboard.

  They took two days outfitting it and trying to rig a rudder. They fashioned a long pole with a broad blade on the end, and hoped that would be enough. There was a primitive oar for each of them in case they ran into rough water.

  Gaby cast off the line. Cirocco put her back into poring them out to the middle of the river, then took her post at the stem, one hand lightly on the tiller. A breeze came up, and she wished once again for her hair. What a fine thing, to have hair whipping in the wind. It's the simple things we miss, she thought.

  Gaby and Bill were excited, forgetting their animosity for the time being as they sat on opposite sides of the boat, watching the river ahead and calling out hazards to Cirocco.

  "Sing us a sea chantey, Captain!" Gaby yelled back. "You've got it mixed UP, Stupid," Cirocco laughed. "It's you low-life types in the fo'c'sle who pump the bilge and sing the songs. Haven't you ever seen The Sea Witch?"

  "I don't know. Has it been on the treedie? "

  "It's a flat movie starring good ol'John Wayne. The Sea Witch was his ship."

  "I thought it might be the Captain. You've just picked yourself a nickname."

  "You watch yourself, or I'll see if I can rig up a plank for you to walk."

  "What about a name for this boat, Rocky?" Bill asked.

  "Hey, it should have a name, shouldn't it? I was so busy trying to scrounge up champagne for the launching I forgot all about it. "

  "Don't mention champagne to me," Gaby groaned.

  "Any suggestions? Here's your chance for a promotion."

  "I know what Calvin would have named it," Bill said, suddenly .

  'Don't talk to me about Calvin."

  "Nevertheless, we've committed ourselves to Greek mythology. This ship should be named the Argo. "

  Cirocco looked doubtful. "Wasn't that tied up with the search for the golden fleece? oh, yeah, I remember the movie now."

  "We're not searching for anything," Gaby pointed out. "We know where we want to go."

  "Then how about ... " Bill paused, then looked thoughtful. "I'm thinking of Odysseus. Did his ship have a name?"

  "I don't know. We lost our mythologist to that overgrown tire advertisement. But even if it did, I wouldn't want to use it. Odysseus had nothing but trouble."

  Bill grinned. "Superstitious, Captain? I never would have believed it."

  "It's the sea, lad. It does strange things to a body."

  'Don't give me your late-show dialogue. I vote to call the boat Titanic. There was a ship for you."

  "A bucket of rust. Don't tempt the fates, matey."

  "I like Titanic, too," Gaby laughed. "Who'd believe it, on a boat made out of a glorified peanut?"

  Cirocco looked up, thoughtfully. "Let it be on your heads, then. Titanic it is. Long may she sail. You may whoop, and otherwise make merry."

  The crew cheered three times, and Cirocco grinned and took a bow.

  "Long live the Captain," Gaby shouted.

  "Say," Cirocco said. "Shouldn't we be painting the name an the fender, or whatever the hell it is?"

  "On the what?" Gaby looked horrified.

  Cirocco grinned. "This is a fine time to be telling you, but I don't know shit about boats. Who's done some sailing?"

  "I've done a little," Gaby said.

  "Then you're ship's pilot. Change places with me." She re- leased the tiller and walked forward carefully. She reclined on her back, stretched, and folded her arms under her head. "I'll he making important command decisions," she said, with a big yawn. "Don't disturb me for anything less than a hurricane." She closed her eyes to a chorus of hoots.

 
The Clio was long, winding, and slow. in the middle, their four-meter poles would not touch bottom. If they put them in the water they could feel things bump into them. They never knew what was doing it. They kept Titanic midway between the middle of the river and the port side shore.

  Cirocco had planned for them to stay on the boat, going ashore only to gather food-a project which never took more than ten minutes. But standing watch did not work well. Too often, Titanic would run aground, making it necessary to wake the sleepers. It took all three of them to move the boat when the bottom was on mud. They quickly learned that Titanic was not very maneuverable, and it took two people with poles to push the boat away from approaching shallows.

  They decided to camp every fifteen or twenty hours. sirocco made a schedule which assured that two people were always awake while they sailed, and one when they camped.

  Clio meandered through the almost-level terrain like a snake doped with nembutal. One night's camp might be only half a kilometer in a straight line from the one of the night before. They would have lost their orientation but for the support cable which attached to the ground in the center of Hyperion. Cirocco knew from her air survey that the cable would be cast of them until long after they joined the river Ophion.

  The cable was always there, towering like sonic unimaginable skyscraper, rising, seeming to lean toward them until it vanished through the roof and into space. They would pass near it on their way to the angled support cables which led into the spoke over Rhea. Cirocco hoped to get a close look at it.

  Life settled into a routine. Soon they were working flawlessly as a team, seldom, needing to talk. Most of the time there was little to do but stay alert for sand bars. Gaby and Bill spent a lot of time making improvements in everyone's clothing. They both got to he handy with thorn needles. Bill continually tinkered with the rudder and worked to make the interior of the boat more comfortable.