Titan

by John Varley

  Hornpipe leaned over and sang close to Cirocco's car. "I can see why," Cirocco bellowed back.

  "What did she say?" Gaby wanted to know.

  "She said they call this place the fore-crotch of Gaea."

  "I can see why. We're on one of her legs."

  "That's the idea. "

  Cirocco touched Hornpipe's rump and gestured back to the top of the ridge. She wondered what they thought of this place. Awe? Not likely. It was just outside of town. Were the Swiss awed by mountains?

  It was good to get back to relative quiet. She stood beside Hornpipe and surveyed her surroundings.

  If the cable base was a giant hand, as she had seen it earlier, they had made it to the second knuckle of one of the fingers. The Howler was down in the webbing between two fingers.

  "Is there another way up?" Cirocco sang. "A way to reach the broad plain up there, without being sucked up to Gaea? "

  Panpipe, who was a little older than Hornpipe, nodded.

  "Yes, many. This great mother of holes is the largest. Any of the other ridges will allow you to reach the plateau."

  "Then why didn't you take me up there?"

  Hornpipe looked surprised. "You said you wished to see the place of winds, not climb up to meet Gaea."

  "My fault," she acknowledged. "But what is the best way to the top?"

  "The very top?" Hornpipe sang, wide-eyed. "I was merely joking. Surely you will not go there?"

  "I'm going to try. "

  Hornpipe pointed to the next ridge to the south. Cirocco studied the land across the chasm. It looked no more difficult than the ridge they had climbed. That had taken the Titanides an hour and a half, so she should be able to walk it in six to eight hours. There was another six hours of uphill terrain until the plateau was reached, and beyond that ...

  From this vantage point the slanted cable was a preposterous mountain. It sloped away from her for approximately fifty kilometers, to the darkness above the Rhea border. For three of those kilometers nothing grew; it was chocolate-brown dirt and gray rock. For a similar distance there were only twisted, leafless trees. Beyond that, the persistent life of Gaea had found a foothold. She could not tell if it was grass or woodlands, but the five- kilometer diameter barrel of the cable was crested in green-the corroded anchor chain of a sea-going vessel.

  The green extended to the Rhea twilight zone. The zone was not a sharp-edged thing; it began gradually as the color was washed away, by darkness. Green faded to bronze, deepened to dark gold, to silver over blood red, and finally to the color of clouds with the moon behind them. By then the cable was all but invisible. The eye followed the impossible curve as it dwindled to a rope, a string, a thread, before joining the looming dark- ness of the roof and vanishing into the spoke opening. The spoke could be seen to constrict gradually, but it was too dark to see much beyond that.

  "It can be done," she said to Gaby. "To the roof, at least. I was hoping there would be some sort of mechanical lift here at the bottom. There might still be, I guess, but if we searched for it... " She waved her hand at the corrugated land. "It could take months."

  Gaby studied the slope of the cable, sighed, and shook her head slowly.

  "I go where you go, but you're crazy, you know? We'll never get past the roof. Take a look, will you? From there on in, we'd he climbing on the bottom of a forty-five-degree slope."

  "Mountaineers do it all the time. You did it, in training."

  "Sure. For ten meters. We'll have to do it for fifty or sixty kilometers. And then-here's the good news-then we only have to go straight up. For 400 kilometers."

  "It won't be easy. We've got to try."

  "Madre de Ms." Gaby hit her forehead with the heel of her hand, and rolled her eyes.

  Hornpipe had watched Cirocco's gestures as she outlined the problem. Now she sang, largo.

  "You will climb the great stairs?"

  Hornpipe nodded, then bent and kissed Cirocco's forehead.

  "I wish you folks would stop doing that," Cirocco said, in English.

  "What was it for?" Gaby asked.

  "Never mind. Let's get back to town."

  They stopped after leaving the zone of wind. Hornpipe put out a groundcloth and they sat down to a picnic. The food was hot, stored in nutshell thermos bottles. Cirocco and Gaby ate per- haps a tenth of it between them, and the Titanides wolfed down the rest.

  They were still five kilometers from Titantown when Horn- pipe looked over her shoulder, the expression on her face a mixture of mournfulness and anticipation. She gazed at the dark roof.

  "Gaea breathes," she sang, sadly.

  "What? Are you sure? I thought it would be noisy, and we'd have plenty of time to-does that mean there'll be angels?"

  "Noisy from the west," Hornpipe corrected her. "The breath of Gaea is silent from the east. I fancy I can hear them already." She missed a step, nearly throwing Cirocco.

  ."Well, hurry, damn it! If you're trapped out here alone you won't have a chance."

  "It's too late," Hornpipe sang, and now her eyes yearned, her lips drew back to bare bright teeth.

  "Move!" Cirocco had practised that tone of command for years, and somehow managed to put it in a Titanide song. Hornpipe leaped to a gallop, and Panpipe followed close behind.

  Soon even Cirocco could bear the wail of angels. Hornpipe's gait wavered; she wanted very badly to turn back and do battle.

  They were approaching a lone tree, and Cirocco made a snap decision.

  "Pull up. Hurry, we don't have much time."

  They halted under the spreading branches and Cirocco jumped down. Hornpipe tried to bolt but Cirocco slapped the Titanide's face, which seemed to calm her temporarily.

  "Gaby, cut off those saddlebags. Panpipe! Stop that! Come back here at once."

  Panpipe looked undecided, but came back to them. Gaby and Cirocco worked frantically, tearing their clothes into strips, each making three strong ropes.

  "My friends," Cirocco sang, when she had the tethers. "I don't have time to explain. I ask you to trust me and do as I say." She put every ounce of determination she possessed into the song, scoring it in the mode used from the old and wise to the young and foolish. It worked, but just barely. Both Titanides kept looking to the east.

  She had them lie on their sides. "That hurts," Hornpipe complained when Cirocco tied her hind legs together."

  "I'm sorry. It's for your own good." She quickly bound her forelegs and arms, then tossed a wineskin to Gaby. "Get as much of this down him as you can. I want him too stinking drunk to move."

  "'Got off me"

  "My child, I want you to drink this," she sang. "You too, over there. Drink lots of it." She held the nipple to Hornpipe's lips. The sound of the angels was louder now. Hornpipe's ears twitched up and down rapidly.

  "Cotton, cotton," she muttered. She tore strips from her al- ready frayed tunic and rolled them into tight balls. "It worked for Odysseus, maybe it'll work for me. Gaby, the ears. Plug his ears."

  "That hurts" Hornpipe howled. "Let me up, Earth monster. I don't like this game." She began to moan, the notes only occasionally resolving into words of hate.

  "Have some more wine," Cirocco crooned. The Titanide choked as she poured it down her throat. The cries of the angels were very loud now. Hornpipe began to screech in reply. Cirocco grabbed the Titanide's ears and squeezed them, then cradled the big head in her lap. She put her lips to one car and sang a Titanide lullaby.

  "Rocky, help!" Gaby yelled. "I don't know any of those songs.

  Sing louder!" Panpipe was struggling, shrieking as Gaby tried to hold him by the cars. He lashed out with his bound hands and threw her away from him.

  "Grab him! Don't let him get away."

  "I'm trying." She ran behind him and tried to pin his arms to his sides, but he was much too strong for her. She tumbled away again, got up with a cut over her right eye.

  Panpipe was gnawing at the bonds that held his wrists together. The cloth tore and he was clawing at his cars.<
br />
  "What now, Rocky?" Gaby screamed, desperately.

  "Come help me," she said. "He'll kill you if you get in his way." It was far too late to stop Panpipe. Ms front legs were free and he was contorted like a snake, tearing at the strap that bound the other two.

  Without a glance at the women and Hornpipe, he charged toward Titantown. Soon he was gone over the top of a low hill.

  Gaby did not seem aware that she was hurt as she knelt beside Cirocco, nor did she do anything about the trickle of blood down the side of her face.

  "How can I help?"

  "I don't know. Touch her, sooth her, do anything you can think of to keep her mind off angels."

  Hornpipe was thrashing now, her teeth clenched, face bloodless. Cirocco held on, getting as close as she dared while Gaby slipped a rope around the Titanide's chest, pinioning her arms at her side.

  . "Hush, hush," Cirocco whispered. "There's nothing to be afraid of. I'll watch over you until your hindmother returns to sing you her songs."

  Hornpipe gradually quieted, her eyes regained the intelligence Cirocco had seen on the first day they met. It was infinitely better than the fearsome animal she had become.

  It was ten more minutes before the last of the angels went by overhead. Hornpipe was drenched in sweat, like someone kicking a heroin or alcohol addiction.

  She began to giggle as they waited for the angels to return. Cirocco reclined on her side, facing Hornpipe, holding her head close, and was startled when the Titanide began to move. It was not a testing of the bonds, as her earlier movements had been. It was frankly sexual. She gave Cirocco a wet kiss. Her mouth was so large and warm it was unnerving.

  "Would that I were a boy," she crooned, drunkenly. Cirocco glanced down.

  "Jesus," Gaby breathed. The Titanide's huge penis was out of its sheath, its tip pulsing on the dust.

  "You may be a girl to you," Cirocco sang, "but you're too much of a boy for me."

  Hornpipe thought that was hilarious. She roared, and tried to kiss Cirocco again but gave it up amiably enough when Cirocco drew back.

  "I would do you great harm," she chortled. "Alas, that is for rear holes, of which you have none. Would that I were a boy, and had a member fit for you."

  Cirocco sniffed and let her rave on, but her eyes were not smiling. She looked over Hornpipe's shoulder at Gaby.

  "Last resort," she said, quietly, in English. ,if it looks like she's going to get free, take that rock and hit her over the head. If she gets away, she's dead."

  "Gotcha. What's she talking about?" "She wants to make love to me."

  "With that? Maybe I'd better bean her now."

  "Don't be silly. We're in no danger from her. If she gets loose, she won't even see us. Do you hear them coming back?"

  "I think so."

  It turned out to be not nearly so difficult the second time. They never gave Hornpipe a chance to hear the angels, and while she sweated and shook as if she could somehow feel them. she never struggled very hard.

  And then they were gone, back to the eternal darkness of the spoke high above Rhea.

  She cried when they released her; the helpless sobs of a child who doesn't understand what has happened to her. That turned into petulance and complaints, chiefly about her sore legs and cars. Gaby and Cirocco rubbed her legs where the ropes had chafed. Her cloven hooves were as clear and red as cherry jello.

  She seemed confused as to the whereabouts of Panpipe, but not distressed when she understood he had gone into battle. She gave them sloppy kisses and pressed herself against them amorously, causing Gaby some concern even when Cirocco explained the Titanides rigidly divided frontal and rear intercourse. The frontal organs were for the production of semi-fertilized eggs, which were then manually implanted in a rear vagina and brought to fecundity by a rear penis.

  When she got to her feet she was too drunk to carry them. They walked her in circles and finally headed her back toward town. In a few hours they could get on her back again.

  Titantown was in sight before they found Panpipe. The blood had already dried in his pretty blue fur. A lance stuck out from his side, pointed at the sky. He had been mutilated.

  Hornpipe knelt at his side and wept while Gaby and sirocco hung back. There was bitterness in Cirocco's mouth. Did Hornpipe blame her? Would she have preferred to have died with him, or was that a hopelessly Earthling notion? The Titanides didn't seem to understand the glory of battle; it was something they did because they couldn't help it. Cirocco admired them for the first, pitied them for the second.

  Do you rejoice for the one you saved, or weep for the one you lost? She could not do both, so she wept.

  Hornpipe struggled to her feet, much heavier than she had been. Three years old, Cirocco thought. It meant nothing. She had some of the innocence of a human of the same age, but she was a Titanide adult.

  She picked up the severed head and kissed it once, then set it down by the body. She sang nothing; the Titanides had no song for this moment.

  Gaby and Cirocco got on her back again, and Hornpipe set out for town at a slow trot.

  "Tomorrow," Cirocco said. "We leave for the hub tomorrow."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Five days later, Cirocco was still preparing to depart. There was the problem of who and what to take.

  Bill was out, though he had other opinions. So was August. She spoke seldom now, spending her time on the edge of town, answering questions in monosyllables. Calvin could not say if the best therapy would be to leave her or take her with them. Cirocco had to decide in favor of the mission, which would be in trouble if August suffered a breakdown.

  Calvin was out because he had promised to stay in Titantown until Bill was well enough to care for himself; after that, he was on his own.

  Gene was in. Cirocco wanted him where she could keep an eye on him, far from Titanides.

  That left Gaby.

  "You can't leave map," she said, not pleading, merely stating a fact of life. "I'll follow you."

  "I won't try to. You're a pest with this fixation you have on me that I don't deserve. But you saved my life, which I've never really thanked you for, and I want you to know , never forget it. "

  "I don't want your thanks," Gaby said. "I want your love."

  "I can't give it to you. I like you, Gaby. Hell, we've been side by side since this thing started. But we're doing the first fifty kilometers in Whistlestop. I won't force you to get on."

  Gaby paled, but spoke up bravely. "You won't have to." Cirocco nodded. "As I say, it's up to you. Calvin says we can

  get to the level of the twilight zone. The blimps don't go any higher than that, because the angels don't like it."

  "So it's you and me and Gene?"

  "Yeah." Cirocco frowned. "I'm glad you're going."

  They needed many things and Cirocco did not know how to obtain them. The Titanides had a system of exchange, but prices were established by a complex formula involving degrees of relationship, standing in the community, and need. No one went hungry, but low-status individuals like Hornpipe had little but meals, shelter, and the bare necessities of body ornamentation. The Titanides viewed these as only slightly less vital than food.

  There was a credit system, and Meistersinger used some of his, but relied mostly on pegging Cirocco's status arbitrarily , claiming her as his spiritual hinddaughter and making a case that she should be adopted as such by the community because of the nature of her mission.

  Most of the Titanide artisans bought the idea, and were almost too helpful in outfitting the party. Backpacks were made with straps arranged for human bodies. Then everyone came with offering his or her finest wares.

  Cirocco had decided each of them could carry around fifty kilos of mass. It bulked large, but weighed only twelve kilos and would get lighter as they climbed toward the hub. Gaby said the centripetal acceleration there would be one fortieth of a gravity.

  Rope was the first consideration. The Titanides had a plant that grew fine rope, strong, t
hin, and supple. Each human could carry a hundred-meter coil of it.

  The Titanides were good climbers, though they largely confined their efforts to trees. Cirocco discussed pitons with the ironworkers, who came back with their best efforts. Unfortunately, steel was news to the Titanides. Gene looked at the pi- tons and shook his head.

  "It's the best they can do," Cirocco said. "They tempered it, like I told them."

  "It's still not enough. But don't worry. Whatever the insides of the spoke is, it won't he rock. Rock could never stand up to the pressures trying to tear this place apart. In fact, I don't know of anything strong enough."

  "Which just means the people who built Gaea knew things we don't know."

  Cirocco was not too disturbed. The angels lived in the spokes. Unless they existed by flying all their lives, they had to perch somewhere. If they could perch on something, she could cling to it too.

  They brought hammers to drive the pitons, the lightest and hardest the Titanides could make. The metalworkers provided them with hatchets and knives, and whetstones to sharpen them. They each packed a parachute, courtesy of Whistle stop.

  "Clothes," Cirocco said. "What kind of clothes should we bring?"

  Meistersinger looked helpless. "I have no need of then as you can see, " he sang. "Some of our people who are naked-skinned, as you are, wear them in the cold times. We can make what you want."

  So they were outfitted in the finest patterned silks from head to toe. It was not actually silk, but felt just like it. Over that were felt shirts and pants, two sets for each of them, and woven sweaters for upper and lower parts of the body. Fur coats and pants were made, and fur-lined gloves and hard-soled moccasins. They had to go prepared for anything, and though the clothing took a lot a space, Cirocco didn't begrudge it.

  They packed silk hammocks and sleeping bags. The Titanides had matches, and oil-burning lamps. They took one each, and a small supply of fuel. There was no way it would stretch for the whole journey, but neither would their food or water.

  "Water," Cirocco fretted. "That could be a big problem." "Well, like you said, the angels live up there." Gaby was helping with the packing on the fifth day of preparations. "They must drink something."