by John Varley
Nova shook her head in wonder.
“It’s a funny world,” she said.
“What’s wrong? Do lesbians have different ideas of beauty?”
“I don’t know. In the Coven, I was freakishly tall. No one thought me beautiful.” She looked at him again. “Is it true that men don’t find extreme height unattractive?”
“Not in Artillery Lake,” Conal chuckled. “Swear to God, after Cirocco Jones, I rate you number two.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous,” she sniffed. She might have said more, but the radar alarm went off, and Cirocco was directing them on a new heading.
Fifteen
It was a shock to them all to discover that the thing which had Adam was not an angel. At least, if it was an angel, then a zombie was a human.
Cirocco cursed quietly as she studied it with her binoculars. Chris couldn’t take his eyes off the thing. But when Cirocco handed him the binoculars he had to force himself to look.
His worst fears were not realized. Studying Adam, he couldn’t see the bites of deathsnakes. Cradled in those repulsive arms, head hanging down, dark hair blowing in the wind, Adam was taking a snooze.
Chris had to lower the glasses and stop his trembling hands. He looked through them again and confirmed to a certainty what his heart already knew: the child was alive. Twice Chris saw Adam’s mouth open and close, as though chomping, and he could see the tiny chest rise and fall.
Finally he was able to turn his attention to the zombie-angel.
It was a very old one. He couldn’t see any skin remaining. There was just the skeletal framework, the feathers, and the networks of deathsnakes holding it together.
Robin was getting insistent, so he handed her the binoculars.
Cirocco let out a deep breath.
“Okay. That’s why we didn’t find it at first. It’s flying faster than a live angel could. We’re almost to Cronus.”
Chris wanted to scream. He wanted to shout a thousand stupid questions, run in circles, bay at the moon. He swallowed it all. Remain calm, remain calm. Locate the fire exits. Move in an orderly manner. Don’t lose your balance, put your head between your knees if you feel faint…and think. Think!
“Any ideas?” Cirocco said. Chris listened to the dead silence, both in the plane and over the radio.
“All right,” Cirocco said. “Priorities. Number one, we do nothing to endanger him. Conal, we’re going to drop back a little bit so there’s no chance we’ll disturb the air currents. How does two hundred meters sound?”
“It’s okay with me, Cirocco,” Conal’s voice came back.
“Ideas?” she asked again.
“W-w-what if he, uh, drops him?” Chris managed to say.
“That’s not an idea, that’s a situation.” She frowned, and thought about it for a while. “Okay. I’m going to drop down about a kilometer and stay slightly behind him. Conal, you stay where you are. If you see the baby fall, I want to hear about it a tenth of a second later. I’ll jump out and get him.”
Parachutes! Chris thought. Something was wrong with him, he should have thought of that. He turned around and scrambled along the gear in back, looking for them. Only it couldn’t be Cirocco, that was crazy, it had to be—
“Sorry, Cirocco,” Conal said.
Cirocco looked amazed for a moment.
“What the hell do you mean, ‘Sorry, Cirocco’?”
“It won’t work,” Conal said. “For one thing, the Captain doesn’t leave her ship. That must have slipped your mind. But even if you could, you have to fly it.”
“Chris can fly it!”
“Sorry again, Cirocco. He told me he’s getting too big.”
Bless him, Chris thought.
“He’s right, Cirocco,” Chris said, quickly. He was clipping his parachute—a fabric tube about the size of a tightly rolled umbrella—to the rings on his flak suit.
“That’s crazy,” Cirocco said. “You just move the lousy seat back and—”
He looked right at her.
“I’ve forgotten how to fly,” he said. She kept staring at him, and he was able to return it calmly. Finally she sighed, and nodded.
“All right. Now—”
“I should be the one,” Robin said.
“God damn it! Who’s the—”
“I’ve done some free-falling,” Robin said, raising her voice slightly. “Chris hasn’t. I’d have a better chance of getting to him.”
“He’s my responsibility,” Chris said, with a meaningful look at Robin.
“I’m better trained,” Robin shot back.
Cirocco looked from one to the other with fire in her eye.
“Anybody else going to put their in their two-cent’s worth?” she asked.
“I’ll do it,” came Nova’s voice. “I’ve done twenty times as much parachuting as Robin. I was the Coven champion two years ago.”
“Well blow me down,” Cirocco muttered, then raised her voice. “All right, enough of this. We’re all grandstanding and we’re not getting anything done. Conal, you stay right where you are.”
“You got it, Captain.”
“Robin, Chris, if we get the word, you both go.”
They got chutes rigged, and outlined the procedure for opening the plane and jumping. Robin worked the door latch a few times and pushed the door open just to make sure she could do it quickly.
“Right,” Cirocco said. “Any more ideas?”
“I was thinking about the hand-off, Cirocco,” Conal said.
“What about it?”
“Well, we’re going to see the second one coming quite a while before it gets here. What if we shoot it down?”
No one spoke as everyone tried to work out all the implications of that. Chris began to think it might be a good idea.
“No,” Cirocco finally said. “Not yet, anyway. First, I don’t think they can make it with just one relay. I’m guessing four or five. So we should watch the first one and see how it’s done, and be ready to catch him. If this one gets beyond the half-way point and then the relay shows up, we re-think it.”
“I don’t get it,” Robin said. “If we shoot down the relay, this one’s going to get tired and it’ll have to land. Then we can take it, easy.”
Cirocco nodded.
“That seems logical, doesn’t it. But you can bet Gaea thought of that, and she’s got some angle. We’ll find out what it is on the first hand-off.”
Chris agreed, though it was torture to wait.
“I’m just throwing this out for discussion,” Conal said. “But could we try to take him? Is there any way I could maneuver closer and…well, I don’t have the steps worked out.”
“I don’t think so, Conal,” Cirocco said. “We have to stick to our first priority, which is not to endanger him.”
“Okay, I’ll say it,” Conal said. “Why is he safer in the arms of that thing than falling through the air with Chris and Robin ready to catch him? And why do you think he’ll be safe if those bastards get him to Gaea?”
Chris swallowed hard. He’d been keeping those thoughts in the back of his mind, but they hadn’t been happy there. Now they scrabbled around in his brain, urging him to scream.
Cirocco looked very tired.
“I think he will be completely safe with Gaea,” she said, heavily. “At least physically. I’m sure she wants him alive,” She frowned. “Pretty sure. Hold on while I check it out.”
She pounded her fist on the sprawled, sleeping form of the Snitch. He squalled, and leaped to his feet.
“No more matches, no more matches!” He stopped, stunned.
“My head!” He collapsed, chin on the dashboard, and covered his head with his feet. Cirocco pulled them away, one at a time.
“Relax, Snitch,” she said. “You answer some questions and I won’t hurt you anymore. And I’ll give you three more drops.”
One eye popped up on a slender stalk.
“No hurt Snitchy-baby?” he whined.
“No hurt.”
>
“Drinky-winky?”
Cirocco got out the flask and let a drop fall into the demon’s mouth.
“Answer the questions now?”
“Fire when ready, puss.”
“We’ve found the child we were looking for.”
“Tha’s nice. Didn’t do you lotsa good, did it?”
“No. He’s going to Gaea, isn’t he?”
Snitch nodded.
“Gaea loves the little shit. Gaea’ll be real good to him. Star pris’ner. Nothin’ too good for li’l ol’ Adam. Stinkin’ Priests out beatin’ the bushes for weeks when the word came down the li’l bashtard’s on his way.”
“I don’t understand how—” Robin began, but Cirocco silenced her with a gesture. She leaned over, and Chris could barely hear the whisper.
“When he’s off his guard like this we can learn a lot.”
He seemed to have gone back to sleep. Cirocco waved the eyedropper near him and his head came up, following it back and forth.
“More, Snitch.”
The tiny demon began to weep.
“More, more, more, alla time it’s more…what do they want from me? Why can’t I get any peace? They keep after you, never any rest…and I tell ya, I’m innocent! I was framed! I didn’t ask for any of this, I—”
“Where should I send the Oscar, Snitch?”
“My agent handles all that,” he said, recovering instantly.
“The stinking priests were beating the bushes…” Cirocco prompted.
“—for weeks! Whoever found him’s gonna be th’ new Wiz, Gaea says. Da Wiz, da Wiz, da wunnerful, wunnerful Wiz!”
“And the child?”
“He be King! King o’ da Wheel! She look after dat li’l basser real good, I guarantee! Nothin’ but da best.”
“She doesn’t want him dead?”
“No way, Jose! Don’ hurt one hair on his li’l beanie, she say, or you wish you could die, only you can’t, cause she gonna keep you alive least a year an’ kill you in pieces! She got a palace all built to keep him in, all made o’ gold and precious jools and pure plat’num, an’ wet nurses running all around, an’ flunkies to comb his hair and wash his pecker and butter his toes.”
“And why is she doing all this?” Robin asked.
Snitch hiccuped, and turned one bleary eye to her. He looked her up and down, and one corner of his mouth turned up.
“Nice tits, sweetlips. How’d’ja like ta see where I got tattooed?”
Cirocco flicked his face. He belched.
“How about that snake? I see his tail, but where’s his head?”
Again Cirocco flicked him. He blinked, shook his head, and began to sing.
“Hey, little snake, are you crazy, or what? Your butt’s in the air and your head’s up her—”
This time Robin flicked him, quite hard.
“That’s it!” Snitch stormed, pacing angrily around the dashboard. “I gotta take that crap off you, douche-bag, but not from her. Nothing more, not word one, that’s all I’m gonna say. My lips are sealed!”
Cirocco picked him up and shoved a match down his throat, end-first. It left a little of the shaft and the match-head sticking out of the demon’s mouth. His eyes bulged as she upended him and struck the match on the dashboard. Then she held him erect, arms pinned to his sides, and let him watch the match begin to burn down.
“I think these matches would burn practically down to your tail,” she said, calmly. “What I’m wondering, do you think we’ll be able to see it? You think you’d glow like a lantern? What was that? You’ll have to speak a little louder, I can’t hear you.” She waited, as Snitch struggled vainly. “Sorry, Snitch, I can’t understand a word you’re saying. What’s that? Oh, all right.” She wet her fingertips and pinched the match-head, which sizzled and went out. She pulled the match out of him and he collapsed, wheezing.
“The trouble with you,” he said, “is you can’t take a joke. My lord, you’re a mean one, Cirocco Jones.”
“I’ll take that as a professional compliment. Now, she asked you a question. And you will address her as ‘Ms. Robin,’ with suitable deference, and you will keep your filthy thoughts to yourself.”
“Okay, okay.” He lifted a weary eye toward Robin. “Would you please repeat the question, Ms. Robin?”
“I just asked why Gaea is doing all this? Why is she going to all this trouble to steal Adam?”
“No trouble at all, Ms. Robin. See, she wins whichever way it comes out. If she gets the kid, and Cirocco don’t come, why that’s fine. But she figures, if she does get the kid, well then, Cirocco is sure to come.” He turned his head and leered at Cirocco. “And Cirocco knows why she has to come, too.”
Cirocco picked him up and popped him back in his bottle. Chris could hear him screaming his protests—mostly having to do with the promised alcohol—as she twisted the lid tight. No one said anything for a while. The look on Cirocco’s face precluded idle conversation. At last she relaxed a little, and looked at Robin, then Chris.
“You’ll want to know what he was talking about. I don’t know if I need to say it, but I will. I would be going after him with everything I’ve got, no matter what. If Gaea got him, I would not rest until we had him back.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Robin confessed, “but I never thought anything different.”
“I do know,” Chris said, “and I never thought it would have made any difference, either.”
“Thanks. To both of you. Robin, I have a reason other than friendship for doing my best to see that he doesn’t get into Gaea’s hands, and if he does, to get him away from her.” She punched numbers on her keypad. “Rocky, how many eggs did you find in that room?”
“Fifteen, Captain,” came the voice over the radio. Cirocco turned to Chris.
“Does that sound right?”
“No. I’m sure I had a rack of sixteen in that room. It was full.”
“Conal,” Cirocco said, “what can you tell me about the rack of Titanide eggs you let Adam play with?”
“It was the standard keepsake rack, Captain. Two rows, eight above and eight below. It was full.” Cirocco hit the keypad again.
“Rocky, it seems—”
“I’ve found the rack, Captain,” Rocky said. “It held sixteen. I’ve been searching diligently, according to your orders.”
“Rocky, so help me, if you—”
“Captain, permit me to interrupt before you say something that might insult me. I have the fifteen eggs here before me. I have not waited to find them all before destroying them. To be exact, I have split them in half, so you may count the pieces upon your return—as I anticipated the embarrassing situation which seems to have arisen. Now, I may still find the missing egg, or it could be that Adam was holding it when he was taken. But if it is not found, it would be rather incriminating if I were shortly to be pregnant, wouldn’t you think?”
“I’m sorry, Rocky,” Cirocco said. “It’s just that I’ve seen the lengths a desperate Titanide will go to if—”
“No offense taken, Captain.”
“Jesus.” Conal’s voice was awed. “I didn’t see that, Cirocco.”
“What are you talking about?” Robin asked.
“It’s Adam,” Cirocco said. “Suddenly he’s more than just personally important to all of us.”
“He’s capable of fertilizing Titanide eggs,” Chris told Robin. “The ones he chewed on turned transparent—they’re activated.”
“Yes,” Cirocco said. “He can do the thing that only I could do for almost a century. So we have to get him back. We can’t let Gaea have him, because if she has him the Titanides become her slaves. And if we can keep him free…” She looked up, out the windshield into nothing, and seemed surprised.
“…then I can die.”
***
“Settle down, settle down,” Conal said. “She didn’t mean it like that.”
“How the hell else could she mean it?” Nova demanded.
“
She didn’t say she was going to kill herself, did she?” He let her think about that for a while. The truth was, Cirocco’s words had rocked him, too, but he had soon been able to understand the meaning behind them.
“Then what did she mean? Explain it to me.”
“First you have to understand what Gaea did to her,” Conal said. “It was a long time ago, back when Cirocco and the rest of the original crew had just got here. Gaea offered her the job of Wizard. She took it. Part of it—and Gaea didn’t mention this—was that the race of Titanides was changed. Gaea took out the built-in hatred of angels and stopped the war that had been going on for so long. She also changed them so…do you know how Titanides reproduce?”
“Only vaguely.”
“Okay. They have frontal intercourse first. The female produces a semi-fertilized egg. You saw some of them in Adam’s room. They have to be implanted in a rear vagina and fertilized again by a rear penis.”
Nova’s lips thinned, but she nodded.
“The step I left out is Cirocco. The egg will never be fully fertilized unless it’s activated by Cirocco’s saliva. Gaea planned it that way. They used to have big festivals, where Cirocco would pick who could have a baby. Population control. Cirocco got so tired of playing God to the Titanides that she became an alcoholic. But she couldn’t get away from it, even these days, when Gaea’s agents are after her all the time.”
Conal saw compassion in Nova’s eyes, and it touched him.
“It must be very hard,” Nova said.
“Extremely. And in some ways you might not think of. Gaea has never given any sign that Cirocco would ever be let off the hook. What I mean is, if Cirocco died, then the Titanides would die, too. Her own survival had to take first place over everything. It meant that she had to do some things she wasn’t proud of. Like with me, she had to…” He stopped himself just in time, and swallowed a bitter taste. There were some things Nova wasn’t entitled to know.
“I know of two times in the last seven years when she has had to let a Titanide friend of hers go into a sticky situation where Cirocco knew he couldn’t survive, because she couldn’t risk her own life. One of those times…I know she feels she betrayed him. One day she might have to betray me so she can survive. I know that, and I accept it.
