by John Varley
“That’s not an easy way to live. You become the ultimate survivor, but you can’t take any pride in it, because you know the lengths you’ll go to. It doesn’t leave much room for honor. And Cirocco laughs at honor, but I know it’s important to her—not the way somebody else defines it, but the way she does.”
Nova was giving him an entirely new look. It made him uncomfortable. None of the things he had said had come easy to him. It had taken him a long, painful time to work them out.
“What I’m trying to say,” Conal went on, diffidently, “is that Cirocco would like the pressure to end. She’d like to go back to having only herself to worry about. And she’d still be a survivor, she’d still be awful tough to kill, but her death would just be…her death. What happens to us all.”
“Yes,” Nova said, still with that odd look. “I see that.”
Sixteen
Robin watched through the binoculars as the first hand-off was made. She kept her hand on the door latch, ready to leap.
The second angel had been on their screens for half an hour, making its way up from the darkness of Cronus. In the last few minutes they had found it visually, then it had been swallowed up in the deeper darkness above. She could barely make out the two shapes at top magnification as she listened to Conal describe what was happening.
“The second angel is about fifty meters behind. He’s coming up now…getting closer. The first one is turning over. He’s handing the baby over…okay, the second one’s got him. He’s holding him the same way the first one did. Adam’s awake. He’s…uh, he’s crying.”
Robin swallowed hard. She heard a sound from Chris, but did not look back.
“The first one’s dropping back now. He’s…Jesus!”
“What?” Cirocco rapped out. “Report, Conal!”
“He, uh…the first angel just came apart. I mean, he goddamn well exploded. We just flew through his feathers. His bones and the deathsnakes are falling…. I can’t see them anymore. If you’re in the right spot to catch Adam, you ought to be flying through them in a minute.”
They all waited. Robin watched the diffuse cloud that had been the angel growing. Soon she had to put the binoculars down, and could watch it with her unaided eyes. There was a patter, like hail. A limp deathsnake draped itself over the left wing for a moment, then was swept away.
“That’s the trick, then,” Cirocco said. “The angels aren’t going to land at all. If we shoot the next relay, the one that’s got Adam will just fly until it dies.”
“But it wasn’t alive to begin with…” Chris began.
“Don’t be silly, Chris. A zombie is as alive as you or me. It is a group organism, a hive mentality that invades a corpse and lives in it. The deathsnakes slowly eat the dead flesh, and whatever else they can find. There’s nothing supernatural about it.”
“You don’t think this one…just decided to die? I mean, all the deathsnakes went at once. Is that likely?”
Robin watched Cirocco think it over.
“You don’t understand zombies. First, they have no instinct for survival as individuals, or as hives. They don’t feel pain. I don’t believe they are intelligent, but they can follow orders. Whoever is directing these probably gave them the general objective—which was to get the child, unharmed—and some specific tactics, and they pulled it off.”
“This whole thing has the look of calculation to me,” Robin said.
Cirocco nodded.
“I think she’s right. Whoever set this up—Luther, Brigham, Marybaker, Moon; any of them—they figured out just how far a death-angel could fly, flat out. This one could probably have gone another couple kilometers, but it couldn’t have made it to the ground. So when its mission was over, it died. Which means if we’d shot down its replacement, Adam would be falling toward Cronus, and you two would be doing your best to catch him.”
Chris cleared his throat, and Cirocco glanced at him.
“I guess this is as good a time as any to bring this up.”
“I agree,” Conal said.
“Cirocco,” Chris went on, “what do you think the chances are? If Adam is dropped, can me and Robin get him?”
Cirocco shook her head.
“What can I say, Chris? I’ve been thinking about it for hours. There are too many factors. To be truthful, I think the chances are pretty good. There are two of you, and you’ll have a couple of shots at him. If you don’t panic, if you learn how to control your fall…you should catch him. Robin says she’s worked at it, so maybe she’s got a better chance. I’d say your chances are better than ninety-five percent.”
“Mine would be better,” Nova said. “I should do it.”
“You can’t be two places at once,” Cirocco replied. “My decision on that stands.” She turned to Chris. “I’ll spell it out. Your chances of catching him are excellent. If you were betting on a poker hand, I’d say go for it. But you’ve got a five percent chance of losing.”
“I know, I know.” Chris put his face in his big hands and was silent for a long time. When he looked up, his eyes were red. “What would you do, Captain?”
Cirocco leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes.
“Chris…I can’t make that decision. I can’t tell if I want him back because he’s a human being in danger, or because he’s my salvation. I feel like the professional they bring in when a child is kidnapped. I can tell you a few things about what might happen, but the decisions about the options are up to the parents.” She looked from Chris to Robin, and back again. “I’ll play it whichever way you two decide.”
“What do you want to do?” Robin asked.
“Me? I want to steal him back, right now, so badly it’s making me sick. But you know my ulterior motives.”
“For what it’s worth.” Conal said, “I agree with Cirocco. I don’t want Gaea to get her hands on him.”
“I disagree,” Nova said. “Sorry, Mother. There’s too much risk, even if it was me going after him. I’m ninety-nine percent sure I’d get him. But one percent risk is too much.”
“Tell me about Gaea,” Chris said.
“Gaea?” Cirocco frowned. “You may not believe this, but I feel on firmer ground there. What Snitch said is the gospel. She won’t hurt him. Once she has him, he won’t be in any physical danger. He’ll be treated well.”
“I worry about psychological damage,” Chris said.
“I hate to say this, Chris, but all we can do is take our pick of the trauma he suffers. Falling, or having a fifty-foot woman as a loving grandma.”
“That’s going to hurt him. She’ll take him over.”
“That’s her plan, of course. But don’t under-rate her. She’ll raise him to love her. But that will insure he’ll be treated well.”
There was silence from all for a time, and at last Chris sighed.
“I probably won’t ever have a tougher decision. But I think we ought to try and take him now.”
“I agree,” Robin said, quietly. She reached back and took Chris’s hand.
“Okay,” Cirocco said. “We’re about halfway across Cronus. In about a rev we’ll have the light we’re going to need to pull this off. I’d welcome any more ideas.”
***
Both planes were very quiet for a long time as they moved through the silvery night of Cronus. There were a hundred things that could go wrong, and they all knew it.
At one point in the endless rev, Rocky called from Tuxedo Junction, and it was a relief to Cirocco to have something new to deal with.
“Captain,” Rocky said. “I have located the sixteenth egg. It had rolled down the hallway outside the room. It is now destroyed.”
“Good enough, Rocky.”
“There is information I have held back, not wishing to distract you from the central problem.”
“Now’s probably a good time to give it to me.”
“Very well. Valiha, on her way to Bellinzona, discovered twelve dead zombies on top of a hill about a kilometer and a half from here. T
here were no signs of struggle.”
“Was this hill downwind of the Junction?”
“Yes, it was. I’m assuming it was Nova’s love potion that killed them.”
“Seems reasonable.”
“Valiha believes two Priests were on that hilltop. She thinks they were Luther and Kali. The scent was too old to be sure. In addition, there was a dead human child, male, between five and fifteen years old. I have recovered his body, and cannot estimate more closely, though perhaps you could.”
“He hadn’t gone zombie?”
“No. Perhaps he won’t.”
“Maybe not, but we can’t take that chance. Cremate him, please. Anything else?”
“Valiha spoke to me not long ago. She asked that, if you called, and if you had the time, would you call her back.”
“Roger, will do.” Cirocco switched channels. “Serpent, do you read?”
“I read you, Captain.”
“Where are you, my friend?”
“I’m almost to the mid-point of Iapetus, Cirocco.” They could all hear Serpent’s exhaustion.
“You’re making incredibly good time, Serpent, but I’m afraid it was for nothing. We’re most of the way through Cronus, and we’re sure he’s on his way to Hyperion. I don’t think it’ll do any good for you to go on.”
“I’d prefer to keep going, unless you have something better for me to do. But I’ll soon have to stop for rest and food.”
“Don’t push yourself so hard. I don’t think there’s much you can do, either way.”
“Then I’ll go on until you turn back.”
“All right.” Cirocco once again pressed buttons. “Valiha, are you there?”
“I am at the outskirts of Bellinzona, Cirocco,” Valiha said.
“What did you want to know?”
“You bade me catch live zombies,” she said. “I have enlisted Hornpipe, Mbira, Cembalo, Sistrum, and Lyricon in this project. They tell me Luther was here a short time ago, but know of no other zombie band in the area. We can search for strays, but our noses tell us none are in the area. The citizens of this fair city have become cautious enough that few new zombies spring from their graveyards. What I wanted to know, Captain, is must these zombies be already dead?”
Cirocco thought it over for a while.
“Valiha, you are ruthless and practical.”
“Captain, to me there are those who have been executed for their crimes, and those who, through an oversight, are still walking around. Do you wish me to read them their rights and arrange fair trials?”
“Follow the right path as you see it,” Cirocco sang.
***
Valiha turned off the radio and stuffed it in her pouch. She sang a few notes to her five companions, and they trotted off down the broad pier that ran along the Grand Canal. When they came to the crossing waterway known as the Slough of Despond, they stopped, and looked around. It was here that much of Bellinzona’s thriving business in slaves was done.
Soon a caravan came shambling down Edward Teller Boulevard.
There were twenty slaves in iron fetters: sixteen females and four males, many of them children. They were guarded by ten muscular men in rough armor, and at the head of the procession was the slavemaster, in a sedan chair carried by a pair of identical twins. The chair was a conspicuous indulgence in Gaea’s low gravity, but it had nothing to do with utility and everything to do with showboating. The contingent of guards, on the other hand, might have proved too few, even if the caravan had been set upon by human bandits. But the slavemaster was counting on the unseen presence of the mafia to which he owed his allegiance.
The Titanides spread out along the edge of the pier. The guards looked at them nervously, as did the slavemaster.
“Are these for sale?” Valiha asked him.
The man was obviously surprised at the question. It was well-known that Titanides never bought slaves. But good business practice demanded steering clear of them, never offering offense—or at least treating them as the dangerous animals they were. So the man got up and made a perfunctory bow. His English was not great, but good enough.
“All for sale, sure. You in the market?”
“It so happens we are,” Valiha said. She put her hand around his throat and squeezed. Long, long ago, she thought, someone was this man’s mother. He was her darling baby boy. She felt a moment’s regret as she heard his spine snap. I wonder what happened to him? she thought.
It was the only eulogy he would get from her.
When she looked up, the ten guards were dead. It had been done so quickly that many of the people on the crowded boulevard were only now becoming aware that it had happened at all. One moment there had been a slave caravan, and the next there were just slaves and Titanides lining bodies in a neat row. Some people hurried away. Others, noting that the Titanides made no more aggressive moves, watched warily, then went about their business. No one screamed. No one wept.
They stripped the corpses and piled weapons and clothing on the street, then removed the chains from the slaves. It took some time to convince them they were actually free. Valiha and her band held the scavengers off long enough for the freed slaves to take their pick of the booty. Cembalo volunteered to escort those women who wanted to go to the Free Female Quarter.
“Most of these will be enslaved again within ten revs,” Hornpipe sang.
“This I know,” Valiha sang. “However, I did not come here to clean up the world. Just this part of it, and just for a moment.” She reached into her pouch and took out the radio.
“Rocky, do you read me?” she said, in English. Titanide song was often garbled when put through these clumsy human devices.
“I’m here, Valiha.”
“There are four Titanides on their way to you. They will build pens for these creatures. We have eleven in hand. Did the Captain give you instructions for their housing?”
“She did. Until we know if Nova’s elixir remains potent in the house, they are to be kept some distance away. I have selected a site.”
“We will be with you shortly.”
There was no trouble on the way out of town.
Valiha paused at the graveyard and gathered a few bushels of dirt into a leather pouch. It was probably unnecessary—most corpses left un-burned eventually went zombie—but it was a certainty that the Bellinzona soil was thick with deathsnake spores.
They made good time to the Junction. When they got there, they arranged the corpses on the ground, back to back, belly to belly, and scattered the soil over them. As the zombies began to stir feebly they were put into the newly-built cages.
Valiha felt satisfaction when the job was done. She watched the monsters shuffling to and fro, bumping into the walls, directionless.
It would be very interesting to see what killed them.
Seventeen
“I don’t like this,” Conal said, for the third time.
“I can’t fly the plane,” Nova said. She snapped the safety line to her harness, and looked at him.
“I still don’t like it,” he grumbled. “I don’t know if you appreciate the danger to Adam.”
“I guess I deserve that,” Nova said, keeping her temper firmly under control. “But I’m playing your game. I’m going out there to rescue my little sister.”
He looked at her for a long time, then nodded.
“Watch those feet,” he warned again. “For chrissake, don’t let that thing slash you up.”
“I will watch, but not for the sake of Christ.” She opened the door, latched it in place, and stepped out on the wing. Carefully, keeping herself turned so he couldn’t see it, she unfastened the line and hooked it to a cloth loop on her shirt. If the deathangel dropped her bro…sister, Nova intended to jump after him. Her.
Great Mother, hear your daughter and grant her luck.
She looked down, and was pleased to note she felt only cautious, not afraid. Her concern was not of falling, but of falling at the wrong time.
She held
on as Conal eased the plane closer. He edged around until Nova could almost touch him. She took a firm grip on the knife.
The deathangel turned its skull-face toward her, dipped one wing, and plunged straight for the ground.
Nova could hear Conal shouting into the radio. She stuck her head in closer and did some shouting of her own.
“Chase him, damn it! Follow him down! Get me in close enough so I can rip the christ-loving psalm-singing prick!”
Conal did as he was told, but not as quickly as Nova wanted. Even so, she had to hold on with both hands. Inertia, she told herself. You feel light, but your mass is the same.
He had the plane in a nose-dive, the throttle back all the way. Still the plane gained speed. They closed in again behind the deathangel—
—who turned away with a contemptuous flicker of his ratty tail feathers. Conal zoomed by, pulled up, turned left—
—and Nova found herself hanging by her fingernails, her feet having slid off the transparent wing surface.
Conal did a tricky little flip-flop that left her momentarily weightless, and she scrambled to get her boots down, felt weight returning, and looked up to see they were about to hit the angel.
This time, when Conal was through with his frantic maneuvers, she was holding on with only one hand. He leveled out and throttled back again, and she climbed up breathing hard.
“It’s no good,” Conal said. “I almost hit him.”
“I know,” she said, getting back in.
Conal was holding the loose end of the safety line and looking angry. He was about to say something, but Cirocco’s voice came over the radio.
“He’s still dropping, Conal. Why don’t you level out and join us?”
He turned, spotted Cirocco’s plane following the angel, which now descended at a more leisurely rate. He followed them down.
***
The deathangel went down for a long time. When it finally leveled out, it was at an altitude of one kilometer.
“Well,” Cirocco said, dubiously, “it had to be tried. If we hadn’t tried it, we’d all have been kicking ourselves forever.”
