by John Varley
“Good. Go get started on it now.”
He looked surprised, then stood up quickly and marched out, followed by his Colonels and Majors. When they were gone, the number of empty chairs was impressive. Cirocco had just cut the size of her Army by more than one fourth, and was well pleased with her work. She looked from face to face, taking her time, and when she was done, she smiled.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” she said, “we are ready to march on Pandemonium.”
THIRD FEATURE
You’ve got to take the
bull by the teeth.
—Sam Goldwyn
One
Maybe Gaea heard about the parade.
It was a mistake to blame all unpleasant events on Gaea’s malign intervention, but the rain that drenched the parade through Bellinzona was the sort of thing she would have loved. It didn’t affect the citizens’ enthusiasm; it seemed every Bellinzonan stood on a street corner or hung from a window to watch the troops march through. The troops, of course, hated it, just as soldiers have hated parades since the dawn of warfare. Their boots got wet, and a hardened-leather breastplate that hadn’t yet been broken in by sweat and oil and use was like an economy-size Iron Maiden.
But the Army slogged through it. They endured the crossing of an unusually rough Moros. A predictable number got seasick. They disembarked on Moros’ western shore in a sea of mud, joining up with a thousand massive goods wagons—half of which were already bogged down to the axles.
The Quartermaster Corps—a separate, non-combatant group which had been assembling equipment and training drivers on the Dione Road—had become proficient in the care and handling of Gaea’s only draft animal. These were beasts called Jeeps, native to Metis. Until recently they had had no names at all, except in Titanide song. Cirocco had caused fifteen hundred of them to be rounded up and trained to harness. This was not too difficult. Jeeps were amiable, bovine omnivores. They were built along the lines of those early ancestors of the rhinoceros which had once thrived in prehistoric Persia and stood almost twice as tall as modern elephants. Jeeps were not quite that big. They had bear-like claws, heads like camels’ heads, and their forelegs were twice as long as their hind legs. This gave them a comical gait. They ate anything that was handy. With Jeeps around, garbage disposal was never a problem. Their worst characteristic was a tendency to stumble over their own feet and overturn the wagon they were carrying. But they were clean, smelled pretty good, and responded to affection. Most of their handlers had learned to appreciate them.
And they could haul monstrous loads long distances, with just a little water. They had big, floppy humps atop their shoulders which could store fat for lean times.
The Jeeps soon had the columns moving.
…and as the army started into Iapetus, the clouds rolled away and a warm breeze began to blow. Soon the air sparkled and the road dried. You could see all the way to Mnemosyne. It seemed a fine day to be setting out on a trip—no matter what might lie at the end of the road.
The wind whipped the brightly colored pennants at the head of each Legion, Cohort, and Company. The banners had numbers or letters on them, but no other symbols. And at the head of the procession, there was no flag. There had been a lot of pressure to adopt a Bellinzona flag, but Cirocco had resisted it to the end. She would accept being Mayor, she would raise, train, and equip an army and lead them out to do battle…but she drew the line at flags. Let Gaea raise her flag, and fight for it.
The sunshine of Iapetus gleamed off the breastplates of the officers. The air was full of the sound of creaking wooden wheels, and the slap of leather boots, and the peculiar honking noises made by the Jeeps, who were about as excited as they ever got.
The human legions marched together. Between them marched contingents of fifty Titanides, pulling their own wagons, which seemed stronger and better-built—and were certainly a lot prettier than the human wagons. The Titanides, though colorful enough in themselves, wore their finest jewels and had festooned their bodies and wagons with the most colorful flowers. They carried no flags. There were a thousand of them formed into battle groups, and it was debatable whether they or the almost thirty thousand humans were the stronger force.
In addition to these regular troops, scout Titanides ranged far ahead of the column, and twenty kilometers on each side. There would be no ambush the Titanides could not detect. The only peril on this day of beginning was from the air. Some of the soldiers spent a lot of time looking at the clear sky, wishing for clouds.
Majors marched at the head of Cohorts. Each Legion was led by a Colonel, also on foot. Three Titanides of an unusually easygoing nature had been persuaded to bear the Generals at the heads of their Division. The Titanides didn’t like it—they barely knew the Generals in question, and were not accustomed to allow any human but a dear friend to ride on their backs. They saw to it that the ride was as rough as possible. The Generals seethed in their own discontent. Not from the rough ride—none of them knew the uncanny smoothness of the Titanides’ usual gait—but because it was impossible to sit astride the creatures and see around their broad backs. Dignity forbade the practical carriage Cirocco had worked out long ago: to ride facing backwards. The whole purpose of these steeds, after all, was to set the Generals above the common foot soldier. So they endured the bumps and the lack of visibility, and tried to look as dignified as possible.
And at the head of the column, several hundred meters from the One Hundred First Division, were nine individuals. In front was Cirocco Jones, in her unadorned black clothes and hat, astride Hornpipe. Following her in no particular order were Conal astride Rocky, Robin on Serpent…and Nova riding Virginal. Valiha trotted along without a human burden.
None of them had much to say. There was no festive air. This would be the only day Conal would ride with the army, so Rocky and Serpent saw to it that he was often quite close to Robin. Whatever they had to say to each other had apparently already been said. After the first bivouac, Conal would be heading to the northern highlands to take command of the air force.
Virginal held back from the two, at Nova’s request. The young witch and former bureaucrat—she had resigned after a shouting match with Cirocco, and been replaced by someone from Trini’s faction—wanted to give her mother and her mother’s lover all the time together they could get. There was a new, more mature relationship between witch and Titanide. Nova was not yet perfect, according to Virginal, but she was getting there. She had said that many times, and each time they would laugh harder. Virginal, for her part, was ashamed of her own behavior. The lecture from her hindmother when she heard of the scene with Nova still stung.
Every so often Nova would reach down to her waist and finger the spell bag that hung from her belt. It was beautifully embroidered with an ancient Yin-Yang symbol, and contained the Zombie-dust she had inadvertently discovered and which must, by law, be carried at all times by every Bellinzonan. The bags had quickly become general-purpose good luck charms. This one had been given to her by a shy Korean girl named Li, who still had a lot of trouble with English but spoke the universal language of love very well indeed. There had been a steamy send-off. Nova found it hard to believe she had overlooked such beauty and sensitivity for so long. Li had worked in her Statistics Bureau. Could this be love? Nova wondered. Well, maybe. It was too early to tell. But Li was someone to write home to, someone to keep the home fires burning.
At the head of the column, Cirocco Jones sat very straight, aware that the Army could see her out there, and kept her own counsel.
***
The Generals had warned her the first day’s march was too long for unseasoned troops. The camp had been prepared deep in Iapetus a hectorev before, with tents that would be struck and added to the burden of the goods wagons.
Cirocco knew it was too far, and had intended that it be. She was decimating again.
So she marched her troops mercilessly through the increasing heat and unending light of Iapetus. They began passing out. As they di
d, they were loaded onto the wagons. When they finally reached camp most of the army was in a state of exhaustion. Not a few officers had fallen by the wayside.
“Here’s what we do,” she told the assembled top brass—before they had a chance at the mess tent. “Those soldiers who fainted or who have a medical problem as a result of today’s march will remain here. At this site they will build Pontus Camp with materials at hand. They will keep their weapons and other equipment, but the wagons will go with us. Pontus will be fortified, and be the permanent home of two Cohorts of one Legion. The other three Cohorts will establish similar but smaller outposts to the north, south, and east. The job of these detachments will be to improve the highway and keep it open, and to fight a delaying action should an attack come from Hyperion. They will be under the command of the General of the Third Division, in Bellinzona. Send a messenger to inform him of this. And requisition what wagons are needed to carry back the most serious medical cases, those that go beyond mere exhaustion. All clear?”
No one had the strength to argue with her.
Two
Four hundred fifty kilometers to the west, and five kilometers beneath the ground, Nasu slithered through the darkness until she came to a long, narrow tunnel that smelled very bad.
She knew these places, and hated them, in her cool and ponderous reptilian brain. She did not want to go into the tunnel. It was a place of hurt. She remembered it dimly, beneath Iapetus only a kilorev ago, and other times in the past.
She probed it with her tongue, and tasted hatred. Almost a kilometer away, great coils of her mid-section writhed in indecision and eagerness to go. Her tail actually started to crawl away. It took some time for impulses to get from the gallon of gray matter she used as a brain down to the nethermost extension, which increasingly was not in agreement with headquarters.
The immense bodily conflict caused acids to squirt into her monstrous digestive cavity, which would have been painful enough, but the acid set up a great galumphing uproar that caused her sides to bulge out unpredictably. The reason for this was simple: she had recently devoured seventy-eight of the slow-moving, blind, and elephantine creatures, called Heffalumps, who resided in this darkness, and they did not die easy. Twenty-six of them were still alive, and they didn’t like acid any more than Nasu did.
Acid. Hyperion. The Robin-thing. Go to Hyperion. Acid. Robin.
These concepts floated through her mind like disconnected wraiths, a hundred times, two hundred, and finally were imprinted again. She must go to Hyperion. She must meet the Robin-warm-protector there. She must go into the tunnel, where there was acid.
Once in motion, Nasu was impossible to stop. She barreled through the tunnel like history’s worst Freudian nightmare.
She encountered the acid far later than she had expected to. By then there was no question of stopping. She plowed up a great wake of it, shutting her eyes tight. But she could see through the translucent lids as she entered the deep sanctum of Cronus, faithful friend of Gaea.
Cronus howled his rage, humiliation, and pain. It didn’t stop the snake. She selected the easternmost of three tunnels leading out of the chamber, and thrust her head into it. At that moment, the end of her tail was just inside the west end of the tunnel.
It hurt like hell. Doing this was what had turned her white. She would be shedding her skin again soon, and that helped, but only a little. It burned her eyelids away. They would grow back, but the pain would be intense.
And it was still hurting, of course, way back there, but the signals were slow to arrive. She burst forth into the cavernous darkness of the East Cronus maze and kept going until she was sure she was out. Then she began to writhe, thumping monstrous coils of herself against the rock. The twenty-six surviving heffalumps were quickly killed. Had anyone been standing directly above, on Gaea’s inner rim, it might have felt like an earth tremor.
But the pain didn’t stop for a while. Nasu curled herself into a tight ball with her head somewhere near the center, and waited for healing to come.
Only one more to go, she thought.
Three
Cronus was royally pissed.
When you are the lord and master of a hundred thousand square kilometers of land area—plus the endless caverns beneath them, and, in a sense, the air above them—and you get maybe one visitor in ten myriarevs and aren’t even very enthused about getting that one…well, it just really narks you to have some frigging nightmare reptile come barreling through your home like a runaway freight train. It just confirmed his bitter opinion. The goddamn wheel was going in the toilet. Nothing worked anymore. Everything sucked.
He’d been faithful to Gaea for millennia—for aeons! When this Oceanus business came up, who was it stood behind Gaea a thousand percent? Cronus, that’s who. When the dust had settled and old Iapetus sat over there dry-washing his nonexistent hands like a comic-book commie spy and whispering sweet nothings in Cronus’s ears, had he listened? No way. Cronus had a direct line to heaven, and Gaea was on her throne, and all was well with the wheel.
When that schizo Mnemosyne slipped off the deep end and started blubbering in her beer, boo-hoo-hoo, about what that lousy sandworm was doing to her stinking forests, did he lose faith in Gaea? He did not.
And even when she foisted that back-stabbing Cirocco Jones bitch on him, told him Jones was now the Wizard and he had to make nice to her, did he make trouble? No, not good old Cronus. Served her right when Jones…
He backed away from that thought. Gaea was in poor health, anybody could see that, but some thoughts are best left un-thought. No telling who might be listening.
But this was too much. It really was.
It’s not like he hadn’t seen it coming, either. He’d had his requisition in for eleven myriarevs! Three hundred thousand gallons of ninety-nine percent pure hydrochloric, that’s all he needed to bring his reservoir up to capacity. There’s this thing, he had told her. Snake-like, but awful big. It ain’t one of mine; maybe it’s one of yours. But it lives down here, and it’s been through here twice, and the fucker gets bigger every time. Not only that, but this chronically low acid level is drying out my upper synapses. Gives me a perpetual pain…
She hadn’t believed him. Not one of hers, she said. Don’t worry about it. And it’s Iapetus stealing your HCL, and I can’t do a bloody thing about it. So shut up and let me get back to my films.
Well.
This time he was damn well going to report it. He called for Gaea. What he got was the new assistant, as had been happening more and more often. Their conversation was not in words, but it had a certain flavor that, if translated, would have been much like this:
“Hello, Gaean Productions.”
“Let me speak to Gaea, please.”
“I’m sorry, Gaea is on location.”
“Well, put me through to Pandemonium, then. This is important.”
“Who shall I say is calling, sir?”
“Cronus.”
“Beg pardon? How do you spell that?”
“Cronus, dammit! The Lord of that region of Gaea—exactly one-twelfth of her total rim land area, by the way—known as Cronus.”
“Oh, of course. That’s spelled C-H-R-O—”
“Cronus! Put me through to Gaea, at once!”
“I’m sorry, sir, but she is in a screening. Spartacus, I believe. You really ought to see it. One of the best Roman epics ever—”
“Will you just put me through?”
“I’m sorry. Listen, if you’ll leave your number, I’ll have her get right back to you.”
“This is an emergency. She should know about it, because it’s headed her way. And you have my number.”
“…oh, yes, here it is. It slipped behind the…are you still at—”
“I’m going to report this whole conversation to Gaea.”
“Whatever you wish.”
Click.
Cronus tried again later. Once again he got the smart-ass assistant, who told him Gaea was in a produ
ction meeting and couldn’t be disturbed.
Well, screw her, then.
Four
There had been no beer in Tara most of the time Chris was there. It was available in the commissaries, to those who could prove they had finished their work shifts. Chris had not imbibed. It was not very good stuff.
Now there was excellent beer in the iceboxes of Tara. The weather was hot. Adam didn’t seem to mind it, and it didn’t bother Chris a lot, but a cool beer or two was just what he needed after a long day spent trying to keep Adam’s attention away from the television sets without being too obvious about it.
Two or three beers were just what he needed.
The hard thing was to never admit that the games he structured were mostly to keep Adam from looking at the television programs. Without the TV he certainly would have spent a lot of time with Adam, but would have been content to let him play alone more often. As it was, he feared he was spending too much time with the child. It got more difficult to interest him. Adam often tired of the games, and playing with the toys. Sometimes, when he was at his lowest, Chris thought Adam was humoring him.
Very paranoid thought, Chris. Three or four beers might soothe it.
But the worst thing, the most awful thing…
He sometimes caught himself about to strike the child.
He spent every waking hour near Adam, and as many as he could manage actively engaged with him. An adult human being can take only so much of childish things, of baby-talk and games and silly laughter. Chris could take a lot, but there was a limit. He ached for intelligent company…no, no, no—that wasn’t the right word at all, that was completely wrong. He ached for adult company.
So when Adam was asleep and he felt so horribly alone, four or five beers was just the ticket to calm his shattered nerves.
