Demon (GAIA)

by John Varley

  “Mean thing to do.” He cackled again, and shook his head. “Been doing some thinking, down here. Been doing me some thinking.”

  Gaby spoke to Cirocco as if Gene could not hear. And perhaps he couldn’t.

  “The cornpone dialect is a parting gift from Gaea. Remember the movie analogy I told you about? She wanted him to be a character actor. A buffoon, a sidekick…I don’t know. Folksy humor.”

  “Real funny,” Conal seethed.

  “Tons of fun,” Gaby agreed. “Gaea always had been about as funny as cancer of the rectum.”

  “Poked m’own eye out,” Gene said, and cackled. “Thinking real hard, I was. Like to bust a gut, thinking. It just popped right out. Hurt like the dickens. Tried to put ’er back in.” He cackled again. “She’ll grow back in, though. Always happens that way. Like to sawed my hand off, once, trying to stop thinking. She grew back, too.” He pondered this. “Thinking hurts,” he concluded.

  “Did you think of something, Gene?” Gaby asked.

  He squinted his one eye.

  “Sure did,” he said, at last. “Thought something oughta be done. Somebody oughta…whale the daylights out of her, that’s what!” He looked at them defiantly.

  “There may be a way, Gene,” Gaby said.

  He narrowed his eye suspiciously.

  “Don’t kid with ol’ Gene, Gaby.” He looked puzzled, then cackled, then shrugged, and regarded her in the same way a dog would if the dog had just made a mess where he knew he shouldn’t.

  “Are you really Gaby? Been meaning to look you up. Wanted to tell you…gosh, I’m really sorry for…” He looked even more puzzled. “…for killing you.”

  “That’s all in the past, Gene,” Gaby said.

  Gene’s laugh sounded genuine for the first time.

  “All in the past. That’s a good one. I’ll have to tell…” He looked around vaguely in the darkness. Then, with difficulty, he brought himself back to his tenuous connection with the present.

  “There’s maybe something you can do,” Gaby said. “To Gaea.”

  “To Gaea?”

  “But it will be dangerous. I’ll be honest. You might get killed.”

  Gene studied her. Cirocco wondered if he had understood. Then she saw a tear fall from his eye.

  “You mean…I may be able to stop thinking?”

  Fifteen

  Gaby brought them to Oceanus by the same sort of dizzy-making teleportation she had used in the previous dream. When Cirocco got her bearings, she looked around and felt she had been here before.

  But she had not. It simply looked so much like Dione. The big difference was a big, greenish tube running from the ruins of the brain that had once been Oceanus straight up into the darkness overhead. Before the tube reached floor level it split in two parts, going east and west. Cirocco tried to find the image it reminded her of, and finally got it. Old tenement buildings with bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling—extension cords to power the toaster and the television.

  The moat was deep and dry. Nothing had been alive in here for a long time. Cirocco turned to Gaby.

  “What happened?”

  “We’ll probably never know all of it. Parts of it are still in Gaea’s mind. Parts are lost. It was thousands of years ago, like she told us. But the brains were never separate. I think Oceanus just…died. Gaea couldn’t accept it.

  “The human analogy can only be pushed so far before it breaks down, but I don’t have a better way of explaining it to you.

  “Gaea felt betrayed. She refused to believe in something so fantastic as Oceanus’s death. So her mind did split up, and she grew this nerve down to here—that part goes to the Hyperion brain, and the other one to Mnemosyne—and…became Oceanus. And that part of her was a bastard. Some sort of physical struggle did occur, but I don’t think it was as dramatic as Gaea described it to you. It was always Gaea talking to herself. When you talk to any of the regional brains, you’re really talking to a fragment of Gaea’s personality.

  “She’s splitting up more and more. She…I still can’t tell you all of it, but she evolved a…system to keep things running. That fifty-foot woman you’re going to do battle with is part of the system. You are, too. So am I, though that was an accident. And that’s all I can tell you.”

  Gaby turned to Gene.

  “If I tell you some things to do, will you do them? Will you remember? If you know these things will hurt Gaea?”

  Gene’s eye gleamed.

  “Oh, yes. Gene will remember: Gene will hurt Gaea.”

  Gaby sighed.

  “Then the last piece is in place,” she said.

  ***

  Gaby left them on the outskirts of the camp, but inside the outer perimeter of guards so there would be no misunderstanding. They started walking toward the light.

  Conal stumbled. Cirocco reached out for him—and realized he was crying. She hesitated just a moment, wondering what would be best for him, then put her arms around him. He wept helplessly, got it under control quickly, and pulled away, embarrassed.

  “Feel better?”

  “I was just remembering…what I came here to do to you.”

  “Don’t be a horse’s ass. I didn’t know most of what we just heard.”

  “That poor man. That poor, sorry son of a bitch.”

  “You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

  He looked at her strangely, then squeezed her hand and went off toward his own tent.

  Cirocco went to hers. The guard challenged her, then recognized her, and saluted. He didn’t seem to have any trouble with the idea that she could sneak out of her tent, despite his surveillance.

  If only he could see inside the tent, Cirocco thought. She sighed, and pulled back the tent flap, preparing herself for an evolution she had performed twice before but which still made her uneasy.

  But there was no other Cirocco in the bunk.

  After standing there for a while, pondering it, she sat on the cot and pondered some more. She eventually decided there was no point in trying to wake up if she wasn’t asleep.

  She glanced at the time, saw it was approaching the rev when they should move on, and went back outside to get things started.

  ***

  The army moved into Hyperion.

  Their objective had been in sight, in clear weather, since the middle of Mnemosyne. One could hardly miss the south vertical cable, which pointed directly at the heart of Pandemonium. Now, as they marched across the gently rolling hills of southwest Hyperion, they could sometimes see the circular wall that surrounded the Studio.

  The bridge over the Urania River was one of the few still intact on the Circum-Gaea. Cirocco had her engineers check it out, first for booby-traps, then for structural strength. She was told it was sound, but took the precaution of spacing the wagons widely and making the troops march out of step. The bridge held.

  Gaea had provided the bridge over the Calliope. The dam she had caused to be built there was earth-fill. The turbines were small, by human hydro-electric standards.

  The Air Force flew in more dynamite, and after the army had crossed the dam, Cirocco had it blown. Everyone watched as a good-sized hole was punched in it, and cheered as the lake swiftly eroded it into a ruin. Cirocco destroyed the turbines, too. The dam was completely unguarded except for six Iron Master technicians, who were apparently unconcerned to see their handiwork destroyed.

  Cirocco didn’t know if that was a good or bad sign. She kept her patrols out, looking for Gaea troop movements, but there were none.

  Sixteen

  Gaea had been watching war movies almost exclusively for a long time.

  When the power went out, it couldn’t have picked a worse moment. It was during the last reel of The Bridge on the River Kwai. The tension was building in one of the all-time great big-budget final scenes. You could hear the little Jap choo-choo coming around the bend and it looked like the guy had gone bananas, because he was helping the Japs find the bombs wired to the bridge, and…


  Alec Guinness, she thought sourly. It was almost like an omen. She didn’t believe in omens, of course…

  So then the power goes out. Some distant, vague part of her mind knew what had caused it, but she didn’t want to think about that. This had all started out as a lot of fun, but she was getting more and more bored with it every day.

  She was getting tired of movies, if the truth were told. She was tired of that little brat Adam, and that stinking drunk Chris. Most of all she was tired of waiting for Cirocco Jones to show up. She didn’t think it was going to be the charge she had hoped it would be when she mashed the bitch under her foot.

  She fumed about that while they scurried around getting the emergency generator turned on, bringing in a transformer so the projector could run off it…all the dreary little things the dreary little technical people do. Didn’t they know she was a star?

  Then they finally got it running again. It clattered along for maybe fifteen seconds, then it stopped, and the lamp burnt a hole in the film.

  Enough was enough.

  She killed the projectionist and stomped out into daylight to see if Cirocco’s army was here yet.

  Seventeen

  The final encampment was only ten kilometers away from Pandemonium. An easy march. And in Gaea, of course, a General didn’t have to worry about what time of day to attack.

  There were two things to be done.

  She called Nova, Virginal, Conal, Rocky, Robin, Serpent, Valiha, and Hornpipe together in the big command tent. No one else was present. Even the guards outside had been told to stay fifty meters away.

  She stood before them, looking at each one in turn. She was more than pleased at what she saw, disgusted at what she had to say.

  “Robin,” she began. “I haven’t lied to you. But I haven’t told you the whole truth. Nasu has maybe a one in a thousand chance of beating Gaea.”

  Robin looked away, then nodded slowly.

  “I guess I knew that.”

  “Even if she did kill this Gaea…and I’m talking about this giant monstrosity in Pandemonium now, not the real Gaea, who Nasu could never beat—it wouldn’t do any good. In fact, I’m counting on Gaea killing her.”

  “Nasu’s not my demon anymore, Captain,” Robin said. She looked back at Cirocco, and there were tears in her eyes. “I mean, I really can’t carry her around in a gunny sack, can I?”

  “No. But I can still call her back. We might get along without her.”

  Robin shook her head, and stood straighter.

  “You do what you think is right, Cirocco.”

  It was Cirocco’s turn to look away.

  “I wish I could. But I don’t always know.” She looked at the rest of them. “I’ve told you people more than anyone else. I’m telling you more now. I’m not telling you all, even this late—and I don’t even know all of it myself. But there is only one chance, and I’m taking it. Nova.”

  The young witch inhaled quickly, surprised. Cirocco smiled tiredly at her.

  “No, I don’t have any big surprises for you. But I’m leveling with everyone, and you’re the only one who saw Calvin. Remember him?”

  Nova nodded.

  “He’s dying. What he has might be curable by Titanide healers—we don’t really know, because he won’t let us examine him. He used to be a doctor, so maybe he knows it’s incurable. At any rate, he wants to do something for us, and it will kill him. That’s why I took you to visit him that day, to see if he was willing. He was.”

  “The day I got drunk,” Nova said, with a wistful smile.

  “Conal. You saw Gene. You must have some idea of what he’s capable of. What Gaby told him to do…he probably won’t do it right. He probably won’t survive it. Gaby and I knew that.”

  Conal looked at his boots for a moment, then met Cirocco’s eyes.

  “I never saw anybody more ready to die than he is. I think it would be a blessing if he died…and I think he knows exactly what he’s doing.”

  Cirocco was grateful. Conal always seemed to come through. She took a deep breath, fought off her own tears.

  “Virginal. Valiha. Serpent. Horn—”

  Hornpipe stepped forward and put his hand gently on Cirocco’s shoulder.

  “Captain, since it is the time for truth-telling, I should tell you that we have already figured out that—”

  “No,” Cirocco said, pushing his hand away. “I have to say this. You all knew Chris might die in this encounter. I told you that saving Adam was my number one objective. That was a lie. Saving him is my second objective. It is more important to me than I can say…but if this ends with me, Adam, and Gaea dead, I’ll count it a victory.”

  Hornpipe said nothing. Valiha stepped forward.

  “We have discussed this,” she said. “We obeyed your security rules and did not spread it through the race, so we four are making this decision, and will bear the weight of it. We feel the race would agree with us. There comes a time when all must be risked that a great evil be eliminated.”

  Cirocco shook her head.

  “I hope you’re right. There…is the strong possibility that even if Gaea and Adam and I are killed, the wonderful Titanide race—who, I swear to you, I love more than my own race—will survive. But if Adam and I are killed, and Gaea survives, you are doomed. And this is my first priority: that the thing called Gaea be erased from the universe.”

  “We are with you in this endeavor,” Hornpipe said. “The responsibility for saving Adam will rest with us…” He gestured to include the whole group. “…with us seven, from two races, but bound by love. This is as it should be.”

  “This is as it should be,” the Titanides sang.

  “Adam’s life is in our hands now. You should put it from your mind. You have told us what we must do, and we will do these things to the best of our ability. You should now forget about it, trust us…and do what you must do.”

  “You will always be our Wizard,” Serpent said, and then sang it, ringing and defiant. The other Titanides joined him.

  Cirocco felt she must cry, but managed to hold it back. She faced them again.

  “This may be the last time we meet,” she said.

  “Then those who survive will always cherish those who fall,” Virginal said.

  Cirocco moved among them, kissing each one. Then she sent them on their way. She had thought she had all the crying done, back at the Junction, but found, when they were gone, there were some tears left.

  It was some time before she could summon the Generals.

  ***

  When they were seated around the command table, Cirocco looked from one to the other, and felt ashamed at her conceit in always thinking of them by the numbers of the divisions they commanded. The impulse had sprung from her distaste for things military. But these were comrades now. They had stood beside her, and she had an odd surprise to give them, and she knew she must end, now and forever, this number game.

  She looked at each in turn, fixing them in memory.

  Park Suk Chee: a small, fiftyish Korean, in command of the Second Division.

  Nadaba Shalom: in her forties, light-skinned, impassive, and the backbone of the Eighth.

  Daegal Kurosawa: a racial mix of Japanese, Swedish, and Swazi, who commanded the One Hundred First.

  All had been in the military on Earth, but none had advanced beyond the rank of Lieutenant. There were troops under their command who had ranked higher…but no former Generals. There had been a time, in Bellinzona, when the discovery of an ex-General had been the occasion for a rare celebration. People would get together and burn the fellow at the stake. General-burning had been Bellinzona’s only indigenous sport.

  There had been no lynchings for some time before Cirocco took power. Nevertheless, it had been difficult at first to get anyone to accept the title, and for a time the Generals had been called “Caesars.” But common usage gradually took over, as people grew used to the fact that these Generals had no nuclear weapons to play with.

&n
bsp; “Park. Shalom. Kurosawa.” She nodded at each of them, and they nodded back, warily.

  “First…we won’t be building siege towers.”

  They were surprised, but did their best not to show it. Not long ago, one of them would have asked if she planned a frontal assault over the bridges, and another would have asked about starving them out. Not now. They simply listened.

  “What is going to happen here will be a little like a big parade. It’ll be something like a carnival, and something like a wide-screen spectacular. It’ll be a monster movie. It’ll be like one of those big outdoor performances of the 1812 Overture, complete with cannons. It’ll be the Fourth of July and Cinco de mayo. What it won’t be, my friends, is a war.”

  There was a silence for a while. At last Kurosawa spoke.

  “Then what will it be?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute. First…if what I’m going to describe to you goes wrong, I will be dead. You’ll have to carry on without me. I won’t be so stupid as to try to give you orders from beyond the grave. You’ll have to make the decisions.” She pointed to Park. “You’ll be in command, overall. I can do that much, and hereby promote you to Two-Star General. According to the Bellinzona laws, that makes you answerable to the Mayor, when a new one is elected, but it gives you almost total authority in field decisions.”

  She looked from one to the other. Their thoughts were veiled, but she had a pretty good idea how they were going. Three divisions in the field, one in Bellinzona. If Park wanted to march home and take over, nobody was likely to stop him. She had chosen him as the least likely to have ambitions toward martial law. But she knew she had created a potential monster in the army itself. If there had only been another way…

  But Gaea had wanted a war, and she had to have at least the illusion of one. She had to have her attention diverted, and nothing short of an army would be enough.

  “Before we get to the orders of the day, I’ll give you the benefit of my thinking about the situation you’ll face if I am killed. You can do with it what you will.