by John Varley
Cirocco nodded slowly.
“Gaea…” Gaby looked around the room, and laughed bitterly. “Gaea! What a joke. By the time we met her, she was so crazy…she took that name out of Greek mythology. She took all her best ideas out of crappy motion pictures. I don’t know what her real name might have been.
“She came up here one day, a very long time ago. She wasn’t a human being. I don’t think her race even exists in the wheel anymore. The being who occupied the seat I’m in right now talked to ‘Gaea.’ Told her he needed a Wizard. It sounded fine to Gaea, and she was a good Wizard for a thousand years. Then, when her predecessor was all washed up, she overthrew him, and came to live up here.
“We’re not talking now about the being that is the Wheel. That thing is up there in the red line. It takes care of most of the day-to-day functioning of all the complex systems that keep the wheel running. It is fairly god-like in a lot of ways, but it’s more like a computer in others. The present system for…governing the wheel is almost a million years old. There have been a lot of Wizards. When they die, they get to be…Gaea. Gaby. Me. You may be the only Wizard that didn’t graduate.”
Cirocco looked at Gaby for a long time. She was very tired.
“Gaby…I’m so sorry.”
Gaby hurled her glass of water across the room.
“Dammit, Rocky…damn you! Don’t be sorry. It’s not too late. When you had Snitch taken out of your head Gaea gave up on you. She had to have a complete and continuous set of memories from you before you could move up to take her place. That set is broken now…but it can be fixed. I can record you. I can move you up here with me. It isn’t death. It isn’t anything like death. I thought I was dead when I first got here, but I learned what life is really all about up there in the red line. We can…we can rule together, you and I. We can make this into a good place.”
Cirocco sighed, and wondered how she could say it. Perhaps it was best to move in on it sideways.
“Gaby…you kept telling me, over and over, how hard Gaea would be to kill. And she was. All that we went through…all to distract her enough so you could overwhelm her up here in the hub in a way that I’ll never understand. Is there…is there any other way she could have died?”
Gaby looked away, and wiped at a tear. She shook her head violently.
“See, Gaby…it’s not death I’m most afraid of.”
Gaby nodded just as violently, then buried her face in her hands. Cirocco was quiet. She was afraid to touch her old friend. Not afraid for herself, but afraid for Gaby.
“Do you know anything more about what Gaea was like when she first came to this place?” she finally asked.
“Oh, jesus, Rocky. I suspect she was a sweet and loving thing. I don’t doubt there was a golden age when she came to power. Some of the blimps might know, if they’d talk. And you don’t have to say it. God help me, I’ve thought about it enough. What will I be like in twenty thousand years? Huh? How can I even begin to imagine how tired I might become of…everything? I can’t see it now. I can’t see that I’ve changed. I remember, when I turned a hundred years old, I was so damn smug. I didn’t feel any different than I did when I was thirty. But a hundred is nothing.”
“I can see that.”
“I hope you don’t think I did this because I wanted to.”
“I don’t.”
“There was no other choice. It was watch you and everyone I loved be killed by that maniac, or do what I did. I couldn’t even opt out; I couldn’t die.” Once more, she leaned forward earnestly. “But Rocky, now that I’ve told you all those things I couldn’t tell you…I’ll tell you one more thing. All along I hoped you’d join me. I suspect it’s a horrible fate in the end…but so is death, any way you look at it. I watched you in Bellinzona. You were so good. You’d be a lot better than I’d be alone. We could work together.”
“I was horrible, Gaby. So many people died. At my orders.”
“People are always going to die, Rocky.”
“I know. I just don’t want to be responsible for it.”
“That’s a cop-out. They’re going to die because of the things you don’t do. Stuart or Trini, or one of your Generals…they won’t be as enlightened as you were. They’ll make a mess of things.”
“Anybody would. It’s the nature of the human being. The Titanides speak of evil people. And there are evil people, people that must die. But I won’t be the one who decides. I’ve done that, and I hate it. I won’t live my life for them anymore. I won’t save the world anymore. I’m through with that.”
Gaby got up and went to the other room. Cirocco heard sounds that might have been sobs. She didn’t want to think about it. Gaby returned with a fresh glass of water.
“Gaby, I think I’m your friend. At least I am if you’ll have me.”
“You’re my friend,” Gaby confirmed, in a husky voice.
“I hope you’ll be my friend till the day I die. But this is asking too much of a friendship. I’m sorry this has happened to you. I’m sorry it fell to you instead of me, like Gaea wanted it. I hope you don’t resent that.”
“I don’t. It was an accident.”
“Then don’t ask this of me. I can see that your life is going to be very interesting and very long. If somebody has to do it, I can’t think of anyone better than you. I think that—if it had happened to me—I’d do what I think you’re going to do. Make the best of it. Have as much fun as you can. Be as wise as you know how.”
“It’s a dirty job, being God,” Gaby said. “But somebody’s got to do it. Right?” There was the hint of a smile. Cirocco smiled back, tentatively.
“Right.”
So they sat there beside each other, each thinking her own thoughts. It was a companionable silence. At last Cirocco shifted in her chair.
“So…” she said, and made a vague gesture. “What are you going to do?”
They looked at each other, and laughed.
“This and that,” Gaby said.
“What about the Titanides?”
Gaby sobered.
“Don’t worry about them. They won’t be at your mercy, or Adam’s either. There’s a little thing I can do. They’ll never notice it. It won’t change them, except now they’ll be able to have babies whenever they want to.”
Cirocco was immediately wary. Gaby saw it, and shook her head.
“I’m way ahead of you. If they breed without control, the whole wheel will fill up. It’s the same with humans, you know.”
“Yes. I do.”
Gaby shrugged.
“So something will have to be done if it starts getting out of hand. I don’t know what yet. But the Earth will be habitable again in another century or two. We can repopulate it. I have all the things I need. And don’t worry too much. I plan to use your principle of doing as little as possible at all times. I’m not going to be an activist god. But I will be the conservator for the human and Titanide races, and a lot of others, besides. There will be some hard choices.”
“Exactly the ones I don’t want to make.”
“Let’s don’t get into that again. Listen…” Once more Gaby leaned forward. “You gave me your answer, and I accept it…for now. But think about this. We both know this job drove Gaea crazy as a loon. But I’m sure it took a long time. Thousands of years. I think I’m good for at least eight or nine centuries before I need a straitjacket. Is that reasonable?”
“I suppose so. Probably more. Gaby, you may not go crazy at all, I didn’t mean to imply that I thought it was—”
“Hush. We have no data on that except Gaea’s example, and you can’t plot a curve from one point. Okay. I accept your decision not to go into partnership with me in the god business…for now. But in…two centuries, can I ask you again?”
Cirocco didn’t answer for a long time. When she spoke, she did so very carefully.
“Answer a couple of questions first.”
“Anything.”
“How long can I expect to live?”
“With regular trips to the fountain…you’re good for five or six centuries, easily. Probably more.”
“But I’m not immortal?”
“There’s no disease that can kill you. You’re tougher than a normal human, also quicker. But to stay alive, you’ll have to stay on your toes, just like you always have.”
“I won’t have any special protection? No guardian angel looking over my shoulder, ready to help out?”
Gaby shook her head.
“I will stay out of your affairs. I won’t watch you. If you get in over your head, you will be on your own. And if you die, you will stay dead.”
Cirocco saw the longing in Gaby’s eyes. She knew, beyond doubt, that Gaby needed this.
And what could it cost her, after all?
“Please, Cirocco. I don’t want to beg…but I just have this feeling that maybe the way to beat this thing that got Gaea…this terminal boredom, I guess it was, is for two people to be up here to keep each other honest.”
Cirocco stuck out her hand.
“It’s a deal. I’ll see you in two centuries…if I should live that long.”
Gaby looked narrowly at her. She cleared her throat.
“You’re not planning to…kill yourself or anything, are you?”
“I swear, I’m not.” She smiled. “But I’m not going to be quite as careful as I used to be, either. I’m going to take some chances. And who the hell knows? If I’m living just for myself now, I…” But she had to stop there. It wouldn’t do to finish the thought for Gaby.
If I’m living just for myself…
Maybe I can find someone else to live for. There are all kinds of ways to take chances. Robin took a chance on Conal.
***
Taking chances…
Cirocco stood on the sloping upper rim of the Dione spoke. Below her it flared out and down…and down almost eternally, six hundred kilometers to the ground. In the gently increasing “gravity” of Gaea, it was about an hour to the bottom. One spin of the wheel, as the air in the spoke gradually accelerated the falling body into a curved trajectory.
Cirocco started to run.
It was awkward here in the hub. Her feet didn’t have much traction. But she knew how to do it, and after a certain number of huge bounds she was moving at a good clip down the sloping side of the spoke. When she was going fast enough, she jumped.
She arced out over the long dark well.
Taking chances.
It was not the first time she had fallen through a spoke. It was not even the first time she had done it without a parachute. After killing the first incarnation of Gaea she had fallen through a Rhea Spoke so full of lightning bolts that it seemed impossible she would ever reach the ground safely.
But she had.
Robin had been dropped through the spoke, back in the days when Gaea was pulling that practical joke on all her visitors. She had been rescued by an angel. Cirocco would be going by the nests of the Dione Supras. Maybe some of them would come out and save her.
Chris had fallen through a spoke, too. He had landed on the back of a blimp. Maybe Cirocco would have the great good luck to land on a blimp.
Maybe she would fall into Moros. She could probably survive that.
And then again, maybe she would fly.
Stranger things had happened.
She smiled, and spread her wings.
