by John Varley
Hornpipe nodded, then bent and kissed Cirocco’s forehead.
“I wish you folks would stop doing that,” Cirocco said, in English.
“What was it for?” Gaby asked.
“Never mind. Let’s get back to town.”
They stopped after leaving the zone of wind. Hornpipe put out a groundcloth and they sat down to a picnic. The food was hot, stored in nutshell thermos bottles. Cirocco and Gaby ate perhaps a tenth of it between them, and the Titanides wolfed down the rest.
They were still five kilometers from Titantown when Hornpipe looked over her shoulder, the expression on her face a mixture of mournfulness and anticipation. She gazed at the dark roof.
“Gaea breathes,” she sang, sadly.
“What? Are you sure? I thought it would be noisy, and we’d have plenty of time to—does that mean there’ll be angels?”
“Noisy from the west,” Hornpipe corrected her. “The breath of Gaea is silent from the east. I fancy I can hear them already.” She missed a step, nearly throwing Cirocco.
“Well, hurry, damn it! If you’re trapped out here alone you won’t have a chance.”
“It’s too late,” Hornpipe sang, and now her eyes yearned, her lips drew back to bare bright teeth.
“Move!” Cirocco had practiced that tone of command for years, and somehow managed to put it in a Titanide song. Hornpipe leaped to a gallop, and Panpipe followed close behind.
Soon even Cirocco could hear the wail of angels. Hornpipe’s gait wavered; she wanted very badly to turn back and do battle.
They were approaching a lone tree, and Cirocco made a snap decision.
“Pull up. Hurry, we don’t have much time.”
They halted under the spreading branches and Cirocco jumped down. Hornpipe tried to bolt but Cirocco slapped the Titanide’s face, which seemed to calm her temporarily.
“Gaby, cut off those saddlebags. Panpipe! Stop that! Come back here at once.”
Panpipe looked undecided, but came back to them. Gaby and Cirocco worked frantically, tearing their clothes into strips, each making three strong ropes.
“My friends,” Cirocco sang, when she had the tethers, “I don’t have time to explain. I ask you to trust me and do as I say.” She put every ounce of determination she possessed into the song, scoring it in the mode used from the old and wise to the young and foolish. It worked, but just barely. Both Titanides kept looking to the east.
She had them lie on their sides.
“That hurts,” Hornpipe complained when Cirocco tied her hind legs together.
“I’m sorry. It’s for your own good.” She quickly bound her forelegs and arms, then tossed a wineskin to Gaby. “Get as much of this down him as you can. I want him too stinking drunk to move.”
“Gotcha.”
“My child, I want you to drink this,” she sang. “You too, over there. Drink lots of it.” She held the nipple to Hornpipe’s lips. The sound of the angels was louder now. Hornpipe’s ears twitched up and down rapidly.
“Cotton, cotton,” she muttered. She tore strips from her already frayed tunic and rolled them into tight balls. “It worked for Odysseus, maybe it’ll work for me. Gaby, the ears. Plug his ears.”
“That hurts!” Hornpipe howled. “Let me up, Earth monster. I don’t like this game.” She began to moan, the notes only occasionally resolving into words of hate.
“Have some more wine,” Cirocco crooned. The Titanide choked as she poured it down her throat. The cries of the angels were very loud now. Hornpipe began to screech in reply. Cirocco grabbed the Titanide’s ears and squeezed them, then cradled the big head in her lap. She put her lips to one ear and sang a Titanide lullaby.
“Rocky, help!” Gaby yelled. “I don’t know any of those songs. Sing louder!” Panpipe was struggling, shrieking as Gaby tried to hold him by the ears. He lashed out with his bound hands and threw her away from him.
“Grab him! Don’t let him get away.”
“I’m trying.” She ran behind him and tried to pin his arms to his sides, but he was much too strong for her. She tumbled away again, got up with a cut over her right eye.
Panpipe was gnawing at the bonds that held his wrists together. The cloth tore and he was clawing at his ears.
“What now, Rocky?” Gaby screamed, desperately.
“Come help me,” she said. “He’ll kill you if you get in his way.” It was far too late to stop Panpipe. His front legs were free and he was contorted like a snake, tearing at the strap that bound the other two.
Without a glance at the women and Hornpipe, he charged toward Titantown. Soon he was gone over the top of a low hill.
Gaby did not seem aware that she was crying as she knelt beside Cirocco, nor did she do anything about the trickle of blood down the side of her face.
“How can I help?”
“I don’t know. Touch her, sooth her, do anything you can think of to keep her mind off angels.”
Hornpipe was thrashing now, her teeth clenched, face bloodless. Cirocco held on, getting as close as she dared while Gaby slipped a rope around the Titanide’s chest, pinioning her arms at her side.
“Hush, hush,” Cirocco whispered. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’ll watch over you until your hindmother returns. I’ll sing you her songs.”
Hornpipe gradually quieted, her eyes regaining the intelligence Cirocco had seen on the first day they met. It was infinitely better than the fearsome animal she had become.
It was ten more minutes before the last of the angels went by overhead. Hornpipe was drenched in sweat, like someone kicking a heroin or alcohol addiction.
She began to giggle as they waited for the angels to return. Cirocco reclined on her side, facing Hornpipe, holding her head close and was startled when the Titanide began to move. It was not a testing of the bonds, as her earlier movements had been. It was frankly sexual. She gave Cirocco a wet kiss. Her mouth was so large and warm it was unnerving.
“Would that I were a boy,” she crooned, drunkenly.
Cirocco glanced down.
“Jesus,” Gaby breathed. The Titanide’s huge penis was out of its sheath, its tip pulsing on the dust.
“You may be a girl to you,” Cirocco sang, “but you’re too much of a boy for me.”
Hornpipe thought that was hilarious. She roared, and tried to kiss Cirocco again but gave it up amiably enough when Cirocco drew back.
“I would do you great harm,” she chortled. “Alas, that is for rear holes, of which you have none. Would that I were a boy, and had a member fit for you.”
Cirocco smiled and let her rave on, but her eyes were not smiling. She looked over Hornpipe’s shoulder at Gaby.
“Last resort,” she said, quietly, in English. “If it looks like she’s going to get free, take that rock and hit her over the head. If she gets away, she’s dead.”
“Gotcha. What’s she talking about?”
“She wants to make love to me.”
“With that? Maybe I’d better bean her now.”
“Don’t be silly. We’re in no danger from her. If she gets loose, she won’t even see us. Do you hear them coming back?”
“I think so.”
It turned out to be not nearly so difficult the second time. They never gave Hornpipe a chance to hear the angels, and while she sweated and shook as if she could somehow feel them, she never struggled very hard.
And then they were gone, back to the eternal darkness of the spoke high above Rhea.
She cried when they released her; the helpless sobs of a child who doesn’t understand what has happened to her. That turned into petulance and complaints, chiefly about her sore legs and ears. Gaby and Cirocco rubbed her legs where the ropes had chafed. Her cloven hooves were as clear and red as cherry jello.
She seemed confused as to the whereabouts of Panpipe, but not distressed when she understood he had gone into battle. She gave them sloppy kisses and pressed herself against them amorously, causing Gaby some concern even when Cirocco explained
the Titanides rigidly divided frontal and rear intercourse. The frontal organs were for the production of semi-fertilized eggs, which were then manually implanted in a rear vagina and brought to fecundity by a rear penis.
When she got to her feet she was too drunk to carry them. They walked her in circles and finally headed her back toward town. In a few hours they could get on her back again.
Titantown was in sight before they found Panpipe.
The blood had already dried in his pretty blue fur. A lance stuck out from his side, pointed at the sky. He had been mutilated.
Hornpipe knelt at his side and wept while Gaby and Cirocco hung back. There was bitterness in Cirocco’s mouth. Did Hornpipe blame her? Would she have preferred to have died with him, or was that a hopelessly Earthling notion? The Titanides didn’t seem to understand the glory of battle; it was something they did because they couldn’t help it. Cirocco admired them for the first pitied them for the second.
Do you rejoice for the one you saved, or weep for the one you lost? She could not do both, so she wept.
Hornpipe struggled to her feet, much heavier than she had been. Three years old, Cirocco thought. It meant nothing. She had some of the innocence of a human of the same age, but she was a Titanide adult.
She picked up the severed head and kissed it once, then set it down by the body. She sang nothing; the Titanides had no song for this moment.
Gaby and Cirocco got on her back again, and Hornpipe set out for town at a slow trot.
“Tomorrow,” Cirocco said. “We leave for the hub tomorrow.”
Chapter Eighteen
Five days later, Cirocco was still preparing to depart. There was the problem of who and what to take.
Bill was out, though he had other opinions. So was August. She spoke seldom now, spending her time on the edge of town, answering questions in monosyllables. Calvin could not say if the best therapy would be to leave her or to take her with them. Cirocco had to decide in favor of the mission, which would be in trouble if August suffered a breakdown.
Calvin was out because he had promised to stay in Titantown until Bill was well enough to care for himself; after that, he was on his own.
Gene was in. Cirocco wanted him where she could keep an eye on him, far from Titanides.
That left Gaby.
“You can’t leave me,” she said, not pleading, merely stating a fact of life. “I’ll follow you.”
“I won’t try to. You’re a pest with this fixation you have on me that I don’t deserve. But you saved my life, which I’ve never really thanked you for, and I want you to know I’ll never forget it.”
“I don’t want your thanks,” Gaby said. “I want your love.”
“I can’t give it to you. I like you, Gaby. Hell, we’ve been side by side since this thing started. But we’re doing the first fifty kilometers in Whistlestop. I won’t force you to get on.”
Gaby paled, but spoke up bravely. “You won’t have to.”
Cirocco nodded. “As I say, it’s up to you. Calvin says we can get to the level of the twilight zone. The blimps don’t go any higher than that, because the angels don’t like it.”
“So it’s you and me and Gene?”
“Yeah.” Cirocco frowned. “I’m glad you’re going.”
They needed many things and Cirocco did not know how to obtain them. The Titanides had a system of exchange, but prices were established by a complex formula involving degrees of relationship, standing in the community, and need. No one went hungry, but low-status individuals like Hornpipe had little but meals, shelter, and the bare necessities of body ornamentation. The Titanides viewed these as only slightly less vital than food.
There was a credit system, and Meistersinger used some of his, but relied mostly on pegging Cirocco’s status arbitrarily high, claiming her as his spiritual hinddaughter and making a case that she should be adopted as such by the community because of the nature of her mission.
Most of the Titanide artisans bought the idea, and were almost too helpful in outfitting the party. Backpacks were made with straps arranged for human bodies. Then everyone came offering his or her finest wares.
Cirocco had decided each of them could carry around fifty kilos of mass. It bulked large, but weighed only twelve kilos and would get lighter as they climbed toward the hub. Gaby said the centripetal acceleration there would be one fortieth of a gravity.
Rope was the first consideration. The Titanides had a plant that grew fine rope, strong, thin, and supple. Each human could carry a hundred-meter coil of it.
The Titanides were good climbers, though they largely confined their efforts to trees. Cirocco discussed pitons with the ironworkers, who came back with their best efforts. Unfortunately, steel was news to the Titanides. Gene looked at the pitons and shook his head.
“It’s the best they can do,” Cirocco said. “They tempered it, like I told them.”
“It’s still not enough. But don’t worry. Whatever the insides of the spoke is, it won’t be rock. Rock could never stand up to the pressures trying to tear this place apart. In fact, I don’t know of anything strong enough.”
“Which just means the people who built Gaea knew things we don’t know.”
Cirocco was not too disturbed. The angels lived in the spokes. Unless they existed by flying all their lives, they had to perch somewhere. If they could perch on something, she could cling to it.
They brought hammers to drive the pitons, the lightest and hardest the Titanides could make. The metalworkers provided them with hatchets and knives, and whetstones to sharpen them. They each packed a parachute, courtesy of Whistlestop.
“Clothes,” Cirocco said. “What kind of clothes should we bring?”
Meistersinger looked helpless.
“I have no need of them, as you can see,” he sang. “Some of our people who are naked-skinned, as you are, wear them in the cold times. We can make what you want.”
So they were outfitted in the finest patterned silks from head to toe. It was not actually silk, but felt like it. Over that were felt shirts and pants, two sets for each of them, and woven sweaters for upper and lower parts of the body. Fur coats and pants were made, and fur-lined gloves and hard-soled moccasins. They had to go prepared for anything, and though the clothing took a lot of space, Cirocco didn’t begrudge it.
They packed silk hammocks and sleeping bags. The Titanides had matches, and oil-burning lamps. They took one each, and a small supply of fuel. There was no way it would stretch for the whole journey, but neither would their food or water.
“Water,” Cirocco fretted. “That could be a big problem.”
“Well, like you said, the angels live up there.” Gaby was helping with the packing on the fifth day of preparations. “They must drink something.”
“That doesn’t mean waterholes will be easy to find.”
“If you’re going to be all the time worrying, we might as well not go.”
They took waterskins good for about nine or ten days, and then filled out the mass limit with as much dried food as would fit. They planned to eat what the angels ate, if that was possible.
On the sixth day everything was ready, and she still had to face Bill. She was glum about the possibility of having to use her authority to end the argument, but knew she would do so if it came to it.
“You’re all crazy,” Bill said, hitting his palm on the bed. “You have no idea what you’ll find up there. Do you seriously think you can climb up a chimney 400 kilometers high?”
“We’re going to see if it’s possible.”
“You’re gonna get yourselves killed. You ought to be doing a thousand klicks when you hit.”
“I figure terminal velocity in this air couldn’t be much over 200. Bill, if you’re trying to cheer me up, you’re doing a lousy job.” She had never seen him like this, and she hated it.
“We should all stick together, and you know it. You’re still overcompensating because you lost Ringmaster, trying to act the hero.”
If there hadn’t been a grain of truth in what he said, it couldn’t have hurt so much. She had thought about it for long hours while trying to sleep.
“Air! What if there’s no air up there?”
“We’re not going to commit suicide. If it’s impossible, we’ll accept it. You’re manufacturing arguments.”
His eyes pleaded with her.
“I’m asking you, Rocky. Wait for me. I have never asked anything before, but I’m asking for this now.”
She sighed, and gestured for Gaby and Gene to leave the room. When they were gone she sat on the edge of his bed and reached for his hand. He moved it away. She stood up quickly, furious at herself for trying to reach him that way, and at him for rejecting her.
“I don’t seem to know you, Bill,” she said, quietly. “I thought I did. You’ve been a comfort to me when I was lonely, and I thought I might love you in time. I don’t fall in love easily. Maybe I’m too suspicious; I don’t know. Sooner or later everybody demands that I be what they want me to be, and now you’re doing it.”
He said nothing, did not even look at her.
“What you’re doing is so unfair I could scream.”
“I wish you would.”
“Why? So I’d fit your picture of what a woman’s supposed to do? Damn it, I was a Captain when you met me; I didn’t think that was so important to you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about the fact that if I leave here now, it’s all over between us. Because I won’t wait for you to come along to keep me safe.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
She did scream then, and it felt good. She could even manage a bitter laugh when it was over. It had startled Bill. Gaby stuck her head in the door, then vanished when Cirocco did not acknowledge her presence.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “I’m over-reacting. It’s because I lost my ship and have to make up for it by covering myself with glory. I’m frustrated because I haven’t been able to put this crew back together and get it functioning, even to the extent of having the one man I thought I could depend on respect my decisions, shut up, and do what he’s told. I am one odd critter; I know that. Maybe I’m too aware of things that would be different if I was a man. You get sensitive when you see it happen over and over on your way up, and you have to be twice as good to get the job.
