by John Varley
if that wasn't enough, there was the calculated risk. How do you calculate what is risky when a tree might not he a tree?
They didn't even look that much like trees. The trunks were like polished marble. The high branches were parallel to the ground and ran for a precise distance before making a right angle. Above, the leaves were flat, like lily pads, and three or four me- ters across.
What was foolhardy and what was overcautious? There was no guidebook, and the dangers would not be marked. But without a few assumptions she could not move, and she had to get moving. She was getting hungry.
She set her jaw, then stamped over to the nearest tree. She smacked it with the palm of her hand. It just stood there, supremely indifferent.
"Just a dumb tree."
She examined the hole she had emerged from. It was a raw brown wound in the neat expanse of grass. Patches of sod held together by a feathery root structure, lay up- side-down around it. The hole itself was only half a meter deep; the sides had crumbled to fill the rest.
"Something tried to eat me," she said. "Something ate all the organic parts of my suit, and all my hair, then excreted the junk right here. Including me." She noted in passing that she was glad the thing had classified her as junk.
It was a hell of a beast. They knew the outer part of the torus- the ground she was sitting on-was thirty kilometers thick. This thing was large enough to snag Ringmaster while the ship orbitted 400 kilometers away. She had spent a long time in its belly and for some reason had proved indigestible. It had burrowed through the ground to this point, and expelled her.
And that just didn't make sense. If it could eat plastic, why couldn't it eat her? Were ship's captains too tough?
It had eaten her whole ship, pieces as large as the engine module, others just tiny bits of glass or tumbling, dwindling space- suited figures with dented helmets...
"Bill!" She was on her feet, every muscle in her body straining. "Bill! I'm here. I'm alivel Where are you?"
She slapped her forehead with her hand. If only she could get through this muddy-headed feeling when thoughts were coming so slowly. She had not forgotten about the crew, but it was not until that moment that she connected them with the new-bom Cirocco standing naked and hairless on the warm ground.
"Bill!" she shouted again. She listened, then collapsed with her legs folded under her. She plucked at the grass.
Think it through. Presumably, the creature would have treat- ed him as another piece of debris. But he had been injured.
So had she, now that she thought of it. She examined her thighs and found not even a bruise. it told her nothing. She might have been inside the creature for five years, or only a few months.
Any of the others might arrive and be pushed out of the ground at any time. Somewhere down there, about a meter and a half deep, was some kind of excretory outlet for the creature. If she waited, and if the creature didn't like the taste of all humans and not just ones named Cirocco, they might all get together again.
She sat down to wait for them.
Half an hour later (or was it only ten minutes?) it didn't make sense. The creature was big. It had eaten Ringmaster like an af- ter-dinner mint. It must extend through a great part of the underworld of Themis, and it didn't make sense to think this one orifice could handle all the traffic. There could he others, and they could be scattered all over the countryside.
A little later she had another thought. They were coming far apart, but they were coming, and she was grateful for that. The thought was simple: she was thirsty, she was hungry, and she was filthy. What she wanted most in the world was water.
The land sloped gently. She was willing to bet there would be a stream down there somewhere.
She stood and poked at the pile of metal pieces with one foot. There was too much to carry, but the junk was all she had for tools. She took one of the smaller rings, then picked up the larger one which had been the the bottom of her helmet and was still connected to the dangling electronic components.
It wasn't much, but it would have to do. She slung the large ring over her shoulder and started down the hill.
**********
The pool was fed by a two-meter fall from a rocky stream which wound through a little valley. The huge trees arched over- head, completely blocking her view of the sky. She stood on a rock near the edge of the pool, trying to judge its depth, thinking about jumping in.
Thinking about it was all she did. The water was clear, but there was no telling what might be in it. She jumped over the ridge which produced the waterfall. it was easy in the one-quar- ter gee. A short walk brought her to a sandy beach.
The water was warm, sweet, and bubbly, and easily the best thing she had ever tasted. She drank all she wanted, then squatted and scrubbed with sand, keeping an eye open. Watering holes were places for caution. When she was through she felt reasonably human for the first time since her awakening. She sat on the wet sand and let her feet trail in the water.
It was cooler than the air or the ground, but still surprisingly warm for what looked to be a glacier-fed mountain stream. Then she realized it would make sense if the heat source in Themis was as they had deduced: from below. The sunlight at Satum's orbit wouldn't provide much ground heating. But the triangular fins were under her now, and were probably designed to capture and store solar heat. She envisioned huge subterranean rivers of hot water running a few hundred meters under the ground.
Moving on seemed to be the next order of business, but which way? Straight ahead could be ruled out. Across the stream the land began to rise again. Downstream should be easiest, and should bring her to flatlands soon.
"Decisions, decisions," she muttered.
She looked at the tangle of metal junk she had been carrying all ... what was it? Afternoon? Morning? Time could not be measured that way in here. it was possible only to speak of elapsed time, and she had no idea how much had gone by.
The helmet ring was still in her hand. Now her brow furrowed as she looked closer.
Her suit had once contained a radio. Of course it was not possible that it had come through the ordeal intact, but just for the hell of it she hunted for and found the remains. There was a tiny battery, and what was left of a switch, turned on. That ended that. Most of the radio had been silicon chips and metal, so there had been some faint hope.
She looked again. Where was the speaker? it should he a little metal horn, the renuins of a headset unit. She found it, and lifted it to her car.
"... fifty-eight, fifty-nine, ninety-three-sixty ...
"Gaby! " She was on her feet, shouting, but the familiar voice kept countint oblivious. Ciroeco knelt on the rock and arrayed the remains of her helmet on it with fingers that trembled, holding the speaker to one ear while pawing through the components. She found the pinhead throat mike.
"Gaby, Gaby, come in please. Can you hear me?" "... eighty-Rocky! Is that you, Rocky?"
"It's me. Where...here are... She calmed down deliberately, swallowed, and went on. "Are you all right? Have you seen the others?"
"Oh, Captain. The most horrible things …." Her voice broke, and Cirocco heard sobs. Gaby poured out an incoherent stream of words: how glad she was to hear Cirocco's voice, how lonely she had been, how sure she had been that she was the only survivor until she listened to her radio and heard sounds.
"Sounds?"
"Yes, there's at least one other alive, unless that was you cry-
ing. "
"I ... hell, I cried quite a bit. It might have been me."
"I don't think so," Gaby said. "I'm pretty sure it's Gene. He sings sometimes, too. Rocky, it's so good to hear your voice."
"I know. It's good to hear yours." She had to take another deep breath and relax her grip on the helmet ring. Gaby's voice was back in control, but Cirocco was on the edge of hysterics. She didn't like the feeling.
"The things that have happened to me," Gaby was saying. "I was dead, Captain, and in heaven, and I'm not even religious, but there
I was-"
"Gaby, settle down. Get a grip on yourself"
There was silence, punctuated by sniffs.
"I think I'll be all right now. Sorry."
"It's all right. If you went through anything like what I did, I understand perfectly. Now, where are you? "
There was a pause, then a giggle. "There's no street signs in the neighborhood," Gaby said. "It's a canyon, not very deep. It's full of rocks and there's a stream down the middle. There's these funny trees on both sides of the stream."
" It sounds pretty much like where I am." But which canyon? she wondered. "Which way are you going? Were you counting steps? "
"Yeah. Downstream. If I could get out of this forest, I could see half of Themis."
" I thought of that, too."
"We just need a couple landmarks to tell if we're in the same neighborhood."
"But I thought we must be, or we wouldn't be able to hear each other."
Gaby didn't say anything, and Cirocco saw her mistake. "Right," she said. "Line of sight."
"Check. These radios are good for quite a distance. In here, the horizon curves up."
"I'd believe it better if I could see it. Where I am right now could be the enchanted forest at Disney World in late evening."
"Disney would have done a better job," Gaby said. "It would have had more detail, and monsters popping out of the trees."
"Don't say that. Have you seen anything like that?"
"A couple insects, I guess they were."
"I saw a school of tiny fish. They looked like fish. Oh, by the way, don't go in the water. They might be dangerous."
"I saw them. After I was in the water. But they didn't do anything."
"Have you passed anything that's remarkable in any way? Some unusual surface feature?',
"A few waterfalls. Two fallen trees."
Cirocco looked around and described the pool and waterfall. Caby said she had passed several places like that. it might be the same stream, but there was no way to know.
"All right," Cirocco said. "Here's what we do. When you find a rock facing upstream, make a mark on it."
"How?"
"With another rock." She found one the size of her fist and at- tacked the rock she had been sitting on. She scratched a large "C" on it. There could be no mistaking its artficiality.
"I'm doing that now."
"Make a mark every hundred meters or so. If we're on the same river one of us will come up behind the other, and the one in front can wait for the other to c up.##
"Sounds good. Uh, Rocky, how long are these batteries good for?"
Cirocco grimaced, and rubbed her forehead.
"Maybe a month of use. It could depend on how long we were ... you know, how long we were inside. I don't have any ideas on that. Do you?"
"No. Do you have any hair?"
"Not a strand." She rubbed her hand over her scalp, and no- ticed that it did not feel quite as smooth. "But it's growing back in. "
Cirocco walked downstream, holding the speaker and mike in place so they could talk to each other.
"I feel hungriest when I think about it," Gaby said. "And I'm thinking about it right now. Have you seen any of these little berry bushes?"
Cirocco looked around but didn't spot anything like that.
"The berries are yellow, and about as big as the end of your thumb. I'm holding one now. It's soft and translucent."
"Are you going to eat it?"
There was a pause. "I was going to ask you about that."
"We'll have to try something sooner or later. Maybe one won't be enough to kill you."
"Just make me sick," Caby laughed. "This one broke on my teeth. There's a thick jelly inside, like honey with a minty taste. It's dissolving in my mouth ... and now it's gone. The rind is not so sweet, but I'm going to eat it anyway. It might be the only part with any food value."
If even that, Cirocco thought. There was no reason why any part of it should sustain them. She was pleased that Gaby had given her such a detailed description of her sensations while eating the berry, but she knew the purpose of it. Bomb de-fusing teams used the same technique. One stayed away while the oth- er reported every action over the radio. If the bomb went off, the survivor learned something for the next time.
When they judged enough time had passed with no ill effect, Gaby began eating more of the berries. In time, Cirocco found some. They were almost as good as that first taste of water had been.
"Gaby, I'm about dead on my feet. I wonder how long we've been awake?"
There was a long pause, and she had to call again.
"Hm? Oh, hi. How did 1 get here?" She sounded slightly drunk.
Cirocco frowned. "Where's here? Gaby, what's happening?"
"I sat down for a minute to rest my legs. I must have fallen asleep."
"Try to wake up enough to find a good place for it." Cirocco was already looking around. It was going to be a problem. Nothing looked good, and she knew it was the worst possible idea to lie down alone in strange country. The only thing worse would be trying to stay awake any longer.
She went a short distance into the trees, and marveled at how soft the grass felt under her bare feet. So much better than the rocks. It would be nice to sit down in it for a minute.
She awoke on the grass, sat up quickly and looked all around. Nothing was moving.
For a meter in every direction from where she had slept, the grass had turned brown, dried out like hay.
She stood and looked down at a large rock. She had approached it from the downstream side while looking for a place to sleep. Now she walked around it, and on the other side was a large letter "G. "
CHAPTER FIVE
Gaby insisted on turning back. Cirocco didn't protest; it sounded good to her, though she could never have suggested it.
She walked downstream, often passing the marks Gaby had made. At one point she had to leave the sandy shore and go up onto the grass to avoid a large pile of boulders. When she reached the grass she saw a series of oval brown spots spaced like footprints. She knelt and touched them. They were dry and brittle, just like the grass where she had slept.
"I've found part of your trail," she told Gaby. "Your feet couldn't have touched the grass more than a second, and yet something in your body killed it."
"I saw the same thing when I woke up," Gaby said. "What do you think of it?"
"I think we secrete something that's poison to the grass. If that's true, we might not smell very good to the kind of large animals that might normally take an interest in us."
"That's good news."
"The bad part is that it might mean we have very dffierent sorts of biochemicals. That's not so good for eating."
"You're so much fun to talk to."
***********
"Is that you up ahead?"
Cirocco squinted into the pale yellow light. The river ran straight for a good distance, and just where it started to bend was a tiny figure.
"Yep. It's me, if that's you waving your arms."
Gaby whooped, a painful sound in the tiny earphone. Cirocco heard the sound again a second later, much fainter. She grinned, and then felt the grin getting bigger and bigger. She hadn't wanted to run, it was so like a bad movie, but she was running anyway and so was Gaby, taking absurdly long hops in the low gravity.
They hit so hard they were both breathless for a moment. Cirocco embraced the smaller woman and lifted her off her feet.
"D-d-d-damn, you look s-s-so good!" Gaby said. One of her eyelids was twitching, and her teeth chattered.
"Hey, hold on, take it easy," Cirocco soothed, rubbing Gaby's back with both hands. Gaby's smile was so wide it hurt to look at it.
"I'm sorry, but I think I'm going to be hysterical. Isn't that a laugh?" And she did laugh, but it was flat and hurt the car, and before long turned into shudders and gasps. She held Cirocco strongly enough to break ribs. Cirocco didn't fight it, but eased her down to the sandy river bank and held her close while huge, low-gr
avity tears dripped onto her shoulders.
Cirocco was not sure at what point the comforting hugs turned into something else. It was so gradual. Gaby was quite insensible for a long time, and it seemed the natural thing to hold and stroke her while she calmed down. Then it seemed natural that Gaby should stroke her, and that they should press close together. The first moment when it began to seem a little unusual was when she found herself kissing Gaby, and Gaby kissing back. She thought she might have stopped it then, but she didn't want to because she could not tell if the tears she tasted belonged to her or Gaby.
And besides, it never really turned into love-making. They rubbed against each other and kissed mouth-to-mouth, and when the orgasm came it almost seemed irrelevant to what had gone before. At least that's what she kept telling herself.
One of them had to say something when it was over, and it seemed best to stay away from what they had just done.
"Are you all right now?" Gaby nodded. Her eyes were still bright, but she was smiling. "Uh-huh. Probably not permanently, though. I woke up screaming. I'm really afraid to go to sleep."
"It's not my favorite thing either. You know you're about the funniest-looking critter I ever saw?"
"That's because you don't have a mirror." Gaby couldn't stop talking for hours, and she didn't like it when Cirocco let go of her. They moved to a less exposed position up in the trees, then sat with Cirocco's back against a tnmk and Gaby reclining against her.
She spoke of her trip down the river, but what she kept want- ing to go back to, or what she couldn't get away from, was her experience in the belly of the creature. It sounded to Cirocco like an extended dream that had little in common with what she herself had experienced, but that might have been just the inadequacy of words.
"I did wake up in the darkness a few times, like you did," Gaby said. "When I did, I couldn't feel or see or hear anything, and I didn't really want to stay there very long."
"I kept going back to my earlier life. It was extremely vivid. I could ... feel it all."