Titan

by John Varley

  "Maybe I'm crazy," she said, "but I wonder if this is where the thing that ate us gets its water? "

  "Could be. I'm not diving in to find out. So what's next?" "I wish I knew."

  "We could go back to where we started and wait there." Gaby did not seem enthusiastic about that idea.

  "Damn! I thought sure we'd find a place to look around if we went far enough. Do you think the whole inside of Themis is one big rain forest?"

  Gaby shrugged. "I don't have enough information, obviously." Cirocco chewed it over for a while. Gaby was apparently willing to let her make the decisions. "Okay. First we go to the top of this hill and see what it's like. One more thing I'd like to try if there's nothing worthwhile up there is to climb one of these trees. Maybe we could get high enough to see something. Do you think we could do it?"

  Gaby studied a trunk. "Sure, in this gravity. That's no guarantee we'll be able to stick our heads out, though."

  "I know. Let's go up the hill."

  It was steeper than the countryside they had come through. There were places where they had to use hands and feet, and Gaby led the way through those because she had more experi- ence in rock climbing. She was agile, much smaller and more limber than Cirocco, and soon Cirocco felt every month of the age difference between them.

  "Holy shit, take a look at that!"

  "W.hat is it?" Cirocco was a few meters behind. When she looked up she saw only Gaby's legs and buttocks, from a distinctly unusual angle. It was odd, she thought, that she had seen all the male crew members naked, but had to come to Themis to see Gaby. What a strange creature she was with no hair.

  "We've found our scenic viewpoint," Gaby said. She turned around and gave Cirocco a hand.

  There were trees growing on the brow of the hill, but they did not approach the height of the ones behind them. Though they were dense and overgrown with vines, none was over ten meters tall.

  Cirocco had wanted to climb the hill to see what was on the other side. Now she knew. The hill didn't have an other side.

  Gaby was standing a few meters from the edge of a cliff. With every step Cirocco took the view adjusted itself, receding, encompassing more area. When she stood beside Gaby she still could not see the cliff face, but she had some idea of how long the drop was. It would he measured in kilometers. She felt her stomach lurch.

  They stood at-a natural window formed by a twenty-meter gap between the outermost trees. There was nothing in front of them but air for 200 kilometers.

  They were at the edge of the rim, looking across the breadth of Themis to the other side. Over there was a hairline shadow that might have been a cliff like the one they were standing on. Above the line was green land, fading to white, then to gray, and finally becoming a brilliant yellow as her eyes traveled up the sloping side to the translucent area in the roof.

  Her eyes were drawn back down the curve to the distant cliff. Below it was more green land, with white clouds hugging the ground or towering up higher than she was. It looked like the view from a mountaintop on Earth, but for one thing. The ground seemed level until she looked to the left or right.

  It bent. She gulped, and craned her neck, twisting, trying to make it level, trying to deny that far away the land was higher than she was without ever having risen.

  She gasped and clutched at the air, then went down on hands and knees. It felt better that way. She edged closer to the abyss and kept looking to her left. Far away was a land of shadow, tilted on its side for her examination. A dark sea twinkled in the night, a sea that somehow did not leave its shores and come spilling toward her. On the other side of the sea was another area of light, like the one in front of her, dwindling in the distance. Beyond it her view was cut off by the roof overhead, seeming to belly down to meet the land. She knew it was an illusion of the perspective; the roof would be just as high if she stood beneath it at that point.

  They were on the edge of one of the areas of permanent day. A hazy terminator began to blanket the land to her right, not sharp and clear like the terminator of a planet seen from space, but fad- ing through a twilight zone she estimated to be thirty or forty kilometers wide. Beyond that zone was night, but not blackness. There was a huge sea in there, twice as large as the one in the

  other direction, looking as if bright moonlight was falling on it. it sparkled like a plain of diamond.

  "Isn't that the direction the wind came from?" Gaby asked. "Yeah, if we didn't get turned around by a curve in the river." "I don't think we did. That looks like ice to me."

  Cirocco agreed. The ice sheet broke up as the sea narrowed to a neck, eventually becoming a river that ran in front of her and emptied into the other sea. The country over there was moun- tainous, rugged as a washboard. She did not understand how the river could thread its way through the mountains to join the sea on the other side. She decided the perspective was fooling her. Water would not flow uphill, even in Themis.

  Beyond the ice was another daylight area, this one brighter and yellower than the others she could see, like desert sands. To reach it, she would have to travel across the frozen sea.

  "Three days and two nights," Gaby said. "That worked out pretty well from the theory. I said we'd he able to see almost half the inside of Themis from any point. What I didn't figure on were those things."

  Cirocco followed Gaby's pointing fimer to a series of what looked like ropes that started on the land below and angled up- ward to the roof. There were three of them in a line almost directly in front of them, so that the nearest partially concealed the other two. Cirocco had seen them earlier, but had skipped over them because she could not understand it all at once. Now she looked closer, and frowned. Like a depressing number of things in Themis, they were huge.

  The nearest one could serve as a model for all the rest. It was fifty kilometers away, but she could see that it was made of perhaps one hundred strands wound together. Each strand was 200 or 300 meters thick. Further detail was lost at that distance.

  The three in the row all angled steeply over the frozen sea, rising 150 kilometers or more until they joined the roof at a point she knew must be one of the spokes, seen from the inside. It was a conical mouth, like the bell of a trumpet that flared to become the roof and sides of the rim enclosure. At the far edge of the bell, some 500 kilometers away, she could make out more of the ropes.

  There were more cables to her left, but these went straight up

  to the arched ceiling and disappeared through it. Beyond them were other rows that angled toward the spoke mouth she could not see from her vantage point, the one over the sea in the mountains.

  Where the cables joined the ground, they pulled it up into broad-based mountains.

  "They look like the cables on a suspension bridge," Cirocco said.

  "I agree. And I think that's what it is. There's no need for tow- ers to support it. The cables can be fastened in the center. Themis is.a circular suspension bridge."

  Cirocco eased herself closer to the edge. She stuck her head over and looked down two kilometers to the ground.

  The clifi was as near perpendicular as an irregular surface fea- ture can be. Only near the bottom did it begin to flare out to meet the land below.

  "You aren't thinking of going down that, are you?" Gaby asked.

  "The thought had entered my mind, but I sure don't feel good about it. And what would be better down there than up here? We've got a pretty good idea we could survive up here." She stopped. Was that to he their only goal?

  Given the chance, she would take adventure to security, if se- curity meant building a but from sticks and settling down to a diet of raw meat and fruit. She would be crazy in a month.

  And the land below was beautiful. There were impossibly steep mountains with shining blue lakes set in them like gems. She could see waving grasslands, dense forests, and far to the east, the brooding midnight sea. There was no telling what dan- gers that land concealed, but it seemed to call to her.

  "We might shinny down those
vines," Gaby said, reaching over the edge and pointing out a possible line of descent.

  The cliff face was encrusted with plants. The jungle spilled over the edge like a frozen torrent of water. Massive trees grew from the bare rock face, clinging like bamacles. The rock itself could be seen only in patches, and even there the news was not all bad. it looked like a basaltic formation, a closely packed sheaf of crystal pillars with broad hexagonal platforms where columns had broken off.

  "It's do-able," Cirocco said, at last. lit wouldn't he easy or safe. We'd have to think of a pretty good reason for trying it." Something better than the formless urge she felt to be down there, she thought.

  "Hell, I don't want to be stuck up here, either," Gaby said, with a grin.

  "Then your troubles are over," said a quiet voice from behind them.

  Every muscle in Cirocco's body tensed. She bit her lip, forcing herself to move slowly until she was safely away from the edge.

  "Up here. I've been waiting for you."

  Sitting on a tree limb. three meters from the ground, his bare feet dangling was Calvin Greene.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Before Cirocco quite had a chance to settle down, they were all sitting in a circle and Calvin was talking.

  "I came out not far from the hole where the river disappears," he was saying. "That was seven days ago. I heard you on the second day."

  "So why didn't you call us?" Cirocco asked. Calvin held up the remains of his helmet.

  "The mike is missing," he said, extricating the broken end of wire. "I could listen, but not transmit. I waited. I ate fruit. I just couldn't seem to kill any of the animals." He spread his broad bands, and shrugged.

  "How did you know this was the right place to wait?" Gaby asked.

  "I didn't know, for sure."

  "Well," Cirocco said. She slapped her palms on her legs, and then laughed. "Well. Fancy that. just when we'd about given up hope of finding anybody else, we stumble over you. It's too good to be true. Isn't it, Gaby? "

  "Huh? Oh, yeah, it's great."

  "It's good to see you folks, too. I've been listening to you for five days now. It's nice to hear a familiar voice."

  "Has it really been that long?"

  Calvin tapped a device on his wrist. It was a digital watch.

  "It's still keeping perfect time," he said. "When we get back, I'm going to write a letter to the manufacturer."

  "I'd thank the maker of the watchband," Gaby said. "Yours is steel and mine was leathery

  Calvin shrugged. "I remember it. It cost more than I made in a month, as an intem."

  "It still seems like too much time. We only slept three times." "I know. Bill and August are having the same trouble Judging

  time.pi

  Cirocco looked up.

  "Bill and August are alive?"

  "Yeah, I've been listening to them. They're down there, on the bottom. I can point to the place. Bill has his whole radio, like you two. August only had a receiver. Bill picked out some land- marks and started talking about how we could find him. He sat still for two days, and August found him pretty quick. Now they call out regular. But August only asks for April, and she cries a lot."

  "Jesus," Cirocco breathed. "I guess she would. You don't have any idea where April is, or Gene?"

  "I thought I heard Gene once. Crying, like Gaby said." Cirocco thought it over, and frowned.

  'Why didn't Bill hear us, then? He'd be listening in, too."

  "It must have been line-of-sight problems," Calvin said. "The cliff was cutting you off. I was the only one who could listen to both groups, but I couldn't do anything about it."

  "Then he'd hear us now., if---"

  "Don't get excited. They're asleep now, and they won't hear you. Those earphones are like a gnat buzzing. They ought to wake up in five or six hours." He looked from one of them to the other. "The smart thing for you folks is to get some sleep, too. You've been walking for twenty-five hours."

  This time, Ciracco had no trouble believing him. She knew she was existing on the excitement of the moment; her eyelids were drooping. But she couldn't give in yet.

  "What about yourself, Calvin? Have you had any trouble?" He raised one eyebrow. "Trouble?"

  "You know what, I'm talking about."

  He seemed to draw in on himself.

  "I'm not talking about that. Not ever."

  She was inclined not to push it. He seemed peaceful, as if he had come to terms with something.

  Gaby stood up and stretched, yawning hugely.

  "I'm for the sack," she said. "Where do you want to stretch out, Rocky?"

  Calvin stood up, too. "I've got a place I've been working on," he said. "It's up here in this tree. You two can use it, and I'll stay up and listen for Bill."

  It was a bird's nest woven from twigs and vines. Calvin had lined it with a feathery substance. There was plenty of room, but Gaby chose to get close, as they had been doing before. Cirocco wondered if she ought to call a halt to it, but decided it didn't matter.

  "Rocky? "

  "What is it?"

  "I want you to be careful around him."

  sirocco came back from the edge of sleep. "Mummph? Calvin?"

  "Something's happened to him."

  Cirocco looked at Gaby with one bloodshot eye. "Go to sleep, Gaby, okay?" She reached around and patted her leg.

  "Just watch out," Gaby muttered.

  If only there was some sign to mark the morning, Cirocco thought, yawning. It would make getting up a lot easier. Something like a rooster, or the sun's rays coming in at a different slant.

  Gaby was still asleep beside her. She disentangled herself and stood on the broad tree limb.

  Calvin was not around. Breakfast was within arm's reach: purple fruit the size of a pineapple. She picked one and ate it, rind and all. She began to climb.

  It was easier than it looked. She went up almost as fast as she could have climbed a ladder. There were definitely things to be

  said for one-quarter gee, and the tree was ideal for climbing, better than anything she had seen since she was eight years old. The knobby bark provided handbolds where limbs were scarce. She picked up a few scratches to add to her collection, but it was a price she was willing to pay.

  She felt happy for the first time since her arrival in Themis. She didn't count the meeting with Gaby and Calvin, because those had been so emotional they had verged on hysteria. This was just feeling good.

  "Hell, it's been longer than that," she muttered. She had never been a gloomy person. There had been some good times aboard Ringrnaster, but little out-and-out fun. Trying to recall the last time she had felt this good, she decided it was the party when she learned she had her command after seven years of trying. She grinned at the memory; it had been a very good party.

  But she soon put all thought from her mind and let her soul flow into the endeavor itself. She was aware of every muscle, every inch of skin. There was an astonishing amount of freedom in climbing a tree with no clothes on. Her nudity, until now, had been a nuisance and a danger. Now she loved it. She felt the rough texture of the tree under her toes, and the supple flex in the tree limbs. She wanted to yodel like Tarzan.

  As she approached the top, she heard a sound that had not been there before. It was a repeated crunching, coming from a point she couldn't see through the yellow-green leaves, in front of her and a few meters down.

  Proceeding more cautiously, she eased herself onto a horizontal limb and sidled toward the open air.

  There was a blue-gray wall in front of her. She had no idea what it might be. The enmching came again, louder, slightly above her. A tuft of broken branches moved in front of her and out of sight. Then, with no warning, the eye appeared.

  "Wow!" she yelped, before she could get her mouth shut. Without quite recalling how she got to be' there she was three meters back, bouncing with the motion of the tree and staring transfixed at the monstrous eye. It was as wide as her out- stretched arms, glistening with moisture
, and astonishingly human.

  It blinked.

  A thin membrane contracted from all sides, like a camera aperture, then snapped open again, literally quick as a wink.

  She broke all records getting down, not feeling it when she scraped her knee, yelling all the way. Gaby was awake. She had a thighbone in her hand, and looked ready to use it.

  "Down, down!" Cirocco yelled. "There's something up there. It could use this tree for a toothpick." She levitated the last eight meters, hit the ground on all fours, and was on her way down the hill when she collided with Calvin.

  "Didn't you hear me? We've got to get out of here. There's this thing-.-"

  "I know, I know," he soothed, putting out his hands, palms toward her. "I know all about it, and it's nothing to worry about. I didn't have time to tell you before you went to sleep."

  Cirocco felt deflated, but far from soothed. it was terrible to have that much nervous energy and nothing to do with it. Her feet wanted to run. instead, she blew up at him.

  "Well shit, Calvin! You didn't have time to tell me about a thing like that? What is it, and what do you know about it?"

  "That's our way off this cliff," he said. "His name is--" he pursed his lips and whistled three clear notes with a warble at the end, "- but I see that's awkward to use mixed with English. I call him Whistlestop."

  "You call him Whistlestop, " Cirocco repeated, numbly.

  "That's right. He's a blimp."

  "A blimp."

  He looked at her oddly and she gritted her teeth.

  "He looks more like a dirigible, but he's not, because he doesn't have a rigid skeleton. I'll call him and you can see for yourself." He put two fingers to his lips and whistled a long, complex tune with odd musical intervals.

  "He's calling him," Cirocco said.

  "So I heard," Gaby said. "Are you okay?"

  "Yeah. But my hair's going to come back in gray."

  There was an answering series of trills from above, then noth- ing happened for several minutes. They waited.

  Whistlestop bulged into view from the left. He was 300 or 400 meters from the cliff face, traveling parallel to it, and even that