by John Varley
She grinned at him. "No, you don't. I'd have done the same thing. It's not a situation where you hang around for explanations."
She rubbed her jaw. "Actually, it's my own fault for not getting out of the way quicker. I think I'm slowing down."
"Maybe I'm speeding up."
"That's a possibility."
As though by mutual accord the others turned back to their tents, leaving Robin and Chris alone. The moment hung awkwardly in the air and Chris felt frightened. If Rocky had realized the score why hadn't he? Maybe because he'd been too eager for sex. Robin seemed to have some of the same feeling. He could tell she was thinking of their earlier conversation and perhaps reassessing it. She turned away from him briefly to collect her thoughts and then very carefully said she was sorry. In a few words she professed not to blame him any more than she blamed herself. It had been a simple misunderstanding, fortunately averted in time. She said she was no more afraid of him now than she had ever been.
But she moved back into her own tent that night
Cirocco came reeling in after the last day of Carnival, singing loudly. Gaby put her to bed and in the morning loaded her into a canoe and once more covered her with a blanket. They shoved off and soon left the diminishing gaity of Inglesina Island behind them. Ophion was again quiet, undisturbed, as the party, much subdued, paddled steadily toward the Twilight Sea.
26 Path of Glory
The body of water half in Crius and half in Phoebe was usually designated on maps as Phoebe or the Phoebe Sea, but no one ever called it that. One traveled through Phoebe and sailed on the Twilight Sea.
It was an apt name. The western end of the sea was in Crius, and thus in daylight, but it extended through the twilight zone and into the night of Phoebe. Seen from a distance sufficient for Gaea's curvature to upend it, the waters of Twilight began in shades of deep blue and green, faded through orange and copper, and ended in black. Roughly in the center was a large island known as Unome, always in twilight, that held two lakes known as Tarn Gandria and Tarn Concordia. A race of insectile creatures lived on the island and nowhere else, and they were known to humans and Titanides as the Iron Masters. Robin gathered from what little was said that they were thoroughly unpleasant, starting with their smell and continuing to just about every aspect of their culture and morals. She was just as glad that the Wizard had no business with them on this trip.
In fact, they planned to take the conservative path. The northern shore of the Twilight Sea was close enough to the straight-line route across it that it made sense to stay near a safe haven, particularly since Twilight was known for its sudden, violent storms.
The navigation of Twilight passed without incident, but Robin spent her time withdrawn from the others. The incident with Chris had upset her greatly. She did not blame him but could not help a certain queasy feeling when she caught him, sometimes, looking at her. Her policy was to draw lessons from the bad things in life, and what she learned from her experiment in heterosexual love was that her worst enemy in Gaea was usually her own ignorance. It was not a new realization. All through her life she had tended to shut out things that seemed to have no immediate bearing on her survival. By doing that, she often missed the things noticed by more patient, less discriminating people who listened to and watched everything, no matter how trivial it appeared.
And it was time to discard an opinion, which was that the Wizard was an alcohol-soaked zombie, commanding respect only through a title and tales of her past deeds. It was a small thing, really, yet Robin had been impressed when she had time to think about it. Cirocco could not have heard them until Chris began to moan, meaning he had already been on the edge of disaster. Cirocco had thought quickly, putting together such details as the lost contraceptives and Robin's genetic disorder, deducing their shared ignorance and Robin's probable fertility, and had immediately acted on her answer without worrying about the consequences. No matter that what she had done was socially unthinkable; she had been right, had known it, and had acted.
She wondered if Chris's blow had actually surprised Cirocco or if it had been allowed to land. It was obvious that he felt bad about being the worst fighter in a group of three women and one man.
Being able to hit her at a moment of such indignity had allowed him to salvage some self-respect.
That was something she would never know. What she did know was that she would not underestimate Cirocco again.
Ophion emerged from Twilight in much the same way it had from Nox: the sea narrowed gradually and at some point became a river. But instead of a series of river pumps, the group confronted five kilometers of the swiftest water they had yet seen. They paused in the last quiet pool, and the four boats drew together to discuss the approach. Only Cirocco and Gaby knew this part of the river. The Titanides listened, paddling slowly backward to stay out of the current.
They moved into the current one at a time, Cirocco and Hornpipe in the lead, Gaby and Psaltery bringing up the rear. When her turn came, Robin exulted in the speed and noise. She knelt in the bow and paddled vigorously until Hautbois advised her to save her strength and let the river do most of the work. She could feel the results of the Titanide's strong, calculated strokes and did her best to help rather than hinder. There was a rhythm to find, a way of becoming attuned to the river. Twice she fended off submerged rocks with the end of her paddle and once was rewarded with a shout of encouragement from Hautbois. She was still grinning when they swung around a bend and confronted a hundred meters of chaos that seemed to go straight down.
There was no time for second thoughts. Robin recited a prayer almost before she realized what she was doing and held on tight.
The canoe shuddered. Water spilled over the side and sprayed in her face; then she was battling to keep the nose pointed downstream. She thought she heard Hautbois shout, but the roaring of the river was too loud for words. The wood splintered beneath her, and suddenly she was in the river, clinging to the side of the canoe.
When she got her head above the water and opened her eyes, she saw that Hautbois was also in the river, but standing on the bottom submerged to the waist. She had wrestled them to an area of relative quiet at the side of the river and now clambered onto a rocky shelf and lifted the stern of the canoe.
"You all right?" she called, and Robin managed to nod. When she looked up, she saw Gaby and Psaltery.
After an inspection and a shouted conference they decided the canoe would have to complete the trip down the rapids; that was fortunate since the other would have been dangerously overloaded with the two Titanides and two humans. Robin would have to ride with Gaby, while Hautbois managed the task of nursing the disabled craft down the river. Robin did not argue but climbed into Gaby's boat with a sense of failure.
"I can't fix that," Hautbois told them after inspecting the broken ribs of the canoe. "We'll have to salvage the skin and wait until we get into another stand of canoe trees."
"Robin can ride with me and Valiha," Chris offered.
Robin hesitated only a moment, then nodded to him.
They were beached on a wide mud flat at the confluence of Ophion and the river Arges, near the center of Phoebe. The land was dark, with only an occasional spindly tree silver and translucent in the moonlight. Phoebe was actually a tiny bit brighter than Rhea had been. The reason was the Twilight Sea, part of which was in sunlight, was a better reflector than the lands which curved up on each side of Nox. But the slight gain was lost in the dreariness of the land itself. Rhea at least had been rugged; central Phoebe was swamp.
Robin hated it. She stood in mud that covered her ankles and looked out over land that must have been heaven for eels and frogs but for nothing else. It was already hard to remember the exhilaration of the white water. She was drenched and saw no chance of drying out soon. It didn't help to think that had she not been in the front of the canoe, the accident might not have happened. She wondered once again what she was doing here.
She was not the only one who didn't lik
e it. Nasu squirmed restlessly in the bag slung under her arm. The trip had not been easy on the snake. She knew she should have left the demon at the Coven-had planned to do so but at the last moment had not been able to. When she loosened the string, Nasu poked her head out and sampled the air with her tongue. Finding it at least as cool and damp as the inside of the sack and seeing no dry place to curl up, she soon retreated.
Hautbois and Psaltery were busy breaking down the damaged canoe, transferring its contents to the other three. Robin saw the others some distance away, standing on what passed for high ground in Phoebe, which meant their feet were a few centimeters above the water. Cirocco sat on a rock facing the central Phoebe cable, which loomed above them, but the others looked north. Robin could not find anything worth seeing, but she slogged through the mud to join them.
"What's so interesting?" she asked.
"I don't know yet," Chris said. "I'm waiting for Hornpipe to get to it."
Hornpipe stamped the ground restlessly.
"Maybe I shouldn't have brought it up," he said.
"You certainly shouldn't have," Valiha agreed, glowering at him. But Hornpipe went ahead doggedly.
"Well, you are here to find a way to prove your heroism to Gaea. I just thought I should point out opportunities. Take it or leave it."
"I leave it," Robin said. She looked at Chris. "You aren't serious, are you?"
"I don't really know," Chris admitted. "I came because Gaby said it was better than sitting around and waiting for opportunity to come to me, and that made sense. I never did really decide if I was rejecting Gaea's rules. I'm here, so I must not have rejected them completely. But I'll admit I hadn't given much thought to taking off on my own."
"And you shouldn't," Valiha said.
"Still, I ought to hear what's out there."
Robin snorted but had to admit she was interested to know.
"That mountain," Hornpipe said. Robin saw a conical black smudge. "It's nearly at the northern rampart," he went on. "It's a bad area, from all accounts, where little lives. I have never been there myself. But all know it is the home of Kong."
"What's Kong?" Chris asked.
"A giant ape," said Gaby, who now joined them. "What else? Let's get going, folks. The canoes are ready."
"Just a minute," Chris said. "I'd like to hear more."
"What's to hear? He sits up there... ." She looked suspicious. "Say, you weren't thinking of ... right. Come over here, Chris, and I'll tell you about Kong." She took him a few meters away, glancing at Cirocco. Robin followed, but the Titanides did not. When Gaby spoke, she kept her voice low.
"Rocky doesn't like to hear about Kong," she said, and grimaced. "I can hardly blame her. Kong is a one-shot, about a hundred years old and the only one of his species. He's in the same class with the dragons Gaea told you about; each one different, no provision to breed. They pop out of the ground after Gaea creates them, live as long as they're programmed to live, which is usually quite a long time, and die. Kong was based on a movie Gaea saw, like the giant sandworm in Mnemosyne. There're several things like that in here. Of course, they become objects for quests by pilgrims. I hate to think how many people have been slaughtered by Kong. Short of a gun the size of a tree or one hell of a lot of dynamite, he's unkillable. Believe me, a lot of people have tried it."
"It must be possible," Chris said.
Gaby shrugged. "I guess anything is if you try long enough. I don't think you're ready to take him, though. I know I wouldn't try it. Come on, Chris. There are simpler ways to commit suicide."
"Why does Cirocco fear him?" Robin asked. "Or perhaps 'fear' is not the right word."
" 'Fear' is precisely the right word," Gaby said almost in a whisper. "Kong will eat anything that moves. The Wizard is the one exception. Gaea built him with a tropism. He can smell her at a hundred kilometers, and her scent is the only thing that will bring him from his mountain. I don't think you can call it love, but it's a strong compulsion. He'll follow her right to the edge of the twilight zone. Whatever else I might say about Gaea, she usually leaves an escape clause, so she made Kong with an aversion to light, like the sandworm hates the cold on either side of Mnemosyne. He won't follow her into Tethys or Crius.
"But if the wind were from the south, we wouldn't be in Phoebe right now. Rocky crosses at the southern rampart when she can-if she has to visit Phoebe at all-because if Kong smells her, he will come running. If he catches her, he takes her back to his mountain. He did catch her once, about fifty years ago. It was six months before she could get away."
"What did he do?" Robin asked.
"She won't talk about it." Gaby raised her eyebrows and looked at each of them, then turned and walked away.
Robin looked back to the mountain, then saw that Chris was staring at it, too.
"You aren't-"
"What has she been telling you?"
Robin was startled at the nearness of the Wizard and wondered how she had approached so silently.
"Nothing," she said.
"Come on, I heard some of it before she so cleverly moved you away. You didn't believe all that, did you?"
Robin thought back over it and realized, with some chagrin, that she had.
"Well, it wasn't all lies," Cirocco conceded. "Kong is there, and he is twenty meters tall, and he did capture me and hold me prisoner, and I don't talk about it much because it was extremely unpleasant. He fouls his nest. By now the compressed shit in his cave must be ninety meters deep. He likes to take his prisoners out and look at them from time to time, but as for the sexual innuendo, forget it. He isn't even equipped; he's neuter.
"He does have a terrific sense of smell, too, but that business about smelling just me is bunk. He is attracted to all human females. What he homes in on is menstrual blood."
Robin felt concerned for the first time. Why had they come through Phoebe now?
"Don't worry," Cirocco soothed. "His nose is so good there's not really any time when you're safe. Anyhow, your smell is what would protect you, in a way. When he catches a man, he eats him. Titanides confuse him. He doesn't rely on his eyes too much, but when he gets a Titanide, he bites off part and saves the torso because at least it looks right. Then he plays with it until it falls apart." She frowned at the memory, looking away from them.
"But he is killable," she went on. "I could think of a couple of ways that should turn the trick. There was one go-getter about thirty years back who even managed to capture him. I think he planned to bring him back alive, though I don't know how because Kong got loose and ate him. The point is the guy had him tied down and could have killed him.
"But nobody goes to his mountain to kill him because there's something that's marginally easier and will get the same result if you're a pilgrim. You can rescue one of his captives. If you're a woman, there isn't even the risk of getting killed yourself because he never kills women. Not that I'd recommend being captured by him; there're more pleasant ways to spend your time. Still, he's usually got somebody up there. I know for sure there's one woman he's had for six months now, and there might even be more."
She turned away from them, reconsidered, and came back.
"One thing Gaby didn't tell you is how I got out. If you think it was a case of turning my knowledge of Gaea to good use or of outthinking the old bastard, you're wrong. I might still be there if I had been left to my own devices. The fact is that Gaby got me out at great risk to her own freedom, and I don't talk about it because it frankly doesn't fit well with my image of myself. Kong is a pretty scruffy monster, but he's nothing to laugh about, and Gaby fills the role of knight in shining armor as well as anyone could, but I'm afraid I was a miserable damsel in distress. I didn't have much self-respect left by the time she dragged me out of there." She shook her head slowly. "And I couldn't give her the traditional reward." She hurried away from them.
Robin looked once more toward the mountain, then back at Chris, saw a suspicious look in his eye, and remembered what she had been abo
ut to say before Cirocco interrupted.
"No," she said firmly, taking his arm and pulling him toward the waiting canoes. "That's what Gaea wants you to do. She wants you to put on a good show for her, and she doesn't care whether you live through it."
Chris sighed but did not resist her.
"You must have a pretty low opinion of my ability to take care of myself."
The remark surprised her, and she searched his face. "Is that what you think? Look, I understand the need to prove yourself. I probably have it stronger than you do, after all. But personal honor cannot be placed at the service of malevolence. It must mean something."
"It would mean something to that woman up there. I'll bet she doesn't see it as a game."
"She's not your affair. She's a stranger."
"I'm surprised to hear you say that about a sister."
Robin had been a little surprised to hear it herself and uneasily searched for a motivation. When she found it, she was not delighted but faced it anyway. Part of it was, truly, that she detested the thought of anyone doing anything to impress the slime-Goddess, Gaea. The other part... .
"I don't want to see you hurt. You're my friend."
27 Burst of Flame
"This could be the most dangerous part of the trip," Cirocco told them.
"I disagree," Gaby said. "Iapetus will be the worst."
"I thought Oceanus would be," Chris put in.
Gaby shook her head. "Oceanus is tough, but I've never had too much trouble getting across. He's still lying low, making his plans. I don't expect to live to see the results. These beings think in terms of millennia. Iapetus is the most actively hostile region. You can count on him to notice you when you pass through and to try to do something about it."
The group was gathered around the base of the central Phoebe cable, which, like the one in Hyperion, came to ground in a wide bend of the river. It was actually more accurate to say the cable had created the bend through a process Cirocco called millennial sag. Gaealithic evidence beneath the cable proved that in earlier times Ophion had flowed among the cable strands. As its rim stretched, the land beneath the juncture had been pulled up and the river had found a new path.