Wizard

by John Varley

  "As much as twenty revs, if need be," Larry assured her. "But really, I can tell you what to do for her in ten or fifteen minutes. The treatment's as old as the hills."

  "She was talking a while ago," Trini offered. Cirocco turned to her at once, and for a moment Trini thought she would grab her shoulders and shake her. But she restrained herself, while her eyes bored into Trini.

  "Did she mention any of the others? Gaby? Chris? Valiha?"

  "She wasn't really awake," Trini said. "I think she was talking to Thea. She was afraid, but she couldn't let Thea know that. It was jumbled."

  "Thea," Cirocco whispered. "My God, how did she get past Thea?"

  "I thought you expected them to," Trini said. "Or why else did you have me stay here?"

  "To cover all the bases," Cirocco said, distracted. "You were a backup to take care of a low probability. I don't see how she found her way through all that, much less got past..." She frowned, and her eyes focused on Trini.

  "I didn't mean that the way it sounded, I hope you-"

  "That's all right. I'm glad I was here."

  Cirocco's face softened, and she smiled at last. "So am I. I know you've been here a long time, and I appreciate it. I'll see that you get-"

  "I don't want anything," Trini said quickly. Again those eyes bored into her.

  "All right. But I won't forget it. Doctor, can we wake her up?"

  "Call me Larry. You'd better let her rest for now. She'll wake up in her own time, but I don't promise she'll make any sense. She's got a high fever."

  "It's very important that I talk to her. The others could be in trouble."

  "I realize that. Give her a few more hours, and I'll see what I can do."

  Cirocco did not wait very well. Not that she paced or chattered; in fact, she said nothing and never got up from her chair. But her impatience filled the room and made it impossible for Trini to relax. Larry had had a lot of practice at waiting. He spent his time reading one of the books Trini had finished during her long vigil. Trini had always liked to cook, and the refuge was filled with food she had had no chance to use. Robin had been able to take no more than a few sips of broth. For something to do she cooked eggs, bacon, and pancakes. Larry appreciated them, but Cirocco waved it away.

  "Thea!" she said at one point, prompting the others to look up. "What am I talking about, Thea! How the hell did they ever get past Tethys?"

  They waited for her to say more, but that was it. Larry returned to his book, and Trini began to straighten things for the seventeenth time. On the cot, Robin slept quietly.

  When Robin groaned, Cirocco was instantly at her side, and Larry was not far behind. Trini hovered behind them and had to retreat quickly when Cirocco moved to let Larry in to take Robin's pulse.

  Robin opened her eyes when Larry touched her arm, tried to pull away, and blinked slowly. Something in Larry's voice calmed her. She looked at him, then at Cirocco. She did not see Trini in the shadows.

  "I dreamed I ..." she began, then shook her head.

  "How do you feel, Robin?" Cirocco asked. Robin's eyes moved slowly.

  "Where were you?" she said petulantly.

  "That's a good question. Can you listen to the answer? That way you won't have to talk for a while."

  Robin nodded.

  "Okay. First, I sent Hornpipe back to Titantown to get a crew to clear out the entrance to the stairs. If you remember, it was completely cut off."

  Robin nodded again.

  "It took awhile to get everyone there and longer than I'd thought to clear it all away. The Titanides were willing to work, but they behaved strangely under the cable. They'd wander away, and when you found them, they didn't remember leaving. So I had to hire some human help, too, and wasted even more time.

  "But we got it clear and took a team of seven humans down to Tethys. The chamber was flooded higher than I've ever seen it. She wouldn't speak to me, and there was nothing I could do about it since even Gaea carries no weight with Tethys.

  "So I came here. I was sure you all were dead, but I wouldn't believe it until I found your bodies, no matter how long it took. If Tethys had killed you, I ... I don't know what I would have done, but I would have done something to her she'd never forget. Anyway, there was that outside chance you had made it by her and into the catacombs."

  "We did. And Valiha-"

  "Don't talk yet. Save your strength. Now, as far as I know, me and Gaby are the only humans who have ever been down there, and I knew little about the catacombs except that they go on forever and are impossible to find your way through. I went to see Thea anyway and told her that if any of you showed up, she was to let you through without hindrance. Then I tried to explore the east end of the catacombs, and I had to give it up after a few weeks. I wasn't getting anywhere. I decided I'd risk leaving and organizing a group to come down there properly equipped and explore every meter of the place, and for that I had to order a lot of things from Earth. I didn't really think any of you had made it, you see, and I-"

  "I understand," Robin said with a sniff. "But Thea ... oh, damn it. I thought I had... I thought I made it past her on my own. But she was just playing with me." She looked as if she were going to cry, but in the end she was too weak to do it.

  Cirocco took Robin's hand.

  "Pardon me," she said. "You misunderstood. I was a long way from satisfied Thea would take an order from me if I wasn't there to enforce it. She's obsessive about her privacy. I was afraid that if any of you did show up, she'd kill you and destroy the bodies and let Tethys take the blame since she knew I already thought that's what happened and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it unless I wanted to camp out on her doorstep for a few months. Maybe I should have done that anyway because-"

  "That's all right," Robin said. She smiled weakly. "I handled it."

  "You sure did, and someday I'd like to know how. Anyway, I did what I could-though I sure as hell wish I'd done more now-and I was going to start down to Thea in three or four more days when I got a call from Trini that you'd come knocking at her door. I got here as fast as I could."

  Robin closed her eyes and nodded.

  "Anyway," Cirocco went on after a pause, "there are a lot of things I've wanted to ask you, and if you feel up to it, maybe I can ask them now. The biggest thing that's been on my mind is why Gaby let you go down to Tethys in the first place. I know her, and she knows me, even if we don't always get along, and she should have known I'd find a way to clear those rocks and come in to get you all. Then, when she didn't show up with you, I wondered why she didn't, and now I'm wondering if she was hurt and couldn't..." Her voice trailed off. Robin had opened her eyes, and the look of horror there was so plain to Trini that she knew instantly what had happened. She turned away.

  "I thought when you cleared away the rocks ..." Robin wailed.

  Trini turned back, and it was as if Cirocco had turned to stone. Finally her lips moved, but her voice was dead.

  "We found nothing," she said.

  "I don't know what to say. We left her there. We wanted to bury her, but there was just no ..." She trailed off into tears, and Cirocco stood. Her eyes looked at nothing as she turned, and Trini knew she would never forget those dead eyes that swept over her as if she were not there as the Wizard of Gaea fumbled for the door latch and stepped outside onto the narrow porch. They heard her going down the ladder; then there was no sound at all but Robin's weeping.

  They worried about her, but when they looked out, she was standing with her back to them, a hundred meters away, knee-deep in snow. She did not move for more than an hour. Trini was going to go out and get her, but Larry said give her more time. Then Robin said she had to talk to her, and he went down the ladder. Trini could see him speaking to her. Cirocco did not turn her head but did follow him when he put his hand on her shoulder.

  When she was back inside, her face was still dead to all emotion as she knelt beside Robin's cot and waited.

  "Gaby told us something," Robin began. "I'm s
orry, but I think she wanted just you to hear it, and this room is too small for privacy."

  "Larry, Trini," Cirocco said, "would you wait in the plane? I'll flash the lights in here when you can return."

  Neither Cirocco nor Robin moved as the two of them put on their coats and boots and left, pulling the door closed quietly behind them. They spent an uncomfortable hour in the plane, protected from the wind but cold all the same. Neither of them complained. When the lights flashed, they returned, and Trini did not immediately see the difference in Cirocco's face, but it was there. It was still painful to look at, and it was still dead, in a sense. But it was not dead like the face of a corpse; it was more like a face carved in granite.

  And the eyes burned.

  40 Proud Heritage

  There had to be easier things than shepherding a pregnant, disabled Titanide through a dark terrain that would have daunted a mountain goat. On the other hand, Chris could think of some things that were probably harder, and many things less pleasant. The company was some compensation, and the fact that the path was marked for them. Everything balanced, and it came to seem as if that were the way it should be. Valiha's arms grew stronger, but their pace did not improve because she was gaining weight. They had to be more careful than ever lest her growing awkwardness provoke a slip that might hurt her still-fragile forelegs. As she neared her term, the new delights of anterior sex play tapered off and stopped. But the frontal sex got even better as her legs improved. He gradually lost the exciting, exotic sense of alienness he had once felt when he was around her, to the point he sometimes wondered how she had ever looked odd. Yet with familiarity grew an easy acceptance that drew them closer.

  Valiha swelled like a ripening pumpkin. She grew more radiantly beautiful and, curiously, more mottled with brownish freckles.

  There would be few surprises. Chris began completely ignorant of Titanide birthing, but by the time Serpent was ready to be born he knew as much as Valiha. He had been making many assumptions that led to needless apprehension.

  He knew, for instance, that Valiha was not using a general pronoun when she called her child he. That had been planned with the other two parents. He knew-but still could not quite believe-that Valiha was in communication with the fetus in a way she never satisfactorily described. She claimed they had decided on his name together, though she had influenced him because of a circumstance beyond her control. That concerned the Titanide custom of naming a child after the first instrument he or she owned. The custom was no longer universal, but Valiha was traditional and had been working for some time on the first instrument for her son: the serpent, a sinuous tube of wood played like a brass horn. In the cavern, her choice of building materials had been limited.

  He knew the birth would not be painful, would not take long, and Serpent would be born able to walk and talk. But when she told him she hoped the child would be able to speak English, Chris's first thought was that she was a fool. He did not say that but expressed his doubt.

  "I know," Valiha said. "The Wizard is dubious, too. This is not the first time an attempt has been made to birth a child with two milk tongues. Yet even the Wizard will not say it cannot be done. Our genetics is not yours. Many things happen differently inside us."

  "Like what?"

  "I know nothing of the scientific side of it. But you must admit we are different. The Wizard has successfully crossed Titanide eggs with the genetic matter of frogs, fish, dogs, and apes in the laboratory."

  "That goes against everything I ever read about genetics," Chris admitted. "Not that I know much either. But what does that have to do with Serpent speaking English? Even if he had human parents-which you say he doesn't-all we can do when we're born is yell."

  "The Wizard calls it the Lysenko effect," Valiha said. "She has demonstrated to her own satisfaction that Titanides can inherit acquired characteristics. We-those of us who postulate that English might be passed on-speculate that if sufficiently reinforced, it could be done. You once asked me if I had swallowed a dictionary. That is almost true. For the experiment it is necessary that all the parents know all English words. This is a goal one can never attain, but we have good memories."

  "I can vouch for that." Something about it disturbed Chris, and it took him a long time to put his finger on it. Even when he had it, he was not sure just why it upset him, but it did.

  "What I want to know is why," Chris said much later. "Why English when your own language is so beautiful? Not that I understand it, though I wish I could. From what I gather, aside from Cirocco and Gaby, who got it implanted in them, no human has ever gone beyond the pidgin stage in singing Titanide."

  "It's true. We know the language instinctively, and humans, despite their often great intellectual attainments, have had no luck with it. Our songs will not parse and are seldom the same, even when the same thought is expressed. The Wizard has speculated there is a telepathic component."

  "Whatever. My point is-or maybe I should say it's my question - why are you working so hard at this? What's wrong with Titanide? I think it's a miracle you're born knowing any language. Why try for English?"

  "Perhaps you misunderstood," Valiha said. "Serpent will know how to sing. This is assured. I would not dream of trying to take that ability away from him. I would as soon wish he be born with only two legs as ... oh, dear. Please-"

  Chris laughed and said it was okay.

  "I was alluding to a saying used when one is experiencing great difficulties. Then we say, 'Going at it on two legs, both of them on the left.'"

  "Sure you were."

  "I promise you that ... you're teasing me again. I suppose I'll get used to it one day."

  "Not if I can help it. You still haven't told me why you're doing this."

  "I would think it would be obvious."

  "Not to me."

  She sighed. "Very well. As to why English, the first humans in Gaea spoke it, and it just caught on. As to why any human language ... since first contact there have been more humans living here all the time. You don't come in great numbers, but you keep coming. It seems a good idea to know as much about you as we can."

  "The unpleasant neighbors who've moved in to stay, huh?"

  Valiha considered it. "I don't wish to sound disparaging about humans. As individuals, some of them are as nice as anyone could wish-"

  "But as a race we're a pain in the ass."

  "I shouldn't make judgments."

  "Why not? You're as entitled to them as anyone else. And I agree with you. We're pretty ugly when we put our heads together and start thinking up atomic bombs and such. And as for most of the individuals ... hell." He was experiencing a twinge of chauvinism he did not like but could not avoid. It made him think, try to find some defense to throw back at her. He could not. "You know," he said finally, "I'm just realizing that I've never met a Titanide I didn't like."

  "I've met many," Valiha said. "And I know a lot more than you do. But I have never met a Titanide I could not get along with. I've never heard of one Titanide killing another. And I've never met a Titanide I hated."

  "That's the key, isn't it? Your people get along a lot better than we do."

  "I would have to say yes."

  "Tell me. Tell me the truth. Just for a minute forget I'm human and-"

  "I forget it all the time."

  She was trying to lighten it, but Chris was not having it.

  "Just tell me what you think of having humans in Gaea. What you think, and what Titanides in general think. Or are they divided?"

  "Of course, there is division, but I agree with most that we would like to have more control. We are not the only intelligent race in Gaea and do not speak for anyone but ourselves, but in the lands where we live, in Hyperion and Crius and Metis, we would like to have a say in who is allowed to enter. I believe we would turn back ninety percent."

  "That many?"

  "Perhaps less. You asked me to be frank, and I will be. Humans brought alcoholism to Gaea. We have always enjoyed wine, but
the beverage you call tequila and we call-"she sang a brief melody-"which translates as death-with-a-pinch-of-salt-and-a-twist-of-lime, has addictive properties for us. Humans brought venereal disease: the only malady of Terran origin that affects us. Humans brought sadism, rape, and murder."

  "This all reminds me of Indians in America," he said.

  "There is a resemblance, but I believe it to be fallacious. Many times on Earth a powerful technology met a weaker one and overwhelmed it. In Gaea, humans bring in only what they can carry, so that is not such a factor. In addition, we are not a primitive society. But we are powerless to do anything because humans have good connections."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Gaea likes humans. In the sense that she is interested in them and likes to observe them. Until she tires of them, we must accept whoever comes." She saw his face and suddenly looked as troubled as he did.

  "I know what you're thinking," she said.

  "What's that?"

  "That if standards were set, you would not have passed them."

  Chris had to admit she was right.

  "You're wrong. I wish I could explain it to you better. You are upset about your episodes of violence." She sighed. "I see I must tell more. It is easy to deliver a righteous diatribe against the things about humans one doesn't like. There are many humans my people would bar unconditionally: the prejudiced, the small-minded, the faithless, the misguided. Those badly reared, who, when blameless children, were not taught how to be proper persons. We believe the root of human troubles lies in the fact that you must be taught, that you are born with nothing but savagery and appetite and more often than not have those urges reinforced into a way of life.

  "Yet we have a love-hate relationship with your species. We admire and sometimes envy the fire of your emotions. Each of you has a streak of violence, and we accept that. It's easier since we are so much larger; without a gun, there is little chance any of you could harm any of us. One of the things we would like to do is ban those equalizing weapons. Lacking the spur of aggression, we cannot afford to let you be our physical equals.