by John Varley
It folded its wings the tiniest bit, seemed to hesitate in its headlong rush. Then it snatched Adam with the effortless grace of an eagle hitting a steelhead. It soared up, converting forward momentum into altitude. At two hundred feet it began to flap its great wings, and in a little while it had vanished into the east.
ELEVEN
Luther had a Sight on the way to Tuxedo Junction. He knew it wasn't going to work out well for him. He thought Gaea might be goading him with this information. And sure enough, when he reached the high hill overlooking the lake, the tree, and the treehouse, he was just in time to see the ending.
The Sight was still with him. It didn't rely on his single eyeball; trees, walls, and distance were no hindrance to it. He could see Kali's troops in the house, the child playing alone in the room. He watched as the half-Titanide heathen raced up and down the stairs, saw Cirocco Jones come running into the scene, knew when the two humans and three Titanides hit the water.
For a moment he dared to hope, when the Demon dived into the water. Much as he hated Jones, he knew none of Kali's band was her match-nor, for that matter, were any of his own disciples. Nothing would please Luther more than to see the Demon rend Kali's slime-spawn into component parts. Then the child might be his...
He watched in disbelief as the angel swooped down.
"Angels!" he shrieked. "Angels! Wy God, wy God, why hast thou forsaken we?"
His disciples shuffled nervously beside him, anxious to go. Having no minds of their own, they were somehow attuned to his emotions. They received his towering frustration, his hatred of the Demon and of Kali ... and his quick and virulent fear at the mortal sin he had just uttered.
Luther carried a special Cross in his belt, made of bronze, razor-sharp along all its edges. He pulled it out and began slashing at his own legs, feeling the arms biting deep, glorying in the mortification of the flesh.
He heard a gobbling sound above him.
When he looked up, there was Kali, climbing down from her perch in a tree. A pair of binoculars clattered against her improbable bosom. Her body-slave, a naked boy in his eighth year, scuttled after her, nimble as a monkey, with a golden collar attached to four feet of golden chain that bound him to Kali.
Kali was all gold and putrefaction. The slave chain was fourteen-carat, but the scores of rings she wore on fingers and toes were pure, soft, and fine. She wore a genuine brass bra, buttressed like a gothic cathedral to support the mammoth ochreus breasts. Her legs and her four arms were encircled by a hundred ornate bands and rings, each too small for the limb it squeezed, so that her flesh oozed around them. Her waist was constricted by a gold girdle ten inches in circumference, then her body swelled to a steatopygous abundance. The phrase "hourglass figure" might have been invented for her alone.
Her fingernails were six inches long, and made of bronze.
Her face... it was not completely accurate to speak of Kali's face, since she had three heads. But the right and left ones were simply tacked on. Each had a strangler' noose drawn tight. When one rotted off she would replace it from the supplies available to Gaea. At the time she dropped from the tree and walked toward Luther-in a grotesque, hip-sprung gait, a whore in a mortuary-one of the heads was pretty ripe, and another was a recent addition. The old one had been female and white. It was now extremely mortified, and purple, with red protruding eyeballs and black protruding tongue. It hung backwards by a scrap of flesh. The other head had belonged to a black man whose color had been changed very little by the act of strangulation. This one lolled drunkenly forward, swaying as Kali walked.
The central head had been-in the same sense that Luther had once been the Reverend Arthur Lundquist-a priestess named Maya Chandraphrabha in her previous life. Of Maya, only the head remained. In life, hers had been a boyish, awkward and sterile body. She who now called herself Kali never suffered a moment's regret, never experienced even the brief torments that sometimes beset he who was now Luther. She gloried in her virulent fecundity. Her womb was prolific as a jellyfish; each kilorev she whelped a new squalling monstrosity for the greater glory of Gaea.
She wore a belt fashioned of human skulls.
Kali's face was dead. Her eyes could move, but she could not blink, smile, frown, or close her mouth. Her jaw hung, and her tongue sagged out of her mouth. The gobbling sound Luther had heard was Kali's laughter.
Kali was the avatar of atrocity.
She gobbled at Luther, and the fingers of two hands traced intricate patterns in the air.
"Shesez where the hell has you been, Luther," the boy droned.
The boy had been the heir to a large fortune. He was about a year older than the War. When he and his family had emerged from their shelter in the mountains of Mexico one of Gaea's mercy missions had picked him up. His mother had been deaf, which had given him a skill now useful to Kali. He had once been a bright, healthy, and alert six-year-old. Now his body was the sort a political cartoonist might draw, purposely exaggerated, and label World Hunger. His eyes never left Kali's hands. He was about eighty years older than he had been two years ago.
"Gaea gave we the right to take the child," Luther thundered.
Kali gobbled even louder, and her fingers flew.
"Shesez Gaea dint give you no right to get it lessen you got to it first," the boy chattered. "Shesez you was too fuckin' late. Shesez you is a prodisint-" Kali slammed a hand across the boy's bruised face.
"-shesez you is a prod-"
Again he was slapped.
"-protisent-"
And again.
"-prot... is ... tent ... shesez you is a protestant muh-fuckering ig ... ig ... ignor-a-mouse shitheaded buggerin Christian. Shesez you is too ugly to live. Shesez whyn't ya go suck on the Pope's prick."
"Whore of Vavylon! Harlot of Gommorah!"
"Shesez damn straight. Shesez she gonna take on you and your whole asshole crew. Shesez lessen you tooken a vow of sebisiss-"
Kali hit him again.
"-sebila-sela-cellba-celili-li-li-li-celibin-celiba ... cy."
The boy sighed his pleasure and relief when he got it right and Kali stopped hitting him.
"Celibacy, celibacy, celibacy," he muttered. He would get it right for the next time, no question,
"Fofery!" Luther hissed, meaning popery. Arthur Lundquist, whose faint ghost informed the actions of the thing he had become, would not have known popery from plenary indulgences, being a thrice-Reformed Lutheran and a spiritual ally of most of the Catholic sects. But it amused Gaea for all her Priests to be fundamentalists, and she had a long memory, and so Luther was further enraged.
"Fofery!" he repeated, and his Apostles fuffed and fawed sympathetically in his wake. "Fofery! Vy what right do you take the child?"
"Shesez Gaea told her to. Shesez she did a hell of a lot better job than you and your fuckoffs did."
"Vut the angels, I ... " Luther stopped, enraged but unable to do anything about it without the possibility of blasphemy.
Why had Gaea given her angels? Luther had no angels. He had never had any angels, had never been told he might even get angels.
"It won't work," he tried. "Your angel can't reach Fandewoniuh."
The boy watched the hands again.
"Shesez it will too work. Shesez she's got a shitload of angels. Shesez she's got enough to relay the little muhfucker all the way to Pandemonium. Shesez howdja like to take a big juicy bite outta her big juicy-"
Luther shrieked, and hit the boy. The boy absorbed it, as he had absorbed everything for the last two years, never taking his eyes from Kali's hands, never pausing in his vile curses. He had learned that nothing that could come from anywhere else could ever rival the things that came from Kali.
He was wrong. Luther swung his cross and the boy was instantly dead. He turned on Kali and his Apostles followed. They all tore at her. She did not resist. She lay on her back and gobbled contentedly, and her laughter enraged Luther further ...
Until he noticed that all his Apostles were
dead.
TWELVE
They gathered in the room from which Adam had been taken.
Conal watched them come in, one after the other. His head still hurt something awful, but it was minor compared to the feeling of fear that was stealing over him.
The three Titanides were wet, and ignoring it. Cirocco was wet, and didn't seem to notice. Chris had a towel and was drying himself off. He seemed exhausted, and distant. Conal didn't know the special hell Chris was going through, but he could see some signs of it.
Robin was wet, and shivering. Chris handed her his towel when he was through.
Nova ...
She still wore Conal's coat. She was holding it over her shoulders with one hand, shivering almost as badly as her mother. And, though she wore the coat, and though she was holding it in place, she was making no attempt to cover herself. It only reached to her waist, anyway, so it wouldn't have done her much good, but she held her injured arm out for Rocky to work on, and was unconcerned that one breast was revealed.
Nova seemed to have no body modesty. Conal was used to that in Cirocco, and saw it frequently in long-time residents of Bellinzona. But it was unusual in new arrivals.
He remembered her pressed against him up there in her bedroom.
It was a moment he was not going to forget. And now he couldn't seem to take his eyes off her.
"This is going to hurt badly," Rocky said.
"Doctors don't say things like that," Nova said. "They promise you it isn't going to hurt much."
"I am not a doctor. I am a healer, and this is going to hurt a lot."
Rocky poured the antiseptic solution over Nova's cuts and started to clean them out. Her face froze, then turned very ugly, but she didn't scream.
Conal thought she was foolish. He had been treated for zombie wounds. Rocky had to probe deep to be sure he got out every particle of corruption. To have a zombie breathe on you was enough to put you in bed for a week. To be torn up like Nova ...
He had to look away. He'd never had a strong stomach.
Cirocco had been waiting like stone for everyone to assemble. Now that they were all here, she wasted no time.
"Who was in the room with Adam when he was taken?" she asked.
Conal's heart froze.
He saw Chris looking around, frowning, trying to put it together.
"Me and Robin were out in the Witch room," he said. "When I got here-"
"I'm asking a simple question," Cirocco interrupted. "I just want to know who was in here. We need a place to start."
"Nobody was in here," Conal said, and swallowed hard.
Cirocco turned to face him.
"And how do you know that?"
"Because when I heard the scream, I ran upstairs..."
Cirocco kept looking at him. She was not in the mood to waste time, so her look couldn't have gone on much more than two seconds, and those seconds didn't take much more than twenty years to go by.
"I told you to protect him, at all costs," she said, tonelessly. For an instant the doors were open over the twin blast furnaces. Then she looked away and Conal could breathe again.
Chris spoke up.
"That's not fair, Cirocco. What was Conal supposed to do when he heard Nova scream? Ignore it? There's no way he-"
Then Cirocco was looking at Chris, and he didn't have anything more to say.
"Don't waste my time, Chris. We can debate fairness some other day."
That's right, Conal thought. Nobody told you it was going to be fair. You walk up to the oldest, meanest, most paranoid human in the solar system ... and you try to make a man out of what is left.
"Cirocco, what about Nova?" Robin asked. "Chris couldn't have-"
"Shut up, Robin."
"Captain," Rocky began.
"Shut up, Rocky."
Several people tried to speak at once, including Nova.
"Shut up."
Cirocco didn't precisely raise her voice, but she put something into it that nobody could argue with. And she didn't wait for silence. It came, but she was already plunging ahead.
"I know how fast an angel can fly," she said. "I couldn't see this one well enough to know which clan it was. There are twenty-five species of angel and they all dislike each other, so it's possible we can get help from other flights. Their range is limited. We can assume it's headed for Pandemonium, so-"
"Why don't we just let him go?" Nova muttered.
Cirocco took two quick steps and slapped Nova's face so hard the young woman was thrown to the floor. She sat up, her mouth bleeding, and Cirocco pointed at her.
"Kid, I've taken all I'll take from you. This is your first and last warning. You will grow up, damn fast, and you will join the human race, or I'm likely to kill you accidentally, and I'd hate to do that because Robin is my friend. We will now discuss how to save the life of a human being who happens to be your brother, and you will speak only when spoken to."
Again, Cirocco had not raised her voice. There was scarcely a need to. Nova was lying on her side, stunned, in a place far beyond humiliation. Conal's coat had fallen from her shoulders as she went down. A few minutes ago Conal would have been quite interested, but now he could only spare her a glance as Rocky helped her up. Cirocco needed him, and Nova had turned into just another broad, and a dumb one, at that.
"Gaea is behind this. Gaby warned me the child was important. I don't know why Gaea wants him. Possibly just to lure me to do battle with her, which she's been trying to do for years. But Gaea doesn't have him yet. She is in Hyperion, which is as far from here as you can get. There's something I need to know. Chris, when you entered Nova's room, was the zombie already dead?"
"That's right."
"And the one in the hall ... "
"It wasn't there when I went in, and it was dead on the floor when I came out."
"Any of you kill it?" Cirocco swept them with her eyes, and everyone indicated they hadn't.
"The one in the music room. Tell me about that."
"I was getting ready to fight it, and it just keeled over."
"But the one with Adam got away." She turned to Nova. "What did you do to that first one?"
"I shot it," Nova whispered. "I shot it ... three times."
"That wouldn't kill it. What did you do then?"
"I threw the gun at it."
Cirocco waited.
"I threw the bed. Then other things."
Nova shrugged, listlessly. She seemed to be in shock.
"The vase, the lamp, the cr-... " All the blood drained from her face.
"What?" Cirocco kept at her.
"Some-some-something I m-m-made."
"I'm not going to hit you again, Nova, but you are going to tell me what it was you made."
Nova's whisper was almost inaudible.
"... a love potion ... "
"She borrowed some ingredients from the kitchen," Serpent volunteered.
Cirocco turned away from them all and was quiet for several seconds. No one moved. At last she turned back.
"Chris," she said, pointing at him. "Radios. Three. Bring them back here, then meet me at the cave."
Chris hurried off without a word.
"Valiha. You take one radio and go, as fast as you can, to Belinzona. Put out a general call to all Titanides who still have faith in their Wizard. I want live zombies, as many as you can take. Don't risk your life to get them, and stay in radio contact with me."
"Yes, Captain."
"Rocky, you will stay here. We may have further instructions when we find out how they plan to get Adam to Pandemonium."
"Yes, Captain."
"Serpent. As soon as you get your radio, you will head west, conserving your strength. You can't outrun an angel, but we will try to guide you from the air. Take weapons."
"Yes, Captain."
"Conal, you come with me. Robin, Nova, you can come with me or stay here, as you please."
She was already on her way out of the room when she kicked one of the loose Titanid
e eggs Adam had been playing with. She froze, then walked slowly to the wall where it lay, bent over, and picked it up.
Cirocco held the egg up to the light and stared at it, and for the first time in living memory, the Wizard looked stunned. The egg was transparent.
She dropped it and stood for a moment with her shoulders slumped.
"Rocky," she said. "Gather all these eggs. Be sure you get them all. Destroy all the furniture, rip up all the pillows, but don't miss any. I'll have Chris radio back a count after we get away.
"When you're sure you have them all, destroy them."
It took a huge effort, but Cirocco managed to get her mind off the Titanide eggs and back to the problem at hand.
Both Robin and Nova had elected to join her. She did not try to dissuade them, nor did she question their reasons. They followed her into the jungle and up the hill toward the cave.
It was funny how quickly it all came back. The habit of command. Starting with what she felt was no natural talent for it and in an era when there were still few female role models she could study, she had worked doggedly at learning how it was done. She had talked to a thousand old men, naval captains, some of whom had commanded ships as far back as the First Nuclear War. Then there had been the space captains, and whole new traditions, new ways of doing things ... and yet with much in common. People were still people. Maybe they were a little more willing to let a woman command them than they had been in 1944, but the problems of insuring automatic obedience and earning the respect that would nurture a strong, united, and loyal crew were much the same as they had always been.
There were a thousand things you could learn, myriad ways of attaining that improbable position whereby men and women were willing to obey your orders. NASA had sponsored leadership courses and Cirocco had taken them all. She had read autobiographies of great leaders.
She knew, secretly, that she had no talent for command. It was all a false front, but if one kept it in place twenty-four hours a day no one was the wiser.
She lost her first command. Afterward, she had never been able to put the survivors back into a functioning team. They all went their own ways-all but Gaby and Bill-and she had lived for many years afterward with a deep feeling of failure.