by John Varley
They curved up and over, and began to smoke again. This time they made two parallel lines, turned sharply, and added crescents to the tops of the lines. PP. SUPP. What the hell?
With precise, tight turns, two more lines were added.
SURR
"Chris," someone whispered. He almost jumped out of his skin. Then he turned, and very nearly yelled aloud when he found Cirocco standing close enough to touch.
"Cirocco," he whispered, and found himself in her arms, which was a silly way to put it, he thought, since he towered over her. But the strength was all flowing in one direction; he was having a hard time fighting back his tears.
She pulled him back into the shadows within the building.
"Never mind that," she said, quietly, jerking her chin toward the sky. "An amusing diversion ... with a punch line. Gaea's going to love it, right up to the end."
"What are you-"
"I don't have much time," Cirocco said. "Getting in here isn't easy. Can you listen for a while?"
Chris bit back the thousand questions he wanted to ask, and nodded.
"I wanted to ... " Cirocco stopped, and looked away for a moment. Chris had time to notice two things. She was close to tears herself, and she was wearing an outlandish costume. He didn't have time to take it all in.
"How is Adam?" she asked.
"He's well."
"Tell me what's happened."
He did, as quickly and concisely as he could. She nodded from time to time, frowned twice, and once looked as if she might be sick. But at the end she nodded.
"It's about the way Gaby told me to expect," she said. "And don't give me any trouble about Gaby."
"I wasn't going to. Spooks don't bother me anymore."
"Good. You understand what you have to do, then?"
"Pretty much. I ... I don't know if I'll do any good. She is a lot more subtle than I figured her for."
"You can do it," she said, with absolute assurance. "We will do our best to get you out of here. Like I told you last time, his soul isn't in danger yet, and won't be for quite a long time. But, Chris ... it's going to be a long time. Do you realize that?"
"I think so. Uh ... have you any idea how long?"
"It can't be less than a year. It might be two."
He did his best to conceal his dismay, but knew she saw it. She said nothing. He took a deep breath, and tried for a smile.
"Whatever you think is best."
"Chris, it's not just best. It's the only way. I can't tell you much about it. If Gaea thought you knew, she could get it from you."
"I understand that. But ... " He wiped at his forehead, and then looked directly at her. "Cirocco, why don't you just take him right now? Take him, and run like hell?"
"Chris, my old and dear friend, if I could do that, I would do it And leave you to the tender mercies of Gaea... and probably die of shame as soon as I had him in a safe place. But I would You know I'll save you if I can-"
"And if you can't, I accept that."
She hugged him again, and kissed his chin, which was as high as she could reach. Chris felt numb, but it felt good to be holding her.
"Gaea is ... Chris, I don't know how to explain this. But her will is focused on Adam. I let him see me the last time I was here. She knows I was here, and getting in this time was much harder. I can't visit you again. And if I took Adam and ran, she would get both of us. I know that. Can you accept that?"
"I will if I have to."
"That's all I ask. Your job is to stay on good terms with Gaea, however distasteful that might be. And be careful of her. You might find yourself liking her. No, no, don't tell me that's impossible. I liked her at one time. All you can do is be yourself, love Adam, and ... hell, Chris. Trust me."
"I do, Cirocco."
Her eyes were haunted. She kissed him again ... and then left him. It was odd, how she left. She moved back into the shadows, into a place where she couldn't have moved away without him seeing her ... and she was gone.
TEN
"Witch of the South, Witch of the South, this is Witch of the North. The bottom of that last E was pretty ragged, fellow."
Conal spoke into his mike as he sliced through a four-gee turn.
"Tend your own knitting, child," he said. "You got all the easy letters." He pulled back on the stick, looked rapidly to left and right at the vast, flat perspectives of the letters already drawn, and hit the smoke button again. He watched carefully until he was even with the base line, then killed the smoke and turned hard right. They had practiced it for a week, starting with attempts that Cirocco, from the ground, had sworn looked like Chinese, gradually moving on to writing that was almost legible. By now Conal thought he could fly it in his sleep.
It was crazy, of course, but no more crazy than other things they had been doing. They were living on a new and unfamiliar plane, it seemed. An act, in and of itself, was no longer always enough. The way it was done was also important. Certain things had to be done with deliberation, others with something called panache. The skywriting could have been done letter-perfect, with no drill, simply by programming the maneuvers into the planes' autopilots. But Cirocco had vetoed that.
Conal didn't complain. He liked writing challenges in Gaea's clean sky.
"Witch of the North," he called. "You call that an R?"
"I'll stack it up against any R in the sky," Nova shot back.
"Knock it off, children," Robin called, from her vantage point high above. "Move down to the second line."
Cirocco stepped off the golden road just short of the point where it actually became pure gold, and slipped between two towering buildings. She found an alcove out of sight and quickly stripped off her costume.
She had been dressed as an Indian princess when she came through the Columbia gate, and had managed to pass herself off as an extra showing up for work in the horse opera currently shooting on that lot. Getting to Tara had been less a matter of costuming than sheer brass. There was a thing she could do. She didn't know how she did it, and thinking about it too hard could destroy what faculty she had, but she thought of it as making herself small. People would glance at her and glance away. She wasn't worth looking at. It had worked long enough to get to Chris. She hadn't needed it much on her way out, as everyone's attention was on the skywriting.
But the exit had to be different, and called for a different brass.
She donned black pants, boots, shirt, and hat, clothing very much like what she had worn during her first meeting with Conal. She tied the short black cape around her neck, tucked a small automatic into the top of her boot and a large revolver into her waistband.
"Maybe I oughta wear a neon sign, too," she muttered to herself. "It couldn't be more incriminating than this get-up."
She stood for a moment, getting her breathing under control. On impulse-the sort of impulse she had learned to trust-she opened the top three buttons of her shirt and thrust her chest out. That would give them something to concentrate on other than her too-recognizable face. Then she stepped out onto the pavement and strode confidently up to the guard at the MGM Gate.
She had to nudge him with her elbow. He was staring up at the air show.
"What does S-U-R-R-E ... " he began.
"Why do they have an illiterate on this gate?" Cirocco snarled. The man stood straight and jerked his clipboard protectively over his chest. She held out an empty, black-gloved hand.
"I'm the first vice-president for procurement," she said. "This is my identification. Gaea has ordered me to de-fusticate the thingamabob at once." She thrust the non-existent identity card into a breast pocket, and the man's eyes followed the hand as far as the pocket, and then stuck. He gaped at her cleavage, and nodded.
"What did you say?"
"Uh ... go ahead, sir!"
"What about security? What about the record you're supposed to be keeping of who enters and exits through this gate? All the hounds of hell could come baying through here and you'd give them dog biscuits. Aren'
t you going to ask me my name?"
"Uh ... w-w-w-what is your n-n-name ... sir?"
"Guinness." She peered over the man's shoulder as he wrote on the clipboard. "Be sure to get that right, now. G-U-I-N-N-E-S-S. Alec Guinness. Gaea will want to know."
Cirocco turned on her heel and marched out the gate and over the drawbridge, glancing neither right nor left.
It was fifteen minutes before the man returned to full awareness. By then Cirocco was a hundred miles away.
Gaea had it figured out from the first SU.
She stood there at the Universal Gate, her huge feet planted firmly on more gold than Fort Knox ever had, her hands on her hips, and she smiled.
SURR.
SURREN.
She started to laugh. By that time some of the others, who had also seen a lot of films-more than they cared to remember, in many cases-were also getting it. It had been a nervous couple of minutes for most of them. Eyes moved constantly from Gaea's face to the writing in the sky. Then, when Gaea laughed, it was a signal for a massive eruption of laughter. The human population roared anew as each letter appeared, and each letter redoubled Gaea's own laughter.
By the time the message was complete the initial S was almost illegible. But it didn't spoil the fun.
SURRENDER GAEA.
"We must go see the Wizard!" Gaea howled. "He'll know what to do!"
The laughter got louder.
It's time for a festival, Gaea thought. Jones must be desperate to do a silly thing like that. Didn't she know it was the Wicked Witch of the West who did the skywriting? Didn't wicked mean anything to her? There were rules in this combat, and symbols were all-important.
Her mountainous laughter had dwindled to random chuckles. The letters were diffusing now, falling as a fine mist. The two planes were joined by a third which Gaea had been aware of all along. Most likely Cirocco herself had been up there, safely out of range, watching while her minions did the dirty and dangerous work. This contest wasn't even going to be worth it, she thought.
Oddly, that thought depressed her.
She shrugged it off. The three planes were flying lower now, in echelon, circumscribing the huge circle of New Pandemonium. They were still emitting smoke.
A fantasy film festival, she thought. What titles haven't been shown lately? Well, let's see, there was that ...
She stopped, and looked up suspiciously.
"No!" she shouted, and began to run. "No, you bitch! I didn't budget for that!"
She stepped on a dead zombie, slipped, and very nearly fell. She saw another zombie keel over.
Within two minutes, every zombie in Pandemonium was dead.
"All you need is love," Robin said, then whistled it, then sang it.
"What's that?" she heard Conal say over the radio.
"Just a song we witches sing." She whistled it again as she banked her plane one last time over the strange scene below.
"Mother," Nova said, exasperated.
"My dear, it's time you stopped being embarrassed about the origin of our zombie-killer. Don't you think?"
"Yes, Mother." She heard Nova's radio click off.
"Turn left on my signal," Conal said. "That's the MGM Gate below. The one with the big stone lion on it."
"Roger," Robin said, still humming. She looked down once more at New Pandemonium.
Cirocco had described the place, so they had known the layout before they arrived. But seeing it was something else entirely. Robin had jittered during the whole crazy performance, circling high, her more powerful radar and heavy armaments ready for buzz bombs, a dozen contingency plans tumbling over each other in her mind-plans drilled into all of them mercilessly by General Jones.
She grinned, then laughed. It appealed to the practical jokester in her.
"What do you think Gaea will say?" she asked the others. "I wonder if she's figured out that we just dumped three tons of love potion on her?"
"Is that Robin of the Coven?" said a voice.
There was a moment of silence but for the high whine of the jet.
"Robin, what are you doing cluttering up my airwaves?"
"Jesus," Conal breathed. "Is that-"
"South Witch, remember your radio rules. I think we should-"
"I know it's Conal, my love," Gaea said. "And I know it's your dear daughter, Nova, in the other plane. What I don't understand is all this talk about a love potion."
Robin flew on in silence. The palms of her hands were moist.
"Ah, well," Gaea sighed. "You're going to be tiresome, I see. But there's no need to execute Plan X-98, or whatever you were about to say. I'm not sending anyone after you. No buzz bombs will hinder your flight back to Dione." There was a pause again. "I'm curious, though. Why didn't Cirocco Jones come along on this little escapade? Perhaps she didn't have the spine for it. She does have a knack for letting others fight her battles. Have you noticed that? How did you like her dramatic flying entrance back at the Junction, as my friends were rescuing your darling son from that awful place you'd taken him? Plenty of time for you all to see her heroic effort ... which, sad to say, fell just short of actually having to grapple with the poor zombie. I wonder where she was? Did you ask her where she came from?"
Robin looked right and left, made hand signals to Nova and Conal to say nothing, and saw them both nod.
"Rather a dull conversation so far, I'd say," Gaea went on. "I just wanted to ask you how things have been. It's been a long time since last we met. I'd sort of hoped you would drop by when I saw you arrive."
"Just couldn't seem to find the time, I guess," Robin said.
"Ah, that's much better. You really should make the time. Chris has been asking about you."
Robin had to bite her lower lip. There was nothing worth saying. She couldn't treat it as a game for very long.
"Tell me," Gaea said, after a thoughtful pause. "Have you heard of the Geneva Conventions concerning warfare?"
"Vaguely," Robin said.
"Did you know it is considered immoral to use poisonous gases? I ask, because I'm sure Cirocco has filled your head with a lot of nonsense about good guys and bad guys. As if there were such a thing. But even if it were true, ask yourself this. Do good guys break the international rules of war?"
Robin frowned for a moment, then shook her head, and wondered if it might actually be dangerous to listen to Gaea. Could she cast some enchantment over the radio, cause the three of them to do crazy things?
But Cirocco had not mentioned it.
"You're a silly old biddy, Gaea," she said.
"Sticks and stones-"
"-Wouldn't even put a dent in that ugly hide of yours. But words wound you to the core. Cirocco told me that. As to gas warfare, have you checked your human population? Have you looked in on the elephants and camels and horses?"
"They seem to be all right," Gaea admitted, dubiously.
"So there you are. Don't take it personally, Gaea, you old bitch. We found a way to exterminate a pest we used to call deathsnakes. We're doing it as a public service. Pandemonium just happened to be on the spraying program. Hope it didn't inconvenience you too much."
"Not too ... used to call them? What do you call them now?"
Hah! Walked right into that one, you abomination.
"We call them Gaea's tapeworms. I hope you have a large toilet."
Robin heard Nova laughing. That seemed to finally set Gaea off. It started as an incoherent scream. Robin had to turn the volume down. It went on for an amazing time, then turned into a stream of vile language, horrible threats, and nearly incoherent ranting. During a brief pause, Nova spoke.
"That's really something," she said. "Maybe, when this is over, we can put her in a carnival sideshow."
"No," Conal said. "Nobody'd pay. Everybody's seen shit."
There was a short silence.
"Young man," Gaea said icily, "one day I will make you wish you had never been born. Nova, that was unkind, to say the least. But I suppose I can understand it. It
must be hard for you. Tell me, how do you feel about that horrible fellow screwing your mother?"
There was an entirely different quality to the silence this time. Robin felt her stomach lurch.
"Mother, what-"
"Nova, maintain radio silence. And remember what I told you about propaganda. Gaea, this conversation is over."
But it didn't feel like having the last word. Propaganda was a fine term, but that didn't mean she was going to be able to lie any longer to Nova.
Gaea put down her radio and watched the planes vanish in the west, feeling thoroughly sour.
Though the logical and emotional parts of her mind no longer functioned as they used to-a fact she recognized and no longer worried about-the purely computational power was undiminished. She knew how many zombies had been lost. Some forty percent of the Pandemonium work force were undead-now doubly dead. That was bad enough, but a zombie was worth five human workers, maybe six. They were stronger, and they needed no sleep or even rest breaks. They could be fed garbage a hog would choke to look at. While they couldn't run something as complex as a tape recorder, they made excellent plumbers, electricians, painters, grips, carpenters ... all the skilled trades so essential to the making of movies. With reasonable care they could be made to last six or seven kilorevs. They were economical even in death; when a zombie felt the final death approaching, its last act was to dig a grave and lie down in it.
Problems, problems... .
The unions of carpenters, used for her mobile festival, had proven not versatile enough for the demands of New Pandemonium. Some of the buildings thrown up by them were already falling down. She could try to develop a master variety of carpenter ... but knew uneasily that her skills as a genetic manipulator were deteriorating. She could hope that, instead of more camels or dragons, her next birthing would be something more useful, and self-perpetuating, but she knew she couldn't count on it. Such were the perils of being mortal. For mortal she was. Not just in the sense that, in a hundred thousand years, the giant wheel known as Gaea would wither and die, but in the giant Monroe-clone in which she had elected to put so much of her vital force.