by John Varley
She had meant to keep the snake all her life. She had intended to grow old with this reptile. She knew they could grow to ten meters in length and outweigh a mere python, inch for inch, by a factor of two. A truly remarkable snake, the anaconda... .
Nasu made a hissing sound that raised the hairs on the back of Robin's neck. There must have been sounds like that, though not so deep or so loud, in the swamps of the Cretaceous Period. A remarkable snake, but they didn't grow that big.
"Sh-sh-sh ... Cirocco ... let's get-"
Nasu moved. Surely there could never had been a slither like that since the dawn of time. It was a slither to make tyrannosaurs run squealing into the brush, to loosen the bowels of a wolverine, to give lions and tigers cardiac arrest.
To stop Robin's heart.
The anaconda's head came out of the tunnel and it stopped. Her tongue was twice the girth of a full-grown anaconda, and it slid out and flicked this way and that. Her head was completely white. It was about the size of the locomotive Robin had first visualized in the darkness. The eyes were golden, with narrow black slits.
"Talk to her, Robin," Cirocco whispered.
"Cirocco!" Robin hissed, urgently. "I don't think you understand! An anaconda isn't a puppy dog or a kitty cat."
"I know that."
"You don't! You can care for them, but you never own them. They tolerate you because you're too big to eat. If she's hungry ... "
"She's not. I know a little about this, babe. There's big game down here. You don't think she grew that big eating chickens and rabbits, do you?"
"I don't believe she grew that big at all! In twenty years? That's impossible."
There was that awful slithering sound again, and twenty more meters of Nasu entered the dark chamber. She paused, and tasted the air again.
"She won't remember me. She's not a pet, damn it. I had to handle her carefully, and even then I got bites."
"I promise you, Robin, she's not hungry. And even if she was, she wouldn't bother with anything as small as us."
"I don't understand what you want me to do."
"Just stand your ground and talk to her. Say the things you used to say to her twenty years ago. Get her used to you ... and don't run away."
So Robin did. They were three or four hundred meters from the snake. Every few minutes there would be more slithering, and another fifty meters would emerge from the tunnel. There was no sign Nasu was about to run out of meters.
There came a time when the head was no more than two meters away. Robin knew what came next, and braced herself for it.
The great tongue came out. It touched her lightly on her forearms, flirted briefly with the textures of her clothing, flicked over her hair.
And it was all right.
The tongue was moist and cool, but not unpleasant. And in that moment of touching, Robin somehow knew the snake remembered her. The touch of the tongue seemed to pass some sign of recognition from Nasu to Robin. I know you.
Nasu moved again, the great head lifted slightly off the floor, and Robin found herself in a semi-circle of white snake higher than her head. One fearful yellow eye regarded her with reptilian speculation, yet she was not afraid. The head tilted a little...
Robin remembered something Nasu had liked. She had sometimes rubbed Nasu on the top of the head, with her forefinger. The snake would rise to it, coil around her arm, and present herself for more.
She reached up and, with both fists, rubbed the smooth skin on top of Nasu's head. The snake made a relatively small hissing sound-no worse than an ocean liner coming into port-and retreated. The tongue touched her again, and Nasu moved around her from the other side and tilted her head the other way for more rubbing.
Cirocco moved slowly up to join them. Nasu watched placidly.
"Okay," Robin said, quietly. "I've talked to her. Now what?"
"Obviously, this is more than an anaconda," Cirocco began.
"Obviously."
"I don't know what changed her. Diet? Low gravity? Something, anyway. She's adapted to living underground. I've spotted her two or three times, bigger each time, and she's stayed out of my way. I have reason to believe she's a lot more intelligent than she was."
"Why?"
"A friend told me she might be. The next time I saw Nasu, I told her to meet me here in Dione if she wanted to be with her old friend again. And here she is."
Robin was impressed, but beginning to be suspicious.
"So what's the purpose?"
Cirocco sighed.
"You asked me what evil is. Maybe this is. I've thought about it a long time, but I'm afraid I can't get much of a handle on what might seem an evil thing to a snake. I don't think she loves Gaea. And anyway, all I can do is suggest. The rest is up to you, and her."
"Suggest what?"
"That you ask her to follow us to Hyperion, to slay Gaea."
TWENTY-SEVEN
Nova looked up at Virginal and tried to conceal her disappointment.
"Are you tired? Is that it?"
"No," Virginal said. "I ... just don't feel like running today."
"Not feeling good?" Nova couldn't remember any Titanide complaining of so much as a headache. They were disgustingly healthy. Short of broken bones or major internal injuries, not much could keep a Titanide down.
It was her right, of course. Nova had no illusions of owning Virginal, or even of having a claim on the Titanide's time. But it had been a thing they did regularly since coming to Bellinzona. Nova would pack a huge picnic lunch and they would gallop off to some remote, scary, mountainous place, Nova clinging for her life yet knowing she was in little danger. They would eat, talk of this and that, Nova would nap while Virginal had her dream-time.
At first, they had done it faithfully, once every hectorev. As Nova's responsibilities grew she had found less and less time for the outings. But it was her only real recreation, her only escape from the eternal, dreary numbers. Football bored her. She didn't drink.
"Well, maybe tomorrow then," she said, using the common Bellinzona term for "after my next sleep period."
To her surprise, Virginal hesitated, then looked away from her.
"I don't think so," she said, reluctantly.
Nova dropped the heavy pack on the wooden causeway and put her hands on her hips.
"Okay. There's something on your mind. I think I have a right to hear about it."
"I'm not sure you do," Virginal said. She looked pained. "Perhaps Tambura would like to go riding with you. I can ask her."
"Tambura? Why her? Because she's a baby?"
"She can bear you with no trouble."
"That's not the point, Virginal!" She pulled herself back from the edge of anger and tried again.
"Are you saying ... you don't want to ride with me today, tomorrow ... forever?"
"Yes," Virginal said, gratefully.
"But ... why?"
"It is not a 'why' thing," Virginal said, uncomfortably.
Nova tumbled the sentence around in her mind, trying to make sense of it. Not a 'why' thing. But there's always a why. Titanides were honest folk, but they did not always tell the whole truth.
"Don't you like me anymore?" Nova asked.
"I still like you."
"Then... if you can't tell me why, you can tell me what ... what's different. What's changed?"
Virginal nodded reluctantly.
"There is a thing," Virginal finally said. "Growing in your head."
Nova involuntarily put her hand to her forehead. She immediately thought of Snitch, and felt ice and spiders sliding on her skin.
But she couldn't have meant that.
"I thought it would quickly die," Virginal said. "But you are nourishing it now, and it will soon be too big to kill. I weep for this. I wish to say good-by to you now, before the thing consumes the Nova I have loved."
Once again, Nova tried very hard, and this time she came up with something.
"Does this have to do with my mother?"
Virg
inal smiled, pleased to have gotten through.
"Yes. Of course. That is the seed of it."
Nova felt the anger building again. She wondered if she would be able to restrain it this time.
"Listen, damn you, if Robin put you up to this-"
Virginal slapped her. It was quite a light slap for a Titanide. It didn't quite knock her over.
"It was Cirocco, wasn't it? She told you what I-"
Virginal slapped her again. She tasted blood. And she was crying.
"I'm very sorry," Virginal said. "I have my pride, too. No one is playing a trick on you. I would not allow myself to be the instrument of anyone's schemes for your reunion with your mother."
"It's none of your business!"
"That's exactly right. It's none of my business at all. You have your own life to lead, and you must do as you think best." She turned and started off.
Nova chased after her, grabbed her arm.
"Wait. Please wait, Virginal. Listen, I ... what can I do?"
Virginal stopped, and sighed.
"I know you don't intend to be impolite, but offering advice in a situation like this is considered rude by my people. I cannot chart a course for you."
"Make up with my mother, right?" Nova said, bitterly. "Tell her it's okay for her to ... to break every solemn vow... to consort with that..."
"I don't know if that would help you. I ... have said too much. Go to Tambura. She is young, and will not see the thing for a time. You can go for rides in the country with her."
"For a ... you mean other Titanides can-"
The enormity of the idea overwhelmed her. She felt naked. Were all her secret thoughts on display to every Titanide?
What do they see?
Virginal reached into her pouch and came up with a small flat piece of wood, the kind she often used for her carving.
It showed a girl, easily recognizable as Nova, sitting in a box with a stony expression on her face. Outside the box were others-Robin? Conal? Virginal?-not as distinct, but in attitudes of sorrow. Nova realized the box might be a coffin. But the girl inside was not dead. It made her feel sick, and she tried to hand it back.
"Look more closely at the face," Virginal commanded.
She did. It had seemed expressionless. On closer examination, she saw a smug, cat-like twist of the lips. Self-satisfied? The eyes were empty holes.
She thrust it away. Virginal took it, glanced sadly at it, then scaled it out over the water of Moros.
"Shouldn't you keep that?" Nova asked, bitterly. "It might be worth something someday. But maybe it's a bit over-done. A little too overtly symbolic. If you try again, I'm sure you could get it just right."
"That was the fifth in a series, Nova. I made them during my last five dream-times. I have tried to ignore them, I have thrown them away. But I can no longer ignore what my dreams are telling me. You are rejecting those who love you. This is sad. You are enjoying it. This is something which-as you say-is not my business, but something I cannot be around. Good-bye."
"Wait. Please don't go yet. I'll ... I'll go tell her it's okay. I'll tell her I'm sorry."
Virginal hesitated, then slowly shook her head.
"I don't know if it will be enough."
"What can I do?"
"Open yourself again," Virginal said, without hesitation. "You have sealed off the possibility of love. Not only from your mother. There is a girl in your office. You hardly see her. She admires you. She might be your friend. She might be your lover. I don't know. But there is no possibility for either thing as you are now."
Once again Nova was bewildered.
"Who are you talking about?"
"I don't know her name. You would see her, if you looked."
"I don't know how."
Virginal sighed.
"Nova, if you were a Titanide I would tell you to go away for a time. If this disease of the soul infected me, I would go into the wilderness and fast until I could see things clearly again. I don't know if it works for humans."
"But I can't. My job ... Cirocco needs me ... "
"Yes," Virginal said, sadly. "You're right, of course. So good-bye."
TWENTY-EIGHT
Cirocco found Conal sitting on a hillside, overlooking Boot Camp.
It was located on a big, long island in the middle of Moros. Tents had been set up. There was a big mess hall and a parade ground. The air was filled with the shouts of sergeants, and the tiny figures of new recruits marched in lines or scrambled over obstacle courses. He looked up as she sat beside him.
"Some place, huh?" she said.
"Not my favorite," Conal confessed. "But you're sure getting the recruits."
"Thirty thousand, last time I checked. I thought I'd have to offer bonuses in pay and food rations to get so many, but they keep coming. Isn't patriotism a wonderful thing?"
"I never thought about it much."
"You been thinking about it now?"
"Sure have." He gestured out over the fledgling Bellinzona Army. "You say they aren't going to have to fight. But I wonder. They look like they want to. Even..."
"After all they've seen on Earth," Cirocco finished. "I know. I thought it would be hard to raise a volunteer army here. But I don't think some ... deep, basic taste for warfare will ever be gone from the human race. One of these days Bellinzona will grow too big. We'll establish another city somewhere nearby, maybe in Iapetus. Not too long after that they'll start trading back and forth. And pretty soon they'll be fighting each other."
"Do they like running around and taking orders?"
Cirocco shrugged.
"A few. The rest ... lots would go back home if they could. We didn't tell 'em enlistment's for the duration, and a medical discharge is the only way out. Half the people down there are thinking they made a mistake." She pointed to a fenced area. "That's the stockade. It's a lot worse than the work camps. When they get out, they soldier very hard."
Conal knew that; he knew a lot of the things she had just said. He had spent some time here, trying to understand it. He had been born much too late for the days of large armies. Military discipline was foreign and frightening to him. The soldiers he talked to seemed ... different.
"They're sure getting ready to fight," Conal observed. It was true. The drilling below was in earnest. Sword production was way up. Each soldier was to be provided with a short sword, a hardened-leather chest-plate or-for the officers-one of bronze, an iron helmet, good boots and trousers ... the basic infantry equipment. They were organized into legions and cohorts, and had learned Roman tactics. There were legions of archers. There were combat engineers learning how to construct siege towers and catapults, which would be built on the site from native materials. Some units had already departed, and were busy in Iapetus and Cronus repairing the bridges of the old Circum-Gaea Highway.
"They have to be ready," Cirocco said. "If the big fight, the one between me and Gaea... if I lose that, the war won't be over for those soldiers. They'll be stuck a long way from home, and Gaea won't call it off. She's got maybe a hundred thousand people in Pandemonium, and they'll all fight. They won't be trained-Gaea's too slipshod. But our people will be outnumbered four to one. I owe it to them to see they're ready to fight."
Conal took a moment to add this up in his head.
"But we've already got thirty thousand, and more coming ... "
"Some will die along the way, Conal." He turned to look at her, and saw she was watching for his reaction.
"That many?"
"No. I intend to do some weeding out. But there will be casualties. How many is up to you, in part."
He understood that, too. These "Roman" legions would march under the constant threat of air attack. It would be his job to fight off the Gaean Air Force.
"How many planes? Do you know that yet?"
"Buzz bombs? I'm pretty sure there are eight combat groups left. That's eighty planes. How's the training going, by the way?"
"Very well. I've got more good pilots no
w than I have planes."
"Well, in planes, what you've got is all you'll ever have. Don't waste any."
Conal was momentarily annoyed. It wasn't like Cirocco to say something like that. He looked at her, and was frightened to see, just for a moment, that she almost looked her age. It must be a hell of a burden.
"Conal ... maybe this is a bad time to bring this up. I just got back from a trip with Robin, and I detected a ... nervousness about her."
"What do you mean? What kind of nervousness?"
"Oh... I got the feeling that ... maybe she was afraid I was enjoying all this too much." She gestured with her head out toward the camp, but the gesture implied a lot more.
Conal had had the same thought.
"It did occur to me," he said, "that nobody's going to take your job away from you. Not even if you stood for election."
"You're right."
"It's a great deal of power."
"It is, indeed. I told you something of what it would be like when we all first discussed this. But hearing about it and seeing it are two different things."
Conal felt a coldness creeping over him. It hadn't happened in a long time. The hub of his universe was this enigma called Cirocco Jones. Their relationship had begun in blood and agony. It had moved slowly through the politics of terror and submission, into acceptance, to something close to worship ... and finally to friendship.
But there was always a tiny chip of dry ice down there in his soul.
There had been a time, up in that cave, when he thought he was going to die. Cirocco and Hornpipe had not been back in over a kilorev. What little food had been stored for him was long gone. He existed in a half-waking state appropriate to the unchanging light. He watched the meat melt off his bones, and knew they had abandoned him.
That didn't seem right. He hadn't expected Cirocco to do that.
But it made him feel oddly superior. He had learned some lessons about himself, and the fellow who starved to death in a few more weeks would be a better man than the one who walked up to the black-clad stranger in the Titanide bar. If she let him die, it would be her loss.