Wizard (26 page)

Robin wanted to say something, but all she could think of were questions like “How did it go?” or “What did you do?” Gaby had warned her away from that. For the time being she would let it go.

“Maybe you were right, Gaby,” Cirocco said as they headed toward camp. “I sure as hell didn’t
want to—”

“Later, Rocky. We’ve got something you ought to look at.”

She was taken to the site of the mysterious track. It was not as distinct as it had been, but still legible. She knelt in the lantern light, and one by one, deep lines etched themselves in her forehead. She seemed offended by the whole idea of this creature.

“You’ve got me,” she said at last. “It’s nothing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been around and around this goddamn wheel.” She sang something in Titanide. Robin looked at Hautbois, who frowned.

“Freely translated, she said, ‘Gaea likes her jokes as well as the next deity.’ This is well known, of course.”

“Giant chicken?” Cirocco said incredulously.

Robin could not stand it anymore.

“Excuse me, I’m not feeling good,” she said, and hurried into the darkness. When she reached the water’s edge, she climbed down into a ravine like the one near the raft mooring. Once safely out of view she began to laugh. She made as little noise as possible, but she laughed until her sides hurt, until the tears rolled down her cheeks. She did not think she could laugh any harder; then she heard Gaby yell.

“Hey, Rocky, come here! We found a feather!”

Robin laughed harder.

When she finally had herself under control, she reached into a crack between round growths of coral and pulled out two contraptions made of sticks, bits of driftwood, and shells. They had ropes to tie around her legs and places to rest her feet.

“Gaby and Cirocco,” she said. “The great Gaean wildlife experts.” She kissed one of the devices, then tossed it far out over the water.

“You’d better hurry. Gaby will be coming to see how you are.” She looked up and saw Hautbois. She waved the remaining stilt at her and sent it after the first.

“Thanks for the diversion.”

“You’re welcome,” Hautbois said. “I think Valiha is suspicious, but she won’t say anything.” He grinned broadly. “I think I’m going to enjoy this trip. But no more fooling with the salt, okay?”

A stiff breeze from the west propelled
Constance
on her wallowing way from the isle of Minerva. That was good news to Gaby. Looking up, she could see that the lower valve had closed. She knew from bitter experience that meant the spoke above was going through its regular winter. The trees and everything else would be coated in a layer of ice. After the thaw began, all that water and a respectable tonnage of broken branches would pool at the valve. When it opened, Rhea would not be a healthy environment. In fifty revs Nox would rise two meters or more.

No one asked where Cirocco had been. Gaby suspected they would have been surprised to learn the answer, and that included the Titanides.

Cirocco had been to an audience with Rhea, the satellite brain who dominated the land for a hundred kilometers in every direction. She was subject to no higher authority but Gaea herself. She was also quite mad.

The only way to visit the regional brains was through the central vertical cables. All of them lived down there, at the bottom of five-kilometer spiral stairways. Not even the Titanides were aware of this. Their knowledge of the twelve demi-Gods was limited; Gaea, when she made Titanides—complete with a culture and racial wisdom—had seen no reason why they should bother their heads about the regionals. They were Gaea’s appendages and no more, the quasi-intelligent servo-mechanisms that kept things running smoothly in their own limited domains. For the Titanides to think of them as even so
much as subordinate Gods would detract from their capacity to appreciate Gaea. Obediently the Titanides thought no more about the big clumps of neural matter than did the most ignorant tourist. Hyperion was a place, not a person, to them.

The reality was quite different, and had been since long before the birth of the Titanides. Perhaps the brains had actually been totally subservient to Gaea in her youth. She claimed it was so. But today all twelve increasingly went their own way. To accomplish her will, Gaea had to cajole or threaten.

All it took with a regional like Hyperion was a simple request. Hyperion was Gaea’s closest ally on the rim. Yet the fact that she had to ask showed how far things had come. Gaea retained little in the way of direct control on the rim.

Gaby had met several of the regionals; she had been down to see Hyperion dozens of times. She found him dull, an automaton. She suspected that, as usual, the villains were far more interesting than the nice guys. Hyperion managed to use the word “Gaea” twice in every sentence. Gaby and Cirocco had seen him just before Carnival. The Hyperion central cable always made Gaby feel strange. She had visited it with Cirocco and others from the
Ringmaster
crew during her first weeks in Gaea. Unknowing, they had come within a few hundred meters of the entrance. Finding it would have saved them a terrible trip.

Rhea was another story. Gaby had never been able to visit any of Gaea’s enemies. Cirocco had met them all except Oceanus. She was able to do that because she was the Wizard and under Gaea’s safe-conduct. There was no way to guarantee that protection to Gaby. Killing Cirocco would bring the full wrath of Gaea down on the murderer’s lands. Killing Gaby would probably annoy Gaea, but little more.

It was misleading, however, to call Rhea an enemy of Gaea. Though she had allied with Oceanus in the Oceanic Rebellion, she was far too unpredictable for either side to rely on. Cirocco had been down to her once before and barely escaped with her life. Rhea was a hell of a place to start, Gaby knew, but there had been no advantage to be gained by skipping her and coming back. Because their purpose was to visit eleven of the twelve regional brains. It was their fond hope that Gaea did not yet know this.

It was risky, to be sure, but Gaby felt it could be done without arousing suspicion. She did not expect complete security; that would have been foolish. Though Gaea’s eyes and ears were not what some people imagined them, she had enough contacts on the rim so that she eventually heard of most things that happened.

They hoped simply to brazen it out. Some of it would be easy. It would have been bad form for the Wizard to pass through Crius, for instance, without dropping in for a visit. If Gaea wanted to know why the Wizard had visited an enemy like Iapetus, Cirocco could say she was simply keeping up with the state of affairs on the rim: part of her job. Asked why she had not told Gaea of this junket, she could protest quite truthfully that Gaea had never demanded she report every little thing.

But visiting Rhea would be hard to explain. Poor, confused, erratic Rhea could be the most dangerous regional in Gaea if confronted face to face. Traveling her lands was not hazardous. She spent so much time internalizing that she seldom noticed what was going on above her. For that reason, Rhea the land was slowly going to hell. But there was no predicting what she might do if one went down to speak to her. Gaby had tried to convince Cirocco to skip Rhea entirely, and the danger was not the only reason. It would be hard to explain why the Wizard had risked the trip.

The mysterious creature that had visited them had given Gaby some bad moments. She thought at first it might have been one of Gaea’s tools, like the obscene little creature that greeted new pilgrims in the hub. Now she doubted that. More likely it was one of Gaea’s sports. She spent more and more of her time dreaming up biological jokes to unleash on the rim. Such as the buzz bombs.
There
was a nasty bit of business.

When she questioned Cirocco as to how the audience had gone, the Wizard seemed reasonably confident all was well.

“I built up her ego as carefully as I could. I wanted to leave her with the thought that she was far above Gaea so she won’t even deign to talk next time Gaea calls. If she doesn’t talk, she can’t tell her I was there.”

“You didn’t
tell
her not to tell, I hope.”

“Give me some credit, will you? I think I understand her as well as anyone can. No, I kept it all open and as routine as possible, considering I had second-degree burns over half my body the last time I left her. Incidentally, you can put a big black
X
by her name, if you haven’t already.”

“Are you kidding? I didn’t even put her on the list.”

Cirocco closed her eyes for a moment. She rubbed her forehead. “Next is Crius, and another
X
. I don’t think this is going to go anywhere, Gaby.”

“I never said it would. But we at least have to try.”

* * *

The wind blew them past the long line of small islands dotting central Nox, then died away. For nearly a day they waited for it to return. When it did not, Gaby ordered everyone, including Cirocco, to the oars.

The valve began to open after they had been working at it for twenty revs. Contrary to what might have been expected, no torrent of water spilled out the rapidly widening hole above them. The valve was like a sponge. It soaked up the big thaw, and when it dilated, the water was squeezed out gradually. It emerged in a billion streams and broke into droplets. From there the process was complex, with cold water and chilled air hitting warm air masses below, moving inexorably downward. Since they were east of the valve—though only slightly—the worst of the resulting storms and torrential rain tended away from them at first, moving as Robin had moved when she took the Big Drop: westward, toward Hyperion. It was impossible to know when the winds would become dangerous.

The fate of the debris littering the valve’s upper surface could be determined by simple physical equations. When it hit, it would make quite a splash. Some of the “debris” would be entire trees bigger than redwoods. Gaby knew it would not be a problem since it was relatively unaffected by atmospheric friction and would tend to fall to the west.

They put their backs into it, even when the expected breeze developed, and watched the storm
descending. It fell for hours, met the sea, and began to ooze out like an inverted mushroom cloud.

They began to encounter waves and stray gusts that whipped the tough fabric of the sail. Gaby could see the rain approaching, hear the steady hissing get louder. When it hit, it was like a wall of water. What her father had called a “frog-strangler” a long time ago.

The wind was not as bad as she had feared, but she knew it could get much worse. They were still a kilometer from land. Those who were not rowing began using the poles to feel for the bottom. When they found it, the Titanides left the oars to the humans and began poling the raft toward shore. Beaching it was going to be tricky since there were waves two meters high by now, but there were no rocks or reefs to worry about. Soon Hornpipe jumped into the water with a rope, swam to shore, and began hauling.

Gaby was beginning to think it was going to be routine after all when a wave crested the stern and swept Robin into the water. Chris was nearest; he jumped into the water and quickly reached her. Gaby went to help him get back aboard, but he decided it would be easier at that point to take Robin straight to the beach. He rode the waves into shallow water, helped her stand up, and they both were knocked down by a big breaker. For a moment Gaby could not find them; then Chris came up with Robin in his arms and carried her up beyond the reach of the surf. He set her on her feet, and she promptly went to her knees, coughing, but waving him away.

The Titanides got
Constance
onto the beach and spent five minutes dancing through the increasingly angry waves to get everything off. The sail was whipped away when they tried to take it down. Otherwise, everything was salvaged.

* * *

“Well, we came through that with some luck,” Cirocco said when they had found a campsite on high ground with plenty of trees to break the wind. “Anything lost, aside from the sail?”

“One side of my pack came open,” Valiha said. “There was water damage, and Chris’s tent rests
with the fishes now.” She looked so mournful that Chris couldn’t help laughing.

“He can double up with me,” Robin said. Gaby had not expected that. She eyed Robin, who did not look up from the cup of hot coffee in her hands. She sat close to the small fire the Titanides had built, a blanket over her shoulders, looking like a drowned rat.

“I imagine you critters will want to stay in the tents this time,” Cirocco suggested, looking from one Titanide to the other.

“If you critters will have us,” Psaltery said. “Though I suspect you’re going to be very boring company.”

Gaby yawned. “I suspect you’re right. What do you say, little ones? Shall we crawl into bed and be boring?”

* * *

Gaby had become the leader of the expedition through Cirocco’s refusal to have anything to do with it. Since resigning her captaincy, Cirocco had never been eager to accept that sort of responsibility, though she still did well when such a position was forced on her. Now she would not even discuss it; Gaby was in charge, and that was that. Gaby accepted it, did not even become annoyed when the Titanides involuntarily looked toward Cirocco when Gaby told them what to do. They couldn’t help it. She was the Wizard, but they would do what Gaby said so long as it was clear Cirocco had no objection.

And Cirocco was improving. The mornings were still the worst. Since she spent more time sleeping than anyone else, she had more mornings to contend with. She looked like death when she woke up. Her hands shook, and her eyes darted around, searching for help and not finding it. Her sleep was not much better. Gaby had heard her crying out in the night.

But it was something she had to handle herself. What concerned Gaby at the moment was a simple matter of routes. They had landed at the northern bend of Long Bay. When Gaby sailed Nox, she always put into Snake Bay, the narrowing finger that led to the Ophion outflow. A rocky neck of land separated
the two. Overland it was only five kilometers to the river. Following the beach would be at least twenty-five. She did not know this region well, could not remember if the beach extended all the way around. While she thought there was a pass between the rocky crags to the north, she was not sure of that either. Then there was the storm. The wind would be very bad if they followed the beach. Overland there would be mud and slippery trails to contend with, and the deeper darkness of the forest.