Wizard (54 page)

Robin shrugged again. “Maybe some of it does, or I wouldn’t have jumped into it so rapidly. It doesn’t worry me too much. It will be hard at first to keep my mouth shut about some of the things I’ve learned, but it will be good practice for the other things I’ll have to keep my mouth shut about.”

They sat together without saying anything for a while, each wrapped in private thoughts. Chris was thinking about what he felt had almost happened between them—or the door that had almost opened to
allow the possibility of something happening. It was too remote for speculation. He had felt a great deal of respect and affection for the fiery young woman she had been. She was slightly subdued now, but far from beaten down, and his affection was unchanged.

He had a thought and decided to take a chance on it.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about your standing in the community,” he said.

“How do you mean?”

“Your new finger. There must be tremendous labra in growing one back.”

She stared at her hand for a moment, then grinned wickedly.

“You know, I think you’re right.”

He went to the room’s single window, looked down at Valiha patiently waiting at the foot of the stairs.

“What time does your ship leave?”

She glanced at her wristwatch, and Chris smiled. He was wearing one, too. They shared a compulsion always to know what time it was.

“I’ve still got a deka—ten hours.”

“Valiha made a picnic lunch. She has a nice cool spot in mind, down by the river. We were going to invite you anyway, but now it can be a farewell party. Will you come?”

She smiled at him. “I’d love to. Let me get this stuff packed.”

He helped her, and soon three bulging sacks were lined up on the floor. Robin lifted two and struggled with the third.

“Can I give you a hand?”

“No, I can … what am I talking about? I’ll take these, and you grab that one. We can leave them at the desk, and they’ll send them to the ship.”

He followed her out of the room and down the stairs, helped her check the luggage. They joined Valiha and Serpent. The four of them walked at a leisurely pace out from under the Titantown tree to
find themselves under the titanic arch of Gaea’s Hyperion window. The day was hot with a slight breeze blowing from Oceanus, promising cooler weather. There was a haze in the air, its source a remote spot in the highlands where Cirocco’s air force had found a fuel-producing creature, parent and succorer to the buzz bombs. It had been blazing for half a kilorev.

But the air was sweet in spite of it, full of the smell of the Titanides’ crops near harvest, and free for now of all threat. They walked a dusty path between rolling hills. The mighty curve of Gaea rose on each side like the enfolding arms of a mother.

They spread their cloth on the banks of Ophion. While they ate, Chris watched the river, wondering how many times the waters had flowed past that point and how many times the river would yet revolve before Gaea’s long life came to an end. When the Titanides began to sing, he joined in without reserve. After a time Robin sang with them. They laughed, drank, cried a little, and sang until it was time to go.

The wheel still turned, and Gaea was still alone.

The Terran death ship remained where it had always been, deep in the gravity well of Saturn. Its crews alternated yearly to relieve the boredom of duty there. Each decade its cargo of nuclear weapons was serviced, and those found defective were replaced.

It was not an empty threat, but Gaea ignored it all the same. She would never give them an excuse to attack. As long as Earth needed her, she was utterly safe, and she would see to it that Earth did need her. It would have been politically unthinkable to impugn her in any dictatorship or deliberative body on the globe. The story of the quests, had it reached the ears of Earth’s people, might have caused a momentary unease, but little more. Gaea had a thousand gifts to bestow. Her security system was for her own enjoyment; it amused her for pilgrims to arrive in ignorance.

It was a measure of her confidence that she rated the danger from Earth slightly below the new danger of the renegade Wizard, and that danger was so small as to be nearly incalculable. But she was a cautious being. High in the hub her thoughts whirled faster than light through a crystalline matrix of space the very existence of which defied the edicts of human physics. Great holes yawned in the matrix like the sockets of rotten teeth, yet even in decay her mind held a power to beggar the capacity of all human computing machines taken together.

The answer was as she had expected. Cirocco was no threat at all.

* * *

The highlands were unique in Gaea. Though every kilometer of them was associated with some regional brain, the control that could be exercised that far from the centers of power was negligible. In a sense, it was neutral territory.

In the twilight zone between Rhea and Hyperion, far above the land in the most inaccessible reaches of the highlands, a lone Titanide stood guard outside a cave. Not far away, a billion coca plants thrived. He heard a sound from within, turned, and entered.

Cirocco Jones, until recently the Wizard of Gaea but now called Demon, had awakened and was writhing in a cold sweat. She was naked, and so thin her ribs showed. Her eyes were deep hollows.

Hornpipe went to her and held her down until the shaking subsided. She had found a supply of liquor soon after landing in Hyperion, though the Melody Shop had been obliterated by the most singular phenomenon ever seen in Gaea: a rain of cathedrals. Hornpipe had found her and brought her to the cave.

He held her head and helped her drink a cup of water. When she coughed, he let her back down.

But soon her eyes opened. She sat up on her own for the first time in many days. Hornpipe looked into those eyes, saw the fire he had seen there so long ago, and rejoiced.

Gaea would be hearing from the Demon.