Wizard

19 Eternal Youth

"If you're worried about a paternity suit," Cirocco said, "you can forget it. Titanides don't work that way."

"I didn't mean ... maybe I'm expressing myself badly."

Chris was in Cirocco's canoe. He sat toward the middle while the Wizard lolled in the bow. Her head was on a pillow. There were puffy blue bags under her eyes, and her complexion was unhealthy. Even so, it was a great improvement on a few hours ago. Chris had elected to travel with Cirocco with the intent of quizzing her about Human-Titanide sex but had put it off when he saw her face.

He was not the only one to switch boats. Gaby was now riding with Hautbois and Robin, while Valiha and Psaltery led the flotilla in canoes that rode high in front.

They had passed beneath Cirocco's Stairs, an experience Chris could have done without. The massive cable hanging above him had taken him back to the Golden Gate on that windy day when Dulcimer set his feet on the path which led to Gaea. Cirocco's Stairs looked like a bridge cable. In place of the tower, however, there was just the gaping conical mouth of the Rhea Spoke, dwindling into infinity and taking the unseen cable with it. The cable was an exponential curve, a geometric abstraction made real. A dozen Golden Gates set end to end could not have spanned its terrible immensity.

Now they were a few minutes from the confluence of Ophion with the river Melpomene. Already the waters moved a little faster, eager to challenge the Asteria Mountains, darkly visible in the east

Chris looked away from the river and tried again.

"For one thing, I know she's already pregnant. I'm presuming a child is not at issue. Am I right in that?"

"You're still thinking in terms of mommies and daddies," Cirocco said. "What you are here is a potential forefather, and Valiha a potential foremother. The egg could be implanted in ... oh, say Hornpipe, for instance, and he'd be the hindmother, then any of the other three could fertilize it, including Valiha."

"Not until I knew you a lot better," Hornpipe said from the rear of the boat.

"This isn't funny to me," Chris said.

"I'm sorry. A child is definitely not at issue. One, I wouldn't approve it. Two, no Titanide would even start a proposal for a child without much more thought. And three, you've got the egg."

"Then what is at issue here? Is there a great significance to the gift? What is she telling me?"

Cirocco did not look as though she really wanted to answer questions, but she sighed and relented.

"It does not necessarily mean anything. Oh, it means she likes you, that's certain. For one thing, she wouldn't have made love to you unless she did, but she wouldn't have given you the egg unless she still did. Titanides are sentimental, see? Walk into any Titanide home, and you'll find a rack of these on the wall. Not one in a thousand ever gets used or is even intended for use. They're common as ... as condoms on lover's lane."

Hornpipe made a loud raspberry.

"It was a rather low image, wasn't it?" Cirocco managed to grin.

"What's a condom?"

"Before your time, huh? A one-time prophylactic. Anyway, the analogy is apt. Every time a female has frontal intercourse one of these pops out two hectorevs later. That's two hundred revs, in case they aren't still teaching the metric system where you come from. You know, it's a hell of a note when a Titanide knows what a condom is-he's never seen one!-and a human doesn't. What do they teach you? That history started in 2096?"

"Actually, I think they include 2095 now."

Cirocco massaged her forehead and smiled weakly.

"Sorry. I digress. Your education or lack of it is none of my business. Back to Titanides ... most of the eggs get thrown away. If not immediately, then during the next spring cleaning. Some are kept for the sentimental value, long after they've expired. They last about five years, by the way.

"What you have to bear in mind is the dual nature of Titanide sex. Hind sex is for two purposes, one much more common than the other. One is sheer recreation: hedonism. They do it publicly. The other purpose is procreation, when they're allowed to, which is not nearly as often as they'd like. Frontal sex is different. Very seldom is it done just to make an egg. Almost always it's an expression of close friendship or love. Not precisely the love you and I know because Titanides don't pair-bond. But they do love. That's one of the things I know for sure, and my list of those things is short. A Titanide will hind-sex with someone he or she would not dream of front-sexing with. Frontal sex is sacred.

"Now this has been relaxed some when dealing with humans, who can't hind-sex. The more liberal elements of Titanide thought hold that it is moral to have frontal sex with a human for fun. It should still be done in private, but one doesn't need to love the human or be close friends. Hornpipe?"

"This is true," the Titanide said.

"Why don't you take over?" Cirocco suggested. "I've got a headache."

When Chris turned around, Hornpipe stopped paddling for a moment and spread his hands.

"There isn't much more to say. Cirocco covered it well."

"Then you're saying the egg is just a keepsake. The reason Valiha seemed upset was that I had forgotten what happened. She isn't in love with me."

"Oh, no, I'm saying nothing of the sort. Valiha is an old-fashioned girl who has never had sex with a human. She loves you desperately."

In Gaea, stormy weather caused the nights to steal more land than they normally occupied. As the party passed the mouth of the Melpomene, they entered an area normally classed as a twilight zone. Now it was night.

But night in Gaea could never become total. In clear weather, even the center of Rhea was as bright as an Earthly night with a full moon. Under clouds the gloom thickened but never became impenetrable. The land in the foothills of the Asteria Mountains was lit by a soft glow from above the cloud layer. Lanterns were set in niches to the rear of the canoes. The group traveled on.

Tall trees began to appear on the shore. They were scattered at first but soon became a thick forest. The trees were a lot like pines, with straight trunks and thin leaves. There was little underbrush. Chris saw herds of six-legged creatures that traveled in prodigious hops, like kangaroos. Cirocco told him the area was a remnant of the protoforest Gaea had brought forth as a young Titan, that simple plants and animals like the ones they now saw still thrived in the highlands.

As they began to move into a narrow canyon, Chris experienced an optical illusion. He thought he was canoeing uphill. The surrounding hills slanted toward the east. The trees grew just a few degrees from the vertical, their tops ten or twenty meters east of their roots. After looking at it for a time, the eye concluded everything was really vertical and the river was defying gravity. It was one of Gaea's jokes.

It began to rain as the Titanides were beaching the boats just below the beginnings of a steep ravine. There was a lot of noise in the air. Chris thought of a huge waterfall or continuous waves crashing on a beach.

"Aglaia," Gaby said as she joined Chris and Valiha in pulling a canoe onto the land. "You probably won't see her unless the clouds break up."

"What's Aglaia?"

Gaby described the workings of the trio of river pumps while the Titanides broke down the canoes. The work went quickly. The silvery skin was loosened from the wooden framework, folded into small bundles, and stowed in the saddlebags. He wondered what they were going to do with the ribs, keels, and floorboards. The answer, apparently, was to leave them behind.

"We can make new canoes when we need them," Valiha explained. "That won't be until we're across the Midnight Sea and into Crius."

"How will we cross the sea then? Hold the Wizard's hand and walk?"

Valiha did not deign to reply.

The humans mounted up, and they were off into gathering darkness.

"I built this road, a long time ago," Gaby said.

"Really? What for? And why isn't it kept up?"

They were on the section of the Circum-Gaea Highway Gaby had traveled on her way to the Melody Shop. The Titanides were taking turns clearing a way through entangling vines.

"Hautbois up there with her machete is one reason. Things grow pretty fast, so the road would require a lot of upkeep and no one was willing to do it. Not very many people ever made the round trip. It was a crazy project in the first place. Nobody wanted it but Gaea, but her wants are pretty important here, so I built it."

"With what?"

"Titanides, mostly. To build the bridges, I'd blimp in a couple hundred of them. For leveling and grading and laying asphalt, I-"

"Asphalt? You're kidding."

"No, you can still see some of it when the light's better. Gaea specified one lane of blacktop, wide enough for a two-meter axle, no grades steeper than ten percent. We put in fifty-seven rope suspension bridges and a hundred twenty-two on pilings. A lot are still standing, but I'd think twice before using them. We'll have to take each one as it comes."

Gaby had mentioned the highway before. Chris decided she wanted to talk about it, for whatever reason, but would need some prompting. He was willing.

"You're not going to tell me you ... blimped in? Carried asphalt in on blimps. You said they wouldn't go near a fire, and besides, that sounds like a lot of asphalt."

"It was. No, Gaea whomped up something-several things, actually-that made the job a lot easier. Not too pleasant, though. There was one critter the size of a Tyrannosaurus rex, who ate trees. I used fifty of them. They'd clear a path through forests and leave big piles of wood pulp. I think they could digest about a thousandth of what they ate, so they ate a hell of a lot of trees. Then there was something else-and I swear this is the truth-a thing about the size of a subway car that ate wood pulp and shit asphalt. You wouldn't believe the smell. This wasn't good clean asphalt-which, come to think of it, doesn't smell all that great by itself-this ... this crap was loaded with esters and ketones and I don't know what. Think of a whale that's been dead for three weeks. That'll give you a start.

"Luckily nobody had to stay close to the things. The sawmills-that's what we called the tree eaters-they weren't too bright, but they were docile and could be trained to eat only trees that were sprayed with a certain scent. We'd go on ahead, blazing trail, and the sawmills would follow. Then we'd get behind them and shovel all that wood pulp where we wanted the road to be. Well, then we'd put the 'stilleries-the asphalt creatures, you understand. We called them distilleries. We'd put them on the trail of pulp, and they'd start doing their thing. We'd stay ten kilometers upwind. There wasn't much chance they'd go astray because wood pulp was all they could eat. And not just any wood pulp, but stuff that had gone through the stomach of a sawmill. They had the brains of a slug.

"Two or three weeks later, when the stuff had detoxified, I'd move in a crew of forty or fifty Titanides to pull big rollers and pack the stuff down. Presto. A highway. Of course, dumb as they were, sometimes the 'stilleries did get a little confused, like if we'd not swept up the traces of pulp from some spot. Then they'd get stalled and start to whine like a two-hundred-tonne puppy. We'd draw lots to see who had to go in and straighten the damn thing out. That happened several times, and it was almost worth your life to go in there, let me tell you. Until I solved it."

"How did you do that?"

"Found a Titanide who'd taken a sword across the face in the Angel War," Gaby said smugly. "The nerves were cut, and she couldn't smell. She'd go in and lead the thing on the end of a rope. When it was all over, I had Rocky give her a hindmothership at the next Carnival, I was so grateful.

"Of course, it isn't paved all the way. That would be sillier than usual, even for Gaea. There's no point in spreading blacktop over desert sands or on ice. One-third of Gaea is desert or frozen over. There we blasted paths when we could and left a series of way stations. If you ever get in trouble and come across a hut with the words Plauget Construction Company on the door, you'll know who put it there."

"How do you get wagons across the ice then?" Chris asked.

"Huh? Oh, the same way you do with any ice. Not that many people ever took wagons on the Circum-Gaea. You switch to a sleigh. You follow the frozen Ophion in Thea; it's about the only way through the mountains anyway. Oceanus is one big frozen sea, nice and flat, so that's no problem, if anything in Oceanus can be said to be no problem. In the deserts, you just find your way across as best you can. We made some oases."

Chris saw an odd expression on Gaby's face. It was a little wistful but mostly happy. He knew she was looking back fondly to the old days, and he hated to ask his next question. But he thought it was why she had been talking in the first place.

"Why did you build it?"

"Huh?"

"What's it for? You said yourself there was no demand for a road. There's been no maintenance and no traffic. Why build it?"

Gaby sat up from her usual position, facing the rear, leaning against Psaltery's back. Chris couldn't get used to the position; he liked to see where he was going. The problem, as Gaby had discovered long ago, was that a Titanide was too high and wide in the torso to see around.

"I did it because Gaea told me to. Hired me to, rather. I told you that."

"Yeah. You also said it was an unpleasant job."

"Not all of it," she pointed out. "The bridges were a challenge. I liked that. I wasn't a road builder-I wasn't even an engineer, though it wasn't hard to pick up the math-so I used a couple people from the embassy at first. For the first five-hundred kilometers I learned from them. After that I worked out my own solutions." She was silent awhile, then looked at him.

"But you're right. I didn't do it because I wanted to. I was paid, like I'm paid for all the work I do for Gaea. I'd have passed this one up, but the wages turned out to be too good."

"What was it?"

"Eternal youth." She grinned. "Or near enough to it. Rocky gets it free, for being the Wizard. I found out not too long after I got here that the offer didn't extend to me. So I worked out this arrangement with Gaea. I'm getting immortality on the installment plan. The thing about being a free-lance, you don't get the medical benefits of a salaried employee. If Gaea ever runs out of things for me to do, I'm washed up. I'll probably shrivel up in a day."

"You're not serious."

"No. I expect I'll just start to age. It might be more rapidly. But I've got this-hey, where's Rocky?"

Chris looked behind him, then realized Hornpipe had gone to the front to blaze trail. A fog had descended, further worsening the visibility. He could barely see Robin and Hautbois, and Hornpipe was completely swallowed in the mist.

Psaltery surged ahead, and Valiha quickened her pace to draw even with Hautbois. The two teams quickly caught Gaby, who was engaged in heated conversation with Hornpipe.

"She said she was going back to speak to you, and-"

"Are you sure, Hornpipe?"

"What are you... oh. I didn't, honest. She said she was going to ride with you for a while. She might be hurt. Perhaps she fell, and-"

"Not bloody likely." Gaby scowled and rubbed her forehead. "You can stay here, backtrack a little, see if you can find her. The rest of us will go on. I'm pretty sure I know where she is."

Machu Picchu perched high above the layer of cottony clouds. It was possible to stand on the front porch of the Melody Shop, lit by the incredible celestial spotlight, and look out over a vast sea of mist that stretched between the highland cliff ramparts, north to south. It spilled from the invisible spoke mouth over Oceanus and came tumbling over Hyperion. In places updrafts had rolled themselves into fluffy, hollow tubes as they passed into higher and thus slower-moving regions of the atmosphere. The tubes were cyclonic disturbances set on edge and attentuated until they looked like toppled tornadoes. They were called mistrollers. Occasionally violent storms came out of Oceanus, and those were called steamrollers.

Chris stood watching the clouds while the others went in searching for Cirocco. Presently he heard the sound of glass breaking and a heavy object hitting the floor. Someone shouted. He heard feet pounding up a staircase, pursued by the odd sound of Titanide hooves on carpet. After a while a door slammed, and the sounds ceased. He continued to watch the mist.

Gaby came out, holding a wet towel to her face.

"Well, it looks like we'll be here another day, getting her on her feet." She stood beside Chris, catching her breath. "Is anything wrong?"

"I'm fine," Chris lied.

"It was pretty slick, what she did," Gaby said. "She called Titantown with a radio seed she'd hidden. Nobody's sure what she said, but it sounded like she was in trouble because she told a friend to blimp in and wait for her beside the road. The fog was her doing. She told Gaea she needed some cover. She slipped away and joined up with the Titanide, who brought her here. She's been here three revs, which is time for a lot of drinking. So we'll have to ... hey, are you sure you're okay?"

He didn't have time for her questions. The fog was rearing up like a monstrous wave. There were foul beasts hiding in the basement. He could hear them. When he reached out blindly, he grabbed the blackened arm of a pale corpse who yammered, worms crawling from her mouth, reaching out for him... .

He began to scream.