Titan

CHAPTER NINETEEN

They felt lighter when they landed on the cable, being about one hundred kilometers nearer the center of Gaea-and one hundred long kilometers from her floor. The gravity had dropped from almost one quarter gee to less than a fifth. Cirocco's pack weighed nearly two kilos less, and her body weight had de- creased by two and a half.

"It's a hundred kilometers to where the cable joins the roof," Cirocco said. "I'd say it's a thirty-five-degree slope here. It should be easy enough for now."

Gene looked sceptical.

"More like forty degrees, I'd say. Closer to forty-five. And it gets steeper. Say sixty degrees before we reach the level of the roof."

"But in this gravity-"

"Don't laugh at a forty-degree slope, " Gaby said. She was sitting on the ground, looking green but cheerful. She had thrown up, but said anything was better than being in the blimp. "I've done some climbing on Earth with a telescope strapped to my back. You've got to be in good shape, and we're not."

"She's right," Gene said. "I've lost weight. Low gravity makes you lazy."

"You people are defeatists." Gene shook his head. "Just don't think we're going to get a five to one advantage. And don't forget that pack masses almost as much as you do. Be careful with it."

"Hell, we set out on the longest mountain climb ever attempted by human beings; do I hear singing? No, nothing but grousing. "

"If there's songs to be sung," Gaby said, "we'd better sing'm now. We ain't gonna feel like it later."

Well, Cirocco thought, I tried. She was aware the trip was going to be hard, but felt the hard part would not begin until they reached the roof, which she thought they could do in five days.

They were in a dim forest. Trees of cloudy glass loomed over them, further filtering what light reached the twilight zone, giving everything a bronze hue. Shadows were conical and impenetrable, pointing the way cast, toward night. A canopy of pink, orange, blue-green, and gold cellophane leaves arched overhead, an extravagant sunset late in a summer evening.

The ground vibrated softly beneath their feet. Cirocco thought about the huge volumes of air rushing through the cable on its way to the hub, and wished there was some way of putting that immense power to use.

It was not difficult climbing. The ground was hard, smooth, packed dirt. The shape of the land was dictated by the winding of the strands under the thin layer of soil. It humped in long ridges that, after a few hundred meters, could be seen angling toward the sloping sides of the cable.

The vegetation grew most thickly where the dirt was deepest, between the strands. They adopted the tactic of following a ridge until it began to curl under the cable, then crossing a shallow gully to the next strand to the south. That would be good for another half kilometer, then they would cross again.

Each gully had a small stream at the bottom. None held more than a trickle, but the water flowed swiftly and cut deep channels in the dirt, all the way down to the cable. Cirocco guessed the streams must fall right off the cable somewhere to the south- west.

Gaea was as prolific up here as she was on the ground. Many of the trees bore fruit, and they were alive with arboreal animals. Cirocco recognized a sluggish, rabbit-sized creature that was edible and easy to kill.

By the end of the second hour Cirocco realized the others had been right. She knew it when a cramp seized her calf and sent her sprawling on the warm ground.

"Don't say it, damnit."

Gaby grinned. She was sympathetic, but still pleased with herself.

"It's the slope. It doesn't feel all that hard to go up it; you're right about the weight. But it's so steep you have to do it on your toes. "

Gene sat beside them, his back to the slope. Through a rift in the trees, they could just see a patch of Hyperion, shining bright and attractive.

"The mass is a problem, too," he said. "I've had to walk with my nose just about touching the ground to get moving at all."

"My arches hurt," Gaby confirmed.

"Me, too," Cirocco said, miserably. The pain was going away now as she massaged her leg, but it would be back.

"It's damn deceptive," Gene said. "Maybe we'd do better on all fours. We're making our thighs and the backs of our legs do too much of the work. We should spread it out some."

"He's got a point. And it would help us get in shape for the straight-up part. That's going to he mostly arm work. "

"You're both right," Cirocco said. "I was pushing too hard. We're going to have to stop more often. Gene, would you get that medical kit out of my pack?"

There were various remedies for sniffles and fevers, vials of disinfectant, bandages, a supply of the topical anaesthetic Calvin had used for the abortions---even a bag of berries that worked as a stimulant. Cirocco had tried them. There was a first-aid booklet Calvin had written that told how to deal with problems from a bloody nose to an amputation. And there was a round jar of violet salve Meistersinger had given her for "the pains of the road." She rolled up her pants leg and rubbed some on, hoping it would work as well for humans as it did for Titanides.

"Ready?" Gene was up, adjusting his pack.

"I think so. You take the lead. Don't go as fast as I was; I'll tell you if you're going too fast for me. We're going to stop in twenty minutes, rest for ten."

"You got it. "

Fifteen minutes later Gene was in pain. He howled, ripped off his boot, and massaged his bare foot.

Cirocco was glad for the chance to rest. She stretched out and dug into a pocket for the jar of ointment, then rolled over on her back and handed it. up-slope to Gene. With the pack under her she sat almost erect, but with her legs trailing down the slope. Beside hers Gaby had not bothered to turn over.

"Fifteen minutes up, and fifteen minutes resting. "

"Anything you say, boss lady," Gaby sighed. "I'll flay myself alive for you, I'll climb till my hands and feet are bloody wrecks. And when I die, just write on my tombstone that I died like a soldier. Kick me when you're ready to go." She began snoring loudly, and Cirocco laughed. Gaby opened one eye suspiciously, then laughed, too.

"How about 'Here lies a spacewoman'?" Cirocco suggested.

" 'She done her duty,' " Gene said.

"Honestly," Gaby sniffed. "Where's the romance in life? Tell somebody your epitaph and what do you get? Jokes."

Cirocco's next cramp came during the following rest period. Cramps, actually, as both legs were involved this time. There was nothing funny about it.

"Hey, Rocky," Gaby said, touching her shoulder hesitantly. "There's no sense killing ourselves. Let's take an hour this time."

"This is ridiculous," Cirocco managed to grunt. "I'm barely winded. It just doesn't feel right to sit on my butt." She looked at Gaby suspiciously. "How come you don't get cramps!"

"I'm slacking," Gaby admitted, with a straight face. "I hitch a rope to that butt you don't want to sit on, and let you do the donkey work."

Cirocco had to laugh, though weakly.

"I'll just have to live with it, " she said. "Sooner or later I'll be in better shape. Cramps won't kill me."

"No. I just hate to see you hurt."

"How about ten up, twenty down?" Gene suggested. "Just until we start to work ourselves into something more."

"No. We go up for fifteen minutes, or until one of us can't go on, whichever is sooner. Then we rest the same time, or until we're all able to climb. We do that for eight hours..." She checked her watch. "That's a little more than five hours from now. Then we make camp."

Gaby sighed. "Lead on, Rocky. That's what you're good at."

It was gruesome. Cirocco continued to have the greatest share of pains, though Gaby began to experience them, too.

The Titanide salve helped, but they had to use it sparingly. Each of them packed a medical kit, and they had already gone through Cirocco's supply. She hoped they would not he needing it past the first few days of the journey, but wanted to retain at least one jar for the climb up the inside of the spoke. After all, it was not unbearable pain. When it grabbed her she was likely to yelp, then sit down and wait for it to pass.

At the end of the seventh hour she relented, feeling a little chagrined at her own stubbornness. It was almost as if she had been trying to prove Bill was right, forcing herself to be tough, to go to the limits of her endurance and then a little beyond.

They made camp at the bottom of a gully, gathering wood for a fire but not bothering to set up their tents. The air was hot and muggy, but the fire was a welcome light in the increasing gloom. They sat around it at a comfortable distance, stripped down to their gaudy silken underclothes.

"You look like a peacock," Gene said, taking a drink from his wineskin.

"A very tired peacock," Cirocco, sighed.

"How far do you think we've come, Rocky?" Gaby asked. "It's hard to say. Fifteen kilometers? "

"I'll go along with that," Gene said, nodding. "I counted steps along a couple ridges and averaged it. Then I kept track of the number of ridges we crossed."

"Great minds think alike," Cirocco said. "Fifteen today, twenty tomorrow. We'll be at the roof in five days." She stretched out and watched the shifting colors of the leaves overhead.

"Gaby, you're elected. Dig into that sack and rustle us up some grub. I could eat a Titanide. "

They did not make twenty kilometcrs the next day; they did not make ten.

They woke with sore legs. Cirocco was so stiff she could not bend her knees without wincing. They stumbled around fixing breakfast and breaking camp, moving like octogenarians, then forced themselves through a series of kneebends and isometrics.

"I know this pack is a few grams lighter," Gaby moaned, as she slung it on her back. "I ate two meals out of it."

"Mine's gained twenty kilos," Gene said.

"Bitch, bitch, bitch. C'mon, you apes. You wonna live forever?"

"Live? This is living?"

The second night came only five hours after the first because

Cirocco decided it had to.

"Thank you, O Great Mistress of Time," Gaby sighed, as she stretched out on her sleeping bag. "If we try, maybe we can set a new record. A two-hour day!"

Gene let himself down beside her.

"When you get the fire going, Rocky, I'll take about five of those steakplant fillets. In the meantime, walk softly, will you? When your knees crack you wake me up."

Cirocco put her hands on her hips and glared at them.

"So that's how it's going to be, hub? I've got news for you two. I outrank you."

"Did she say something, Gene?"

"Didn't hear a word."

Cirocco limped around until she had gathered enough wood for a fire. Kneeling to start it turned out to be a very complex problem, one she was not sure she could solve. It involved wrenching abused joints through angles they just did not want to take.

But after a time the steakplants were snapping, in the grease, and Gene and Gaby followed their noses to the source of the heavenly aroma.

Cirocco had just enough strength to kick dirt over the coals and unroll her sleeping bag. She was asleep m her way down to it.

The third day was not as bad as the second, in the same way the Chicago Fire was not as bad as the San Francisco Earthquake.

They made ten kilometers over gradually steepening ground in just under eight hours. Gaby remarked at the end of it that she no longer felt eighty years old. She now felt seventy-eight.

It became necessary to use a new climbing tactic. The increasing slope of the ground made walking, even on all fours, more difficult. Their feet would slip and they would go down on their stomachs with arms and legs spread to prevent a backward slide.

Gene suggested they alternately take one end of the rope and crawl up as far as it would reach, then tie the end to a tree. The other two, waiting at the bottom, then had an easy hand-over- hand pull and walk. The one who went ahead worked hard for ten minutes while the other two rested, then could rest for two turns before going again. They made 300 meters at a time.

Cirocco looked at the stream near their third campsite and thought about taking a bath, then decided against it. Food was what she wanted. Gene, with some grumbling, took his turn at the frying pan.

She actually felt good enough to look through her pack and check the level of stored provisions before collapsing.

The fourth day they made twenty kilometers in ten hours, and at the end of the day Gene grabbed Cirocco.

They had pitched camp where the stream they were following was wide enough for a bath, and sirocco had taken off her clothes and lowered herself in without even thinking about it. Soap would have been nice, but there was fine sand on the bottom and she could scour herself with that. Soon Gaby and Gene joined her. Later, Gaby went off on Cirocco's instructions to find fresh fruit. There were no towels, so she was squatting naked by the fire when Gene put his arms around her.

She jumped, scattering burning twigs, and pushed his hands away from her breasts.

"Hey, stop that." She struggled, and broke away. He was not at all abashed.

"Come on, Rocky, it's not like we've never touched each other before."

"Yeah? Well, I don't like people sneaking up on me. Keep your hands to yourself."

He looked exasperated. "Is it going to be like that? What am I supposed to do with two naked women running around?"

Cirocco reached for her clothes.

"I didn't know the sight of naked women made you lose control of yourself. I'll bear it in mind."

"Now you're angry."

"No, I'm not angry. We're going to have to live close for some time, and it wouldn't do to get angry." She pressed the fasteners of her shirt and eyed him warily for a moment, then repaired the fire, careful to sit facing him.

"You're angry anyway. I didn't mean anything by it. "

"Just don't grab me, is all."

"I'd send you roses and candy, but it's a little impractical."

She smiled, and relaxed a little. It sounded more like the old Gene, which was an improvement over what she had seen in his eyes a moment ago.

"Listen, Gene. We didn't make the greatest pair back on the ship, and you know it. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I still feel dirty. All I can say is, if I feel ready for anything, I'll let you know."

"Fair enough."

Neither of them said anything as Cirocco built the fire bigger, carefully keeping it on the little shelf they had dug into the dirt.

"Are you... do you and Gaby have something going?" She flushed, hoping it wasn't visible in the firelight. "That's none of your business."

"I always thought she was gay underneath," he said, nodding. "I didn't think you were."

She took a deep breath and looked at him narrowly. The darting shadows revealed nothing on his blond-bearded face.

"Are you deliberately needling me? I said it was none of your business."

"If you weren't queer for her, you'd have just said no." What was the matter with her? she wondered. Why was he making her skin crawl? Gene had always operated by his own bonehead logic when it came to people. His bigotry was carefully suppressed and socially acceptable, or he would never have been chosen for the trip to Saturn. He blundered cheerfully through his relationships, genuinely surprised when people took offence at his tactlessness. It was a common-enough personality, so well controlled, according to his psychological profile, as to barely qualify as an eccentricity.

So why did she feel so uncomfortable when he looked at her? "I'd better set you straight so you don't hurt Gaby. She's fallen in love with me. It has something to do with the isolation; I was the first person she saw afterward, and she developed this fixation. I think she'll grow out of it because she's never been significantly homosexual before. Nor heterosexual, for that matter."

"She covered it up," he suggested. "what year is this? Nineteen-fifty? You astonish me, Gene. You don't hide anything from those NASA tests. She had a homosexual affair, sure. I had one, and so did you. I read your dossier. You want me to tell you how old you were when it happened?"

"I was just a kid. The point is, I could tell about her when we made love. No reaction, you know? I'll bet it's not like that when you two make it."

"We don't-" She stopped herself, wondering how she had been drawn in as far as she was.

"This conversation is over. I don't want to talk about it, and besides, Gaby's coming back."

Gaby approached the fire and dropped a net full of fruit at Cirocco's side. She squatted, looked thoughtfully back and forth between the two of them, then stood up and put on her clothes.

"Are my ears burning, or is it my imagination?" Neither Gene nor Cirocco spoke, and Gaby sighed.

"Here we go again. I think I'm starting to agree with the folks who say manned space missions cost more than they're worth."

The fifth day took them irrevocably into night. There was now only the ghostly light reflected by the day areas curving up on each side. It was not much, but it was enough.

The ground was noticeably steeper, with a thinner layer of dirt. often they walked on the warm, bare strands, which provided surer traction. They began tying themselves together, and were careful to see that two were always hanging on while the other climbed.

Even here the plant life of Gaea had not given up. Massive trees splayed roots flat to the cable, sending out runners that scrambled into the surface and hung on tenaciously. The effort of wresting a living from such uninviting terrain had robbed them of beauty. They were gaunt and lonely, their trunks trans- lucent with a pale inner light, their leaves the, merest wisps of nothing. In places, the roots could be used as ladders.

At the end of the day they had come seventy kilometers in a straight line, and were fifty kilometers nearer the hub. The trees had thinned enough for them to see they had climbed above the level of the roof, well on their way into the narrowing wedge of space between the cable and the bell-shaped mouth of the Rhea spoke. They could look back and see Hyperion spread out below, as though they rode on a kite tied to a monster string tethered in the rocky knot called the place of winds.

They saw the glitter of the glass castle early on the sixth day. Cirocco and Gaby crouched in a tangle of tree roots and scanned it as Gene carried the rope to the foot of the structure.

"Maybe that's the place," Cirocco said.

"You mean your elevator lobby?" Gaby snorted. "If that's it, I'd as soon ride a roller coaster with paper rails."

It looked something like an Italian hill town, but made of spun sugar, a million years old, and half melted. Domes and bal- conies, arches, flying buttresses, battlements, and terraced roofs perched on a jutting shelf and dripped over the edge like syrup

poured over a waffle and quick-frozen. Tall towers jutted at all angles: pencils in a cup. They were tall and spindly. In the corners, drifts of snow or pastel confectioner's sugar sparkled.

"It's a hulk, Rocky."

"I can see that. Let me have my fantasy, will you?"

The castle fought a silent battle with wispy white vines. It looked like a stand-off; the castle had taken mortal damage, but when they joined Gene, Cirocco and Gaby heard the vines giving off the dry rustic of death.

"Like Spanish moss," Gaby observed, tugging a handful free the entangling mass.

"But bigger."

Gaby shrugged. "If Gaea can't build it in the large economy size, she doesn't bother."

"There's a door up here," Gene called back. "You want to go in? "

"You bet."

There was five meters of level space between the edge of the shelf and the castle wall. Not far from them was a rounded arch, not much taller than the top of Cirocco's head.

"Whew!" Gaby breathed, leaning against the wall. "Walking on level ground is almost enough to make you dizzy. I'd forgotten how."

Cirocco lit a lamp and followed Gene through the arch and into a hall of glass.

"We'd better stick together," she said.

There seemed good reason for the caution. While none of the surfaces were completely reflective, the place had a lot in common with, the mirror houses at carnivals. They could see through the walls to rooms on all sides of them, which also had glass walls leading to more rooms.

"How do we get out, once we're in?" Gaby asked. Cirocco pointed down. "Follow our footprints."

"Ah. How silly of me." Gaby bent and looked at the fine powder coating the floor. There were larger, flat sheets scattered through it.

"Ground glass," she said. "Don't fall down."

Gene shook his head. "I thought so at first, too, but it's not glass. It's thin as a soap bubble, and it won't hold an edge." He picked a wall and pressed it gently with the palm of this hand. It shattered with a soft tinkling sound. He caught one of the pieces that drifted down around him and crushed it in his hand.

"How many of those walls could you break before the second floor falls on us?" Gaby asked, pointing at the room above them.

"A lot, I think. Look, this place is a maze, but it wasn't originally. We walk through some of the walls because something broke them already. But this was a stack of cubes, with no way in or out of any of them."

Gaby and Cirocco looked at each other. "Like the building we looked at under the cable," Cirocco said, for both of them. She described it to Gene.

"Who makes buildings with rooms you can't get in or out of?" Gaby asked.

"The chambered nautilus does," Gene said.

"Say again?"

"The nautilus. It makes its shell in a spiral. When the shell gets too small, it moves up and seals off part of the shell in back. You cut them in half, they're very pretty. It sounds a lot like the building you saw; little rooms on the bottom, big ones on top."

Cirocco frowned. "But all these rooms look about the same size."

Gene shook his head. "The difference isn't great. This room is a little taller than the one over there. There'll be smaller rooms somewhere else. These things built sideways."

The picture that emerged of the creatures that built the glass castle was of something that worked like sea corals. The colony abandoned houses as they outgrew them, building m the re- mains. Parts of the castle towered ten levels or more. Structural strength came not from the tissue-thin walls but from the interstices that made up the edges. They were like clear lucite bars, thick as Cirocco's wrist, very hard and strong. If all the walls in the castle had been broken 'out, the outline would have remained, like the steel underpinnings of a skyscraper.

"Whoever built it wasn't the last to use it," Gaby suggested. "Somebody moved in and made a lot of modifications, unless these creatures were considerably more sophisticated than what we decided. But either way, everybody's long gone."

Cirocco tried not to be disappointed, but it didn't do any good. It was a letdown. They were still far from the top, and it looked like they would have to climb every meter.

"Don't be angry."

"What's that?" sirocco came awake slowly. Hard to believe it's been eight hours already, she thought.

But how did he know? She had the watch.

"Don't look at it." It was said in the same even tone, but Cirocco froze with her arm half raised. She saw Gene's face, orange in the dying firelight. He was kneeling over her.

"Why... what is it, Gene? Is something wrong?"

"Just don't be angry. I didn't mean to hurt her, but I couldn't very well let her watch, could I? "

"Gaby?" She started to rise, and he let her see the knife. In the heightened awareness of the moment, she saw several things: Gene was naked; Gaby was lying face down, nude, and did not seem to be breathing Gene had an erection. There was blood on his hands. Her senses sharpened to a keen edge. She could hear his even breathing, smell blood and violence.

"Don't be angry," he said, reasonably. "I didn't want to do it this way, but you forced me.

"All I said was--"

"You're angry, I can tell." He sighed at the unfairness of it all and produced a second knife-Gaby's-in his left hand. "If you think about it, you have yourself to blame. What do you think I'm made of? You women. Do your mothers tell you to be selfish? Is that it?'#

Cirocco tried to think of a safe answer, but he apparently didn't want one. He moved over her and put the tip of a knife under her chin. She flinched; the tip bit into the soft flesh. It was colder than his eyes.

"I don't understand why you're doing this."

He hesitated. The second knife had been moving in the direction of her belly; now he stopped with it just out of her sight. She licked her lips and wished she could see it again.

"That's a fair question. I've always thought about it-what man doesn't?" He searched her eyes for understanding, looked forlorn when he did not find it.

"Ah, what's the use? You're a girls "

"Try." The knife was moving again. She felt it press flat against the inside of her thigh. Sweat broke out on her forehead. "You don't have to do it this way. Put the knife down, and I'll give you anything you want."

"Ah-ah." There was the knife again, waggling back and forth like a mother's admonishing finger. "I'm not a stupid man. I know how you women work."

"I swear. It doesn't have to be this way."

"It does. I've killed Gaby, and you won't forgive that. It never was fair, you know. You tantalize us all the time. We're always horny, and you're always saying no." He was sneering, but the expression quickly vanished to be replaced once again by calm- ness. She had liked the sneer better.

"I'm just evening things out. Back when you people left me alone in the dark I decided I'd do what I please. I made friends in Rhea. You're not going to like them much. I'm the Captain from now on, like I should have been in the first place. You'll do what I say. Now don't do anything stupid."

She gasped as the sharp point of the knife tore her pants. She thought she knew what he was about to use the knife for, and wondered if she'd rather be stupid and dead than alive and mutilated. But once the pants were gone he cut no further. Her attention returned to the knife under her chin.

He entered her. She turned her face away and the knife point followed. It hurt like hell, but that was not important. What mattered was the twitch in Gaby's cheek, the trail her hand had made through the dust while moving closer to the hatchet, her half-open eye and the gleam in it.

Cirocco looked up at Gene and had no trouble putting fear into her voice.

"Don't! Oh, please, don't, I'm not ready. You'll kill me!"

"You're ready when I say you are." He lowered his head and Cirocco risked a glance at Gaby, who seemed to understand. Her eye closed.

It all happened far away. She had no body, that was someone else who was hurting so badly. Only the knife point at her chin had meaning, until he began to tire.

What would the price of his failure be? she wondered. Right.

Then he can't fall. A moment would come when his attention would waver, but she had to insure that moment arrived. She began to move under him. It was the most disgusting thing she had ever done.

"Now we see the truth," he said, with a dreamy smile.

"Don't talk, Gene."

"You got it. See how much better it is when you don't fight?" Was it her imagination, or was her skin not quite so taut under the knife? Had it pulled back? She tasted the thought, careful not to fool herself, and decided it was true. She had acquired an exquisite sensitivity. The slight easing of pressure was like the lifting of a great weight. ,

He would have to close his eyes. Didn't they always close their eyes?

He closed them and. she almost moved, but he opened them again, quickly. Testing her, damn it. But he saw no deception. Normally she was a lousy actress, but the knife had inspired her.

His back arched. His eyes closed. The knife pressure was gone. Nothing went right.

She slapped his arm one way, turned her head the other; the knife cut the side of her cheek. She punched at his throat, meaning to crush it, but he moved just enough. She twisted, kicked, felt the knife slash her shoulder blade. Then she was up- but not running. Her feet did not touch the ground for agonizing seconds while she waited for the knife to bite.

It did not, and she got enough of a toehold to bound into the air again and start away from him. She glanced over her shoulder while in the air and realized her kick had been stronger than she imagined. It had lifted him from the ground and he was only now touching again. Gaby was still in the air. Adrenalin was causing Earth muscles to behave madly in the low gravity.

The chase took forever to get going, but picked up speed rapidly.

She didn't think he knew Gaby was behind him. He would never have pursued Cirocco so single-mindedly if he had seen Gaby's face.

They had camped in the castle's central plaza, a level area the builders had never subdivided. The fire was twenty meters from the first gallery of rooms. Cirocco was still accelerating when she hit the first wall. She never broke stride, smashing a dozen of them before reaching up to grab one of the girders. She swung through a ninety-degree turn and rose, tumbling, through three ceilings before stopping in the air. She heard crashes as Gene blundered on, not understanding her maneuvere.

She put her feet on a girder and pushed up again. She rose, a cloud of glass shards ascending with her, twisting and turning in dreamy slow motion. She leaped to the side and went through three walls before stopping. She broke through to her left, went up another floor, then over and down through two more.

She stopped, crouching on a girder, and listened.

There was the far-off tinkle of breaking glass. It was dark. She was in the middle of a chambered maze that stretched to infinity in all directions: up, down, and sideways. She didn't know where she was, but neither did he, and that was the way she wanted it.

The crashing grew louder and she saw Gene sail up through the room to her left. She dived right and down, catching a girder two floors below and diverting her momentum to the right again. She came to rest, her bare feet on another girder. Around her, broken glass settled slowly.

She would not have known he was so close if the shower of glass had not preceded him. He had been walking along the girders, but the weight of part of his foot was too much for an un- broken pane that already supported debris from Cirocco's passage. it shattered, and the glass came down like snowflakes. She swung around the girder and pushed downward with her feet.

She hit hard, and turned, dazed, to see him land on his feet, as she would have done if she had any damn sense and counted floors. She remembered thinking that as he stood over her, then she saw the hatchet hit his head, and she passed out.

She came to her senses suddenly, screaming, which was some- thing she had never done before. She did not know where she was, but she had been back in the belly of the beast, and not alone. Gene was there, explaining calmly why he intended to rape her...ad raped her. She stopped screaming.

She was not in the glass castle. There was a rope around her waist. The ground sloped down in front of her. Far below was the dark silver sea of Rhea.

Gaby was beside her, but she was quite busy. She had two ropes around her waist. One went up the slope to the same tree Cirocco was attached to. The other hung taut over darkness. Tears had washed a channel through the dried blood on her face. She was using a knife to saw through one of the ropes.

"Is that Gene's pack there, Gaby? "

"Yeah. He won't be needing it. How are you feeling?" "I've been better. Bring him up, Gaby."

She looked up, her mouth hanging open. "I don't want to lose the rope."

His face was a bloody wreck. One eye was swollen shut, the other merely a slit. His nose was broken and three of his front teeth were gone.

"Quite a fall he took," Cirocco observed. "Nothing to what I had in mind."

"Open his pack and bandage that ear. He's still losing blood." Gaby was building toward an explosion, but Cirocco cut her off with an unwavering stare.

"I'm not going to kill him, so don't suggest it."

His ear had been severed by Gaby's hatchet throw. That had been unintentional on her part; she had meant to plant it in the side of his head, but it had turned in the air and hit him a glancing blow powerful enough to knock him out. He moaned while Gaby bandaged him.

Cirocco began rummaging through his pack, taking things they could use. She kept the provisions and the weapons, threw everything else over the side.

"If we let him live, he's going to follow us, you know that."

"He might, and I could definitely do without it. He'll have to go over the edge."

"Then why the hell am I---"

"With his chute. Untie his legs."

She fitted the harness around his crotch. He moaned again, and she looked away from what Gaby had done to him there.

"He thought he killed me. " she was saying, tying the last knot on the bandages. "He meant to, but I turned my head."

"How bad is it? "

"Not deep, but bloody as hell. I was stunned, and it's lucky I was too weak to move after what he... after ... " Her nose was running, and she wiped it on the back of her hand. "I passed out pretty quick. The next thing I knew he was bending over you. "

"I'm glad you woke up when you did. I made a mess of my escape. And thank you for saving my ass again."

Gaby looked at her bleakly, and Cirocco was immediately sorry about her choice of words. Gaby seemed to feel personally responsible for what had happened. It couldn't be easy, Cirocco thought, to lie still while someone you love is being violated.

"Why are you letting him live?"

Cirocco looked down at him, and fought through a sudden burning rage until she felt in control again.

"I... you know he was never like this before."

"I do not know it. He was always a fucking animal underneath, or how could he have done it?"

"We all are. We suppress it, but he can't anymore. He talked to me like a little boy who's hurt-not angry, just hurt-because he's not been getting his way. Something happened to him after the crash, just like something happened to me. And you.',,

"But we didn't try to kill anyone. Listen, let him parachute down. That's okay. But I think he ought to leave his balls up 'here." She hefted the knife, but Cirocco shook her head.

"No. I never liked him much, but we got along. He was a good crewman, and now he's insane, and... " She was going to say it was partly her responsibility, that he would never have gone insane if she had kept her ship in one piece, but she could not get it out.

"I'm giving him a chance because of what he was. He said he had friends down there. Maybe he was just raving, or maybe they'll take him in. Cut his hands free."

Gaby did, and Cirocco gritted her teeth and pushed him with her foot. He began to slide, and seemed to become aware of his surroundings. He screamed as the parachute trailed out behind him, then vanished around the curve of the cable.

They never saw if it opened.

The two women sat there for a long time. Cirocco was afraid to say anything. There was the possibility she would start crying and be unable to stop, and there was no time for it. There were wounds to care for, and a trip to finish.

Gaby's head was not bad. It should have had stitches, but the disinfectant and a bandage was all they could do. She would have a scar on her forehead.

So would Cirocco, from her impact with the castle floor. There would also be one from the point of her chin to her left car, and another across her back. None of the cuts were serious enough to worry her.

They tended each other and loaded their packs, and Cirocco looked up at the long stretch of the cable yet to climb before they reached the spoke.

"I think we should go back to the castle and rest before we tackle it," she said. "A couple days. Get our strength."

Gaby looked up. "Oh, sure. But the next part's going to be easier. Bringing you two down here, I found a stairway."