Wizard

13 Hospitality

It was cool and dim inside the Wizard's Carnival tent. Its top was heavy and opaque while the sides were of white silk, slitted to admit the breeze. Overhead, a cloth panel moved slowly back and forth, fanning the hanging veils and scarves festooning the ridgepole. Gaby, Robin, Psaltery, and Chris sat on huge pillows, waiting for the Wizard.

The Titanides liked to make the Wizard's quarters sumptuous at Carnival time. Layer upon layer of hand-loomed carpets had been spread on the ground, dominated by one featuring the great six-spoked wheel. Two walls were heaped with pillows. A third showcased the Snow Throne. It was made of twenty-kilo transparent vinyleaf bags of Highland Mind Powder, the finest cocaine in the universe and Gaea's chief export. The Titanides built the throne fresh each Carnival, stacking the crystalline containers like sand-baggers on a levee.

There were two low tables heaped with the finest Titanide cuisine, steaming hot or sitting in sweating silver bowls of shaved ice. Titanides came and went steadily, removing things that had cooled, replacing them with fresh delicacies.

"You should try some of that stuff," Gaby suggested. She saw Chris jerk his head up and smiled. Hyperion did that to newcomers. The light never changed, and people stayed awake forty or fifty hours without knowing it. She wondered how much sleep the poor child had managed since the beginning of Carnival. She remembered her own early days in Gaea, when she and Cirocco had marched until they literally dropped. It had been a long time ago. She remembered feeling very old. Now she wondered if she had ever been that young.

She had been, once, on the banks of the Mississippi River near New Orleans. There had been an old house with a dusty attic where she would hide every night, trying to escape the sound of her mother's screams. There was a dormer window she could raise to let in the air. With the window open the tugboat whistles almost drowned out the sounds from below, and she could see the stars.

Later, with her mother dead and her father in prison, her aunt and uncle took her to California. In the Rockies she first saw the Milky Way. Astronomy became her obsession. She read every book she could find, hitchhiked to Mount Wilson, learned mathematics in spite of the California school system.

She did not let herself care about people. When her aunt left, she took her four children but not Gaby. Her uncle didn't want her, so she went with the social services women without a backward glance. By the time she was fourteen she found it easy to go to bed with a boy because he had a telescope. When he sold it, she never saw him again. Sex bored her.

She grew into a quiet, beautiful young woman. The beauty was a nuisance, like smog and poverty. There were ways to deal with all three things. She discovered a certain scowl that would keep boys from bothering her. There was no smog in the mountains, so she learned to hike with a telescope on her back. Cal Tech would accept a penniless student, even a female one, if she was the very best there was. So would the Sorbonne, Mount Palomar, Zelenchukskaya, and Copernicus.

Gaby did not like traveling. Nevertheless, she went to the Moon because the seeing was good. When she saw the plans for the telescopes to be taken to Saturn, she knew she had to be the one to use them. But at Saturn was Gaea, and disaster. For six months the crew of Ringmaster alternated between sleep and total sensory deprivation in the black belly of Oceanus, Gaea's upstart Godling. To Gaby, it was twenty years. She lived every second of it. It was plenty of time to examine a life and find it wanting. There was time to realize she had not a single friend, that there was no one she loved and no one to love her. And that it mattered.

That was seventy-five years ago. Since then she had not seen one star and had never felt the lack. Who needs them when you have friends?

"What was that?" Robin asked.

"Sorry. Just bouncing over the chuckholes of my mind. Us old folks do that."

Robin gave her an exasperated look, and Gaby grinned. She liked Robin. Seldom had she met anyone with so much stubborn pride and so many sharp edges. She was more alien than a Titanide, knowing little of what everyone called "human" culture, aware of her ignorance, and mixing blind chauvinism with an eagerness to learn more about it. It was a touchy business, talking to Robin. She would make a dubious companion until one had earned her trust.

Gaby liked Chris, too, but where her urge was to protect Robin from herself, she wanted to protect Chris from the crazy outside world. It couldn't make much sense to him, and yet he struggled gamely on, his world view quite warped from a lifetime of domination by a series of malevolent spirits who spoke with his voice, saw with his eyes, and sometimes lashed out with his hands. He could no longer afford emotional involvement, for one of his alter egos would betray it soon enough. Who would trust him after he had once revealed the large or small confidences of love?

Chris caught Gaby looking at him and smiled uncertainly. His straight brown hair tended to fall over his left eye, causing him to toss his head. He was a tall man, a meter eighty-five or ninety, of medium build, with an angular face that might have looked cruel but for the evidence of pain around his eyes. The first impression of hardness was given by his slightly flattened nose and heavy brow.

His body, too, might have looked powerful, yet he seemed so lugubrious, sitting there in his scanty shorts and pale, pale skin, that it was impossible to see him as menacing. His arms and legs were strong, and he had good shoulders, but there was too much fat around the waist. He was not too hairy, which was to Gaby's liking.

All in all, Gaby could see why Valiha found him attractive. She wondered if Chris knew yet that she did.

Cirocco swept in, followed by her matched pair of Titanides. She glanced around, mopping her face with a wet towel, and headed for a corner of the tent.

"Where's Valiha?" she asked. "And wasn't there supposed to be a Titanide for Robin?" She slipped out of her scrape and stepped behind a shoulder-high cloth partition. Water began to spray from a nozzle suspended above her. She turned her face into it and shook her head. "If you'll just pardon me for a moment, folks. It's so damn hot out there."

"Valiha is still with her group," Chris volunteered." You didn't tell me I should bring her with me."

"You're getting started too fast here, Rocky," Gaby protested. "Why don't you begin at the beginning?"

"Sorry," she said. "You're right. Robin, I haven't met you yet. Chris, I met you, but you don't recall it. The thing is, Gaea told Gaby that you two were on your way down here-"

"On our way down?" Robin squeaked. "She dropped me."

"I know, I know," Cirocco said soothingly. "Believe me, I detest that. I've protested it every way I can, but it hasn't done any good. Don't forget, I work for her, not the other way around." She looked at Gaby, expressionless, held her gaze for a moment, then resumed her soaping.

"Anyway, we knew you were on your way, and we knew you'd probably both make it. Oddly enough, most of the pilgrims do. About the only way to die in the Big Drop is to panic. Some people-"

"You could drown," Robin put in, darkly.

"What can I say?" Cirocco asked. "Obviously it's dangerous, and it's a disgusting thing to do. Do I need to apologize any more for something I have no part of?" She looked at Robin, who said nothing but finally shook her head.

"As I was saying, some people fight the angels who are trying to help them, and the angels can do only so much. So her purpose-as she has expressed it to me, understand, don't think I'm defending this-is to teach you to respond safely in a crisis. If you panic, you'll never be a hero. Or so her thinking goes."

Chris had been looking increasingly puzzled.

"If all this is supposed to mean something to me, I'm afraid I missed the important part."

"The Big Drop," Gaby explained. "It's probably just as well you don't recall. Gaea drops pilgrims out of a false elevator after her interview. They fall all the way to the rim."

"You still don't remember any of it?" Cirocco asked. The flow of water stopped, and one of the Titanides handed her a towel.

"Nothing. From the time I left her until not long ago, it's blank."

"That would be understandable, even without your condition," Cirocco said. "But I've talked to one of the angels." She glanced at Robin. "It was old Fat Fred."

Gaby laughed. "Is he still around?" She saw Robin's glare and tried to get rid of the smile on her face, with no success.

"He's still around, still chasing human tail. He told me about meeting two wildcats. One eventually cooperated, and he eased her down in Ophion. Another was just plain crazy. He couldn't approach him at all, but he followed him in, thinking that when the ground got close, the man would come to his senses. Imagine his surprise when the guy hit dead center on the back of a blimp."

"Who was it?" Gaby asked. "The blimp, I mean."

"Fred said it was Dreadnaught."

Gaby looked surprised. "That must have been just after I had him and two others help me unclog Aglaia."

"No doubt." Cirocco paused in her toweling to look intently at Chris, who quickly looked away. She stepped out of the shower and into a white robe held by one of the Titanides. She wrapped it around herself and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the three humans and the Titanide. Her servant knelt behind her and began brushing her wet hair.

"I'm wondering about luck," she said. "Gaea told me about your condition, of course, and mentioned luck. Frankly, I don't want to believe that anyone could be that lucky. It goes counter to everything I've learned. Of course, most of that is seventy years out of date."

"It's regarded as pretty well-proven," Chris said. "From what I've heard, most people think none of the psi powers will ever amount to much. They've got equations that describe what's happening, but I don't pretend to understand them. Free-will particle theory, reality strata... I read an article about it."

"We don't get many newspapers out here." Cirocco frowned at her hands. "I don't like it. Never did."

"Einstein didn't like quantum mechanics," Gaby pointed out.

"You're right," Cirocco sighed. "But I'm always surprised at how things turn out. In my day they were sure they'd have the genetic code cracked in a few more years. We were going to wipe out all physical diseases and genetic conditions. And nobody thought we'd be solving psychological problems any time soon. So just the opposite happened. A couple things were a hell of a lot harder to do than anybody imagined, and there were breakthroughs in areas where nobody expected them. Who can figure it? Anyway, we were talking about luck."

"I don't know what it is," Chris put in. "But I do seem to get luckier at times."

"I don't like to think of what it implies if it's true that luck guided you to a landing on Dreadnaught's back," Cirocco said. "It depends on how far you take your reasoning, but you might say a Titan tree came loose and jammed in the Aglaian pump so Gaby would call Dreadnaught into that area for you to land on his back. And I refuse to believe the universe is that deterministic!"

Gaby snorted. "So do I, but I believe in luck. Come on, Rocky. Why should you object to a puppet master pulling a few of your strings? Don't you know what it feels like by now?" Cirocco shot Gaby a deadly glare, but for a moment her eyes had looked haunted.

"Okay," Gaby soothed, holding out her hands. "I'm sorry. We won't get off on that, all right?"

Cirocco relaxed quickly enough and nodded almost imperceptibly. She brooded for a moment, then looked up.

"I'm forgetting my manners," she said. "Hornpipe, ask these folks what they'd like to drink, and bring a couple of those trays over here where we can all reach them."

Gaby welcomed the pause. The last thing she wanted was to get into a fight with Cirocco. She stood and helped Hornpipe with the food, introduced Psaltery to Robin and Chris, and Cirocco to Robin. There were polite comments about the food and drink, small jokes and pleasantries exchanged. She had them all laughing at one point with a tale of her first encounter with a Titanide soup the main ingredient of which was live worms marinated in brine. In fifteen minutes everyone seemed more relaxed with a little something alcoholic inside.

"As I was saying," Cirocco resumed at last, "we heard you would be coming down here. I don't know what your plans are, but I figure if you were going to leave, you would have done so by now. How about it? Chris?"

"I don't know. I really haven't had any time to make plans. It seems like just a few hours ago that Gaea told me what I had to do."

"And confused you completely, I imagine."

He smiled. "That's a fair description. I guess I'm planning to stay, but I don't know what I'm going to do while I'm here."

"That's the nature of the test," Cirocco said. "You'll never know until you're facing it. All you can do is go out seeking. That's why we call you a pilgrim. What about you, Robin?"

Robin looked down at her hands and said nothing for a while, then looked steadily at Cirocco.

"I don't know if I should tell you what my plans are. I don't know if I can trust you."

"That's direct anyway," Cirocco said, half smiling.

"She has this grudge to settle with Gaea," Gaby explained. "She didn't trust me for a while either. Maybe she still doesn't."

"I'm going to kill her," Robin said with quiet deadliness. "She tried to kill me, and I swore I would get her. You can't stop me."

Cirocco laughed. "Stop you? I don't think I'm needed for that. Did you bring a couple of nuclear weapons with you?" She glanced at the .45 on Robin's hip. "Is that thing loaded?"

"What good is an unloaded gun?" Robin asked, honestly baffled by the question.

"You've got a point. Anyway, you can set your mind at ease about one thing. I'm not Gaea's bodyguard. She has eyes and ears enough for that, without needing me. I wouldn't even tell her you're after her. It's none of my concern."

Robin considered it. "All right. I plan to stay. Pretty soon I'll start out climbing a spoke, and when I get there, I'll kill her."

Cirocco looked at Gaby, and her eyes seemed to say, where did you get her? Gaby shrugged and smiled.

"Well... ah ... okay. I don't guess there's much I can add to that."

"Why don't you go on, Rocky? She still might be interested."

"I don't think so," Robin said, standing. "I don't know what you're going to propose, but if it has anything to do with going out and being "heroic"-she looked as if she wanted to spit, but couldn't find a place not covered with rug-"you can count me out. I won't get involved in that kind of game. I have a score to settle, and I mean to take care of it and then get out of here, if I'm still alive."

"So you're going to climb the spoke."

"That's right."

Cirocco turned to Gaby again, and Gaby understood the look. This was your idea, she was saying. You take it from here if you want her along.

"Listen, Robin," Gaby said. "Your object is to get back to the hub, of course, but since you already had your one free ride, the elevator won't work for you. There's about one chance in thirty of your making it to the top alive. Less, really, since you'll be doing it alone. Cirocco and I did it, but we were damn lucky."

"I know all that," Robin began, and Gaby hurried on.

"What I'm saying is, what we're proposing just might get you to the top safer and faster. I'm not asking you to play Gaea's game: I'm dead set against that, myself. I think it's ... well, never mind what I think. But consider this. She's not asking you to hurt anyone or do anything dishonorable. She suggested that you start out to travel around the rim. That's what we propose to do."

"There are some things I have to attend to," Cirocco said.

"Right. We happen to be going in the same direction, and Gaea told us you and Chris were on your way here. Rocky and I have done this before, with other pilgrims, together and separately. We try to keep them out of trouble until they learn their way around.

"What I'm saying is, you could go with us. You'd learn some things that might help you if you're still determined to climb it. I'm not saying it won't be dangerous. Get out of Hyperion, and everything in Gaea can be dangerous. Hell, even a lot of Hyperion can kill you. But here's the beauty of it. It might happen that along the way you'll do something that Gaea would see as heroic. It wouldn't be anything you'd be ashamed of, I can promise you that. I'll give Gaea that much-she knows how to pick her heroes. This is only if the opportunity arises, you understand. You wouldn't have to think of it as playing her game, or seeking anything in particular. Just go with us. And when you get back, you'll get a free ride to the top. What you do with it is your own business." She sat back. She liked Robin, but damn if she could do anymore than that to protect her. In a way, Gaby felt like Fat Fred, the angel; there were people who would give an arm or a leg for the help she and Rocky were offering, and here she was trying to sell this stiff-necked little pup on the idea.

Robin sat down. She had the grace to look slightly abashed.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm grateful for the offer, and I'll gladly go with you. What you say makes sense." Gaby wondered if Robin had seen the same picture she had imagined: two or three hundred kilometers up the vertical spoke interior, Robin is suddenly seized with paralysis. No one who had taken the Big Drop was anxious to repeat it.

"Chris?"

"Me? Sure. I'd be a fool to turn you down."

"That's what I like," Cirocco said. "A realistic appraisal." She stood, removed her robe, and donned her faded serape. "Make yourselves at home. Food and drink are on the house. Carnival is over in about eighty revs, so enjoy yourselves. I'll meet you all at the Enchanted Cat in one hundred revs."