Wizard

25 Inglesina

"What do you think, Rocky?"

Cirocco had been sunk in the mindless rhythms of the near-infinite climb. She looked up in surprise.

"About Crius? Forget it. There might be some way to involve him in an ad hoc grouping. You know, afterward. But for now, forget it."

"You didn't think it was a hopeful sign?" Gaby persisted. "The fact that he was talking about complaining to Gaea about you? What did you make of that?"

Cirocco snorted. "Damn little."

"Don't you think you could fan that spark?"

"Don't get so eager, Gaby. I don't know how the ice could be any thinner, but the way you keep heating things up... ."

"I'm sorry. You know how I feel about this."

"I sure do. But I'd appreciate it if you'd be a little less forthcoming with those two children. I'm talking about 'need to know'. The less they know, the better for them if things go wrong. You aren't doing them any favors by talking about Crius and his loyalty or lack of it. If that got to the wrong ears, if one of them made an innocent remark, it could start certain thoughts that I'd just as soon were not thought. I wish I hadn't brought them down here."

"You're right, I guess," Gaby said. "I'll be more careful."

Cirocco sighed and touched Gaby's shoulder.

"Just keep on doing what you've been doing. Be a tour guide. Point out the marvels. Tell them funny stories, and keep them entertained, and remember they're along to learn things that will keep them out of trouble, not to get them into anything we're doing."

"Do you think you might be able to open up a little more? There are a lot of things you could teach them."

Cirocco looked thoughtful. "I could tell them a thing or two about drinking."

"Don't be so hard on yourself."

"I don't know, Gaby. I thought I was doing better. But now there's Inglesina."

Gaby winced. She took Cirocco's hand and squeezed it.

Just beyond the line of vertical cables Ophion began a series of wide loops. The land was flat and so nearly level that the river slowed to a crawl.

Robin used the time to improve her skills with the oar. She rowed all day, with Hautbois instructing her in the finer points of boat handling. She would set Robin the task of turning the craft by herself, guiding it through tight circles or figure eights in the shortest possible time. Then the two of them would put their backs into it to catch up with the others. Her shoulders grew strong, and she developed blisters and then calluses on the palms of her hands. At the end of the day she was exhausted, but a little less so each morning.

They were in no hurry. Groups of Titanides appeared on the shore, singing for the Wizard. Gaby or Cirocco would shout one word at them, and they would gallop away in high excitement. The word was "Inglesina." Robin learned it was the name of a large island in Ophion. Like Grandioso, it was named for one of the Titanides' beloved marches and was the site of the Crian Purple Carnival.

The Carnival was to be held 120 revs from the time of the first meeting with the Crians. It had to be so to give the local Titanides time to gather. They camped early and arose late. Robin began to feel more comfortable in the sleeping bag, to listen less to the thousand sounds of Gaea. She even came to enjoy the murmuring river as she relaxed and waited for sleep to come. It was not so very different from the purring of the air system she had heard all her life.

There were no further mishaps with the food, nor did they have any visits from unknown creatures. But at one camp, when Robin was feeling particularly bored, she took Chris on a snipe hunt. She judged, correctly, that he would not question her assertion that the Titanides wanted a brace of snipe for the evening meal, nor would he think the approved method of catching them in the least odd. After all, what in Gaea was not odd?

So she took him a good distance from the camp and showed him how to hold the sack, cautioned him to tie it tightly when the little creatures had run inside, and went off over a low hill to drive them from the underbrush and into his waiting arms. Then she went back to camp and waited for him.

She felt a little guilty about it. He had been so easy to fool that a lot of the enjoyment had gone out of it. And she wondered, not for the first time, if it was ethical to prank her comrades on what everyone kept saying was a dangerous journey. The trouble was that it had not looked very dangerous so far, and-she might as well admit it-she was unable to resist.

He stayed away for nearly two hours. She was about ready to go bring him back when he appeared on his own, looking forlorn. Everyone was sitting around the fire, finishing another superb meal. Gaby and Cirocco looked up in surprise as he sat down and reached for the pot.

"I thought you were in your tent," Cirocco said. "So did I," Gaby said, then looked thoughtfully at Robin. "Now that I think of it, though, Robin didn't actually say that. She just led me to believe you were."

"I'm sorry," Robin said, directing it to Chris. He shrugged, then managed to grin. "You sure did get me. I just happened to remember something you said. About the witches appreciating tellers of lies." She was happy to see he was not bitter. There was the inevitable chagrin, but apparently Earth humans as well as witches felt an obligation not to be angry at a friendly con. Or at least Chris did.

The story came out gradually since Robin could not honorably boast of it, nor was Chris eager to admit his gullibility. As it unfolded, Hautbois caught Robin's eye and made a warning sign. The Titanide was watching Cirocco intently. Suddenly, she signaled, and Robin leaped over the rock she had been sitting on and began to run.

"Giant chicken!" Cirocco roared. "Giant chicken? I'll give you a giant chicken. You won't sit down for a month!"

Cirocco had the longer stride; Robin, the quicker moves. It was never established if the Wizard could catch her, however, as the whole party joined in the chase and Robin was soon cornered, laughing hysterically. She struggled hard, but they had no trouble throwing her in the river.

The next day they picked up a hitchhiker. He was the first human they had seen since leaving Hyperion. A small naked man with a flowing black beard, he stood on the riverbank and hailed them, then swam out to climb into Cirocco's canoe when she granted permission. Chris maneuvered his boat close to get a look at him. From the looseness of his pale, weathered skin, he must have been in his sixties. He spoke a clipped, slangy version of English, with a Titanide singsong flavor. He invited them to eat at the settlement where he lived, and Cirocco accepted for the group.

The place was called Brazelton and consisted of several domes set in an area of plowed fields. As they docked, Chris caught sight of a naked man following a plow drawn by a team of Titanides.

There were about twenty Brazeltonians. They were nudists by religion. Everyone had a beard, men and women alike. On Earth, female facial hair was a fad which had come and gone several times in the twenty-first century. Now it was rare, but seeing the bearded women reminded Chris of his own childhood, when his mother had worn a neat goatee. He rather liked it.

Gaby did not know a great deal about the settlement but told him that the group practiced incest. The man they had picked up was known as Gramps, and it was not a nickname. Others were called things like Mother and Son3. There was a Great Gra'mama, but no male of her generation. As children were born, everyone moved up into a different name.

Robin thought the arrangement very strange, and Chris heard her say so to Gaby.

"I agree," Gaby said. "But they're no loonier than a lot of other little groups of exiles scattered through Gaea. And you'd do well to remember that your own Coven probably looked pretty odd when it got started. Hell, it still would, if anybody on Earth was asked about it. Your mothers went to Sargasso Point; these days the fringe groups come here if they're small enough to get Gaea's permission."

The customs were not the only strange thing about the group. There were some odd individuals. Chris saw his first human-Titanide hybrids. One woman, otherwise unremarkable, had the long ears of a Titanide and a naked tail that reached to her knees. There were two Titanides with human legs and feet. By the time he saw them Chris was sufficiently accustomed to Titanide legs that it was the hybrids who seemed misshapen.

He spoke to Cirocco about it, but his knowledge of genetics was not sufficient to understand what she was saying. He suspected she might not know as much about it as she claimed. The fact was that Gaea had allowed no human studies of Titanide genes, nor had any hybrid ever left Gaea. It remained mysterious how two such dissimilar animals could be cross-fertile.

Inglesina was a low island eight kilometers long and three wide in the eastern reaches of Crius, near Phoebe, the Twilight Sea. Near its center was a perfect ring of trees, carefully tended, two kilometers in diameter. Everything outside that circle was covered with the tents of the celebrants.

The island was reached by six wide wooden bridges, now decked in ribbons and banners. To the north and south were marinas where broad-beamed Titanide barges docked. Near them were beaches for the landing of smaller craft. The river was alive with them. Crian Titanides spent more time on the water than their cousins in Hyperion. Fully as many arrived on the river as poured over the causeways after overland treks.

They would stay the traditional two hectorevs-nine Earth days. Valiha pitched a tent for Chris behind the airy white confection set aside for the Wizard, and the tents of Robin and Gaby went up beside his. He went out to sample the festivities.

The Crians were fully as hospitable as the Hyperionites had been, but Chris found it difficult to enjoy himself. He kept fearing he would run into Siilihi. There was the persistent feeling that the story of his attempted assault on her had made the rounds, that everyone knew about him and held something in reserve, fearing he would repeat the incident. No one did or said anything to make him think that; no one was less than completely friendly. It was certainly his own fear and no one else's, but knowing that did not help. He was reserved and unable to change it.

Robin was still spending many nights with him, though his lost tent had now been replaced. He was not sure why she did so. He welcomed the companionship, but sometimes it was difficult. She was careful not to undress in front of him after her discovery on the beach of Nox. This annoyed him because the efforts required to remain modest while they shared a tent pointed up her unavailability. Several times he thought of asking her to leave. Yet he thought she might be demonstrating her lack of fear and thus her acceptance of him as a friend. It was a gesture he did not wish to discourage, so he tossed and turned while she slept like a child.

On the fifth night it was worse than ever. He could not get to sleep, try as he might. He put his hands behind his head and stared at the pale light coming through the tent ceiling and thought black thoughts. Tomorrow he would kick her out, one way or the other. There were limits.

"Is something the matter?"

He looked at her, surprised to see that she was awake.

"Can't get to sleep."

"What's the problem?"

He threw his hands up, searched for words, then thought, why be delicate?

"I'm horny. You go too long without making love, you're surrounded by attractive women all day long... it builds up, that's all."

"I've got the same kind of problem," she said.

He opened his mouth to suggest a solution, thought about it, and closed his mouth again. What a waste of such a symmetrical solution, he thought. You scratch my back... .

"You did say we were much the same," she said. "I thought that's what had been bothering you." When he only grunted, she opened her sleeping bag and sat up. She reached across and touched a finger to his lips. "Would you show me how?"

He looked at her, not daring to believe, but feeling more desire than he had known since he was a teenager.

"Why? Do you find me attractive, or are you just curious?"

"I'm curious," she admitted. "I'm not sure about the other yet. There is something there. Cirocco said that what I have been told is raping can be a lot like making love. She said a woman can get pleasure from it. I'm dubious." She raised one eyebrow. A few weeks ago Chris would not have seen the gesture behind the elaborate facial tattoos, but now he felt more in tune with her. He threw off his sleeping bag and took her in his arms.

She seemed surprised that he did not simply enter her and get to work. When she understood that they could make love in the same way two women would, she showed no hesitation in the matter. In fact, she did things that Trini would certainly have charged extra for. There was nothing shy about her. She told him what she wanted and when she wanted it, talking as though she assumed he had never done this before. In a way, she was right. Though he had been with his share of women, he had never met one as certain of her own needs or as assured in expressing them.

She learned rapidly. At first she was full of questions and observations, wanting to know what he felt when she did this or that, surprised at the taste and feel of things. None of the surprises seemed unpleasant, and by the time he felt ready to move on she had developed an obvious enthusiasm for the project.

Her skepticism returned when he entered her. She admitted it had not been painful, even that it was a pleasant sensation, but observed pointedly that the arrangement seemed unnatural in that it failed to provide for her needs. He tried to assure her that it would work out all right and then realized with dismay that it was not going to because he was already too close and it was too late to stop.

He had time to hope that Robin would be willing to wait until he was ready for a second time before he was seized by the shoulder and pulled roughly away.

"You idiot, get away from her!" It was Cirocco. Chris did not have time to understand anything beyond that because too much was happening at once. He rolled on the ground, curling into a foetal position, and spasming into violent ejaculation. In a feverish confusion he did not know whether to be embarrassed, angry, or hurt. In a moment it was over and Chris came up off the floor, swinging at Cirocco. With a perfect roundhouse he hit her squarely on the chin. For a moment, reeling back, she looked almost as surprised as he felt. But his triumph lasted only a second. As Cirocco folded like a puppet with her strings cut, his hand began to throb, and Gaby appeared from nowhere, flying at him as though she'd dropped from the sky. The next thing he knew she was kneeling on his chest and about to drive her stiff fingers right through his face.

Instead, she hesitated, and the fire went out of her eyes. She hit the ground with her fist, rolled off him, and patted his cheek.

"Never hit the bones with your fist," she counseled. "That's what sticks and stones were made for."

She helped him to his feet, where he saw Robin still on her back and looking baffled. Hornpipe had squeezed into the tent and was seeing to Cirocco, who was working her jaw cautiously.

Chris's fury was obviously still mounting, but with Gaby and a couple of Titanides stationed between him and Cirocco he was forced to voice his anger.

"You had no right to do that," he raved. "Damn it, I can't even think why you would. But this is it! You're getting out or I am."

"Shut up," Cirocco said coldly, waving Hornpipe away and sitting up. "There's a small chance I did something terrible. If that's true, I'll stand still while you both beat the daylights out of me. But hear me out first. Robin, what kind of birth control are you using?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Right. What about you, Chris?"

Chris felt a distinct chill but shrugged it off. She couldn't possibly be right.

"I take pills, but it doesn't-"

"I remember you telling me that. When was the-"

"-but she can't have children! She told me so, and if you had-"

"Stop. Hear me out." Cirocco held her hand up until she was sure everyone would listen to her.

"I think you misunderstood her. She said 'can't', and you thought she meant she was unable to. What she really meant was, because her children would have her condition, she will not impregnate herself. What's the use of sterilization when the act of conception is so complicated?" She looked at Robin, who was shaking her head in exasperation.

"But we were only making love," she said.

Cirocco went to her, took her shoulders, and shook her. "How do you think babies get made, damn it? Everywhere but in the Coven it's just like it was for-"

"But I trust him, can't you see that?" Robin shouted back. "We were just making love, not making a baby. He wouldn't have..... She wound down and for the first time looked uncertainly at Chris. He had to look away.

As Cirocco explained the true situation, the color slowly drained from Robin's face. Chris had never seen her look frightened, but it was clear she was terrified in retrospect, as well she might have been. The whole bizarre misunderstanding had arisen from Robin's failure to realize that the male orgasm involved ejaculation, and that it was not under his control, and from the impression Chris had formed that Robin was sterilized. She was not, and he was fertile, as the production of the egg with Valiha had established. The fact was that his pills had been lost during his episode in quarantine, and he had been unable to replace them.

Robin was reduced almost to tears. She sat with her head in her hands, shaking, saying, "I didn't know, I didn't know, I really didn't know."

Chris did not know what long-term effects there would be between himself and Robin, but there was one thing that was clear. "I owe you an apology," he said to Cirocco.

She grinned at him. "No, you don't. I'd have done the same thing. It's not a situation where you hang around for explanations."

She rubbed her jaw. "Actually, it's my own fault for not getting out of the way quicker. I think I'm slowing down."

"Maybe I'm speeding up."

"That's a possibility."

As though by mutual accord the others turned back to their tents, leaving Robin and Chris alone. The moment hung awkwardly in the air and Chris felt frightened. If Rocky had realized the score why hadn't he? Maybe because he'd been too eager for sex. Robin seemed to have some of the same feeling. He could tell she was thinking of their earlier conversation and perhaps reassessing it. She turned away from him briefly to collect her thoughts and then very carefully said she was sorry. In a few words she professed not to blame him any more than she blamed herself. It had been a simple misunderstanding, fortunately averted in time. She said she was no more afraid of him now than she had ever been.

But she moved back into her own tent that night

Cirocco came reeling in after the last day of Carnival, singing loudly. Gaby put her to bed and in the morning loaded her into a canoe and once more covered her with a blanket. They shoved off and soon left the diminishing gaity of Inglesina Island behind them. Ophion was again quiet, undisturbed, as the party, much subdued, paddled steadily toward the Twilight Sea.