Titan

CHAPTER NINE

"What do you mean, good-bye? Where are you going?"

"I've been thinking it over," Calvin said, quietly. He removed his wristwatch and handed it to Cirocco. "You people can use this better than I can."

Cirocco was about to burst with frustration.

"And that's all the explanation we get? 'I've been thinking it over.' Calvin, we've got to stick together. We're still an exploration party, and I'm still your Captain. We've got to work together toward getting rescued."

He smiled faintly. "And just how are we going to do that?" She wished he hadn't asked that question.

"I haven't had time to work out a plan on that," she said, vaguely. "There's bound to be something we can do."

"You let me know when you think of something." "I'm ordering you to stay with the rest of us."

"How are you going to stop me from leaving if I want to go? Knock me out and tie me up? How much energy is it going to take to guard me all the time? Keeping me here makes me a liability. If I go, I can be an asset."

" What do you mean, an asset?"

"Just that. The blimps can talk around the whole curve of Themis. They're great with news; everybody here listens to them. If you ever need me for anything, I'd come back. All I'd have to do is teach you a few simple calls. Can you whistle?"

"Never mind that," Cirocco said, with an a

"I still don't see why you want to go. Don't you like it here with us? "

"I ... no, not all that much. I was happier when I was alone. There's too much tension. Too much bad feeling."

"We've all been through a lot. It ought to get better when we get some things straightened out."

He shrugged. "Then you can call me, and I'll try it again. But I don't care for the company of my own kind anymore. The blimps are freer, and wiser. I've never been happier than during that ride."

He was showing more enthusiasm than Cirocco had seen since the meeting on the cliff.

"The blimps are old, Captain. Both as individuals and as a race. Whistlestop is maybe 3000 years old."

"How do you know that? How does he know?"

"There are times of cold, and times of warmth. I figure the-y must be because Themis always stays pointed the same direction. The aids points close to the sun right now, but every fifteen years the rim blocks the sunlight until Saturn moves and brings the other pole back toward the sun. There's years in here, but each of them is fifteen years long. Whistlestop has seen 200 of them."

"Okay, okay," Cirocco said. "That's what we need you for, Calvin. Somehow you're able to talk to these things. You've been learning from them. Some of it might be important to us. Like these six-legged things, what did you call them ... ?"

"Titanides. That's all I know about them." 'Well, you might learn more."

"Captain, there's too much to know. But you've landed in the most hospitable part of Themis. Stay put, and you'll be all right. Don't go into Oceanus, or even Rhea. Those places are dangerous. "

"See? How could we have known that? We need you."

"You don't understand. I can't learn about this place without going to see it. Whistlestop's language is mostly out of my range. "

Cirocco could feel the bitterness of defeat welling up inside her. Damn it, John Wayne would have keelhauled the bastard. Charles Laughton would have clapped him in irons.

She knew it would make her feel a lot better just to take a swing at the obstinate son of a bitch, but that would wear off quickly. She had never commanded like that. She had won and kept the respect of her crew through showing responsibility and using the best wisdom she could bring to bear on any situation. She could face facts, and knew Calvin was going to leave them, but it just didn't feel right.

And why not? she wondered. Because it lessened her authority?

That had to be part of it, and part of it was her responsibility for his welfare. But it came back to the problem she had faced from the begi

There had to be discipline, surely, and there had to be authority. Naval Captains had been demanding one and enforcing the other for thousands of years, and she did not intend to throw away all that accumulated experience. Where a Captain's authority was questioned, disaster usually followed.

But space was not the same, generations of science-fiction writers to the contrary. The people who explored it were highly intelligent, individualistic geniuses, the very best the Earth had to offer. There had to be flexibility, and the NASA legal code for deep-space voyages acknowledged it.

Then there was the other factor she could never forget. She no longer had a ship. The worst thing that could ever happen to a Captain had happened to her. She had lost her command. It would be a bitter taste in her mouth for the rest of her life.

"All right," she said, quietly. "You're right. I can't spare the time and energy to guard you, and I don't feel like killing you, except in a figurative sense." She made herself stop when she realized she was sitting her teeth, and deliberately relaxed her jaw. "I'm telling you now that if we get back, I'm bringing you up on charges of insubordination. If you go, it will be against my wishes, and against the interests of the mission."

"I accept that," he said, without emotion. "You'll come to see that the last part is not true. I'll be more use where I'm going than I would be here. But we're not going back to Earth."

"We'll see. Now, why don't you teach somebody how to call blimps? I find I'd rather not be around you."

In the end, Cirocco had to learn the whistle code, because she had the most musical ability. Her sense of pitch was near-perfect, and it was critical to the blimp speech.

There were only three phrases to learn, the longest being seven notes and a trill. The first translated as "good lifting," and was nothing but a polite greeting. The second was "I want Calvin, " and the third was "Help! "

"Remember, don't call a blimp if you've got a fire going."

"How optimistic you are."

"You'll make a fire soon enough. Uh, I was wondering... do you want me to take August off your hands? She might feel better if she was with me. We can cover more ground looking for April."

"We can take care of our own casualties," Cirocco said, coldly. "Whatever you think is best."

"She's barely aware that you're leaving, anyway. just get out of my sight, will you?,'

August proved to be not as comatose as Cirocco had thought. When she heard Calvin was leaving, she insisted on joining him. After a brief battle, Cirocco gave in, though with even more misgivings than before.

Whistlestop came in low and began spi

" Why is he willing to do this?" Bill asked. " What does he get out of it?"

"He likes me," Calvin said, simply. "Also, he's used to carrying passengers. The sentient species pay for their rides by moving food from his first stomach into the second. He doesn't have the muscles for it. He has to save on weight."

"Does everything here get along so well?" Gaby asked. "We haven't seen anything like a carnivorous animal so far."

"There are carnivores, but not many. Symbiosis is the basic fact of life. That, and worship. Whistlestop says all the higher life forms owe allegiance to a godhead, and the scat of divinity is in the hub. I've been thinking of a goddess that rules the whole circle of the land. I call her Gaea, for the Greek mother."

Cirocco was interested, in spite of herself. "What is Gaea, Calvin? Some sort of primitive legend, or maybe the control room of this thing?"

"I don't know. Themis is a lot older than Whistlestop, and a lot of it is unknown to him, too."

"But who runs it? You said there were many races in here. Which one? Or do they cooperate?"

"Again, I don't know. You've read the stories of generation ships where something went wrong and everybody slipped back to savagery? I think something like that might he going on here. I know something's working somewhere. Maybe machines, or a race that stays in the hub. That may be the source of the worship. But Whistlestop is sure there's a hand on the wheel."

Cirocco scowled. How could she let him go, with all that in- formation in his head? It was spotty and they had no way of knowing how much of it was true, but it was all they had.

But it was too late for second thoughts. His foot was in the stirrup at the end of the long line. August joined him and the blimp reeled them in.

"Captain!" he shouted, just before they disappeared. "Gaby shouldn't have called this place Themis. Call it Gaea."

Cirocco brooded about their departure, plunging into a black depression during which she sat on the side of the river and thought about what she should have done. No course seemed right.

"What about his Hippocratic oath?" she asked Bill at one point. "He was sent along on this trip for one damn thing, to take care of us if we needed it."

"It changed us all, Rocky." All but me, she thought, but did not say. At least, as far as she could tell, she had suffered no lasting effects from her experience. In a way, that was stranger than what it had done to the others. It should have driven them all catatonic. Instead, there was an amnesiac, an obsessive personality, a woman with an adolescent crush, and a man in love with living airships. Cirocco's was the only level head.

"Don't kid yourself," she muttered. "You probably look as crazy to them as they do to you." But she discarded that notion, too. Bill, Gaby, and Calvin all knew they had been changed by their experience, though Gaby would not admit that her love for Cirocco was a side-effect. August was too distracted by her loss to think about anything at all.