Titan

"It can be done," she said to Gaby. "To the roof, at least. I was hoping there would be some sort of mechanical lift here at the bottom. There might still be, I guess, but if we searched for it... " She waved her hand at the corrugated land. "It could take months."

Gaby studied the slope of the cable, sighed, and shook her head slowly.

"I go where you go, but you're crazy, you know? We'll never get past the roof. Take a look, will you? From there on in, we'd he climbing on the bottom of a forty-five-degree slope."

"Mountaineers do it all the time. You did it, in training."

"Sure. For ten meters. We'll have to do it for fifty or sixty kilometers. And then-here's the good news-then we only have to go straight up. For 400 kilometers."

"It won't be easy. We've got to try."

"Madre de Ms." Gaby hit her forehead with the heel of her hand, and rolled her eyes.

Hornpipe had watched Cirocco's gestures as she outlined the problem. Now she sang, largo.

"You will climb the great stairs?"

Hornpipe nodded, then bent and kissed Cirocco's forehead.

"I wish you folks would stop doing that," Cirocco said, in English.

"What was it for?" Gaby asked.

"Never mind. Let's get back to town."

They stopped after leaving the zone of wind. Hornpipe put out a groundcloth and they sat down to a picnic. The food was hot, stored in nutshell thermos bottles. Cirocco and Gaby ate per- haps a tenth of it between them, and the Titanides wolfed down the rest.

They were still five kilometers from Titantown when Horn- pipe looked over her shoulder, the expression on her face a mixture of mournfulness and anticipation. She gazed at the dark roof.

"Gaea breathes," she sang, sadly.

"What? Are you sure? I thought it would be noisy, and we'd have plenty of time to-does that mean there'll be angels?"

"Noisy from the west," Hornpipe corrected her. "The breath of Gaea is silent from the east. I fancy I can hear them already." She missed a step, nearly throwing Cirocco.

."Well, hurry, damn it! If you're trapped out here alone you won't have a chance."

"It's too late," Hornpipe sang, and now her eyes yearned, her lips drew back to bare bright teeth.

"Move!" Cirocco had practised that tone of command for years, and somehow managed to put it in a Titanide song. Hornpipe leaped to a gallop, and Panpipe followed close behind.

Soon even Cirocco could bear the wail of angels. Hornpipe's gait wavered; she wanted very badly to turn back and do battle.

They were approaching a lone tree, and Cirocco made a snap decision.

"Pull up. Hurry, we don't have much time."

They halted under the spreading branches and Cirocco jumped down. Hornpipe tried to bolt but Cirocco slapped the Titanide's face, which seemed to calm her temporarily.

"Gaby, cut off those saddlebags. Panpipe! Stop that! Come back here at once."

Panpipe looked undecided, but came back to them. Gaby and Cirocco worked frantically, tearing their clothes into strips, each making three strong ropes.

"My friends," Cirocco sang, when she had the tethers. "I don't have time to explain. I ask you to trust me and do as I say." She put every ounce of determination she possessed into the song, scoring it in the mode used from the old and wise to the young and foolish. It worked, but just barely. Both Titanides kept looking to the east.

She had them lie on their sides. "That hurts," Hornpipe complained when Cirocco tied her hind legs together."

"I'm sorry. It's for your own good." She quickly bound her forelegs and arms, then tossed a wineskin to Gaby. "Get as much of this down him as you can. I want him too stinking drunk to move."

"'Got off me"

"My child, I want you to drink this," she sang. "You too, over there. Drink lots of it." She held the nipple to Hornpipe's lips. The sound of the angels was louder now. Hornpipe's ears twitched up and down rapidly.

"Cotton, cotton," she muttered. She tore strips from her al- ready frayed tunic and rolled them into tight balls. "It worked for Odysseus, maybe it'll work for me. Gaby, the ears. Plug his ears."

"That hurts" Hornpipe howled. "Let me up, Earth monster. I don't like this game." She began to moan, the notes only occasionally resolving into words of hate.

"Have some more wine," Cirocco crooned. The Titanide choked as she poured it down her throat. The cries of the angels were very loud now. Hornpipe began to screech in reply. Cirocco grabbed the Titanide's ears and squeezed them, then cradled the big head in her lap. She put her lips to one car and sang a Titanide lullaby.

"Rocky, help!" Gaby yelled. "I don't know any of those songs.

Sing louder!" Panpipe was struggling, shrieking as Gaby tried to hold him by the cars. He lashed out with his bound hands and threw her away from him.

"Grab him! Don't let him get away."

"I'm trying." She ran behind him and tried to pin his arms to his sides, but he was much too strong for her. She tumbled away again, got up with a cut over her right eye.

Panpipe was gnawing at the bonds that held his wrists together. The cloth tore and he was clawing at his cars.

"What now, Rocky?" Gaby screamed, desperately.

"Come help me," she said. "He'll kill you if you get in his way." It was far too late to stop Panpipe. Ms front legs were free and he was contorted like a snake, tearing at the strap that bound the other two.

Without a glance at the women and Hornpipe, he charged toward Titantown. Soon he was gone over the top of a low hill.

Gaby did not seem aware that she was hurt as she knelt beside Cirocco, nor did she do anything about the trickle of blood down the side of her face.

"How can I help?"

"I don't know. Touch her, sooth her, do anything you can think of to keep her mind off angels."

Hornpipe was thrashing now, her teeth clenched, face bloodless. Cirocco held on, getting as close as she dared while Gaby slipped a rope around the Titanide's chest, pinioning her arms at her side.

. "Hush, hush," Cirocco whispered. "There's nothing to be afraid of. I'll watch over you until your hindmother returns to sing you her songs."

Hornpipe gradually quieted, her eyes regained the intelligence Cirocco had seen on the first day they met. It was infinitely better than the fearsome animal she had become.

It was ten more minutes before the last of the angels went by overhead. Hornpipe was drenched in sweat, like someone kicking a heroin or alcohol addiction.

She began to giggle as they waited for the angels to return. Cirocco reclined on her side, facing Hornpipe, holding her head close, and was startled when the Titanide began to move. It was not a testing of the bonds, as her earlier movements had been. It was frankly sexual. She gave Cirocco a wet kiss. Her mouth was so large and warm it was u

"Would that I were a boy," she crooned, drunkenly. Cirocco glanced down.

"Jesus," Gaby breathed. The Titanide's huge penis was out of its sheath, its tip pulsing on the dust.

"You may be a girl to you," Cirocco sang, "but you're too much of a boy for me."

Hornpipe thought that was hilarious. She roared, and tried to kiss Cirocco again but gave it up amiably enough when Cirocco drew back.

"I would do you great harm," she chortled. "Alas, that is for rear holes, of which you have none. Would that I were a boy, and had a member fit for you."

Cirocco sniffed and let her rave on, but her eyes were not smiling. She looked over Hornpipe's shoulder at Gaby.

"Last resort," she said, quietly, in English. ,if it looks like she's going to get free, take that rock and hit her over the head. If she gets away, she's dead."

"Gotcha. What's she talking about?" "She wants to make love to me."

"With that? Maybe I'd better bean her now."

"Don't be silly. We're in no danger from her. If she gets loose, she won't even see us. Do you hear them coming back?"

"I think so."

It turned out to be not nearly so difficult the second time. They never gave Hornpipe a chance to hear the angels, and while she sweated and shook as if she could somehow feel them. she never struggled very hard.

And then they were gone, back to the eternal darkness of the spoke high above Rhea.

She cried when they released her; the helpless sobs of a child who doesn't understand what has happened to her. That turned into petulance and complaints, chiefly about her sore legs and cars. Gaby and Cirocco rubbed her legs where the ropes had chafed. Her cloven hooves were as clear and red as cherry jello.

She seemed confused as to the whereabouts of Panpipe, but not distressed when she understood he had gone into battle. She gave them sloppy kisses and pressed herself against them amorously, causing Gaby some concern even when Cirocco explained the Titanides rigidly divided frontal and rear intercourse. The frontal organs were for the production of semi-fertilized eggs, which were then manually implanted in a rear vagina and brought to fecundity by a rear penis.

When she got to her feet she was too drunk to carry them. They walked her in circles and finally headed her back toward town. In a few hours they could get on her back again.

Titantown was in sight before they found Panpipe. The blood had already dried in his pretty blue fur. A lance stuck out from his side, pointed at the sky. He had been mutilated.

Hornpipe knelt at his side and wept while Gaby and sirocco hung back. There was bitterness in Cirocco's mouth. Did Hornpipe blame her? Would she have preferred to have died with him, or was that a hopelessly Earthling notion? The Titanides didn't seem to understand the glory of battle; it was something they did because they couldn't help it. Cirocco admired them for the first, pitied them for the second.

Do you rejoice for the one you saved, or weep for the one you lost? She could not do both, so she wept.

Hornpipe struggled to her feet, much heavier than she had been. Three years old, Cirocco thought. It meant nothing. She had some of the i

She picked up the severed head and kissed it once, then set it down by the body. She sang nothing; the Titanides had no song for this moment.