Titan

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 cha

"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 stu

"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."