Titan

CHAPTER TWENTY

The stairway emerged from a great heap of sand at the upper- most border of the glass castle and went straight as an arrow until it could no longer be seen. Each step was a meter and a half wide and forty centimeters high, and appeared to have been carved into the face of the cable.

After Cirocco and Gaby had followed it for a time, they began to think it might actually do them little good. It was curving to the south, toward the drop-off. Before long it would surely he impassable.

But the steps remained perfectly level. Soon they were walking on a terraced shelf with a huge wall rising m one side and a sheer drop on the other. There was no handrail, no protection at all. They pressed close to the wall, and trembled with every gust of wind.

Then the shelf began to turn into a tu

Cirocco tried to visualize it: always rising, but corkscrewing around the outside of the cable.

After another 2000 steps, they were in pitch blackness.

"Stairs," Gaby muttered. "They build a thing like this, and they put in stairs." They had stopped to get out their lamps. Gaby filled hers and trimmed the wick. They would burn one at a time and hope there was enough oil to get them out the other side.

"Maybe they were health nuts," Cirocco suggested. She struck a match and held it to the wick. "More likely this was an emergency measure, for a loss of power."

"Well, I'm glad they're here," Gaby admitted.

"They were probably here all the way but down lower they're covered with dirt. It means this place has been unattended for a long time. The trees up here must be new mutations."

"Whatever you say." Gaby held the lamp high and looked ahead, then back where she could still see a wedge of light. Her eyes narrowed.

"Look, it's like we're at an angle in the road. It curves along the outside, then it cuts to the left and goes straight in."

Cirocco studied it, and thought Gaby was right.

"It looks like we might he cutting right through the center."

"Oh, yeah? Remember the place of winds? All that air is going through here, someplace."

"If this tu

Gaby looked at the ascending staircase in the flickering lamp- light. She sniffed the air.

"It's pretty warm in here. I wonder if it gets hotter?"

"No way to know but by going in."

"Uh-huh." Gaby swayed and the lamp threatened to fall from her fingers. Cirocco put a hand on her shoulder.

"You all right?"

"Yeah, I'm ... no, dammit, I'm not." She leaned against the warm corridor wall. "I'm dizzy, and my knees are weak." She held out her free hand and looked at it; it trembled slightly.

"Maybe a day of rest wasn't enough." Cirocco studied her watch, gazed up the corridor, and frowned. "I'd hoped to he out on the other side and back on the top of the cable again before we rested."

"I can make it."

"No," Cirocco decided. "I don't feel so hot myself. The question is do we camp here in the corridor where it's so hot, or go outside?"

Gaby looked back at the drop-off many steps behind them, "I don't mind a little sweat."

There was something about having a fire, even when the weather was unbearably hot. They did not discuss it; Cirocco took small twigs and moss from Gene's pack and started to build one. Soon she had a small blaze crackling. She fed it like a miser as they went about the mechanical business of setting a meager camp. Sleeping bags were unrolled, pans and knives brought out, provisions searched for the night's food.

We're a good team, sirocco thought, hunkered down while she watched Gaby dice vegetables into the bubbling remains of last night's stew. Her hands were small and deft, with brown dirt ground into the palms. They could no longer spare water for washing.

Gaby wiped her brow with the back of her hand and glanced up at Cirocco. She smiled- a flickering, tentative thing that broadened when Cirocco smiled back. One eye was nearly covered by a bandage. She dipped the spoon into the stew and slurped noisily.

"Those radish dinguses are best left crunchy," she said. "Give me your plate."

She ladled a generous helping and the two of them sat back, side by side but at arm's length, and ate.

It was delicious. Listening to the small sounds, the pop of the fire and the scraping of spoons on wooden plates, Cirocco was grateful to relax and think of nothing.

"Do you have any more salt?,, Cirocco dug in her pack and found the sack, and also two for- gotten sweets, wrapped in yellow leaves. She pressed one into Gaby's hand and laughed when her eyes lit up. She put her own plate down and unwrapped the chewy, bite-sized confection, held it under her nose and sniffed. It smelled too good to eat all at once. She bit it in half, and the flavor of sugared apricots and sweet cream burst through her mouth.

Gaby was just short of hysterical at Cirocco's expression of de-

She ate the other half, then began casting covetous glances

"If you're keeping that for breakfast, you're going to have to stay awake all night."

"Oh, don't worry. I just have enough ma

She made the unwrapping last five minutes, then examined it critically for another five, sputtering helplessly at Cirocco's antics. Cirocco did a passable imitation of a cocker spaniel at the di

She was having so much fun that it hurt when she wondered- while sniffing eagerly with her face close to Gaby's-if the silliness was wise. Gaby was obviously in heaven with all the attention, her face was flushed with laughter and excitement, her eyes sparkled.

Why couldn't she just relax and enjoy it?

She must have let some of her worry show, because Gaby was immediately serious. She touched Cirocco's hand and looked at her urgently, then slowly shook her head. Neither of them dared speak, but Gaby had told her more plainly than any words she might have said, "You have nothing to fear from me."

Cirocco smiled, and so did Gaby. They spooned up the last of the stew, holding the plates close to their mouths; and not worrying about table ma

But it was not quite the same. Gaby was silent. Soon her hands began to tremble, and the plate clattered to the steps. She sat up, gasping and sobbing, and Cirocco's hand on her shoulder brought her groping blindly. She drew her knees up and clenched her fists under her chin, buried her face under Cirocco's neck and wept.

"Oh, I hurt, I hurt so much."

"Then let it out. Cry." She put her cheek on the short, black hair, very fine and begi

Gaby looked at her for a long moment, sniffed loudly, and put her face back on Cirocco's shoulder. She burrowed into the hollow of her neck, then was still. No shakes, no sobs.

"How are you so strong?" she asked, her voice muffled but very close.

"How are you so brave? You keep saving my life."

Gaby shook her head. "No, I mean it. If I didn't have you to lean on right now, I'd go crazy. And you don't even cry."

"I don't cry easily."

"Rape is easy?" She searched Cirocco's eyes again. "God, I hurt so had. I hurt from Gene, and I hurt for you. I don't know which is worse."

"Gaby, I'd be willing to make love to you if that would help stop the pain, but I hurt, too. Physically."

Gaby shook her head.

"That's not what I want from you, even if you were feeling great. If you're 'willing,' that's no good. I'm not Gene, and I'd rather keep the hurt than have you like that. It's enough to love you. "

What to say, what to say? Stick to the truth, she told herself.

"I don't know if I'll ever love you back. Not that way. But so help me," she hugged Gaby and wiped quickly at her nose, "so help me, you're the best friend I ever had."

Gaby let out her breath with a soft sigh.

"That will have to do, for now." Cirocco thought Gaby was going to cry again, but she didn't. She hugged Cirocco once, briefly, and kissed her neck.

"Life is very hard, isn't it?" she asked in a small voice. "It is that. Let's get to bed."

They started out on three steps; Gaby stretched on the highest, Cirocco tossing and turning on the next, and the embers of the fire on the step below her.

But Cirocco cried out in the night and woke in utter darkness. Sweat was pouring from her body as she waited for Gene's knife to slash. Gaby pulled her down and held her until the nightmare had passed.

"How long have you been here?" Cirocco asked.

"Since I started to cry again. Thanks for letting me join you." Liar. But she smiled when she thought it.

It grew hotter for a thousand steps, so hot that the walls could not be touched and the soles of their boots were burning. Cirocco tasted defeat, knowing there had to be at least several thou- sand more steps before they were in the middle, from which point they might expect it to cool again.

"One thousand more steps," she said. "If we can make it that far. If it's not cooler, we go back and try it on the outside." But she knew the cable was too steep now. The trees had become in- conveniently far apart even before they entered the tu

"Whatever you say. Just a minute, I want to take off this shirt. I'm smothering."

Cirocco stripped down, too, and they continued to hike through the furnace.

Five hundred steps later, they put their clothes back on. Three hundred steps beyond that, they opened their packs and got out their coats.