Titan

CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE

"I'm not a hero, you know."

"All right, heroine."

Cirocco chuckled. They were bedded down m the last day of their fourteenth winter together, their eighth month in the spoke. There were now only ten kilometers separating them from the hub. They could do it in their sleep, as soon as the thaw started.

"Not even that. If there's a heroine here, it has to be you." Gaby shook her head.

"I've helped out. This probably would have been a lot harder for you if I hadn't been here."

Cirocco squeezed her hand.

"But I've just tagged along. I've helped you out of some messes, but I don't qualify as a hero. A hero wouldn't have tried to throw Gene over the side with no parachute. You would have made it here by yourself. I wouldn't have."

They were silent, each with her own thoughts.

Cirocco was not sure what Gaby said was true. Part of it was accurate, though she would never agree with it out loud. Gaby could not have brought them this far. She was not a leader.

But am I? She wondered. She had certainly tried hard enough to he one. Could she have made it alone? She doubted it.

"It's been fun, hasn't it?" Gaby asked, quietly.

Cirocco was genuinely surprised. Was it possible to call eight months, struggle fun?

"I don't think that's the word I would have used." "No, you're right. But you know what I mean."

Oddly enough, she did. She was at last able to understand the depression that had plagued her during the last weeks. The trip would soon be over. They would discover the means to return to Earth, or they would not.

"I don't want to go back to Earth," Cirocco said. "Me either."

"But we can't just turn back." "You know best."

"No, I'm just stubborn. But we do have to go on. I owe it to April and Gene-and the rest of us, too-to find out what's been done to us, and why."

"Get out those swords, will you?"

"You expecting trouble?"

"Nothing that a sword would cure. I'd just feel better with it in my hand. I'm supposed to be a hero, right?"

Gaby didn't argue. She went down on one knee and rummaged through the extra pack, came up with the short swords and tossed one to Cirocco.

They were standing near the top of what had to be the last staircase. Like the one they had climbed at the bottom of the spoke, it made a spiral around the cable, which they had re-discovered at the top of a long, bare incline that marked the margin between the forest and the upper spoke valve. Climbing the slope had been pick, rope, and piton work, occupying them for two arduous days.

With no lamp oil remaining, the climb up the stairs had been done in total darkness, one step at a time. It had passed without incident until Cirocco had discerned a faint, red glow in front of them. Suddenly she had felt the need of a sword in her hand.

it was a fine weapon, though the hilt was too large. It weighed nothing at all this high in Gaea. She struck a match and touched the figure of a Titanide chased into the flat of the blade.

"You look like a Frazetta oil," Gaby said. She looked down at herself. She was ragged, wrapped in the tatters of her fine clothing. Her skin was pale where it was clean enough to see. She had lost weight; what was left was hard and wiry. Her feet and hands were tough as leather.

"And I always wanted to be one of those Maxfield Parrish girls. So much more lady-like."

She shook the match out and lit another. Gaby was still looking at her. Her eyes glowed in the yellow light. Cirocco suddenly felt very good. She smiled, then laughed quietly, reached out and put her hand on Gaby's shoulder. Gaby returned the gesture, a half-smile on her face.

"Do you ... have some kind of feeling about this?" Gaby gestured with her sword toward the top of the stairs.

"Maybe I do." She laughed again, and then shrugged. "Nothing specific. We ought to be on our toes."

Gaby said "not" but wiped her palm on her thigh before settling her fingers firmly around her sword hilt. Then she laughed.

"I don't know how to use this. "

"Just act as if you do. When we get to the top of the stairs, leave all the gear behind."

"You sure?"

"I don't want the extra mass. "

"The hub's a big place, Rocky. It might take a while to search it. "

"I've got a feeling it won't be long. Not long at all."

She blew out the second match. They waited until their eyes had adjusted, until they could see the faint glow from above. Then they walked, side by side, up the last hundred steps.

They ascended into a pulsing red night.

The only light came from the laser-straight line overhead. The ceiling was lost in gloom. To their left, a cable loomed, a black shadow in the blacker air.

The walls, the floor, and the air itself reverberated with the rhythm of a slow heartbeat. They faced into a cold, thin wind, blowing from the unseen entrance to the Oceanus spoke.

"It's going to he tough to nose around," Gaby whispered. "I can only see about twenty meters of floor."

Cirocco said nothing. She shook her head to clear the odd, heavy feeling that had come over her, then fought off an attack of dizziness. She wanted to sit down, she wanted to turn back. She was afraid, and did not dare give in to it.

She held up her sword and saw it shimmer like a pool of blood. She took one step forward, then another. Gaby kept pace, and- they walked into the darkness.

Her teeth hurt. She realized she had been biting down hard, jaw muscles knotted. She stopped, and shouted.

"I'm here! "

After long seconds an echo returned, then a series of them trailing into oblivion.

She held her sword above her head and shouted again.

"I'm here! I am Captain Cirocco Jones, commander of the DSY Ringmaster, commissioned by the United States of America, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the United Nations of Earth. I would like to speak with you! "

it seemed like ages before the echoes died away. When they were gone, there was no~ but the slow pulsing of the monstrous heart. They stood back to back, swords ready, looking into the darkness.

Cirocco felt a surge of anger flow through her, erasing the last traces of fear. She brandished her sword and screamed into the night as tears ran down her cheeks.

"I demand to see you . My friend and I have come through many hardships to stand here before you. The ground coughed us forth naked into this world. We have fought our way to the top of it. We have been treated cruelly, tossed about at whims we do not understand. Your hand has reached into our souls and tried to take our dignity, and we remain unbowed. I challenge you to come forth and answer to me! Answer for what you have done, or I will devote my life to destroying you utterly. I do not fear you! I am ready to fight! "

She had no idea how long Gaby had been tugging her sleeve. She looked down, having trouble focusing. Gaby looked frightened, but stood staunchly at her side.

"Maybe," she said, timidly, "uh, maybe she doesn't speak English."

So Cirocco sang her challenge again in Titanide. She used the high declamatory mode, the one reserved for the telling of tales. The hard, dark walls threw her song back until the black hub rang with her defiant music.

The floor began to shake.

"Illllll..."

It was a single note, an English word, a hurricane of speech.

"Heecceecear... "

Cirocco fell to her hands and knees, looking dumbly at Gaby hugging the floor beside her.

"Yooooooooouu ... "

The word echoed for many minutes, gradually trailing into the far-off bass muttering of an air-raid siren winding down. The floor steadied, and Cirocco lifted her head.

White light blinded her.

Shielding her eyes with her forearm, she squinted into the glare. A curtain was being drawn from one of the walls. The curtain reached from the floor to the ceiling, five kilometers high. Behind it was a crystal staircase. It sparkled cruelly as it ascended into light so intense Cirocc could not look at it.

Gaby was tugging at her sleeve again.

"Let's get out of here," she whispered, urgently. "No. I came to talk to her."

She forced herself to put her palms flat to the floor and push herself up. Getting to her feet was easy; staying there was another matter. She would have liked nothing better than to do as Gaby suggested. Her bravado now seemed like a fit of intoxication.

But she began to walk toward the light.

The opening was 200 meters wide, flanked by crystalline columns that had to be the upper ends of support cables. Looking up, she could see them unwind, each strand twisting through a complex pattern until it joined a basket-weave that covered the distant roof. Here was the unimaginably strong anchor that held Gaea together.

She frowned. One of the strands was broken. Upon closer examination, the whole ceiling looked like a sweater a kitten had played with, full of snarls and ravels.

it made her feel better to look at it. Mighty as Gaea was, she had seen better days.

They reached the bottom riser of the staircase and stepped onto it. it emitted a low organ note that lingered while they climbed. The seventh step raised the pitch one half tone, and the thirteenth step sharped it again. They proceeded slowly through the chromatic scale, and when the first octave was reached, harmonies began to creep in.

With no warning, orange flames roared on each side of them. The women literally jumped two meters into the air before the low gravity brought them to a stop.

Finally, gratefully, Cirocco began to get angry again. Awesome it was-a knee-knocking, teeth-chattering display of raw power that was sure to make the bravest grovel. Yet it had the opposite effect on Cirocco. God or no God, it had been a cheap trick, calculated to play on nerves already scraped raw. As such, she thought it in the same league with the novelty palm buzzer.

"P.T. Barnum had nothing on this girl," Gaby said, and Cirocco loved her for it. Showmanship, that's what it was. What kind of a God would need it?

The flames died, only to leap twice as high, licking the ceiling to make a tu

Ahead were towering gates of copper and gold. They swung open without a sound and clanged shut behind them.