Demon

The image started to waver. Cirocco cried out, then jammed the heel of her hand into her mouth. She could see the dune through Gaby's body.

"I love you, too, Rocky. Or is it Captain, now?"

"It's whatever you want."

"I can't stay. Gaea's in Hyperion. She's moving west."

"But she won't go into Oceanus."

"No."

Gaby was the little woman who wasn't there. Just an outline, a wish, an hallucination ... and she was gone.

Cirocco sat there for almost a rev, pulling herself together, staring at the footprints on the dune where Gaby had been. In the end, as before, she did not go over to touch them. She was terrified to discover they really weren't there at all.

The northern Thea ice-shield began in twilight and curved south and east. Cirocco ran along its edge, in blessed coolness.

There was no question of crossing Thea to the north. The mountains were not impassable-nothing really was, in Cirocco's experience; she had crossed them once in two kilorevs-but she did not have time for it. The fast way through Thea was over the frozen Ophion, which flowed right down the middle of the region of eternal night.

When she stopped, she was knee-deep in snow, and still naked. It was the work of a few moments to open her pack, reverse her clothes and boots so the white side was visible, and camouflage her pack and hair with white scarves.

She ran, but eventually got tired again. To be sleepy so soon was a sign she was overtaxing herself. She noted it, and looked for a safe haven.

Her requirements were spartan. She dug a hole in a snowbank, crawled in, and packed snow in behind her. As she fell asleep, she remembered that no more than fifty kilometers ahead was the spot where a certain Robin of the Coven had buried herself in snow-tired, frightened, and ignorant of the danger-to wake up with a case of pneumonia. Robin had almost died in Thea.

Cirocco simply slept. Three hours later she woke up, brushed off the snow, and started to run again.

It was six hundred kilometers and most of the way across Metis before she again felt the need to sleep.

There were those in Gaea who would not have believed it, but Cirocco Jones-rumored to be capable of regenerating a severed leg, of shape-changing into a serpent, a vulture, a cheetah, and a shark, of wrestling a dozen Titanides and of being able to pass u

It was an appalling need, when one thought about it. To become defenseless, to simply lie there while something crept up bent on murder...

She was in the south of Metis, in the region below the great Poseidon sea, beyond the swamp named Steropes that was Metis' most prominent feature. Here the land was sava

Cirocco pla

She stripped again, wrapped her pack in a red scarf. With her knife, she made deep gouges in the tree trunk. Red sap began to flow. She rubbed it over her skin, gradually becoming a scarlet woman. When she was completely painted she climbed the tree and made her way out on a horizontal branch thirty meters above the ground. She hooked her feet over the branch, letting her knees fall on either side, made a pillow out of her folded hands, and put her head down. In a moment, she was asleep.

In Dione, she finally slowed down.

Dione was safety-from Gaea, if not from humans.

She passed to the south of the long lake known as Iris, through mountainous countryside and into the forest surrounding Eris lake, until she reached the river Briareus, one of the longest rivers in Gaea.

At a bend in the river, over a hundred kilometers south of Moros, Peppermint Bay, and Bellinzona, she came upon a treehouse that would have made the Swiss Family Robinson envious.

It was built in a tree of the same species as the one that sheltered Titantown in Hyperion. Though only one hundredth the size, the tree dominated that part of the forest like a cathedral dominates a small European town. The main structure of the house was three stories high. Parts of it were built of red brick, or faced with stone. The windows had sliding glass panes and multi-colored curtains. Other structures were scattered at different levels in the branches, all of different design. There were straw beehives roofed with pitch, an ornate gazebo, something that looked like part of the onion-domed Kremlin. All of this was co

Cirocco walked over the main bridge. It swayed only a little under her weight. She had seen it bobbing crazily with a dozen Titanides on it.

On a wide, covered porch with a view of the pool, she paused to remove her boots and stand them outside the front door, as was her custom. The door was not locked. She entered, already sure-though she could not have told how-that no one was home.

It was cool and dim in the parlor. The sound of falling water came through the windows. It was soothing. Cirocco relaxed. She pulled off her shirt, having to peel it away from her skin in some places. When she removed her pants and set them on the floor they looked as if she were still in them. She couldn't smell herself anymore but thought her odor must be frightful if her pants were so stiff.

Ought to take a bath, she thought. Thinking that, she plopped on a low couch and was instantly asleep.

She sat up and knuckled her eyes. She yawned till her jaw cracked, then sniffed the air. She smelled bacon.

At her feet were her clothes, washed and folded neatly. Beside them was a steaming cup of black coffee and a monstrous yellow orchid. The orchid was sniffing the coffee. It looked up...

The creature was a hermit squirrel, a two-legged mammalian with a long thick tail that borrowed the empty shells of Gaean snails and made them into mobile homes. The orchid was part of the shell.

It zipped back inside and slammed the door as Cirocco reached for the coffee.

She got up and went through the music room, where a hundred instruments hung on the walls or sat on special stands, through the vox-breeding room, lined with cages, sipping her coffee as she went. The next room was the kitchen. Standing in front of the stove poking at the sizzling bacon was a man well over two meters tall. He wore no clothes, but he was perhaps the one human in Gaea who truly did not need them. He could never seem naked.

Cirocco put her empty cup on the table and embraced him from behind. She could no longer reach his neck, so she kissed his broad back instead.

"Hello, Chris," she said.

"Morning, Captain. Breakfast 'll be ready in a minute. You awake yet?"

"Jus' about."

"You wa

"Eat, then shower."

He nodded, then walked to the window.

"Come here. I want to show you something."

She went to him, trying to feel alert. She leaned out the window.

"What is it? All I see is water."

"Right." He picked her up and tossed her out the window. She squalled all the way down, and hit with a huge splash. He watched for her head. When she came up, sputtering, he called out, "See you in five minutes."