Demon

I ought to be shocked, Cirocco thought.

She had a feeling it would end badly, that it probably should not have even started. Then she chided herself. That was the safe view. If you looked at life that way, your regrets for things undone and untried would forge an endless chain to rattle in your later years. She silently saluted their courage and wished them well.

The idiots thought no one knew of their clandestine affair. Possibly there were Titanides in Hyperion who didn't know about it, but certainly none here in Dione. Cirocco saw Valiha, Rocky, and Serpent-a threesome none of the other humans knew anything about-looking on with fond recognition. Hornpipe knew, but, as always, kept his own counsel. Virginal knew, but despite her growing closeness to Nova, would never mention it, mainly because the young Titanide realized her lack of knowledge of the ways of humans and would never risk hurting Nova inadvertently.

That left the ninth member of the party, Nova. She was coming along nicely, Cirocco judged, but was still far too much the self-centered youth to be aware of something her mother was taking pains to keep from her. She was blissfully ignorant of Robin's sin.

For sin it was. Cirocco wondered if Robin had recognized that yet, and how she would handle it when the guilty weight fell on her. She hoped she would be able to offer some help. She loved the little witch dearly.

She looked around the table at her band. She loved them all. For a moment she felt tears threaten, and fought them back. This was not the time. She made herself smile, and made a polite comment on a pastry she was offered. Serpent glowed with pleasure. But she saw Hornpipe watching her.

But it was a surprise, as the glorious meal was ending in the small sounds of belches and satisfied pats on the tummy, when Hornpipe cleared his throat and waited until he had silence.

"Captain," he said, in English. "We were pleased when you made no objection to the preparation of this feast. You are aware this sort of thing is done only in a moment of great importance to all of us."

" 'We are pleased,' Hornpipe?" Cirocco asked. She was disturbed to realize she did not know what he was talking about. And she looked at the other Titanides, saw them looking solemnly at their empty plates. Virginal glanced to the far end of the table, to the empty place setting which had been put out at every meal since Chris had jumped into Pandemonium.

"Who do you speak for, my friend?"

"I speak for all the Titanides here, and for many hundreds who could not come. I was elected to voice this ... " Once more Cirocco was amazed, as Hornpipe seemed to be groping for a word. Then she realized it was something else.

"Is 'grievance' the word you're trying to say?"

"It's in the right neighborhood," Hornpipe said, with a wry shake of his head. He looked at her, appealingly. For an instant he was a stranger. For an instant he was the first Titanide she had ever seen-and he was, in fact, a direct descendant of the first. He could be mistaken for a truly stu

She returned to the moment, to a reality that seemed to be getting away from her.

"Go on, then," she said.

"It is simple," he said. "We want to know what you are doing toward the return of the child."

"What are you doing?"

"Probes have been made. The defenses of Pandemonium have been tested. Aerial reco

"What sort of plans?"

"An all-out assault. A siege. There are several options."

"Are any being put into effect?"

"No, Captain." He sighed, and looked at her again. "The child must be rescued. Forgive me if you can, but I must say this. You are our past. He is our future. We ca

Cirocco let the silence grow, looking from one face to another. None of the Titanides would look at her. Robin, Conal, and Nova glanced away quickly when their eyes met hers.

"Conal," she said, finally. "Do you have a plan?"

"I wanted to talk it over with you," he said, apologetically. "I was thinking of a raid. Just the two of us, in and out real quick. I don't think the frontal assault would work."

Cirocco looked around again.

"Are there any other plans? Let's get 'em all lined up."

"Lure her out," Nova said.

"What's that?"

"Use yourself as bait. Get her to come out and fight. Set a trap for her. Dig a big hole or something... I don't know. I haven't worked out the details. Maybe some kind of ambush."

She looked at Nova with increased respect. It was a rotten idea, of course, but in some ways it was better than the others.

"That's four ideas," Cirocco said. "Any more?"

The Titanides didn't have any. Cirocco was frankly astonished they had, among hundreds of them, come up with two. Titanides were many things, but they were not tacticians. Their minds didn't seem to work that way.

She stood up.

"All right. Hornpipe, there is no need for your apology. I've been remiss in not telling anyone what I've been doing. Naturally, you and all the Titanides are concerned about getting him back, and you don't see me doing anything. I've been gone a lot. I haven't been talking much. And, yes, he is your future, and I for one am thankful for it and sorry for him. I have been thinking of almost nothing else during the last kilorev. I expected to tell you my plans tonight, but you beat me to it.

"The first thing is Gaea. None of you understand her.

"You've given me four scripts. Four movies." She held up her fingers as she counted them out. "Hornpipe, you mentioned a frontal assault. We'll call that the World War Two movie. Then there was the siege; that's the Roman epic. Conal, your idea is a caper movie. Nova's idea is like a western. There are other approaches I've thought of. There's the monster movie, which I think Gaea would like, where we try to burn her up or roast her with electricity. There's the prison picture, where we get captured and make our escape. There's the aerial assault, which is probably a Viet Nam movie.

"What you have to remember is, she's thought of those, and of several more possibilities. My approach will borrow from several of them, but to defeat her, we have to move out of genre pictures altogether."

She looked from face to face, and was not surprised to see the bewilderment there. They probably thought she was going crazy, with all this talk about movies.

"I'm not crazy," she said, quietly. "I'm trying to think the way Gaea thinks. Gaea is obsessed with films from about 1930 to 1990. She has made herself in the image of a star who died in 1961. She wants to live movies, and she has a star system, and most of the ones she has selected to be the stars of her major epic are sitting right here. She has gone to great lengths to get some of you here. She has built some of you, in a sense, like the old studio moguls used to build images for their stars.

"She has cast me in the leading role. But this is a big production, with many important characters and a cast of billions.

"She can make mistakes. Gaby was one. Gaby was supposed to be alive at this point, as my faithful sidekick. Chris was another. He was supposed to be my leading man. There was supposed to be a love story between me and Chris, but Valiha got in the way. Their love wasn't pla

"But Gaea is a smart director. She always has a fall-back subplot prepared, there is always an understudy ready to step in. The story department can always come up with some variation, some way to move things around and keep the plot going.

"Conal, you're a good example of that."

Conal had been looking mesmerized, now he jerked in surprise.