Chris had never felt so helpless. But Cirocco had been quite explicit in her orders. He was to stay put until she came to get them out. Well, she was out there, all right-just a black speck at the head of an improbable army. Was he supposed to march out the Universal gate, side-stepping Gaea as she battled the snake? It didn't make a lot of sense, and he had felt no impulse to do it.
Someone will come for you, Cirocco had said.
He wished that someone would get here.
Gaby tapped him on the shoulder.
He dropped his beer bottle, which shattered on the marble terrace. Adam laughed when he saw the broken glass. It was just like the Three Stooges.
"Chris, are you sober?" she asked. as her eyes narrowed.
"Sober enough."
"Then here's what you have to do."
She told him. It didn't take long. It was not too complicated, but it was frightening. One year I sat here, he thought. One year with nothing to do but talk baby-talk. Now I have to be a super-hero.
He knew he would start to whine in a moment, so he nodded his head.
And Gaby was gone.
He hurried to Adam, picked him up, and smiled as well as he could.
"We're going to take a walk," he said.
"Don't wanna. I wanna watch Gaea fightin' some more."
"We'll do that later. This is going to be even better."
Adam looked doubtful, but said nothing as Chris hurried down the stairs, past the sleeping forms of Amparo and Sushi and all the other household servants. He went out the back door of Tara, and into the strand-forest behind it.
Gaea paused in the middle of the causeway. Something didn't feel right.
Her mind was a fragmented thing, but she was used to that, knew how to deal with it. A growing percentage of her had come to be concentrated in this body. While fighting the snake, she had been able to think of almost nothing else. It was the same way when she concentrated her energies on healing herself.
But now something else was happening. She'd have it in a minute. The great brow furrowed in thought.
Then there were shouts. At the same time, the other group of Titanides, who were organized into a drum and bugle corps, began an exceptionally loud number, and started marching toward the east. It left Cirocco out there alone, almost a kilometer in front of her army.
Let's see now. The first group of Titanides must almost be to the Disney gate by now. This new group was headed the other way, toward Goldwyn. Was Cirocco dispersing her forces, getting ready for an attack?
There were twelve explosions, Gaea looked up, saw the tiny planes passing by again, moving west to east. Another factor to consider. The planes passed Whistlestop ... who seemed shorter, somehow. And the blimp seemed to be smoking or steaming...
She figured it out. Whistlestop looked shorter because he was coming at her. As she watched he straightened his course even more, until he was almost nose-down. Tons of ballast water spilled from his rear end, and it rose and rose, until he was a huge circle in the air, getting bigger.
The "steam" was cherubs flying away from his upper vent holes, and a million creatures, some no larger than a mouse, leaping out the sides at the ends of tiny parachutes. An evacuation was under way. It was an awesome sight, accompanied by an awesome sound: a high, mournful wail that loosened her teeth.
It was a blimp's death-cry.
Luther stood alone, atop the wall near his chapel beside the Goldwyn Gate. It looked as if he would be left out of the action.
He knew he didn't have long to live. He had endured wounds at the hands of Pope Joan's Kollege of Kardinals, he had been ignored by Gaea for too long following Kali's triumph. He was out of the inner circle, and it pained him, as all he wished to do was serve Gaea.
He watched the battle with the snake. Gaea won, and he felt neither pleasure nor pain.
He saw the blimp moving into position ...
And that tiny part of his mind still attuned to Gaea's thoughts picked up her moment of doubt before she looked up into the sky.
He fell to his knees. He tore at his flesh, and he prayed.
Luther's mind was like a truck with square wheels. It was possible to move it, but only with great effort. He strained, lifting his mind up onto the edge, and then it thumped solidly down on a new thought. Then once again he strained.
Where is the Child? he thought.
Strain, lift ... thump.
The devil's army is all here, in the north. Thump.
What if this is all a distraction? Thump. What if the real attack is coming from somewhere else?
A voice whispered very close to his ear. It sounded like his wife ... but he didn't have a wife. It was Gaea... of course, it was Gaea.
"The Fox Gate is due south," the voice said.
"Fox Gate, Fox Gate," Luther muttered. Well, not actually. His mouth was such a ruin now that all he could say was "Aah gay, aah gay."
There was a train waiting in the Goldwyn station. Luther climbed aboard, out onto the narrow monorail track that ran around the top of the wall.
For once there was a good head of steam in the thing. He got into the engineer's cab and pulled the big iron lever all the way back. The train started to move, and quickly gathered speed.
Chris ran through the strand-forest. Adam seemed to love it.
"Faster, Daddy, faster!" he shouted.
It would have been pitch dark, but for a mysterious blue light that floated on ahead of them. He had to hope it was leading the way, because without it, and even with a flashlight, he would soon have been hopelessly lost.
"Catch it, Daddy!"
I hope not, he thought. If I caught it, I wouldn't know what to do with it. I hope it just keeps floating on out there, fifty meters ahead, and I hope I don't stumble over anything in here.
Far away, he heard a deep, sustained, rumbling explosion.
He wondered what it was.
Calvin sat in the bombardier's seat, just under the very tip of Whistlestop's great airframe. He was swathed in rich fabrics, but he shivered. He didn't feel so good. He couldn't get rid of the chill. Everything he ate seemed to come right back up. And his head hurt most of the time.
He didn't know what he had. It could probably be diagnosed, but he doubted it could be cured. What he did know was that there came a time for a man to pack it in.
For Calvin, one hundred and twenty-six years was plenty. Old and sick, he had seen the great wheel turn just over a million times in his life, and it was enough.
"Why don't you just drop me off here?" Calvin said, to Whistlestop. "I can walk it. You're good for another twenty, thirty centuries, I guess."
He heard the gentle whistling. It did not come to him as words. It told of a relationship he knew he could never explain to a human. He and Whistlestop had grown together, shared something neither of them could tell another blimp or another human, and were ready to die together.
"Well, I figured I had to offer," he chuckled. He leaned back, and took out the cigar and lighter Gaby had left with him, and he chuckled again. This time it turned to a laugh.
"She remembered," he said. Calvin had smoked cigars so long ago he had almost forgotten it himself.
This one was fresh and aromatic. He sniffed it, bit off the end, and snapped the lighter. He got it going, took a drag. It tasted good.
Then he snapped the lighter once more, and held it to the cloth at his right side. Behind him, he heard the deep whoosh as valves opened, as air mixed with hydrogen and came rushing at him.
He did not hear the explosion.
TWENTY-ONE