The puff of steam was at the proper mark. Conal felt his hand being squeezed tightly. It was Robin, and her hand was very cold. He leaned over and kissed her. There didn't seem to be anything to say.
The Titanides moved out into the open and began their charge.
The body of Whistlestop had almost burned out before the remains began to stir.
Behind it, Universal was still burning madly. The waters of the moat were full of floating debris. The corpses of a hundred parboiled eight-meter Great White sharks floated belly-up all around the crumpled ruin of the blimp.
As with Nasu, it was a hand that appeared first. Then, slowly, struggling, Gaea pulled herself out of the black mess and stood, looking dazed, on the outer shore of the moat.
Cirocco sternly repressed an impulse to laugh. Once it started, it would never stop, it would quickly become hysteria. But Gaea...
She looked like some cartoon character in one of the oldest gags in the trade. Hapless cartoon animal is handed a round black bomb with a sizzling fuse, looks at it, does a double-take-eyes bug out and BLAM! Smoke clears to reveal character standing in exactly the same position, holding nothing, but completely black, hair standing on end, wisps of smoke curling away ... character blinks twice-only the eyes are visible-and falls over.
Completely black but for the eyes. That was Gaea. But she didn't fall over.
She began to writhe. It was awful to watch. She stretched this way and that, and her skin began to crack. She reached down to her belly, to her legs, her feet, and scrubbed herself vigorously with her hands. And the skin began to peel away.
It came off in one big chunk, like a child's bunny-suit pajamas. Beneath was glistening white skin, blonde hair... a new Gaea, unhurt. She stood for a moment, having lost perhaps two feet in height, then began to walk toward Cirocco.
TWENTY-TWO
"It's time, Gene."
"I know it's time," he said. "Tarnation, didn't you tell me ... "
He stopped his work and looked around. Gaby wasn't there. He thought he had heard her, but he couldn't be sure. He shrugged, and returned to the device in his lap.
He was sitting on a big crate labeled DYNAMITE: PRODUCT OF BELLINZONA. It sat, in turn, on the great green nerve nexus down in the dead heart of Oceanus. Stacked all around him were similar crates.
What he had in his lap was a timing device. He had thought he understood how to use it. Hook this here dingus to that there whatchamacallit over there, wind up the little hammenframis on the back of that doohickey...
Nothing. It wasn't ticking or nothing.
He was supposed to hook it up and get the hell out of there. He didn't plan to get out, so when Gaby gave him the go-on-ahead, he'd waited it out here what he figured was a goodly chunk of time, and then set to work. Now it didn't look like it was gonna work no-how, on account he'd hooked it up ever whichway, and nothing was happening.
He sobbed his frustration.
It'd be nice to have him a nice hunk of fish right about now. It was a wonderment, it surely was, how much better the stinking things tasted if you charred them a bit over the fire. Now why hadn't he thought of that?
He was about to get up and get him some fish, when he remembered how long it would take to get up there and back. Phooey! That's why he'd waited so long before setting to work on this dingus anyway, figuring in the time it would have took him to of clumb up to the top of them stairs ...
He was woolgathering again, and he knew it. He rearranged the parts of the detonator, wondering if he'd ever get it right.
And he kept thinking that he was forgetting something.
And it was the most important part.
The brakes on the frigging little train didn't work.
Luther cursed it mightily, then, as the station came by, he leaped, and he rolled.
He got up shakily. There were little bits of Luther scattered here and there on the platform. Luckily, they weren't important bits. An ear, a fragment of skull, part of a foot.
He didn't have much time left, and he knew it.
Luther watched the little train puff away around the broad curve of the track. It would keep going forever, round and round the great wheel of Pandemonium, round and round the Great Gaea...
No it wouldn't. The track was broken, because ... thump ... Gaea had fought the snake because ... thump, thump ... Cirocco was attacking! And Gaea had sent him here on an important mission!
His brain was thumping along pretty good by now, actually. A square wheel, if it rolls long enough, wears off some of the corners. He felt as alert as he'd been since the day he ... died. What was left of his brow furrowed, then he shrugged it off and hurried down the stairs-
He was met by Gautama. Little fat-ass gold-painted pissant Gautama, yammering something in some godless language. Luther drew his cross-the mighty Sword of the Lord-and lopped off his head.
Which didn't kill Gautama, of course, but when Luther kicked the head a hundred yards down the road it sure inconvenienced him some.
Gautama blundered around, senseless, his hands held out in front of him. Luther didn't give him another thought. He was humming, trying to mouth the words, though there wasn't enough mouth left to form many of them.
"But now a champion comes to fight, Whom God Herself elected! No strength of ours can match Her might! We would be lost, rejected!"
Up on the walls, people were shooting their guns. He heard a cannon go off. And he marched up to the gate and threw it open. People were shouting at him. He couldn't understand the words. He went to the drawbridge mechanism, located the proper lever to pull ...
Thump.
I'm lowering the drawbridge, he told himself. Thump.
Why am I lowering the drawbridge?
Ah ... why, to help Gaea, of course. To help Gaea to ...
Get in? Thump thump thump.
Maybe this was some sort of trick. His hand moved away from the lever.
"This is not a trick, my darling Luther," said a voice close to his ear.
He turned his head and saw her.
It was Gaea, it was his wife, his mother, all motherhood and womanhood and the virginmary god-help-me, with thorns wrapped around her heart and that saintly expression on her face (and it was a little brown woman) and the dazzling white robes and the halo - halo! Why, it was a searing, screaming light that burst from her, the burning light of goodness/pain/death-and millions of angels were hovering above her, blowing their trumpets (and he didn't even know the little brown woman)... thump-trick? How could it be a trick?!
People were hacking at him with swords now. Absently, he saw one of his arms fall to the stone floor. But, O Lord, I have another to do Thy bidding.
He lunged at the lever, thrust it forward, and fell into the rattling clattering chewing mechanism as the tons of drawbridge fell forward and rended him limb from limb... .
Arthur Lundquist's first death had been horrible. His second was glorious.
Some photofauns had somehow managed to swim the moat. There were a dozen of them clustered around Cirocco as she stood her ground and watched Gaea striding confidently forward.
The giant Monroe-thing had its arms wide, as if to cut Cirocco off no matter which way she ran. She came on like a dreadful professional wrestler, her face contorted with hate.
She was five hundred meters away. Four hundred. Three hundred.
And she stopped, listening, as Luther died.
Where is the Child?
As they neared the end of the bridge, a cannon shell burst over their heads. Conal heard something rattle off his helmet, felt something sting his arm, and heard Robin cry out.