Cirocco looked around but didn't spot anything like that.
"The berries are yellow, and about as big as the end of your thumb. I'm holding one now. It's soft and translucent."
"Are you going to eat it?"
There was a pause. "I was going to ask you about that."
"We'll have to try something sooner or later. Maybe one won't be enough to kill you."
"Just make me sick," Caby laughed. "This one broke on my teeth. There's a thick jelly inside, like honey with a minty taste. It's dissolving in my mouth ... and now it's gone. The rind is not so sweet, but I'm going to eat it anyway. It might be the only part with any food value."
If even that, Cirocco thought. There was no reason why any part of it should sustain them. She was pleased that Gaby had given her such a detailed description of her sensations while eating the berry, but she knew the purpose of it. Bomb de-fusing teams used the same technique. One stayed away while the oth- er reported every action over the radio. If the bomb went off, the survivor learned something for the next time.
When they judged enough time had passed with no ill effect, Gaby began eating more of the berries. In time, Cirocco found some. They were almost as good as that first taste of water had been.
"Gaby, I'm about dead on my feet. I wonder how long we've been awake?"
There was a long pause, and she had to call again.
"Hm? Oh, hi. How did 1 get here?" She sounded slightly drunk.
Cirocco frowned. "Where's here? Gaby, what's happening?"
"I sat down for a minute to rest my legs. I must have fallen asleep."
"Try to wake up enough to find a good place for it." Cirocco was already looking around. It was going to be a problem. Nothing looked good, and she knew it was the worst possible idea to lie down alone in strange country. The only thing worse would be trying to stay awake any longer.
She went a short distance into the trees, and marveled at how soft the grass felt under her bare feet. So much better than the rocks. It would be nice to sit down in it for a minute.
She awoke on the grass, sat up quickly and looked all around. Nothing was moving.
For a meter in every direction from where she had slept, the grass had turned brown, dried out like hay.
She stood and looked down at a large rock. She had approached it from the downstream side while looking for a place to sleep. Now she walked around it, and on the other side was a large letter "G. "
CHAPTER FIVE
Gaby insisted on turning back. Cirocco didn't protest; it sounded good to her, though she could never have suggested it.
She walked downstream, often passing the marks Gaby had made. At one point she had to leave the sandy shore and go up onto the grass to avoid a large pile of boulders. When she reached the grass she saw a series of oval brown spots spaced like footprints. She knelt and touched them. They were dry and brittle, just like the grass where she had slept.
"I've found part of your trail," she told Gaby. "Your feet couldn't have touched the grass more than a second, and yet something in your body killed it."
"I saw the same thing when I woke up," Gaby said. "What do you think of it?"
"I think we secrete something that's poison to the grass. If that's true, we might not smell very good to the kind of large animals that might normally take an interest in us."
"That's good news."
"The bad part is that it might mean we have very dffierent sorts of biochemicals. That's not so good for eating."
"You're so much fun to talk to."
***********
"Is that you up ahead?"
Cirocco squinted into the pale yellow light. The river ran straight for a good distance, and just where it started to bend was a tiny figure.
"Yep. It's me, if that's you waving your arms."
Gaby whooped, a painful sound in the tiny earphone. Cirocco heard the sound again a second later, much fainter. She grinned, and then felt the grin getting bigger and bigger. She hadn't wanted to run, it was so like a bad movie, but she was running anyway and so was Gaby, taking absurdly long hops in the low gravity.
They hit so hard they were both breathless for a moment. Cirocco embraced the smaller woman and lifted her off her feet.
"D-d-d-damn, you look s-s-so good!" Gaby said. One of her eyelids was twitching, and her teeth chattered.
"Hey, hold on, take it easy," Cirocco soothed, rubbing Gaby's back with both hands. Gaby's smile was so wide it hurt to look at it.
"I'm sorry, but I think I'm going to be hysterical. Isn't that a laugh?" And she did laugh, but it was flat and hurt the car, and before long turned into shudders and gasps. She held Cirocco strongly enough to break ribs. Cirocco didn't fight it, but eased her down to the sandy river bank and held her close while huge, low-gravity tears dripped onto her shoulders.
Cirocco was not sure at what point the comforting hugs turned into something else. It was so gradual. Gaby was quite insensible for a long time, and it seemed the natural thing to hold and stroke her while she calmed down. Then it seemed natural that Gaby should stroke her, and that they should press close together. The first moment when it began to seem a little unusual was when she found herself kissing Gaby, and Gaby kissing back. She thought she might have stopped it then, but she didn't want to because she could not tell if the tears she tasted belonged to her or Gaby.
And besides, it never really turned into love-making. They rubbed against each other and kissed mouth-to-mouth, and when the orgasm came it almost seemed irrelevant to what had gone before. At least that's what she kept telling herself.
One of them had to say something when it was over, and it seemed best to stay away from what they had just done.
"Are you all right now?" Gaby nodded. Her eyes were still bright, but she was smiling. "Uh-huh. Probably not permanently, though. I woke up screaming. I'm really afraid to go to sleep."
"It's not my favorite thing either. You know you're about the funniest-looking critter I ever saw?"
"That's because you don't have a mirror." Gaby couldn't stop talking for hours, and she didn't like it when Cirocco let go of her. They moved to a less exposed position up in the trees, then sat with Cirocco's back against a tnmk and Gaby reclining against her.
She spoke of her trip down the river, but what she kept want- ing to go back to, or what she couldn't get away from, was her experience in the belly of the creature. It sounded to Cirocco like an extended dream that had little in common with what she herself had experienced, but that might have been just the inadequacy of words.
"I did wake up in the darkness a few times, like you did," Gaby said. "When I did, I couldn't feel or see or hear anything, and I didn't really want to stay there very long."
"I kept going back to my earlier life. It was extremely vivid. I could ... feel it all."
"Me, too," Gaby said. 'But it wasn't a repeat. It was all new things."
"Did you always know who you were? That was the worst part for me, remembering and then forgetting. I don't know how many times that happened."
"Yeah, I always knew who I was. But I got to be pretty tired of being me, if that makes any sense. The possibilities were so limited. "
"What do you mean by that?" Gaby moved her hands indecisively, trying to pull something out of the air. She gave up and twisted in Ciroccol' arms to look intently into her eyes for a long moment. Then she rested her
head between Cirocco's breasts. Cirocco found it disturbing, but the warmth and companionship of their closeness was too good to give up. She looked down at Gaby's bald head and had to fight an urge to kiss it.
"I was in there for twenty or thirty years," Gaby said quietly. "And don't try to tell me that's impossible. I've got a pretty good idea that nothing like that amount of time passed in the rest of the universe. I'm not crazy."
"I didn't say you were." Cirocco rubbed her shoulders when Gaby began to tremble, and it subsided.
"Well, I shouldn't have said I'm not crazy, either. I never had to have somebody baby me so I wouldn't cry before. I'm sorry."
"I don't mind," Cirocco murmured, and she really did not. She found it surprisingly easy to whisper assurances in the other woman's ear. "Gaby, there's no way either one of us could have come through that without some twitches. I cried for hours. I threw up. I may do it again, and if I can't help myself, I'd like for you to take care of me."