The second incident was something they were more prepared for because it had happened before. it was the vast moaning wind Calvin had dubbed Gaeas Lament.
There was time before the worst of the winds to beach Titanic and seek shelter on the downwind side of the boat. Cirocco did not want to go under the trees, recalling the near-miss by a falling branch in the highlands.
The observing conditions were not good with the wind whipping her face and the clouds rolling overhead, but she managed
to catch glimpses of the storm coming out of Oceanus. It came from above. Clouds billowed down from the vast spoke above the frozen sea like the icy breath of God. The wind hit the sheet of ice and broke on it, whipped into tornadoes that looked tiny from that distance, but which must have been huge.
Through the clouds that rapidly advanced toward Hyperion, Cirocco could see the angled support cables that joined the ground to the sky over Oceanus. If they were moving in the wind it was far too slowly to be seen, but there must have been some swaying or stretching motion. The cables were shedding a fine gray mist. She watched it drift down into the narrow angles the cables made with the ground and had to remind herself that the particles she could see from so far away must be as large as trees. Then the clouds obscured all vision, and snow began to fall. Soon after that the river grew agitated, rising almost to the beached Titanic. Cirocco thought she could feel the ground moving.
She knew she was seeing some part of Gaea's air circulation system in operation, and wondered how the air was drawn into the spoke and what mechanism forced it back out again. She also wondered why the process had to be so violent. Calvin's watch said it had been seventeen days since the last Lament. she hoped it would be at least as long until the next.
As before, the cold did not last more than six or seven hours, and the snow did not stick to the ground. They weathered it better this time, finding that the blimpsilk clothes were more protective than they looked, working as windbreakers.
The thirtieth day since their emergence was marked by two things: something that happened, and something that didn't happen.
The first was their arrival at the confluence of the Clio and the mighty river Ophion. They were deep in south Hyperion by then, equidistant between the central vertical cable and the southern one, both of which now towered over them.
Ophion was blue-green, wider and swifter than the Clio. It swept Titanic into its center, and after a time of alertness and soundings with their poles, the travelers decided it would be safe to stay there. In size and speed, Ophion reminded Bill and Cirocco of the Mississippi, but with more vegetation and tall trees along the banks. The land was still jungle, but Ophion was wide and deep.
Cirocco was far more concerned with the non-event--- the one she had waited for as the days ticked by on Calvin's watch. She had been regular as the tides for twenty-two years, and it was disturbing to miss a period.
"Did you know it's been thirty days now?" Cirocco asked Gaby that evening."
"Has it? I hadn't thought about it." She frowned.
"Yeah. And I'm more than late. I've always been twenty-nine days; sometimes early by a day, never late."
"You know, I'm late, too." "I thought you were."
"Christ, that just doesn't make sense at all."
"I was wondering what sort of protection you used on Ring- master. Could you have forgotten about it back then?"
"Not bloody likely. Calvin gave me monthlies."
Cirocco sighed. "I was afraid it'd be something as infallible as that. Me, I can't take pills; they make me swell up. I used one of those wear-ever diaphragms. I had it in when we went under. I didn't really think to look for it until ... well, after we joined up with Bill and August and it might already have been too late." She was hesitant to discuss that part with Gaby. It was no secret that she and Bill had made love, and also no secret that there had been no time or place or privacy for it on Titanic with Gaby always around.
"Anyhow, it's gone. I presume it was eaten by the same thing that ate our hair. Which makes my skin crawl, by the way,"
Gaby shivered.
"But I thought it could be Bill. Now I don't really think so." She got up and went over to Bill, who was sleeping on the ground. She woke him, and waited until he looked alert.
"Bill, we're both pregnant."
Bill was not as awake as she had thought. He blinked in surprise, then his brow furrowed.
"Well don't look at me. Not even for yours. The last time with Gaby was not long after we left Earth. Besides, I've got a valve."
"I wasn't saying anything like that," she soothed. With Gaby,
hub? she thought. She hadn't known about that, and she thought she had been aware of everything that occurred on Ring- master. "That just makes it more certain that something very strange is going on. Somebody or something is playing a big joke on us, but I'm not laughing."
Calvin was as good as his word. Two days after Cirocco hailed a passing blimp, Whistlestop hovered overhead and a blue flower blossomed with their wandering surgeon dangling beneath it. August was close behind him. They hit the water just off shore.
Cirocco had to admit that Calvin looked good. He was smiling, and there was a bounce in his step. He greeted everyone and didn't seem to mind having been summoned. He wanted to talk about his travels, but Cirocco was too anxious to hear what he thought of the new situation. He turned very serious long before they had finished telling him about it.
"Have you had a period since we got here?" he asked August. "No, I haven't."
"It's been thirty days," Cirocco said. ',is that unusual for you?" From the way August's eyes widened, Cirocco assumed it was. "When was the last time you had intercourse with a man?"
"I've never."
"I was afraid you'd say that."
Calvin was quiet for a while, considering it. Then he frowned more deeply.
"What can I say? You all know it's possible for a woman to skip a period for other reasons. Athletes sometimes skip a whole lot of them, and we're not sure why. Stress can do it, emotional or physical. But I think the chances of it happening to all three of you at the same time are slim."
"I would tend to agree," Cirocco said.
"It could be dietary. There's no way to know. I can tell you that the three of you, and ... uh, April, were undergoing some convergence."
"What's that?" Gaby asked.
"It sometimes happens to women who live together, like on a spaceship where they're in close quarters. Some hormonal signal tends to synchronize their menstruation. April and August have been in rhythm with each other for a long time, and Cirocco was only a few days off their cycle. Two early periods and she was in step. Gaby, you were getting erratic, if you recall.,,
"I never paid much attention to it," she said.
"Well, you were. But I can't see what that would have to do with what we have here. I only brought it up to point out that strange things happen. It's possible that you all just skipped one."
"It's also possible that we're all knocked up, and I shudder to think who the father is," sirocco said, sourly. .
"That's just flat impossible," Calvin said. "If you're saying that the thing that ate us did it to you all ... I can't buy that. There isn't another animal even on Earth that can impregnate a human. You tell me how this alien creature did it."
"I don't know," Cirocco said. "That's why it's alien. But I'm convinced it got inside us and did something that might seem perfectly reasonable and natural to it, but is alien to what we know. And I don't like it, and we want to know what you can do if we are pregnant."
Calvin rubbed the tight curls on his chin, then smiled slightly. "They didn't prepare me for virgin births at med school."
"I'm not in the mood for jokes."
"Sorry. You and Gaby aren't virgins, anyhow." He shook his head in wonder.
"We were thinking of something more immediate and less sacred, " Gaby said. "We don't want these babies, or whatever the hell they are."
"Look, why don't you wait another thirty days before you start getting excited? If you miss another period, call me again."
"We'd like to get it over with now," Cirocco said.
Calvin looked upset for the first time. "And I'm saying I won't do it yet. It's too risky. I might make the tools for a D. and C., but they'll have to he sterilized. I don't have a speculum, and the thought of what I might have to improvise to dilate the cervix is enough to give you nightmares."