"Please do not come closer. Do not move in my direction. We can talk this way for only a short time."
"Surely you don't think we'll hurt you?"
"And why not? I..." She stopped, edging away.
"No, I suppose not. But I could no more let you approach than I could hold my hand in a fire. You smell wrong."
"Does it have to do with the Titanides? "
"With what?"
"The centaurs. The people you make war with."
She hissed and backed away. "Do not speak of them."
"I don't think I can avoid it."
"Then I must leave. I will try to return." With a loud cry, she plunged through the leaves. They heard her wings for a short time, then it was as if she had never been with them.
Cirocco looked at Gaby, who sat with her feet dangling. Her face was somber.
"It's awful," sirocco whispered. "What happened to us? "
"I was hoping she could give us some answers. Whatever it was, it hit her the worst. Worse than Gene."
She returned a few hours later but could not answer the questions that mattered most. it appeared she had not even been thinking about them.
"How should I know?" she said. "I was in the darkness, I woke up, and I was as you see me. It didn't matter, and it doesn't matter now."
"Can you explain that?"
"I'm happy. No one wanted me or my sisters. No one loved us. Well, now I don't need it. I am of the Eagle clan, proud and alone."
Cautious questioning brought out what it meant to be of the Eagle clan. It was not a tribe or association, as April had seemed to imply; rather, it was a species within the genus angel.
Eagles were loners, solitary from birth to death. They did not come together even to mate, could suffer each other's company for only minutes at a time, and then only while cruising at a comfortable distance. April had heard of the humans' presence in the spoke through such a passing conversation.
"There are two things I don't understand," Cirocco said, carefully. "May I ask?"
"I don't promise to answer."
"All right. How is it there are more angels, if you don't come together?"
"There is a non-sentient creature born at the bottom of the world. It spends its life climbing to the top. Once a year I find one and implant an egg on its back. Male angels deposit sperm on it or not, as chance has it. A fertilized egg goes to the top with the creature. The infant is brn as the host dies. We are born into the air and must learn to fly on the way down. Some don't. It is at the will of Gaea. This is our-"
"Just a minute. You said Gaea. Why did you choose that name?"
There was a pause.
"I don't understand the question."
"I can't make it plainer. Calvin named this place Caea. He thought it fit well. Are you into Greek mythology, too?,,
"I never beard the name before. Gaea is what the people call this creature. She's sort of a God, though not exactly. You're making my head hurt. I'm happy as I am, and I must go now."
"Wait, wait just a minute."
April was edging toward the top of the tree.
"You said 'creature.' Are you talking about this thing in the spoke?"
April looked surprised. "Why, no. This is only a part of her. The whole world is Gaea. I thought you knew that."
"No, I-wait, please don't go." It was too late. They heard the beating of her wings. "Will you come back later?" Cirocco shouted.
"Once more," came the distant reply.
"One being, you say. All one creature. How do you know this?"
April had returned in only an hour this time. Cirocco hoped she was getting used to company again, but she still would approach no closer than twenty meters.
"Believe it. Some of my people have talked with her." "She's intelligent, then?"
"Why not? Listen ... Captain." She held her temples for a moment. Cirocco could imagine the conflicts. April had been one of the finest physicists in the system. Now she lived as a fierce wild animal, according to a code barely comprehensible to Cirocco. She thought the old April might he struggling to get through the creature she had become.
"Cirocco, you say you speak to... to those on the rim." It was as close as she could come to the concept of Titanides with- out fleeing. "They understand you. Calvin can speak to the floaters. The changes Gaea worked on me are more complete. I am one of my people. I awoke knowing how to behave among them. I have the same feelings and drives as any other angel. This is one thing I know. Gaea is one. Gaea is alive. We live inside her."
Gaby was looking a bit green. "Just look around you," April went on. "What have you seen that looks like a machine? Anything at all? We were seized by a living beast; you postulate a creature under the rim. The spoke is filled with a huge living thing; you decide it is a coating over the framework beneath."
"What you say is intriguing."
"More than that. It's true.'/
"If I accept that, I won't find a control room in the hub."
"But you'll be where she lives. She sits like a spider and pulls strings like a puppet master. She watches over all her creatures, and she owns the two of you as surely as she owns me. She has tampered with us for her own purposes."
"And what are they?"
April shrugged, a human gesture that hurt Cirocco to watch. "She would not tell me. I went to the hub, but she refused to see me. My people say that one must be on a great mission to gain Gaea's ear. Apparently mine was not great enough."
"And what would you have asked her?"
April was quiet for a very long time. Cirocco realized she was crying. She looked up at them again.
"You hurt me. I think I won't talk to you any more."
"Please, April. Please, for the friendship we had."
"Did we? Did we really? I can't remember it. I remember only me and August, and long ago, my other sisters. We have always been alone with each other. Now I am alone, alone."
"Do you miss them?"
"I did," she said, emptily. "That was long ago. I fly, fly to be alone. Solitude is the world of the Eagle clan. I know that is right, but before . -before, when I still yearned for my sisters..."
Cirocco held very still, afraid of frightening her away.
"We band together only at one time," she said, with a quiet sigh. "When Gaea takes her breath, after the winter, then blows us over the lands ...
"I flew with the wind that day. It was a fine day. We killed many because my people listened to me and rode the great floater. The four-legs were surprised because the breath was over; we few had remained m the floater, tired and hungry, but with the lust still in our blood, still able to work together.
"It was a day for the singing of great songs. My people followed me-me!--did what I told them, and I knew in my heart that the four-legs would soon be wiped out in Gaea. This was but the first skirmish in the new war.
"Then I saw August and my mind left me. I wanted to kill her, I wanted to fly from her, I wanted to embrace her and weep with her.
"I flew. "Now I dread the breath of Gaea, for someday it will take me down to slaughter my sister, and then I will die. I am Ariel the Swift, but enough of April Polo remains in me that I could not live with such a ~."
Cirocco was moved, but could not help being excited. April sounded as if she was important in the angel community. Surely they would listen to her.
"It happens that I am up here to make peace," she said. "Don't go! Please don't go."
April trembled, but stood her ground. "Peace is impossible."
"I can't believe that. Many of the Titanides are sick in their hearts, as you are."
April shook her head. "Does a lamb negotiate with a lion? A bat with an insect, a bird with a worm?"
"You're talking about predators and prey."
"Natural enemies. It's printed in our genes, killing the four- legs. I can ... as April, I can see what you're thinking. Peace should he possible. We have to fly impossible distances just to do battle. Many of us do not make it back. The climb is too hard, and we fall into the sea."
Cirocco shook her head. ',I just think if I could get some representatives together..."
"I tell you, it's impossible. We are Eagles. You cannot even get us to act as a group, much less meet with the four-legs. There are other clans, some of them sociable, but they don't live in this spoke. Perhaps you would have luck there, but I doubt it."
The three of them were silent for a time. Cirocco felt heavy with defeat, and Gaby put her hand on her shoulder.