"What do you think? Is she telling the truth?"
"I suspect she is. It sounds just like what Meistersinger told me. They have no control over it." She looked up, and spoke to April.
"You were saying that you tried to see Gaea. Why?"
"For peace. I wanted to ask her why the war had to be. I'm quite happy, but for that. She did not hear my call."
Or she doesn't exist, Cirocco thought.
"Will you still go seek her?" April asked.
"I don't know. What's the point? Why would this super- human being stop a way just because I ask her to?"
"There are worse things to do in We than to have a quest to fulfill. If you turned back now, what would you do?"
"I don't know that, either."
"You've come a long way. You must have overcome great
difficulties. My people say Gaea likes a good story, and she likes great heroes. Are you a hero?"
She thought of Gene spinning down into the blackness, of Panpipe n~ to his doom, of the mudfish bearing down on her. Surely a hero would have done better than that.
"She is," Gaby said, suddenly. "Of all of us, only Rocky has held to her purpose. We'd still be sitting in mud shacks if she hadn't pushed us. She kept us moving toward a goal. We may not reach it, but when that rescue ship comes, I'll bet they find us still trying."
Cirocco was embarrassed, but strangely moved. She had been fighting a sense of failure since the capture; it didn't hurt to know someone thought she was doing well. But a hero? No, not hardly. She had only done what had to be done.
"I think Gaea will be impressed," April said. "Go to her. Stand in her hub and shout. Do not grovel or beg. Tell her you have a right to some answers, for all of us. She will listen."
"Come with us, April."
The angel-woman edged away.
"My name is Ariel the Swift. I go with no one, and no one goes with me. I will never see you again." She dived once more, and Cirocco knew she would keep her word.
She looked at Gaby, who rolled her eyes upward with a slight twist of her mouth.
"Up?"
"Why the hell not? There are a few things I'd like to ask."
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
"I'm not a hero, you know."
"All right, heroine."
Cirocco chuckled. They were bedded down m the last day of their fourteenth winter together, their eighth month in the spoke. There were now only ten kilometers separating them from the hub. They could do it in their sleep, as soon as the thaw started.
"Not even that. If there's a heroine here, it has to be you." Gaby shook her head.
"I've helped out. This probably would have been a lot harder for you if I hadn't been here."
Cirocco squeezed her hand.
"But I've just tagged along. I've helped you out of some messes, but I don't qualify as a hero. A hero wouldn't have tried to throw Gene over the side with no parachute. You would have made it here by yourself. I wouldn't have."
They were silent, each with her own thoughts.
Cirocco was not sure what Gaby said was true. Part of it was accurate, though she would never agree with it out loud. Gaby could not have brought them this far. She was not a leader.
But am I? She wondered. She had certainly tried hard enough to he one. Could she have made it alone? She doubted it.
"It's been fun, hasn't it?" Gaby asked, quietly.
Cirocco was genuinely surprised. Was it possible to call eight months, struggle fun?
"I don't think that's the word I would have used." "No, you're right. But you know what I mean."
Oddly enough, she did. She was at last able to understand the depression that had plagued her during the last weeks. The trip would soon be over. They would discover the means to return to Earth, or they would not.
"I don't want to go back to Earth," Cirocco said. "Me either."
"But we can't just turn back." "You know best."
"No, I'm just stubborn. But we do have to go on. I owe it to April and Gene-and the rest of us, too-to find out what's been done to us, and why."
"Get out those swords, will you?"
"You expecting trouble?"
"Nothing that a sword would cure. I'd just feel better with it in my hand. I'm supposed to be a hero, right?"
Gaby didn't argue. She went down on one knee and rummaged through the extra pack, came up with the short swords and tossed one to Cirocco.
They were standing near the top of what had to be the last staircase. Like the one they had climbed at the bottom of the spoke, it made a spiral around the cable, which they had re-discovered at the top of a long, bare incline that marked the margin between the forest and the upper spoke valve. Climbing the slope had been pick, rope, and piton work, occupying them for two arduous days.
With no lamp oil remaining, the climb up the stairs had been done in total darkness, one step at a time. It had passed without incident until Cirocco had discerned a faint, red glow in front of them. Suddenly she had felt the need of a sword in her hand.
it was a fine weapon, though the hilt was too large. It weighed nothing at all this high in Gaea. She struck a match and touched the figure of a Titanide chased into the flat of the blade.
"You look like a Frazetta oil," Gaby said. She looked down at herself. She was ragged, wrapped in the tatters of her fine clothing. Her skin was pale where it was clean enough to see. She had lost weight; what was left was hard and wiry. Her feet and hands were tough as leather.
"And I always wanted to be one of those Maxfield Parrish girls. So much more lady-like."
She shook the match out and lit another. Gaby was still looking at her. Her eyes glowed in the yellow light. Cirocco suddenly felt very good. She smiled, then laughed quietly, reached out and put her hand on Gaby's shoulder. Gaby returned the gesture, a half-smile on her face.
"Do you ... have some kind of feeling about this?" Gaby gestured with her sword toward the top of the stairs.
"Maybe I do." She laughed again, and then shrugged. "Nothing specific. We ought to be on our toes."
Gaby said "not" but wiped her palm on her thigh before settling her fingers firmly around her sword hilt. Then she laughed.
"I don't know how to use this. "
"Just act as if you do. When we get to the top of the stairs, leave all the gear behind."
"You sure?"
"I don't want the extra mass. "
"The hub's a big place, Rocky. It might take a while to search it. "
"I've got a feeling it won't be long. Not long at all."
She blew out the second match. They waited until their eyes had adjusted, until they could see the faint glow from above. Then they walked, side by side, up the last hundred steps.
They ascended into a pulsing red night.
The only light came from the laser-straight line overhead. The ceiling was lost in gloom. To their left, a cable loomed, a black shadow in the blacker air.
The walls, the floor, and the air itself reverberated with the rhythm of a slow heartbeat. They faced into a cold, thin wind, blowing from the unseen entrance to the Oceanus spoke.
"It's going to he tough to nose around," Gaby whispered. "I can only see about twenty meters of floor."
Cirocco said nothing. She shook her head to clear the odd, heavy feeling that had come over her, then fought off an attack of dizziness. She wanted to sit down, she wanted to turn back. She was afraid, and did not dare give in to it.
She held up her sword and saw it shimmer like a pool of blood. She took one step forward, then another. Gaby kept pace, and- they walked into the darkness.
Her teeth hurt. She realized she had been biting down hard, jaw muscles knotted. She stopped, and shouted.
"I'm here! "
After long seconds an echo returned, then a series of them trailing into oblivion.
She held her sword above her head and shouted again.
"I'm here! I am Captain Cirocco Jones, commander of the DSY Ringmaster, commissioned by the United States of America, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the United Nations of Earth. I would like to speak with you! "
it seemed like ages before the echoes died away. When they were gone, there was no~ but the slow pulsing of the monstrous heart. They stood back to back, swords ready, looking into the darkness.