"I didn't do anything," the man moaned." I swear, just ask Rocky. I wouldn't do anything, I've been real good. You know me, Gaby."
"I know you too well, Gene. I've had two chances to kill you, and I was a fool to pass up either of them. Get up and face it; at least you can do that. Get up, or I'll slaughter you like the pig you are."
"No, no, you'll hurt me." He doubled over, hands in his crotch, and began to sob. He would have been a pathetic sight even standing erect. His face and arms-in fact, all his visible skin-were crisscrossed with old scar tissue. His feet were bare and filthy, and his clothes were tatters. There was a black, piratical patch over his left eye, and most of one ear was missing.
"Get up!" Gaby ordered. Robin was surprised to hear Cirocco speak, in a voice that sounded almost sober.
"He's right, Gaby," she said quietly. "He didn't do anything. Hell, he tried to run as soon as he saw me. It was just such a surprise, seeing him again."
Gaby stood a little straighter. Her eyes lost some of their fire. "Are you saying you don't want me to kill him?" she asked tonelessly.
"Chri'sake, Gaby," Cirocco mumbled. She seemed calm now, but listless. "You can't just slice him up like a side o' beef."
"Yeah. I know. I've heard that before." She went down on one knee beside him, used the flat of her knife blade to turn his head. "What are you doing here, Gene? What are you up to?"
He simpered and stuttered meaninglessly for a while. "Just getting a drink, is all. A man's throat gets dry, what with the heat wave."
"Your friends aren't here. There must be a reason for you to come to Titantown. You wouldn't take a chance on meeting me, for one thing, unless you had a reason to risk it."
"That's right, that's right, Gaby, I'm scared of you, all right. Yes, sir, old Gene knows better than to get in your way." He thought about that for a moment and didn't appear to like the implications, so he promptly changed course. "I forgot, is all. Hell, Gaby, I didn't know you'd be here, that's all."
Robin could see he was a man so habituated to lying that he himself might not know the truth. It was also obvious that he was truly terrified of Gaby. He must have been twice her size, yet he never thought of fighting.
Gaby stood and gestured with her knife. "Get up. Gene? Don't make me tell you again."
"You won't hurt me?"
"If I ever see you again, I will hurt you bad. Do we understand each other? I'm saying I won't kill you. But if I ever see you again, anywhere, ever, I will hurt you bad. From now on it's your business to be sure our paths never cross."
"I will, I will. I promise."
"When we meet again, Gene," she said, and gestured with her knife, "I'll cut out the other one."
The gesture had not been toward his one good eye, but considerably lower.
16 The Circumnavigators' Club
Even with Hornpipe's strong arm supporting her Cirocco fell down twice while the Titanides were being loaded. She kept declaring she would make it on her own steam.
The gear Chris had bought was waiting, as promised, in a shed behind La Gata, along with the possessions of the others. The Titanides had saddlebags which strapped around their backs and cinched underneath. Valiha twisted around and fastened hers, ending with a capacious leather and canvas bag on each side of her equine lower half. The arrangement left room for Chris to ride. He jumped aboard and opened the bags, which already contained the things Valiha was bringing. She handed him his baggage, item by item, telling him to balance the contents. When he was done, each bag was less than half full. She said this was as it should be because when they left the river and took to the road, the extra space would be filled with provisions that were already on the boats.
While he was packing, Chris watched Gaby and Hornpipe trying to get Cirocco calmed down and aboard the Titanide. It was rather pathetic and more than a little worrisome. He noticed that Robin, kneeling atop Hautbois a few meters away, was also watching the spectacle. It was nearly pitch-black, the only light coming from the oil lamps the Titanides held, but he could see her frown.
"Having second thoughts about the trip?" he asked her.
She looked up in surprise. They had not spoken before-or at least not when he remembered it-and he wondered what she thought of him. He found her decidedly odd. He had learned that what he thought were paintings were in fact tattoos. Snakes with multicolored scales had wrapped their tails around her right big toe and her left little finger, and their bodies coiled up her leg and arm to slither beneath her clothes. He wondered what the heads looked like and if she sported any other art.
She turned back to her packing. "When I sign on, I stay on," she said. Her hair was falling into her eyes; with a toss of her head, she revealed her other physical oddity. Most of the left side of her head was shaved to reveal a complicated pentagonal design centering on her left ear. It made her look as if her wig were slipping.
She glanced again at Cirocco, then looked at Chris with what might have been a friendly smile. The tattoos made it hard to tell.
"I know what you mean, though," she conceded. "They can call her a Wizard if they want to, but I know a drunk when I see one."
Chris and Valiha were the last of the eight to emerge from the darkness beneath the Titantown tree. He blinked in the light for a moment, then smiled. It felt good to be moving. It hardly mattered what he was moving toward.
The other three teams made a pretty picture as they crested the first hill and started down the sun-baked dirt road between fields of tall yellow grain. Gaby was in the lead, wearing her Robin Hood greens and grays, mounted on the chocolate brown Psaltery with his orange flame of hair. Behind them was Hornpipe, with Cirocco prone on his back. Only her legs were visible, protruding from the dull red serape. Hornpipe's hair seemed black when seen in dim light; now it sparkled like a nest of fine prisms, flying out behind him. Even Hautbois's brown and olive swirls looked grand in the sunlight, and her dandelion of white head hair was glorious. Robin rode with her back straight and her feet on the saddlebags, dressed in loose pants and a light knitted shirt.
He made himself comfortable on Valiha's broad back. Taking a deep breath, he thought he could taste that elusive quality of the air that often precedes a summer rainstorm. To the west he could see weather rolling in from Oceanus. There were clouds: fat, wet rolls of cotton. They were elongated toward the north and south. Sometimes they came in strings, like sausages, and the higher, thinner ones often appeared to be unrolling, laying a thin sheet of white as they moved. It had something to do with the Coriolis effect, whatever that was. It was a great day to be going somewhere. Chris had not believed he could sleep on the back of a Titanide, but it turned out that he could. He was awakened by Valiha.
Psaltery was walking on a long dock reaching into Ophion. Valiha followed, and soon her hooves clomped on wooden planks. Moored to the dock were four large canoes. They were wooden frameworks with a silvery material stretched over the ribs. It made them look like the aluminum craft which had been a standard on Terran lakes and streams for almost two centuries. Their bottoms were reinforced with planks. In the center of each was a mound of supplies covered with red canvas and secured with ropes.
They rode high in the water, but when Psaltery stepped into the stern of one, it sank noticeably. Chris watched in fascination as the Titanide nimbly moved about on the narrow deck, removing his saddlebags and stowing them in the bow. He had never thought of Titanides as a seafaring race, but Psaltery looked as if he knew his way around a boat