"Yyyuuu ... ssss. Yu ... yessss. Llluuh ... eeeeve. Leeeeeve muh-muh-muh-meee."
It was a hell of a problem. Gaby put her down and stood over her, scratching her head. She looked toward the campfire, not far away, and back again to Robin. They were atop a low hill; rising water would be no problem. Nor would she drown from the rainfall. This part of Hyperion held no predators that would give her trouble, though some small animals might try a nibble.
This would have to be straightened out later. Some sort of accommodation had to be reached, for Gaby would not do this again. But for now she turned away and headed back toward camp.
Hautbois stood up, alarmed, when Gaby returned alone. Gaby knew the Titanide had seen them leave together; it was likely she even knew what they intended to do, out there in the rain. Gaby reassured her before she could jump to conclusions.
"She's all right. At least, I guess she is. She's having a seizure and doesn't want my help. We can get her when it's time to go. Where are you going?"
"To bring her back to the tent, of course."
"I don't think she'll appreciate it."
Hautbois looked as angry as Gaby had ever seen a Titanide be.
"You humans and your silly games," she snorted. "I don't have to play by her rules or yours either."
Robin saw Hautbois looming through the wall of rain. Damn it, Gaby had sent back the cavalry; that much was obvious.
"I came on my own," the Titanide said as she picked Robin out of the mud. "Whatever human concept you are trying to defend by this insane act can remain unviolated because no human agency is taking you from here."
Put me down, you overgrown hobbyhorse, Robin tried to say, and heard the despised croaks and gurgles drool over her slack jaw.
"I'll take care of you," Hautbois said tenderly.
Robin was calm as Hautbois put her atop the sleeping bag. Stop fighting, submit to it, wait it out, and win eventually. You're helpless now, but you can get back at them.
Hautbois returned with a bucket of warm water. She bathed Robin, dried her, held her up like a defective robot rag doll, and put her into the embroidered finery of her nightgown. Robin might have weighed no more than a sheet of paper as Hautbois lifted her with one hand and slid her into the sleeping bag. She tucked it up around her neck.
She began to sing.
Robin felt heat in the back of her throat. It horrified her. To be tucked in, bathed, dressed... it was a terrible affront to her dignity. She should be able to summon more anger than she was feeling. She should be composing the blistering verbal assault she would deliver to this creature as soon as she regained her body. Instead, she felt only the choking lump of an emotion she had long forgotten.
Weeping was unthinkable. Once it was surrendered to, one might never be free of the self-pity. It was her biggest fear, so terrifying that she seldom could so much as name it. There had been times, all alone, when she had wept. She could never do it while with someone. And yet in a sense she was alone. Hautbois had said it herself. Human rules, Coven concepts, need not apply here. It went beyond that; the Coven did not demand that she never cry. It was her own self-enforced discipline.
She heard moaning and knew it was coming from her mouth. Tears were leaking from the corners of her eyes. The lump in her throat could not be swallowed, so it would have to come out.
Robin surrendered and cried herself to sleep in Hautbois's arms.
Chris reclined on his sleeping bag in the damned half-light and trembled. For hours it had felt as if an attack might be imminent, but it refused to start. Or had it? As he had told Gaby, he was not the one to judge if he was in an episode. But that was not strictly true. If he were having an attack, he would not know it, it would seem perfectly reasonable for his mind to be operating like a machine with worn pulleys and bent gears, but he would not be here sweating.
He told himself it was the light and the rain beating on the tent roof. The light was all wrong. As it came through the tent walls, it had to be either early morning and time to get up, or late evening and much too early to sleep. It would not turn into decent night.
What with the rain, it was amazing the things he had been able to hear. There were the quiet songs of the Titanides and the crackle and pop of the fire. Someone had approached his tent, stood outside it, casting her shadow on the walls, and walked away. Later he had heard voices in conversation and people walking away. Much later someone had returned.
And now someone else was approaching. Not even the Wizard would cast a shadow as large as that.
"Knock, knock."
"Come in, Valiha."
She had a towel with her, and while she stuck her head and torso in to hold the tent flaps open, she used it to wipe the mud from her front hooves before stepping onto the canvas floor. She did the same with her back legs, twisting and leaning back while lifting each leg, managing to suggest a dog scratching behind an ear without looking at all awkward. She was wearing a violet rain slicker which was almost a tent in itself. By the time she had removed it and hung it on a peg near the door Chris had worked up considerable curiosity as to the purpose of her visit.
"Do you mind if I light the lantern?"
"Go right ahead."
The tent was Titanide-sized, meaning she could stand erect in the center and had just enough room to turn around. The lamp cast fantastic shadows of her until she hung it from the ridgepole and sat down with her legs folded.
"I can't stay long," she said. "In fact, it might have been a mistake to come here at all. However, here I am."
If she had intended to mystify him, she couldn't have done a better job. Her hands were nervously fiddling with the edge of her pouch, something that was hard for Chris to watch. Her thumbs hooked in the edge of it, and she stretched it out like the elastic band on a pair of bathing trunks.
"I've been upset since I realized that you ... you really don't remember the hundred revs we spent together after I found you wandering beneath Cirocco's Stairs, after your Big Drop."
"How long is a hundred revs?"
"A little over four days, in your reckoning. One rev is sixty-one minutes."
"That's quite a while. Did we have a good time?"
She glanced up at him, then resumed her fumbling.
"I did. You said you did, too. What has bothered me is that you might have the impression that I was using you solely for a good-luck charm, as I said when you first returned to your senses."
Chris shrugged. "It wouldn't bother me if you had. And if I brought you good luck, I'm glad I did."
"That isn't it." She bit her lower lip, and Chris was surprised to see a tear, quickly wiped away. "Gaea curse me," she moaned, "I can't say it right. I don't even know what I'm trying to say, except thank you. Even though you don't remember." She dug into her pouch and came out with something which she pressed into his hand. "This is for you," she said, and stood and was gone practically before he knew what had happened. He opened his hand and looked at the Titanide egg. Its dominant color was yellow, like Valiha herself, but there were swirls of black. There was an inscription on its hard surface, in tiny, spidery English characters:
Valiha (Aeolian Solo) Madrigaclass="underline" Long-Odds Major
26th Gigarev; 97,628,6851 Rev (Anno Domini 2100)
"Gaea Says Not Why She Spins."
19 Eternal Youth
"If you're worried about a paternity suit," Cirocco said, "you can forget it. Titanides don't work that way."
"I didn't mean ... maybe I'm expressing myself badly."
Chris was in Cirocco's canoe. He sat toward the middle while the Wizard lolled in the bow. Her head was on a pillow. There were puffy blue bags under her eyes, and her complexion was unhealthy. Even so, it was a great improvement on a few hours ago. Chris had elected to travel with Cirocco with the intent of quizzing her about Human-Titanide sex but had put it off when he saw her face.