"Hautbois up there with her machete is one reason. Things grow pretty fast, so the road would require a lot of upkeep and no one was willing to do it. Not very many people ever made the round trip. It was a crazy project in the first place. Nobody wanted it but Gaea, but her wants are pretty important here, so I built it."
"With what?"
"Titanides, mostly. To build the bridges, I'd blimp in a couple hundred of them. For leveling and grading and laying asphalt, I-"
"Asphalt? You're kidding."
"No, you can still see some of it when the light's better. Gaea specified one lane of blacktop, wide enough for a two-meter axle, no grades steeper than ten percent. We put in fifty-seven rope suspension bridges and a hundred twenty-two on pilings. A lot are still standing, but I'd think twice before using them. We'll have to take each one as it comes."
Gaby had mentioned the highway before. Chris decided she wanted to talk about it, for whatever reason, but would need some prompting. He was willing.
"You're not going to tell me you ... blimped in? Carried asphalt in on blimps. You said they wouldn't go near a fire, and besides, that sounds like a lot of asphalt."
"It was. No, Gaea whomped up something-several things, actually-that made the job a lot easier. Not too pleasant, though. There was one critter the size of a Tyrannosaurus rex, who ate trees. I used fifty of them. They'd clear a path through forests and leave big piles of wood pulp. I think they could digest about a thousandth of what they ate, so they ate a hell of a lot of trees. Then there was something else-and I swear this is the truth-a thing about the size of a subway car that ate wood pulp and shit asphalt. You wouldn't believe the smell. This wasn't good clean asphalt-which, come to think of it, doesn't smell all that great by itself-this ... this crap was loaded with esters and ketones and I don't know what. Think of a whale that's been dead for three weeks. That'll give you a start.
"Luckily nobody had to stay close to the things. The sawmills-that's what we called the tree eaters-they weren't too bright, but they were docile and could be trained to eat only trees that were sprayed with a certain scent. We'd go on ahead, blazing trail, and the sawmills would follow. Then we'd get behind them and shovel all that wood pulp where we wanted the road to be. Well, then we'd put the 'stilleries-the asphalt creatures, you understand. We called them distilleries. We'd put them on the trail of pulp, and they'd start doing their thing. We'd stay ten kilometers upwind. There wasn't much chance they'd go astray because wood pulp was all they could eat. And not just any wood pulp, but stuff that had gone through the stomach of a sawmill. They had the brains of a slug.
"Two or three weeks later, when the stuff had detoxified, I'd move in a crew of forty or fifty Titanides to pull big rollers and pack the stuff down. Presto. A highway. Of course, dumb as they were, sometimes the 'stilleries did get a little confused, like if we'd not swept up the traces of pulp from some spot. Then they'd get stalled and start to whine like a two-hundred-tonne puppy. We'd draw lots to see who had to go in and straighten the damn thing out. That happened several times, and it was almost worth your life to go in there, let me tell you. Until I solved it."
"How did you do that?"
"Found a Titanide who'd taken a sword across the face in the Angel War," Gaby said smugly. "The nerves were cut, and she couldn't smell. She'd go in and lead the thing on the end of a rope. When it was all over, I had Rocky give her a hindmothership at the next Carnival, I was so grateful.
"Of course, it isn't paved all the way. That would be sillier than usual, even for Gaea. There's no point in spreading blacktop over desert sands or on ice. One-third of Gaea is desert or frozen over. There we blasted paths when we could and left a series of way stations. If you ever get in trouble and come across a hut with the words Plauget Construction Company on the door, you'll know who put it there."
"How do you get wagons across the ice then?" Chris asked.
"Huh? Oh, the same way you do with any ice. Not that many people ever took wagons on the Circum-Gaea. You switch to a sleigh. You follow the frozen Ophion in Thea; it's about the only way through the mountains anyway. Oceanus is one big frozen sea, nice and flat, so that's no problem, if anything in Oceanus can be said to be no problem. In the deserts, you just find your way across as best you can. We made some oases."
Chris saw an odd expression on Gaby's face. It was a little wistful but mostly happy. He knew she was looking back fondly to the old days, and he hated to ask his next question. But he thought it was why she had been talking in the first place.
"Why did you build it?"
"Huh?"
"What's it for? You said yourself there was no demand for a road. There's been no maintenance and no traffic. Why build it?"
Gaby sat up from her usual position, facing the rear, leaning against Psaltery's back. Chris couldn't get used to the position; he liked to see where he was going. The problem, as Gaby had discovered long ago, was that a Titanide was too high and wide in the torso to see around.
"I did it because Gaea told me to. Hired me to, rather. I told you that."
"Yeah. You also said it was an unpleasant job."
"Not all of it," she pointed out. "The bridges were a challenge. I liked that. I wasn't a road builder-I wasn't even an engineer, though it wasn't hard to pick up the math-so I used a couple people from the embassy at first. For the first five-hundred kilometers I learned from them. After that I worked out my own solutions." She was silent awhile, then looked at him.
"But you're right. I didn't do it because I wanted to. I was paid, like I'm paid for all the work I do for Gaea. I'd have passed this one up, but the wages turned out to be too good."
"What was it?"
"Eternal youth." She grinned. "Or near enough to it. Rocky gets it free, for being the Wizard. I found out not too long after I got here that the offer didn't extend to me. So I worked out this arrangement with Gaea. I'm getting immortality on the installment plan. The thing about being a free-lance, you don't get the medical benefits of a salaried employee. If Gaea ever runs out of things for me to do, I'm washed up. I'll probably shrivel up in a day."
"You're not serious."
"No. I expect I'll just start to age. It might be more rapidly. But I've got this-hey, where's Rocky?"
Chris looked behind him, then realized Hornpipe had gone to the front to blaze trail. A fog had descended, further worsening the visibility. He could barely see Robin and Hautbois, and Hornpipe was completely swallowed in the mist.
Psaltery surged ahead, and Valiha quickened her pace to draw even with Hautbois. The two teams quickly caught Gaby, who was engaged in heated conversation with Hornpipe.
"She said she was going back to speak to you, and-"
"Are you sure, Hornpipe?"
"What are you... oh. I didn't, honest. She said she was going to ride with you for a while. She might be hurt. Perhaps she fell, and-"
"Not bloody likely." Gaby scowled and rubbed her forehead. "You can stay here, backtrack a little, see if you can find her. The rest of us will go on. I'm pretty sure I know where she is."
Machu Picchu perched high above the layer of cottony clouds. It was possible to stand on the front porch of the Melody Shop, lit by the incredible celestial spotlight, and look out over a vast sea of mist that stretched between the highland cliff ramparts, north to south. It spilled from the invisible spoke mouth over Oceanus and came tumbling over Hyperion. In places updrafts had rolled themselves into fluffy, hollow tubes as they passed into higher and thus slower-moving regions of the atmosphere. The tubes were cyclonic disturbances set on edge and attentuated until they looked like toppled tornadoes. They were called mistrollers. Occasionally violent storms came out of Oceanus, and those were called steamrollers.