"Aha! A sign of life."
"Will you go away?"
"Not until you make me. See, a few days ago you would have ripped my guts out for saying any of the things I just said. It disturbs me to see you just lying there and taking it. Somebody has to restore your self-esteem, and I guess it's got to be me."
"Is that your diagnosis?"
"Part of it, I guess. Malignant lack of self-worth and fear of fear. You're phobophobic, Robin."
She was about to laugh or cry and did not want to do either.
"Will you finish what you have to say and leave me alone, please?"
"You're nineteen years old."
"I never denied it."
"What I'm suggesting is that no matter how tough you think you are, thought you were, you haven't been around long enough to be tested in many, many ways. You went into Tethys thinking nothing could terrify you, and you were wrong. You pissed in your pants and threw up and cried like a baby."
"I'll always appreciate you sparing my feelings like this."
"It's about time someone rubbed your nose in it. You've lived with your seizures most of your life and still haven't really faced them."
"I haven't surrendered to them."
"Of course not. But you won't reach an accommodation. You barely admit they exist. You stood watches over important machinery in the Coven, and by doing it, you put your whole world and all your sisters in danger."
"How did you-" She put her hand to her mouth and bit down on her finger until some of the heat of shame had passed.
"You talk in your sleep," he explained. "Robin, they don't allow epileptics to pilot airplanes. It's not fair to the people the airplane might fall on."
She sighed and nodded jerkily.
"I won't argue with you. But what does that have to do with what happened in the desert?"
"Everything, as I see it. You found out something unpleasant about yourself. You got scared, and you froze. And you're dealing with it the same way you've dealt with your seizures, which is not to deal with it at all. I take that back. You cut off your finger. What are you going to cut off now? If you were a man, I'd have a gruesome suggestion, but I don't know what the heroic gland is supposed to be in a woman. Do you have any ideas? I'm learning surgery. Some practice might do me good."
She hated listening to him, wanted nothing more than for him to stop talking and go away. Far, far away. There was tremendous anger in her somewhere, the pressure was building inexorably, and she felt sure that if he did not leave soon, it would explode and she would kill him. Yet she could not even look at him.
"What would you have me do, then?"
"I already said that. Face it. Recognize that it happened and that you're not proud of it and that it might even happen again. It looks like what you're doing now is trying to pretend it didn't happen, and you can't bring that off, so you just lie there and can't do anything. Tell yourself you were a coward-once, in a very bad situation-and go on from there. Then maybe you can start thinking of how to prevent it happening the next time."
"Or have to face the fact I might do the same thing next time."
"There's always that chance."
She had finally managed to look at him. To her surprise, she was no longer angry when she saw his face. There was no mockery in it. She knew that if she asked him to, he would never say another word about it and never tell anyone else. It somehow didn't seem as important as it had.
"You're a great believer in facing things," she said. "I'd rather fight them. It's ... more satisfying." She shrugged. "It's easier."
"In some ways."
"It would be easier to cut off another finger than do what you say."
"I guess I can believe that, too."
"I'll think about it. Will you leave me alone now?"
"I don't think so. I'm going to be ready to set Valiha's legs soon. While I'm reading everything again and getting the equipment ready, you can make us something to eat. There's still a fair amount of food in Valiha's pack. There's water on the other side of that ridge. Take the lantern with you; I've improvised a torch I can use to read by."
She stared at him. "Is that all?"
"No. While you're going for water, you can look for something we can use for splints. Most of the plants I've seen are pretty small and twisted, but there might be something. Say, five or six straight poles about a meter long."
She rubbed her face. She wanted to sleep for a few years and did not really want to wake up.
"Poles, water, dinner. Anything else?"
"Yes. If you know any songs, go sing them to Valiha. She's in a lot of pain, and there's not much to take her mind off it. I'm saving most of the drugs to use when I set the legs and sew up the wounds." He started to leave, then turned back. "And you could pray to whoever it is you pray to. I've never done anything like this before, and I'm sure I'm going to do it badly. I'm terrified."
How easily he says it, she thought.
"I'll help you."
37 West End
Nasu ran away sometime during the early part of their stay in the cavern. Chris was never able to say precisely when it happened; time had become an irrational quantity.
Robin went through hell trying to find the snake. She blamed herself. Chris was unable to ease her sorrow because he knew she was right. Gaea was no place for an anaconda. Nasu had probably suffered more than anyone, coiled in Robin's shoulder bag, allowed out only briefly. It had been with many misgivings that Robin finally let her out to explore the camp. The rocks were warm, and Robin had expressed the opinion that her demon would not wander far from the light of the small campfire. Chris had his doubts. He felt Robin was unconsciously attributing to the snake almost arcane powers of intelligence and loyalty merely because she was her demon, whatever that meant. He thought it was too much to expect of a snake, and Nasu proved him right. One morning they woke up and Nasu was gone.
For many days they searched the vicinity. Robin scoured every corner, calling Nasu's name. She left out fresh meat in an attempt to lure her back. Nothing worked. It gradually came to a stop as she realized she would never see the animal again. Then she compulsively questioned Chris and Valiha, asking them if they thought the snake would survive. They always said Nasu would have no problem, but Chris was not sure that was the truth.
Gradually both the searches and the questions tapered off, Robin accepted her loss, and the incident melted through the event horizon of their timeless existence.
The problem was that Hornpipe had carried both the clocks. He still had them, assuming he was still alive.
Chris had a hard time convincing himself that it was a problem, even as the evidence mounted. He had experienced a sense of dislocation even on the surface, where the degree of light varied only with distance travelled and, to a lesser extent, with the weather. But then they had had the clock to tell them how much time had gone by, and Gaby had kept them all punctual. Now he realized he had no clear idea how long it had been since they set out from Hyperion. Going back over it, he arrived at figures from thirty-five to forty-five days.
Down in the cavern the timelessness was intensified. Chris and Robin slept when they were tired and called each period a day, while aware that one might be ten hours and another fifty-five. But as the days began to accumulate, Chris found that he had increasing trouble recalling the sequence of things. Further confusion resulted from their late realization that keeping a tally calendar of sleep periods could be of some help. Thus, from fifteen to twenty sleeps went by before they began to make notches in a stick, and all their calculations were plus or minus an unknown number of days. Even the calendar was useful only if they assumed their days averaged twenty-four hours, and Chris was far from sure it was safe to assume that.