"I thought when you cleared away the rocks ..." Robin wailed.
Trini turned back, and it was as if Cirocco had turned to stone. Finally her lips moved, but her voice was dead.
"We found nothing," she said.
"I don't know what to say. We left her there. We wanted to bury her, but there was just no ..." She trailed off into tears, and Cirocco stood. Her eyes looked at nothing as she turned, and Trini knew she would never forget those dead eyes that swept over her as if she were not there as the Wizard of Gaea fumbled for the door latch and stepped outside onto the narrow porch. They heard her going down the ladder; then there was no sound at all but Robin's weeping.
They worried about her, but when they looked out, she was standing with her back to them, a hundred meters away, knee-deep in snow. She did not move for more than an hour. Trini was going to go out and get her, but Larry said give her more time. Then Robin said she had to talk to her, and he went down the ladder. Trini could see him speaking to her. Cirocco did not turn her head but did follow him when he put his hand on her shoulder.
When she was back inside, her face was still dead to all emotion as she knelt beside Robin's cot and waited.
"Gaby told us something," Robin began. "I'm sorry, but I think she wanted just you to hear it, and this room is too small for privacy."
"Larry, Trini," Cirocco said, "would you wait in the plane? I'll flash the lights in here when you can return."
Neither Cirocco nor Robin moved as the two of them put on their coats and boots and left, pulling the door closed quietly behind them. They spent an uncomfortable hour in the plane, protected from the wind but cold all the same. Neither of them complained. When the lights flashed, they returned, and Trini did not immediately see the difference in Cirocco's face, but it was there. It was still painful to look at, and it was still dead, in a sense. But it was not dead like the face of a corpse; it was more like a face carved in granite.
And the eyes burned.
40 Proud Heritage
There had to be easier things than shepherding a pregnant, disabled Titanide through a dark terrain that would have daunted a mountain goat. On the other hand, Chris could think of some things that were probably harder, and many things less pleasant. The company was some compensation, and the fact that the path was marked for them. Everything balanced, and it came to seem as if that were the way it should be. Valiha's arms grew stronger, but their pace did not improve because she was gaining weight. They had to be more careful than ever lest her growing awkwardness provoke a slip that might hurt her still-fragile forelegs. As she neared her term, the new delights of anterior sex play tapered off and stopped. But the frontal sex got even better as her legs improved. He gradually lost the exciting, exotic sense of alienness he had once felt when he was around her, to the point he sometimes wondered how she had ever looked odd. Yet with familiarity grew an easy acceptance that drew them closer.
Valiha swelled like a ripening pumpkin. She grew more radiantly beautiful and, curiously, more mottled with brownish freckles.
There would be few surprises. Chris began completely ignorant of Titanide birthing, but by the time Serpent was ready to be born he knew as much as Valiha. He had been making many assumptions that led to needless apprehension.
He knew, for instance, that Valiha was not using a general pronoun when she called her child he. That had been planned with the other two parents. He knew-but still could not quite believe-that Valiha was in communication with the fetus in a way she never satisfactorily described. She claimed they had decided on his name together, though she had influenced him because of a circumstance beyond her control. That concerned the Titanide custom of naming a child after the first instrument he or she owned. The custom was no longer universal, but Valiha was traditional and had been working for some time on the first instrument for her son: the serpent, a sinuous tube of wood played like a brass horn. In the cavern, her choice of building materials had been limited.
He knew the birth would not be painful, would not take long, and Serpent would be born able to walk and talk. But when she told him she hoped the child would be able to speak English, Chris's first thought was that she was a fool. He did not say that but expressed his doubt.
"I know," Valiha said. "The Wizard is dubious, too. This is not the first time an attempt has been made to birth a child with two milk tongues. Yet even the Wizard will not say it cannot be done. Our genetics is not yours. Many things happen differently inside us."
"Like what?"
"I know nothing of the scientific side of it. But you must admit we are different. The Wizard has successfully crossed Titanide eggs with the genetic matter of frogs, fish, dogs, and apes in the laboratory."
"That goes against everything I ever read about genetics," Chris admitted. "Not that I know much either. But what does that have to do with Serpent speaking English? Even if he had human parents-which you say he doesn't-all we can do when we're born is yell."
"The Wizard calls it the Lysenko effect," Valiha said. "She has demonstrated to her own satisfaction that Titanides can inherit acquired characteristics. We-those of us who postulate that English might be passed on-speculate that if sufficiently reinforced, it could be done. You once asked me if I had swallowed a dictionary. That is almost true. For the experiment it is necessary that all the parents know all English words. This is a goal one can never attain, but we have good memories."
"I can vouch for that." Something about it disturbed Chris, and it took him a long time to put his finger on it. Even when he had it, he was not sure just why it upset him, but it did.
"What I want to know is why," Chris said much later. "Why English when your own language is so beautiful? Not that I understand it, though I wish I could. From what I gather, aside from Cirocco and Gaby, who got it implanted in them, no human has ever gone beyond the pidgin stage in singing Titanide."
"It's true. We know the language instinctively, and humans, despite their often great intellectual attainments, have had no luck with it. Our songs will not parse and are seldom the same, even when the same thought is expressed. The Wizard has speculated there is a telepathic component."
"Whatever. My point is-or maybe I should say it's my question - why are you working so hard at this? What's wrong with Titanide? I think it's a miracle you're born knowing any language. Why try for English?"
"Perhaps you misunderstood," Valiha said. "Serpent will know how to sing. This is assured. I would not dream of trying to take that ability away from him. I would as soon wish he be born with only two legs as ... oh, dear. Please-"
Chris laughed and said it was okay.
"I was alluding to a saying used when one is experiencing great difficulties. Then we say, 'Going at it on two legs, both of them on the left.'"
"Sure you were."
"I promise you that ... you're teasing me again. I suppose I'll get used to it one day."
"Not if I can help it. You still haven't told me why you're doing this."
"I would think it would be obvious."
"Not to me."
She sighed. "Very well. As to why English, the first humans in Gaea spoke it, and it just caught on. As to why any human language ... since first contact there have been more humans living here all the time. You don't come in great numbers, but you keep coming. It seems a good idea to know as much about you as we can."
"The unpleasant neighbors who've moved in to stay, huh?"
Valiha considered it. "I don't wish to sound disparaging about humans. As individuals, some of them are as nice as anyone could wish-"