But Cirocco had felt even then that it was important. It was just a feeling, but she trusted her feelings. Some vital part of Gaea lived up there in the most inaccessible spot of a world filled with daunting vistas. It was at least twenty kilometers from where she sat.
"I would think you would be curious as to the answers to your requests," Gaea finally said. Cirocco brought her head forward and looked at Gaea again. There was no emotion on her face, as there had not been from the time she arrived.
"I couldn't be less interested. I told you what I was going to do, and then I told you what you were going to do. There is nothing further to say."
"I doubt that." Gaea looked at her narrowly. "Because this is absolutely impossible. You must know that, and you must have some threat to make, though I can't imagine what it might be."
Cirocco merely looked at her.
"You could not imagine that I would meekly grant your ... very well, accede to your demands, if you prefer it that way. Demand or request, it matters little if the answer is no. Then you must tell me what you will do."
"The answer is no?"
"It is."
"Then I must kill you."
There was now no sound to be heard in the vastness of the hub. Several hundred humans stood grouped loosely behind Gaea's chair, hanging on to every word. They all were fearful people or they would not have been there, and certainly most of them were wondering only how Gaea would dispose of this woman. But a few, looking at Cirocco, began to wonder if they had put their allegiance in the right place.
"You really have taken leave of your senses. You have no plutonium or uranium and no way to get any. I doubt if you could fashion a weapon if you did. If you could conjure a nuclear device with the magic you seem to believe you possess, you would not use it because to do so would destroy the Titanides you have such affection for." She sighed again and turned one hand over carelessly. "I never pretended immortality. I know how much time I have left. I am not indestructible. Atomic bombs-in large quantities and placed with calculation-could fragment my body or at least render me uninhabitable. Short of that, I know of nothing that can do me serious harm. So how do you propose to kill me?"
"With my bare hands, if necessary."
"Or die in the attempt."
"If it comes to that."
"Exactly." Gaea closed her eyes, and her lips moved soundlessly. At last she looked at Cirocco again.
"I should have expected it. You would find it less painful to throw away your life than to live with what has happened. It is my fault, I admit it, but I don't want to see you wasted. You are worth this entire group, and more."
"I am worth nothing unless I do what I must do."
"Cirocco, I apologize for what I did. Wait, wait, hear me out. Give me this chance. I thought I could conceal what I was doing, and I was wrong. You won't deny that she was plotting my overthrow and that you were helping her-"
"I regret nothing but the fact I hesitated too long."
"Surely. That's understandable. I know the depth of your bitterness and of your hatred. It's all so unnecessary because what I did was done more from pride than fear; you can't think I was seriously worried that her puny efforts would-"
"Watch what you say about her. I won't warn you again."
"I'm sorry. The fact remains that nothing she or you could do would cause me any discomfort. I destroyed her for the insolence of thinking it would be done and, by doing so, have cost myself your loyalty. I find that a heavy price to pay. I want you back, fear I cannot, and yet want you to stay if for no other reason than to give the place some class."
"It needs some, but I can't do it, even if I had any."
"You underrate yourself. What you have demanded is impossible. You are not the first Wizard I have nominated in my three million years. There is only one way to leave the job, and that is feet first. No one has survived it, and no one will. But there is something I can do. I can bring her back."
Cirocco put her head in her hands and said nothing for a very long time. At last she moved, putting both arms under her shapeless blanket, hugging herself, and rocking slowly back and forth. "This is the only thing I was afraid of," she said, to no one.
"I can re-create her exactly as she was," Gaea went on. "You are aware that I carry tissue samples of you both. When you were examined initially, and when you report for the immortality treatments, I tap your memories. Hers are quite up to date. I can grow her body and fill it with her essence. She will be herself, I swear it; it will be impossible to tell any difference. It is what I will do with you if despite everything, it becomes necessary to kill you. I can give her back to you, with only one change, and that is to remove her compulsion to destroy me. Only that and nothing more."
She waited, and Cirocco said nothing.
"Very well," Gaea said, waving a hand impatiently. "I won't even change that. She will be herself in all respects. I can hardly do better than that."
Cirocco had been looking at a point slightly above Gaea's head. Now she brought her eyes down and shifted on her chair.
"This was the only thing I was afraid of," she repeated. "I thought about not even coming here so I wouldn't have to listen to the offer and be tempted. Because it is tempting. It would be such a nice way to feel better about so many things and to find an excuse to go on living. But then I wondered what Gaby would have thought of it and knew just what a stinking, corrupt, foul deviltry it would be. She would have been horrified to think she would be survived by a little Gaby doll made by you out of your own festering flesh. She would have wanted me to kill it immediately. And thinking a little more, I knew that every time I saw it I would eat out a little more of my guts until there was nothing left."
She sighed, looked up, then down to Gaea.
"Is that your last offer then?" Cirocco said.
"It is. Don't do-"
The explosions could not be separated. Five closely spaced holes appeared in the front of Cirocco's serape, and her heavy chair slid backward two meters before she was through firing. The back of Gaea's head erupted blood. At least three of the bullets entered her body near chest level. She was thrown backward and rolled loosely for thirty meters before coming to rest.
Cirocco stood, ignoring the pandemonium, and walked to her. She brought Robin's Colt .45 automatic from beneath her wrap, aimed it at Gaea's head, and squeezed off the last three shots. Moving rapidly now in a gathering quiet, she took out a metal can and opened it, poured a clear liquid over the corpse. She dropped a match and stood back as flames burst into the air and began to creep along the carpet.
"So much for gestures," she said, then turned to the crowd. She pointed with her gun toward the nearest cathedral.
"Your only chance is to run toward the spoke," she told them. "When you reach the edge, jump. You will be picked up by angels and landed safely in Hyperion." Having said that, she forgot them totally. It was a matter of no consequence if they lived or died.
She was breathing rapidly as she ejected the empty magazine and took a loaded one from her concealed pocket. She snapped it in, pulled the slide back and let it return forward, then walked away from the growing fire.