Titan (GAIA) (20 page)

When they were through, it was nearing time for a sleep period. Cirocco wanted to see if they could make it to dry ground, not really trusting their arrangements for the fire, but Bill suggested they make a kill first.

“I’m getting pretty tired of those melons,” he said. “The last one I had tasted rancid.”

“Yeah, but there’s no smilers. I haven’t seen one in days.”

“Then we’ll knock over something else. We need some meat.”

It was true they had not been eating well. The marsh had nothing like the profusion of fruit-bearing plants they had found in the forest. The one native plant they had tried tasted like a mango and gave them diarrhea. On the boat that was comparable to an inner circle of hell. Since then they had relied on stored provisions.

They decided the big mudfish were the most obvious prey. Like all the other animals they had encountered, the fish took little notice of them. Everything else was too small and quick, or, like the giant eels, too big.

The mudfish liked to sit in the ooze with their snouts buried, moving by flipping their tails.

She and Gaby and Bill soon had one surrounded. It was their first close look at one. Cirocco had never seen a creature so ugly. It was three meters long, flat on the bottom, and bulged in the middle from its blunt snout to a wicked-looking horizontal tail fluke. There was a long gray ridge along its back, soft and loose like a rooster’s comb, but slimy. It swelled and deflated rhythmically.

“Are you sure you want to eat that?”

“If it’ll hold still long enough.”

Cirocco was stationed four meters in front of the mudfish while Gaby and Bill approached from the sides. All three carried swords made from broken Xmas-tree branches.

The mudfish had one eye the size of a pie plate. One edge of the eye elevated until it was looking at Bill. He froze. The fish made a snuffling sound.

“Bill, I don’t like this.”

“Don’t worry. It’s blinking, see?” A stream of liquid spurted from a hole above the eye, producing the snuffling she had heard. “It’s keeping its eye wet. No eyelids.”

“If you say so.” She flapped her arms, and the fish obligingly looked away from Bill and toward her. She wasn’t sure that was an improvement, but took a step forward on the balls of her feet. The fish looked away, bored by it all.

Bill moved in, braced himself, and put his sword through the flesh just behind the eye, leaning on it. The fish jerked as Bill released the sword and danced back.

Nothing happened. The eye did not move, and the organs on its back no longer swelled in and out. Cirocco relaxed, and saw Bill grinning.

“Too easy,” he said. “When is this place going to give us a challenge?” He took the hilt of his sword and pulled it out. Dark blood spurted over his hand. The fish bent, touching its snout with its tail, then swung the tail sideways and down on Bill’s head. It scooped deftly under his motionless body and hurled him into the air.

Cirocco did not even see where he came down. The fish arched again, this time balancing on its belly with both snout and tail in the air. She saw its mouth for the first time. It was round, lamprey-like, with a double row of teeth that counter-rotated and clattered. The tail hit the mud and the fish jumped at her.

She dived flat to the ground, ploughing up a wake of mud with her chin. The fish plopped behind her, arched, and flipped fifty kilos of mud into the air as it lashed madly with its tail. The sharp fin sliced the ground in front of her face, then rose for another try. She scurried on her hands and knees, slipping
every time she tried to stand.

“Rocky! Jump!”

She did, and narrowly missed having her arm taken off as the fish’s tail hit the ground again.

“Go, go! It’s coming after you!”

A glance behind showed only rotating teeth. All she could hear was their terrible buzz. It meant to eat her.

She was in mire up to her knees and heading toward deeper water, which did not seem like a good idea, but every time she tried to turn the tail flashed out of the mud. Soon she was blind from the constant barrage of filthy water. She slipped, and before she could get up the tail hit the side of her head. She was conscious but her ears were ringing as she turned over and groped for her sword. The mud had swallowed it. The fish was a meter away, curling for a leap that would crush her, when Gaby came running past it. Her feet scarcely touched the ground. She hit Cirocco with a flying tackle hard enough to loosen teeth, the fish leaped, and all three of them skidded three meters through the mud.

Cirocco was dimly aware of a slimy wet wall under one foot. She kicked. The fish lashed at them again as Gaby pulled Cirocco along, swimming through the mud. Then she let go, and Cirocco lifted her head out of the water, gasping.

She saw Gaby’s back as she stood facing the creature. The tail came slashing around at the level of Gaby’s neck, deadly as a scythe, but she ducked and held up her sword. It broke close to the hilt, but the sharp edge cut a big flap in the fin. The fish didn’t seem to like it. Gaby leaped again, straight for the hideous jaws, and landed on the creature’s back. She stabbed her sword hilt into the eye, slashing down instead of thrusting as Bill had done. The fish threw her off, but now the tail had no direction. It beat the ground furiously as Gaby looked for a chance to cut again.

“Gaby!”
Cirocco shouted. “Let it go. Don’t get yourself killed.”

Gaby glanced back, then hurried to Cirocco.

“Let’s get out of here. Can you walk?”

“Sure, I …” The ground whirled. She clutched Gaby’s sleeve to steady herself.

“Hang on. That thing’s getting closer.”

Cirocco didn’t have a chance to see what she meant, because Gaby lifted her before she knew what was happening. She was too weak and confused to fight it as Gaby brought her out of the bog, slung over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

She was put down gently on a patch of grass, and then she saw Gaby’s face hovering over her. Tears were running down her cheeks as she gently probed Cirocco’s head, then moved down to her chest.

“Ow!” Cirocco winced and curled around the pain. “I think you broke a rib.”

“Oh, my God. When I picked you up? I’m sorry, Rocky, I—”

Cirocco touched her cheek. “No, dummy, when you hit me like the front line of the Giants. And I’m glad you did.”

“I want to check your eyes. I thought you—”

“No time. Help me up. Got to see about Bill.”

“You first. Just lie back. You shouldn’t—”

Cirocco slapped her hand away and rose as far as her knees before doubling over and vomiting.

“See what I mean? You’ve got to stay here.”

“All right,” she choked. “Go find him, Gaby. Take care of him. Bring him back here, alive.”

“Just let me check your—”

“Go!”

Gaby bit her lip, glanced at the fish still thrashing in the distance, and looked tortured. Then she leaped to her feet and ran in what Cirocco hoped was the right direction.

She sat there holding her belly and cursing softly until Gaby returned.

“He’s alive,” she said. “Out cold, and I think he’s hurt.”

“How bad?”

“There’s blood on his leg and his hands and all over his front. Some of it’s fish blood.”

“I told you to bring him here,” Cirocco growled, trying to hold back another fit of nausea.

“Sssh,” Gaby soothed, rubbing her hand lightly over Cirocco’s forehead. “I can’t move him until I can make a litter. First, I’m going to get you back to the boat and bedded down. Hush! If I have to fight you, I will. You wouldn’t want a punch in the jaw, would you?”

Cirocco felt like throwing a punch herself, but the nausea overcame the urge. She settled to the ground and Gaby scooped her up.

She remembered thinking how ridiculous they must look: Gaby was 150 centimeters tall while Cirocco was 185. In the low gravity Gaby had to move cautiously, but the weight was no problem.

Things didn’t spin so badly when she closed her eyes. She put her head on Gaby’s shoulder.

“Thanks for saving my life,” she said, and passed out.

She woke to the sound of a man screaming. It was not a sound she ever cared to hear again.

Bill was semi-conscious. Cirocco sat up and cautiously touched the side of her head. It hurt, but the dizziness was gone.

“Come here and give me a hand,” Gaby said. “We’ve got to hold him down or he’ll hurt himself.”

She hurried to Gaby’s side. “How bad is he?”

“Real bad. His leg’s broken. Probably some ribs, too, but he hasn’t coughed up any blood.”

“Where’s the break?”

“Tibia or fibula. I don’t which is which. I thought it was a laceration until I put him on the litter. He started fighting and the bone stuck out.”

“Jesus.”

“At least he’s not losing much blood.”

Cirocco felt another quiver in her stomach as she examined the ragged gash in Bill’s leg. Gaby was washing it with boiled chutecloth rags. Every time she touched it, he screamed hoarsely.

“What are you going to do?” Cirocco asked, vaguely aware that she should be telling her what to do, not asking.

Gaby looked agonized. “I think you should call Calvin.”

“What’s the use of that? Oh, yeah, I’ll call the son-of-a-bitch, but you saw how long it took the last time. If Bill’s dead when he gets here, I’ll kill him.”

“Then we have to set it.”

“You know how to do it?”

“I saw it done, once,” said Gaby. “With anesthetic.”

“What we’ve got is a lot of rags that I hope are clean. I’ll hold his arms. Wait a minute.” She moved to Bill’s side and looked down at him. He stared at nothing, and his forehead was hot when she touched it.

“Bill? Listen to me. You’re hurt, Bill.”

“Rocky?”

“It’s me. It’s going to be all right, but your leg is broken. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” he whispered, and closed his eyes.

“Bill, wake up. I’ll need your help. You can’t fight us. Can you hear me?”

He lifted his head and looked down at his leg. “Yeah,” he said, wiping his face with a dirty hand. “I’ll be good. Get it over with, will you?”

Cirocco nodded to Gaby, who grimaced and pulled.

It took three tries, and left both women shaken. On the second pull the bone end protruded with a wet sound that made Cirocco throw up again. Bill bore it well, his breath whistling and his neck muscles standing out like cords, but he no longer screamed.

“I wish I knew how good a job that is,” Gaby said. Then she began to cry. Cirocco let her alone and worked on binding the splint to Bill’s leg. He was unconscious by the time she was through. She stood and held her bloody hands up in front of her.

“We’ll have to move on,” she said. “It’s no good here. We have to find a place where it’s dry and set up a camp and wait for him to get better.”

“He probably shouldn’t be moved.”

“No,” she sighed. “But he has to be. Another day ought to bring us to that high country we saw earlier. Let’s go.”

It took two days instead of one, and they were terrible days.

They stopped frequently to sterilize Bill’s bandages. The bowl they used to heat the water was nothing so fine as a ceramic pot; it flaked and wanted to melt, and left the water clouded. The water took the better part of an hour to boil because the pressure in Gaea was higher than one atmosphere.

Gaby and Cirocco snatched a few hours sleep, one at a time, when the river was quiet and wide. But when they came to a hazardous stretch it took both of them to keep the boat from going aground. It continued to rain regularly.

Bill slept, and woke after the first twenty-four hours looking five years older. His face was gray. When Gaby changed the bandage his wound did not look good. The lower leg and most of his foot was nearly twice their normal size.

By the time they left the swamp he was delirious. He sweated profusely, and ran a high fever.

Cirocco contacted a passing blimp early on the second day, getting back the high, rising whistle that Calvin had told her meant, “Okay, I’ll tell him,” but she was already starting to fear it was too late. She watched the blimp sail serenely toward the frozen sea, and asked herself why she had insisted they leave the forest. And if they must, why not go on Whistlestop, sailing over it all, far from terrible things like mudfish that refused to die?

Her reasons were as valid now as they had been then, but it didn’t stop her from blaming herself. Gaby could not ride in the blimps, and they had to find a way out. But she thought there must be easier, more satisfying things than taking the responsibility for other lives, and she was sick of her own life. She wanted out, she wanted someone else to take the burden. How had she ever thought she could be a Captain? What had she done right since taking command of
Ringmaster
?

What she really wanted was simple, but so hard to find. She wanted love, just like everyone else. Bill had said he loved her; why couldn’t she say it back to him? She had thought she might be able to say it, someday, but now it looked like he was going to die, and he was her responsibility.

She also wanted adventure. It had driven her all through her life, from the first comic book she opened, the first space documentary she had watched as a wide-eyed child, the first old black and white flat-screen swashbucklers and full-color westerns she saw. The thirst to do something outrageous and heroic had never left her. It had pushed her away from the singing career her mother wanted, and the housewife role everyone else thrust at her. She wanted to swoop down on the base of the space pirates, lasers blazing, to slink through the jungle with a band of fierce revolutionaries for a night raid on the enemy stronghold, to search for the Holy Grail or destroy the Death Star. She had found other reasons, as an adult, to slog her way through college and train herself to be the best there was so that when the chance came, they could choose no other for the Saturn mission. Beneath it all, nevertheless, it was the itch to travel and see strange places and do things no one else had done that landed her on the decks of
Ringmaster
.