Titan (GAIA) (30 page)

At the end of the seventh hour she relented, feeling a little chagrined at her own stubbornness. It was almost as if she had been trying to prove Bill was right, forcing herself to be tough, to go to the limits of her endurance and then a little beyond.

They made camp at the bottom of a gully, gathering wood for a fire but not bothering to set up their tents. The air was hot and muggy, but the fire was a welcome light in the increasing gloom. They sat around it at a comfortable distance, stripped down to their gaudy silken underclothes.

“You look like a peacock,” Gene said, taking a drink from his wineskin.

“A very tired peacock,” Cirocco sighed.

“How far do you think we’ve come, Rocky?” Gaby asked.

“It’s hard to say. Fifteen kilometers?”

“I’ll go along with that,” Gene said, nodding. “I counted steps along a couple ridges and averaged it. Then I kept track of the number of ridges we crossed.”

“Great minds think alike,” Cirocco said. “Fifteen today, twenty tomorrow. We’ll be at the roof in five days.” She stretched out and watched the shifting colors of the leaves overhead.

“Gaby, you’re elected. Dig into that sack and rustle us up some grub. I could eat a Titanide.”

They did not make twenty kilometers the next day; they did not make ten.

They woke with sore legs. Cirocco was so stiff she could not bend her knees without wincing. They stumbled around fixing breakfast and breaking camp, moving like octogenarians, then forced themselves through a series of kneebends and isometrics.

“I know this pack is a few grams lighter,” Gaby moaned, as she slung it on her back. “I ate two meals out of it.”

“Mine’s gained twenty kilos,” Gene said.

“Bitch, bitch, bitch. C’mon, you apes. You wanna live forever?”

“Live? This is living?”

The second night came only five hours after the first because Cirocco decided it had to.

“Thank you, o Great Mistress of Time,” Gaby sighed, as she stretched out on her sleeping bag. “If we try, maybe we can set a new record. A two-hour day!”

Gene let himself down beside her.

“When you get the fire going, Rocky, I’ll take about five of those steakplant fillets. In the meantime, walk softly, will you? When your knees crack you wake me up.”

Cirocco put her hands on her hips and glared at them.

“So that’s how it’s going to be, huh? I’ve got news for you two. I outrank you.”

“Did she say something, Gene?”

“Didn’t hear a word.”

Cirocco limped around until she had gathered enough wood for a fire. Kneeling to start it turned out to be a very complex problem, one she was not sure she could solve. It involved wrenching abused joints through angles they just did not want to take.

But after a time the steakplants were snapping in the grease, and Gene and Gaby followed their noses to the source of the heavenly aroma.

Cirocco had just enough strength to kick dirt over the coals and unroll her sleeping bag. She was asleep on her way to it.

The third day was not as bad as the second, in the same way the Chicago Fire was not as bad as the San Francisco Earthquake.

They made ten kilometers over gradually steepening ground in just under eight hours. Gaby
remarked at the end of it that she no longer felt eighty years old. She now felt seventy-eight.

It became necessary to use a new climbing tactic. The increasing slope of the ground made walking, even on all fours, more difficult. Their feet would slip and they would go down on their stomachs with arms and legs spread to prevent a backward slide.

Gene suggested they alternately take one end of the rope and crawl up as far as it would reach, then tie the end to a tree. The other two, waiting at the bottom, then had an easy hand-over-hand pull and walk. The one who went ahead worked hard for ten minutes while the other two rested, then could rest for two turns before going again. They made 300 meters at a time.

Cirocco looked at the stream near their third campsite and thought about taking a bath, then decided against it. Food was what she wanted. Gene, with some grumbling, took his turn at the frying pan.

She actually felt good enough to look through her pack and check the level of stored provisions before collapsing.

The fourth day they made twenty kilometers in ten hours, and at the end of the day Gene grabbed Cirocco.

They had pitched camp where the stream they were following was wide enough for a bath, and Cirocco had taken off her clothes and lowered herself in without even thinking about it. Soap would have been nice, but there was fine sand on the bottom and she could scour herself with that. Soon Gaby and Gene joined her. Later, Gaby went off on Cirocco’s instructions to find fresh fruit. There were no towels, so she was squatting naked by the fire when Gene put his arms around her.

She jumped, scattering burning twigs, and pushed his hands away from her breasts.

“Hey, stop that.” She struggled, and broke away.

He was not at all abashed.

“Come on, Rocky, it’s not like we’ve never touched each other before.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t like people sneaking up on me. Keep your hands to yourself.”

He looked exasperated. “Is it going to be like that? What am I supposed to do with two naked women running around?”

Cirocco reached for her clothes.

“I didn’t know the sight of naked women made you lose control of yourself. I’ll bear it in mind.”

“Now you’re angry.”

“No, I’m not angry. We’re going to have to live close for some time, and it wouldn’t do to get angry.” She pressed the fasteners of her shirt and eyed him warily for a moment, then repaired the fire, careful to sit facing him.

“You’re angry anyway. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Just don’t grab me, is all.”

“I’d send you roses and candy, but it’s a little impractical.”

She smiled, and relaxed a little. It sounded more like the old Gene, which was an improvement over what she had seen in his eyes a moment ago.

“Listen, Gene. We didn’t make the greatest pair back on the ship, and you know it. I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I still feel dirty. All I can say is, if I feel ready for anything, I’ll let you know.”

“Fair enough.”

Neither of them said anything as Cirocco built the fire bigger, carefully keeping it on the little shelf
they had dug into the dirt.

“Are you … do you and Gaby have something going?”

She flushed, hoping it wasn’t visible in the firelight.

“That’s none of your business.”

“I always thought she was gay underneath,” he said, nodding. “I didn’t think you were.”

She took a deep breath and looked at him narrowly. The darting shadows revealed nothing on his blond-bearded face.

“Are you deliberately needling me? I said it was none of your business.”

“If you weren’t queer for her, you’d have just said no.”

What was the matter with her? she wondered. Why was he making her skin crawl? Gene had always operated by his own bonehead logic when it came to people. His bigotry was carefully suppressed and socially acceptable, or he would never have been chosen for the trip to Saturn. He blundered cheerfully through his relationships, genuinely surprised when people took offense at his tactlessness. It was a common-enough personality, so well controlled, according to his psychological profile, as to barely qualify as an eccentricity.

So why did she feel so uncomfortable when he looked at her?

“I’d better set you straight so you don’t hurt Gaby. She’s fallen in love with me. It has something to do with the isolation; I was the first person she saw afterward, and she developed this fixation. I think she’ll grow out of it because she’s never been significantly homosexual before. Nor heterosexual, for that matter.”

“She covered it up,” he suggested.

“What year is this? Nineteen-fifty? You astonish me, Gene. You don’t hide anything from those NASA tests. She had a homosexual affair, sure. I had one, and so did you. I read your dossier. You want me to tell you how old you were when it happened?”

“I was just a kid. The point is, I could tell about her when we made love. No reaction, you know? I’ll bet it’s not like that when you two make it.”

“We don’t—” She stopped herself, wondering how she had been drawn in as far as she was.

“This conversation is over. I don’t want to talk about it, and besides, Gaby’s coming back.”

Gaby approached the fire and dropped a net full of fruit at Cirocco’s side. She squatted, looked thoughtfully back and forth between the two of them, then stood up and put on her clothes.

“Are my ears burning, or is it my imagination?”

Neither Gene nor Cirocco spoke, and Gaby sighed.

“Here we go again. I think I’m starting to agree with the folks who say manned space missions cost more than they’re worth.”

The fifth day took them irrevocably into night. There was now only the ghostly light reflected by the day areas curving up on each side. It was not much, but it was enough.

The ground was noticeably steeper, with a thinner layer of dirt. Often they walked on the warm, bare strands, which provided surer traction. They began tying themselves together, and were careful to see that two were always hanging on while the other climbed.

Even here the plant life of Gaea had not given up. Massive trees splayed roots flat to the cable, sending out runners that scrambled into the surface and hung on tenaciously. The effort of wresting a living from such uninviting terrain had robbed them of beauty. They were gaunt and lonely, their trunks
translucent with a pale inner light, their leaves the merest wisps of nothing. In places, the roots could be used as ladders.