Titan (GAIA) (36 page)

It took her an hour to reach the place. Cirocco shivered below, stamping her feet and shrugging off the showers of ice Gaby sent down around her. Then a dislodged shelf of snow broke over her shoulders and brought her to her knees.

“Sorry about that!” Gaby called down. “But I’ve got something here. Let me get it cleared and you can come up.”

The entrance was barely large enough for Cirocco to squeeze through, even after Gaby had chipped away most of the ice. Inside, it was a hollow bubble with a diameter of about a meter and a half, and a floor to ceiling height slightly less than that. Cirocco had to remove her pack, then pull it in after her. With both of them and two packs inside it seemed possible they might have found room to stow a shoebox and still be able to breathe, but not much more than that.

“Cozy, eh?” Gaby asked, removing Cirocco’s elbow from her neck.

“Sorry. Oh, sorry about that, too. Gaby, my foot!”

“Excuse me. If you’d just scrunch … that’s better, but I wish you wouldn’t stand there.”

“Where? Oh, my.” She suddenly burst out laughing. She was crouched with her back against the ceiling and her knees bent while Gaby edged to the rear and tried to stay out of the way.

“What’s so funny?”

“I was thinking of an old movie. Laurel and Hardy in their nightgowns, trying to bed down in an upper berth.”

Gaby was smiling, but obviously didn’t know what she was talking about.

“An upper berth, you know, on a cross-country train … skip it. I just thought they should have tried it in arctic gear, and with a couple suitcases thrown in. How do you want to work this?”

They shoveled the remainder of the snow out of the tiny cave and stacked the gear in front of the opening to block it. When they did so, what little light there had been vanished, but the wind stopped blowing in, so they counted it a gain. After struggling for twenty minutes they managed to settle down side by side. Cirocco could barely move, but was not inclined to worry about such things in the blessed warmth.

“You think we can get some sleep now?” Gaby wondered.

“I sure feel like I could. How are your toes?”

“Okay. Tingling, but they’re getting warm.”

“Me, too. Good night, Gaby.” She hesitated only a moment, then leaned over and kissed her.

“I love you, Rocky.”

“Go to sleep.” She said it with a smile.

The next time Cirocco woke, sweat beaded her forehead. Her clothes were soaked. She lifted her head
groggily and realized she could see. Wondering if the weather had changed, she moved her pack slightly, then more urgently, and discovered the entrance to the cave had closed.

She almost woke Gaby, but thought better of it just in time.

“Try to get out
first
,” she muttered. There was no sense telling Gaby she had been eaten alive again unless it was really true. Gaby would not take the news well; the thought of being confined in such a small space—bad enough in itself—was terrifying when she thought of Gaby and her contagious panic.

It turned out there was no cause for alarm. While she explored the wall where the hole had been, it began to move, irising until it was as large as it had been before. There was a clear window of ice with faint light behind it. She hit it with her gloved fist and it shattered. Frigid air rushed in, and she hastily blocked the hole again with her pack.

In a few minutes she moved the pack. The hole had closed to a few centimeters.

She looked thoughtfully at the tiny hole, putting it all together in her mind. Only when she thought she understood it did she shake Gaby’s shoulder.

“Wake up, kid, it’s time to make adjustments again.”

“Hmmm?” Gaby came awake quickly. “Hell, it’s an oven in here.”

“That’s what I meant. We’ll have to take off some clothes. You want to go first?”

“Go ahead. I’ll try to stay out of your way.”

“Right. Why do you suppose it’s so hot in here? Have you thought about that?”

“I just woke up, Rocky. Have a heart.”

“Okay. I’ll tell you. Feel the walls.” She performed the complex task of removing her parka while Gaby made the same discovery she had made earlier.

“It’s warm.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t figure out this wall from the first. I thought the trees were un-planned-for, like the growths on the cable, but they couldn’t grow here, as I see it, without the wall to nourish them. I tried to think what kind of machine would do that best, and I came back to a natural biochemical machine. An animal, or plant, possibly a genetically tailored one. I find it hard to believe something like this could have evolved in any reasonable time. It’s 300 kilometers high, hollow in the middle, and hugs the
real
wall.”

“And the trees are parasites?” Gaby was taking it better than Cirocco had expected.

“Only in the sense that they draw nourishment from another animal. But they’re not true parasites, because it was
planned
that way. The builders designed this large animal as a habitat for the trees, and in turn the trees provide habitats for smaller animals, and probably for the angels.”

Gaby considered it, and looked narrowly at Cirocco.

“Pretty much like the very large animals that we presume live below the rim,” she said, quietly.

“Yes, something like that.” She watched Gaby for signs of panic, but did not even see her breathing heavily. “Does that … ah … worry you?”

“You mean my well-known phobia?”

Cirocco reached behind her pack and stimulated the entrance into opening again, then moved the pack and let Gaby see it. It began to close slowly.

“I found this before I woke you up. See, it’s closing, but it’ll open again if you tickle it. We’re
not
trapped, and this isn’t a stomach or anything like—”

Gaby touched her hand, smiling faintly. “I appreciate your concern.”

“Well, I didn’t mean to embarrass you, I only …”

“You did the right thing. If I’d seen that first I’d probably still be screaming. But I’m not basically claustrophobic. I’ve got a new phobia that may be my very own; fear of being eaten alive. But tell me—
and make it very convincing, please—if this isn’t a stomach, what is it?”

“There’s no parallel on any creature I know.” She was down to her last layer of clothing now, and decided to stop there. “It’s a refuge,” she went on, trying to make herself small as Gaby began to remove her clothes. “It’s for precisely what we’re using it for: a place to get in out of the cold. I’m willing to bet the angels winter in caves like this. Maybe other animals, too. Possibly the creature gets something out of it. Maybe the droppings fertilize it.”

“Speaking of droppings …”

“Yeah, I’ve got the same problem. We’ll have to use an empty food jar or something.”

“My God. I smell like a camel already. This place is going to be lovely if the weather doesn’t break soon.”

“It’s not so bad. I smell worse.”

“How diplomatic of you.” Gaby was down to her garishly patterned underclothes. “My dear, we’re going to be living damn close for a while, and there’s no use in modesty. If you’re keeping that on because—”

“I wasn’t, not really,” Cirocco said, too hastily.

“—because you’re afraid of arousing me, think again. It’s practically not there, anyway. I hope you don’t mind if I take this off and give it a chance to dry.” She did so without waiting for permission, then stretched out beside Cirocco.

“Maybe that was part of it,” Cirocco admitted. “The other reason, the big reason, sort of makes me blush. I’ve started my period.”

“I thought you had. I politely didn’t say anything.”

“How diplomatic of
you
.” They laughed, but Cirocco felt her face flushing. It was awkward as hell. She was used to a shipboard routine of fastidiousness. Being messy and unable to do anything about it appalled her. Gaby suggested Cirocco use a bandage from the medical kit, if only for her own comfort. Cirocco let herself be talked into it, happy that the idea had come from Gaby. She could not have used needed medical supplies for such a purpose without Gaby’s approval.

They were quiet for a time, Cirocco uncomfortably aware of Gaby’s nearness, telling herself she had to get used to it. They might be in the shelter for days.

Gaby did not seem bothered in the least, and soon enough Cirocco lost her sharp awareness of her body. After an hour of trying to sleep, she began to feel bored by it all.

“You awake?”

“I always snore when I’m awake.” Gaby sighed, and sat up. “Hell, I’ll have to be a lot sleepier before I can sack out with you so close. You’re so warm, and soft …”

Cirocco ignored that.

“Do you know any games to pass the time?”

Gaby rolled onto her side, facing Cirocco. “I could think up some dandies.”

“Do you play chess?”

“I was afraid you’d say that. You want black or white?”

The ice formed around the entrance as fast as they could knock it away.

They worried about air at first, but a few experiments proved there would be adequate oxygen even with the opening completely closed. The only explanation was that the survival capsule functioned like a plant, soaking up carbon dioxide through its inner walls.

They discovered a nipple set into the back of the cave. When squeezed, it exuded the same milky substance they had seen earlier. They tasted it, but decided to stick to their supplies until there was nothing left. This was the milk of Gaea Meistersinger had told Cirocco about. Undoubtedly it fed the angels.

The hours slowly turned into days, the chess games into tournaments. Gaby won most of them. They invented new games with words and numbers, and Gaby won most of those, too. What with all they had been through together, the things that drew them close and the things that pulled them apart, Cirocco’s reservations and Gaby’s pride, it was not until the third day that they made love.

It happened during one of the times they were both just staring at the faintly luminescent ceiling, listening to the wind howling outside. They were bored, too energetic, and slightly stir-crazy. Cirocco was spinning an endless stream of rationalizations through her head: Reasons Why I Should Not Get Physically Intimate With Gaby. (A) …

She couldn’t remember (A).

It had made sense not to until a few days ago. Why didn’t it now?