Wizard (41 page)

There was a low roaring in her ears. Something trickled down her chin. She forced her jaw to loosen and felt a sharp pain as air touched the fresh bite in her lower lip.

“It isn’t true!” She had been unable to stop the words, but when he turned and was waiting for her to go on, she had to think of something to say that would make it all as if it had never happened, as if she had never said it wasn’t true.

“What isn’t true?” he said.

“It isn’t … it … I never said … you didn’t—” Suddenly her stomach felt really awful. She found herself staring stupidly at a clump of hair held in her fist. It was the same color as her own. She was kneeling, and Chris was beside her with his arm around her shoulder.

“Feeling better now?”

“Much better. Up there when there was fire and the things in the sand bite you and you can never see them because they live in the sea came after me and I couldn’t get away but I thought of a way nobody will ever know because it happens all the time to me and I can’t do anything about it anymore and I
don’t
want to do anything I just want to go
away
because they bite and you can’t see them and that’s not fair and I
hate
them because they live deep deep in the sea.”

* * *

She allowed him to lead her away. He took her to a level spot and unrolled the sleeping bag and helped her stretch out on it. She stared up at the blank nothing.

He did not know what to do beyond that, so he left her there and returned to Valiha.

* * *

Robin heard him approach some time later.

She had not been asleep or even unaware of what had been happening around her. She flexed her fingers and found they moved easily, so she was not having a seizure. Yet she was not existing in any way she was used to. She had heard Valiha groaning, and it had no effect on her. A few times the Titanide had shouted in pain, but Robin was not sure how many times, and the shouts had not been separated by rational amounts of time. She could no longer recall if she had cried or if the weeping was still in the future. She could not explain it and did not try to.

“Do you want to talk some more?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m not sure what you said awhile ago, but it seemed important to you. Do you want to try again?”

“That wasn’t a seizure.”

“Do you mean just—”

“You know what I mean.”

“While we were pinned down. Back in the desert.”

“Yes.”

“You really could move? You were faking it? That’s what you’re saying?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

She waited, but he said nothing. When she looked at him, he was just sitting there, watching. She wished he wouldn’t do that. She was determined not to say any more.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying,” she said at last.

“You could talk,” he observed.

“Then you
did
know! You were just … why didn’t you—” She was sitting up, but his hands were on her, gently pushing her back onto the sleeping bag. She resisted for a moment, then gave in.

“I noticed you could talk,” he said reasonably. “I thought it was odd. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said, closing her eyes.

“You couldn’t, before,” he said when she remained silent. “The other times, I mean. You mumbled.”

“That’s because a seizure affects all my voluntary muscles. That’s why I knew when I couldn’t move up there, it wasn’t one. It was something else.” She waited for him to name it since it seemed he had the right to make the accusation, but it looked as if he weren’t going to.

“It was fear,” she said.

“No!”
he said. “You can’t mean it!”

She glared at him. “This isn’t funny to me.”

“Sorry. I get tickled at all the wrong times. Okay, what do you want? I’m astonished, I’m ashamed of you, I never suspected you would turn out to be such a coward, and I’m humiliated that I thought I’d met the perfect, fearless human and now it turns out you’re not.”

“Will you get the fuck out of here and leave me alone?”

“Not until you’ve heard the diagnosis of the surgeon-trainee and apprentice psychologist.”

“If it’s gonna be as funny as your last couple of lines, why don’t you save it?”

“Aha! A sign of life.”

“Will you go away?”

“Not until you make me. See, a few days ago you would have ripped my guts out for saying any of the things I just said. It disturbs me to see you just lying there and taking it. Somebody has to restore your self-esteem, and I guess it’s got to be me.”

“Is that your diagnosis?”

“Part of it, I guess. Malignant lack of self-worth and fear of fear. You’re phobophobic, Robin.”

She was about to laugh or cry and did not want to do either.

“Will you finish what you have to say and leave me alone, please?”

“You’re nineteen years old.”

“I never denied it.”

“What I’m suggesting is that no matter how tough you think you are, thought you were, you haven’t been around long enough to be tested in many, many ways. You went into Tethys thinking nothing could terrify you, and you were wrong. You pissed in your pants and threw up and cried like a baby.”

“I’ll always appreciate you sparing my feelings like this.”

“It’s about time someone rubbed your nose in it. You’ve lived with your seizures most of your life and still haven’t really faced them.”

“I haven’t
surrendered
to them.”

“Of course not. But you won’t reach an accommodation. You barely admit they exist. You stood watches over important machinery in the Coven, and by doing it, you put your whole world and all your sisters in danger.”

“How did you—” She put her hand to her mouth and bit down on her finger until some of the heat of shame had passed.

“You talk in your sleep,” he explained. “Robin, they don’t allow epileptics to pilot airplanes. It’s not fair to the people the airplane might fall on.”

She sighed and nodded jerkily.

“I won’t argue with you. But what does that have to do with what happened in the desert?”

“Everything, as I see it. You found out something unpleasant about yourself. You got scared, and you froze. And you’re dealing with it the same way you’ve dealt with your seizures, which is not to deal with it at all. I take that back. You cut off your finger. What are you going to cut off now? If you were a man, I’d have a gruesome suggestion, but I don’t know what the heroic gland is supposed to be in a woman. Do you have any ideas? I’m learning surgery. Some practice might do me good.”

She hated listening to him, wanted nothing more than for him to stop talking and go away. Far, far
away. There was tremendous anger in her somewhere, the pressure was building inexorably, and she felt sure that if he did not leave soon, it would explode and she would kill him. Yet she could not even look at him.

“What would you have me do, then?”

“I already said that. Face it. Recognize that it happened and that you’re not proud of it and that it might even happen again. It looks like what you’re doing now is trying to pretend it didn’t happen, and you can’t bring that off, so you just lie there and can’t do anything. Tell yourself you were a coward—once, in a very bad situation—and go on from there. Then maybe you can start thinking of how to prevent it happening the next time.”

“Or have to face the fact I might do the same thing next time.”

“There’s always that chance.”

She had finally managed to look at him. To her surprise, she was no longer angry when she saw his face. There was no mockery in it. She knew that if she asked him to, he would never say another word about it and never tell anyone else. It somehow didn’t seem as important as it had.

“You’re a great believer in facing things,” she said. “I’d rather fight them. It’s … more satisfying.” She shrugged. “It’s easier.”

“In some ways.”

“It would be easier to cut off another finger than do what you say.”

“I guess I can believe that, too.”

“I’ll think about it. Will you leave me alone now?”

“I don’t think so. I’m going to be ready to set Valiha’s legs soon. While I’m reading everything again and getting the equipment ready, you can make us something to eat. There’s still a fair amount of food in Valiha’s pack. There’s water on the other side of that ridge. Take the lantern with you; I’ve improvised a torch I can use to read by.”

She stared at him. “Is that all?”

“No. While you’re going for water, you can look for something we can use for splints. Most of the plants I’ve seen are pretty small and twisted, but there might be something. Say, five to six straight poles about a meter long.”

She rubbed her face. She wanted to sleep for a few years and did not really want to wake up.

“Poles, water, dinner. Anything else?”

“Yes. If you know any songs, go sing them to Valiha. She’s in a lot of pain, and there’s not much to take her mind off it. I’m saving most of the drugs to use when I set the legs and sew up the wounds.” He started to leave, then turned back. “And you could pray to whoever it is you pray to. I’ve never done anything like this before, and I’m sure I’m going to do it badly. I’m terrified.”

How easily he says it, she thought.

“I’ll help you.”

Nasu ran away sometime during the early part of their stay in the cavern. Chris was never able to say precisely when it happened; time had become an irrational quantity.

Robin went through hell trying to find the snake. She blamed herself. Chris was unable to ease her sorrow because he knew she was right. Gaea was no place for an anaconda. Nasu had probably suffered more than anyone, coiled in Robin’s shoulder bag, allowed out only briefly. It had been with many misgivings that Robin finally let her out to explore the camp. The rocks were warm, and Robin had expressed the opinion that her demon would not wander far from the light of the small campfire. Chris had his doubts. He felt Robin was unconsciously attributing to the snake almost arcane powers of intelligence and loyalty merely because she was her demon, whatever that meant. He thought it was too much to expect of a snake, and Nasu proved him right. One morning they woke up and Nasu was gone.

For many days they searched the vicinity. Robin scoured every corner, calling Nasu’s name. She left out fresh meat in an attempt to lure her back. Nothing worked. It gradually came to a stop as she realized she would never see the animal again. Then she compulsively questioned Chris and Valiha, asking them if they thought the snake would survive. They always said Nasu would have no problem, but Chris was not sure that was the truth.

Gradually both the searches and the questions tapered off, Robin accepted her loss, and the incident melted through the event horizon of their timeless existence.

The problem was that Hornpipe had carried both the clocks. He still had them, assuming he was still alive.

Chris had a hard time convincing himself that it was a problem, even as the evidence mounted. He had experienced a sense of dislocation even on the surface, where the degree of light varied only with distance travelled and, to a lesser extent, with the weather. But then they had had the clock to tell them how much time had gone by, and Gaby had kept them all punctual. Now he realized he had no clear idea how long it had been since they set out from Hyperion. Going back over it, he arrived at figures from thirty-five to forty-five days.

Down in the cavern the timelessness was intensified. Chris and Robin slept when they were tired and called each period a day, while aware that one might be ten hours and another fifty-five. But as the days began to accumulate, Chris found that he had increasing trouble recalling the sequence of things. Further confusion resulted from their late realization that keeping a tally calendar of sleep periods could be of some help. Thus, from fifteen to twenty sleeps went by before they began to make notches in a stick, and all their calculations were plus or minus an unknown number of days. Even the calendar was useful only if they assumed their days averaged twenty-four hours, and Chris was far from sure it was safe to assume that.

And it mattered. For though they had no timepiece, there was a process going on that was measuring time as surely as atomic decay: Valiha was making a baby Titanide.

She estimated she had been injured on the twelve hundredth rev of her pregnancy but admitted she could be off because she had no recollection of the climb down the Tethys stairway. She recalled little from Gaby’s death to her own return to consciousness after her failed attempt to leap the crevasse which had cost her two broken legs. Chris translated 1,200 revs into about fifty days, turned that into one and two-thirds months, and felt a little better. He then asked her if she knew how long her legs should take to heal.

“I could probably walk on crutches in a kilorev,” she said, adding helpfully, “That’s forty-two days.”

“You wouldn’t get too far on crutches in here.”

“Probably not, if there’s climbing to be done.”

“There’s climbing to be done,” said Robin, who had been exploring the area as far as two or three kilometers from the camp.

“Then the time for complete healing would be as much as five kilorevs. Possibly four. I doubt I’d be much good in as little as three.”

“As much as seven months. Possibly five or six.” Chris added it up and relaxed slightly. “It will be close, but I think we can get you out of here before your time.”

Valiha looked puzzled; then her face cleared.

“I see your mistake,” she said placidly. “You thought I would take nine of your months to get the job done. We do things more quickly than that.”

Chris rubbed his palm over his eyes.

“How long?”

“I have often wondered why it takes human females so much longer to produce something not so large and still so far from completion—no offense meant. Our own young are born able to—”

“How long?” Chris repeated.

“Five kilorevs,” Valiha said. “Seven months. It’s certain I’ll birth him before I can hope to walk out of here.”

* * *

The timelessness began to frighten Chris. One day he found himself trying to establish the sequence of events following their discovery of Valiha and found he could not. Some things he knew because they had followed each other during a particular waking period. He was sure he had set Valiha’s legs soon after his talk with Robin because he recalled leaving her to prepare for the task. He knew when they had
captured their first glowbird because that had happened after their first sleep.