"I think you came down twice, you old fool," Cirocco said. Calvin had a good laugh at that.
"Oh, now, Rocky. That can't be right. Can it?" He looked thoughtful for a moment, started to count on his fingers, but got lost quickly. Nova was trying not to laugh because she thought he'd be offended. He was quite nice, if befuddled.
"Now don't you be afraid of that, honey," he told her. "You treat it with respect, though. I don't much care for heating my food, but I don't mind it hot, if you catch my meaning."
Nova did not, unfortunately. She sniffed, and liked the smell, so she took a big spoonful. It was based on tomato and celery and was good and spicy and cold. She took another mouthful ... and then the first one hit her. She swallowed, gasped, and felt the stuff searing her nasal passages and burning behind her eyeballs. She lunged for the glass of mead and swallowed a whole beaker. It went down well. It had a honey taste.
Even the gazpacho was good, if taken in cautious sips. They all sat together and ate, and it was a fine meal, if a little noisy. All the raw vegetables crunched. They sounded like rabbits. Nova suspected she'd miss having meat after a while, but Calvin did well with his vegetarian, heatless cuisine.
And the mead was terrific. Not only did it cool down the spicier foods, it made her feel warm, loose, and nicely fuzzy around the edges.
"Time to wake up, Nova."
"Wha ... " She sat up quickly. Her head was hurting and she had a hard time focusing on Cirocco. "What time is it?"
"It's a few hours later." Cirocco smiled at her. "My dear, I think you got a wee bit drunk."
"I did?" She was about to tell Cirocco it was the first time, then realized it would make her sound like a child, so she laughed. Then she thought she was going to be sick, but the feeling passed. "Well, what do we do now?"
"That's it," Cirocco said. "We'll get you sobered up a little, then we go back to the Junction. I'm ready to move."
SEVEN
The Titanides had labored eight revs to produce the feast. There was a whole roasted smiler, and eels and fish cooked, jellied, stuffed back into their skins, and suspended artfully in clear savory aspic. The fruit course was a towering edifice shaped like a Christmas tree, bulging with a hundred varieties of Gaean berries, melons, pommes, and citrines, garnished by leaves of spun green sugar and glowing internally from a myriad of glowbees. There were ten pates, seven kinds of bread, three soup tureens, rickety pagodas of smiler ribs, clever pastries with crusts thin as soap bubbles ... the mind reeled. Cirocco had not seen such a spread since the last Purple Carnival, twenty years ago.
There was enough food for a hundred humans or twenty Titanides. With just nine people to eat it all.
Cirocco took a little of this and a little of that, and sat back, chewing slowly, watching her companions. It was a shame, really, that she was not hungrier. Everything tasted very good.
She knew she was the luckiest of women. Long, long ago, when she might have worried about her weight, it had never been necessary. She could eat as much as she wanted and never put on a gram. Since becoming Wizard her mass had been as low as forty kilograms-after a sixty-day fast-and as high as seventy-five. It was largely a matter of conscious choice. Her body had no fixed metabolic set point.
Just now she was at the high end of that range. Three visits to the fountain of youth in less than a kilorev was an unprecedented frequency. She had an even layer of fat all over her body, and her breasts, buttocks, and thighs had become voluptuous. She smiled inwardly, remembering how the tall and gangly, slat-thin fifteen-year-old Cirocco Jones would have killed for breasts like this. The tredenscenial Cirocco found them a minor but necessary nuisance. They would come in handy in the grueling days ahead. Eventually they would be consumed.In the meantime, Conal was acting even more awe-struck than usual. He was sitting to her left, having a good time. Robin sat next to him. They kept offering things to each other. Since no one could eat much of any one thing, it made sense to point out a special delicacy, but Cirocco suspected it was more than that with these two. She thought if the meal had been stale C-rations, they would still be giggling like kids.
I ought to be shocked, Cirocco thought.
She had a feeling it would end badly, that it probably should not have even started. Then she chided herself. That was the safe view. If you looked at life that way, your regrets for things undone and untried would forge an endless chain to rattle in your later years. She silently saluted their courage and wished them well.
The idiots thought no one knew of their clandestine affair. Possibly there were Titanides in Hyperion who didn't know about it, but certainly none here in Dione. Cirocco saw Valiha, Rocky, and Serpent-a threesome none of the other humans knew anything about-looking on with fond recognition. Hornpipe knew, but, as always, kept his own counsel. Virginal knew, but despite her growing closeness to Nova, would never mention it, mainly because the young Titanide realized her lack of knowledge of the ways of humans and would never risk hurting Nova inadvertently.
That left the ninth member of the party, Nova. She was coming along nicely, Cirocco judged, but was still far too much the self-centered youth to be aware of something her mother was taking pains to keep from her. She was blissfully ignorant of Robin's sin.
For sin it was. Cirocco wondered if Robin had recognized that yet, and how she would handle it when the guilty weight fell on her. She hoped she would be able to offer some help. She loved the little witch dearly.
She looked around the table at her band. She loved them all. For a moment she felt tears threaten, and fought them back. This was not the time. She made herself smile, and made a polite comment on a pastry she was offered. Serpent glowed with pleasure. But she saw Hornpipe watching her.
But it was a surprise, as the glorious meal was ending in the small sounds of belches and satisfied pats on the tummy, when Hornpipe cleared his throat and waited until he had silence.
"Captain," he said, in English. "We were pleased when you made no objection to the preparation of this feast. You are aware this sort of thing is done only in a moment of great importance to all of us."
" 'We are pleased,' Hornpipe?" Cirocco asked. She was disturbed to realize she did not know what he was talking about. And she looked at the other Titanides, saw them looking solemnly at their empty plates. Virginal glanced to the far end of the table, to the empty place setting which had been put out at every meal since Chris had jumped into Pandemonium.
"Who do you speak for, my friend?"
"I speak for all the Titanides here, and for many hundreds who could not come. I was elected to voice this ... " Once more Cirocco was amazed, as Hornpipe seemed to be groping for a word. Then she realized it was something else.
"Is 'grievance' the word you're trying to say?"
"It's in the right neighborhood," Hornpipe said, with a wry shake of his head. He looked at her, appealingly. For an instant he was a stranger. For an instant he was the first Titanide she had ever seen-and he was, in fact, a direct descendant of the first. He could be mistaken for a truly stunning woman. His heaped-up masses of shining black hair, broad cheekbones, long lashes, wide mouth and baby-smooth cheeks... .
She returned to the moment, to a reality that seemed to be getting away from her.
"Go on, then," she said.
"It is simple," he said. "We want to know what you are doing toward the return of the child."
"What are you doing?"
"Probes have been made. The defenses of Pandemonium have been tested. Aerial reconnaisance by blimp has given us a map of the fortress. Plans have been advanced, in Titantown."