Majors marched at the head of Cohorts. Each Legion was led by a Colonel, also on foot. Three Titanides of an unusually easygoing nature had been persuaded to bear the Generals at the heads of their Division. The Titanides didn't like it-they barely knew the Generals in question, and were not accustomed to allow any human but a dear friend to ride on their backs. They saw to it that the ride was as rough as possible. The Generals seethed in their own discontent. Not from the rough ride-none of them knew the uncanny smoothness of the Titanides' usual gait-but because it was impossible to sit astride the creatures and see around their broad backs. Dignity forbade the practical carriage Cirocco had worked out long ago: to ride facing backwards. The whole purpose of these steeds, after all, was to set the Generals above the common foot soldier. So they endured the bumps and the lack of visibility, and tried to look as dignified as possible.
And at the head of the column, several hundred meters from the One Hundred First Division, were nine individuals. In front was Cirocco Jones, in her unadorned black clothes and hat, astride Hornpipe. Following her in no particular order were Conal astride Rocky, Robin on Serpent ... and Nova riding Virginal. Valiha trotted along without a human burden.
None of them had much to say. There was no festive air. This would be the only day Conal would ride with the army, so Rocky and Serpent saw to it that he was often quite close to Robin. Whatever they had to say to each other had apparently already been said. After the first bivouac, Conal would be heading to the northern highlands to take command of the air force.
Virginal held back from the two, at Nova's request. The young witch and former bureaucrat-she had resigned after a shouting match with Cirocco, and been replaced by someone from Trini's faction-wanted to give her mother and her mother's lover all the time together they could get. There was a new, more mature relationship between witch and Titanide. Nova was not yet perfect, according to Virginal, but she was getting there. She had said that many times, and each time they would laugh harder. Virginal, for her part, was ashamed of her own behavior. The lecture from her hindmother when she heard of the scene with Nova still stung.
Every so often Nova would reach down to her waist and finger the spell bag that hung from her belt. It was beautifully embroidered with an ancient Yin-Yang symbol, and contained the Zombie-dust she had inadvertently discovered and which must, by law, be carried at all times by every Bellinzonian. The bags had quickly become general-purpose good luck charms. This one had been given to her by a shy Korean girl named Li, who still had a lot of trouble with English but spoke the universal language of love very well indeed. There had been a steamy send-off. Nova found it hard to believe she had overlooked such beauty and sensitivity for so long. Li had worked in her Statistics Bureau. Could this be love? Nova wondered. Well, maybe. It was too early to tell. But Li was someone to write home to, someone to keep the home fires burning.
At the head of the column, Cirocco Jones sat very straight, aware that the Army could see her out there, and kept her own counsel.
The Generals had warned her the first day's march was too long for unseasoned troops. The camp had been prepared deep in Iapetus a hectorev before, with tents that would be struck and added to the burden of the goods wagons.
Cirocco knew it was too far, and had intended that it be. She was decimating again.
So she marched her troops mercilessly through the increasing heat and unending light of Iapetus. They began passing out. As they did, they were loaded onto the wagons. When they finally reached camp most of the army was in a state of exhaustion. Not a few officers had fallen by the wayside.
"Here's what we do," she told the assembled top brass-before they had a chance at the mess tent. "Those soldiers who fainted or who have a medical problem as a result of today's march will remain here. At this site they will build Pontus Camp with materials at hand. They will keep their weapons and other equipment, but the wagons will go with us. Pontus will be fortified, and be the permanent home of two Cohorts of one Legion. The other three Cohorts will establish similar but smaller outposts to the north, south, and east. The job of these detachments will be to improve the highway and keep it open, and to fight a delaying action should an attack come from Hyperion. They will be under the command of the General of the Third Division, in Bellinzona. Send a messenger to inform him of this. And requisition what wagons are needed to carry back the most serious medical cases, those that go beyond mere exhaustion. All clear?"
No one had the strength to argue with her.
TWO
Four hundred fifty kilometers to the west, and five kilometers beneath the ground, Nasu slithered through the darkness until she came to a long, narrow tunnel that smelled very bad.
She knew these places, and hated them, in her cool and ponderous reptilian brain. She did not want to go into the tunnel. It was a place of hurt. She remembered it dimly, beneath Iapetus only a kilorev ago, and other times in the past.
She probed it with her tongue, and tasted hatred. Almost a kilometer away, great coils of her mid-section writhed in indecision and eagerness to go. Her tail actually started to crawl away. It took some time for impulses to get from the gallon of gray matter she used as a brain down to the nethermost extension, which increasingly was not in agreement with headquarters.
The immense bodily conflict caused acids to squirt into her monstrous digestive cavity, which would have been painful enough, but the acid set up a great galumphing uproar that caused her sides to bulge out unpredictably. The reason for this was simple: she had recently devoured seventy-eight of the slow-moving, blind, and elephantine creatures, called Heffalumps, who resided in this darkness, and they did not die easy. Twenty-six of them were still alive, and they didn't like acid any more than Nasu did.
Acid. Hyperion. The Robin-thing. Go to Hyperion. Acid. Robin.
These concepts floated through her mind like disconnected wraiths, a hundred times, two hundred, and finally were imprinted again. She must go to Hyperion. She must meet the Robin-warm-protector there. She must go into the tunnel, where there was acid.
Once in motion, Nasu was impossible to stop. She barreled through the tunnel like history's worst Freudian nightmare.
She encountered the acid far later than she had expected to. By then there was no question of stopping. She plowed up a great wake of it, shutting her eyes tight. But she could see through the translucent lids as she entered the deep sanctum of Cronus, faithful friend of Gaea.
Cronus howled his rage, humiliation, and pain. It didn't stop the snake. She selected the easternmost of three tunnels leading out of the chamber, and thrust her head into it. At that moment, the end of her tail was just inside the west end of the tunnel.
It hurt like hell. Doing this was what had turned her white. She would be shedding her skin again soon, and that helped, but only a little. It burned her eyelids away. They would grow back, but the pain would be intense.
And it was still hurting, of course, way back there, but the signals were slow to arrive. She burst forth into the cavernous darkness of the East Cronus maze and kept going until she was sure she was out. Then she began to writhe, thumping monstrous coils of herself against the rock. The twenty-six surviving heffalumps were quickly killed. Had anyone been standing directly above, on Gaea's inner rim, it might have felt like an earth tremor.
But the pain didn't stop for a while. Nasu curled herself into a tight ball with her head somewhere near the center, and waited for healing to come.