The plane was coming around one more time. Some of them sensed this would be the last run, and a few even managed to be curious enough to lift their heads and watch it.
Jones came in straight and level. She fired missiles in pairs, and every one streaked for Gaea-and turned aside at the last moment, missing her by inches. More and more of them came screaming by, to explode a hundred meters behind her. It began to look like a circus knife-throwing act as the projectiles went by her ankles, her arms, her ears, her knees. And still the plane kept coming on, and Gaea kept laughing.
A line of bullet holes appeared along Gaea's chest. She laughed louder. It sounded like Jones had ten heavy guns on that plane, and all of them opened up as she got closer. Gaea was rocked, bloodied, marked from her legs to her massive head.
And anybody could see she was unhurt.
The plane pulled up, climbed ... and kept climbing. At about three kilometers, when it was just a speck, it started circling again.
"I still won't hurt him, Cirocco!" Gaea shouted. Then she looked at herself, frowned, and turned to see a gaffer hanging on the back of her bullet-pocked chair.
"We'd better bring up the second unit," she told him. "And assemble my make-up crew. There's a lot of work to do."
The gaffer didn't move, and Gaea frowned, then tilted the chair and saw it was only half a gaffer.
So she strode off into the flames, shouting orders.
"Well," Cirocco finally said, much subdued. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
There had been none of the wild jubilation Conal and Nova had felt during their dogfight with the buzz bombs. Cirocco had more or less asked them all if she could do it, and they had all more or less agreed that she should. So she had gone about it with a cold intensity and thoroughness that left them all, including Cirocco, a bit shaken. Only during the last run, when she had fired on the monstrosity that called itself Gaea, had she felt the hatred boiling up inside her. The temptation to give it all she had, to pour firepower into the thing and hope against hope that she could blow it apart, had been tremendous. She wondered if the others understood why, in the end, she had settled for the show of force and the minor injuries.
Gaea would not be killed that way. She could sit on an atom bomb, be vaporized, and sprout again from the killing ground. Gaea was not immortal. She was over the hill, senile, growing madder every day. She couldn't last much longer ... only about another hundred millennia.
And it was Cirocco's job to kill her.
They all looked down at the blazing ruin that had been Pandemonium. Only one structure was left standing. There could be no doubt it was the "palace" the Snitch had spoken of, made of gold and platinum. Adam would be installed there, probably in a solid-gold crib, with goose-egg diamonds for marbles.
"Why didn't you just take her out?" Conal asked, quietly.
"You still don't understand her," Cirocco said. "If I'd destroyed the palace, or killed Gaea, the deathangel would just have flown on, too low for us to catch Adam. He'd have kept flying until he fell apart, and Adam would die."
"I don't get it," Conal confessed. "She said come down and fight. Well, you gave her a fight. What does she expect? Does she want you to land and arm-wrestle with her?"
"Conal, my old friend... I don't know. That may be exactly what she wants. I have the feeling that ... "
"What?" Conal prompted.
"She wants me to walk up to her with a sword in my hand."
"I don't buy it," Conal said. "I mean... Jesus, this sounds completely crazy. I guess it's because I can't find the right words. 'Fair play' isn't it, but she has ... something. Not all the time, and not in any sane way, but from what you've told me about her I'd think she'd even it out a little more than that. I just don't think that she wouldn't leave you any chance."
Cirocco sighed.
"I don't either. And Gaby says-" she cut herself off quickly when she saw Robin giving her an odd look. "Anyway, Gaea won't tell me what she wants, except to come and fight. I'm supposed to figure it out."
It got quiet again and they all looked out over the carnage. Human beings had died down there, and innocent animals. The humans were in the service of evil, if not evil themselves, and Cirocco did not regret killing them. But she took no pleasure in it and did not feel proud of herself.
"I think I'm gonna be sick," Nova said.
"I'm sorry, kid," Cirocco said. "The head's all the way in back."
"Don't be sorry," Nova shouted, close to tears. "I wanted you to kill them, every last one! I loved it when you were killing them. I just... I just have a weak stomach, that's all." She sobbed, and looked imploringly at Cirocco.
"And don't call me kid," she whispered, and fled to the back of the plane.
There was a short, uncomfortable silence, which Chris broke.
"If you want my opinion," he said, "I sort of wish you hadn't done it." He got up and followed Nova.
"Well, I'm glad you did it," Robin said, hotly. "I only wish you'd spent more time shooting at Gaea. Great Mother, what a disgusting thing."
Cirocco barely heard her. Something was nagging at her, something that didn't feel right. Chris wasn't usually critical of her actions. He had a perfect right to be, of course, but he just usually wasn't.
Then, when she thought about it, he hadn't actually been critical... .
"Chris," she began, turning in her seat. "What did you-"
"It's probably going to make things rough," he said. He waved a hand at them and shrugged apologetically. "Somebody's got to look after him," he said, and pulled the door open.
"No!" Cirocco shouted, and lunged at him. It was too late. He was out, and the door slammed shut. She could only watch in horrified fascination as his chute opened and he glided toward Pandemonium.
Chris and Adam touched the ground within a minute of each other.
SECOND FEATURE
I was always an independent, even when I had partners.
-Sam Goldwyn
ONE
The zombies were in separate pens, in a row, each about twenty meters from its nearest neighbor.
Cirocco didn't want to ask, but she knew she had to.
"Were these ... already dead?"
"No, Captain," Valiha said.
"What were they doing?"
Valiha told her. It made her feel a little better. Slavery was an ancient evil from which the human race might never be free, in one form or another.
Still, Valiha's remark about reading them their rights and giving them fair trials hurt. It hurt because there were no such things in Gaea, and without some kind of rules the human animal seemed capable of anything-including killing eleven men at random. Cirocco was not so foolish as to mourn them. But she was very tired of killing, or of ordering men to be killed. She felt it could become too easy. She did not wish to play God.
She only wanted to be left alone. She wanted to be accountable to herself, and no one else. She longed for total privacy, for about twenty years all by herself to drag out her scarred soul and try to wash the sin from it. She no longer liked the smell of this being called Cirocco Jones.
The urge to jump out of the plane and follow Chris to what would be certain death had been overwhelming. Nova, Robin, and Conal had barely been able to restrain her.
She still didn't know if the urge had been toward suicide, or if she had been so consumed with rage she felt able to fight Gaea toe-to-toe. She had felt rage and despair in about equal portions. It would be so nice to be done.