"Stop," she said. "Stop right there." Gaby did stop. She turned around, not looking as if the situation held any interest for her.
"I will not kill you," Robin said quietly. "What you did demands an accounting, but you are peckish and probably know no better. But hear me and know that you are warned. Your ignorance will not save you. If you touch me again, one of us will die."
Gaby glanced at the weapon on Robin's hip, nodded glumly, and turned away again.
Chris helped her load Cirocco into the front of one of the canoes. He was mystified by the whole situation but knew when to keep his mouth shut. He watched Gaby step into the boat and pull a blanket over the Wizard's limp body. She arranged the Wizard's head on a pillow, managing to make her sleep look almost peaceful until she stirred and snorted and kicked the blanket away. Gaby climbed out of the boat.
"You'd better get in the front," Valiha said as he joined her at the canoe which was to be theirs. He stepped in and sat down, found a paddle, and dipped it in the water experimentally. It suited him well. Like all things Titanides made, it was beautifully crafted, with the images of small animals etched into the polished wood. He felt the boat lurch as Valiha boarded.
"How do you people find the time to make everything so beautiful?" he asked her, gesturing with the paddle.
"If it's not worth making beautiful," Valiha said, "it's not worth making. We don't make so many things as humans do either. We make nothing to throw away. We make things one at a time and don't begin a second until we are through with the first. Titanides never invented the assembly line."
He turned around. "Is that really all there is to it? A different outlook?"
She grinned. "Not the whole story. Not sleeping has something to do with it. You humans waste a third of your lives unconscious. We don't sleep."
"That must be very strange." He had known they didn't sleep but had not really thought of what it implied.
"Not to me. But I do suspect that we experience time in a different way from you. Our time is not broken up. We measure it, of course, but as a continuous flow rather than a succession of days."
"Yeah ... but what does that have to do with craftmanship?"
"We have more time. We don't sleep, but about a quarter of our time is spent resting. We sit and sing and work with our hands. It adds up."
Travelers on Ophion often remarked on the feeling of timelessness the river gave them. Ophion was both the source and the end of all things in Gaea, the circle of waters that tied all things together. As such, it felt like an old river because Gaea herself felt old.
Ophion was old, but it was a relative thing. As ancient as Gaea herself, Ophion was an infant beside the great rivers of Earth. It was also to be remembered that most humans saw the river only in Hyperion, where it spread out and took things easy. Elsewhere on its 4,000-kilometer circumference, Ophion was as frisky as the Colorado.
Chris had been set for a fast trip. It was just what one did in a canoe: put it on a fast stream and ride the white water.
"You might as well relax," came the voice from behind him. "You'll tire yourself out too soon and then go to sleep. Humans are extremely boring when they sleep. I know this part of the river well. There is nothing to watch out for between here and Aglaia. Here Ophion is forgiving."
He put his paddle on the floor of the canoe and turned around. Valiha sat placidly just aft of the tarp-covered pallet of supplies. The paddle in her hands was twice as large as his own. Valiha looked completely relaxed with all four legs folded under her, and Chris thought that odd because he had not expected a being so like a horse to enjoy sitting like that.
"You people amaze me," he said. "I thought I was hallucinating the first time I saw a Titanide climbing a tree. Now you turn out to be sailors, too."
"You people amaze me," Valiha countered. "How you balance is a mystery. When you run, you begin by falling forward, and then your legs try to catch up with the rest of you. You live constantly on the edge of disaster."
Chris laughed. "You're right, you know. I do, at least." He watched her paddling, and for a time there was no sound but the quiet gurgle made by her oar.
"I feel I ought to be helping you. Should we take turns rowing?"
"Sure. I'll row three-quarters of a rev, and you can row the other quarter."
"That's hardly equitable."
"I know what I'm doing. This isn't work."
"You're moving us pretty fast."
Valiha winked at him, then began to paddle in earnest. The canoe almost became airborne, skipping like a tossed stone. She kept it up for a few dozen strokes, then fell back into her relaxed rhythm.
"I could do that for a whole rev," she said. "You might as well face the fact that I'm a lot stronger than you, even at your best. And right now you aren't in condition. Get used to it gradually, okay?"
"I guess so. I still feel I ought to be doing something."
"I agree. Lean back, and let me do the donkeywork."
He did, but wished she had used another euphemism. It hit at the heart of something that had been bothering him.
"I've been feeling uncomfortable," he said. "That it boils down to is, we are-that is, we humans are using you Titanides like... well, like draft animals."
"We can carry a lot more than you can."
"All right, I know that. But I don't even have a pack. And ... well, it somehow makes me feel I'm using you badly when-"
"Nervous about riding me, is that it?" She grinned at him and rolled her eyes. "Next you'll be suggesting that you walk sometimes, to give me a rest, right?"
"Something like that."
"Chris, there's nothing more boring than taking a walk with a human."
"Not even watching one sleep?"
"You got me. That's more boring."
"You seem to find us tedious."
"Not at all, you are endlessly fascinating. One never knows what a human will do next, or from what motive. If we had universites, the best-attended classes would be in the Department of Human Studies. But I'm young and impatient, as the Wizard pointed out. If you wish, you may walk, and I will endeavor to slow down. I don't know how the others will like it."
"Forget it," Chris said. "I just don't want to be a burden. Literally."
"You aren't," she assured him. "When you ride me, my heart lifts and my feet fly like the wind." She was looking into his eyes with an odd expression on her face. He could not read it, but it made him want to change the subject.
"Why are you here, Valiha? Why are you in this boat, making this trip?"
"You mean just me or the other Titanides?" She went on without waiting for an answer. "Psaltery is here because he goes where Gaby goes. The same for Hornpipe. As for Hautbois, I presume it is because the Wizard often grants a child to those who circumnavigate the great river."
"Really?" He laughed. "I wonder if she'll grant me a child when I get back?" He expected her to laugh, but there was that look again. "But you didn't say why you were coming. You're ... well, you're pregnant, aren't you?"
"Yes. Chris, I'm really sorry about running off and leaving you. I could-"
"Never mind that. You already apologized, and it makes me nervous to watch it anyway. But shouldn't you be taking it easy?"
"That's far in the future. It doesn't inconvenience us much anyway. And I'm here because it's a great honor to go with the Wizard. And because you are my friend."
Once again there was that look.
"Can I join you?"
Chris looked up, startled. He had not been asleep, but neither had he been precisely awake. His knees were stiff from maintaining the same position for hours.