Robin surrendered and cried herself to sleep in Hautbois's arms.
Chris reclined on his sleeping bag in the damned half-light and trembled. For hours it had felt as if an attack might be imminent, but it refused to start. Or had it? As he had told Gaby, he was not the one to judge if he was in an episode. But that was not strictly true. If he were having an attack, he would not know it, it would seem perfectly reasonable for his mind to be operating like a machine with worn pulleys and bent gears, but he would not be here sweating.
He told himself it was the light and the rain beating on the tent roof. The light was all wrong. As it came through the tent walls, it had to be either early morning and time to get up, or late evening and much too early to sleep. It would not turn into decent night.
What with the rain, it was amazing the things he had been able to hear. There were the quiet songs of the Titanides and the crackle and pop of the fire. Someone had approached his tent, stood outside it, casting her shadow on the walls, and walked away. Later he had heard voices in conversation and people walking away. Much later someone had returned.
And now someone else was approaching. Not even the Wizard would cast a shadow as large as that.
"Knock, knock."
"Come in, Valiha."
She had a towel with her, and while she stuck her head and torso in to hold the tent flaps open, she used it to wipe the mud from her front hooves before stepping onto the canvas floor. She did the same with her back legs, twisting and leaning back while lifting each leg, managing to suggest a dog scratching behind an ear without looking at all awkward. She was wearing a violet rain slicker which was almost a tent in itself. By the time she had removed it and hung it on a peg near the door Chris had worked up considerable curiosity as to the purpose of her visit.
"Do you mind if I light the lantern?"
"Go right ahead."
The tent was Titanide-sized, meaning she could stand erect in the center and had just enough room to turn around. The lamp cast fantastic shadows of her until she hung it from the ridgepole and sat down with her legs folded.
"I can't stay long," she said. "In fact, it might have been a mistake to come here at all. However, here I am."
If she had intended to mystify him, she couldn't have done a better job. Her hands were nervously fiddling with the edge of her pouch, something that was hard for Chris to watch. Her thumbs hooked in the edge of it, and she stretched it out like the elastic band on a pair of bathing trunks.
"I've been upset since I realized that you ... you really don't remember the hundred revs we spent together after I found you wandering beneath Cirocco's Stairs, after your Big Drop."
"How long is a hundred revs?"
"A little over four days, in your reckoning. One rev is sixty-one minutes."
"That's quite a while. Did we have a good time?"
She glanced up at him, then resumed her fumbling.
"I did. You said you did, too. What has bothered me is that you might have the impression that I was using you solely for a good-luck charm, as I said when you first returned to your senses."
Chris shrugged. "It wouldn't bother me if you had. And if I brought you good luck, I'm glad I did."
"That isn't it." She bit her lower lip, and Chris was surprised to see a tear, quickly wiped away. "Gaea curse me," she moaned, "I can't say it right. I don't even know what I'm trying to say, except thank you. Even though you don't remember." She dug into her pouch and came out with something which she pressed into his hand. "This is for you," she said, and stood and was gone practically before he knew what had happened. He opened his hand and looked at the Titanide egg. Its dominant color was yellow, like Valiha herself, but there were swirls of black. There was an inscription on its hard surface, in tiny, spidery English characters:
Valiha (Aeolian Solo) Madrigaclass="underline" Long-Odds Major
26th Gigarev; 97,628,6851 Rev (Anno Domini 2100)
"Gaea Says Not Why She Spins."
19 Eternal Youth
"If you're worried about a paternity suit," Cirocco said, "you can forget it. Titanides don't work that way."
"I didn't mean ... maybe I'm expressing myself badly."
Chris was in Cirocco's canoe. He sat toward the middle while the Wizard lolled in the bow. Her head was on a pillow. There were puffy blue bags under her eyes, and her complexion was unhealthy. Even so, it was a great improvement on a few hours ago. Chris had elected to travel with Cirocco with the intent of quizzing her about Human-Titanide sex but had put it off when he saw her face.
He was not the only one to switch boats. Gaby was now riding with Hautbois and Robin, while Valiha and Psaltery led the flotilla in canoes that rode high in front.
They had passed beneath Cirocco's Stairs, an experience Chris could have done without. The massive cable hanging above him had taken him back to the Golden Gate on that windy day when Dulcimer set his feet on the path which led to Gaea. Cirocco's Stairs looked like a bridge cable. In place of the tower, however, there was just the gaping conical mouth of the Rhea Spoke, dwindling into infinity and taking the unseen cable with it. The cable was an exponential curve, a geometric abstraction made real. A dozen Golden Gates set end to end could not have spanned its terrible immensity.
Now they were a few minutes from the confluence of Ophion with the river Melpomene. Already the waters moved a little faster, eager to challenge the Asteria Mountains, darkly visible in the east
Chris looked away from the river and tried again.
"For one thing, I know she's already pregnant. I'm presuming a child is not at issue. Am I right in that?"
"You're still thinking in terms of mommies and daddies," Cirocco said. "What you are here is a potential forefather, and Valiha a potential foremother. The egg could be implanted in ... oh, say Hornpipe, for instance, and he'd be the hindmother, then any of the other three could fertilize it, including Valiha."
"Not until I knew you a lot better," Hornpipe said from the rear of the boat.
"This isn't funny to me," Chris said.
"I'm sorry. A child is definitely not at issue. One, I wouldn't approve it. Two, no Titanide would even start a proposal for a child without much more thought. And three, you've got the egg."
"Then what is at issue here? Is there a great significance to the gift? What is she telling me?"
Cirocco did not look as though she really wanted to answer questions, but she sighed and relented.
"It does not necessarily mean anything. Oh, it means she likes you, that's certain. For one thing, she wouldn't have made love to you unless she did, but she wouldn't have given you the egg unless she still did. Titanides are sentimental, see? Walk into any Titanide home, and you'll find a rack of these on the wall. Not one in a thousand ever gets used or is even intended for use. They're common as ... as condoms on lover's lane."
Hornpipe made a loud raspberry.
"It was a rather low image, wasn't it?" Cirocco managed to grin.
"What's a condom?"
"Before your time, huh? A one-time prophylactic. Anyway, the analogy is apt. Every time a female has frontal intercourse one of these pops out two hectorevs later. That's two hundred revs, in case they aren't still teaching the metric system where you come from. You know, it's a hell of a note when a Titanide knows what a condom is-he's never seen one!-and a human doesn't. What do they teach you? That history started in 2096?"
"Actually, I think they include 2095 now."
Cirocco massaged her forehead and smiled weakly.
"Sorry. I digress. Your education or lack of it is none of my business. Back to Titanides ... most of the eggs get thrown away. If not immediately, then during the next spring cleaning. Some are kept for the sentimental value, long after they've expired. They last about five years, by the way.