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THREE

Valiha sat atop the hill overlooking Tuxedo Junction, near the wide scorch on the ground. Already, plants were sprouting in the ashes, growing around the white bones. Soon the place would be hard to find.
There were several human skulls. One was much smaller than the others.
Her hands were busy. She had begun with a broad, weathered plank and an assortment of carving tools. The thing was almost finished now, but she was only peripherally aware of it. Her hands worked, unguided. Her mind was far away. Titanides did not sleep except as infants, but they did go into a state of lessened awareness for periods of two or three revs. It was a dreamtime, a time when the mind could rove far and wide, into the past, into places it did not really want to go.
She relived her time with Chris. She tasted again the bitterness of him, the alien craving so deep in his soul that would deny her sharing her own body with those others she loved, the awful, extended goodbye-time when he had turned from wonderful-crazy to worms-in-the-head-crazy, the slow regaining of trust and the knowledge that it would probably never be the way it was. She touched once more her deep love for him, unchanged and unchangeable.
She thought of Bellinzona. The humans were sterilizing their home planet. To do this, they used weapons beyond her comprehension, weapons that could turn Hyperion into glowing glass. She had a thought she would not have entertained while awake. If she had one of those weapons, she would use it to sterilize Bellinzona. Many worthy people would die and that would be a shameful thing. But surely the good of such a deed would outweigh the evil. The wheel was her home. These visitors were a cancer eating out the heart of the wheel. There were good humans, certainly. But it seemed that if you got enough together in one place, an evil thing grew.
She thought it over again, and knew the people on Earth must be thinking the same thought. “This is not a good thing I do, but the good outweighs the evil. It is regrettable that innocents are killed . . . ”
Valiha reluctantly gave up all thought of sterilizing Bellinzona. She would have to continue as she and other Titanides had been doing for many kilorevs now, battling the cancer cell by cell.
With that thought, Valiha passed from dream-time into real time, and noticed she had finished her project. She held it up to the light and surveyed it critically.
It was not the first time she had made one of these things. She didn‘t have a name for them. Titanides had never buried their dead. They simply threw them into the river Ophion and let the waters take them. They raised no memorials.
Titanides had no god but Gaea. They did not love her, but believing in her was not an article of faith. Gaea was as real as syphilis.
Titanides did not expect an afterlife. Gaea had told them there was no such thing, and they had no reason to doubt her. So they had no rituals for it.
But Valiha knew it was different for humans. She had watched the burial rites in Bellinzona. Always pragmatic, she was not prepared to say the rites were worthless. And she had thirteen bodies, all unidentified, with no way of telling what any of them might have believed out of the Babel of Earthly cults. What was a conscientious being to do?
Her response was the carving. Each one had been different, a sort of free-association of Valiha’s incomplete understanding of human totems. This one had a cross on it, and a crown of thorns. There was a hammer and sickle, a crescent moon, a star of David, and a mandala. There was also an image of Mickey Mouse, a television screen displaying the CBS eye, a swastika, a human hand, a pyramid, a bell, and the word SONY. Across the top was the most mystic symbol of all, which had been written on Ringmaster: the NASA logo.
It seemed good to her. The television eye was centered over the pyramid. It reminded her of another symbol that might go well: the letter S with two vertical slashes through it.
She shrugged, stood, and placed the sharpened end of the plaque on the ground. With her left fore-hoof she hammered it until it was firmly planted. She kicked the skulls until they were grouped around the plaque, then glanced at the sky. That didn’t work, Gaea was up there, and Gaea was not worth speaking to. So she looked around her at the world she loved.
“Whoever or whatever you may be,” she sang, “you might want to take these departed human souls to your breast. I don‘t know anything about them except one was very young. The others were, for a time, zombies in the service of Luther, an evil thing, no longer human. No matter what they may have done in life, they must have started out innocent, as do we all, so don’t be too hard on them. It was your fault for making them human, which was a dirty trick. If you are out there somewhere, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
She had not expected an answer, and she didn’t get one.
Valiha knelt again and picked up her woodworking tools, placing them in her pouch. She kicked at the wood shavings and took one last look around the peaceful scene. She wondered once more why she did it.
She was about to head back to the Junction, but saw Rocky coming up the path toward her, so she waited for him. Thinking back, she realized she had come to a decision about his proposal during her dream-time.
He joined her and looked at her handywork without saying anything. He stood in solemn silence for a time, as he had seen humans do at graveyards, then faced Valiha.
“It has been one thousand revs,” he sang.
One kilorev, Valiha thought. Forty-two Earth days with Adam and Chris captive in Pandemonium.
“I have decided,” she sang. “I have concluded there is no good time to bring new life into the world.” His eyes fell, then he looked up again with a glimmer of hope. She smiled at him, and kissed his lips.
“There never will be a good time, so to do it anyway is a gesture that appeals to me. And to do it in this age, without Gaea’s approval, appeals to me even more. May his life be long and interesting.”
“The humans,” Rocky sang, “sometimes use those very words as a curse.”
“I know. They also say ‘break a leg’ to bring good luck. I don’t believe in curses or in luck, and I can’t imagine wanting life to be short and boring.”
“Humans are crazy, it is well known.”
“Speak not of humans. Speak to me with thy body.”
She came into his arms and they pressed close together and began to kiss. It was interrupted by the clanking of Valiha’s tools in her pouch. They laughed, and she put them aside, and resumed the kiss.
It was stage one of frontal intercourse. Though not as formalized as posterior intercourse, there was much of ritual about it. To warm up they would mount each other, and do it three or four more times during the course of their more serious lovemaking.
They had an interesting five revs ahead of them.

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THREE

Valiha sat atop the hill overlooking Tuxedo Junction, near the wide scorch on the ground. Already, plants were sprouting in the ashes, growing around the white bones. Soon the place would be hard to find.
There were several human skulls. One was much smaller than the others.
Her hands were busy. She had begun with a broad, weathered plank and an assortment of carving tools. The thing was almost finished now, but she was only peripherally aware of it. Her hands worked, unguided. Her mind was far away. Titanides did not sleep except as infants, but they did go into a state of lessened awareness for periods of two or three revs. It was a dreamtime, a time when the mind could rove far and wide, into the past, into places it did not really want to go.
She relived her time with Chris. She tasted again the bitterness of him, the alien craving so deep in his soul that would deny her sharing her own body with those others she loved, the awful, extended goodbye-time when he had turned from wonderful-crazy to worms-in-the-head-crazy, the slow regaining of trust and the knowledge that it would probably never be the way it was. She touched once more her deep love for him, unchanged and unchangeable.
She thought of Bellinzona. The humans were sterilizing their home planet. To do this, they used weapons beyond her comprehension, weapons that could turn Hyperion into glowing glass. She had a thought she would not have entertained while awake. If she had one of those weapons, she would use it to sterilize Bellinzona. Many worthy people would die and that would be a shameful thing. But surely the good of such a deed would outweigh the evil. The wheel was her home. These visitors were a cancer eating out the heart of the wheel. There were good humans, certainly. But it seemed that if you got enough together in one place, an evil thing grew.
She thought it over again, and knew the people on Earth must be thinking the same thought. “This is not a good thing I do, but the good outweighs the evil. It is regrettable that innocents are killed . . . ”
Valiha reluctantly gave up all thought of sterilizing Bellinzona. She would have to continue as she and other Titanides had been doing for many kilorevs now, battling the cancer cell by cell.
With that thought, Valiha passed from dream-time into real time, and noticed she had finished her project. She held it up to the light and surveyed it critically.
It was not the first time she had made one of these things. She didn‘t have a name for them. Titanides had never buried their dead. They simply threw them into the river Ophion and let the waters take them. They raised no memorials.
Titanides had no god but Gaea. They did not love her, but believing in her was not an article of faith. Gaea was as real as syphilis.
Titanides did not expect an afterlife. Gaea had told them there was no such thing, and they had no reason to doubt her. So they had no rituals for it.
But Valiha knew it was different for humans. She had watched the burial rites in Bellinzona. Always pragmatic, she was not prepared to say the rites were worthless. And she had thirteen bodies, all unidentified, with no way of telling what any of them might have believed out of the Babel of Earthly cults. What was a conscientious being to do?
Her response was the carving. Each one had been different, a sort of free-association of Valiha’s incomplete understanding of human totems. This one had a cross on it, and a crown of thorns. There was a hammer and sickle, a crescent moon, a star of David, and a mandala. There was also an image of Mickey Mouse, a television screen displaying the CBS eye, a swastika, a human hand, a pyramid, a bell, and the word SONY. Across the top was the most mystic symbol of all, which had been written on Ringmaster: the NASA logo.
It seemed good to her. The television eye was centered over the pyramid. It reminded her of another symbol that might go well: the letter S with two vertical slashes through it.
She shrugged, stood, and placed the sharpened end of the plaque on the ground. With her left fore-hoof she hammered it until it was firmly planted. She kicked the skulls until they were grouped around the plaque, then glanced at the sky. That didn’t work, Gaea was up there, and Gaea was not worth speaking to. So she looked around her at the world she loved.
“Whoever or whatever you may be,” she sang, “you might want to take these departed human souls to your breast. I don‘t know anything about them except one was very young. The others were, for a time, zombies in the service of Luther, an evil thing, no longer human. No matter what they may have done in life, they must have started out innocent, as do we all, so don’t be too hard on them. It was your fault for making them human, which was a dirty trick. If you are out there somewhere, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
She had not expected an answer, and she didn’t get one.
Valiha knelt again and picked up her woodworking tools, placing them in her pouch. She kicked at the wood shavings and took one last look around the peaceful scene. She wondered once more why she did it.
She was about to head back to the Junction, but saw Rocky coming up the path toward her, so she waited for him. Thinking back, she realized she had come to a decision about his proposal during her dream-time.
He joined her and looked at her handywork without saying anything. He stood in solemn silence for a time, as he had seen humans do at graveyards, then faced Valiha.
“It has been one thousand revs,” he sang.
One kilorev, Valiha thought. Forty-two Earth days with Adam and Chris captive in Pandemonium.
“I have decided,” she sang. “I have concluded there is no good time to bring new life into the world.” His eyes fell, then he looked up again with a glimmer of hope. She smiled at him, and kissed his lips.
“There never will be a good time, so to do it anyway is a gesture that appeals to me. And to do it in this age, without Gaea’s approval, appeals to me even more. May his life be long and interesting.”
“The humans,” Rocky sang, “sometimes use those very words as a curse.”
“I know. They also say ‘break a leg’ to bring good luck. I don’t believe in curses or in luck, and I can’t imagine wanting life to be short and boring.”
“Humans are crazy, it is well known.”
“Speak not of humans. Speak to me with thy body.”
She came into his arms and they pressed close together and began to kiss. It was interrupted by the clanking of Valiha’s tools in her pouch. They laughed, and she put them aside, and resumed the kiss.
It was stage one of frontal intercourse. Though not as formalized as posterior intercourse, there was much of ritual about it. To warm up they would mount each other, and do it three or four more times during the course of their more serious lovemaking.
They had an interesting five revs ahead of them.

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