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Cirocco had planned for them to stay on the boat, going ashore only to gat her
food-a project which never took more than ten minutes. But standing wa tch did
not work well. Too often, Titanic would run aground, making it nec essary to
wake the sleepers. It took all three of them to move the boat wh en the bottom
was on mud. They quickly learned that Titanic was not very m aneuverable, and
it took two people with poles to push the boat away from approaching shallows.
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They decided to camp every fifteen or twenty hours. sirocco made a schedu le
which assured that two people were always awake while they sailed, and one
when they camped.
Clio meandered through the almost-level terrain like a snake doped with nemb
utal. One night's camp might be only half a kilometer in a straight line fro m
the one of the night before. They would have lost their orientation but fo r
the support cable which attached to the ground in the center of Hyperion.
Cirocco knew from her air survey that the cable would be cast of them until
long after they joined the river Ophion.
The cable was always there, towering like sonic unimaginable skyscraper, ris
ing, seeming to lean toward them until it vanished through the roof and into
space. They would pass near it on their way to the angled support cables wh
ich led into the spoke over Rhea. Cirocco hoped to get a close look at it.
Life settled into a routine. Soon they were working flawlessly as a team, se
ldom, needing to talk. Most of the time there was little to do but stay aler t
for sand bars. Gaby and Bill spent a lot of time making improvements in ev
eryone's clothing. They both got to he handy with thorn needles. Bill contin
ually tinkered with the rudder and worked to make the interior of the boat m
ore comfortable.
Cirocco spent most of her time daydreaming, watching the clouds drift by. S
he considered ways and means of reaching the hub, trying to anticipate prob
lems, but it was a futile occupation. The possibilities were too varied to
allow reasonable planning. She much preferred woolgathering.
She eventually did sing to them, and surprised them both. She had taken voic e
and piano lessons for ten years as a child, had considered a career as a s
inger before the lure of space grew too strong. No one knew about it until t
he trip in the Titanic; she had thought it not in keeping with her image to
entertain the crew with songs. Now she didn't care, and the singing brought
them closer together. She had a rich, clear alto that worked best with old f
olk music, ballads, and Judy Garland songs.
Bill made a lute from a nutshell, parachute shrouds, and a smiler skin. He l
earned to play it, and Gaby joined in on a nut- shell drum. Cirocco taught t
hem songs and assigned harmonies: Gaby had a passable soprano, Bill a tone-d
eaf tenor.
They sang drinking songs from the taprooms of O'Neil One, songs from the h it
parade, from cartoons and old movies. One quickly became their favorite
, considering their circumstances. it spoke of a yellow brick road and the
wonderful wizard of Oz. They bellowed it every morning when they set out,
shouting all the louder when the forest shrieked back at them.
Several weeks went by before they reached the Ophion. Only twice did anythi ng
interrupt their peaceful routine.
The first incident was three days into the trip, when an eye- ball at the en d
of a long stalk emerged from the water not five meters from Titanic. There was
no doubt that it was an eye, any more than there had been with Whistles top.
It was a ball twenty centimeters in diameter, set in a flexible green s ocket
that at first glance appeared to be a green hand with fingers wrapped around
the eye from behind. The eyeball itself was a lighter green with a ga ping
pupil.
They began poling for shore at the first sight of the creature. The eye had
been pointing at them, betraying neither interest nor emotion but only a fix
ed stare. it did not seem to mind when they moved away. It watched for two o r
three minutes, then vanished as quietly as it had appeared.
The consensus, once ashore, was that there was little they could do about it.
The creature had not tried to harm them- which said nothing about its future
conduct. But they could not end their trip just because there were big fish in
the river.
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They soon saw more of the eyes, and eventually became accustomed to them
. They looked so much like periscopes that Bill named them U-boats.
The second incident was something they were more prepared for because it had
happened before. it was the vast moaning wind Calvin had dubbed Gae as Lament.
There was time before the worst of the winds to beach Titanic and seek shelt
er on the downwind side of the boat. Cirocco did not want to go under the tr
ees, recalling the near-miss by a falling branch in the highlands.
The observing conditions were not good with the wind whipping her face an d
the clouds rolling overhead, but she managed to catch glimpses of the storm
coming out of Oceanus. It came from above. C
louds billowed down from the vast spoke above the frozen sea like the icy b
reath of God. The wind hit the sheet of ice and broke on it, whipped into t
ornadoes that looked tiny from that distance, but which must have been huge
.
Through the clouds that rapidly advanced toward Hyperion, Cirocco could see
the angled support cables that joined the ground to the sky over Oceanus.
If they were moving in the wind it was far too slowly to be seen, but there
must have been some swaying or stretching motion. The cables were shedding a
fine gray mist. She watched it drift down into the narrow angles the cab les
made with the ground and had to remind herself that the particles she c ould
see from so far away must be as large as trees. Then the clouds obscur ed all
vision, and snow began to fall. Soon after that the river grew agita ted,
rising almost to the beached Titanic. Cirocco thought she could feel t he
ground moving.
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