"Hey, Rocky, come here! We found a feather!"

Robin laughed harder.

When she finally had herself under control, she reached into a crack between round growths of coral and pulled out two contraptions made of sticks, bits of driftwood, and shells. They had ropes to tie around her legs and places to rest her feet.

"Gaby and Cirocco," she said. "The great Gaean wildlife experts." She kissed one of the devices, then tossed it far out over the water.

"You'd better hurry. Gaby will be coming to see how you are." She looked up and saw Hautbois. She waved the remaining stilt at her and sent it after the first.

"Thanks for the diversion."

"You're welcome," Hautbois said. "I think Valiha is suspicious, but she won't say anything." He grinned broadly. "I think I'm going to enjoy this trip. But no more fooling with the salt, okay?"

A stiff breeze from the west propelled Constance on her wallowing way from the isle of Minerva. That was good news to Gaby. Looking up, she could see that the lower valve had closed. She knew from bitter experience that meant the spoke above was going through its regular winter. The trees and everything else would be coated in a layer of ice. After the thaw began, all that water and a respectable tonnage of broken branches would pool at the valve. When it opened, Rhea would not be a healthy environment. In fifty revs Nox would rise two meters or more.

No one asked where Cirocco had been. Gaby suspected they would have been surprised to learn the answer, and that included the Titanides.

Cirocco had been to an audience with Rhea, the satellite brain who dominated the land for a hundred kilometers in every direction. She was subject to no higher authority but Gaea herself. She was also quite mad.

The only way to visit the regional brains was through the central vertical cables. All of them lived down there, at the bottom of five-kilometer spiral stairways. Not even the Titanides were aware of this. Their knowledge of the twelve demi-Gods was limited; Gaea, when she made Titanides-complete with a culture and racial wisdom-had seen no reason why they should bother their heads about the regionals. They were Gaea's appendages and no more, the quasi-intelligent servomechanisms that kept things running smoothly in their own limited domains. For the Titanides to think of them as even so much as subordinate Gods would detract from their capacity to appreciate Gaea. Obediently the Titanides thought no more about the big clumps of neural matter than did the most ignorant tourist. Hyperion was a place, not a person, to them.

The reality was quite different, and had been since long before the birth of the Titanides. Perhaps the brains had actually been totally subservient to Gaea in her youth. She claimed it was so. But today all twelve increasingly went their own way. To accomplish her will, Gaea had to cajole or threaten. All it took with a regional like Hyperion was a simple request. Hyperion was Gaea's closest ally on the rim. Yet the fact that she had to ask showed how far things had come. Gaea retained little in the way of direct control on the rim.

Gaby had met several of the regionals; she had been down to see Hyperion dozens of times. She found him dull, an automaton. She suspected that, as usual, the villains were far more interesting than the nice guys. Hyperion managed to use the word "Gaea" twice in every sentence. Gaby and Cirocco had seen him just before Carnival. The Hyperion central cable always made Gaby feel strange. She had visited it with Cirocco and others from the Ringmaster crew during her first weeks in Gaea. Unknowing, they had come within a few hundred meters of the entrance. Finding it would have saved them a terrible trip.

Rhea was another story. Gaby had never been able to visit any of Gaea's enemies. Cirocco had met them all except Oceanus. She was able to do that because she was the Wizard and under Gaea's safe-conduct. There was no way to guarantee that protection to Gaby. Killing Cirocco would bring the full wrath of Gaea down on the murderer's lands. Killing Gaby would probably annoy Gaea, but little more.

It was misleading, however, to call Rhea an enemy of Gaea. Though she had allied with Oceanus in the Oceanic Rebellion, she was far too unpredictable for either side to rely on. Cirocco had been down to her once before and barely escaped with her life. Rhea was a hell of a place to start, Gaby knew, but there had been no advantage to be gained by skipping her and coming back. Because their purpose was to visit eleven of the twelve regional brains. It was their fond hope that Gaea did not yet know this.

It was risky, to be sure, but Gaby felt it could be done without arousing suspicion. She did not expect complete security; that would have been foolish. Though Gaea's eyes and ears were not what some people imagined them, she had enough contacts on the rim so that she eventually heard of most things that happened.

They hoped simply to brazen it out. Some of it would be easy. It would have been bad form for the Wizard to pass through Crius, for instance, without dropping in for a visit. If Gaea wanted to know why the Wizard had visited an enemy like Iapetus, Cirocco could say she was simply keeping up with the state of affairs on the rim: part of her job. Asked why she had not told Gaea of this junket, she could protest quite truthfully that Gaea had never demanded she report every little thing.

But visiting Rhea would be hard to explain. Poor, confused, erratic Rhea could be the most dangerous regional in Gaea if confronted face to face. Traveling her lands was not hazardous. She spent so much time internalizing that she seldom noticed what was going on above her. For that reason, Rhea the land was slowly going to hell. But there was no predicting what she might do if one went down to speak to her. Gaby had tried to convince Cirocco to skip Rhea entirely, and the danger was not the only reason. It would be hard to explain why the Wizard had risked the trip.

The mysterious creature that had visited them had given Gaby some bad moments. She thought at first it might have been one of Gaea's tools, like the obscene little creature that greeted new pilgrims in the hub. Now she doubted that. More likely it was one of Gaea's sports. She spent more and more of her time dreaming up biological jokes to unleash on the rim. Such as the buzz bombs. There was a nasty bit of business.

When she questioned Cirocco as to how the audience had gone, the Wizard seemed reasonably confident all was well.

"I built up her ego as carefully as I could. I wanted to leave her with the thought that she was far above Gaea so she won't even deign to talk next time Gaea calls. If she doesn't talk, she can't tell her I was there."

"You didn't tell her not to tell, I hope."

"Give me some credit, will you? I think I understand her as well as anyone can. No, I kept it all open and as routine as possible, considering I had second-degree burns over half my body the last time I left her. Incidentally, you can put a big black X by her name, if you haven't already."

"Are you kidding? I didn't even put her on the list."

Cirocco closed her eyes for a moment. She rubbed her forehead. "Next is Crius, and another X. I don't think this is going to go anywhere, Gaby."

"I never said it would. But we at least have to try."

The wind blew them past the long line of small islands dotting central Nox, then died away. For nearly a day they waited for it to return. When it did not, Gaby ordered everyone, including Cirocco, to the oars.

The valve began to open after they had been working at it for twenty revs. Contrary to what might have been expected, no torrent of water spilled out the rapidly widening hole above them. The valve was like a sponge. It soaked up the big thaw, and when it dilated, the water was squeezed out gradually. It emerged in a billion streams and broke into droplets. From there the process was complex, with cold water and chilled air hitting warm air masses below, moving inexorably downward. Since they were east of the valve though only slightly-the worst of the resulting storms and torrential rain tended away from them at first, moving as Robin had moved when she took the Big Drop: westward, toward Hyperion. It was impossible to know when the winds would become dangerous.