"Or have to face the fact I might do the same thing next time."

"There's always that chance."

She had finally managed to look at him. To her surprise, she was no longer angry when she saw his face. There was no mockery in it. She knew that if she asked him to, he would never say another word about it and never tell anyone else. It somehow didn't seem as important as it had.

"You're a great believer in facing things," she said. "I'd rather fight them. It's ... more satisfying." She shrugged. "It's easier."

"In some ways."

"It would be easier to cut off another finger than do what you say."

"I guess I can believe that, too."

"I'll think about it. Will you leave me alone now?"

"I don't think so. I'm going to be ready to set Valiha's legs soon. While I'm reading everything again and getting the equipment ready, you can make us something to eat. There's still a fair amount of food in Valiha's pack. There's water on the other side of that ridge. Take the lantern with you; I've improvised a torch I can use to read by."

She stared at him. "Is that all?"

"No. While you're going for water, you can look for something we can use for splints. Most of the plants I've seen are pretty small and twisted, but there might be something. Say, five or six straight poles about a meter long."

She rubbed her face. She wanted to sleep for a few years and did not really want to wake up.

"Poles, water, dinner. Anything else?"

"Yes. If you know any songs, go sing them to Valiha. She's in a lot of pain, and there's not much to take her mind off it. I'm saving most of the drugs to use when I set the legs and sew up the wounds." He started to leave, then turned back. "And you could pray to whoever it is you pray to. I've never done anything like this before, and I'm sure I'm going to do it badly. I'm terrified."

How easily he says it, she thought.

"I'll help you."

Nasu ran away sometime during the early part of their stay in the cavern. Chris was never able to say precisely when it happened; time had become an irrational quantity.

Robin went through hell trying to find the snake. She blamed herself. Chris was unable to ease her sorrow because he knew she was right. Gaea was no place for an anaconda. Nasu had probably suffered more than anyone, coiled in Robin's shoulder bag, allowed out only briefly. It had been with many misgivings that Robin finally let her out to explore the camp. The rocks were warm, and Robin had expressed the opinion that her demon would not wander far from the light of the small campfire. Chris had his doubts. He felt Robin was unconsciously attributing to the snake almost arcane powers of intelligence and loyalty merely because she was her demon, whatever that meant. He thought it was too much to expect of a snake, and Nasu proved him right. One morning they woke up and Nasu was gone.

For many days they searched the vicinity. Robin scoured every corner, calling Nasu's name. She left out fresh meat in an attempt to lure her back. Nothing worked. It gradually came to a stop as she realized she would never see the animal again. Then she compulsively questioned Chris and Valiha, asking them if they thought the snake would survive. They always said Nasu would have no problem, but Chris was not sure that was the truth.

Gradually both the searches and the questions tapered off, Robin accepted her loss, and the incident melted through the event horizon of their timeless existence.

The problem was that Hornpipe had carried both the clocks. He still had them, assuming he was still alive.

Chris had a hard time convincing himself that it was a problem, even as the evidence mounted. He had experienced a sense of dislocation even on the surface, where the degree of light varied only with distance travelled and, to a lesser extent, with the weather. But then they had had the clock to tell them how much time had gone by, and Gaby had kept them all punctual. Now he realized he had no clear idea how long it had been since they set out from Hyperion. Going back over it, he arrived at figures from thirty-five to forty-five days.

Down in the cavern the timelessness was intensified. Chris and Robin slept when they were tired and called each period a day, while aware that one might be ten hours and another fifty-five. But as the days began to accumulate, Chris found that he had increasing trouble recalling the sequence of things. Further confusion resulted from their late realization that keeping a tally calendar of sleep periods could be of some help. Thus, from fifteen to twenty sleeps went by before they began to make notches in a stick, and all their calculations were plus or minus an unknown number of days. Even the calendar was useful only if they assumed their days averaged twenty-four hours, and Chris was far from sure it was safe to assume that.

And it mattered. For though they had no timepiece, there was a process going on that was measuring time as surely as atomic decay: Valiha was making a baby Titanide.

She estimated she had been injured on the twelve hundredth rev of her pregnancy but admitted she could be off because she had no recollection of the climb down the Tethys stairway. She recalled little from Gaby's death to her own return to consciousness after her failed attempt to leap the crevasse which had cost her two broken legs. Chris translated 1,200 revs into about fifty days, turned that into one and two-thirds months, and felt a little better. He then asked her if she knew how long her legs should take to heal.

"I could probably walk on crutches in a kilorev," she said, adding helpfully, "That's forty-two days."

"You wouldn't get too far on crutches in here."

"Probably not, if there's climbing to be done."

"There's climbing to be done," said Robin, who had been exploring the area as far as two or three kilometers from the camp.

"Then the time for complete healing would be as much as five kilorevs. Possibly four. I doubt I'd be much good in as little as three."

"As much as seven months. Possibly five or six." Chris added it up and relaxed slightly. "It will be close, but I think we can get you out of here before your time."

Valiha looked puzzled; then her face cleared.

"I see your mistake," she said placidly. "You thought I would take nine of your months to get the job done. We do things more quickly than that."

Chris rubbed his palm over his eyes.

"How long?"

"I have often wondered why it takes human females so much longer to produce something not nearly so large and still so far from completion-no offense meant. Our own young are born able to-"

"How long?" Chris repeated.

"Five kilorevs," Valiha said. "Seven months. It's certain I'll birth him before I can hope to walk out of here."

The timelessness began to frighten Chris. One day he found himself trying to establish the sequence of events following their discovery of Valiha and found he could not. Some things he knew because they had followed each other during a particular waking period. He was sure he had set Valiha's legs soon after his talk with Robin because he recalled leaving her to prepare for the task. He knew when they had captured their first glowbird because that had happened after their first sleep.

The little luminescent animals were unafraid of them but avoided areas of activity. While they moved around in their camp, the glowbirds would not come near, but when they settled down to sleep, the creatures flew in and perched within meters of them.

Robin had been able to approach one that first "morning," even go so far as to reach out and touch it. They had been thankful for the light cast by the dozen or so glowbirds until a few minutes later they began to drift away. Robin caught the last one and tied it to a stake, where it fluttered all day, and the next morning another dozen had returned. She caught them all this time because they did not make any strong attempts to escape.