Demon (GAIA) by John Varley Read Free Book Online Page A

had ever mattered to her, but of her mind as well.
    Still, she was wealthy. Someone, certainly long ago on the Earth, had taught her to dance. She still had the dance, and the ballet slippers. And she had her madness. It was worth something in Gaea. It wasprotection; bad things often happened to those who tormented the insane.
    Rocky knew humans could not see the music of the world. The few humans around to witness, had they even noticed her dance, would not be hearing the sounds she created for him. To Rocky, the Titantown Philharmonic might be playing just behind her as she leaped and whirled. Gaea was wonderful for ballet. She hung in the air forever, and made walking on the tips of one’s toes seem the natural gait for humans—insofar as they could be said to
have
a natural gait. Human dancing was a source of giddy excitement to Rocky. That they could
walk
was a miracle, but to
dance
….
    In complete silence she created
La Sylphide
there on that filthy pier, on the edge of humanity’s garbage bin.
    She finished with a curtsy, then smiled at him. Rocky reached into his pouch and found another packet of cocaine, thinking it little enough payment for the smile alone. She took it and curtsied again. On impulse, he reached into his hair and pulled out a single white flower, one of many braided there. He held it out to her. This time the smile was sweeter than ever, and it made her cry.
    “Grazie, padrone, mille grazie,”
she said, and hurried away.
    “You got a flower for me, too, dogfood?”
    Rocky turned and saw a short, powerfully built human buck, or “buck canuck” as he liked to style himself. The Titanide had known Conal for three years, and thought him beautifully insane.
    “I didn’t think you went in for human—”
    “Don’t say ‘tail,’ Conal, or I’ll remove some teeth.”
    “What’d I say? What’s the big deal?”
    “You couldn’t possibly understand, being tone-deaf to beauty. Suffice it to say that your arrival was like a turd falling into a Ming vase.”
    “Well, I try.” He shrugged his fleece-lined coat up around his shoulders, looked around, and took a final puff on the stub of his cigar, then tossed it into the murky water. Conal always wore the coat. Rocky thought it made him smell interesting.
    “You seen anything?” Conal finally asked. He was looking at the seven sisters guarding the Quarter. They were looking right back at him, weapons held loose but ready.
    “No. I don’t know the town, but it seems quiet to me.”
    “Me, too. I was hoping your nose’d smell something I ain’t been able to see. But I don’t think anybody’s been here for quite a while.”
    “If they had, I’d know it.” Rocky confirmed.
    “Then I guess they can go ahead.” He scowled, then looked up at Rocky. “Unless you want to talk her out of it.”
    “I couldn’t, and I wouldn’t,” Rocky said. “There is something badly wrong. Something has to be done.”
    “Yeah, but—”
    “It’s not that dangerous, Conal. I won’t hurt her.”
    “You sure as hell better not.”
    ***
    They had bargained for a while, Cirocco and Conal, on that first day. It had been years ago, but Conal remembered it well. Conal had held out for lifetime servitude. Cirocco said that was too long: cruel and unusual punishment. She offered two myriarevs. Conal gradually came down to twenty. The Wizard offered three.
    They settled on five. What Cirocco didn’t know was that Conal intended then, and intended now, to fulfill his original promise. He would serve her until he died.
    He loved her with his entire soul.
    Which is not to say there had never been wavering, never a bad moment. It was possible to sit alone in the dark, unguarded, and begin to feel some resentment, to taste the idea that she had treated him badly, that she had done things to him that he didn’t deserve. He had sweated many a “night” away,unsleeping in the eternal Gaean afternoon, feeling rebellion growing inside and knowing absolute